Page 59 of Of Song and Darkness

I eased the door open, and my heart immediately shot to my throat when I saw that Kai was no longer in the bed. Every awful thought imaginable bombarded my mind. I shoved the door open with such vigor that it slammed against the wall.

“Still angry, I take it?” Kai’s deep, playful voice soothed the raging tempest that was about to surge in me.

Sweat drenched my palms after the momentary scare he’d given me. I carefully sat the tray on his desk before it slipped from my sweaty palms and the contents splattered across the floor.

I inhaled deeply, collecting my emotions as I walked over to him. He was leaning heavily on a nearby washstand with a cream-colored pitcher and basin. My eyes followed his movements as he dipped a cloth in the water and tried to wash his chest. His features twisted with pain as he reached up.

I stepped in front of him, taking the cloth from his hand. “I’m pretty sure you weren’t supposed to leave the bed.”

“Just because I am destined for Davy Jones’s locker doesn’t mean I have to smell like death until then,” Kai groaned.

Something flashed across his face as I brushed the sudsy cloth over his chest. I tried to ignore the muscles that rippled with tension every time I touched them and the fabric that clung perfectly to his trim hips, enhancing the exquisite V of his abs as they disappeared below his black, flowy pants.

As difficult as it was, I forced my eyes up to meet his. “Please stop saying you’re going to die.” I was angry with myself that my voice cracked. “I’m going to need you to be optimistic, even if it’s just a front.” Tears slipped from my eyes.

Kai reached up like he was going to wipe them away. “Rhea…”

I stepped back. “No. I’m asking you to do this for me because every time you mention your death, a piece of my heart shatters.”

Kai was in front of me, hands gripping each side of my face before I knew what was happening, forcing me to look up at him. “I can’t promise you what will happen to me, Rhea. This is uncharted water for me. I’ve never been sick, and I heal in the blink of an eye whenever I get hurt.” Kai stared deep into my eyes. “But I promise to fight until my last breath to stay with you. I can’t imagine existing anywhere without you.”

I latched onto Kai’s waist, burying my face in his chest. “That’s all I ask of you.”

“Am I interrupting something?” I turned to see Cael hovering in the doorway.

“You normally do,” Kai growled.

I laughed as I pulled away from Kai. Kai eased back onto the bed, and swiftly, I seized the tray laden with food from the desk and placed it in his lap. To my dismay, he ignored the fare and went straight for the vile liquid in the cup. After downing the cup’s contents, he sat it down and pushed the tray away.

I sat on the bed next to him and dipped a spoon in the rich broth with vegetables and meat. I held the spoon before his face, refusing to budge until he took a bite. Kai’s glare cut to me, but I just quirked a brow at him. His stubbornness finally relented, and he swallowed the broth down.

“I can see you’re being well taken care of.” Cael chuckled. When Kai’s amusement did not match Cael’s, he stepped closer to the end of the bed. “What’s our heading, Cap’n?”

“Aquarius,” Kai confirmed. “We have to return this sea demon to her kingdom.”

My hand stalled midair, and the broth in the spoon sloshed onto the bed. “You’re taking me home?” My voice rang with a note of warning, and apparently, Cael heard it because he made a face and rushed out the door without another word.

Kai flipped the soup-stained covers off. “I have to deal with the sea witch, and I have no intention of doing so until you are back in the protective custody of your father.”

“You’re in no shape to go up against the sea witch!” The pitch of my voice increased with the rise in my emotions.

Kai leaned back against his pillow, placing his hands lazily behind his head. “I don’t have much of a choice. We made a deal, and I broke my part.” His gaze brushed down my body as if indicating that I was part of the bargain he had broken. “I’m not going to have you anywhere near her,” Kai said in a voice that dared me to argue with him.

We shall see about that.

“You don’t know where Aquarius is,” I continued to argue.

Kai scoffed, leaning back against the headboard. “You’d be surprised by the things I know, little sea demon.”

Ijolted awake as an all too vivid nightmare wreaked havoc on my peaceful sleep. I turned in the bed, desperately needing to see Kai after the night terror took him away from me.

He was sitting upright in the bed, one leg extended and the other bent at the knee, watching me. “That must have been some nightmare.”

I stood up from the bed. “Dreaming about home,” I lied. The last thing I was going to do was tell Kai about my bad dream where the sea witch was ripping him in two.

The vibrant glow in his eyes and skin had almost completely faded, and huge dark circles stained the skin beneath his eyes. I directed my gaze to his chest. Over the past few days, Kai had lounged shirtless, so it struck me as suspicious that he had put on a fresh shirt this morning before I woke up. I leaned over the bed frame, trying to catch a peek of his chest to see if the Dark Water had spread any further.

Kai smiled, a mischievous glisten in his dull blue eyes. “Looking for something?”

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