Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 97188 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97188 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
My mother certainly is never going to rule through love. The emotion is completely foreign to her, and if she had the capability for it, she’s long since purged it. Fear is all that’s left. Fear is all that I’ve ever been taught. I’m quite good at it.
Granted, this selkie doesn’t seem to fear me all that much.
It’s just as well. I find traveling with cowering, weeping messes to be increasingly irritating. If that were the type of person she is, I’d be far more likely to eat her and be done with it.
As Maeve reappears, a bag of what is obviously food dangling from her fingertips, my mind decides to offer up all the different ways I could . . . eat . . . Maeve. I am a vampire, after all. Eating people is baked into my very DNA. More than that, she’s a beautiful woman. It’s enough to make me wonder what she’ll taste like. Salty or sweet or some combination thereof?
I look at the bag with interest as Maeve gets closer. It’s larger than I first thought, filled to the brim in a way that makes the fabric stretch to contain the items inside. “What do you have there?” I ask, mostly to delay the moment when we have to enter the water and leave the safety of dry land behind once again.
“If we’re very, very lucky, then it will only take three days to get to Khollu. Maybe you can go that long without eating or feeding or whatever you want to call it, but I can’t. If I had my skin, it would be easy enough to hunt, but since I’m stuck in this form, the only option is bringing food with us.”
Three days. She said that before, but the reality of that timeline hadn’t quite registered.
I turn and look at the boat that Maeve wants us to spend three days on. It’s not quite as small as I first thought. In addition to the small sail and oars, there’s a little space to sleep and take shelter in from the weather at the back of it.
Still . . . three days. In a best-case scenario.
I don’t want to admit that I’ve gotten soft while traveling on the Audacity. The pocket realm sometimes made me forget that I was even on a ship. There will be no forgetting on this boat. More than that, even on the Audacity, I never quite forgot my fear of the sea.
How many storms have we weathered? At least a dozen, and I’ve white-knuckled my way through every single one while hiding in my cabin, certain I could hear the crash of the waves even through the barrier of the pocket dimension. There will be no hiding if we’re caught in one while sailing this contraption. The waves won’t even have to sink us—if it rains hard enough, it will fill the hull and we’ll sink. That’s the problem with the sea. There’s too many fucking ways to die and nowhere near enough methods to stay alive.
“We’re going to die,” I say flatly.
“There’s no need to be dramatic. It’s only until we reach the next island.” Maeve tosses the bag she obviously had stashed somewhere close onto the boat with an ease that nearly distracts me from the feeling twisting my guts into knots. “When we get there, we’ll jump on a trade ship and head wherever Bronagh has gone to. He’ll have stopped in Khollu first, regardless, because that’s where he lives. We’ll find more information when we get there, because if there’s one thing Bronagh loves, it’s to brag to anyone who’ll stand still long enough to let him.”
If we’re forced into close proximity for days on end, maybe I’ll get the story of how she lost her skin in the first place. I know how the old tales say it’s done. A sailor waits and watches for a selkie to come ashore and shed their skin so they can sun themself in their human form. Then he steals the skin and forces that selkie to be his wife.
But Maeve lives on this island. Not in the sea. She’s hardly leaving her valued other self lying around to be picked up by an enterprising sailor. Something else must have happened. Perhaps he was a lover. The thought rankles, and I easily shove it aside. What do I care about this woman’s past lovers? I might be interested in her, but it’s a passing thing. At the end of this, when I find my family jewels and a portal that will take me closer to home, I’ll be gone.
And I’m never coming back to this godsdamned place.
Something twinges in my chest at the thought. I absently rub the back of my hand over my sternum. “There’s one further complication.”