Page 41 of Deep Sea Kiss
But Lottie grabbed him by the shoulders. “I’m okay. Stop glaring at him like that.”
Eiric huffed and kissed her, his soul clamoring to take care of her, to protect her. “He’ll pay for what he did.”
Lottie glanced at the twins. “I wonder what he was doing. Why he kidnapped them, I mean. I guess he could have hurt them if he really wanted to.” She shrugged. “Instead, he brought them here.”
Magnus, clean but still naked, approached them. Eiric glared at him, and his brother merely gave him a shrug.
“I think he wanted to confirm they could change,” Magnus said. “Even if he suspected they were dragons, you’re human.”
“But what did he want them for?” Lottie insisted.
Eiric met his brother’s gaze. There were any number of reasons for this kidnapping, all of them unpleasant. Sea dragons’ magic would be a great power source for the witch, even if the dragons in question were only little.
“We’ll ask him all about that when he wakes up,” Magnus replied.
Eiric tightened his grip on Lottie, unwilling to let her go. “Is this why you left him alive?”
Magnus acknowledged the assumption with a grunt. It must have taken an inhuman amount of self-control to contain the instinct to kill the attacker. His brother was working on being different from their father after all.
Lottie chewed on her lip. “What’s going to happen to him?”
“We’re taking him to Drageøy and putting him in a cell until we figure out what’s going on.” Magnus touched the burn on his side and hissed. “We need to know if he was working alone. If he wasn’t, we might have more trouble on our hands.”
Eiric released Lottie and went over to the twins to extract a pebble from Aksel’s mouth. The baby giggled and raised his hands, asking to be picked up. Eiric obliged, and his heart threatened to explode when the boy’s small arms closed around his neck. Then he felt a wet warmth on his stomach and groaned. Aksel had peed on him.
Lottie snorted and came over to take the baby from him, and Eiric washed in the sea. Then they all hiked up to Eiric’s car where he and Magnus divided the stash of clothes he kept in his trunk and dressed themselves to avoid scaring the human population of Brundal. They loaded the unconscious witch in the back seat—none too gently—and locked him in the car.
Elise was screaming with hunger by the time they reached Lottie’s house. Eiric fed and dressed the babies while Lottie went to check on Mrs. Enstad, and Magnus stood by the changing table, watching him.
“You’re really good at this,” he said quietly.
Eiric grinned up at him. “Half the time, I have no idea what I’m doing.” He fastened Aksel’s onesie and carried him to his cot. “But that’s the fun of it,” he added.
Magnus frowned. “How do you know you won’t…hurt them?”
Eiric stopped and studied his brother. “You mean like Dad?”
Magnus nodded, silent and tense.
“I’m just not that kind of man,” he said simply. He had no better answer than that, yet he knew with certainty that he could never harm a child.
“What if I am?” Magnus’ voice was hoarse, as though it hurt him to say the words out loud.
Eiric took him by the shoulders. They were nearly the same height, though Magnus was broader in the chest. He stared straight into his eyes. “You’re not. You came to help us today even though I pissed you off. You’d never do anything to hurt these two or any other kid.”
Magnus closed his eyes and released a breath. “Okay.” He squeezed Eiric’s arm for a brief second, then turned to the door. “I might have to hurt the witch, though. If he resists me.”
Eiric sent him a cool look. “Then hurt him.”
His brother nodded and left, and a moment later, Eiric heard the engine of his car start up. He thought Magnus would likely take it to the marina, then transport the witch to Drageøy in a boat.
Only later, when he sat on Lottie’s bed, singing the twins to sleep, he thought of the burden Magnus had carried away from their conversation. Eiric had told him to torture that man for information without thinking of what it might do to Magnus to succumb to that violent urge inside him.
With a sigh, he covered first Elise, then Aksel, and retreated out of the bedroom. He’d swim to Drageøy the next day and help Magnus however he could. He hoped the witch would cooperate, but if he didn’t, Eiric would share his king’s burden.
He came into the living room and found Lottie waiting for him on the couch. She must have returned from Mrs. Enstad’s. She was so beautiful, even though her hair was a mess and her shirt was still bloody and wet. She held out her hand, and he went to her, drawn in by nothing more than a sweet look from her and a simple gesture.
“Thank you for tonight,” she muttered. “I don’t know what I’d do without you and Magnus.”
