Page 60 of Captured in Love
His rich voice vibrates in the air between us, slow and sweet like honey.
I stifle a groan, half wishing the glamourwouldwork on Levi. The energy buzzing between them is palpable, and I want to see where it leads us.
But Levi stays upright, only his breathing betraying that he’s affected by Raphaël’s words at all. They share an intense, dark look, then Levi breaks the contact and bows his head, a low chuckle escaping his lips.
“Oh, man,” he says. “I don’t even know what to think of all this.”
He puts my protection charm back in his pocket, and I try not to feel too guilty about having him keep it. Itwillact as protection, even though the core of the spell serves a different purpose.
Raphaël subtly adjusts himself in his pants. “Save that thought for later.”
The boat beneath us shudders, and the chain rattles up, lifting the anchor. The men operating the rescue vessel shout instructions in Icelandic to each other, then ask Levi to help maneuver our boat into place. Within minutes, we’re on our way, slowly making for the Djúpivogur marina.
One of the rescue team members remains on our side, keeping an eye on the thick ropes connecting us to the tugboat. Raphaël offers him a sandwich, and he accepts, chewing on rye bread with cheese as we cut through the waves.
When he swallows the last bite, he dusts off his hands and turns to us. “What were you doing that far out on the sea?” he asks in a melodic, slightly stilted accent.
I think of the cover story we gave the receptionist where we booked our room. “We’re filmmakers. We’re scouting for locations for our next project.”
It’s better to stick to one lie. In a small community like the coastal town we’re headed for, people talk, and we’ve already raised enough suspicions.
He nods and sinks into silence again. It’s only later, when the thin line of the coast becomes visible through the gray drizzle, that he says, “You’re the second rescue we had this week. Another boat was reported missing, then found three days ago, not far from where we picked you up.”
A shiver runs down my spine. “Really?”
Next to me, Raphaël puts an arm around my shoulders, offering me support. “What happened to the crew?”
The man’s pale-blue eyes darken with some unnamed emotion. “Just one person aboard. A woman. She wouldn’t stop screaming.”
I swallow the bile suddenly rising in my throat. “Screaming?”
He shakes his head. “We had to sedate her. Took her to the hospital in Höfn, but she might get moved to Reykjavik if she doesn’t improve.”
“Who was she?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even.
The man stands and tugs on a knot, even though it doesn’t seem to be loose. He looks bothered by something, his movements twitchy, and I wonder what he saw on that boat.
“We got no name from her,” he says, “and she didn’t carry any documents. She and a man rented the boat for cash, but the man was nowhere to be found. She wasn’t making any sense, either. Something about volcanoes and hexes.” He lifts his eyebrows to show how loopy he finds that.
Levi looks at me, his eyebrows furrowed in a frown. I know what he’s thinking. A glance at Raphaël lets me know that he, too, suspects the same.
There was a slot for a third token in the box at the heart of the underground volcano. While it’s possible that we and Isak were the only ones who chose Iceland as our location, there’s now a good chance that another team picked it as well—and failed. This could have been their first task.
I try to remember which teams we saw in that Scottish castle, but my senses had been on high alert, so I don’t know which husband-and-wife team could have landed up here. The Dorokhovs, possibly? They finished up their task in Egypt way before us, so they could have arrived in Iceland days ago.
I trail away from the rescue team member and head for the cabin. Without a word, Levi and Raphaël both follow me down, and I shut the door behind us, giving us a small window of privacy before we dock in the marina.
“We have to go see her,” I whisper. “She could be a witch, and she’s stuck in a human hospital.”
Raphaël runs his hand through his hair. “Nora…you don’t know that. It could be a trap.”
I glance at Levi, and he grimaces.
“He’s right,” he says. “Besides, what are you going to do, break her out? And take her where? We need to get to Greece if we’re going to beat Isak at the last task.”
I glower at him. “When has the game changed from getting access to the library to beating Isak?”
He throws his hands up, letting out an exasperated growl. “That’s not the point! You want to win, right?”
