Page 76 of The Goddess’s Thief

“Wait.” A thread of sound emerged from the nest of tentacles as one of Rada’s arms shifted. We all stepped closer, though behind us Dustin was quietly moving the rest of the crowd back, giving us some privacy.

“Rada,” I breathed as Lusca lowered her to where we could all see into the nest. She lay with the sheet still tangled around her limbs, her body clean and her skin smooth. Mostly smooth. She still wore her mating marks on her bicep and shoulders, as well as the burn on her throat and left arm.

“Lex,” she murmured, along with some other garbled words. Her arms moved restlessly, her head moving back and forth.

“What is she saying?” Kellin whispered.

“She keeps calling for Lex,” Lusca explained. “Dreaming about him.”

“Hurry. Help Lex,” she said, her words slurring just before she lost consciousness again.

“Her thoughts are scattered and unclear. She’s caught in a web of nightmares, watching him fall over and over. Her mind cannot accept that he is gone.”

“Lusca,” Skadi croaked. “I need… ice. To sustain her.”

“Soon,” Lusca said to him, then turned back to us. “Rada is suffering deep emotional wounds from the loss of her Beta and the Alpha Serak.”

“Serak? He was corrupted.”

“She’d loved him since she ran through the streets of Turino,” Goran whispered.

“She saw him as a mate. Edan was the one who marked her, but he used Serak’s body to do it.”

I stared at the burn on her throat. “That’s not a claiming mark. It’s a wound.”

“It’s both.” He stared pensively down at Rada. “When he carried her into his domain, he changed something in her. He provoked this heat. It’s not a simple heat cycle.” We all fell silent as he struggled to find words. Finally, he sighed and pulled her closer. “If we can somehow turn whatever this is she is suffering into a normal heat and… ah, address it? Perhaps it will end, as heats do. Skadi and I will do what we can. We will call for you when you are needed, brothers. I will send servants to carry you to us. Be ready.”

After they’d descended into the water again, moving north fast enough to leave white foam to the horizon’s edge, I turned to face my brother and my vasyl. “Lusca means well,” I said quietly. “But he’s overlooked a few things.”

Goran flicked his eyes away from the horizon, though he was looking to the northeast, not the north where Rada had gone. Toward Pict. His brow lowered, but he stayed silent.

“What things?” Kellin asked after a moment. Dustin was already on the beach, snapping out orders. The Omegas, children, and warriors all obeyed with alacrity. They’d heard Lusca’s command.

I wasn’t sure what would happen to Rielle, though. It would be dangerous to move her again, though she needed to be brought out of her torpor. She needed an Alpha, but none of the Starlakians would entertain the thought of joining her in the cottage for her heat. “She can’t consent,” Dustin had explained not long after we’d arrived on Menthera. “She’s in no state to say yes, and every one of my… of the Warlord’s men, has vowed never to take advantage of one of Her daughters.”

I turned to Kellin. “Human things. Omega things. He and Skadi may be able to heal her. They’re probably the only ones of her mates who could help her through a fire god-created heat.”

He blinked at me, like he hadn’t thought about the logistics of coupling with Rada in her current state. “What does she need, besides her mates?”

“A proper nest,” I said, moving to help load the larger boat. “Sweet juices and foods that are easy to eat. Honeyed cakes, as many as we can collect. Pillows and furs. Blankets and oils.” I nodded to myself, making a mental list of all the comforts she could want. “She saw me through my own heat cycle, short as it was. Now it’s my turn to give her what she needs.”

I’d strip bare every bedroom in Starlak if she needed it. I’d have every warrior climbing cliffs and trees to harvest honey for her cakes. That wasn’t a bad idea, actually. Of course, it would help to have the Warlord’s backing. I turned my head. “Goran, are you willing to give me authority over your men?”

He shook his head like he was waking from a dream, then scowled down at me. “No. I’m going to give it to someone else.”

KELLIN

Ilifted my hand to the crown on my head as Lachlan pulled me through the crowd behind him to hear whatever Goran was saying. I couldn’t focus on his words at first. There were too many sensations at once, and far too many emotions. Fear for my mate, mostly, whose spark had dimmed to almost nothing in our bond.

Lusca would save her, I knew. Lusca and Skadi together.

Emptiness and loss, an ache inside the very core of my being, from the loss of my pelt. No selkie had survived the loss of his pelt before, though in most cases it was a result of the loss of something less tangible: the will to live. And when one of a mate pair died, the other always followed.

Of course, I’d known I had more to live for than any other selkie in existence when I cut my pelt into rope. I had her. My true mate who had claimed me, needed and loved me, even if I had been the least impressive of her males.

I hadn’t been an Emperor, a god, a powerful Warlord, or a mythical Omega like my brother. I’d been a mapmaker and a prince of a faraway sea.

A king, now. I felt along the base of the crown, picking out the knuckle-sized diamonds embedded in the thick gold. My head still spun from the casual coronation. High King of the World’s Seas, Lusca had named me. With his words, I’d begun to feel them, moving in me. A connection to every current and island in the world. When I closed my eyes, I could almost see the world behind my lids, like a vast map stretching out for me to peruse. Every secret of each bay and cove, inlet and atoll, laid bare to me.