Wave touched, p.21
Wave-Touched, page 21
A knock on the door brought an abrupt end to their intimacy.
“One moment,” Kyril called before touching his forehead to hers, and taking a second to catch his breath. “At least they knocked.”
Veyl exhaled a laugh and pressed a light kiss to his lips. “Neither Jinau nor Gannon would let anyone come barging in here.”
“Gannon knows?”
“Not everything, but enough.”
Kyril stepped back and reached out to straighten her shirt for her, his hands wandering a little as he did so. “I will follow your lead on this for now, but Jaysen needs to be dealt with. Jinau and Gannon may be able to help as well.”
She pressed her lips together, glancing past him at the door. Reluctantly, she moved away from him, not wanting to push their luck further than they already had. “I’m not sure about Gannon. He and Jaysen have a tempestuous history. Losing Lorek seems to have calmed him—nearly broken him, really—but I don’t know if this new, more reflective state will last. He might seize too willingly upon any excuse to return to despising Jaysen.”
“You need someone you can confide in and turn to, who you can openly spend time with, and Arhk put Ahrin and Iyvalin on another ship. If Gannon is aware of us, and is choosing to keep it secret, perhaps it’s worth considering, but you know him better than I do.”
Veyl nodded. “I’ll ponder it. I should leave.”
“One last thing.” He stepped closer, brushing an unruly strand of her hair into place with gentle fingers. “I don’t think the Dampener is helpful. You won’t have that controlled environment under normal circumstances. This may be more effective without him.”
“And not having him here will make it easier to sneak in moments like this,” she ventured, arching a brow at him.
Kyril grinned. “A convenient side effect.” He slid his hands around her waist and pulled her in for one last kiss before letting her go. “If it would help, I can join your session tomorrow, more thoughtfully than I did with my poorly considered efforts today.”
“I should hope so.”
She placed a hand on his arm, reluctant to give up contact with him. Drawing a breath, she made herself walk away, her fingers sliding off his sleeve. Once outside, Jinau, Rysek, and Gannon accompanied her back to the other flagship. When they were close to Thaelis, she would transfer to Kyril’s ship for appearance’s sake, but Arhk wanted her where he could watch over her for now. As a result, moments with the Feral ahnkreth would be rare, though perhaps not as much so as she had assumed going into this.
That evening, Arhk questioned her and Gannon about her session over a casual dinner, though she didn’t doubt that he had gotten a full accounting from Rysek earlier. She lied when he asked what Kyril had whispered to her, saying he had brought up a moment from her capture in Deepwater. Before they parted ways, she broached the idea of removing his Dampener from the sessions. A proposal he agreed to only after she framed it as too much of a deviation from real-world situations, where she wouldn’t have that isolating darkness to improve her focus. It was Gannon who unexpectedly suggested that Kyril joining them might aid the process, given the multitude of upsetting experiences she had gone through with the ahnkreth that remained fresh in her memory. After some deliberation, her grandfather consented to that proposal as well, though she wasn’t sure he would have had she been the one to bring it up.
When Arhk dismissed them, she headed straight for her room. Gannon caught up with her at her door, holding a stoneglass bottle and two mugs. “Crack a stone with me?”
The simple offer of friendship in his open smile deflected the rejection that almost slipped between her lips. She smiled back. “That sounds lovely.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A while later, Gannon sat reclined against the headboard of the bed next to her and stared at the door of the cabin, his brow lined with deep furrows. “So, you and Kyril… How did that happen?”
Veyl peered into her nearly empty mug and leaned forward somewhat unsteadily to look at the stoneglass bottle on the side table. “Is there any left?”
Gannon reached over, picked it up, shook it, then squinted into it as if closer scrutiny might garner different results. He set it down and gave her a crooked grin. “No, and I seem to recall you asking me that about ten minutes ago with the same answer.” He raised his mug to his lips.
“Oh my,” she giggled and settled back beside him. “I didn’t think there was enough mead in that bottle to make the room rock like this.”
Gannon spat out the drink he had just taken, spraying most of his last swallow over his legs. “We’re…” He bent forward, laughing too hard to finish the sentence.
“What?” A reason he might have found her comment so funny danced at the edge of her thoughts, but she couldn’t quite take hold of it.
“Of course, the room’s rocking. We’re on a ship,” he blurted, breaking out into more uncontrollable laughter.
“Oh, by the Break.” She covered her face with one hand, heat rising in her cheeks. Her embarrassment faltered before the bombardment of his mirth, and giddiness bubbled up, escaping in a fit of laughter that intensified until she was struggling to breathe.
When they brought themselves under control again, Gannon smiled at her, an expression warmed by affection. “I have a feeling your current state of imbalance has plenty to do with how many glasses of wine you nervously emptied over dinner with your grandfather before we started drinking this.” He held out a hand as she finished the last of her mead, putting the mug on the table after she passed it to him. “Which begs the question, why risk so much for this man you’ll probably never see again once we accomplish the mission?”
