Page 55 of Wicked Tides #1

I strolled for some time, wondering if there was an end to the road when the air started to smell warm with the scent of salt and stone.

I realized I had indeed managed to walk all the way to the spring.

I would not have gone in if I didn’t also sense something else.

Someone else. Someone I barely saw at the gathering in the longhouse.

I could smell the rum and oak of his clothes and hear the steady patter of his heartbeat. He was alone.

I headed around a tall wall of rocks, following a few torches that were lodged in the ground.

Turning the corner, I saw a wonderful pool framed by slick rocks and green, thriving plant life.

As soon as I stepped onto the warm stone surrounding the water, I was hit with another whiff of his intoxicating scent.

In the haze of steam coming off the pool, a figure stood hip-deep in the spring.

I could see the muscular plain of his back and his broad shoulders and the scars that decorated his tanned skin.

His golden dreadlocks were pulled back with a leather string as he leisurely scrubbed days’ worth of sweat and salty sea air from his body.

I stood at the corner of the wall and watched him through the thin vapor as he bathed. Cocking my head, I wondered when he would notice me only to hear him chuckle at my presence and turn.

“The way you’re looking at me doesn’t seem nearly as murderous as I’m used to,” he said, his deep voice filling the space.

I took a long breath of the air infused with Vidar’s distinct scent. I stepped forward and slid my leather boots off my feet, setting them aside. As Vidar continued to run his hands over his wet skin, he watched me and I began to undress until I was naked before him.

A set of natural stone steps led into the water.

Slowly I descended them, letting the spring warm my cool blood.

It wasn’t hot, but in that frigid place, it was a wonderful feeling.

Sinking down to my neck, I pushed off and swam to the other side of the large pool, dunking my head beneath the water to saturate my hair.

When I came up, Vidar was still casually watching me as I leaned up against the stone opposite him.

A crack in the clouds above let Lune through to illuminate the clearing and the beam cast a pillar of light right in the middle of the water.

Vidar stepped forward into the center of it and I was struck with an infuriating sense of lust.

“Does your change call to you in the water?” he asked, sinking down so he too was submerged in the spring.

“It calls to me on land,” I admitted.

“Do you want to change now? In my presence?”

“I would not subject you to the pleasure of watching me squirm,” I said.

“It is not pleasant. We are two creatures in one skin. From one form to the other, it is like being cut down the middle only to be turned inside out. For a split second, it feels as if all my guts and insides are outside, there for the taking.”

“And yet your kind take to land as if it is nothing.”

“Pain is something all creatures have in common. We are born screaming. We die screaming. Enduring through life only prepares us for the excruciating end.”

“Then why do you fear the xhoth?”

I paused, taking a breath to calm the nerves he’d agitated.

“The sons do not just hurt us. They transform us into things that are soulless. I am tortured by my pain and my hatred and fury. By you. But my mind has remained my own. Madness has not gripped me, or so I think, but if I surrender to the deep, I will be lost. I have fought too hard not to become…” I stopped for a beat, tasting the bitterness of my words before I said them. “My mother.”

“I thought you loved your mother.”

I took a deep breath, watching the light dance on the ripples of the cloudy pool.

“Have you ever heard a whale cry out beneath the water, captain?” I said, my memories moving like waves before my eyes.

“When they see their young killed, there is a certain tone in their song. In the water, it is not just a sound. It is a feeling that crashes through you. You can feel it in your bones for miles. In your lungs.”

Silence stretched between us as I came back from the horrors.

“I have not,” Vidar muttered softly.

I lifted my eyes to him again. “I loved my mother, but to think she ever loved me like Ahnah loves her people. Like you love your crew. To think she would have ever cried out for me. That would be foolish. One who has been to the deep cannot love. We live to serve the father, Akareth. I insulted him by betraying my mother. Since that day, I have prayed to Lune. Blasphemer is only one name they call me because I will not serve a god that turns his daughters mad.”

Looking up, I saw Vidar staring at me with such focus that it was almost unnerving. I narrowed my eyes at him.

“What? ”

Shrugging, he said, “I am only trying to figure out if you’re attempting to manipulate me in some way or… if you have a heart.”

The corner of my lips lifted and I slinked through the water, moving slowly toward him.

I could have eaten him alive. He was alone.

I was stronger. His cutlass was on his belt too far for him to reach.

He knew it and like always, he did not shy from me.

I slithered close to him, my teeth throbbing at the smell of him.

At the sound of his pulse fluttering through the water like a beacon.

“You will never know, no matter what I say,” I whispered, bringing my face dangerously close to his. “I can lie as well as I can speak the truth. I know you can, too.”

