1. Diana

Diana

T he waves slapped at the sides of the boat, a steady sound of hurry, hurry, hurry, beside the nearly silent motor running at full capacity. I gripped the fore railing, staring north, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Vanator’s ship. Hoping that Myrr, Nicholas, and my new but faithful hell-hound Kevin had not been harmed. When we’d first realized Nicholas and Myrr had been taken, we had no idea Kevin had been snatched too. At least…that was what I was hoping. That he’d been taken and not summarily killed.

Even with my eyes as good as they were, in the dark of the night, there was nothing on the far horizon of the ocean.

The moon above us was just over half full, and light coming through splits in the clouds here and there gave me glimpses of something more in the sea below.

Scales, deep green and gray flashed, and my pulse kicked up a notch.

“Sal?”

I stared, not sure I was really seeing what I was seeing. Saldraenaen, the dragon we’d rescued Maverick from, had dove into the ocean as her mountain lair had exploded with lava. We hadn’t been sure she’d survived.

Here she was though, not a mark on her that I could see. For a second, I gripped the railing and considered hollering to the others. But as I watched her, I got the very clear sense that she hadn’t come to hurt us. Though why she was following along with us was beyond me.

The water dragon swam to the right of the boat, her body gliding along easily, despite our speed. She rolled as if she were a dolphin using the waves off the boat to help her keep up, her white belly scales catching the light of the moon. The clouds slid over us again, and she seemingly disappeared.

Ever since we’d left her cave, I’d had this nagging sense of grief for her that I couldn’t shake. Now, I embraced the small bit of relief that flowed through me. At least she had lived. But my relief was short-lived.

Her emotions rolled into me, as they had when we’d been under the mountain. I pressed my palm to my aching chest, feeling her heartbreak and loneliness anew, the loss of her one true love, George. The infamous dragon-slayer had fallen for Sal in a love that transcended all else. But a jealous woman from George’s past refused to let him go so easily. If he followed his heart to Sal, his jilted lover would stop at nothing to see the dragon slain. So George was left with a choice.

Risk Sal’s life by returning to her, or protect her by pledging his heart to another.

I could still feel her agony as she waited for him, only to realize he was never coming back. The only solace I had, was the fact that we’d at least given her the truth. She now knew that George never stopped loving her. He’d even written a song about it.

“Fat lot of good that does her. She still spent her life alone,” I whispered.

The sadness lingered and I leaned against the railing as the weight of her sorrow mingled with my own. The need to rescue our missing friends was driving me forward, but there were other facets of my suffering that I’d been trying to ignore.

Was I destined to be alone forever, like Sal?

The fleeting blood bond with Raven had faded, but I could still sense him. So close, yet just out of reach.

Seeing him with that buxom redhead on his lap hadn’t just enraged me and my wolf…it had broken something inside me, too. As if…well as if he’d meant more to me than the moments we’d spent together. Moments I’d sworn were just to get him out of my system.

I couldn’t leave myself vulnerable like that. Time and time again–from the pain of Mav’s betrayal to watching Sal now, and seeing Evangeline's devastation after losing Lycan–the universe told me the same story;

Love equals pain.

And I didn’t have the luxury of coddling myself right now. Our world desperately needed saving, and like it or not, I was a big part of the solution. Love would have to wait.

If it was even meant for me at all. Because there was another piece of me that wasn’t just scared. It was resigned.

Resigned to the fact that maybe I’d met my one true mate hundreds of years ago…

The young vampire lord who had saved me from Edmund. The one who had risked it all, and was almost certainly executed for his bravery. The weight and pain in my body erupted, tingling through me leaving me uncertain of everything I knew about my past.

“If that story is true, even if we never meet again, just let him be alive,” I whispered the plea into the wind, wishing it would send a reply.

A spray of salt water splashed up and over my face, cooling my skin and stealing my breath. I blinked and looked down to see Sal herself there, her big eyes staring up at me, holding my gaze, almost pinning me in place.

A strange calm flowed through me, a calm that was not my own, but as it slid through me it became my own, and my erratic thoughts settled.

