Chapter 35

chapter 35

Maeve

Everything hurts. It’s a strange sort of pain, weighing me down and making it hard to open my eyes. But it’s not sharp like I expected to experience when I woke up?.?.?. if I woke up at all. If not for Lizzie—

Lizzie.

My eyes fly open and I try to sit up. Or at least my brain gives the command. All I’m capable of is a jerky movement that barely raises my body off the hard surface I’m lying on. Hands press to my chest, easing me back down. Then Lizzie’s face appears over me, concern etching lines that bracket her mouth and spider from the corners of her eyes. “Steady, Maeve.” She sounds exhausted, too, more tired than I’ve ever heard her. She takes my hand and guides it to a damp fur folded neatly next to me. My pelt.

“What happened?” I croak.

“You’re alive.” She gives a faint smile and brushes my hair back, her touch gentle and filled with so much emotion that my throat tries to close. “Take things slowly. My blood healed you, but accelerated healing is hard on the body in its own way when you’re not used to it.”

She’s calm. Too calm. Last time I woke up in what amounts to a sickbed, she was beside herself with worry. “Are you okay?”

Her smile warms. “I am now.” She studies me. “I’ll tell you what happened if you agree not to try to sit up again until I’m done.”

Considering I was about to do exactly that, I flush. I force myself to relax and survey our surroundings as much as I can without moving. Judging from the dark arch of rock overhead, we’re back in the sea cave. I have no idea how we got here. The last thing I remember is being underwater, pain lashing my entire body as Lucky stabbed me, and then?.?.?. nothing at all.

I swallow hard. “Your jewels?”

Lizzie curses softly under her breath. “You have a one-track mind even when on death’s doorstep.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“No, it’s not. I’ll tell you everything if you promise to lie there quietly for the duration.”

I huff out a breath. I wish I could say she’s overreacting, but even that deep breath causes something deep in my chest to ache. There’s no way I’ll admit as much, though. She’s worried enough about me. “Yes. Fine. I promise.”

“Good.” She quickly details what happened. Bastian missing, the swim back to the cave, the plan to meet up with Siobhan at the sailboat waiting for us on the other side of the island. Through it all, she keeps up those little touches as if reassuring herself that I’m alive and well enough to talk. She finally sits back on her heels. “Say the word and we’ll find another way off the island. We can go back to Viedna and live there.”

I search her expression, finding only sincerity. She really means it. I lift my hand and she immediately takes it. “Why did you agree to sail with Siobhan? You don’t even like her. You don’t believe in the rebellion.”

“Maeve.” She squeezes my hand. “You just asked a question you already know the answer to.”

My flush deepens. She did it for me. “I guess I do. Are you sure?”

“As sure as I am about anything.” Lizzie gives a wan smile. “Besides, there will be plenty of murder in my future. Keeping you safe as you charge off into danger is a full-time job.”

The way she’s talking?.?.?. I grab her hand. “Lizzie, what about your family heirlooms? Did the Crimson Hag sink?”

“No.” She glares at the cave opening. “It’s still listing like a drunk asshole, but they managed to get the hole patched after we fled. I suspect they’ll make asses of themselves searching the town, but we’ll be long gone by then.”

I desperately want to believe she’s saying what I think she’s saying. That she’s coming with me. That she’s staying. I know what we spoke of before, but that was in the heat of the moment. I might be naive about some things, but even I know that words exchanged when sex is involved don’t necessarily hold the same way in the cold light of dawn. Even as I want to ask her if that’s what she means, I recognize it for the selfish desire it is. I love her and I want her with me. But it goes against every single thing she’s done since coming to Threshold. “But the jewels.”

“Maeve, I am going to say something, and I need you to actually listen to me.” She shifts closer until her knees bump my arm and her face hovers over mine, almost kissably close. “Are you listening?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

“Fuck. Those. Jewels.” She bites out each word. “I’ve existed two hundred years, but I didn’t actually start living until I met you. I’m not going to retrieve those heirlooms and fuck off to my realm when you’re here—and not just because you’re liable to get yourself killed if I’m not here to watch over you. I love you, Maeve. I’m not leaving you. I’m staying in Threshold. If I have to kill every single fucking C?n Annwn to make sure the rebellion succeeds, then I will. Because it means you’ll be safe.” She takes a ragged breath. “Because it means you’ll be happy. And happy is all I want for you.”

The burning in my throat gets worse and I fight to swallow past it. “I love you, too. I want you happy, too.” Even if that means leaving me.

“You make me happy.” She cups my face. “I just want you, Maeve?.?.?. and perhaps a little murder from time to time to keep things interesting.”