Given who she was speaking with, Veyl deemed it best not to get into detail about her physical attraction to Kyril, which was considerable, or the inexplicable connection that existed between them from the start. “I don’t know. At first, I couldn’t have despised him more, but when he started working with me to control my ability, I felt his sorrow and saw in his fear how much he had lost. He also defended me against his crew when they wished to be rid of me, and saved me when I…” She hadn’t told her friends about her attempt to kill herself, so she pivoted abruptly. “It became harder to hate him. As I came to understand him more and saw how much he regretted following the council’s orders, that floundering hatred transformed into something else.”
Gannon was silent for a moment. Then he turned to face her, sitting cross-legged on the bed. “Saved you when you what?”
The drunken giddiness faded. “That day on the ship, after they took you away, I guess I gave up. I had lost everything. We all had, but it seemed clear to me at that moment that they didn’t mean to give anything back, not even my friends.”
His expression was enough to tell her the humor had left him, too. “You tried to end it?”
She nodded.
Gannon shifted closer and slid his arm around her shoulders. “I would rather see you in the arms of someone like Kyril any day than live in a world without you in it. You are one of the few reasons I have to keep going now that Lorek’s gone.”
She tensed. “Do you mean that? Even after what I did to you in Thaelis?”
“I do. I realize now that your ability had more control over you than you did of it. Now maybe I can help you change that.”
Veyl relaxed, leaning against his shoulder. “Thank you.” She closed her eyes, the influence of the alcohol exaggerating the motion of the waves. “Lorek would be happy to see us supporting each other,” she murmured after a bit, drifting on the edge of sleep. “I think he would be proud of you.”
“Maybe,” Gannon whispered.
A light knock on the door prompted her to force her eyes open. “Yes?” she called.
Before Gannon could move away from her, Jinau leaned in. “You are growing weary, Khesran. Perhaps I should see your drinking companion to his room.”
Gannon hesitated halfway off the bed. “How did—”
“The zenyal bond,” Veyl said, sliding down and resting her head on the pillow.
“That’s unnerving,” he muttered. “Goodnight, Veyl.”
The door clicked shut a moment later, and weariness tugged at her. After a few minutes, she half-woke to Jinau spreading a blanket over her.
“Sleep well, Seh’hali.”
***
The next several days raced past. For the first part of each morning, Veyl and Gannon stayed busy volunteering their services to help around the ship, taking advantage of the opportunity to learn more about what it took to run a vessel of such size. A pastime Arhk appeared to find amusing, though he insisted on her using some of her time before the sessions on Kyril’s ship to practice on her own with her ability.
In the afternoons, she went to the Thaelian flagship with Jinau and Gannon to continue testing her control under stress. Kyril had an unfortunate knack for finding ways to upset her with his words. While it was helping her make progress managing the volatile storm within, she worried she would despise him for it by the time they reached Thaelis. Although if their brief, stolen moments alone were any indication, that wasn’t apt to happen. She tried to keep open expressions of their intimacy to a minimum. Gannon might tolerate that her affections were for Kyril, but forcing him to watch that on display seemed like unnecessary torment. The last thing they needed was to push him to the point that he might reconsider exposing their secret to Arhk and others. And yet, with the recent changes in him, she didn’t believe he would.
The reality of what they were planning and all the ways it could go wrong crept in when Veyl officially moved to Kyril’s ship the night before they were to arrive in Thaelis. They deemed it wise to have her there, with him locked in the brig, in case they encountered other ships along the last stretch. She needed to arrive in Dagony acting as the Thaelian ambassador and ahninveth the council expected her to be, bringing Kyril back to face justice for his actions. Technically, given his status as an accused traitor, his Thaelian fleet was under her command now, though they had tasked Jinau with making certain she followed through as required. If only the councilors knew how little loyalty the Charmer ahndhomen felt toward them.
It was unlikely that the council would allow more than a token representation from the Vanrian fleet to enter the city. Most would have to remain aboard their ships. They would maintain the ruse of cooperation for as long as it took for Jinau and some of Kyril’s crew to reach out to fellow insurgents within the city and secure enough support to hopefully intimidate the council into surrender or, failing that, remove them by force. That meant Veyl needed to appear to uphold her part of the agreement until they were ready to make their move. A nerve-wracking prospect, given that she suspected at least one councilor might be an Evoker.
The one upside of all this was that Veyl had a valid reason to take over Kyril’s quarters on the Thaelian ship. After the evening meal, Jinau conveniently invited Gannon to join him for drinks and a game of dice below deck. The two left them, Gannon more reluctantly, waiting until she nodded to follow the other man out. She couldn’t blame him for the warning glower he cast at Kyril before closing the door. Only Iyvalin knew exactly how much of herself she had already shared with her Feral ahnkreth.
“Gannon is protective of you,” Kyril commented after the door clicked shut, a hint of approval in his tone. He set his drink down and stood, his faintly predatory regard causing a quickening of her pulse.
Veyl got up and walked around the table to him, bringing her fingers up to run them down one of the shell-adorned braids in his hair. “He is.”
Kyril gave her a long, searching look, his hands coming to rest at her waist. “Have you told him about your conflict with Jaysen?”
She shook her head, her worries losing some of their power as she sank into those silver-blue eyes. “He’s always disliked Jaysen. I fear he might try something if he knew what had occurred between us. We can’t afford an incident in the middle of our efforts to overthrow the council.”
