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I was chosen in the summer of my twentieth year. The day I met her, I asked how I might best serve her. Her response was to correct me. I did not serve her, she insisted, but the people of the island.

“How might I best serve the people of the island, then?” I asked.

“Hmm.” And then the goddess took my hand. “Let’s go find out.”

from the unpublished papers of Rahvekyan High Priestess Omira

Einar did not always sleep well on land, but that lack had never followed him out to sea.

It had tonight. The gentle rock of the ship wasn’t soothing him, and every time he closed his eyes he could feel Naia in his arms. He swore the intoxicating scent of her still lingered in his clothing—some maddening combination that made him think of tropical flowers on distant shores and the breeze over crystal-blue waters on a sunny day.

Ludicrous. He scrubbed a hand over his face, as if that could wipe the whimsical fantasy away. He was the Kraken. The Western Wall. The nightmare that had haunted the Imperial nobles for generations beyond counting. He was a warrior and a pirate with a heart of ice so legendary, they’d sung of it in taverns for a thousand years.

He did not moon about like a lovesick boy.

Groaning again, he swung his legs over the bed and sat up. The moment his feet touched the wooden floor, he felt the tremble of the ship beneath him. The restless energy within him sharpened into a familiar buzz.

If he hadn’t been so distracted by Naia, he would have felt the signs before now. A storm was coming—and judging by the nervous roll of the waves against the ship, it would be a ferocious one.

Einar pulled on his boots and strode through the captain’s dining room and out onto the deck, which already buzzed with the practiced industry of a crew who knew how to meet a storm. The wind whipped past Einar’s face, bringing the scent of rain and that sharp, metallic warning that promised lightning forking across the sky. He caught a glimpse of it flashing in the distance before he stomped his way up the steps to where Brynjar manned the wheel. “Someone should have woken me.”

His third mate quirked an eyebrow. “We’ve ridden through enough storms in our time. We know our work.”

Einar couldn’t argue with that. All but one of the sails were already secured, and the hatches and doors shut up tight. There was little else that had to be tied down or stowed away—Einar didn’t allow loose gear on the deck, knowing that they might be forced to dive at any time. His crew could prepare the Kraken to survive a trip through the Heart of the Ocean in their sleep at this point. A storm was nothing compared to that.

Distant thunder rumbled as Einar watched Bexi perform a final sweep of the deck. She offered Einar a jaunty salute and blew a kiss to her husband before disappearing belowdecks, leaving only the two of them to face the storm.

Brynjar slapped a big hand against Einar’s shoulder. “There’s no need to worry, Cap. The Kraken has seen worse. Besides, we have Lady Naia aboard. The sea will be sweet to us. You can go back to bed.”

“I wasn’t sleeping anyway,” Einar grumbled.

The burly man grinned. “Distracted by something, hmm?”

Einar twisted his face into his fiercest Kraken scowl, but his third mate’s grin only widened. The crew who had sailed with him for centuries might still walk softly around the High Court, but they knew their captain too well to fear him.

“Go plague your wife,” Einar ordered, placing one hand on the wheel.

“If you insist.”

Brynjar relinquished the helm, and Einar took his place, barely noticing his third mate’s departure. As soon as he gripped the wheel with both hands, that restlessness within him stilled. The roil of the waves lost their nervousness, and instead became teasing. Taunting. Like the ocean wanted to play with him.

Bright forks of lightning streaked across the distant sky. Thunder rumbled again, louder this time. Einar stroked a thumb over the polished wood of the wheel. “You want to play rough tonight, don’t you?” he murmured. The air sizzled with the warning that this storm would be angry. Einar sank his power into the ship until he could feel every plank and join in his bones, giving warning before trouble arose.

Instead of trouble, he found Naia.

Her magic still whispered in the water where it met his ship, but the bright joy of it had muted. The melody twining with the growing waves was sad.

Fuck. He’d made her sad .

He was an ass.

He never should have asked her to dance. They’d been coexisting peacefully since the dinner in his cabin, any awkwardness put firmly aside—mostly through Aleksi’s efforts in smoothing over any conversation. There was a reason they’d made the man a diplomat, after all.

But then he’d seen her there, with his crew. Dancing. Laughing. So much a part of the joyous chaos of this odd little family he’d created from the outcasts of a dozen lands that her presence felt natural—felt inevitable .

He’d lost his grip on sense. That was the only explanation for it. He didn’t dance. He didn’t even know how to dance—not that what they’d done had been dancing. No, they’d been swaying to an ancient rhythm better put to more carnal uses. Her body pressed all along his had been maddening and perfect.

Small mercy that he hadn’t propositioned her again. He’d been moments from doing just that—a reckless decision he never would have made under normal circumstances—when she’d pulled away. She’d made it clear she wanted more than he could give, and Einar was not in the business of breaking hearts.

