Page 22 of Virelai’s Hoard (The Dagger & Tide Trilogy #1)

Sable

Sable breathed out evenly as she struck at the sandbag hanging in front of her, her movements quick and precise.

The blade of her machete made a tiny cut on the coarse material, and a thin rivulet of sand escaped, falling to the floor with a quiet pattering sound.

The light from the lantern she’d set on the nearby table flickered, glinting off the drops of sweat gathering on her bare arms. Feet moving quickly, Sable danced to the other side of the bag and struck again.

And again. And again. With every strike, more sand fell to the floor, slow enough as to track the passing of time.

This late at night, she should be sleeping, but back in her quarters, all she had managed to do was toss and turn and think too much.

And Sable didn’t want to think. What happened earlier in the day had rattled her–it had rattled everyone–and the ship felt somber and empty with Pip’s absence.

But that wasn’t what messed with her head.

Sable knew loss. Sable knew how to handle loss.

On a trip like this, loss was to be expected, and she’d hardened her heart against it long ago.

No, what messed with her were the sirens.

Their song. What it did to all of them. There had been times when Sable’s body and life hadn’t belonged to herself, but her mind?

Her mind had always been hers. Her thoughts, her feelings, her urges.

Hers. For that song to take control of her like that, to twist her into something she wasn’t, to make her–

She wanted to fucking–

A stabbing sound resounded in the empty cabin.

Sable breathed heavily as she stared at her machete, its blade buried in the sandbag’s belly.

“Fuck,” she said under her breath as she pulled the machete out. Now she’d have to get another.

The sand poured to the floor, the bag sagging under the loss.

Gripping the handle tightly, Sable looked down at her bare feet, trying to control her breathing.

Her rage. Her shoulders heaved with it. A drop of sweat slid down her nose and spattered on the floor between her feet.

Ever since she came back into herself, there had been a knot of anger and want pulsing deep inside her guts, and this was doing nothing to release it.

With a swipe of her arm, Sable cut cleanly through the cord holding the now empty sandbag in the air, and it fell with a dull thump.

“You don’t need to skulk in the shadows,” Sable said without turning her head. “I’ll put on a show for you if that’s what you want.”

Was this her, or still the song thrumming through her body?

Maybe she didn’t want to know. Not tonight. She wanted to stop thinking.

At the insolent scoff coming from somewhere at her back, the anger let up, but not the want. It pulsed with the burning heat from her work-out and her uneven breathing.

“Maybe skulking is part of the fun,” Riley said easily, and Sable turned to see her walk into the circle of light.

She sauntered to the table and lifted herself up to sit on its edge.

Her hazel eyes lingered in places, like Sable’s bare arms and bare stomach and bare feet, not even trying to hide her staring.

Or the mischief in them. Sable didn’t like to wear many clothes when training, keeping just the bare minimum. Her trousers and chest bindings.

Riley wet her lips as her eyes came back up to meet Sable’s. She cocked her head to the side, smirking. “What did that poor sandbag do to you?”

Sable glanced at the empty cloth sagging atop the pile of its former innards. “It talked back,” she said dryly, pressing down on a smile when Riley scoffed again.

Calmly, Sable walked to the table and set her machete down on it, just a few inches from Riley, who sat a little straighter with her approach. Riley’s eyes strayed from hers again, somewhere on her neck where Sable could feel the cool of her own sweat and the pulse of her own heartbeat.

“So I should be careful then, huh?” Riley’s smile was mocking, but her voice was lower, hands gripping the edge of the table as if she was restraining herself from doing something else with them.

Sable studied her. Under the jabs and the mischief, she saw the dark circles under Riley’s eyes, the tense set of her shoulders. Was she also trying to escape her own thoughts?

Folding her arms, Sable said, “Yes. You should.” And if she flexed her muscles on purpose as she did, well, who could blame her when Riley was looking at her like that ?

“Or what?” Riley’s gaze leveled with hers, bold and challenging.

Sable took in a cooling breath.

They’d done this little dance before. She was perfectly aware of the electric tension between them, but it had all been harmless play so far.

A casual brush of the fingers, unnecessary body contact during their reading lessons, small jabs here and there meant to rile each other up.

But that was all it could be. If either of them got attached, things could get messy, and Sable didn’t want to deal with that particular sort of headache.

So she took a step back and turned away, heading for the right-hand wall of the cabin, where more sandbags lay heavily against the wall.

“I didn’t take you for a coward.”

Sable’s movements stilled–the words tugged at the knot in her stomach. Her teeth gritted. “What did you say?” she asked quietly, daring Riley to repeat herself as she looked over her shoulder.

Riley smiled that mischievous smile of hers, apparently delighted to repeat herself. “I said , I didn’t take you for a–”

In two paces, Sable crossed the distance between them.

The last word caught in her mouth as she gripped Riley’s chin and crashed her lips against hers.

Hard. Not gentle or careful, not the way she’d imagined it–once or twice too often.

It was heat and salt and something reckless, like wind catching a flame.

Riley smirked into the kiss. As if this was what she’d wanted all along. As if Sable were the slow one, catching up to something Riley had already claimed.

