She met my gaze unflinchingly. “Nor do they belong in prisons or on streets.”
I sighed, knowing I’d already lost this argument days ago, and Val would likely gut me before she gave up her new prodigy. More like, he was now permanently my problem.
Rose slid up against me, hands on my hips.
“Is it so bad to admit you like him?” she asked.
Probably.
“He’s a good kid who was dealt a bad hand,” I said.
“Maybe like someone else I know,” she smiled knowingly.
I snorted. “I was never good, Rosamund.”
“If you say so,” she said.
Silence stretched until she slid herself between me and the railing, a glint in her eyes that bespoke trouble.
“You are brooding. You know, I can think of several other things you could be doing instead,” she purred.
Only her.
She was, as always, entirely singular.
I lifted the hook at the end of my arm and placed it under her chin, forcing her eyes to mine before sliding the cool metal down her neck. She shivered, and my cock responded in equal measure.
“You are getting a little too good with that,” she whispered.
I smiled, bringing my mouth down to her ear.
“I’ll give you a five-second head start, but once I catch you, you will find out just how good I am with it,” I said.
Rose’s eyes widened, and she licked her lips.
“Shit,” she whispered. “That’s really fucking hot.”
I fought back a laugh and instead leaned forward, meeting her bright eyes.
“One,” I said.
She turned and walked with a pace that wasn’t quite running, but certainly wasn’t leisurely. I let my lips curl up and thanked the fucking stars and moon and whatever gods lurked in the skies and seas below that she was mine.
Chapter thirty
Warnings
Rose
Among the sea-folk catalogued by coastal peoples, none are so frequently mistaken for sirens as the merrow. Distinguished by their webbed extremities and the enchanted red cap which permits terrestrial passage, these beings exhibit a melancholy temperament and an uncommon intelligence. Mariners report that merrows possess a fondness for human artifacts and a notable capacity for mimicry, though their songs are considered omens of storms or shipwrecks.
— Excerpt from The Mysterious Deep: A Comprehensive Understanding
If I could have bottled up the feel of the sun on my face amidst the cold embrace of winter, I would have kept it for the daythat I grew old enough to forget.IfI grew old enough. Though I tried to resist, my eyes drifted off the horizon of endless blue to where Dilly sat flipping pages of Edmond’s journal before scrawling her own writing into a small leather book.
I couldn’t have said if I believed the answers were in there, but the hope that there was followed me every moment we drew closer to Aloja territory.
“I told you to stop looking at me,” Dilly said, from the floor, her back to the side of the ship.
