“To become Rimholt’s master spy,” I prompted after a moment.
“I went through her bags while she was unconscious,” he said quietly. “Alexios saw, but didn’t stop me. The only jewels she had were the same ones from the dragon’s lair. She always said she would return them, that she’d only stolen them to be able to say she’d done it. But there wasn’t even a half goldani in the bags. Almost no food.”
“She steals whatever she wants,” I argued, though it didn’t make much sense to me either.
“All she had was a couple of maps and a collection of letters and drawings, most of them from children. Thanking her for saving them. Nothing of value.”
“Maybe she has caches all around the countryside, like a dragon.”
That made him grin. “She always did act more like a dragon than a lady.”
“Well, I hope she has a lady’s table manners, or Mother will smack her fingers with the wooden spoon.”
Goran snorted with amusement. “You think she’s faster than my wife?”
I shrugged as we returned to the house. “When it comes to running away like a coward? No. When it comes to sneaking the best bit of the pie crust off the table? Not even lightning is faster than Mother’s wooden spoon.”
Goran made sure his men had all they needed in camp, then we walked back to the house. He was quiet, and my mind was far too noisy to risk speaking. I was filled with anger and indignation, and something else I didn’t want to reveal.
When my brother had opened the door to his room, and the scent of her––sweet rain and mint––whirled around me, I’d almost spent in my trousers. I’d complained that I wanted her to leave, and I knew she would, and soon. She hadn’t stayed in one place in her whole adult life, from the stories I’d heard. She’d stolen hearts and purses and crown jewels in every country, a thief to her very core.
The smell of her on my brother’s pelt, though, had almost stolen my dignity and honor.
She can’t be mine,I thought angrily, glad for once that Goran’s legs were so much longer than mine, so he didn’t see my face flushing as I thought of her, or see the uneven gait I adopted as my cock rose up like she was right there with us.
With us. Between us. Both of us pleasuring her, me holding her long, dark hair to one side, my teeth on her nape as I pressed into her from behind, while he took her from the front…
Fuck.I adjusted myself and picked up the pace.She can’t be mine, I insisted to that part of me that had emerged a few years before. She was an Omega, and even if she smelled like paradise, that scent didn’t make her my destined mate. It just made me pathetic.
As an Omega myself, I would be no use to her in her heats, when she had them. I had no Alpha knot thickening at her scent.No, it was my own scent she provoked. With no seawater to wash it away, it clung to my clothes like a signpost.Omega here! Ignore the cock and balls, this one’s an Omega!
She’d stolen my best friend’s heart, had almost stolen my life, and had claimed my brother as her mate. I wanted to hate her, but I longed for her instead.
It was hopeless. She would never need me. And I sure as hells wouldn’t have a chance at her, even if I’d wanted her since the first time I caught her scent. Even if she was the reason I’d become what I was now.
“Gor, give them my apologies. I have to go,” I called, ignoring his shout as I took off for the beach to our right. I could handle Mother being pissed. I didn’t think I could handle facing Kellin and his new mate at the dinner table, not without embarrassing myself.
The sea was far icier than it should have been this time of year, which was just what I needed. I had my pelt on before I was past my knees and swam out to the chunk of black volcanic rock that sat a few hundred yards away.
I leaped onto the rock just in time to glimpse something odd on the distant horizon. The Northern lights sometimes played in the sky at this latitude, though usually only in the deep winter months at that time of the day. The sun had only just slipped below the horizon in the west, though, and an iridescent light flickered bright, like a falling star had hit the ocean and exploded just past my sight.
Staring directly at it did no good, but when I let my eyes glide to one side, I was able to make out more. It wasn’t a star, and it wasn’t the lights. It was a shape, flying low on the horizon, just over the sea. Flying, or running, on the surface of the waves.
What in the hells?I dove in and swam straight for it, knowing I was being a curious fool. But curiosity had always been mygreatest failing, and strength. So I swam faster, somehow sure that I didn’t want to reach the… whatever it was… in full dark.
I’d swum in cold seas for years, though I’d lived with Kellin in warmer climes for most of our adult lives, until I’d become an Omega and learned to rely on the cold water to nullify my scent. I missed the calm Eastern Seas, with their coral reefs and warm currents, but I believed I’d acclimated to the north. I’d never swum in anything like this before, though. As I got closer to the shape, the seas grew colder, the water taking on a brittle quality.
I was less than a mile away when the chunks of ice around me became something closer to icebergs, and I had to stop swimming. The ice was reflecting or refracting the light from the thing. Was it some sort of freak summer storm?
I couldn’t see well enough, so I dove down, underneath the ice at the surface and swam in the direction I’d believed the thing was in.The creature,I thought, swimming lower and as fast as I could, against a frigid current. I wasn’t certain why I felt like there was an intelligence in the thing, but it felt as if something was watching me.
Not with evil intent, though. Just… witnessing me swimming toward it, as a child might watch an insect on a leaf, or a minnow swimming in a tidepool. The light grew brighter above and in front of me, so I began to ascend and immediately realized my mistake. The surface of the ocean was entirely frozen, like a lake might be inland. The water was so salty; I’d only ever seen the smallest of tidepools frozen like that, and the ocean moved so quickly that freezing should have been impossible.
I didn’t have time to be curious. I’d been swimming for a half hour underwater, and hadn’t taken an enormous breath before descending. I’d burned through too much air and needed to return. I twisted in a circle, the water turning to slush around my tail fins.
Then it wasn’t slush at all. It had frozen solid in the space of the few seconds I’d turned. My tail was stuck in the ice as the light grew blindingly bright overhead, then dark as my eyes froze.
Oh, sweet Goddess…I was going to die here. Whatwasthis thing? I felt the presence grow closer, then the world turning upside down, rolling once, twice. I was numb, and felt as if I was rising into the air.
