Breena’s mouth parted, and she said, “Excuse me?”
“The sailors, not you,” I clarified before turning on my heel. I grabbed the scrap of fabric I had been sitting on and tossed it at her, not bothering to wait for her reaction before I strode to the door.
I had already rested too long. The waters were now smooth, and the men were well on their way back to land. It was only a matter of time before one of them wandered back here to the storage of the boat, and one of us had to be on guard when they did. I didn’t trust Breena to know what to do in such a situation. She truly didn’t understand the ways of the land, the ways of thehumans.
I cracked open the door and peeked outside. Sailors mopped sticky rum off their deck while others prayed to the sea goddess for a safe return. Pride swelled in my chest, knowing these vicious men still feared the women of the sea.
After an hour or two of relative silence, the boat began to slow, and the voices of the men began to increase in number.
“Get up,” I said, shaking Breena’s shoulder. Her head fell off the hand she was resting it on and bobbed in front of her before she straightened her neck. She made an annoyed muffled sound as she stretched her back and batted her heavy eyes. “We must be getting close.”
“There are kinder ways to wake someone,” she mumbled, fighting a yawn.
“And there are worse ways,” I said with a false smile. Her curls had sprung free in her sleep, so I motioned to her hat with my hand. She took the hint to tuck her hair back inside the cap and then straightened her stolen clothing.
“We need to make a plan for when we dock. Eventually, they will come back here to gather their things, and we need to make sure we are long gone before that happens,” I said, my eyes darting to the door. I had kept watch as she slept, both on the door and the knocked-out man on the floor. He had made the strangest sounds for a few minutes, odd vibrations so loud that I feared I needed to knock him over the head once more. I was thankful he decided to end those irritating noises on his own. I wasn’t sure how much a human skull could endure and what would happen if I hit him again.
“And how do you suppose we do that? Walk right off the ship?” she asked.
“Why not? We are dressed like them, and there’s enough fishermen that we could try to hide in plain sight. We could cause one last distraction and get off this damn boat,” I said.
“And what if we are caught? I’m sure they have some sort of routine for unloading the fish and whatnot. We will give ourselves away immediately when we don’t do as they would,” Breena said.
“I’m almost certain they do have a routine, but there is no way for us to know exactly what that is. I say we distract them and then make a run for it. There are too many of them for me to hypnotize at once, though, so we’ll have to get creative again.”
Wehadmanaged to manipulate them to shore.
“Fine,” Breena said with a swift nod of her head.
The sound of thick rope hitting the deck brought my attention back to the door. I stuck my nose through the gap, seeing the fishermen hustle to tie up the ship.
Land.
“We’re here,” I whispered, watching as the sailors began tying knots in their rope to secure us to long wooden docks jutting out from the shoreline. I couldn’t see much past that. I couldn’t see the village or the village folk, but we would soon. We would be among them, just as I had when I was a child, and the humans, once again, would be none the wiser.
Breena hopped off the chest and tentatively came to stand next to me. She was quiet since our argument, and I couldn’t tell if it was my words that had affected her, or if she simply couldn’t be bothered to waste her breath on me. Her demeanor gave nothing away. The woman was warm by nature, but she certainly knew how to turn that warmth off when it suited her.
“Aye, mate, head to the back and grab another rope, will ya?” I heard someone shout. They weren’t close enough to the door for me to see them, but I knew they would be here any minute.
“We need to get out of here!” I said, my adrenaline spiking when I looked down at the knocked-out man. Walking off the ship when they were distracted was one thing, but answeringtheir questions on why their crewmate was unconscious was entirely different.
Breena spun on her heels and headed back to the chest she’d previously rested on.
“Where are you going?” I whispered. “We need to go, now!”
“My pelt. I need to grab my pelt,” Breena said, making her way to the back of the storage room in panicked desperation.
“We can come back for it later, but right now, we have to leave. Let’s go!” I said, all patience fleeing me.
Breena huffed, glanced back at the chest, and then grimaced as she rushed back over to me. I held the door open and all but pushed her out of the room. A man with a low whistle quickly approached, so I shoved Breena into a tight space between stacked crates and the outside wall of the storage room. I held my breath as I squeezed in next to her. We barely missed the man as he walked by.
Once the sailor was in the room, Breena tried to wiggle her way out, but I threw my arm up over her shoulder to halt her. Her head whipped to me, and I did nothing but flash her a warning glare.
“Aye! Aye, wake up mate,” the sailor called from within the storage room, followed by a hearty thump.
“I suppose he found our mess,” I whispered. Breena’s chest heaved against mine as she waited for the man to reappear so she could try to escape me. Her skin was unexpectedly warm against mine, and for a quick moment, the sensation reminded me of sandy hugs as a child, the way the heated Kilkov water wrapped around me in a healing embrace.
My eyes focused on hers. I let my chest deflate so I had an excuse to take in another breath, to feel my chest press up against hers. She stared back at me, her eyes darting all over my face. Heat flooded my skin as our eyes locked. My arm over her shoulder didn’t budge, even as the man exited the back roomwith a sack of ropes slung over one of his shoulders and his crewmate limply hanging from the other. He made his way back to his crew, but her body on mine was all my mind had the ability to focus on.
