And I wasn’t, not anymore.

  My boots lost purchase, and my spine slammed into the railing before I toppled into the water with a splash.

  The cold was a shock, stealing the breath in my chest. Then came the tug from the currents of the waves and the ship, both pulling me away. Pulling me deep.

  Swim. I kicked my legs, hard, reaching for the surface with my fingertips. Five hard strokes and I was free, sucking in a breath before a wave crashed over my head. When I gasped another breath, a screech rang out, and the marroweel dove into the water, abandoning the ship.

  My heart stopped beating.

  I was in the ocean with a marroweel. This was how I would die.

  “Gods, save me.”

  “Swim!” The Guardian appeared at the railing, his focus on me as other men clustered around him, all armed for when the marroweel surfaced again.

  I scanned the waves, searching for an iridescent fin or a flash of sapphire scales or razor teeth. But I was alone, and the ship was sailing away.

  “Damn it, Cross.” The Guardian slammed his fists on the railing. “Swim!”

  Swim. Good idea.

  I kicked with all my might, finding a rhythm with the waves. My legs had never pumped so hard, my arms pulling at the water with all their strength.

  Faster. I had to go faster. Every muscle in my body began to burn, to ache in protest, but I pushed past the pain and did everything in my power to stay with the ship.

  But it was getting smaller and smaller. I wasn’t fast enough.

  The sails began to crumple as the men let them down to slow the ship. Then they turned hard to the port side, banking like they were trying to come back and fetch me.

  No matter how fast I swam, how quickly they changed course, it wouldn’t be enough.

  I’d never outswim a marroweel. And if they were stuck in the water, they’d be at the monster’s mercy.

  The strength, the speed, seeped from my muscles, the cold making it harder and harder to kick.

  The Guardian stared at me, his focus unwavering, like he was willing me forward.

  “Let’s go!” He slammed another fist on the rail, and for a moment, I wanted to scream back that I was trying. Except he wasn’t talking to me. He was yelling at the men.

  A crewman appeared with a harpoon in one hand, its rope in the other.

  The Guardian backed away until he was out of view. Then came the harpoon, flying through the air with the rope streaming behind it, a line of brown against the bright sky.

  I gasped, certain it was going to sink into my flesh, when the pointed tip disappeared into the water beside my leg. The rope dragged along my arm, and I grabbed it with both hands, holding tight as it pulled me through the water.

  My chest slammed into the waves, cresting their peaks, as the men on board hauled me faster and faster toward the Cutter.

  I was going to make it. Twenty yards. Fifteen.

  Something hard brushed against my leg. Something sharp.

  “No.” Wet warmth spread between my thighs as my bladder loosened.

  Never in my life had I felt this kind of fear. It was down there, below my body. I couldn’t see it, but it was coming. It would not let me reach that ship.

  I was going to be eaten by the monsters I’d always found so fascinating. I’d never reach Turah. I’d never go home.

  “Hold.” The Guardian’s command tore me from the dread. When I looked to the ship, his silver eyes were waiting. His harpoon was raised, his face eerily calm as he stared past the weapon’s point.

  There was a spraying noise behind me, the same sound a ship made as its hull cut through the sea.

  But it wasn’t a ship on my heels.

  It was death.

  If I was going to die, I didn’t want my last sight to be rows of teeth, so I stayed locked on the Guardian.

  He might be a jackass, but at least he was handsome. There were worse things to behold at the end of a life than a nice face.

  My own was wet, my tears joining the salty water.

  Ten yards. I was so close. So, so close.

  And too far away.

  “Now.” On his command, the rope in my hands tugged hard, and I was yanked from the water so fast my stomach dropped. A scream tore from my throat.

  But I wasn’t the only being screaming.

  The marroweel flew out of the water, mouth wide as it stretched to devour me whole. The screech coming from its throat was so loud it rippled across my skin.