“Thank you, Sal. We are headed toward danger. You shouldn’t follow us. Go, be safe.”

She rolled and dove, a flick of her tail sending one last spray up to me. A wave goodbye in her own way?

Strange to feel the loss of Sal, for how little time I’d spent in her company. But I had no doubt it had more to do with the near-violent emotional connection we’d shared as Raven had read the words that George had written for her. Words that had waited over a hundred years to be read.

I shook my head and wiped my face clean of the salty spray.

Raven was steering the boat, up on the second level. I didn’t look back over my shoulder to see if he was looking at me. I could feel his eyes on me every time he so much as glanced my way.

Gabriel had said the blood bond was gone, and I believed him. I knew the power of fae blood on a vampire as well as anyone–and Raven had drunk a good deal of it to burn the bond between us.

So what the fuck was this thing between us still?

And maybe Raven wasn’t lying when he said that he didn’t even remember the red-haired buxom girl. That he’d gone for a drink, she’d approached him, but nothing had come of it...

Nope. I was not going there, not today, not tomorrow. There was no time for the complications any of these men brought to my life. I had a job to do, and I was going to do it.

As if he’d heard my thoughts, Maverick’s voice sounded over my shoulder.

“Diana.” I turned to find him making his way over to me, favoring his ankle. “You should try to sleep. We might not come on them for hours yet. Or…or days.”

I turned my gaze from his eyes, one blue, one green, to stare back out over the ocean between us and our friends. Myrr, Nicholas, and Kevin had been taken only hours before, right from under our noses.

Right from under Maverick’s nose, to be precise.

As much as I’d defended Mav from Raven’s fury…I couldn’t help but feel that Raven wasn’t wholly wrong. Yes, Mav had been malnourished and injured, but how had the Vanators boarded our ship and taken them without a sound? Especially with Nicholas there. Surely, there would’ve been a struggle…Not to mention Kevin’s barking?

Unless they’d dispatched Kevin right as they boarded to ensure he didn’t let out a warning…

I refused to go down that line of thought. He might have been Gabe’s hell-hound before, but he was mine now, and the thought of losing him…having failed him so completely made me want to puke.

“You truly heard nothing? Not a sound…” I did turn to him, because I wanted to see his face when he replied. He’d fooled me once, so completely. But I was different then. I knew better now.

His brows shot up over his dark multi-colored eyes. “Diana, I would have fought for them if I had. I was out cold. Exhausted.” He reached out and took one of my hands, almost tentatively as if he expected me to throw his touch off. “I wish I had woken up. Maybe that would have made the difference, and we would be off looking for Jade instead of chasing down these bastard Vanators.”

Jade…the girl who held the next key to stopping the destruction of not just the Alpha Territories, but the Human Realm as well.

And we had no idea where she was.

“Have you considered where we might start searching for her?”

He did a quick blink. I realized that I’d changed my stance and settled into my persona of queen.

Problem-solving.

Matter of fact.

Curt.

And, instead of responding to his declaration of innocence, I’d launched into another direction of questioning. Better that he know now, I was Wolf Queen first, woman second. I was on a mission.

“Actually, I might have one idea. It has to do with the gem,” he cleared his throat. “Your father’s gemstone that I...” He leaned in closer, lowering his voice, his mouth brushing my jaw as he whispered, “I’m so sorry, Di. I want to earn your trust back if you’ll give me a chance.”

I turned my head to reply, our lips almost accidentally brushing when the ship’s horn blasted. I clapped my hands over my ears, instinctively stepping back from Maverick as he grabbed at his own head too.

Ears ringing, I could have strangled our captain.

I glared up at the wheelhouse to see Raven smiling down at us, though smiling would imply he was happy. His teeth were bared, and through whatever stubborn, inexplicable bond was left between us, I could practically feel his anger sizzling. Apparently, he didn’t appreciate how close Mav and I had gotten. In spite of my fresh resolution to not give a shit about what the men in my life were doing, I couldn’t deny the sense of satisfaction that coursed through me.

Good for the goose and all…

Raven held my gaze and then jabbed a finger toward the northeast. I turned and saw what he was pointing at, forgiving him for the blast.

