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“I prefer to think of it as tribute. Perhaps a courting gift.”
I almost choked.
When he politely asked, “May I have your consent to touch you with my tail?” I nodded, and he patted me on the back with one hand, each gentle blow pressing our naked bodies closer. “Such a fragile thing you are.”
When I was done spluttering, I narrowed my eyes at his innocent expression. “What are you going to do with your tail if I consent?” I wasn’t sure what answer I wanted to hear. I was naked and splayed out on top of him, but poison still darkened his veins. He needed to rest while he healed, and I told him so.
“Look, I think they really are playing healer and patient,” Lachlan muttered to Lusca. He raised his voice slightly. “I feel sick, too. I may have injured my groin. Help me.”
Lusca made an odd noise, one he’d made before when he was about to sink a pirate ship.
“You test my patience, seal man,” Skadi warned, and took another swallow of the draught. “This is delicious, little spy.”
“It’s mostly blood. Some herbs that are extinct.”
“They are not. I recognize the taste. They were cultivated by priests who insisted on praying to me and only grow at high altitude, in bitter cold. I have some on my glacier still, in a hidden valley. They bloom with the flowers that you…” His eyes dropped to my arm, and the air around us grew so cold, I couldn’t suck in a breath.
“Skadi,” Lusca warned, sending a gust of warmer wind my way. He lay in the water, with one arm and his head propped on the edge. “Be careful with my mate.” Concern and command filled Lusca’s tone, though he’d closed his eyes as if he were exhausted. He seemed to be checking in on the oceans, I thought. Or taking stock of his strength. He still felt uneasy. Perhaps it was his link to Skadi.
Skadi murmured, “Brother,” and the air warmed.
Lusca nodded to me and laid a slender tentacle on the pendant on Skadi’s chest. The nautilus shell was still ringed with black, though the stain seemed to have lightened.
“He took your markings,” Skadi said quietly, one hand rising to clasp my left arm as he examined the burns.
“Without my consent. Such an asshole, right?” I said with a half-smile.
He scowled. “And you cannot replace them easily.”
“Nope. I’m not a god like you, or a shape shifter like Lusca. I can’t just decide to change my body.”
He pondered that for a moment, a peculiar expression flickering over his cold face for a moment before he spoke again. “You have not answered my request. May I have your consent, little Empress?”
RADA
My smile widened at Skadi’s words. I was an Empress now. A Warqueen, a selkie princess twice over, and an Empress. My crew back in Turino was gonna shit their trousers. “If you drink the rest of this tonic and tell me about these priests, you absolutely have my consent.”
Skadi grumbled but wrapped his tail around me in a way that felt far more comforting than sexual, yet kept me firmly pressed against him while he drank. When the draught was finished, I drummed my fingers on his chest, waiting.
“Story time, Snowflake. The priests?”
He mouthed the word snowflake silently, like he was tasting it, before he replied, “There is not much to tell. Deities cannot engender children of their own, of course. Not in the way of lower animals like humans.” He shot a look at Lachlan, his tail creeping a little lower on my back as he did. “Or seal men.”
Lachlan winked at me, but interrupted Skadi. “Your Eminence, why are Omegas called the daughters… and, ah, sons of the Goddess, then?”
“She wept,” Skadi said, his voice softer now. “When she left this world, her heart was broken. Her tears fell from the skies as she traveled over the lands and seas to the moon. Many of those tears fell on the ones who would become the ancestors of Omegas like you.
“Lesser gods than my bro… than me,” he stumbled, clearly not wanting to bring up his brother for obvious reasons, “took human lovers. They did not bear children of their own, but they may have shared some power with their chosen ones. Those in turn bore children that did carry remnants of divinity. You have traces of that kind of power, as well as the gifts of your Goddess.”
“From my father, I suppose.”
“Your father?” Lachlan asked. We’d spoken of my mother in our months together, and he’d asked if I knew my father. “You learned of him?”
“Mirrim, the oldest Omega in the longhouse here, knew him. He was called Perun—” Skadi made a choking noise, and I straightened. “What’s wrong?” I laid a hand on the pendant. It had been cold, but was growing hotter now. I wondered if it was hurting him, but when I reached to take it off, Lusca’s eyes snapped open.
“No. It’s drawing out the poison, and collecting it.”
By the time I glanced back at Skadi, he’d stopped choking and was scowling at my bare arm even harder. “Perun is a common name among humans, I suppose.”