  I closed my eyes, my hands raw and throbbing as they began to slip from the rope. My grip loosened, the strength of my fingers faltering. But instead of falling into the monster’s waiting jaws, I crashed on the Cutter’s deck.

  My body crumpled as I toppled to the side.

  “Don’t let it drop,” the Guardian shouted. “Haul it in.”

  Haul it in? I cracked my eyes open, lifting up on an elbow.

  Blue scales. Inches from my feet.

  “Ah!” I scrambled away, slipping and sliding along the deck as my gaze raked over the monster, following spine to neck to head.

  A head skewered with a harpoon.

  “Highness.” Brielle and Jocelyn dropped to my side, both sobbing as they helped me to my knees.

  Brielle wrapped her arms around my shoulders, crying into my soaked shirt. “I thought you were dead.”

  “So did I,” I whispered, my breaths coming in ragged pants.

  Beyond the men, beyond the dead monster at my feet, green sails appeared.

  The Cleaver approached, gliding along the Cutter too fast to stop, but close enough that Zavier could leap from one ship to the other.

  His face was hard, his expression unreadable as he took in the dead marroweel and the crew hauling its rear half from the water.

  The Guardian had his hands on his hips, his chest rising and falling with labored breaths.

  Zavier scanned the deck, finding me in the fray. His entire body sagged. Then he looked to the Guardian again and gave him a nod.

  The Guardian nodded back.

  “Zavier.” One of his warriors waved him over to where a man was lying on his back, blood seeping onto the deck. A shard of wood from the ruined starboard side of the ship was lodged in his thigh.

  Zavier. They didn’t call him Prince or Highness.

  The Guardian appeared, hauling me to my feet, and oh, he was pissed. “Leave us,” he barked to Brielle and Jocelyn.

  Both women scrambled away, seeming to realize for the first time there was a dead monster on the deck. Jocelyn yelped, then raced for the stairs to go below.

  The silver in his eyes swirled to melting metal. He bent into my face, leaning in so close our noses nearly touched. “When I give you an order, you obey.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  My apology only seemed to make him angrier. That buzzing I’d felt in Roslo, the simmering rage, boiled to the surface. “If I tell you to run, you run. If I tell you to hide, you hide. If I tell you to hop on one foot and pat your hair, then you. Fucking. Hop. Do we have an understanding?”

  “No.”

  The word surprised me as much as it did him. Maybe I’d ingested too much seawater? But I wasn’t going to blindly agree. I’d spent twenty-three years taking orders from men who thought they could dictate my every move. And I was done.

  I wouldn’t—couldn’t—cower for this man. I refused to give him that control.

  Not when I’d already lost so much.

  He blinked, clearly having expected a different answer. “What did you say?”

  “No.” I squared my shoulders, using my last shred of strength, and lifted my chin. “I will listen when it’s a matter of safety for myself. For other people. I will do my best to ‘stay the fuck out of the way.’ But I will not bend to your every whim. I will not humiliate myself because you deem me insignificant. If you wanted me to stay quiet, then you should have let that marroweel kill me. I am not one of your warriors to lead. I am not your wife to command. So no, we do not have an understanding.”

  I didn’t need him to agree or reply. I had nothing else to say and no energy to argue, so I turned on my heel, my feet squelching inside my boots as I made my way to the stairs.

  But before I disappeared below, I paused, twisting to speak over my shoulder. “Thank you for saving my life.”

  Someday, if I had the chance, I’d repay that favor by taking his.

  Twelve

  The marroweel that had nearly eaten me yesterday hung from the Cutter’s mast on a thick chain. The monster’s milky eyes greeted me as I stepped onto the deck along with the stench of rotting fish.

  Maybe I should have stayed in bed. Maybe, if I had lain there long enough, I would have eventually fallen asleep.

  I’d spent last night staring at the dark ceiling, listening to Brielle whimper through a nightmare while Jocelyn tossed and turned. Listening to hammers pounding on the hull as the crew repaired the damage to the ship.

