“Are you going to help me up?” I asked, my skin prickling with irritation.
“No,” Ottoh replied. “I have a feeling I’ll wake up with my face as messed up as Geord’s after they drugged you.”
“What are you talking about?” I pushed my cold hands into the wood, and thankfully Darcke’s ship indulged me, giving me a helpful shove so that I easily got to my feet again.
“Darcke nearly killed Geord that night,” Ottoh said. “It took both Torden and Borje to get him off, and even then the shaman had to spend hours healing what he could.”
Cold wove across my shoulders. Geord hadn’t looked good that morning, but I’d thought it was because he’d fallen off the dock.
“Come on,” Ottoh said as he started walking toward the stairs. “I have a feeling he’ll come and throw you over his shoulder if you’re not in his room soon.”
That got me moving until I realized what Ottoh had said. “What do you mean inhisroom?”
That room had seemed too small when he hated me. Now? I swallowed hard.
Ottoh’s chest hitched with silent laughter. “You didn’t think he’d let anyone else stay with you, did you?”
Nerves seized me, making my stomach knot, and I didn’t like the shadow of a smile tugging at the corners of Ottoh’s mouth at all.
“No, of course,” I replied. “If something happens, we’ll be stronger together.”
“Mm-hmm,” Ottoh mumbled. “Because of thebond.”
I halted at his tone. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t look so scared,” Ottoh said as he opened the door leading down into the dim quarters where there were four rooms for us to spread out in. “We have much bigger problems than you wanting to fuck your second.”
I choked on a cough.
“He wants to fuck you too.” Ottoh grinned as he starteddescending the stairs. “My iron-bound and I won’t tell, but if you end up doing it, keep it down, will you? I have to share a room with Vero, and that’s something I’d like to avoid listening to with my sister.” He wiggled his fingers. “See you at Gravsgard.”
I blinked as Ottoh disappeared into the room.
Lifting my hands to my cheeks, I tried to stop the red that must have flared there. But as Darcke came out of the door opposite the one Ottoh had just entered and waved to me, his face still tense but a small flame within him betraying he’d heard exactly what the other heir just told me, my skin only heated further.
Every step down the stairs, I cursed a different word, and when I ran out, I started over.
“Don’t look so worried,” Darcke said when I somehow managed to make it down. “You’ll have your own bed.”
“Will I?” I asked, relief flooding my body.
When I’d last stayed here, he’d slept on the floor as I’d occupied the one bed, but I hadn’t explored the ship. The room beyond the doorway Darcke stood in wasn’t the one we’d stayed in before, so perhaps this one was bigger.
“No, of course not.” His smile was deadly. “My ship is big, but notthatbig.”
My scowl was mirrored in his eyes when I passed him. I held on to hope, but as I slipped under his outstretched arm and into the room, it was snuffed out. There was only one small bed tucked under the round window where the dark sea played outside, and the only other thing in the room was a table with a matching chair, both made of wood and looking incredibly uncomfortable.
My feet dug into the wood. “I’ll share with Ilse instead.”
As I spun, I nearly smacked into Darcke’s chest, and a growl built at the back of my throat when the door slammed shut by itself behind him. He shrugged. “My ship has spoken. Her deck, her rules. Kilia and Ilse got my usual room. Besides, I am not sharing with Kilia. I’m not even sure we’d both fit in aroom together.”
I groaned. “Why do you have to make everything so hard?” When his brow arched, I quickly added, “Don’t answer that.”
Darcke overtook me and strolled into the room.
“Are you sleeping on the floor?” I asked.
He sat down on the edge of the bed. “No.”
