Page 34 of Battle Fluke

“You need to rest. You deserve the right to heal properly. You shouldn’t have even been out here chasing after me.” Kyree’s face fell, and she trailed her fingers over Honour’s chest to check for any more injuries she might have missed.

“What she deserves is the spoils of a battle won.” Hudson pushed away from Kyree, leaving a coldness in her wake.

Kyree ignored Hudson’s words as best she could, but her face heated and her eyes locked on Honour’s. That dark look of arousal Kyree had seen a mere peek of returned, and she wondered if either of them saw her hands shaking as she tended to Honour’s wounds, touching more skin and muscle than she technically needed to.

“Make sure you let me watch when you finally get the tending to you need!” Hudson’s voice was full of joyous laughter.

“Fuck you, Hudson.” Honour growled.

“Oh, I like that idea.” Hudson cackled, and Kyree used all of her strength to focus on healing Honour instead of letting her mind wander to how much she wanted to tend to both of these warriors who had saved her life.

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“This might hurt, but I need to check for broken bones.”

Hudson wrinkled her nose, watching from a distance as Kyree touched Honour. If she stayed too close to them, there was no telling what might happen. It seemed she got her battle anyway—the one thing she’d avoided accidentally when Kyree had wandered across the Talon border.

Her entire body was on fire. Not just from the workout that a good battle was, but from the energy that coursed through her with the very threat of death. It had been the one thing that held her attention for so long, and it’d been near impossible to give it up. If she were being honest with herself, which she always was, it was the one thing that kept her alive.

Honour hissed, turning Hudson’s attention back to the two mermaids a few flaps of her fluke away, and she desperately wanted to be right up against them. She wanted to know what it would feel like to have them use her body in the same way a war did.

Fiercely.

Passionately.

Expending all her energy and power.

If only that could happen now, in the safety of this little hideaway they’d found, after the ravages of war. Well, since Kyree likely wouldn’t touch her—she was still far too dangerous in Kyree’s eyes—perhaps she could tease the two of them into something a little more. Something that was so very obviously between them.

“I’m fine, Kyree. I just need to stretch out so my muscles stay limber.”

Hudson bit back a moan at that comment. She’d love to watch Honour stretch. Seeing her in battle, fighting right alongside her, had been amazing. They hadn’t really needed to speak in order to fight. They’d simply moved together like they’d been made for each other.

Halting at that thought, Hudson backtracked. She wasn’t made for anyone. She was made simply to destroy. That had been what she’d been told for years, it had been what she was called. “Hudson the Destroyer.” She was the Talons’secretweapon against the krakens, and when she’d finally broken free, she hadn’t ever wanted to go back to that enslavement.

Deep breaths, and she could calm her racing heart. Hudson pressed her lips together and watched as Kyree carefully tended to Honour’s wounds. What would it feel like for Kyree to do the same to her? To check her over? To stroke her cuts and bruises in the same way that she did for Honour?

Hudson moaned at the thought.

Kyree and Honour slid her looks, but she didn’t bat an eyelash at them. She wasn’t embarrassed by what she felt or wanted to feel. She wasn’t embarrassed by her body and what it did, what it craved. And she craved their touch. Both of them. To have Kyree’s lips pressed against hers, soft, slightly hesitant, and yet sure at the same time. Hudson knew exactly how it would be. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine it now.

“Don’t you want the spoils of war?” Hudson said, her tone teasing as she lay on her side and stared at them.

Kyree flicked her gaze over to Hudson and then right back on Honour. Honour, however, lingered. Just what was going on in that big brain of hers? Hudson might tease Honour for being all brawn, but there was a smart woman behind that look, full of brains more than brawn. She just happened to live in a tribe that allowed women in leadership and women to flourish—unlike Talon.

What would Talon even look like if they did give women some of those privileges? What would Hudson look like in that Talon? Or in a place like Reine?

“I don’t take spoils of war like you do,” Honour said, her tone sharp and cunning.

Exactly like Hudson had expected. A giggle erupted in her chest, and she didn’t even try to hide it. She never hid her true emotions from anyone, not anymore. She was a free agent of her own body, and she would be damned if she would ever be put back into a cage.

“Pity,” Hudson answered. “Those spoils can taste… so good.” She made sure to look directly at Kyree when she said that, skimming her gaze along Kyree’s dark curves, the slight way her body moved as if one with the water.

“Are you injured?” Kyree asked.

Hudson had to blink twice to follow the train of thought, but she didn’t manage to keep up with the direction Kyree had taken and the one track she had been on from the moment she pressed her body back into the sand. Instead of answering, Hudson moved her hands down her body, showing it off in an open invitation.

Honour gripped Kyree’s wrist tightly, her fingers wrapping around Kyree in a protective manner. But after that battle, whywould Honour think that Kyree needed protecting from her? Hadn’t Hudson proven they were on the same side by now?

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