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A brief touch, but the sensitive flesh of the scars across my throat ached. I wasn’t so certain it was a bad ache. As though the pain wanted to drag her in, seal her up, and leave her there to sweeten the rot left behind.
I sank into the tide. Eyes closed, the strength, the power, the rage of the sea brought the frantic beat of my pulse to a calm. Then, the princess’s damn heel struck me in the leg again.
She thrashed and kicked for the surface. Hands tied, it’d be slow going, and she was locked in a dead man’s panic, the last frantic rush to cling to life. Sea fae grew sickly on land without submerging in water, but it wasn’t as though I would die. Would I be miserable should I be left to dry in the sun for the rest of my days? Without a doubt.
To draw earth fae into the sea was much the same if left to the depths. The fae of the land were not like mortals who could not hold air in their pathetic lungs for longer than a few counts. In the Ever Kingdom, they thrived within our realm better than sea folk could live in theirs. Many of the Ever Folk were descendants of kinder times between land and sea.
To travel the Chasm without the aid of a sea fae was another matter.
Earth fae might survive, drowning wasn’t the worry, it was the violence they could not tame. The connection to the currents did not thrive in their blood, and the tides would do their best to shred them to pieces should they enter unaccompanied.
Right here, the princess had little reason to fear the tides, but she was gulping the sea in a frenzy.
This wouldn’t do, and I had little patience nor the time to wait for her to realize the Otherworld was not beckoning her forward.
She’d hate me, maybe bite me—gods, I hoped so—for what had to be done.
I gripped a hand around one of her ankles and pulled her back to me. She gulped, released too much air, and stared at me with a hint of betrayal. Dreary thoughts must’ve been rummaging through her beautiful head. Would I choke her? Run her through?
I didn’t have plans for all that. Yet. There was suffering to be had first.
Instead, I kissed her.
Once the stun of my mouth on hers faded, the princess kicked at me. As expected, she turned her fight against the pressure of the sea onto me. Those claws tried to dig at my face.
I pulled away only to grip her jaw. “You want to breathe, Songbird? Or shall I let the Chasm crush those lungs? Slowly.”
Her eyes widened. To me, my voice beneath the waves was a low boom. What did it sound like to her?
I sneered and dragged my nose alongside her cheek. “I’ll give you breath, but only if you behave.”
Lore existed about the kiss of sea singers, one that gave endless breath to a land walker they loved more than the sea. No need to let on it wasn’t true. She needed to believe some mystical spell from my mouth halted her panic, which in turn would make hauling her around simpler. In the meantime, I got to torment those sweet lips. I got to bring out the hate she buried beneath her cloak of innocence.
The princess was mine to ruin by right and destiny, and I planned to begin now.
My tongue slipped through my teeth and swiped over the salty damp of her mouth. She pinched her lips, face contorted in a bit of disgust. Stubborn little bird. This time there was no easing her into it, nothing gentle. I demanded her mouth, and took it. She tasted like rain on the sea, fresh and wild. As expected, she resisted. Until I released a soft breath over her tongue. With my hands on the small of her back, the shudder rippled beneath my palms.
I offered another breath. She took it greedily.
The magic of transferring breath was myth, but . . .somethingwas happening. A spark in the blood that shot to the rune on my skin. A heat that dug deep into my chest, drawing me closer, keeping me locked in her essence.
What was meant to be a moment of torment, slipped into an obsession for more. More of her taste, more of her softness.More.
I wasn’t alone.
Disgust faded from her features into something darker, almost feral. In another heartbeat, she clung to me like she craved the heat of my hands as much as I craved hers. The princess had her wrists bound, but her fingers curled around my tunic, holding me close. With a graceful slide through the current, she pressed her hips to mine.
Dammit. My body fought to react, to press back until she felt the hardness in my damn trousers building the longer I held her sweet mouth. Lust and need were weaknesses expected of others, but not—bleeding hells—not from the damn sea king.
I cursed and forced myself to pull back. With the connection severed, resentment was quick to return. She tried to pull away. I took hold of the scarf around her wrists and yanked her back.
Frustration, anger at my own weakness, came out in sharp, biting words. “Breathe now. Fight, and I give you to the crew. Comply, and you’ll live to see the other side of the Chasm.”
One hand wrapped around the scarf, I swam to the shadows of the water. When the darkness shifted upon our arrival, Livia gave a little shriek, releasing a cloud of bubbles. Crimson sails rose from the dark depths of the deeper sea. The gaping mouth of the serpent figurehead gleamed under the broken skeins of moonlight. On the hull, the armored door cranked open.
I took us in.
My songbird stopped fighting; she practically went boneless and allowed me to drag her into the stomach of the ship, as though the ember of her fight was snuffed out. Pity.
