Khamsin laughed, and one of the babies kicked hard, a strong pulse against Wynter’s hand.
“Twenty? I love you, Winterman, but that’s not going to happen. Not even close.”
He glanced up then, his eyes bright and intent as they fixed on his wife’s beloved face. “But think of all the fun we’d have trying.” His voice dropped an octave and gained a soft, throaty growl that made her breath catch and her skin flush with sudden heat. He loved that about her. The passion she no longer even tried to hide. How easily he could rouse her desire with just a look, just a rumbling growl.
“You are so bad.”
“That’s why you love me so much.”
Her lips curved in a sultry smile that made his body go hard and aching. “That’s definitely part of it.”
The hand on her belly slid up towards the single button that kept the edges of her silk robe fastened between her breasts. He popped it free with a flick of his fingers and brushed the silk aside to bare the beautiful satin-skinned mounds of her breasts.
Pregnancy had made those breasts much fuller than they’d been when they first wed. Her dusky nipples seemed larger and darker, too, and they were definitely much more sensitive than they had been. A fact that had provided them endless delight over the last months.
He thumbed one and reveled in her sharp gasp and the way she arched her back. He could spend a lifetime loving her. Ten lifetimes. An eternity.
“I adore you,min ros.”
He bent to kiss her, to take those lush, full lips, the sweet warmth of her mouth, to taste the fire that had saved his frozen soul.
The sound of raised voices in the room outside their bedchamber made him freeze. A split second later, he leapt off the bed, flipped a sheet over Khamsin, snatched up his sword, and crossed the room in three ground-eating strides. He reached the door just as someone began rapping upon it, calling, “Your Grace!” in urgent tones.
Wynter flung the door open. “What’s happened?”
The Steward of Konumarr stood beside Wyn’s valet, a dozen White Guards behind him. “The princesses, my lord,” he gasped, bending over to catch his breath. “The princesses are missing.”
“What?” That sharp cry came from behind him.
Ice gathered in his eyes, while behind him he felt the electric snap in the air as his wife summoned her own deadly power.
Chapter 19
“Synan missed his check-in. That’s two in a row.”
Dilys turned from his position at the sterncastle rail to face his first mate, Kame Samatoa. It was eight in the morning. Synan had missed the three-o’clock check and now the seven as well, making it nine hours since his last communication.
One missed check-in could have been a dolphin pod interrupted or prevented from passing along the signal. Two in a row... that could only mean something was wrong.
And there was a sinking sensation in Dilys’s stomach that told him what that something might be.
“Signal the fleet and come hard about. The Shark can have the treasure and choke on it—assuming he was even after it in the first place.” More likely the thrice-damnedkrillohad baited a trap of his own, and Dilys had fallen right into it. “Set a course for Konumarr. And I want every seagift on this ship focused on the task of speeding us along.”
“Tey, Alakua.” Aye, Captain. “Right away.” Kame turned and began shouting orders.
The deck tilted beneath Dilys’s feet as theKrackencircled sharply around and began heading north, back towards the Æsir Isles.
“Shall we send a signal back to Konumarr,Alakua?” asked Dilys’s second mate.
“Ono.If there are unfriendly ears listening, I don’t want to alert them that we’re on the way.” Dilys stared grimly at the horizon ahead, the curvature of the world obvious as the Varyan ocean stretched as far as the eye could see.Gabriella,moa halea,I pray I am mistaken and there is nothing wrong. But one way or another, know that I am coming for you, and that nothing will stop me from reaching your side.
Summer woke to groggy, pain-filled darkness. For countless minutes, she lay conscious but uncomprehending, her drugged brain struggling to interpret the impressions gathered by her physical senses. Everything was black. She’d been blindfolded. She tried to raise her hand to remove the blindfold, but her arms were bound tight behind her back. There was a horrible taste in her mouth—not solely due to the disgusting cloth shoved in and tied in place—and her head was pounding.
She was on her side, laying on some sort of lumpy, swaying surface. The air smelled of salt, sweat, and that musty, moldy smell of a confined space not regularly aired out. The world was tilting and swaying in a rhythmic manner, and she could hear the creak of wood, the flap of fabric snapping in the wind, the shouts and movement of men overhead.
Shards of memory were slowly coming back to her.
She’d been kidnapped. Stolen from her room in Konumarr Palace. She’d been blindfolded, drugged, and trussed up like a roasted Harvest goose. And now she was on a ship, sailing gods only knew where. Far from the safety of Summerlea and Wintercraig, that much was certain. Far from the reach of Khamsin and Wynter’s wrath. And if her captors possessed an iota of intelligence, far from Dilys as well.