Because on the horizon, I could just make out the silhouette of a familiar-looking vessel skimming the water in the distance.

We’d nearly caught up to the Vanator’s ship.

I turned and ran toward the stairs that led up to the main cabin and burst into the wheelhouse. “That’s them?”

Raven stared out the window. “You’d have seen them if you weren’t so busy letting numb-nuts paw all over you.”

“He wasn’t pawing all over me,” I snapped. “He thinks he might have come up with a way to track Jade using Lycan’s gem.”

Raven did look at me then, his blue gaze sharp. “Really? And he wanted to trace the map on your skin with his mouth?”

I glared right back at him. “Fuck you, Raven.”

His mouth curled and a fang peaked out and he leaned toward me. “On your word, Frostbite.”

My chest tightened and I forced myself to look away from him, to ignore the ache that slid through my body at the thought of…anything with this infuriating man.

“How far are we from them?”

He grunted and a laugh slid from him. “Oh, to change the subject so smoothly. We are within an hour, perhaps a little less.”

I took a pair of binoculars and lifted them to my face. The distance between us and the ship shortened and I stared at the back of their ship. I could see figures moving, but no details. “Do you think they’ve seen us?”

“We’re running dark. It will depend on how cocky they are and knowing Vanators as I do…they will think they got away scot free.”

His hands adjusted the controls on the dash, angling us more to the northeast, smooth and confident, as though he’d done this a hundred times. His forearms were bare to his elbows and the muscles in them flexed as he worked quickly, holding us steady on the new course he’d set.

Why the fuck was I staring at his hands? How the fuck was him running a damn boat turning me on? How could a pact I’d made with myself less than one minute ago already feel so wobbly?

Heat. Holy fuckery, not again…

Or was it still? I’d thought it had finally passed on Isla Naranja, but here it was, rearing its hot, horny head again.

“Frostbite.”

“What?” I snapped the word. Tried to, found myself flustered and staring up at him.

His eyebrows were high. “Unless you want me to mouth fuck you right now—and to be clear, I’d gladly do it—I think you should go. Your desire is fogging the windows.”

My jaw dropped and I spun, and all but sprinted from the wheelhouse, self-disgust and lust chasing me all the way to the back of the boat. Raven wouldn’t be able to see me from his position in the wheelhouse. And I needed a minute.

Or ten.

Gripping the railing yet again, I struggled to get my body under control. My heat came on randomly, but never this close together. Was it just being in his presence now making me a mass of seething need? Because it was a damn struggle to admit how very much I wanted Raven to do…anything and everything he’d ever said he could do to me.

Mouth fuck me.

Make me scream his name.

Every position, every flavor.

The railing cracked under my grip and I couldn’t help the groan that escaped me or the way my body arched and flexed. Fucking heat! If we weren’t chasing down the Vanators, I’d have dove right off the side of the boat and let the icy ocean cool my overheated flesh.

Because the problem with a heat like this, even when a queen had made a pact with herself, there was only so much she could do.

How strong was I expected to be when my body and mind were so torn up with the idea of getting railed repeatedly by the vampire in the wheelhouse, it left little room for other thoughts? Important thoughts.

Like rescuing our friends.

Completing our quest.

Saving the world.

You know, little things like that.

“Get it together, Diana,” I grumbled under my breath.

I didn’t have the inclination for a true dip in the ocean, and retiring to my quarters for a cold bath when we were hot on the Vanator’s trail would be a waste of time, but at least I could cool off a little. Stiff-legged, body on fire with Raven’s words, I made my way down to the ladder that led to the skiff launch pad.

The pad trailed just above the water, and the skiff for whence it was named took up most of the room on it. But if I went to the edge, I could sit and dangle my legs in the sea.

I climbed down the ladder to the launch and on that wobbling platform, made my way to the edge. There was a railing on my right side that led to the open portion. I clung to it as I lowered my butt to the launch pad.

With my body halfway down, the boat hit a hard wave and bucked, a ripple going through the boat and the launch pad.

I didn’t even have time to scream as I was flung forward, straight into the ocean.