“You could have been hurt,” he said.
I followed the drip down.
“But I wasn’t because my husband taught me how to shoot a pistol.” I stood, shaking it off. “Next question.”
“It wasn’t a question, Rosamund,” he said, voice tight.
I placed my hand on my hip and leveled a glare at him.
“I’ve been out here for over a year now, Bash. In fact, some might say I’ve been quite successful at it. So maybe lay off the protective asshole bit?” I said.
His jaw was shut tight, a muscle feathering in it as he considered me. A bit of goop fell from the pistol at my hip onto my boot, and I stared at it, frowning. I was almost convinced just then until that happened.
How unfortunate.
“You have grindylow slime on your boot,” Bash said.
I shot him daggers and tried to shake it off, but it only dripped with an infuriating slowness.
“Billy would have thought this was hilarious,” I grumbled.
“He’d have already planned the reenactment,” Bash said.
I frowned, feeling the tug of loss that wasn’t anything close to what he was enduring. I was spoiled in every way that mattered.The most traumatic thing that ever happened to me was Bash and Oscar being captured, and even that ended with them coming back to me.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
I wished I were better at this. Better at saying the right thing.
Bash nodded, stepping over the grindylow and pulling me into a hug. I melted against him, feeling tension leave my body with his touch. He pressed a kiss to my head that made me feel like we were the only two on the wraith.
“I think this undermines some of your ruthless pirate bravado,” I murmured against him.
He chuckled.
“A risk I’m willing to take,” he said.
“Koinu!” Someone from the crow’s nest shouted.
I rushed to the edge of the ship and felt a knot in my chest loosen as Koinu breached from the water with a loud vocalization, his splash nearly reaching the boat despite being at least fifty feet away.
“Remarkable,” Bash murmured beside me.
My heart swelled with pride.
“He really is,” I said.
Summoned, Dilly, appeared next to us, huffing out a desperate breath before pulling out her scrapbook.
“Do it again, Koinu,” she said, attempting to hold a pencil and a spyglass at the same time.
I laughed and took the spyglass, holding it up to her eye for her while she readied her pencil.
Koinu was a show-off these days.
Sure enough, he leapt from the sea, his blue and green shimmering against the morning sun. He was magnificent. Long body spiralling as his head hit the sea. The long, fan-like fins span high and proudly.
“That’s a real, actual sea monster!” yelled a small voice that was out of place on the Wraith.
