Page 26 of Pearls of Salt and Sacrifice

Not now when she felt so alive.

She shifted her arm to wrap it around his neck, imprisoning him in her hold. She was never letting go.

Chapter Eight

Rough hands jerked Reva from the icy water, yanking her out of Jareth’s warm, protective arms. Her teeth chattered as she slumped unceremoniously onto the seat in a dinghy. She huddled over her knees, trying to preserve the last trickles of warmth in her core as it leaked out of her.

Her head hurt.

The dinghy rocked precariously, and Jareth dropped onto the seat beside her. She didn’t try to look at him as he draped an arm across her back. She wasn’t sure she wanted to look at him, to face what had happened between them underwater.

“Give her some space, man,” Rency said from behind them in the dinghy.

“No!” Jareth’s sharp voice echoed across the waters. “She needs to touch me. Get your hands off me unless you want to take another swim.”

Reva tried to grind her teeth together to keep them from chattering but gave up. Jareth brushed her soaking hair from her face and pressed his palm over her forehead.

Warmth spread from her head, over her cheekbones, down over her lips and quivering jaw. The dinghy rocked as the sailors across from them rowed.

She twisted to look Jareth in the face. “T-that h-h-helps,” she said.

He smiled grimly and moved his hand to press against the back of her neck. Again, a delicious flood of warmth leaked from his palm into her chilled body. Even the throbbing pain in the back of her skull eased.

Jareth moved to grab her hands next, cupping them between his own as her shivering finally began to abate. She peeked at him from beneath her lashes. She could almost feel his mouth against hers again, a memory that clung to her skin in a physical way…

Did he often use his siren kiss on drowning maidens? Was it possible that kiss—or whatever it was—meant something to him? Or was he just saving her life?

She averted her gaze, not sure she wanted to know the answers to her own questions. A different kind of heat warmed her cheeks. She’d never kissed anyone like that before.

Of course, she’d never been drowning before either. If she had to die, it would have been nice to go out with a kiss.

“Now how’d you do that, mate?” Rency’s voice shattered the moment. He leaned down between them from where he had been standing in the prow of the boat, out of her line of sight.

Reva turned, ready to rip into him but hesitated when she saw the water glistening on his cheeks. Rency’s blond locks were plastered against his head, and he seemed to be shuddering nearly as badly as she had been.

Had he jumped into the ocean after her as well?

“Don’t suppose you’d share some of that heat magic, would you?” Rency asked, shivering. “I’m cold too.”

“No,” Jareth bit out without hesitation.

Reva smirked at Rency and allowed herself the pleasure of feeling—and looking—smug.

“Oh.” Disappointment colored the pirate captain’s tone, and he eased backward a few inches. But then he was between them again, so close Reva could have counted the water droplets running down his sun-browned skin. “Well, at least tell me how you did it then. You two were under water for nearly ten minutes. How’d you keep her alive?”

Reva’s mind screeched to a blinding halt.

Ten minutes?

Jareth said nothing as he ran his hands up and down her arms. Steam began to rise from the fabric of her sleeves. She could feel the water dissipating, replaced by warm, drying fabric.

“Come on. How’d you do it?”

Still Jareth said nothing. Reva, more curious than Rency—if that were possible—also tried to catch the sea elf’s eye, but he avoided looking at either of them.

Then Rency groaned. “Oh…oh, you didn’t. By the bones of my ancestors…you used the siren kiss on her, didn’t you?”

A muscle twitched in Jareth’s cheek. He looked at Reva but dropped his gaze nearly as quickly when he caught her watching him.

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