Page 83 of Death’s Kiss (The Order of the Tide Raiders #1)
“Shut-the-fuck- up, Ophios,” Agni replies, his tone is low and warning and just a tinge exasperated. It sounds like a phrase he has to use with his second aggravatingly often.
“Captain—give the word—Nimra’s positioned.” Kleio’s voice is closer now from behind and I pause my constant movement. Now it’s my turn to smirk as Agni looks briefly confused at my approaching crew before studying my face.
“You would risk being hit if she should miss?” His voice is suddenly caustic. I’m not certain I know where the sharpened edge of anger in his voice is coming from.
My smirk grows. “She won’t miss. ”
Agni’s eyes narrow in on my face to study it, trying to judge my certainty. He frowns when it becomes clear I’m not bluffing. “Fine. Ask me nicely and I’ll call off the boys,” he offers in his most patronizing tone.
“Ask you nicely ?” I bite out.
Agni’s smirk returns. “Perhaps sweetly would be the proper term.”
Before I can riposte, he lowers his head to rest his lips just beside my ear. “After all, we both know you are ever so talented at asking me sweetly. Aren’t you?” His voice is soft as ash.
Swallowing down the spike in my blood pressure, I pull back slightly to meet his gaze with my own homicidal glare. The look in his eyes meeting mine is one of pure wickedness. I think rage might just be a permanent emotion for me now.
“Agni?” I whisper, leaning in closer.
His kesar-shaded eyes stare back at me with a dizzying array of concealed thoughts. One layer hidden right after another. “Hm?” he asks expectantly, his tone a touch coarse.
“Call off your damn dogs before I put them down myself,” I hiss before taking a page out of his book and kicking him square in the shin as hard as I possibly can. Much harder than he kicked me.
“Fucking —brat !” he barks out in pain.
My crew’s eruption of laughter fills the cavern and I yank free my hands easily now that his attention is elsewhere. Scooping up my fallen blade, I make it to the edge where Kleio aims for. Agni’s crew lifts their crossbows and my still-snickering second readies her shield.
“ Depone arma nunc! ” Agni snaps, his tone both sharp and peeved and my stomach drops. Kleio’s shield has grown stronger in the last year, but I’m not positive whether or not it would be strong enough to take on seven iron bolts at once.
To my relief and stifled surprise, Agni’s crew slowly lowers their weapons. The southern moonlighter docks at the opposite bank of the outcropping and their captain goes to rejoin his crew without another word. I despise how riled that simple act of impartiality gets me.
It was just a few kisses for depth's sake.
Get it together, Boreas.
My own craft reaches the ledge before me. Kleio steps up to the bow, her familiar sepia eyes scouring me for all signs of fatal injuries before letting slip a grin. I take her arm in mine and let her pull me into the moonlighter.
My smile is so wide when landing on the deck, I think it just might split my face in two.
“So then—Herse starts yelling at Raider Ophios, saying she’s gonna put a muzzle on him and that’s when things really start to get heated.”
Kleio is reporting to me their side of the past few hours that we’ve been separated while Davina finishes inspecting me.
I’m still snickering from the recount of their escapades when Vi comes to worry over my face and neck. Her hands lightly graze over the blotches on my jaw and throat, the split on my lip, even the marks near my ear. Kaleidoscope eyes blink at me several times over.
“ Merena ,” she hisses low.
I give her a look of complete innocence. “ What ?” I ask, matching her tone.
“What the fuck happened ?” Vi asks, louder than she should .
My scowl is immediate as everyone in the speeder quiets and turns around to see what on Pontus the ever-so-even-tempered Leech Davina is snapping at her captain for. My lips remain tight and I avoid their gazes. This only makes it worse.
Kleio, of course, spots Davina’s reason for question with agonizing swiftness. “What—wait—are those—is that from— Captain Agni ?” Her question comes out in a threatening snarl.
Herse sits up ramrod straight at the helm before risking a look back in my direction. Seven pairs of eyes study me and my most recent injuries with cautious, borderline-murderous interest, and my scowl deepens further. Huffing a sigh, I roll my eyes to the cavernous ceiling and back.
