“You don’t have to look so stunned. Is it so hard to believe that I feel the same?”
“A little bit. Aye.”
She snorted at him and his continued suspicion as she brushed at his long hair that fell forward to frame his face. How strange that such a simple thing could make so ferocious a beast appear boyish and vulnerable when she knew full well he was neither of those things. “Not exactly the reaction I was wanting, Captain.”
This time, he gave her his full dimpled smile and charmed her completely. “You’ve stunned me past all rational thought, my lady. Therefore, you’ll have to have a bit of leniency with me while I acclimate to hell freezing over.”
Laughing, she kissed his lips.
Until he started to thrust against her. She bit her lip against the pain, but as he’d promised her, it quickly subsided into the most incredible pleasure she’d ever felt. And to a deep intimacy that overwhelmed her. He locked gazes with her as he stroked her with his entire body.
Honestly, she didn’t think anything could feel better or more personal. Not until he quickened his strokes and thrust so deep inside her that it splintered her.
The moment she came, her powers shot out and echoed around the room in a vibrant ricochet similar to lightning. Duel caught them with his powers and laughed as he absorbed them to keep her blasts from doing harm to the ship or the lanterns. But his own laughter died a moment later when he found his own release.
And with it came a new charge to her Deruvian abilities. It was unlike anything she’d ever encountered.
Colors exploded through the room, raining down over them like a spring shower. She not only felt and heard the aether. She saw it. Nay, she saw the very fabric of the universe that bound together every creature that was both living and gone.
Her breathing labored, she struggled to get a handle on it and understand what was happening and why.
“Duel?”
“It’s all right, my love.” Rolling over, he pulled her across his chest to cradle her there and comfort her rising panic. “It’s a by-product of what we are. There’s nothing to fear. It’ll pass in a moment, but you will be stronger.”
He was right. With every heartbeat, she could feel the charge inside her.
“No wonder Vine sought you out so much.”
He took her hand in his and placed it against the center of his chest, over the scar where her sister had cut out his heart. “I never did this with Vine. I wouldn’t allow it to happen.”
Those words baffled her. “What do you mean?”
“We had sex. But it never charged our powers. I never gave that part of myself to her, as I knew what she’d do with it. And I’m a fool for letting you have it now, but I couldn’t stop it from happening. My feelings for you run too deep. There was no way for me to pull it back before it happened. I’m afraid I have no control where you’re concerned.”
“How do you mean?”
That familiar dark shadow returned to his gaze and saddened his eyes. “I know about your bargain with Vine, Mara. I’m well aware of the fact that you’re planning to hand me over to her to get yourself free.”
15
“Thank you, Miss Jack.”
Cameron smiled up at Kalder as she knotted the bandage on his arm. “My pleasure. You should be more careful while you climb about the rigging in a storm. You could have been killed.”
He snorted as he reached for his mead on the galley table. “Not really at the moment. Just would have injured me pride more than me head. Oh, wait! It did. Teach me to not pay attention in a tempest, but then to have such a beautiful lass tend me wounds, it was worth a little flesh off the bones and lost dignity, I think.”
Blushing at his unexpected compliment, Cameron paused her hand over the marks on his skin that appeared as tattoos. She knew now they were his fins. How strange that they lay so flat whenever his skin was dry as to be indistinguishable from his flesh. Indeed, there was no difference whatsoever. He appeared completely human. What a strange thing to have happen. “Does it hurt when your body changes?”
He screwed his face up as he kept his arm completely still in her lap. “No more than you with yours. Just a mild sensation really. I barely notice it.”
Realizing that she was holding on to him a lot longer than she should be, she quickly released his arm and put more space between them. Even though she didn’t want to. There was something about Kalder that drew her to him a lot more than it should. He was a very handsome man … for a mermaid.
And that thought made her smile. “What are your people really called? I don’t think ‘mermaid’ quite fits you.”
Nay, it definitely did not, as he was more masculine and handsome than most of the men on the ship. There was something innately deadly and fierce about him. Something that made the Seraph blood in her quite literally hum whenever he drew close.
Kalder laughed at her words. “For the record, Miss Jack, I hate to be called a mermaid. It sticks in me fins a bit, but don’t let the others know or there will never be any peace from the bloody bastards for it, as they’ll assume it to be a personal challenge to make me life hell. Especially Bart.” He winked at her. “We’re correctly called Myrcians.”