“Take your fucking clothes off,” Sable growled.

An amused grin broke their kiss, and Sable leaned back, frowning. Did she misinterpret this? Was Riley just playing with her? Her hand flinched away from her chin.

“I’m sorry,” Riley said, suppressing her grin and sliding off the table to stand in front of Sable, so close to her they were almost brushing against each other as they breathed. Riley laid a hand on Sable’s chest. “But if you think you know how this is going to go… Well, you’re wrong.”

With that, she pushed, just a gentle press of her hand, and Sable looked down at Riley.

Something about her had shifted, her features harder and less playful, a confidence in those hazel eyes that stole Sable’s breath away and made her pliable to the silent request. For now.

She stepped back, and Riley followed, until their feet met the sand covering the center of the room.

Riley’s hand moved to cup the side of her neck then, and she leaned in, her warm breath caressing her ear as she said softly, “Up there you might be the one ordering me around, but here? I’ll be calling the shots.”

Despite herself, Sable shivered, her eyes fluttering closed. This wasn’t how things usually went, but Riley had a knack for being unpredictable, didn’t she? It was half her charm.

A smile snuck its way to Sable’s lips. She had to admit it; she was intrigued. Perhaps letting go was exactly what she needed after today.

“Alright,” she said, opening her eyes. She relished the warmth of Riley’s palm against her neck. “How is this going to go, then?”

Riley’s eyes glinted in the flickering light of the lantern as her hand fell from her neck. Sable’s skin cooled with the loss. The other woman took a small step back, and she drew a line in the sand with her boot.

Riley pointed her chin at the line. “You’re going to kneel on this line,” she said, and a rush of warmth escaped the knot in Sable’s stomach, spreading up and across her back.

Riley’s eyebrows rose. “Now.” Her voice was barely above a whisper, and it was the softness of it that made Sable’s knees give into the command.

She knelt in the sand and looked up at Riley, licking her lips as the anticipation of what would happen next made her fingertips tingle.

Riley slid a booted foot toward Sable. “Take them off for me.”

Sable swallowed, and she reached out to untie Riley’s boots and hold them still as Riley stepped out of them. Her feet were bare and smaller than Sable had expected. Those boots weren’t fitting her.

“Good.” Riley smiled, starting to untie the knot holding her trousers up.

In a moment, her pants fell to the floor.

Sable’s pulse quickened, hard and fast under her skin.

“Now you’re going to hold me up, and you won’t stop until I tell you to stop.

” Her hand came to cup Sable’s chin, drawing her gaze from Riley’s naked skin to her eyes. “Okay?”

Wordless, Sable nodded.

With little ceremony, Riley tossed her trousers to the side and stepped closer. She raised one leg up and across Sable’s shoulder, and Sable reached to wrap her arms around Riley’s thighs, holding her steady as Riley offered herself up to her.

Sable didn’t need more of an invitation than that.

Looking up at her, she pressed her mouth to Riley’s heat.

The lantern hadn’t shone enough light to show much, and Sable hummed in pleasant surprise as her lips met the slick wetness of pure want.

It was echoed by Riley’s own breathy moan, low and barely more than a vibration in the air.

With a few open-mouthed kisses, Sable coaxed Riley to trust more of her weight to Sable’s hold and relax.

She barely weighed anything, but the steady pressure of the contact and the wetness coating her lips was all Sable could concentrate on, anyway.

Riley’s hand cupped her scarred cheek, guiding her movements as she slowly started to rock her hips against Sable’s mouth.

Sable took it gladly, using the flat of her tongue for Riley to ride, her own breathing getting deeper as Riley’s desire coated her mouth, her chin.

The moans were getting louder, and a clearer-headed Sable might’ve worried about that, except that every rock of Riley’s hips and every hitch in her breath sent heat pooling between her own legs and she really didn’t give a fuck about anything else right now.

Her fingers dug in Riley’s ass as she pressed her cunt more firmly against her mouth, moaning into the heat and wetness and the sounds and smells filling the space around her.

“Sable, I-” Riley breathed shakily, a shudder going through her as Sable penetrated her with her tongue. “Fuck. Don’t fucking stop.”

Sable didn’t dream of it. Sensing the impending climax in Riley’s urgent moans and the tension in her muscles, she renewed her efforts, licking and sucking on Riley’s swollen clit until the other woman’s hastened movements halted with a strangled whimper.

Sable kept going. She drank Riley up until Riley’s hand moved to her shoulder with a weak, “Stop.”

So Sable helped keep her steady as Riley unhooked her leg from across her shoulder and stepped back.

“Ah, shit.” Riley grinned, reaching out to swipe her thumb across Sable’s lower lip. She brought her thumb to her lips, and Sable swallowed as she watched Riley lick it with a playful flick of her tongue. “We should’ve done this sooner.”

With that, Riley pulled up her pants and her boots and was out of the room with a wink.

Sable, still kneeling, followed her with her gaze, trying to settle down her breathing and heartbeat. Heat pulsed between her legs as she licked her lips and still tasted Riley on them.

Things might’ve just gotten more complicated than they needed to be.

But Sable couldn’t say she regretted it.