Page 8 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

He’d been ambushed three times during the Challenge today, and the only thing that had saved him was oozing over by the walls.

Or I should say things, as they were both there, our demonic guardians, looking as abashed as something like that could. I shot the one with a slightly pink tint an evil eye, as it had been my ride before abandoning me to save its smelly hide, and watched it sink even more into itself. Any further, and I was going to see what it looked like on the inside—

Oh, wait.

It made an unhappy sound and tried to hide behind its . . . brother? Friend? Partner in crime?

I still wasn’t sure, but I was giving it a pass since it had helped Pritkin when a couple hundred fey ambushed him during the Challenge. Its amorphous skin didn’t mind arrows getting shot into it, as it just glorped them back out again, allowing it to pick up Pritkin and run off with him heedless of how many times they were hit. And they’d been hit a lot.

“Did you hear me?” I verbally poked Pritkin a little because he was ignoring me.

“Yes, and let it rest for a moment,” he said, with an arm flung over his eyes. Only his tone made it into “Let me rest.”

I walked back over to the huge bed and sat down. It was atop a three-step dais like the one I had back at my court in Vegas. Giving me a sudden pang of longing for my tacky penthouse, my pretty blue and sand-colored bedroom, and people who didn’t look at me with suspicion and hate. But the job was here, and the job wouldn’t wait.

I compromised with duty and lay down beside the exhausted man. The stench had mostly been washed off us by the plunge and what was left . . . well, I was getting used to it. Pritkin huffed out a laugh as if he knew what I’d been thinking and turned to face me.

His hand lifted to play with a limp curl by my cheek, making it hard to concentrate as a warm knuckle kept just brushing the skin. It was unpredictable—brush, brush . . . brush—and the anticipation in between moments of contact had me holding my breath. And then letting it out again in a soft “ahh” whenever that tiny touch came once more.

It was one of the things about dating a prince of the incubi that nobody else would understand. Pritkin usually put on this fierce, war mage persona—gruff, hard-edged, and fairly profane. Okay, make that really profane, especially when something set off that famous temper. And that was one side of him.

But then there was this.

Brush . . .

Brush . . .

Wait for it . . .

Annnnnd freaking nothing, except for green eyes sparkling at me through pale lashes, because yeah. He knew exactly what he was doing. And it was working.

My body was tingling, my insides were liquifying, and goosebumps were flooding over my skin, and yet—

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Auggghhhh!

More nothing, except for the feel of his breath on my face because he was close, close, so very close, and yet nowhere were our bodies actually touching. But close enough for me to feel his heat radiating on my skin and banishing the room’s chill. Banishing Faerie, for a moment, because this was home, this was what I longed for, this was why I dreamed of Vegas.

Because he was usually in it.

Brush.

I jumped him, heard him laugh, felt him roll me in the soft silks of an alien world, and looked up into a face full of evil intent if I’d ever seen one. Yeah, I thought enthusiastically. Be mean to me, Daddy—

Just as somebody started pounding on the door.

Pritkin’s head dropped to my chest in defeat. “I hate this place,” he whispered, and I laughed.

Then they were coming in, a bunch of people I didn’t know, to invite us somewhere I didn’t want to go. And didn’t have the clothes for, as my once pretty tissue of silver dress, which had reemerged from the armor once the danger was past, was looking a bit ratty. And smelling worse.

I took a discreet sniff while Pritkin dealt with the flunky brigade, all of whom were staring: at him, at me, at the two horrors squelching by the wall, and speaking of which—

“We need some food,” I said abruptly, with the tinny translation spell echoing my words in whatever tongue this particular brand of fey spoke.

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