Page 17 of Rebel in the Deep

Morrigan quickly gets over her shock at seeing me alive and grins. I know that expression. It haunts me still. “I think not.” She launches herself at me. She’s even faster than when we were teenagers, her movements lacking the faint friction of a body still growing.

She hits me with the force of a tidal wave. I stagger back a step, using every ounce of my speed to stay ahead of her strikes. One wrong move will disembowel me, and then this will all be for nothing. Morrigan will kill every member of the crew. She’ll kill Bastian. She’ll kill Nox.

That knowledge has me pushing back, forcing her away from the people on deck with my larger size. She’s fast, but I think I could be faster. It’s been so long since I’ve fought for my life against someone who was just as strong, fast, and deadly as I am.

Morrigan opens up a gash on my thigh. “Still leaving your left side open, I see.” She’s panting, which is a small victory…or it would be if I wasn’t bleeding already.

I feint to the right and deliver a vicious punch to her side. “Still…too confident.”

“We’ll see who’s too confident.” Her claws flash, growing longer yet, and her eyes shine eerily in the light of the lanterns on deck. “Time to finish what I started with that fucking fire.”

Overhead, the sails fill and the deck jerks beneath our feet. I’m expecting it, so I roll with the movement. Morrigan isn’t. She stumbles. A tiny drop in her guard—one that won’t last long—but it’s enough. I punch her in the face and kick her in the chest, putting every ounce of my strength behind the strike. A burst of gale-force wind sends her hurtling back to flip over the railing and into the sea.

“Go, go, go!” Nox roars. “Gable, get Callen and boost us from the water.”

“Too fast and the ship will break apart!” someone yells.

“No, it won’t. Go!” And then Nox is at my side. “I don’t expect the ships to give chase right away, but I’m not taking anychances. I need you to help Orchid get Bastian to my cabin and clean him up as best you can. There’s food there, too. He looks like he needs it.”

There’s no time to question them, to ask if they really want us intheircabin. But of course it makes sense. We need to know what Bastian told Morrigan. “Okay.”

Nox is already turning away, hollering orders to other members of the crew. They’re glorious like this, fresh from battle and without a single ounce of hesitation.

I move on unsteady feet to where Bastian is on his knees, watching Nox with glazed eyes. To the best of my knowledge, they haven’t seen each other since that mess back when we were barely more than kids. It was after the fire that drove me from Lyari, and though Bastian has told me the broad strokes, it’s clear from both of their reactions that time hasn’t healed this particular wound.

As I move closer, he finally focuses on me. “Siobhan.”

“Bastian.” I scoop him into my arms, ignoring his attempted protest, and hurry to Nox’s cabin.

Orchid, the healer for theAudacity, meets me at the door. He’s as tall as I am and reed-thin, his cloak and veil obscuring his features—except for his silver eyes. “Let’s get him in and I’ll look him over.”

Closing the door muffles the worst of the racket from the crew rushing about to follow Nox’s commands. I bypass the desk and try very hard not to look too closely at the bed. My destination is the door that leads into a narrow but relatively roomy bathroom. I set Bastian on the toilet.

Orchid nudges me out of the way. “Injuries?”

“Siobhan,” he says.

“Let Orchid get you patched up and then we’ll get everyone the information they need to know.”

He searches my face, completely ignoring Orchid. “You don’t have to treat me like one of your rebels. Notme.”

In fact, that’s exactly what I have to do. I want to pretend that the only reason I fought so hard to get him back was because of what it would mean for him to stand trial in Lyari. That it had nothing to do with how my heart refused to beat when I thought about him in danger.

“Please answer Orchid’s questions,” I finally say. “You’re injured and we can’t doanythinguntil that’s resolved.”

“Fine.” He drops his gaze. “The bindings on my wrists may have caused permanent damage. I’m malnourished, but not starved. Some small scrapes and bruises, but nothing more serious than that.”

My heart leaps into my throat and lodges itself there. The Cwn Annwn had him for a couple of weeks, and that’s more than long enough to cause irreparable harm. All because I refused to consider changing our operation. I glance at Orchid. “How can I help?”

He nudges Bastian to rotate away from us so we can see the bindings on his wrists. The skin of his hands is tinged with blue. Orchid makes a worried sound. “I’ll need to get something to cut these off.”

“I’ve got it,” I say roughly. I shift two of my fingers. The bindings were done by an earth-user, fusing the metal around his wrists. I’ve undone bindings like this before, and gods know I’ll do it again. My claws can cut through damn near anything. The metal parts easily, freeing him.

“That’s a start.” Orchid nods at me. “I would appreciate if you’d stand over by the door so I have room.”

Orchid’s people reside in Drash, and as a culture, they’re incredibly closemouthed about their magic. They don’t overtly shun the Cwn Annwn’s rule, but they hardly welcome it, either. It’s passing odd that Orchid chose to sail on one of their ships, even if itisNox’s ship.

I don’t want to take my eyes off Bastian, but there’s no way Orchid would hurt someone under Nox’s protection. It still takes several seconds before I can make myself turn away and face the door. Orchid might not have explicitly asked me to do so, but I hear his sigh of relief all the same.

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