Chapter 19

Thirsty doesn't begin to describe it.

It doesn't matter how often I lick my lips or how often I swallow; there's no reprieve for the split skin and scratchy throat. We would be in worse shape without food and the little hydration we've received from the raw meat of the fish we caught over the last couple of days.

Acker hasn't said much, but I haven't either, I guess. It's hard to think of anything other than thirst and the desire to reach our destination. There's been near constant cloud cover, day and night. It's a nice reprieve from the heat of the sun during the day, but we also haven't been able to pinpoint our location at night.

Blue flies overhead, wings outstretched on the wind. We've remained steadfast in our move north, switching shifts to keep an eye on the sails and any possible ships on the horizon. The days somehow come and go with the slowest torture, yet they've passed in a blur, so many I've nearly lost track. We've settled into a rhythm: wake, eat, sleep, repeat.

Acker dozes, the lull of the ship in full effect, and I yawn for what feels like the hundredth time. We're moving slow enough for me to take a cooling dip in the water and relieve myself. It'll also give me the chance to check for barnacles that might've attached themselves to the bottom of the boat. If we wait too long, they'll reduce our speed from the weight of the drag.

Acker doesn't wake, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm as I strip down to my undergarments. I sit on the side of the boat and tie the mooring line around my waist, slipping back into the water. I relish the cool ocean water. It's like a balm on my overheated skin and as I float on my back.

After a while, I call my blade and dive underneath the boat. There are a few clusters of barnacles at the stern in the beginning of their growth, so they come off easily enough. I keep hold of them a handful at a time, feeding them to Blue when I come up for a breath.

I repeat the process enough that I lose track of time. It's a nice respite, focusing on something other than how miserable I am. As much as I know leaving Alaha was something I had to do, it doesn't stop me from being homesick. I've missed my small shiel and bed and the security of knowing what the day will bring. I miss Kai, and Messer. Maybe even Aurora, but that's probably the dehydration getting the better of me.

I come up to feed Blue. He waits on top of the water in between feedings, preening his feathers.

"I'm glad you're here," I tell him.

He gobbles down the barnacles and shakes his feathers. I wonder what he's able to articulate inside that birdbrain of his.

Then I feel something wrap around my ankle a moment before tugging me underneath the surface. I scream under water. I get my blade at the ready, heart beating furiously in my chest as I prepare to fight, possibly against a giant squid.

When I'm able to break free and pivot, I'm greeted by Acker's smiling face. I kick at him with my spare foot and swim to the surface, coughing up the water clogging my airway. Blue takes flight when Acker emerges.

He shakes the water from his hair, spraying droplets in every direction, and I throw any and every cuss word I can think of in his direction. He laughs, eyes sparkling with delight in being on the receiving end of my temper. It only serves to make me angrier.

I splash water in his face. "I could have hurt you," I say, holding up my blade.

"Wouldn't have been the first time, now would it?" he says, not even the tiniest bit repentant as his smile stretches from ear to ear.

"Ugh." I'm exasperated.

I turn toward the boat then register the sensation of water hitting the back of my head.

He did not.

I'm slow to turn and look at him, seething with every breath. "Do it again," I tell him. "I dare you."

He lifts a brow, pure bravado as he says, "Or what?"

I don't deem his question worth answering. I think it's obvious it'll be something very, very bad.

Light reflects off the water on his face, highlighting the droplets clinging to his eyelashes and hair. His skin has gotten darker, losing the red from the first few days out at sea, and it somehow makes his smile that much more lascivious.

Confident he won't splash me again, I turn for the boat. I untie the moor line around my waist and retie it to the cleat, fashioning a dip in the rope to use as a step up. I stab my blade into the hull and am about to step onto the line when Acker grabs me from behind and throws me back into the water .

Bastard.

Murderous thoughts fight for dominance in my mind as I kick away from him and make for the surface. He appears right after me, and I jump on top of his shoulders, forcing him back underwater. It's so satisfying, getting him back, that I splash him as soon as he comes up for air.

There's a predatory look in his eyes that sends me diving under the water. I know I'm a better swimmer than he is, so I dip under the boat to get away, emerging on the other side. I keep an eye on the water under me, on either side of the boat, waiting for a dark figure to emerge.

I tread for so long I start to wonder if he gave up, then a shadow falls over me. I wasn't expecting him to come from above, and I look up to find him smiling like the devil. I swim back to put distance between us, but there's no use. He leaps into the water, engulfing me in his arms in the span of a breath.

I kick and fight to get free, twisting in his hold, laughing when his fingers graze over the sensitive area of my stomach and ribs. His front is pressed to the entirety of my back, bare skin against bare skin, thighs and legs brushing along the length of mine. He's hot to the touch.

