Page 56 of The Sea-Ogre's Eager Bride

My face grows hot. Perhaps that sounded demanding. “I was worried about you.”

“Your job is to lie here and rest up,” she says in a light, cheery voice. She sits next to me and holds out the bowl of food. “Don’t worry about me. I can handle myself.”

“I still worry about you.” I deliberately brush my fingers over hers as I take the bowl. “How are you feeling? Do your lungs ache? I worry you took in too much water.”

“I’m fine. You eat.” She flicks a hand at the bowl.

I hold it back out to her. “Share?”

“I’ve already eaten. Balo’s husband caught a large fish and there was enough for several people.” She clasps her hands in her lap, watching me.

“You found Balo then? What did you think of him?” The dish is one of my mother’s favorites—fermented fish wrapped in dried seaweed. It reminds me of being a young minnow and eating everything put before me so I could grow up strong and tall like my father. It is a very typical dish for my people, and a delicious one. It is also one I suspect Vali would not like, as Balo hated it when he first arrived. It is my mother’s quiet way of enticing me to rejoin the flotilla.

A nice thought, but I like my life on Akara’s back…and I think Vali would prefer it to being with the flotilla. What she wants matters to me.

“Balo is very nice. I like him. It’s impossible not to.” She smiles. “He took me under his wing and was showing me around. He’s going to give me swimming lessons, too.”

Hearing that makes me bristle. I think of Vali, with her wet clothing clinging to her breasts, rubbing up against me when I’d tried to give her lessons. Balo is not interested in women, but it does not mean I am not jealous that he’s going to spend so much time with my wife. “It should be me teaching you.”

She eyes me warily. “It should, but I am pleasing myself.”

Her words wound me. They are my words, and I hate them as much as she does. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“You say that a lot, Ranan, yet you still keep hurting me. At some point I need to learn not to put my hand into the fire, right?” Her smile is bright but unnatural. “I can’t trust that the things that slip out are the truth or not. You say they are not, but it keeps happening. How can I believe you?”

“You judge me on my actions instead.” I hold a hand out to her.

She doesn’t take it. Her own hands remain on her thighs, curled into fists. “I need to think, Ranan.”

Her shoulders tense as she says it, as if she expects me to strike her, and I have to remind myself that she was a slave before she was my wife. She has to learn that she is safe even if she disagrees with me. “Take all the time you need, my Vali. I understand.”

She eases a bit at that, glancing around the tent. “Where is the healer? Do you need him?”

I grunt. “He’s probably preparing another foul potion to shove down my throat.”

Her lips twitch. “But are the foul potions working?”

“Aye, they are.” I sound woeful, even to my own ears. “Which means I’ll have to drink more of them.”

She chuckles and gestures at the dish forgotten in my hands. “Eat. You need your strength. You’ve been weak ever since you were injured.”

I take another large bite.

“A sea dragon, hm?” Vali asks. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Sea dragons sound fearsome but they are not dangerous unless you wander into their territory. I didn’t want you afraid because there was no chance you would stumble across it. You cannot swim deep enough.”

“But you can.”

“Aye.” I sigh. “My grotto will have to be moved. One does not fight a sea dragon for its territory.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It happens. I am glad I made it out alive and whole. Moving some trinkets is nothing. I might just leave them behind.”

She sputters. “No you’re not! There’s so much money there! You can’t abandon it.”

“If you want me to keep it, I will.”

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