Page 111 of Enchanted Shadows
“He’s going to try to talk to me again now that the king isn’t there to get involved,” she whispered.
I kissed the back of her head. “He can try.” I’d already had the same thought. His best move now would be to try to get back into her good graces. To convince her it was all Damek and never his own doing. And I’d admit he was a good salesman, but every time I thought about him telling Kessara “her smart mouth got even smarter,” the condescension I heard in his tone, I wanted to kill something. Namely him.
She turned and scanned my eyes as she whispered, “If he ever finds out that we only got married?—”
I cut her off with a gentle kiss to her lips and moved to her ear to whisper back, “He won’t.”
She took a steadying breath and tucked herself into my body for a hug. Was it the topic? Had she seen Calix watching us? I had no idea.
The only thing I was sure of at all anymore was that I was miserably failing at the whole fake marriage bit. Because somewhere along the way, I yearned for it to be real. For her to want to find comfort in my touch for no other reason than it was me.
We stood like that for countless minutes. I felt her shiver and sent a trail of my power to warm her skin.
She sighed in relief.
“You can warm your own skin, Kess,” I scolded.
“I’m not as strong with my palm magic. I know how to hold people down because my mother watched Theon do it, so she knew how to explain it to me. The rest I learned by trial and error.”
“Well, if they hadn’t treated you with condescension for having it, you would’ve felt more comfortable using it.”
She sighed. “Let me guess, you’re standing there planning all the ways I need to train in our next training session to help with this?”
I laughed. “If I was a good teacher, I sure as hell would be.”
“Great,” she said, voice thick with sarcasm.
“Commander,” Miles interrupted as he walked near me.
“Yeah.”
“We’ve got a small issue, possibly a bigger issue, not exactly sure yet,” he rambled.
“What?”
He pointed in the direction we had come from where another boat was sailing. “We have company.”
CHAPTER 35
We couldn’t even make it more than a few hours sailing before something strange occurred. I tore my eyes off Kessara and looked to the ship, seeing men pointing, looking through spyglass devices to get a better view. Calix was talking with the captain, barking some sort of orders.
Ships were known to get lost at sea, but the realm had been rid of pirates decades ago. Having two ships so close together away from the docks was unusual.
My magic was burning hot beneath my skin as I rallied for whatever might be needed, hot enough that Kessara drew her hand back as she watched it work beneath my skin. But as the ship came closer into view, I sighed with relief.
I waved to Miles, who came back over. “Yeah?”
“It’s ours.” Since travel to Dra Skor and back had become more common, Krew had invested in safer ships. This was one of the two new ones. I’d seen it at the docks, but I knew Esta and Keir were departing for Dra Skor today too, so I assumed it was for them.
“It’s Wylan’s,” I yelled up to Amoswho nodded his head.
But before I could really explain any more, my magic flared as a spout of water reached up out of the water, wrapped around my body like a rope, and tugged.
I was airborne, heading to the other ship. Water drenched my waist and spit at my face enough that I wished I had some sort of protection for my eyes. I could’ve tried to reach out and cut the water rope handling me with my own power, but I also recognized who was doing this.
I landed on the deck of the other ship gently, placed right onto my feet like I had closed my eyes and just shown up on the other ship.
I looked to Fern first. “Please don’t do that again.”