He took a step closer, his voice dropping to a whisper, and slid his hands around to the middle of her back. “As soon as the council has been dealt with, then.”
Veyl nodded. His next words became lost in the background as she focused on the movement of his lips and leaned in to kiss them. He didn’t seem to mind the interruption, allowing her to lead him in abandoning all pretense of an interest in conversation.
A while later, pleasantly spent and nestled against his naked body, she smiled to herself. “I enjoy being with you here on your ship, in your bed.”
Kyril chuckled. “Depending on who you ask, it’s your ship right now.”
“Hmm. Does that mean I can tell you what to do?”
He turned and came up on his elbow, grinning as he moved his hand down the front of her body, his gentle touch awakening fresh longing. A challenge sparked in his eyes. “Maybe, if you can get your orders out.”
She opened her mouth to speak, her intentions becoming lost in a gasp as his wandering fingers found the core of her desire. Then he moved his body over hers and demonstrated how difficult he could make it for her to focus on words again.
She was more than willing to let him win that challenge.
***
“Seh’hali.”
His whisper and the caress of his fingers on Veyl’s cheek woke her. She lay with her back pressed against his chest, the warmth and comfort of him bringing a sleepy smile to her lips. Without opening her eyes, she wriggled in closer.
Kyril breathed a laugh. “While I agree with the sentiment, if we stay here much longer, they’ll find us in a most compromising position. Particularly if you keep pressing yourself against me like that.”
The hint of playful threat in his tone made her giggle as she moved away, rolling over to look at him. “Why does being with you make me want to break all the rules, regardless of the consequences?”
He slid his hand into her hair and leaned in to give her a light kiss. “Because we belong together,” he said, his breath warm on her lips until he shifted back to consider her. “Unfortunately, it’s almost dawn. We need to prepare before the dhomvalen drops in to make sure everything is in order. I believe he expected me to spend the night in a cell in case we ran across any Thaelian ships, not in my cabin making love to his granddaughter.”
Reluctance to leave him and unease with the coming encounters tightened her chest. “What if I lose con—”
He placed a finger on her lips, complete confidence in his roguish smile. “You’ve been showing significant improvement in our sessions. You are strong.” He leaned in again, punctuating that compliment and each following one with more kisses. “You are clever. You are brave. And you carry my love with you.”
She caught his shoulder, not letting him move away. “Do I?”
He smirked, the intensity of his regard making her his prisoner. “Is there any reason I would lie about that?”
She arched a brow. “Because you hope to lure me into your bed again.”
“Every chance I get.” He captured her lips in a deep, consuming kiss that left them both breathless.
Veyl put a hand on his chest, digging within herself for the willpower to push him back. “Up. We need to leave this bed before we do get ourselves into trouble.”
He rolled away and stood, holding a hand down to help her up.
Wishing she had more time for him, and for some actual rest, she reluctantly accepted the offer. “Did you get enough sleep?”
He grinned. “As much as you did.”
His answer brought a flush of warmth to her cheeks.
“I’d worry more about yourself, Seh’hali. I can sleep on the cot in my cozy cell. You must help manage the rest of the voyage, though Meyla has promised to take care of most of it.”
Her smile vanished, and she took his hand. “I don’t want to lock you down there.”
He pulled her into his embrace, the abrupt action giving her only the briefest glimpse at the troubled look that furrowed his brow. “It will be fine. As soon as the council is unseated, I’ll be free. Until then, you have Jin and Gannon, not to mention the rest of your people and mine who will stand with you. This is only a blink in our stories.”
By the time they were dressed, Jinau had arrived to take Kyril below. Gannon also came, putting his back to them when she gave her Feral ahnkreth a last kiss before he left the cabin.
They encountered the first local ships near noon. The vessels, Eavara’s fleet and another that sailed out of one of the other island ports, formed an escort to guide them into Dagony. Eavara boarded Kyril’s flagship with several members of her crew and took him and Ceris into custody, moving them to her flagship. Veyl hated letting her do so, but she couldn’t protest the development without drawing suspicion. Kyril’s fleet had orders to dock when they reached the port, while the Delaphinian ships received the message that they were to anchor outside the port. They would permit the Delaphinian command vessel to dock, but only after Kyril’s crew had come ashore.
Veyl, Jinau, and Kyril’s fleet officers, with a man Veyl hadn’t officially met standing in for Nalika, disembarked first. She had barely set foot on the docks before one of the Qwilki merchants called out a greeting to her. Quillon and Mardi were among the guards that met them.
“You will accompany us to the Great Hall,” Mardi stated.
Veyl dredged up a smile for the merchant, then turned to Mardi. “I would prefer to wait until the Vanrian delegation can join us.”
“I am afraid our orders from the council are for you to come before them immediately without the Vanrians.” The faintest hint of apology scrunched the bridge of her nose, but the stern set of her jaw made it clear they wouldn’t be discussing it further.
Veyl nodded. “Lead the way.”
Jinau and Quillon fell into step on either side of her as Mardi led the small procession of ahnkreths and Veyl toward the Great Hall.