  Every time I’d closed my eyes, I’d been in the ocean again. I’d felt the monster’s body touch my leg. Felt its breath on my feet and heard its scream in my ears.

  A thousand years could pass, and I’d never forget that sound.

  Brielle refused to leave our room until we reached Turah. Jocelyn would go to the galley, but she refused to step on deck. Maybe they had the right idea.

  But fear wasn’t going to keep me trapped below. It wasn’t my life that had ended yesterday. If the Cutter had survived the attack, had kept sailing, then I would keep sailing, too.

  So I set off across the deck, shoulders squared, and approached the beast.

  The smell was overpowering. I gagged before breathing through my mouth instead of my nose.

  Blood dripped from the marroweel’s nostrils into a bucket. That bucket was nearly filled to the top, and the steady dribble meant someone had probably been emptying it often.

  I gagged again.

  The scent was a hundred times worse than the dye I’d worked into my hair this morning to replace what the ocean had washed away in yesterday’s ordeal. With any luck, no one would remember that my hair had been more red than brown for those few minutes I’d been arguing with the Guardian. I didn’t have the energy to defend my hair routine now or ever.

  “Hungry?” An apple slice on a dagger’s blade was thrust in my face.

  “No.” I pushed the Guardian’s hand away, my stomach turning.

  He popped that slice into his mouth, the fruit crunching as he chewed. His eyes were hazel today. Maybe that was their normal shade.

  I preferred the vivid, bold colors. It made it easier to remember that he wasn’t a normal man.

  “Don’t tell me you get sick at the sight of just a little blood?” he asked.

  “I’d hardly consider a bucket’s worth ‘just a little blood.’”

  He cut off another piece of the apple, then threw the core overboard. With it gone, he tucked his dagger into a scabbard strapped against his ribs. Then he swept the bucket from the floor, carrying it to the ship’s edge to pour out.

  I’d expected a stream of crimson, but the liquid wasn’t red. It was a shade of the darkest green that reminded me of the Voster’s eyes.

  A shiver crept down my spine.

  Uh… Shouldn’t that blood be red? The marroweels on the docks had bled red. Why was this one different?

  Fresh droplets fell from the monster’s snout, splattering on the deck’s boards, a few leaping out toward my slippers.

  I jumped backward a step before those splatters stained the hem of my dress. After yesterday’s swim, my boots, pants, and tunic needed a thorough wash. They’d been hung to dry, but they were all stiff with salt. So I was back to gray gowns and flat slippers for now. But not for long.

  The Turan clothes had saved my life yesterday. Maybe that was giving a pair of pants and a tunic too much credit, but I’d spent enough time swimming in a gown to know that kicking was considerably harder with skirts around your ankles.

  The Guardian set the empty bucket beneath the monster.

  “That blood isn’t red.”

  “Very observant, Cross.”

  I frowned. “The blood of the female marroweels Zavier killed and left in Roslo was red. Why does this one bleed green? Why are its eyes white, not black? Is it a male or something? A different type of monster?”

  The Guardian stared at the monster, crossing his arms over his chest. “It is a male.”

  That explained why it was so much larger. It was nearly double the size of the females. The bone protruding from its skull was twice as tall. And its features weren’t as sleek. Its face was angular, the nose broader.

  The females were terrifying. The males? Bone-chilling.

  There was no reason I should be alive today.

  “It should have killed me,” I said. “In the water, I felt something brush against my leg. It should have eaten me then and there. Why didn’t it?”

  “My guess? It was focused on the ship. With the commotion, it didn’t even realize you were in the water until it touched you with its tail.”

  “I don’t think I’m that lucky. Daria has never been a goddess on my side.”

  “Then be grateful she was yesterday.”

  Thank you, Daria. “You’re a fast swimmer,” I said.

  “Are you going to keep stating the obvious today? Because I do have other obligations.”

  I rolled my eyes. Smart-ass. “Why didn’t you jump into the water to rescue me? Wouldn’t that have been faster?”

