“You’ll see. Come. Our vessel awaits.”
With that, Reginald kissed her brow, ceasing their conversation as he swept Layla’s canvas bag up and gestured her to precede him out of her suite. He was quiet as they went back down the waterfall flows, toward the area of the island with the runway. Back out on the white bluffs, they took a winding course down to a small marina on the north end with boats ranging from fifty-foot sailing craft to modern coast-guard vessels to elegant catamarans. As salt-spray dashed him, Reginald stood taller, enlivened the closer they got to the crashing sea and the harbor with its protective jetties. He breathed deep now as they walked, and Layla felt the tension in him unwind.
Arriving at the marina, Reginald was smartly saluted by a Siren man in a cable knit sweater, jeans, and deck boots, who informed him that his vessel was ready. With a curt nod, Reginald thanked him, then motioned Layla down the nearest pier. Even here in such a highly weathered area there was elegance, the pier’s driftwood boards polished smooth and running with rivers of pearls though they had a tacky coating that prevented slippage. Walking past sailing craft and dinghies, sport boats and fishing trawlers, Reginald led them to an elegant craft right at the very end that stood proud and polished among all the rest.
It was a small luxury yacht, ultra-modern and sleekly crafted, though Layla could tell it had been built robustly for the North Sea. Helping Layla across to the deck, Reginald vaulted over in a smooth movement, beginning to untie the mooring lines. Glancing around, Layla had thought they’d have crew or a captain to greet them, but as she watched Reginald make the vessel ready to set out by himself, she suddenly realized he was going to captain it.
“Are you taking us out by yourself?” She asked as she arched an eyebrow.
“Unless you can navigate a ship and control the tides, yes. Is that a problem?” Reginald countered as he pulled in buoys, securing them as he lifted an eyebrow right back at her. The ocean heaved and for a moment Layla thought the vessel was going to slam into the dock, when Reginald held a hand out to the water. Like magic, the water all around the craft was smoothed like glass, the current pushing them gently away as if someone had revved the boat’s motor and pulled it from the dock.
“I just thought we’d have some crew or a captain or something.” Layla spoke, impressed as Reginald opened a door to the cabin and gestured her inside.
“I am the crew. And the captain.” He spoke with arch command as they stepped inside, though he was smiling subtly. “I was born on the sea, Layla. I’ve known how to command rougher vessels than this all my life. The seventeen-hundreds was a far more difficult time for sea-craft than our modern era. Did you not think I could sail?”
“I never thought about it, I guess.”
“And you never asked.”
Reginald’s words weren’t a chastisement, merely an observation. But as he led the way inside the yacht, Layla realized there was so much about Reginald she didn’t know. They had spent weeks together when she’d been training as a Courtesan at the Paris Hotel, and yet, that time had been all about her. Layla had never had time alone with him to simply be together, or pick his brain, or ask him about his life. Watching him now as he stepped inside the cabin, checking a barometer on the wall, then glancing to an elegant spread of lunch that had been set up in the open kitchen and dining area, he nodded with satisfaction, just like a captain might.
Casting her bag to a leather chair, the interior of the yacht just as sleek and sea-worthy as the outside, Layla followed Reginald up a set of stairs to the bridge. Moving to the command area, he fired up the yacht’s engines and revved them, then let them idle as he flipped on a computer system with a navigation pane and inspected a few charts. Layla could feel him managing the sea around the vessel all the while, keeping the boat steady despite the engines now roaring to make it move. The bridge had beautiful mahogany details inside, everything artfully crafted in graceful lines and glowing red wood, though Layla saw a Siren’s touch in its crafting, rivers of pearls flowing through every surface. But the rest was modern as modern could be, and as Reginald took the wheel, revving the engines, Layla felt him allow the water to part way at last.
Moving them out into the sea.
The view was gorgeous over the broad ocean as they rounded the jetty and came into the fullness of the waves. Layla had never been seasick and she wasn’t now as the craft began to roil and heave as Reginald opened the throttle, giving them speed away from the island. The wide windows of the bridge were tinted, but not so much that Layla couldn’t enjoy the beauty of the day and the way the broken spring clouds created a pattern of light and dark upon the choppy waves. Before she knew it, they had left Deep Harbor far behind.
Open ocean upon all sides now.
“So where is this other island we’re headed to?” Layla asked as she watched Reginald check their course, changing their direction to head further east than due north.
“To the north. Fury lives on an island owned by the North Sea Sirens, though at one time it was heavily-contested territory between our clan and the Arctic Ice Dragons.” Reginald spoke levelly as he watched the sea, then checked their course again. “It’s a few hours away – barring any weather, we’ll arrive just after lunch.”
