Yet my mate chose to believe me better than I am. Yes, she was hesitant, but she still drank.
Still trusted me.
Hope, overzealous and bright, flares in my chest.
If she’ll trust me with that, perhaps… Perhaps the end of my cursed days isfinallywithin grasp.
Over four hundred years of being silenced. Ended. Because of this witch.
I smile at the thought.
Perhaps on the day it happens, I’ll recite the entire battle history of the winter court just to prove I can. Maybe I’ll torture the crew with my singing.
Maybe I’ll just chant her name over and over. Saying it like the prayer that she answered when she came into our lives.
Nilsa.
My brave, stubborn, incomparable mate.
My musing is interrupted by her loud giggle as she sways from Rysen’s arms, closer to the fire. Her whole body moving to the music as Casimir tries to grab her and tug her closer to him again.
The shifter has been glued to her all night. I’m pretty sure he’s to blame for how tipsy she is, and how bright her smile is.
Nilsa evades him with a grin and trips into Noster instead, pressing a light kiss to his lips before dancing away again, leaving him looking a little dazed. She has all of us spellbound, and I don’t think she even notices.
When she turns and dances straight into Niklaus, she giggles and kisses him too.
“Get a room,” Valorean growls.
Nilsa raises a delicate brow and takes another sip from her glass before sauntering over to him.
“Jealous?”
Val scoffs, but he’s not fooling anyone. He wants her, not that he’ll ever admit it.
He craves her just as much as the rest of us do. He’s just too stubborn to see it.
Nilsa moves closer, swaying slightly, and his arms tense as if preparing to catch her. She rights herself before that can happen and grins goofily at the rest of us.
“If I cast a baldness hex on him, do the sails disappear as well?” she slurs.
“Fucking try it,” Valorean glares. “See where a ship with no sails gets you, witch.”
Nilsa turns back to him, smirking. She reaches out, fingers going straight for Valorean’s white locks.
The Captain almost falls off his cannon in his haste to get away from her.
“No fucking way,” he says, scrambling backwards over the deck on his hands and ass.
“Oh, don’t be a baby. It doesn’t hurt. I just want to know!”
Casimir and Rysen almost fall over laughing as Valorean attempts to fight off a determined, drunk witch. Even I’m smiling.
Up until the point where Nilsa overbalances, falling on top of him, and pinning him in place.
The Captain’s hands seize her wrists, tugging them over their heads in a last-ditch attempt to preserve his dignity, but the motion only presses them closer together. Chest to chest. Face to face. Nilsa’s dark hair fans around them, shielding their expressions from the rest of us.
It’s a strangely intimate position for them. Their every muscle is wired from tension as they turn silent, breaths heaving.
