Page 19 of Blood on the Tide

Earlier, she said that the selkies have no use for ships and boats because they do their own hunting in their other forms. Which means that there is no easy escape from the island unless they want to swim. If I were hunting selkies, I would merely wait on the surface until they ran out of air and then pick them off like fish in a barrel. They are still mammals, after all. They have to breathe air.

“The go bag?”

“Viedna isn’t very large, so people think that what they can see is all there is to see. There are caves that stretch for miles and miles. There is fresh water, but not much in the way of food if you’re not a fan of mushrooms. Some of the caverns have actual supplies, but near the other entrances, we keep bags. Just in case.”

Interesting. I’ll admit that I fell into the same trap of assuming that the small island is exactly as it appears to be. “Do the stashes belong to the rebellion?”

“Some of the smaller ones, but that’s only because the village elders gave them permission to hide people passing through.”

I still have a lot of questions about the rebellion. I know what Nox says. I know what Evelyn and Bowen say. But in their own way, they each occupy a privileged and unique position within the ecosystem of Threshold. They are part of the Cwn Annwn. The boogeyman that terrifies communities and monsters alike when they sail into port.

That’s not the role Maeve has played. “How were you recruited?”

Once again, she seems like she doesn’t want to answer me. Once again, she does anyways. But she surprises me. “I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine. One for one.”

I consider her offer. I don’t particularly want to share details about myself with this woman. We’re already in a situation of forced intimacy, and it’s only going to get more complicated as time goes on. I don’t often bite the same person repeatedly, especially if they’re not already intimately acquainted with how bloodline vampires work. It’s far too easy for them to get the wrong idea. Their blood might taste good, but I’m not feeling the same level of pleasure that they are from the bite.

Unless we’re in the middle of having sex when I bite them.

Allowing Maeve closer is a risk. For her. Maybe I shouldn’t care about it... Actually, I don’t care about it. She can make her own decisions. If she wants to know more about me, then that’s her problem. My logic feels a little flimsy, but I ignore it and press on. “If you insist.”

“You’ve already asked me about my bag. I want to know about how you came into Threshold.”

I blink. I expected her to ask about the jewels, or perhaps about Evelyn. That seems to be what everyone is focused on since they’ve met me. No one asked what it took to get here. “I came the same way that everyone else seems to. I walked through a portal.”

Maeve gives me a stern look. It’s cute. “You’re not honoring the spirit of the agreement, Lizzie. Tell me the story.”

I could push back, but I’m curious about her. If I don’t play along with this little game of tit for tat, then I won’t get answers to my questions. That’s the only reason I give her the full story. “Evelyn demolished the portal in my home that she entered Threshold through, so that way was closed to me. I’m still not sure how she made it to Threshold, since that portal wasn’t supposed to work like that. It took me two weeks to figure out that she hadn’t exited somewhere else but was caught in the in-between. There was another month of hunting down the truth of what that means.” During that month, I was convinced Evelyn was dead, torn apart in the space of nothingness. I should have left off the hunt, but I needed closure. I used the excuse of attempting to reclaim the family heirlooms, but I breathed a deep sigh of relief when I finally got the truth.

She wasn’t dead. She was in Threshold.

A space between realms. One that is entirely survivable if you are clever and resourceful, both things that Evelyn is in spades. “From there, it was only a matter of finding the actual portal to Threshold. It seemed too risky to attempt what Evelyn did—using a portal meant to travel within our realm and frying it—so I took a more traditional route. It moves, so I had to figure out the exact time and location when it would appear so that I could step through.” For Evelyn, only a week or two had passed since she fled my house. For me, it took nearly a year to reach Threshold. Each day, my anger at her grew until it was a fiery thing inside me overwhelming all else. And even in a fit of rage, I couldn’t kill her.

My mother would be so disappointed.

“You must have been very driven to find your ex-girlfriend.”

I don’t dignify that with a response. Instead, I turn back to my original question. “You have your answer. How did the rebellion recruit you?”

Maeve leans back against the side of the boat. Unlike when she was sharing information about the cave system on her island, she seems significantly more relaxed with this topic. “They didn’t. It kind of happened by accident. I knew Nox because they were one of the few Cwn Annwn I could stomach when they stopped by on their way north. Or south. All sailors invariably end up in my family’s tavern, drinking themselves under the table. Once I reached adulthood, my mother would often send me away during the nights when those sailors were Cwn Annwn.”

Easy enough to read between the lines. If there’s one thing so many of the crews of the Cwn Annwn do, it’s abuse their power. Maeve is stunning and draws the eye wherever she is. It would only be a matter of time before one of those bastards decided to take what she wasn’t offering. “And then?”

“On one of those nights, I saw Nox slipping out of the village. I followed. They met up with a shadowy figure not far from where we found this boat. I was close enough to hear their conversation, and when they inevitably caught me, they decided to recruit me instead of killing me.”

A risk, but as ruthless as Nox is, they have a soft spot for broken toys. And innocence. Maeve may think that she’s broken right now, but she firmly lands in the latter category. “So you put yourself in danger, interacting with the Cwn Annwn, because of Nox?”

She gives me a wan smile. “That’s two questions.”

Frustration threatens to take hold, but we’re having a conversation without sniping at each other, and she’s readily answering my questions. I suppose it’s not too much to ask that I continue this little game. “Fine. Ask.”

“Tell me about your family.”

“That’s not a question at all.”

She raises her brows. “Are you dodging giving an answer?” Intrigue colors her tone. “Fine, I’ll play by the rules properly. What is your family like?” She exaggerates the lift at the end of the last word. Little brat.

I almost give the pat, neat answer that I provide whenever I’m forced into this kind of conversation. There are only seven bloodline families in my realm, and though vampires engage in varying levels of secrecy, everyone in the paranormal community knows of our existence. At least in theory. So when they come across us, there are inevitably questions. Not even fear is enough to completely drown out curiosity. It’s inconvenient.

---