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Perhaps I’d been too harsh on Her. The heat She’d kindled in me as I came into my Omega nature years ago was a gentle glow compared to the painful bonfire Edan was stoking now. This wasn’t pleasure: it was demand.

Fingers tangled in my hair as Edan’s kiss grew harder, more punishing, and my reaction stronger. I could taste his satisfaction against my closed lips, his mouth curling into a smile against mine. The kiss began to hurt.

And then the heat shifted, and became fire. Fire that swelled from my core to my limbs… To my arm, my left arm, where the tattoos laced my skin from wrist to above my elbow. It felt as if my arm had been plunged into lava as they burned away. I screamed, the sound vanishing into Edan’s mouth as he swallowed it down. The scent that swirled around us became charred skin and ash, but he did not let go.

I wracked my brain for a way, any way, to fight the fire and the rising tide of pain. I couldn’t move; I was no goddess, not even an avatar. I wasn’t as strong as a god.

A god. The answer fell like a hailstone into my mind. I thought of the one who had stolen my poisons and pendant, calling his name in my mind. Skadi.

Skadi!

The cold spot in my abdomen lurched, and I had a feeling if I pulled my shirt up, frost would surround my belly button. The painful flares of heat that had threatened to incinerate me faded as fast as they had ignited. I gasped as the cold thundered through my center, like an avalanche.

Edan stepped away, his lip curled as if he’d tasted something foul on my lips. “I’ll be back to check on you before the new moon, Omega.” It took all my training to keep still and drop my gaze to the ground as he strode away.

When he was gone, I broke into a sprint, carrying the basket into the women’s longhouse on my unburned arm, only stopping long enough to scan the empty horizon of the sea and tear off a strip of fabric from the bottom of Goran’s long shirt and wrap it around my arm. The pattern was gone, the flowers and leaves blistered away.

The other women scurried like mice to the corners of the longhouse when I entered, except Rielle. She’d already retreated to the corner closest to the door and snarled from her pitiful mound of dirty cloth as I entered. She was nesting, the pillow I’d given her in the center of her pile.

Shit. The wild yam hadn’t been enough, and the herbs I’d picked today wouldn’t do a thing to hide the burgeoning scent she exuded, cutting through the stench of the longhouse. But the green aqila apples would buy us time, and maybe even more.

“Come, Rada,” Mirrim whispered, beckoning me to the far wall. “Show us what you brought.”

“I brought a plan,” I murmured to the women, tucking my arm behind me and forcing a smile. “But I’ll need all of you to help.”

KELLIN

“Prince Kellin, are you well?” Dustin, the young Starlakian Alpha who served my true mate, called out as I hauled the small boat he piloted against the current. The sails had been furled for the better part of the day. The winds from Pict as we grew nearer blew hot and hard, and tacking against them had proved impossible for the young man on his own.

That left it up to me to fight the fierce current, and I was not at my best. The distance from my mate sapped my strength, but her parting words gave me the hope that kept me swimming toward even more tainted waters. “If you can do what Dustin asks and find me again, I’ll tell you all my secrets, my mate.”

I would drag this damned boat across every sea in the world for a chance to learn those secrets, and to ask two questions. When she’d called me her mate, did that mean she would claim me at the end of this moon?

And had she truly meant it when she whispered that she was falling in love with me?

Turning my head to make sure he heard me, I gave a quick bark in reply to Dustin, the thick loop of rope I held in my sore jaws tearing at the skin slightly.

“Kell?” His shout had roused my younger brother from his sleep, and his gold-tipped hair lay wet across his face as he peered blearily over the hull at me.

Each of us took turns pulling the dinghy at full speed in our seal forms, knowing the usual weeks-long voyage needed to be cut to mere days. We’d stripped everything out of the tiny craft that we could, except for the most vital supplies, which included two smaller canoes. There was no way to know how many we’d be called on to rescue.

Goddess, let us have enough boats for them all, I prayed, pulling at the rope again and diving under a larger wave.

I would have pulled without stopping if I could, and my selkie magic might have made it possible, but we knew once we reached the island, we would need our strength to rescue the Omegas.

She would need us. I could sense her through the one-sided bond, her blood in my veins drawing me to her like the moon pulled the tides, allowing me to feel her emotions to some extent. She was angry and sad, and from time to time, overwhelmed.

Of course, whoever she was with wouldn’t know unless she wanted them to. She hid her emotions like the seas did sunken treasure.

But she’d shared hers with me. Falling in love, she’d said. I could still taste her on my lips. Had she tasted my devotion on hers?

Dustin’s excited voice rang out again, distracting me from the memory. “I can see land. Is it Pict?”

My blood raced as I did a quick mental calculation and felt a renewed surge of energy. It might be. Not the main volcanic island, but the southernmost spit of land on the chain that made up the nation of Pict.

We’d made better time than I’d dared hope, even with our stop on the island I’d named Menthera, to organize the Starlakian warriors who hadn’t waited for orders to follow Goran to Pict. No, his most loyal fighters had purchased a mid-sized boat and chased after him, sailing out from Starvale the day after he and Dustin had left to rescue Rada from the ice god.

They’d only made it about halfway across the sea. Lusca and Skadi’s battle and the resulting storm had pushed Goran’s warriors far off course. They’d been repairing their ship on Menthera when we found them. Thankfully, their ship had an extra dinghy on board.