Page 18 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

I glared at him, but he meant it. His eyes never wavered. “You know, you’re being a complete and utter—”

“Your. Word.”

He let me go and stuck out a hand like we were in a boardroom instead of naked and wet and bubbling. But something about the man made me take him seriously anyway, and he looked like he was taking me the same way. There was a time when I would have given a lot for that, for him to trust me, even respect me.

Now wasn’t one of those times.

But I took his hand because I wasn’t leaving. And because Gertie had taught me something else that I hadn’t mentioned. “A Pythia’s word is a complex thing,” she’d mused one night over tea. “Others don’t know what we know or experience what we experience. When they ask for my word, I want to ask them, in what world? At what time? Under what circumstances?

“Those that you would understand, in this one, flat plane of existence that you inhabit, or in the realms that I do? For me, a yes may mean no, and a no yes, for time distorts everything and plays havoc with what we think we know. And frequently leaves all our good intentions in the dust.

“But I don’t tell them that, for they wouldn’t understand. But you. . . Forget about words, Cassie, demanded from you or otherwise. Follow your heart; you have a good one. And do what it tells you.

“It’s the closest thing to truth you’re going to get in this life.”

So, yeah, I took Pritkin’s hand. And shook it. And when he said, “Deal?”

My voice was steady, and my eyes were clear when I answered.

“Deal.”

Chapter Six

I went to dinner in my armor. Only it was different armor since it had morphed again, as it had a habit of doing. Because, as the designer who’d created it had put it, “I never know what the hell you’ll be up to!”

So, instead of a halter-necked chiffon gown, softly cascading, or a dragonscale battledress silver bright and gleaming, I was currently sporting a swanky silver bodysuit with a high neck, long sleeves, and a fit that left little to the imagination.

And I do mean little.

It hugged every curve in a way that would have made me uncomfortable if it hadn’t also been covered in tiny, liquid-looking scales. They shone like polished metal but were harder than diamonds, which was fair since that was roughly what they cost. Leaving me clad neck to toe in squeaky clean, silver badassery.

To accompany it, I slicked my still-wet hair down with something that smelled divine from the spa and that Pritkin had said was a popular hair gel. Trust the fey; the world could be imploding around them but damned if their hair wasn’t going to look good. But I wasn’t complaining because mine did, too, all sleek and shiny, just like my armor.

I looked like trouble, and since I was, in fact, a freaking lot of trouble for the fey, I felt good about it.

The days of hiding behind a harmless exterior were over. They knew who I was and what I could do. So, the idea was to lean into it and maybe make at least a few of them rethink their plans.

Of course, they might rethink them to make them worse, but I didn’t think going to dinner looking like I’d just crawled out from under a bridge would help, either. This court was clearly about making an impression. If I’d had any doubts about that, they would have been quelled by one glance at Pritkin’s ensemble.

I’d been dealing with my hair in the bathroom, so hadn’t seen the transformation. And it was so extreme that, at first, I didn’t know who I was looking at. For a second, I thought a fey had shown up to drag off the deer bones.

But then my brain registered the truth and almost shut down. He must have used the same gel as me because his hair was flat and shining and lying in place for once. He’d smoothed it back from his face and kept it there with a golden circlet around his brow, leaving the newly paired down features on full display.

And they were so handsome.

I don’t know why that fact always surprised me. Rosier was stunning when he wanted to be, and Pritkin was basically his clone. But he’d spent so much time denying his incubus heritage, of schlepping around in scuffed boots, a scarred old leather coat, a three-day beard, and hair that looked like it was taunting God, that I sometimes forgot.

But the beard was gone now, and the planes of his face were on full display, along with his fey heritage. I wondered if that was why he’d done it, to remind everyone of his royal Alorestri blood. Or, knowing Pritkin, to piss them off because they hated the fact that a part demon, part human, mongrel mutt was even here, staining their pristine halls with his presence, much less competing for the throne.

I grinned. “You’re rubbing their faces in it, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” The green eyes were innocent, which they never were. So, yeah. He was trolling.

Fine with me.

But the troll went a lot farther than a shave and a hairstyle.

“Nice threads,” I said, because he’d somehow managed to get his hands on an outfit that looked like it should be in a Hollywood superhero movie, only they’d have probably struck it for being too sexy.

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