Page 12 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

But she didn’t communicate through speech, so her instructions had been murky. I’d understood enough through the visions she’d been shooting into my head, however, to know that there were some pressing issues that she needed help with. The one I hadn’t told Pritkin about had involved Zeus, AKA Jupiter, AKA Odin—the father of the gods and the biggest asshole I had ever met—getting up to some very bad stuff in old Romania.

I’d tackled that one, as it required a time traveler. It had been the most brutal battle of my life, something that I guessed I should have expected, and I’d spent more than half of it dead. Having a dad who was a necromancer comes in handy when you have to animate your own corpse.

Mircea, meanwhile, had been sent on the second task, namely to find his long-lost wife, who had been fighting the gods in another world. Only we hadn’t known about that last part until I caught up with him again, and we showed up just in time for the big battle. And turned the tide; well, mostly Mircea and his daughter had, by him borrowing some of Pritkin’s abilities through our bond and meeting a goddess as a peer.

And annihilating her.

Pritkin had been stuck with the third task, which we assumed was about getting one of the strongest fey armies on our side before they joined the other guys. But considering how the last few errands had gone, I didn’t know for sure what we were facing here. And the fact that I hadn’t gotten any more visions lately probably meant that Faerie didn’t, either.

She theoretically saw whatever her creatures did, and that included the fey. But the gods could cloud her sight or play tricks on it, leaving her knowing where the hot spots were but not necessarily what they were. Or else she did know and didn’t want to tell me, thinking we’d run for the hills if we knew the truth, and we just might!

“I only fought Zeus,” I pointed out, trying to drag my thoughts somewhere else. “Athena was more of an assist. . .”

And, okay, not helping. Pritkin had been sitting on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands, but at that, he looked up. And there was savagery there that I had rarely seen, at least directed at me.

It radiated out of hard green eyes, flushed stubbled cheeks, and exposed teeth as flat and normal as mine but which suddenly reminded me of fangs. That look alone would have given most people palpitations, like being stuck in a cage with an angry tiger. It didn’t me.

This man had suffered, risked, and almost died a hundred times to save me. He had battled through trauma that he’d repressed for centuries, had bared a soul that few had ever seen, and which had probably been more challenging for him—so private, so guarded, so careful—than any physical fight would have been. So, no, I wasn’t frightened.

But I didn’t like seeing him in pain and with an added layer of confusion in his eyes because he wasn’t sure that he could protect me anymore, not against the kinds of things that we were facing these days.

That made me sad, which in turn made me angry because we’d had enough of that, of stupid angst that didn’t get us anywhere, of pain that neither of us deserved, of greedy assholes who thought they could come barging into our world and upend everyone’s lives, or end them. Yes, we’d had enough, and I was tired. Like I was tired of this conversation because he didn’t get it despite being way smarter than me.

But not about this.

I walked over and knelt between his legs, my head on his chest, my heartbeat and his mingling in my ears. His was rapid, hard, and angry as if he was gearing up for a fight, but I didn’t give him one. I didn’t do anything except hold him, and slowly, the furious beating under my ear started to ease, to slow, to melt back into a normal rhythm until I could barely hear it anymore.

And the tiger began to purr.

Or at least to sigh and run a hand up and down my back. One that was lethal to his enemies, as evidenced by the gun calluses I could feel through the thin layers of chiffon. And the potion stains that I couldn’t see but knew were there because they never went away.

Over time, I’d learned to use them as a kind of mood ring. Brown or yellow meant that he was mellow and happy because he’d been experimenting with weird stuff from three different realms that the Silver Circle, the leading magical authority on Earth, didn’t need to know about. Purple, blue, or green meant that he was worried and busy crafting protection spells and wards, or nasty little traps to litter around the outside of my court to terrorize anyone trying to break in. And then there was red. . .

Red, mauve, and the pinkish, washed-out salmon color that resulted from him scrubbing his skin so that I wouldn’t know what he’d been up to, indicated that he had been working on lethal potion bombs, vials of poisonous gases, and bullets that did a lot more than go boom. We’d argued over red because the Silver Circle had plenty of weapons he could access, as protecting the Pythia was one of their many jobs, and Pritkin had been a war mage in their employ before quitting to guard me. I wanted him to use their stuff, not to experiment with crazy shit that could make flesh drip like water and eat through bone—and two layers of wards!

But he didn’t trust anything he hadn’t made himself and insisted that the Circle was always behind the times. Our enemies constantly developed new weapons, so we had to follow suit. And as someone no longer employed by the Corps, he didn’t get the experimental, cutting-edge stuff anymore.

So, I knew, I knew, without turning my head, that his hands were speckled with red. Because he’d used up the weapons he’d had when he came here and had had to craft more on the run. It told me something of the battle to get this far, how savage it must have been, and the toll it must have taken on him.

It also told me that he hadn’t expected to see me, hadn’t thought I’d come after him, had believed that he would be all alone.

And he probably wanted to be because he’d come here expecting to lose, knowing the competition. And that he would be fighting in an arena of their choosing, in their world, because they were too cowardly to come into ours. Meet me on my turf, I thought viciously, and this will be a very different contest.

And a damned short one!

I felt my breathing quicken and my heartbeat speed up, but the rhythmic stroking never faltered, although I knew he’d noticed. Pritkin noticed everything about me. I sometimes thought he knew me better than I knew myself.

The long, slow strokes continued as if he understood how much I needed them, and he was right. I’d had a grip on my emotions for so long that it had become a stranglehold. I hadn’t been able to let them out or relax enough to grieve everything that had happened recently; I couldn’t when I had to be strong for my court, my job, myself.

So, I’d sucked it up and did so again, only it was easier this time with the power that seemed to be leeching into me from that soothing touch. I didn’t know if it was a spell, but I didn’t think so. We didn’t need a spell.

Just this, just him, just those arms holding me and those hands on my bare skin through the rips that battle had left in my protection. I wasn’t sure which battle anymore, but it didn’t matter. None of it did.

Just that we’d survived them all and were back together, something I hadn’t been sure would ever happen. And I guessed Pritkin hadn’t, either. Because his hands suddenly tightened, as if he was afraid that I would disappear if he let go, like a mirage in the desert.

“You fought so hard,” I finally whispered. “When I had the Pythian power dropped onto me like a boulder out of nowhere, you fought for me, to help me, to train me, to defend me when I couldn’t defend myself. So that I could someday become a Pythia who didn’t need it anymore. And I did.”

I looked up at him. “Or as close as anyone can be in war. I can hold my own.”

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