Let the sea captain go.
I was trying to avoid a serpent towing him out to sea.
Please.
I’ve no feelings for him, Lore.Actually, I do, and they’re not all that positive, but Lore doesn’t need to know this. Not yet. Not now. He may encourage a serpent to snag him and drag him to Shabbe.
Come to think of it, that may be the safest place for Antoni. I consider it for a heartbeat, but then decide that it would be unjust to send him there without his consent.
I’ll see that he’s returned safely to land.Lore regards the fingers I have curled around Antoni’s forearm with such jealousy that I let go.
Justus’s eyes widen when he realizes he’s adrift with Antoni. He pumps his legs, swimming back toward me just as a Crow dives in beside us. Poor Justus blanches as though all the blood from his body has leaked through the hole in his abdomen.
He releases the captain’s ankle just as the giant black bird hooks iron talons around Antoni’s armpits and tears him out of the ocean, spooking schools of fish that take refuge behind the endless coils of their serpent sentinels.
I point to his abdomen, and Justus peers down at himself. He must understand what I’m asking because he untucks his shirt to check on the wound which he crudely stuffed with what looks like a handkerchief.
Who tried to gut him?Lore’s golden eyes are affixed to the crimson fabric Justus presses more firmly into the hole beneath his rib cage.
Dante.I don’t see much point in adding that he calls his blade the Crow Killer since I will see to it that he never harms any Crows with it.He’s on our side.When Lore’s hazy forehead grooves, I add,I meantJustus. Obviously not Dante.
He may be on our side, but he stole you from me, so do not expect me to trust or forgive him.
The only thing I expect is for you not to kill—I suck in a breath when a beast of a serpent muscles his way through the throng of his suspended kin, bright-pink scales soon becoming the focal point of my attention.
The second Minimus is within reach, he slows, and his eyes, black lid-to-lid, race over my body as though to make sure I’m whole. When his gaze knocks into my legs, his nostrils flare. He dips his large head and sniffs my calves before ribboning his forked black tongue up their length, his magical saliva sealing my wounds.
I stroke the top of his head, scratching the skin around his ivory horn. Once my skin has knitted, he tips his head and nudges my hand with his equine nose.
Justus’s body bumps mine as another curious beast swims toward us, sniffing at his bandage. When he flicks out his tongue, Justus’s complexion becomes as white as the albino fish still nibbling on the end of his ponytail.
I seize my grandfather’s wrist and give it a squeeze, then reach down and pluck out the kerchief. His abdominal muscles clench, ejecting blood in carmine spurts. The giant beast flicks his tongue again, making Justus tense so hard that his body goes as stiff as driftwood, and sinks.
When he finally realizes that the serpent isn’t about to snack on his flesh, he looses an exhale that streams out of him like a trail of starlight. For someone who knows so much, has seen so much, has accomplished so much, I’m stunned to witness his ignorance on the magical properties of serpent saliva.
As his wound knits, he blinks at the beast tending to him, then blinks at me. I smile. His face is so stiff with shock that he doesn’t. Ministrations complete, the serpent points his black gaze toward the general. I laugh because I know what the creature wants, but clearly Justus doesn’t. I raise his palm and flatten it on the firm scales of his healer’s cheek.
Although Justus keeps his hand where I put it, his fingers judder, but then they move, they stroke, and the beast rattles in pleasure. Justus’s hand moves from beneath mine, inches toward the long tusk. He spirals his fingers around it, eyes aglitter. The serpent stills, which makes Justus jerk his hand away. Beast and Fae stare at each other for a long heartbeat, and then the serpent whirls, undulating through the liquid immensity.
The hand with which I still stroke Minimus is suddenly heaved off. I think my mate must be jealous of the affection I’m lavishing on my beast and am about to tease him about it when I catch the direction of his golden eyes.
What the fucking Cauldron is that?
Thirty-Eight
Lorcan’s grown so still that I can almost feel the hard contours of his body . . . can almost feel the thumb frenziedly tracing the interlocked circles.
My eyes fasten to Lore’s agitated golden ones.Thatis the mark of a blood-bind.I wait for understanding to grab ahold of his features and smooth them, but his brow remains a field of misty knolls and valleys.
A blood-bind?he squawks, just as my head crests the turbulent surface of Mareluce.And I do not bloody squawk.
I smile.
What in Mórrígan’s name is a blood-bind?
You really don’t know what it is?
Do I often ask questions I know the answer to, Behach Éan?