  A night spent replaying every moment, and that was what seemed to bother me the most. Why he’d chosen to throw that harpoon, to stay on the ship, rather than swim to get me.

  Either he wouldn’t have risked his own life to save mine.

  Or he’d been trying to accomplish multiple tasks at once. Save me. Kill the monster.

  His eyebrows lifted. “Shall I consult with you first the next time you’re nearly devoured by a marroweel to make sure the way in which you are spared from its jaws is acceptable?”

  “I didn’t mean—” I shook my head. I was too tired and too frazzled to articulate my thoughts, so I wasn’t even going to try. “Sorry. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. Thank you, again, for saving my life.”

  He frowned but gave me a single nod.

  “Why keep its body? Why not dump it overboard and save us all the stench?”

  “Those scales are valuable. We’ll dispose of it once they’re harvested.”

  “Oh.” I glanced toward the ocean. “Should I be worried about another marroweel attack?”

  “It’s unlikely. Though there are other beasts to fear on the Krisenth besides marroweels.”

  “Like you?” The retort came off my tongue automatically. A reflex.

  It was one of those impulsive, snide remarks that would have enraged Father or Margot. It was one of those thoughts I’d normally keep to myself.

  But where the Guardian was concerned, I couldn’t seem to stifle the snippy comments. What popped into my head came out of my mouth.

  He stared at the monster, and if my question had offended him, he didn’t let it show. “Not all monsters are born from the gods, my queen. Some of us were made.”

  Us. Then he considered himself a monster, too. Who was his maker?

  This was the time to ask. The time to prod for information to hoard for my father. But I didn’t feel like prying for the Guardian’s secrets today. So I glanced around the deck, searching for a different Turan.

  My husband.

  “Where is Zavier?”

  “The Cleaver.”

  “Is that where he stays?” It hadn’t really occurred to me to ask before today. I’d assumed his quarters were somewhere on the Cutter, but considering that he hadn’t been here yesterday during the attack, that our paths hadn’t crossed often since we’d set sail, it made sense that he’d chosen to spend his time on a different boat.

  Away from his wife.

  “Curious about Zavier’s whereabouts, Sparrow? Why don’t you ask him where he sleeps?”

  I’d walked right into that reply.

  “Maybe I’m hoping he just shows me someday.” I batted my eyelashes and gave him my sweetest smile.

  A throat cleared from over my shoulder. The Guardian’s smirk meant it could only be one person.

  I turned and found Zavier waiting.

  “My room shares a wall with yours,” he said. “My rangers stay on the Cleaver. I was training with them yesterday when the marroweel attacked.”

  “Ah.” I faced the monster again, hoping that if I stared straight ahead, neither man would see that my face was on fire.

  The Guardian let out a quiet chuckle.

  My lip curled. I’d never met anyone who seemed to thrive on humiliating me quite so much.

  Zavier passed by, moving closer to the marroweel, inspecting its carcass.

  The tail tapered to twin iridescent fins with ruffled edges. Like the females, the male had sapphire-blue scales tipped with turquoise. Even without the sleek features of the females, this monster was breathtaking in its beauty. And flawless except for a series of scales missing from its spine.

  The U-shaped gap in its armor was gray and bubbled like a scar. Did marroweels fight with each other? Had another monster tried to take a bite out of this male? Maybe two of them had fought over territory in the Krisenth.

  Did that mean there was another male lurking below, waiting to strike?

  I shivered, wrapping my arms around my waist.

  “Don’t worry, my queen. We’ll keep you safe,” the Guardian said. “Especially if you stay. On. The. Fucking. Ship.”

  I believed him. I believed Zavier and his men would keep me safe. But what if I was tired of being kept? What if I didn’t want to rely on a man to be my rescuer?

  If I truly wanted to be in control of my destiny, then I couldn’t wait for someone else to save me from danger. The only person who was always going to fight for me was me.

 

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