"They werenothingcompared to the agony I've been living in, knowing you were gone from this world. I'd burn under the force of a thousand fires if it meant I would get to hold you again."
Her throat clogged. His statement was so ridiculous, but he was telling the truth.
"Kiss me, beast," she whispered, unable to find her voice. "Be angry with me, rage at me for everything that's happened to you since Dagsbrun if you want to. I can take it. Just kiss me."
He did not hesitate.
His hand drifted from her throat to the back of her neck as he hauled her to his lips. The sweet and tender Herrick was not present as his fingers tangled and tightened in her hair. A quick, sharp intake of breath was all that escaped Maude as she found her hands free from his hold, his grip going to her ass.
Maude ripped the shirt from Herrick's body and reached for his trouser strings just as he reached for the leather bodice that she wore around her waist and over the top of her tunic. Herrick's skilled fingers tore through the laces with ease, the restricting clothing dropping away behind her. Just when Maude managed to get the strings of his trousers loosened, Herrick pulled her forward and off the desk so he could tug her leather leggings down.
A sharp knock came at the door before it started to swing open, the dim light from below deck flooding into the heated space where Maude and Herrick were seconds from devouring each other.
"There's a ship—," Bryn began to say as she entered the room but was stopped short as she caught Maude hastily retying the strings on her leggings and Herrick pulling his tunic back on.
Hazel eyes burned into Maude as they flicked between her and the General of Rivers, the only betrayal of her sister's surprise.
"Get dressed. We're all gathering above," Bryn said, clearing her throat as she threw a leather vest that had a hard plate of metal sewn into it to Maude, now unfazed by the state of undress they were in. "There's a ship heading toward us."
"What colors are they flying?" Herrick asked as Maude turned to strap her weapons back onto her hip.
Bryn paused before saying over her shoulder, "It's one of Father's ships."
14
Herrick could feel his ears burning as Maude's sister barged into the small cabin where his better judgment had slipped from his fingers, delaying the joining with Maude that he had been desperately craving. The sudden interruption was welcome, and he didn't know how to feel about that.
He was struggling to adjust being free from chains, now wasn't the time to let himself get lost in his base desires. The iron band around his throat, still burning into his skin, reminded him that he had been and still was a prisoner. The unsettling truth that he still did not know the mystery behind how Maude was still alive was the final thread that pulled him back into himself. It was enough to make Herrick break from drowning in hiseldr'spresence.
There was a lot that needed to be discussed between him and Maude, but it couldn't happen on this shared vessel that floated over the open ocean.
She is lying to you, even now, a dark voice whispered from within his mind.Don't forget how she left you behind.
Herrick stopped short, almost dropping the dagger he was sliding into his boot in his surprise. The words came and went so quickly that he didn't know if the source really was from him or something else. The thought unsettled him, and the more he focused on it, the colder the iron band grew around his throat. It almost tightened as if to say,yes, it was me.
You will never be free of me, it whispered again before it slithered back into the darkest part of his mind.
Bryn left them to redress in silence, the space between them yawning open and filling with all the things they weren't saying to each other. Tension had flared to life between them when their words had been passionate and heated. Now it grew uncomfortable, the events of the last few weeks becoming a separate entity in the room with them.
Maude was strapping various blades to her person as Herrick belted a longsword to his waist, missing the weight of his two-handed battle axe on his back. He traced the iron around his neck with one finger as he watched Maude ready herself for battle. The long wine-red hair that she re-braided into a tight coil at the back of her head, the tension in her shoulders as her back remained straight.
In the dim candlelight of the cabin, Herrick could see the pit fighter she had been as she pulled on the fingerless gloves she wore during her matches. For a moment, he was transported back to when she had just been Maude, the firevitkiwho had an anger problem, and he had just been Herrick, the rebel who smuggled the innocent to freedom.
But that wasn't who they really were, even if that was who they wanted to be.
Maude turned to leave the small room, her weapons strapped into place, and her focus shifting to the new threat. Herrick wanted to reach out and curl his arms around her waist to remind her what she would be fighting for. He wanted to plant harsh kisses up her jaw and to her swollen, flushed lips until her breathing came as rapidly as her heartbeat did.
Instead, Herrick let Maude walk out of the room without doing any of the things he wanted because, until she could be open with him, he couldn't allow himself to drown in her.
Bryn wished she could scrub the image of her sister and Herrick half-naked from her mind.
Allfather, make meblind, please.
Liv was getting the last of thevitkibelow decks; only a few remained above through stubbornness. Bryn would never deny a warrior their right to battle, so she did not protest when they stayed on deck— she just prayed they wouldn't get in the way. She took the stairs to the top deck two at a time until she stood side by side with Liv.
The warrior's easy and friendly demeanor had slipped. The face of a tried and true Elven shieldmaiden now stood in her place as they faced the oncoming fight.
"Those are my family runes on the flag," Bryn said, her eyes on her father's ship with her arms crossed over her chest. "I don't recognize the colors, though."
