Page 26 of Ruthless Scoundrel
She picks up the fruit and inspects it for a moment before bringing it to her mouth. She’s so adorably uninformed that she’s going to take a bite of coconut husk.
“No, princess,” I say, holding her back before she can discover her error the hard way.
I pick up another fallen coconut and look around until I find a rock with a narrow edge. I cut into the husk with the rock, then peel it back. “Many things in nature have a shell to protect it. A good rule to follow would be not to eat the outside until you’ve seen its inside.”
I hold the coconut in one hand and hack at the hard, inner shell with the sharp rock until it cracks. Some of the juice spills down my hand as I rip it open. Reina watches hungrily as I take a sip of the flavorful liquid within. I move to offer her the other half but she’s already picking up a rock of her own.
She kneels down and rips off the husk, then wedges the coconut between her knees and hits it until it cracks. I drink my own coconut with pride as I watch the princess’s face light up. She looks at me with a grin that makes my heart beat faster, but then she scowls as if she’s remembering she’s supposed to hate me.
Most of the water spills from her coconut as she struggles to get it open, and I don’t dare offer to help her. What little she does get in her mouth makes her moan. She swallows deeply and I’m ashamed that I watch, that same hunger that’s not for food swelling inside me.
“You can use the rock to remove the flesh,” I say, cutting into my coconut. I scrape off a thin, white sheet of meat and stick it in my mouth. It’s a little spongy, but sweet and refreshing.
Reina mirrors me, taking a tentative bite of the coconut flesh. Two chews in, she digs back into the coconut. She rips off strip after strip, shoving them in her mouth until her cheeks are full to bursting.
She’s been so controlled, so sheltered, she hasn’t had the opportunity to discover that she’s capable of fending for herself. It’s my duty, then, as the one putting her through this ordeal, to leave her better off than when I took her.
“We’ll need more than coconut to fill our bellies,” I say.
“Bu’ is so gud,” she moans, then shoves another bite in her mouth.
“And eating too much of it will make you need to shit.”
She stops chewing. “Why ’idn’t you tell me ’ooner?”
I chuckle. “I’m telling you now before you eat too much.”
She finishes chewing and swallows everything in her cheeks. “I’m still quite hungry.”
“If we go back to the raft, I’ll show you how to fish.”
She puts her coconut halves together, then grabs another coconut and tucks it under her arm before she stands. “For later.”
“Coconut husk is good kindling, too,” I say, picking up my dried husks. “If we get the coconuts relatively fresh, we can braid the husks to create rope, and that’s called sennit.”
“What else can we do with it?” she asks as she follows me into the trees without questioning me or my sense of direction for the first time.
“When we’ve finished cleaning all the meat out of the hard inner shell, we can use it as a bowl for collecting rainwater. We’ll need to properly cure them with their own oils after sanding the insides if we want a more permanent solution, but it’s a simple process, if not a little time-consuming.”
She quickens her pace to walk beside me. “Did your parents teach you this?”
The question spears my heart, but I do my best to keep my expression light. “No, I learned all these things being a terrible scallywag.”
One of her eyebrows rises to a sharp point. “Is there a school for scoundrels out there that I don’t know about?”
“Something like that.”
She continues questioning me on the uses for coconuts as we make our way back to the other side of the island. We reach the shore within the hour, and I’m relieved to see the raft is still there. Yes, I could carry her through the water as my octopus form much faster than using the raft, but then I’ll be magically drained by the time we reach the next island, and vulnerable. If we encounter other Men, I have no doubt Reina would take advantage and try to escape me.
But those Men wouldn’t be her salvation…they would hurt her.
The thought of the princess being abused by ruffians has me angrier than it should. She’s just my bait, and nothing more.
“All right, you selkie scallywag,” Reina says, pulling me from thought. She grins and puts her hands on her hips. “Teach me how to fish.”
Chapter eight
Reina
