I scream through bared teeth.
Damn her to the depths of The Shoaling Seas—I’m certain it hurts more than the fucking bolt did when it punched through Zyke’s chest.
She continues to ram the wound full while I growl, huffing, puffing, unable to flip her off without drowning myself in guilt.
Just as I’m wishing for a swift and brutal death to end my suffering, the pain begins to ebb.
I tip my head, staring at the roof. “This is a tiny house of pain.”
She wipes me down, cleaning up the bloody mess, then sets the scale back on my pectoral like a bandage, patting the edges into place with a surprisingly gentle touch for someone who just rooted around inside me like a vulture.
“I really hope this isn’t an every-hour-on-the-hour ...thing.”
Seemingly satisfied, the female darts to the trough that’s brimming with water on the end of her workbench. There, she stands transfixed, eyes tracing something I’m unable to see from this angle.
If she pulls out an ocean leech, I’m gone.
In a blur of motion, her hand jolts into the water, hauls out a sleek, red fish by the tail, then bashes it against the sharp edge of the bench.
My mouth dries.
“You’re a vicious little thing ...”
Her attention sways back to the water as she repeats the process, this time slaughtering a fat, glossy black fish double the size of the other.
She sits cross-legged on the floor with her bounty and scales both fish with a sharp stone—scattering little round disks all over her bare legs and feet.
Clever. Maybe she hates scales getting stuck in her teeth, too.
She uses the same tool to hack off the heads, then plonks the bodies in a large bowl before padding toward me. She climbs atop my legs and sets the bowl in my lap, grabs the smaller fish, bends it backward, then takes a hearty bite from the bulging underside.
Frowning, I watch her chew—transfixed on this strange female with cheeks jammed full of fish.
Her gaze flicks up, two bolts of blazing yellow striking me like a shaft of sunlight.
She grabs the other fish and shoves it at me, nodding enthusiastically.
I take the thing, pointing at it with my free hand. “Eat?”
She swallows, looks from me to the fish, and shapes the word with her plump lips.
I find myself struck with a slap of disappointment.
“Well, thank you,” I say, taking a large bite from the plump underbelly. The tough, sable skin bursts beneath the force of my sharp teeth, giving way to fluffy wet flesh that tastes like the sea smells on a winter’s morning.
My stomach grumbles the moment I swallow, and I take a deeper bite, watching the strange female feast. There’s nothing tidy or quiet about the way she strips the bones and sucks them clean, a few rogue scales dusting her cheeks and arms andme.
She works her way down the fish’s body—devouring every scrap of flesh, including the organs and entrails.
I find myself wondering who sheis. If she has a name. How she ended up on this precious, untouchable island, surrounded by a small trove’s worth of questionable keepsakes.
Her lashes sweep up. She stops chewing, head tilting again.
“Malakai. My name.” I set my hand upon my chest.“Mine.”
She swallows, eyes wide as her gaze bounces from my face to my hand and back again.
“Mal-ah-kai. Can you say that?Gleish taj nah mi-nam, Malakai?”
