Page 47 of Gods of the Sea

Attempting to push my thoughts aside, I left the room to help Luc in the kitchen.

“You’re late,” Luc said as I entered the kitchen, not looking up from his soup pot.

I rolled my eyes. “His royal captain wished to remind me of how evil his honorable brother was.”

Luc chuckled. “So the captain is still trying to keep you for himself then?”

“I swear, I’ve never met a man so grown and yet so childish. You’d think he’d be tired of such games at his age.”

I put on my apron, catching Luc’s eyes as he looked me up and down.

“Are you sure they’re just games?” he asked solemnly.

Between his glare and his question, it was suddenly quite difficult for me to tie the strings of my apron behind my back.

“Why of course they’re…I mean, you can’t really think…. Honestly, Luc, you’re full of so many stories.”

I grunted, unable to make the tie. In two steps, Luc had his hands on my shoulders, spinning me so my back was facing him. He tied my apron behind my back, leaning his voice next to my ear as he spoke.

“He’s only a man, little dove,” he said. “And men can resist their demons for only so long.”

He snapped the apron strings and waited for me to turn around to face him. His lips were silent, but his eyes were quite loud, singing a warning to be cautious.

I swallowed. “He’s never touched me behind closed doors.”

I don’t know why I felt the need to say such a thing.

Luc’s eyebrow popped up. “But he’s thought about it. And so has his honorable brother.”

Luc wiped his hands on his apron, walking over to the side of the counter and leaning against it. His eyes rolled back in thought.

“Perhaps the problem isn’t so much that they’ve thought it,” he muttered, so low I thought it might be to only himself. “The bigger problem is that you don’t acknowledge it.”

“Just because I’ve been to both of their rooms—”

“Frequently and regularly—” he interrupted.

“Doesn’t mean they have such…improper thoughts.”

“Ha! You think mankind is so innocent?”

“They could be.”

He laughed, dropping his head back to look at the ceiling. “Oh, little dove…you have no idea how incredible it is for you to have such an idea.”

“Why would they have such ideas at a time like this?” I asked, something feeling unsettled in my chest as I did so. “They have more important things to think about. The sirens, for example.”

Luc threw vegetables in the soup pot but didn’t say anything. The spoon clanged against the pot sides. I hated the silence.

“Why do you think they haven’t come back?” I asked.

Luc scratched his chin, shutting his eyes. He went quiet for so long that I thought he might have missed my question completely.

“I heard from a psychic many moons ago that creatures of the spirit world are very patient,” he finally said. “It would gain the sirens nothing to judge the world so quickly. After all, their main objective is to save it.”

“So that’s it then? We just sit on the ship, get ambushed again, and they drag us to hell?”

He chuckled. “Only the ones who deserve it.”

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