Page 10 of Rebel in the Deep

No reason for that to sting. Just because she’s been a figure who looms large through my life doesn’t mean she feels the same way. She obviously doesn’t. “We had gotten word about an entire family who ended up in Threshold by mistake. Hedd had his orders to scoop them up, and we were only days out from their location.”

The memory lights up her eyes. “The Tu family.”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t think I could make it there before theAudacity.” She speaks slowly, her gaze distant. “You were afraid to risk me.”

“I was.” I still am. I drop my hands. “You told me that hope wins more battles than pure martial prowess. You told me that despair kills.”

Her full lips curve, just a little. “That was rather clever of me.”

“I certainly thought so. And you were right. You got there before the Cwn Annwn and were able to see them home.”

“I almost killed myself to make it happen,” she murmurs. “I don’t know if that’s the moral we should cleave to.”

If she were anyone else, I would use this opportunity to flirt, to distract with sex as much as with words. But she’s not anyone else. She’s Siobhan.

And she’s in love with Bastian.

I just hope he treats her with more care than he treated me.A hope that dims as I consider how he could have possibly been so foolish as to be caught after all this time. Everything else has changed in the last fourteen years; surely Bastian has changed as well. I shove the worry away. We’ll rescue his goofy ass and then I’ll get my answers.

For now, I have to inspire hope in the woman who’s inspired me from the very beginning. I clear my throat. “It’s time to bring the rebellion out of the shadows and change things once and for all.”

“Easy to say. Significantly more impossible to pull off.”

“One step at a time.” I don’t exactly know how we so effectively reversed roles from when we were young and fearless. I frown. “Are you manipulating me right now?”

Her smile, small as it is, disappears. “It’s a fair question, and I’m not above doing so, but not this time. It’s just…” She starts to turn away. I don’t think, I just catch her biceps and keep her in place. Siobhan raises her brows. “It’s been a full decade, Nox. And we haven’t moved the needle even a little.”

“We’ve saved countless people.”

“Yes, and the Council has harmed countless more.” This time, when she pulls away, I let her go. She walks to the massive window overlooking the wake of theAudacity. “Remove the current Council and the noble families will just elect new representatives. It changes nothing. We have to make an example of them and purge the rot that exists in the Cwn Annwn.”

It’s nothing more than I’ve considered in the past…and no less impossible. “Even if that was the plan, how do you decide who to purge and who to pass over? The crews have spent years fighting monsters and terrorizing the population. One ship isn’t an easy mark, let alone the whole fleet.”

“I know.” Siobhan’s shoulders drop. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. The Cwn Annwn—the originals—hunted monsters, regardless of the skin they wore. The monstrosity was theintentto harm, not what they looked like on the outside. This whole thing is wrong.”

“I don’t know if it matters what the originals did. They’re gone. They’ve been gone for so long, we don’t even have written history about them.”

“I know.” She drops into the chair in rough proximity to my bed. “But we have stories.Ihave stories.”

Best not to think about the bed now. Certainly not in relation to Siobhan. I thought I had locked away my disastrous desire for her, but the longer she’s on my ship, the harder it is to deny the truth. The desire never disappeared. I was simply lying to myself about it. The lie only worked as long as I didn’t see her, and now it’s crumpling around me.

I cross my arms over my chest, my tone snappish with my internal thoughts. “And those may be lovely bedtime stories for children, but what the originals may have been doesn’t change what the Cwn Annwn have become. They’re more monsters than the creatures and people they hunt.”

“Yes,” Siobhan says slowly. “They are.”

I frown. “I know that look. You have a plan. Why do I think I’m not going to like it very much?”

Siobhan laughs, the sound low and melodious. “Nox, you just spent all this time talking me out of a pit of despair andnowyou want to object?”

“Well…yes.” But I find myself smiling a little all the same. “As for saving Bastian, it will be simple enough.” I don’t even stumble over his name this time. “Evelyn will create a shieldaround our ship—she’s rather impressive at it—and the rest of my crew will be ready with fire, water, and air to defend the ship as we get out of there. Bowen will be standing in position to help with the extraction or the getaway, depending on how things go. The vampire and I will take theBone Heart. We pulled off something similar saving Maeve a while back.”

“Yes, I’m aware of how that went.” Siobhan grimaces. “But theBone Heartis not theDrunken Dragon. Morrigan is dangerous.”

“I’m aware.” Each ship sailing under the Cwn Annwn runs like its own little territory, answering only to the Council. Some captains interact more regularly for coordinated hunts, but that’s never been something I’ve opted into—and not only because I prefer to work without oversight.

Hedd, the last captain of theAudacity, felt the same way for similar reasons, though he wasn’t worried about oversight preventing him from helping people. More that it would preventhimfrom doing whatever the fuck he wanted, usually in as bloody and violent a way as possible.

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