“Do you need all this,” Layla gestured to the computer charts, the steering wheel, and the boat in general, “to navigate the ocean?”
“As my Siren, no. And even in human form I can swim quite well and manage the seas without modern technology.” Glancing at her, Reginald allowed himself a small smile. “But I doubt very much that you’d enjoy the trip if I took you underwater. It’s vastly cold and without much to see, except the occasional school of fish, whale, or shark. I could breathe for you and keep you warm, but the long cold of the northern oceans is not something most people enjoy. A yacht is far more comfortable, and less taxing for me, especially since my Siren-form is still so new.”
“Are you managing the ocean as we travel?” Layla asked, feeling a subtle push-pull of the currents through their Bind, though she was certain she’d never be able to reproduce such a feat if she tried to wield Reginald’s power.
“Some.” He smiled genuinely now. “I enjoy smoothing the water to make our journey faster. We’d have more swells if I didn’t, but its not just for our comfort that I manage the seas with my power. The ocean speaks to me, Layla. I feel a kinship with it; a desire to move through it and mould it to my will. Like how Dusk hears the vibrations of the earth as a symphony of music calling him, that is how I feel the ocean. All water, actually, even in the air.”
Layla had felt quite a lot of Dusk’s abilities recently as they’d used their collective Bind-power to take down the Crystal King a few months ago. But now she wondered about Reginald, and if she could ever learn to use his power the way she’d become able to use Dusk’s during their time in Prague. She’d been aided by thousands of Crystal Dragon spirits filling her Bind then, but still, the vibrations of the earth made a certain amount of sense to her. The currents of the sea seemed a vastly more slippery thing, trickier, and even as she had that thought, Reginald gave her a darkly sexy look. Waving a hand at the yacht’s controls as if locking them into place by the humidity in the air, he stepped over, corralling her around the waist.
“Our course is set.” He spoke with a hot, dark intensity. “Barring any interruptions, we can go do what we want now until we arrive. I can manage the sea and the yacht’s course without much thought, until we get to the ice floes near Fury’s island and then I’ll have to concentrate. Would you like some lunch?”
But though he spoke of food, Layla felt something far hotter and darker in Reginald’s thoughts as he held her, his fingertips subtly caressing her back and hip through her sweater. It made all her thoughts pause as she gazed up at him, mesmerized by his pull magnified in the sea all around now, as if being stranded on the ocean was precisely where his Dragon wanted her to be. It was such a darkly sexy thought that Layla shuddered. And such a delicious thought that she was suddenly very wet, despite all their recent lovemaking.
“Come, my Partner.” Reginald spoke as he kissed her. “Let’s have a bite to eat before we exercise. The sea will be around us for hours yet. And I am very much looking forward to showing you how a Siren experiences being out on the open water.”
With a chuckle, Reginald stepped back, taking up her hand and escorting her to the stairs. Caught in his flows, Layla went, drowned by his power magnified in the ocean all around.
CHAPTER 14 – OCEAN
Layla and Reginald reversed the order of lunch and sex; sex calling to them first upon the open water. After enjoying a slow, delicious lovemaking, they lingered naked in bed in the luxury yacht’s master cabin. Reginald had fetched food from the main cabin and now they lounged in the silk sheets, sampling cheeses, cured meats, fish, and olives as they sipped whiskey. Layla had thought champagne would be Reginald’s style on the boat, but had been surprised when he’d returned from the full bar with whiskeys. Layla’s was deliciously caramel with a touch of peat, while Reginald’s was far more peaty and aromatic. On her belly in the sheets, Layla sipped her drink, then set it aside upon a silver tray, picking up some smoked salmon and chèvre with her fingers and piling it on a water cracker.
“So, are you going to tell me anything about this mysterious brother of yours? This Fury character?” Layla quipped, munching as she watched her utterly sexy Royal Siren. Lounging on one elbow on the bed with his long legs stretched out, Reginald sipped his whiskey in the buff. Gloriously naked, he wore nothing except the pearl talisman on his wrist, his pearl and diamond Siren-ring, and the clip he’d put back in his hair after sex. Layla still wore her pearls also, and she felt the roar of his oceans now as he glanced at her, then set his drink aside on the tray.
Reaching out, Reginald combed his long fingers gently through her curls. The motion made every muscle in his viciously fit abdomen and chest ripple, and Layla was suddenly fascinated by it. Reginald was leaner than Dusk but about the same build, his shoulders strong but not bulky. He had a dancer’s grace and perfect physique, as if he’d been dancing for the Paris Ballet all his life, everything lean and perfectly proportioned as he combed his fingers through her mussed locks.