“Technically,” I admit, striving to keep my voice even.
“I again ask, what happened?” Implores Vi, her hand tensing slightly as it gently tilts my neck.
My arms cross, and I’m suddenly feeling quite raw and defensive. "We were just—um—you know—just fighting ." Something in my off-key tone and the blushing noncommittal up-quirk of my lips alludes to them that my participation was indeed included very willingly in the event.
Vi relaxes beside me instantly while Kleio lets out an obnoxious guffaw in disbelief.
“What kind of fight, Cap? One for air , maybe?” Herse calls over a shoulder in my direction, her brows flashing suggestively.
My face turns a terribly dark scarlet and I sink down low in my spot, giving myself away completely. The entirety of my crew begins gaping at my extremely uncharacteristic response and I feel the sudden need to defend myself.
“I was saving his life !” I snap.
Kleio busts out laughing from where she sits across from me before taunting, “My my, don't we think highly of our skills.”
My face reddens even further.
“No it—I had too—see he was poisoned—and we—well—the od wasn’t done—so of course it—there wasn’t a choice—and—” I start trying to explain but the whole godsdamned speeder hanging on my every stumbling word has me faltering.
“ Annnd ? For transparency's sake, of course.” My second grins, mischief practically rolling off of her in waves.
“And—I had the antidote—” a deep flush threatens to swallow me whole “—in my mouth.”
All seven of my crewmembers' jaws drop down to the deck of the shiny new moonlighter. Kleio then promptly keens right over and into my lap. I shake my head with a breathy laugh, my eyes rolling upwards at their dramatics.
Absolutely incorrigible , the lot of them.
“Hold on, hold on, hold on,” Kleio demands, recovering herself back up to face me. “Is that what the drama back there was about? Why it looked like Captain-ten-feet-of-pure-fucking-menace was on the verge of kidnapping you?”
“Please,” I say, scoffing a laugh. “That was just Agni being an ass for his own entertainment.”
Kleio chuckles but then shakes her head of silver-threaded braids. “No, I'm serious, Merena. I thought we were going to be prying you out of his godsdamned hands back there for a second. He looked like he was seriously debating whether or not to just grab you and run.”
“It’s true,” Herse confirms from the helm. “Up until you kicked the shit out of him.” She snickers to herself in memory.
“It was just a bit of kissing,” I state, completely exasperated. Even as something inside of my bones begins to tremble at the mere thought of said kissing.
Kleio, it seems, is exceptionally persistent today. “ Okay , and then what about right before we left the port for our exit tunnel? He turned back to stare at you like—I don’t know.” She shakes her head again. “Like he was completely enraged but also—somehow— amazed ?”
“Oh, that?” I ask, as a deviant smirk begins tugging at my features in memory of said expression.
“Now that was Agni finally realizing I nicked a few of his rings while we were— fighting, ” I explain with a snort, holding up both the ruby pinky accessory of his I’d admired and, more importantly, his southern captaincy ring before giving them all a conniving flash of my brows.
Kleio glances at the pieces of stolen jewelry and back to my face with something like rapture in her eyes. “Merena, I think you might be a god,” she whispers, slack-jawed.
The twins both eye one another silently before promptly sliding to their knees on the ground where I sit and begin bowing over me repeatedly with moronic emphatic worship.
Vi actually gets up from healing the blotches along my throat to check on Herse in concern as she’s become completely unintelligible while slamming her palms flat against the wheel in amusement.
My fourth begins howling so hard with laughter that she falls off her seat and hits her head near the stern. Nimra struggles through her own tears of mirth in helping Greer back up.
I snort softly at their ridiculous displays while sliding the heavy ruby ornament onto a finger.
The conversation eventually turns back to preparation and navigation through the vein-like rivers as we near the last gate to the heart. I listen to the new adjustments of our entrance and exit strategy while brushing Agni’s stolen captain's ring against my lower lip idly.
My thoughts, for one tiny moment, become a bit dazed.
Gorgeous, he’d called me.