He pulls me under the water with him, but it doesn't stifle the burning heat of the hand splayed across my belly or the other banded across my chest. It evokes inappropriate sensations that flood my system.

It reminds me of the way it felt to be under Kai's influence, when Acker was hiding on the roof of my shiel after the guards searched my room and Kai used his powers on me. It's like my body is not my own. There's no control or thought or reasoning to it, just feeling. Touch and the desire to be touched. Drawn to the warmth radiating from him.

And it's not something I should be feeling with Acker.

I manage to maneuver in his hold to where we're face to face. He must see the panic taking over me because his smile dims, arms slackening around me. I use my hands to push off from his chest and swim to the surface. The boat is already a distance away, and I push my arms and legs to catch up. It was reckless of us to leave the boat untethered.

My back is to Acker when he gets aboard. I unbraid my hair and run my fingers through it, pretending to be too preoccupied to look at him, pretending there's not a new thread of tension between us as we get dressed.

He's first to break the silence. "I didn't mean to upset you," he says, voice low and unsure.

I'm too embarrassed to meet his gaze. "It's fine," I say, not wanting to discuss my internal freakout—an internal freakout that's still very much underway.

Wind whips my hair around my face, and I look at the weathervane, the cloudy sky overhead, then the sails as they bow in and out. It's been hard to tell where the change in wind pattern is coming from.

I adjust the rudder, turning the boat until the sails straighten. I check the compass. "There might be a storm nearby. Up ahead, if I had to guess. We can divert around it but get close enough to catch some rain if we're lucky."

Acker sits across from me, dipping his head into my line of vision so I'm forced to look at him. "Do you want to eat in case the conditions worsen?"

I nod, grateful he's let the moment go .

He scales and guts a fish. Blue is a bottomless pit, we've discovered, and he's quick to catch the scraps in the air when Acker tosses them over the side of the boat. Fileting the meat into strips, he offers me a piece on the blade of his dagger.

As I reach for a slice, I realize something horrifying, hand pausing midair. "Have you been using this blade this entire time?"

There's a look of confusion on his face. "Yes," he says, but it comes out more as a question.

Bile rises in the back of my throat. "You've been feeding me with the same dagger you put through a man's eyeball?"

He narrows his eyes at me. "Would you feel better if I said no?" After a beat of silence, he takes my hand and slaps the raw meat into my palm. "I cleaned it with the leftover mead. It's perfectly fine."

That's it.

That's the final straw.

I launch the fish at him, satisfied by the wet smack when it hits him square in the face.

He blinks and wipes a hand down his face. "You have the only other knife. What do you think I've been using?"

If I was smarter, maybe I would heed the simmering calm in his voice, but I can't stop the revulsion from spilling out of my mouth. "I didn't think anyone in their right mind would ever use a literal murder weapon as cutlery."

He sucks in a breath, slow and measured like he's using the seconds to calm his own anger. "Says the woman who talks about gouging men's eyes out with spoons." He stabs the dagger into the side of the hull. " Starve. I don't care."

He doesn't have any qualms about it, and we sit in stony silence as he eats. I do my best to ignore the hunger in my belly, hoping the lapping of water against the boat disguises the rumbling.

I think I feel a single drop of water land on my nose but come up empty when I feel for it. I tilt my head back and inspect the gray blanket of sky overhead but see no sign of rain falling. It must have been a stray drop of ocean water. I resume my task of pretending Acker doesn't exist then I feel it again, this time on my hand. Then one my forehead.

I blink against the falling drizzle. Acker feels it too and looks up, eyes lighting up, and he grins when our eyes meet. Within moments, it's a downpour. We're drenched almost instantly. I'm mesmerized by the way the water catches along the mast and glides down the string and into the well. I open my mouth and relish the sweet taste of nectar from the gods themselves.

When I open my eyes, Acker's gaze is upon me. His expression gives away none of his thoughts.

The rain casts a veil around the boat, reducing the visibility. I angle us eastward to avoid any worsening weather ahead, on a steep heel as the boat cuts to the side, the bow lifting over the white caps forming atop the water. The rudder jerks in my hand with each hit, but we remain steadfast for a long while.

We needed this after sitting stagnant for days. If we can ride this wind, we'll make fast headway. As soon as I think that, the winds shift. The sails lose their billow, hanging like wet drapes.

"Shit."

Acker leans forward to yell over the pounding rain. " What is it?"

I shake my head, too scared to voice it, as if saying it out loud will make it more true. "The storm changed course."

It's no longer moving to the west but coming straight for us. The boat volleys back and forth as I fight the rudder.

"Should we turn back?" Acker says. "Try to outrun it?"

Blue calls out, taking flight as he leaps from the mast, feathers rippling in the wind. I misjudged the severity of the storm in favor of catching rain, and it might cost us our lives.

"We can try," I say, meeting his gaze.

But it might be too late.