But he would make a fool of himself over her if he wasn’t careful. At best. And at worst—

The first fat drops of rain fell to the deck, hitting his hair and running down his spine like an icy claw. A warning of what the Siren might do to him if he hurt her beloved protégée. A swift death in the merciless deep would be a blessing compared to facing Dianthe’s wrath.

“Standing alone against a storm?” Aleksi’s gently amused voice broke through Einar’s preoccupation. “Aren’t there better ways to punish yourself, Einar?”

The Lover stood a few paces away, balanced gracefully in spite of the increasing roll of the waves. The rain had already slicked his dark hair, and left his shirt plastered to his impressively built chest and arms. Einar had stopped wondering how the Lover could look elegant and alluring in the most absurd circumstances—but he did envy it. It made his muttered reply sound grumpier than he intended. “It’s not punishment. It’s my duty as captain.”

“To stand alone?”

“Why should everyone else get drenched clothes and chattering teeth when the cold doesn’t bother me?” Einar fought for a firmer tone this time. “This is going to be a rough one, my lord. You might prefer to be snug in your cabin.”

Aleksi only arched one perfect eyebrow before taking an easy step forward, moving with the swaying of the ship. “So this is for their benefit, not so you can brood in peace. I see.”

The Lover’s perceptiveness could be a true aggravation. Lying never worked with the man, so Einar made the truth into a joke. “I could have brooded in just as much peace in my cabin. But I prefer a dramatic backdrop. I look much more impressive like this.”

“That you do.” The wind tugged at Aleksi’s hair as the rain began to fall in earnest, pelting the unbothered god with the force of the gusting wind.

Well, a little frigid rain was unlikely to seriously harm a member of the High Court. And while Einar didn’t share the same awe of the Lover as the younger Dreamers did, he didn’t quite have the temerity to order the man belowdecks. “If you want to stand out here and brood with me, I won’t stop you.”

“It seems wrong, somehow, to leave you as alone as you obviously wish to be.” Suddenly, his brow furrowed, and he looked over at Einar. “Are you worried about what we’ll find on the island?”

Einar’s fingers flexed against the wheel. Aleksi couldn’t know the island held a very personal—and tragic—place in his heart. A single wrong word to the Lover could reveal far more than Einar intended to. So the truth, again. Simply not the whole truth. “How could I not be? I have no love for the Imperials, and you know they have no love for me. And given the chaos in the Empire right now ...”

“You need not concern yourself that we’re walking into the same situation as the others,” Aleksi told him gently. “The harsh awakenings to the Dream and the Void that are happening on the mainland do not trouble Akeisa.”

That was news to Einar. “How can that be true?”

“Because Gwynira did not let Sorin’s greed touch her part of the kingdom.” Aleksi inhaled deeply. “It’s a mark in her favor, certainly. And it gives me hope. She protected her people.”

Lightning forked dramatically across the sky, drawing the Lover’s gaze. Thunder cracked overhead, loud enough that Einar felt the vibrations in his bones. Hopefully the combination would distract Aleksi from the storm of conflicting emotions inside Einar. Hearing the people of Rahvekya referred to as Gwynira’s people grated at him, but he couldn’t help but be grudgingly relieved to know that the horrors seen in the Empire might not be happening to the descendants of Petya’s family and friends. He’d tell her as much tomorrow, and hope it eased her heart a little.

“The storm’s getting worse,” Aleksi observed, still seeming more curious than concerned.

“We’re headed toward the heart of it now,” Einar agreed. “Are you sure you don’t want to seek the safety of your bed?”

For the first time, Aleksi had to raise his voice to be heard over the whipping of the impending gale. “I’m not leaving.”

“Then brace yourself, my lord.” Einar widened his stance as the bow lifted, the ship climbing its largest swell yet. “You’re in for a hard ride.”

The Lover smiled in anticipation.

So be it.

It was effortless to sink his power into the ship again, to feel the surge of the water against the hull. On the ships of his youth, the deck would be swarming with anxious crew as they sailed into the wind, hoping to find that terrifying balance of hurtling forward fast enough to top each wave but not so fast that they lost control. In the earliest days on the Kraken, when he’d been a mere mortal sailor, it had been like that too.

No longer. As his legend had grown in power, so had the ship, until it seemed to defy the ravages of age and the elements as easily as he did. Wood on the ship didn’t rot. Metal didn’t rust. The Dreamers who chose to sail with him found their powers enhanced when they stood on her decks. Even those mortals who made their home on his ship seemed changed by it—stronger, more robust. They healed more swiftly and didn’t age. Over the years some had left his crew to settle down and live normal lives, and age had renewed its gentle grip on them. But for those who stayed ...

