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“Tiny. Only there at low tide. Nowhere to hide the boat.”

He nodded. “So we have to stay out of sight until nightfall and be gone before sunrise.”

“Wish the Emperor would show up. We could use a kraken,” I murmured, turning the plan over in my mind. I was running out of energy. If I had to shift again now, then in a few hours to speak to Rada…

Lachlan’s hand landed on my shoulder. “You’ll need to start immediately. Swimming around the main island will take hours.”

What? “I’m not going. You are.”

He rolled his eyes, like he wasn’t the one spouting nonsense. “Get to that beach, and get word to her that we’re here. Signal her somehow. Go ashore if you must. Help organize the rescue.” He closed his eyes, and a wrinkle formed between his brows. “She’s panicking, searching…”

“For us?” My heart stuttered, and I concentrated on our bond. It was true. A wash of despair leached through the pain I’d been ignoring. Despair and… lust?

What in the darkest hells was happening on that island?

Lachlan’s dark eyes met mine. “Right. No more waiting, Kell. Go now. I’ll bring the canoes at nightfall. We can fit at least four in each. Maybe it’ll be enough.”

I sighed. “That plan makes no sense. You have a mate bond. Use it. You go, and I’ll stay back. She’ll sense your presence as soon as you come near, no signaling needed.”

He gripped my arm. “You have a mate bond, too. The difference is, I’m not in pain from being apart from her. The distance is killing you, Kell.” When I took a breath to protest, he went on. “It’s been hurting you for years, hasn’t it? You’ve known her for so long.”

For the first time in days, I found my lips curling up. “My own idiocy was what hurt me. If I’d been able to tell her the first time I met her, who she was to me, who I wanted to be to her… I wouldn’t have felt anything but bliss.”

He clucked his tongue, but returned the smile. “You think loving that woman will be easy?”

“I already know it’s not.” He smirked at my admission. I continued before he could think of a way to tease me about my mostly unrequited love. “I also know however much it hurts, it’ll be worth it if I can get her to smile at me the way she did you, back on the ice god’s island.”

I’d never been jealous of my younger brother, especially not after he’d developed into the Omega he was now. Until he met Goran, he’d felt so alone. Goran had made Lachlan feel that being an Omega was a gift, not a curse.

But then he’d claimed the woman I’d longed for, and she’d done the same to him. When he’d met me on the beach five days past, smelling of sex and joy and her… I’d had a moment of pure, unchecked envy. I hoped I’d hidden it, but I wasn’t sure.

“Do you remember when she stabbed me?”

“‘Course I do. She was trying to kill me,” Lachlan grumbled.

“I woke a few hours before she did, in my room the next day, and just looked at her.” That wasn’t entirely true; I’d memorized every inch of her that I could see, like she was an undiscovered country I planned to map every day for the rest of my life. “She’s not perfect, you know. She has scars and callouses on her hands from her weapons training. Her temper bites faster and harder than a trigger fish. Her breath in the morning is as unlike a goddess as one can imagine.”

Dustin muffled a laugh, and Lachlan smiled. “Never tell her. She’ll finish killing you.”

I shrugged. “Even imperfect, I only want to serve her.”

“Because she’s the Goddess’s avatar?” Dustin murmured.

“No. In spite of it.” I took a drink from the water canteen at my feet, feeling his eyes and Dustin’s on my trembling hand. “Shit. Fine.” I grabbed my pelt and threw myself over the side of the boat. “I’ll be back with your mate.”

“Our mate,” Lachlan replied.

Dustin quickly yelped, “Not mine! Not ever, I swear it!”

I was still laughing when I wrapped myself in my pelt and began swimming.

RADA

It started raining at nightfall, and even inside the longhouse, I could hear a guard cursing from the barracks. “Rain this hard will quench the torches,” Adiah whispered.

The rest of the women were breathing slowly, but she’d stayed up to tend to the suffering Omega. Even now, she sat between the door that led toward the barracks and Rielle, as if she could protect her friend from the Alphas. But we both knew the real danger was her own nature.

Our nature. I took a sip of the weak cofi tea I’d made for all of us. The aqila also worked as a pain suppressant, and after the women had seen my burn, I’d made an extra dose for myself and pretended to drink it.