Page 104 of Wicked Tides
She stood with a groan, her old joints creaking. “Then perhaps a dip in our spring will help. I find the warmer water soothes the joints and the mind. It’s down the path just past the bend.”
A comforting bath was the last thing on my mind. Relaxing was a luxury I hardly deserved, but once the longhouse became too noisy with the heavy breathing of passed-out sailors, I decided to leave. I strolled toward the cabin I’d been given where I suspected Meridan was already trying to sleep, but once I reached it, I surpassed its door and continued down the trail. At first, it was just to think and be alone. It was a long walk, but I enjoyed it. Even in the cold, it was peaceful. If I happened upon a spring, I would take it as a sign that I needed the time alone.
I strolled for some time, wondering if there was an end to the road when the air started to smell warm with the scent of salt and stone. I realized I had indeed managed to walk all the way to the spring. I would not have gone in if I didn’t also sense something else.Someoneelse. Someone I barely saw at the gathering in the longhouse. I could smell the rum and oak of his clothes and hear the steady patter of his heartbeat. He was alone.
I headed around a tall wall of rocks, following a few torches that were lodged in the ground. Turning the corner, I saw a wonderful poolframed by slick rocks and green, thriving plant life. As soon as I stepped onto the warm stone surrounding the water, I was hit with another whiff of his intoxicating scent.
In the haze of steam coming off the pool, a figure stood hip-deep in the spring. I could see the muscular plain of his back and his broad shoulders and the scars that decorated his tanned skin. His golden dreadlocks were pulled back with a leather string as he leisurely scrubbed days’ worth of sweat and salty sea air from his body.
I stood at the corner of the wall and watched him through the thin vapor as he bathed. Cocking my head, I wondered when he would notice me only to hear him chuckle at my presence and turn.
“The way you’re looking at me doesn’t seem nearly as murderous as I’m used to,” he said, his deep voice filling the space.
I took a long breath of the air infused with Vidar’s distinct scent. I stepped forward and slid my leather boots off my feet, setting them aside. As Vidar continued to run his hands over his wet skin, he watched me and I began to undress until I was naked before him.
A set of natural stone steps led into the water. Slowly I descended them, letting the spring warm my cool blood. It wasn’t hot, but in that frigid place, it was a wonderful feeling. Sinking down to my neck, I pushed off and swam to the other side of the large pool, dunking my head beneath the water to saturate my hair. When I came up, Vidar was still casually watching me as I leaned up against the stone opposite him. A crack in the clouds above let Lune through to illuminate the clearing and the beam cast a pillar of light right in the middle of the water. Vidar stepped forward into the center of it and I was struck with an infuriating sense of lust.
“Does your change call to you in the water?” he asked, sinking down so he too was submerged in the spring.
“It calls to me on land,” I admitted.
“Do you want to change now? In my presence?”
“I would not subject you to the pleasure of watching me squirm,” I said. “It is not pleasant. We are two creatures in one skin. From one form to the other, it is like being cut down the middle only to be turnedinside out. For a split second, it feels as if all my guts and insides are outside, there for the taking.”
“And yet your kind take to land as if it is nothing.”
“Pain is something all creatures have in common. We are born screaming. We die screaming. Enduring through life only prepares us for the excruciating end.”
“Then why do you fear the xhoth?”
I paused, taking a breath to calm the nerves he’d agitated.
“The sons do not just hurt us. They transform us into things that are soulless. I am tortured by my pain and my hatred and fury. By you. But my mind has remained my own. Madness has not gripped me, or so I think, but if I surrender to the deep, I will be lost. I have fought too hard not to become…” I stopped for a beat, tasting the bitterness of my words before I said them. “My mother.”
“I thought you loved your mother.”
I took a deep breath, watching the light dance on the ripples of the cloudy pool.
“Have you ever heard a whale cry out beneath the water, captain?” I said, my memories moving like waves before my eyes. “When they see their young killed, there is a certain tone in their song. In the water, it is not just a sound. It is a feeling that crashes through you. You can feel it in your bones for miles. In your lungs.”
Silence stretched between us as I came back from the horrors.
“I have not,” Vidar muttered softly.
I lifted my eyes to him again. “I loved my mother, but to think she ever loved me like Ahnah loves her people. Like you love your crew. To think she would have ever cried out for me. That would be foolish. One who has been to the deep cannot love. We live to serve the father, Akareth. I insulted him by betraying my mother. Since that day, I have prayed to Lune. Blasphemer is only one name they call me because I will not serve a god that turns his daughters mad.”
Looking up, I saw Vidar staring at me with such focus that it was almost unnerving. I narrowed my eyes at him.
“What?”
Shrugging, he said, “I am only trying to figure out if you’re attempting to manipulate me in some way or… if you have a heart.”
The corner of my lips lifted and I slinked through the water, moving slowly toward him. I could have eaten him alive. He was alone. I was stronger. His cutlass was on his belt too far for him to reach. He knew it and like always, he did not shy from me. I slithered close to him, my teeth throbbing at the smell of him. At the sound of his pulse fluttering through the water like a beacon.
“You will never know, no matter what I say,” I whispered, bringing my face dangerously close to his. “I can lie as well as I can speak the truth. I know you can, too.”
He lingered there, his eyes locked onto mine as I inched closer to him, yearning for his dangerous heat. When his hand jutted out of the water and grasped the nape of my neck, I did not pull from his cruel touch. He tangled his fingers in my hair, pulling my head back.
