Page 20 of Stormbinder King (Stormbinder Pack #1)
J ack lifted me into one of the wide-bottom boats the Pack would travel in to the meeting and tucked a fur robe around my legs.
I would barely need it. Although the morning was cool, in a few hours the sun would be shining down, the trees around us starting to drip with humidity again.
Solomon and Symeon climbed into the next boat over, the King dressed simply as all the other men were, in a tight-fitting dark blue tunic and pants, with his thick hair tied back with a leather strap.
He did not need any outward signs to show his status.
Although he didn’t look at me, I could feel suppressed desire spilling from him, the mate bond he still kicked and fought against.
Fuck him
We began to make our way down the river, moving quickly for the first few hours, but after we stopped for a quick break, the boats took a left turn and the waters began to slow, the trees bow down lower, dripping dark fetid humidity into still waters.
Suddenly, a lookout hissed, “What’s that, my king?”
I turned sharply to see an ancient, mossy head rising from the dank stagnant water. It was a massive, dark sea serpent rising, slow and deadly, from the bone-flat waters ahead of me.
It had an enormous hoary head, crusted over with something filmy and skeletal over a wicked face, and its long body was still unrolling to stretch to its full height in front of the Stormbinder boats.
“Silence!” the King ordered harshly. “Do not move or speak. It can sense movement and hear sounds better than it can see.”
The boat fell uneasily silent then, and all eyes were on the ancient head of the sea serpent, now nosing curiously around to find its prey.
Sea serpents could kill either by spitting poison at their victims or capsizing whole ships to send everyone aboard to a watery grave. The only sounds were the waves lapping against the side of the boat and the terrifying searching snuffling of the serpent.
Symeon stepped carefully up to balance on the front of the boat, his legs spread apart for stability. His eyes did not leave the serpent’s as he slowly drew his dagger. Then he waited.
He did not move a muscle as the serpent snapped cunningly closer, darting its hoary head back and forth around the king.
I tensed, slipping my dagger too from the pocket of my skirts and holding it tight in my sweaty palm.
Jack had one hand back in an impatient gesture for silence and I waited as my heartbeat thudded through my chest.
I could see that Symeon was tensed to spring, but he was waiting until the serpent presented a vulnerable angle to attack him at.
“Stay back,” he warned his brother.
He did not look at me.
“ Shift ,” Jack bit out at him, but the King shook his head.
I could sense Jack starting to shift anyway, the long claws protruding from his fingers as his white-gold beauty began to flick between man and deadly monster.
Then the serpent’s tongue swept out to send a stream of poisonous acid against our outrigger, sizzling at the bow.
Symeon darted one glance back and then, with a move of sudden and savage violence, he brought his dagger down and severed the serpent’s head from its body.
“Archers!” Symeon bit out, and both Jack and Solomon quickly notched their bows and began to let arrows fly at the serpent’s scaly body.
The serpent’s headless body flailed violently around, the water boiling and frothing with its death throes.
Everyone’s eyes were on the death throes of the monster’s huge, ponderous body and they did not see the serpent’s wicked tail flick out and scythe through the water.
Heading directly for Solomon, in a last primeval urge to knock him out of the boat from behind.
Shit, Solomon was going to get knocked in the chest and catapulted into the fetid water.
With sudden, panicked urgency, I clutched my short dagger and launched myself at the tail as it swept by the boat.
I stuck it with my blade, but the tail was so massive that before I could duck or move, it flicked back and knocked me hard into the back of the boat.
“Andromeda!” Symeon called, and as I slammed on the back bench, I knew.
He couldn’t hide it from me.
He leaped heavily into our outrigger and hewed the monster’s tail in two, sending the rest of it slithering across the deck and back into the sea.
“What happened?” Jack exclaimed sharply as Symeon helped me up.
“Is anything wrong? Anything broken?”
“What happened?” Jack snapped, trying to shove his brother away to get closer to me.
“Its tail was heading for the outriggers, so she stabbed it.”
The King’s hands were on me, checking to make sure I hadn’t broken anything, his body blocking his brother.
“That was a damn fool thing to do,” Jack said angrily. “You should have just let us handle it.”
His jaw clenched angrily, and the prince whirled on the other shifters in Symeon’s boat.
“Isn’t it supposed to be your job to protect the king?” he snarled, his eyes flashing.
I saw Aurelia’s face, distant behind him, her skin tight with anger, bitterness drawn over her face like a skull.
Then he turned to me, balancing on the edge of the boat and stepping in front of his brother.
His fingers gripped my chin, hard.
“Don’t do anything so stupid again. You could have been seriously hurt.”
“Get your hands off her,” the King bit out.
Jack eyes flashed angrily. “I will touch her any way I like!” he shot back.
“No, you can’t,” Symeon said flatly. “I order you to take your hands off of her.”
Jack’s fingers tightened, and then they were nose to nose with a dagger in Jack’s hand.
“Mine,” he said. “And the moment you fucking think you can order me not to touch her is the moment I’ll gut you like a pig.”
“Stand down,” Solomon called out sharply. “Let’s get out of these gods-damned waters.”
We finally moved away but not before I could feel it tingling all over my skin.
Symeon could lie to me all he wanted, but I knew he wasn’t as uncaring as he pretended to be.