The Kraken protected its crew from the very rhythms of time. How could a mere storm compare?

A fresh gust of wind whipped at his hair—a warning not to be complacent. The Kraken might ride the massive waves of this storm like a lover, but only a fool failed to respect the ocean’s moods. He could feel the power of it in the tension on the wheel, and the strength it took to hold their course steady.

But even now, with the rain falling hard enough to sting the skin and thunder an ominous roar above them, that sweet, sad song was still there. Naia’s power, sliding through the sea, whispering to the waves. Perhaps that was why even the largest swells carried them gently forward to the next, and towering waves only broke once they were past.

In the heart of one of the angriest storms Einar had seen in a long time, the sea still gentled itself in the face of the awesome power that flowed from Naia.

Lightning flashed directly above them, illuminating Aleksi’s face in profile. The Lover had closed his eyes and tilted his head back, lifting his face to the storm as if the furious rain was nothing more than a gentle mist. He was as oblivious to the crack of thunder and the howl of the wind as he was to the deck pitching and rolling beneath his feet.

Something about the Lover seemed primal in that moment, a whispered reminder that Aleksi wasn’t simply the god of desire, but in a very real way the god of life itself. He might not be able to summon the rain like the Siren, or hold dominion over the earth like the Dragon, but where he walked he left fertile ground, and when the rain sank into the dirt and found that spark, flowers grew.

Aleksi opened his eyes, and Einar sucked in a breath at their color—not their usual rich brown, but a deep, glowing violet that was another reminder. Magic sizzled through the air, the pulse of the Everlasting Dream all around them. This was the difference between a regular Dreamer—even one like Einar, who had seen over two thousand years—and a member of the High Court.

Power.

Some ancient instinct stirred in Einar, the Kraken recognizing the threat of a far more dangerous predator. His skin itched with the need to shed his mortal form and wrap the armor of the deepest ocean around him—

Lightning slashed through the night sky, close enough to raise the hair on the back of his neck. The boom of thunder made the ship vibrate beneath his feet. The wheel jerked, fighting him. The Kraken listed to starboard, and Einar tensed his arms and put all of his immortal strength into righting it.

The wheel creaked beneath his hands, loud enough that he could hear it over the wail of the storm. He’d never worried about the wood cracking in the face of a storm before—every part of his ship, from rudder to mast, seemed to defy all but the worst damage—but there was an anger to this storm that felt personal. Vicious. As if it wanted to punish him .

Einar caught movement at his side out of the corner of his eye, and suddenly he could feel the Lover next to him, the weight of so much power like the feeling when he slipped too deep into the ocean, with water pressing in all around him.

One warm hand covered his. Aleksi’s fingers wove between his, gripping the wheel. Adding his strength. A second hand followed, the sensual glide of fingertips across the back of his hand like heat tearing through the frigid rain.

The Lover wasn’t trying to seduce him. There were no coy glances, no suggestive smile. Aleksi simply lent his formidable strength, and when his fingers slid across the polished mahogany of the wheel, something ... sparked.

The ominous groan of wood stressed to the breaking point softened. The wheel seemed stronger in Einar’s grip. The planks beneath his feet felt ... firmer. As if the very ship itself was a living thing, and the Lover had whispered to the heart of it, to the parts that had once been proud trees stretching branches toward the sun. Even the wind seemed softer, the storm gentled.

When you dance with the captain, you dance with the ship, he’d told Naia. He hadn’t told her that the reverse was true, as well. Aleksi’s magic wound through him along with the ship, coaxing life and strength and vitality . Arousal swelled within Einar, hardening his cock and awakening a hunger to touch. To taste. To fall into this man as he hadn’t in over two thousand years—

No. No. There was a reason he didn’t dally with the Lover the way the rest of the High Court did so readily. A reason he avoided those infamous joining-day celebrations, the joyous parties where pleasure and ecstasy were traded between all who were willing.

It was the same reason Aleksi had been sent on this damned mission to begin with. Desire might be bait in the Lover’s trap, but his most dangerous weapon had always been his ability to find his way through the protections you built around your own heart. No labyrinth was too complex for him to navigate, no wall too great for him to scale, no rage too deep for him to soothe.

Einar liked his rage. And his walls. His frozen heart had served him well over the centuries. It kept him sharp, kept him focused. It kept him fighting the Empire that had taken everything from him, and let him keep the people who trusted him safe.

As soon as he’d delivered Aleksi and Naia safely home from their mission, Einar would have to remind himself why he fought. A nice, clean battle would wash away this distraction, and help him rebuild his walls.

Because this was all he needed. This ship. His crew. His fight against the Empire.

Maybe tomorrow, with some distance, that wouldn’t feel like a lie.