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I dropped to my knees beside him, an annoying desire to cry. It wasn’t an appropriate time and I didn’t want to, but regardless, the tears were coming to my eyes before I could stop them. Luc raised his hand to my face.
“Are these for me?” he asked, collecting the tears on his fingers. “What have I done to deserve such precious little diamonds?”
“I can’t fight them without you,” I said.
“You can.” His soft fingers left my face to grab my hand warmly. “Plug your ears. Keep your eyes open.”
He squeezed my hand as he hissed again in pain, and I could tell by the way he was trying to hold it in that he wasn’t faking it. I looked around the cavern, but I couldn’t see a single soul that could help us.
What was I going to do?
Luc shook my hand to get my attention.
“Get going,” he said. “You’re in danger with me like this. Get back to the king and stay safe. If you die… I won’t get to tell you…tell you so many things.”
There was a dim light in his eyes as he said it, and I knew he was thinking of the people he had lost before. But it was Luc who had found me as a human and brought me to the ship, and it was him who brought me back to the Den of Sirens. I knew that no matter what happened, I would find my way back to this place and him.
There was only one way to get him to understand that.
“You’ll have the chance to tell me,” I said. “Look.”
I took his hand and pressed it to my wrist, my pulse racing against his fingers.
He laughed and rolled his eyes. “It’s because we were just attacked.”
“No,” I replied, adamantly shaking my head. “It’s because I thought I had lost you.”
I held his gaze so he could read me. I wanted him to see it. I wanted him to understand that I was telling the truth.
His jaw slacked slightly, his fingers slowly tightening around my hand. He laced his fingers in mine and sighed through his nose.
“It’s a promise, then,” he said. “No matter what happens, you’ll come home to me.”
I smiled and nodded. “Whether it’s in this life or the next, Rhys. I promise.”
He held my gaze for a brief moment, his hand coming up to trace my jaw. I shivered against his touch. When I looked into his eyes, I saw that there was something different about them. Something soft and vulnerable, something vaguely familiar to a way he used to look at me when we were both sirens.
Wait… Did Luc…?
“This isn’t the time,” a voice said behind us.
I turned to Jacques’s perturbed grimace. Adrian ran up beside him, smiling proudly as he caught his breath.
“Glad to see that you hate everyone who gets close to her, mate, and not just me,” Adrian said.
“It has nothing to do with the woman,” Jacques replied. “We just don’t have time for this right now.”
Jacques and Adrian came to us, looking at the boulders crushing Luc’s wings. A couple of the other pirates fell in behind them.
“You two take the side,” Adrian commanded. “Try not to roll the rock onto his face… although it might make it look better.”
“Just go do your damn job,” Luc snarled at him. “I don’t need your help.”
Adrian leaned against the boulder as he talked down to Luc. “And I don’t want to help your mutinous ass either, mate. But if I want my brother back and you want your freedom back, you need to shut the hell up for a few minutes until this is all over with.”
Luc gritted his teeth. I ran my fingers over his forehead to signal him to relax, standing with the men to help them push the boulders off Luc’s wings. It took all of us to move the largest, and most of us to move the second and third. The rest of the rubble came off his wings easily, but it took effort for him to sit up even with his wings freed.
I crouched next to him, giving him support as he sat up. His wings were damaged, their feathers crooked, bent, and missing. He huffed, groaning as he tried to retract his wings close to his back.
