Page 23

“It’s ducksfoot,” I lied. “Delicious and nutritious. It can strengthen the blood for anyone, Omegas, Alphas, even Betas.” Serak’s eyes widened a little as I held up a stalk of a very powerful sedative herb. Even a few leaves could make a grown man unconscious in a half hour.

“Eat some,” the Beta demanded.

“Thank you!” I chirped, stuffing a handful in my mouth. The crisp green taste was actually very nice after eating only cold-water fish and kelp for days.

Before I could eat the rest, the skinny Beta had taken it from my hand and was chewing it himself. “Get more.”

“Yes, sir,” I agreed, and obeyed. Within five minutes, he’d eaten enough to put a horse to sleep. We moved on, with me digging yellowish tubers that I was fairly certain were carrots, but could be cantanar root. A few minutes later, I had to suppress a gasp at the low-growing bush loaded with green fruit beside my feet.

When I started plucking the hard apples, Sandyl grunted. “Don’t know anything, do you? Just like Talia.”

“Talia?”

“Old breeder we threw in the maw last month. She was always picking that stuff. It’s not ripe yet.”

“I know, but the unripe fruit can be used as well for medicines,” I said. In fact, green aqila fruit was a potent fertility suppressant, but it could also be boiled and concentrated to make a draught called death’s shadow. Drinking it sent the user into a coma so deep, breathing stopped almost entirely. I’d given it to an Omega once in Gael to convince her father she’d died, then brought her back with an infusion of my own blood and cofi root.

“Cofi!” I whispered as we moved onto a rockier patch and I saw the unmistakable waxy green leaves, though the bushes here were pathetically small compared to the ones in the Southern Seas…

I gasped as the memory of my time there with Lusca seemed to tear into my heart itself. We’d bonded accidentally, when he’d used his siren’s voice to sing me a love song. Somehow, I’d never felt the pain of the incomplete mate bond before, but the splintering sensation grew stronger with every step now. What had changed?

“Are you well, Rada?” Serak whispered.

“Never better.” I refused his hand to cross a small stream, though I knew I needed the help.

My weakness should have been expected. I was dealing with the stretching of more than one mate bond. Lachlan’s was complete, so it didn’t hurt, just ached. I’d never marked Goran or Kellin, so those two only hurt when I thought about them. Lusca’s bond, though… I focused on it, the discomfort growing stronger, then weaker. I suspected my noble kraken was suppressing the effects of the incomplete mating bond, attempting to shelter me from all the consequences of the accidental connection, even without my nautilus pendant.

But the pain in my jaw from where Edan had burned me matched the icy clutch at my gut from Skadi’s tentacle mark, and I had a bad feeling they were only going to worsen. I needed my mates to get their asses here to save the other Omegas, so I could confront Edan and end this whole thing before I was too weak to climb up the volcano and do anything more than spit in it.

“We should sit,” Serak said, pointing to a rock shelf beside a wide place in the stream.

“Yeah,” Sandyl agreed, his words slurring. “Take a break.” Within a minute, he was splayed out on the flat rock, snoring. I kicked the torch he’d held into the stream and watched it tumble out of sight.

Serak nudged the Beta’s side with one foot, then glanced at me. “You’re not feeling sleepy? You ate a good bit of that herb.”

“Yeah, every day for a year when I was fifteen, after Vilkurn added it to my protocols. I’d have to quintuple that arserag’s dose to start yawning. But I took some cofi root, just in case.”

“Cofi root?” He sounded confused. Why would he? Serak knew all about cofi.

Shit.

I stepped closer to him and kicked out at the last minute behind his calf, bringing him to his knees in front of me so I could examine his face without going on tiptoe. I grabbed his chin and stared into his eyes, then leaned over and sniffed. No smoke. No ash. “The fire fucker’s really gone?”

“You could’ve just asked,” he grumbled when I let him go. He stood, brushing his robe off. “Fire fucker?”

“Mirrim told me not to use his name. That he can hear us when we do.” I set the half-filled basket on my hip.

“Ah.” For some reason, his face had gone blank.

“Do you think he can hear us now?” I waited, as he seemed to consider that. “Can he use your ears to hear us? I get the feeling he was more powerful on the other side of the island.”

“He uses flame to hear and see. Me less often.” He shrugged awkwardly, as if he was embarrassed to be Edan’s servant, even without consenting. “His influence here is mostly what the servants of the order give him. Also…” He coughed suddenly, then gestured for me to follow him down the path. His limbs twitched as he walked, and he staggered every few steps.

“Is it true?” I asked. “Is he weaker the further we go from the volcano?”

He didn’t turn his head when he said, “Every god is strongest in his own domain.” That made sense. But too many other things didn’t. I tripped again, forcing him to stumble to a halt. “Clumsy as usual,” he murmured.

As usual? I stumbled for real at his words and picked up the pace. “Let’s head to the beach and see if there’s some fruit.”