“Lizzie!”

“Don’t worry. Rebellions tends to be soaked in blood. I’ll have plenty to keep me busy.” She strokes her fingers over my skin. I suspect she’s tracing my freckles. “We’ll survive it, baby. And go on to live nice, long lives filled with plenty of joy and fucking.”

I don’t know if a person can die from blushing, but I might melt into a puddle right here and now. “But you hate sailing.”

“I like sailing. I hate the water.” She shrugs and eases back. “If you don’t want this, just say so. I’ll respect it, though I will haunt your steps through the coming conflict to ensure you stay alive.”

It’s almost impossible to wrap my mind around. The entire time I’ve known her, I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that someday she’d leave and I’d never see her again. Even as I fell in love with her, I knew it would end in heartbreak. To suddenly have the possibility of what I so desperately wanted?.?.?.

“I want you. I want everything you’ve said and more.” I clasp her hand and bring it back to my face. “I want everything.”

“Then you shall have it.” She grins suddenly and swoops down to press a quick kiss to my lips. “Let’s try to sit you up and see how that goes.”

Relatively well, as it turns out. I have a brief dizzy spell, but it passes quickly. It doesn’t take long to convince Lizzie to get moving, likely because she’s concerned Siobhan will sail off without us if we don’t meet the dusk deadline. Without that easy exit from Drash, we could potentially run into problems securing a ship while the crew of the Crimson Hag turns the town upside down.

The less said about the hike to the other side of the island, the better. It’s brutal and exhausting and highlights just how unwell I am after the attack. We find Siobhan’s sailboat exactly where she promised. The ship is larger than I expected, but it’s got a clever design that means only one person can successfully sail it.

Siobhan appears through a hatch and smiles tightly when she sees us. “Good. I was worried you wouldn’t make it in time.”

Lizzie holds my hand as she helps me step onto the gently swaying ship. “Did you have any trouble in town?”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.” She nods at me. “Glad to see you back on your feet.”

“Glad to be here,” I say faintly. What I don’t say is that I’m minutes away from collapsing.

Lizzie, of course, knows. She wraps an arm around my waist. “Tell me there are decent cabins in here.”

“There are.” Siobhan nods at the hatch. “There’s only one extra room, but I assume that’s not a problem. Bath and a small kitchen are below. We’ll share both. I don’t need you to help get us moving, so you might as well head down and make yourselves at home.”

A bath. Gods, I would commit atrocities to get clean. My body aches with each move I make, and while I adore salt water, I don’t adore what it does to my hair. Plus, the journey to this part of Drash has left me shaky and covered in sweat. “Thank you.”

It’s only when we’ve settled in the cabin below, the ship swaying gently as we head for open water, that I broach the topic that really needs to be dealt with. “How am I alive?”

Lizzie pauses in the middle of filling the tub. “I gave you my blood. Not a lot. But it was the only way to heal you.” She glances at me over her shoulder. “It will still take time for your body to replenish the blood you lost, so you’re going to take it easy for the next couple days and let me and Siobhan do all the work.”

I worry my bottom lip and try to decide how I feel about that revelation. It seems like it should bother me, but it just?.?.?. doesn’t. Except for one thing. “Will I turn?” If I do, surely that means losing my ability to transform.

“No.” She turns off the faucet and twists to face me. “Turning someone into a vampire—if it’s even possible with a selkie—takes a massive exchange of blood and, according to my mother, a ritual. I don’t know if the latter is true, but I only took a mouthful from you the night before last, and I only gave you the bare minimum required to heal your wounds and keep you alive.” She’s so incredibly serious when she says, “I won’t pretend I wouldn’t make that decision for you if the alternative was your death. There was some concern my blood might affect you negatively, but”—she shudders out a breath—“you were dying. I had to try.”

“I’m glad you did.” I don’t feel any different, aside from the exhaustion weighing me down. “Come here.”

She walks over to sit on the bed next to me. I lean my head against her shoulder. “You know, when the rebellion is successful, there won’t be many enemies to murder your way through. What will you do then?” I have to believe the rebellion will be successful. The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.

“There are always enemies, baby.”

“Lizzie.”

She carefully wraps her arm around me, tugging me into her lap. She props her chin on the top of my head, but I swear I can feel her smile. “I’ll love you, Maeve. Beyond that, Threshold is massive, and I think I’d like to explore it. If we get bored with that, we could always take jaunts into different realms in between visiting your family. It sounds like a good life, don’t you think?”

I smile against her throat. “Yeah. I think it sounds like a really good life. A perfect one, even.”