“That, too, but I meant seeing her daughter swim with the beasts she so loves. Knowing you found your way to them and them to you.”
His eyes glow in the darkness, bright like his wet skin. I concentrate on them as the giant scaled bodies weave around us, dorsal fins caressing my aching flesh. Suddenly, both stop twisting and the ocean turns quiet. I glance over my shoulder to make sure they haven’t left just as the larger of the two sweeps his velvet tongue against the cut between my shoulder blades.
My fingers dig into the roiling muscles and sinews of Lorcan’s forearms because, holy Mother of Crows, that hurts. A second tongue ribbons across my ankle before rising up the length of my shin and thigh.
I close my wet eyes and concentrate on my breathing.
“Enough.” Lorcan begins to pull me out of the ocean.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re in pain.”
My lids pop open. “No, Lore. I’m not in pain.”
“You’re crying.”
“Because I’m moved by the compassion and magic of these beasts who the Fae so fear.” I steal one of my hands out of his grasp and skim my fingers over the orange coils within my reach.
The serpent rattles and licks my skin faster as though to remove every last scratch on my body.
Lore frowns. I steal his hand from where it found new purchase on my hip and carry it to the serpent’s body, then press his long fingers against the creature’s dorsal fin which is as soft as crow feathers. The serpent rattles again, which makes Lore suck in a breath.
“It’s their way of showing gratitude.”
“It better be.”
I frown up at him. “Why do you say that?”
“Because our kind rattles to attract their mates.”
My grin deserts my face. “That’s surely not— Serpents cannot shapeshift, can they?”
“Do you really believe I’d let them lick you if there was anything human about these beasts?”
I’m too flustered by his answer to even breathe out my relief. Lore spins me, my feet slipping against the fine grains of sand, then runs his knuckles down my spine.
“What are you doing?” I choke out.
“Inspecting that their job is done.”
“It is.” Just as his fingers reach the dimples over my ass, I catch his hand and pull it away. “You could’ve just asked.”
Why ask when I’ve hands to feel?
Because I don’t care to be felt up by a man whose fingers will feel up someone else in a few hours.
I wait for him to deny this, but all he does is sigh against my neck, his warm breath adhering to my salted skin.
He grips my flapping robe from behind and belts it snuggly around my waist. “Come. You need to eat and rest.”
Although one of the serpents has retreated, the other hangs around as though waiting for the opportune moment to snatch me away from the other predator in the water. I reach over and scratch him around his ivory tusk, eliciting another rattle, one that reminds me of what Lore said about crow-rattling.
I do not wonder if he’s rattled for Alyona. Nope. The thought absolutely doesn’t cross my mind because it’s absolutely none of my business.
I stroke the serpent’s head with so much gusto that I end up submerging him. The creature just shakes harder before popping his head back out and sweeping his forked black tongue across my jaw, coaxing a smile from my cold lips.
Lore is still working on my belt. Each time his nails skim one of my ribs through the thin fabric, I hold my breath. Each time his fingertips dent my waist, I push my breath out. I sound like the women in labor who’d come to Nonna for a dose of her homemade pain relievers. How their eyes would shine as brightly as their sweat-slicked skin when the medication took hold. As I’d held their hands through their spasms, I remember wishing that I’d been born with green eyes so that I could’ve grown medicinal plants like the woman I so admired.