He lingered there, his eyes locked onto mine as I inched closer to him, yearning for his dangerous heat. When his hand jutted out of the water and grasped the nape of my neck, I did not pull from his cruel touch. He tangled his fingers in my hair, pulling my head back.

“I never expected to trust you,” he said, his other hand coming out of the water with a dagger in it.

He pressed the blade to my neck, letting my skin taste the sharp edge, and I smiled with excitement.

“And here I am the fool for thinking you’d be unarmed,” I said.

He watched me as I surrendered to his grip as if waiting for me to do something. All I wished to do was dissect him and the only way I could do that while under his blade was to toy with his mind. His body. It was something I had been yearning to do for some time.

Slowly, I slid my hand up his thigh, crawling my fingers along his body until I felt the length of his cock thick and hard in my hand.

I did not need to say anything. The silence said it for me.

Vidar was aroused and by his greatest enemy, no less.

I wrapped my long fingers around his shaft and watched his lips part as I slid my fist upward to the very tip.

When I slid it down, he shuddered, his hand gripping my hair tighter.

“Take the blade from my neck,” I muttered.

Slowly, he moved the dagger and loosened his grip on me. I looked up at him from hooded eyes and slid my hand along his length again before slowly sinking deeper into the water. But once my mouth was submerged, he took my hair again and stopped me from going under.

“Do not think for a moment I am letting your teeth anywhere near that, ” he said.

I smirked at his caution, but too soon, Vidar’s lips were almost on mine.

My heart skipped at the thought of kissing him.

Since that day in Port Devlin, my body desired things it never had before.

Things I was certain only Vidar could give me.

I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted to taste his lips.

Feel his arms caging me against him. Feel the sting of his touch and the caress of his skin.

But too soon, someone else entered the space. I pushed away from him, my heart racing with unanswered anticipation. Looking up, I saw Meridan in the haze, watching us.

Vidar cleared his throat and stood from the water, unashamed of his nudity as he ambled over to his clothing and slid them on over his wet skin.

There was a terrible, unfinished feeling in my gut as Vidar walked out of the clearing wrapped in a fur blanket. But he was right to leave. Meridan had a disapproving air about her that I felt was directed at me. I had been feeling it for some time.

Once we were alone, she undressed, sliding into the water beside me.

Her pale skin nearly matched the milky color of the spring.

She could have gotten lost in that pool for days.

I wanted to ask her what was on her mind, but her silence was telling of her mood.

I let her stew in her thoughts for a while, waiting for a chiding remark.

“I thought it strange you did not come to bed, so I followed you,” she said, combing her fingers through her long, silver hair. “You are getting tremendously comfortable with him,”

“Comfortable is the last thing I feel around him,” I said.

“You touch him as if you are.”

“I touch him because I know—”

“You are growing to care for him,” she interrupted, turning to look at me with those foggy eyes .

I couldn’t deny it and I wasn’t sure if it was because she was right or if I was simply confused. Either way, I said nothing and Meridan didn’t seem thrilled about that.

“Meri, whatever your reservations, you can rid yourself of them. Vidar remains a tool and nothing more.”

She remained silent, slowly pulling knots from her hair. I waited patiently, trying to put Vidar out of my mind. At least, for the moment.

“I told you long ago that my father was human,” she began.

“I told you he raped my mother and I was the product of hatred. That’s untrue.

My mother loved my father. So much that she left me with her clan to be raised under hateful hands so she could live her life with him.

They called her a traitor. They called me a blight. They murdered them both. So, I left.”

“Your mother loved a man?”

Her head turned swiftly toward me. “They are manipulative creatures, men. Vidar has his claws in you and you do not even know it.”

“He does not have his claws in me. And I would never think to leave you behind in pursuit of a man. A human, no less. You are all the family I have.”

Her eyes searched mine for lies, but she found only the truth. It was all I had. I loved Meridan.

“Kea and Voel are gone,” she said, lowering her gaze. “I would be alone if I did not have you.”

I reached out to her beneath the water and grasped her hand.

“You will never be without me.”

“And if the sons manage to tempt you into their dark waters?”

“They won’t…” I hesitated to finish that sentence. “Not if I am with Vidar.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. He is the only one who heard me when I called for help that night I almost jumped off the Rose.”

“Is it your dreams? ”

“I fear I’ve lodged myself too deeply in his thoughts and he in mine. But as long as he can hear me, perhaps the sons will not be able to tempt me away.”

Her jaw tightened. I could see she was conflicted about the whole ordeal, but it was all the truth. Then, as if surrendering, she nodded and squeezed my hand.

“We are in a strange place at a strange time,” she said. “Promise we will navigate it together. ”

“I promise.”