“It seems the word about me is most definitely out,” Gabriella murmured.
He grinned, his teeth white and dazzling in the dark bronze of his face. “Tey.Yours may well have been a Shout heard around the world.”
He didn’t look bothered by the idea, but still, she had to ask. “Is that going to be a problem for Calberna?”
“Ono, moa haleah.Most of those who will have heard your Shout won’t know what it was. And of those who do, any of them foolish enough to invade Calbernan waters will find a harsh welcome.” He bent to kiss her lips tenderly, which made the crowd go wild. That made him grin again and he pumped a massive fist in the air, to the further cheers of his countrymen. The sheer, silky fabric of hisobahfluttered about him like a pennant.
She rolled her eyes. “You are enjoying this perhaps a little too much.”
“No such thing. I am enjoying this every bit as much as I should. In fact, I think now,youshould kissme... may I suggest a great, lusty kiss so our people have no doubt that you have, indeed, claimed their prince as your own.” He grinned. It was the sort of grin that was half dare, half amused certainty that she wouldn’t take the dare.
Gabriella arched a brow. He’d been in especially high spirits all morning, teasing her, laughing, pulling the Siren’s tail. She knew most of that was carefully orchestrated bluster to keep her nerves at bay. But part of it was because he thought he could tease her with impunity. Silly man. She hadn’t spent a lifetime as the sister of Autumn Coruscate, the prankster princess, without learning how to answer a dare. Time for him to learn a little lesson about his new wife.
In a Voice filled with Command, she told him, “Bend down.”
He was already bending before it even registered with him what she’d done, and when it did, his eyes went wide with surprise. But it was too late. She’d already caught him.
She gripped his head between her hands, plastered her lips to his, and proceeded to kiss theshumaoff him. As she did, she hummed softly in the back of her throat. The melody was one she’d only ever heard in those erotic dreams that had haunted her since the night at the Llaskroner Fjord when hisulumihad glowed blue, and it worked now exactly the way it had worked in those dreams.
Dilys shuddered and fell to his knees. His arms wrapped around her, his hands splayed across her back, gripping her tight as a sound that was half growl, half sob escaped him.
She kept kissing him and humming that tiny, powerful thread of Siren Song that was meant for him and him alone until every drop of his blood, every cell in his body, every thought, every breath, every beat of his heart opened to her, invited her in and begged for her claiming. She conquered him entirely, leaving no part of him untaken. And then she pulled back, meeting his stunned golden gaze with her own blazing one, and said against his swollen, trembling lips, “Thou art mine, Dilys Merimydion. Mine and no other’s.”
He swallowed hard, and his rasping, “Tey,” was barely more than a scrape of sound.
She straightened, turned to the gathered crowds, and in a Voice backed with enough power to be heard by every ship in the harbor and every person in the city, declared in perfect Sea Tongue, “I claim this male as mine own. Before you all, I claim him. He is my mate, my male, myakua.Mine and no other’s!” She repeated the claim in Eru, and then Ice Tongue as well, in consideration of the White Guards aboard her vessels.
For the next several seconds, a shocked, deafening silence ensued, broken only by the crack of the wind moving canvas sails, the sound of waves crashing on the shore, and the cries of seabirds wheeling overhead.
And then came the roar.
It welled up from every throat in the harbor. A great huzzah that was almost as loud as a Shout of their own. Suddenly, the air was filled with flowers and rings of glossy leaves and Calbernans leaping like dolphins in the waves and the chanting cries of “Sirena! Sirena! Sirena!”
Gabriella turned to Dilys, who was still swaying on his knees and staring at her like he’d never really seen her before. She grinned. “Was that lusty enough for you, then?”
He blinked and blinked again. “Er...tey... I think that did the trick.”
She laughed and patted his cheek. “Good. Oh, and just so you know, it wasn’t Spring who switched your water for Summerlean fire brandy that first morning.”
The smile spread across his face, slowly at first, then bursting into a wide, dazzling grin. He surged to his feet in one fluid motion, sweeping her up in his arms. She thought he meant to kiss her every bit as senseless as she’d just kissed him, but instead he lifted her high and settled her on his broad shoulder.
“Sirena!” he cried, echoing the chants of his people. “Sirena!”
Behind her, every member of theKracken’s crew was grinning wide enough to split their faces. The Calbernans leaping in the water began gathering up the floating blossoms and leafy wreaths and ferrying them to the ship, offering them to Gabriella and Dilys and everyone else aboard the ship until theKrackenwas entirely festooned with bright flowers and greenery.
As they drew closer to the docks where theKrackenwould make berth, Dilys took her down from his shoulder and set her back on her feet. He stood at her side, one broad hand resting at the small of her back. She liked that. She liked the oneness of standing side by side, liked the warm link of his skin against hers. She liked the joy pouring into her from all directions of this beautiful island nation.
She nestled against him and placed a hand over the swell of one hard pectoral muscle, sharing that joy with him. With it went a tendril of grief, still strong but no longer the raw, bitter pain it had been.
“I wish my sisters could have been here to see this.”
“I wish that, too, Gabriella. More than almost anything I wish it. But the part of them that still lives in youishere.”
It was a pretty sentiment, one she chose to embrace. The worst of what would have been her devastating grief was gone. The sadness was still there. Not taken away, but shared with him, and softened by the sharing. Without the grief, she could concentrate on the memories of all the loving, laughter-filled times she’d spent with her sisters, remembering the joy rather than the loss.
She stood there, nestled against him, smiling and waving to the exuberant, welcoming Calbernans and realized her mask was gone. Her smile was real. Her happiness genuine. For the first time in her life, the monster was at peace. Dilys had given her that, too.
They had reached the innermost part of the harbor.
