Thunk.
It was the dull slap of wood on wood.
Thunk.
Foreign and jarring. A sound that had no business in the middle of this forgotten sea where she was meant to drown. Forgotten. Cold.
Thunk.
CHAPTER 21
She was drowning.
The tide lapped soft against her skin, a glove of velvet deception that was almost… gentle. Close enough to sweet to be a believable lie.
Thunk.
Her throat opened around a scream—and the sea rushed in.
A shadow passed overhead. And then the splatter of something heavy splashed above her.
Rope.
A net.
The weight descended, folding around her like a shroud.
She was dragged up through the waves. Heavy and pulling against the current that clung to her every sodden inch and tried to keep her under.
And when she breached the surface, it was to the sound of a male voice grunting with the effort to haul her up from the abyss.
“Gods, half-drowned already,” the man grunted, bringing her alongside the tiny boat. The vessel rocked as he worked, wood groaning and creaking. “Heavy little relic, ain’t ya?” he asked, then pulled her up. Cursing and huffing as the boat rocked under her weight.
She hit the deck with a splat of waterlogged limbs. Trying to breathe, hardly able to lift her head as she blinked at the man who’d rescued her after hours of aimless swimming.
Coarse hands landed on her, then. Callused, roughened in the way of seafarers. Those hardened men who handled rope and seashells for an honest living.
He grabbed at her without reverence, pawing at slick skin and tattered robes that clung to her body and did absolutely nothing to shield her modesty.
“Ain’t the first thing I’ve pulled from these waters,” he murmured, thumbing the swell of her hip. Brushing the glitter of sunrise scales fanning out above her pubis. “But fuck me raw if you ain’t the prettiest.”
Kore blinked, but that was all. Unable to focus on his words. The dusk was too bright, the scent of fish—of rot and stale brine—curdled in her gut and promised to splash against the back of her throat.
“Roll for me, pretty thing,” he said, gruff as he shoved at her hip. Fingers taking liberties, he tugged aside the scraps of her robes and left her bound in the netting at the bottom of his dinghy. “Gods,” he rasped. “A real fine beaut.”
Breath rattling and wet, lungs soggy, Kore tried to protest. Tried to resist when blunt, rough fingers explored her body.
Her lips parted, but issued no sound.
Throat reedy and dry, breath a phantom whisper.
Beneath her, the net crunched. Salt crackling and coarse. Dried into the fibers.
His hand slid lower, tracing the shimmer on her ribs. The faint gleam dusted across her chest, the point of her nipples. Her thighs… her… sex.
Everywhere she’d been marked by a beast was explored with quiet reverence.
And then his hand slid lower still, two fingers parting the lips of her slit. Marveling at how bare she was. Hairless. How slick and smooth. “Already leaking,” he laughed, an incredulous lilt to his gruff voice. “Waiting on me, were ya?”
