13. Jasper

Chapter thirteen

Jasper

R eina is curled against my chest and for all the contentment it brings me, there's fear tenfold. She called me her mate in my tongue. She couldn't have known what it meant. Very few Ki'ah Ohn know our language, and the princess is definitely not one of them.

In my haze of Heat, I called her my mate, but it was the word a male uses for his female. She used the word that a female calls her male. While they're similar enough, I sense it's not coincidence.

How?

Reina stirs in my arms and I inhale her scent to calm myself. My Heat is abating, thankfully, and I'll be able to think clearly soon enough.

I've never experienced one before. Twenty-three rotations on Gaien and I never once entered a Heat. I've been near more than my fair share of female selkies on deep-sea expeditions after hitting mating age, but yet still—nothing.

And Reina isn't even a selkie. How could she be my mate?

"Jas-per," Reina moans in her sleep, and the sound has me questioning whether the Heat is actually over. It makes me want to feast on her again, then sink down into her and lay claim to what is mine.

No.

Not mine.

My bounty. My prize. The thing I will trade for my people's safety.

Reina is a means to my ends and nothing more.

But the yearning in the pit of my stomach says otherwise. In my head I know what she is, but in my body, in the basest part of my being, she is more.

It's still dark and I don't want to wake her. We're no longer chained together so I run my hand down her arm to soothe her instead.

"Ohksa…n…mai," she mumbles, and then her breathing drops down into relaxation.

My cock throbs at her unconscious admission. I want to wake her and tell her she's my mate. I want to tell her this is just a bait and switch, that I don't intend to sell her—that I won't let her stay that vile bastard's captive.

Reina moans and I realize just how hard I'm holding her hip. When I release her, she rolls into me, punching the air from my lungs as she snuggles into my chest.

Asleep, she trusts me—knows me, even. How many days has it been? Five? Five days and I think this woman is my mate. Five days and she's calling out my name in her sleep, begging for comfort. Five days and she let me feast on her.

I still have the taste of her arousal on my lips.

The gods have damned me.

I drop my head into her hair and breathe. I hate that it calms me. I hate that she's more than just a bounty. More than just bait I'll use. It makes me not want to use her.

The air whispers through my nose, bringing her dulcet scent into my body.

Tomorrow.

This is a tomorrow problem.

I need to sleep now.

Tomorrow comes too soon, and I'm not ready to deal with the consequences of my actions. Reina doesn't seem ready to deal with them, either.

We work silently as we dismantle our shelter and eat the remaining fish and coconuts from last night. If we have to exchange words, they're all brief, and emotionless.

This is for the best. We can just distance ourselves from each other and that'll be fine. I shouldn't have tackled her to the ground and eaten her pussy like I was starving at a buffet. She shouldn't have called me her mate in my tongue while I was in Heat. So we're even.

"The next stop isn't too far," I say as I push the raft toward the sparkling blue sea. "We'll paddle around to the west side of the island and there's a small port."

Her eyes light up and she sucks in a small gasp but quickly tries to smother her excitement by clearing her throat. "Good."

"You can't escape me there," I say.

She glares. "And why not?"

I can't help but smile as I lean closer to her. It ruffles her fins and I love that angry look on her. "Because I'm stronger than everyone else in that poor excuse for a town. You run from me, and you're sealing their fate. I will kill anyone to keep you, Rei."

Her heavy breaths fan over my chin as she stares up at me. "Then kill everyone. I will escape you."

I can't stop my eyebrow from lifting. "A morally grey princess. Be still, my shriveled black heart."

She tuts and jumps onto our raft. "Push me into the sea. I don't want to get wet."

"Again," I say, pushing on the raft.

The heat in her gaze burns through my chest—quite literally. "We will not speak of it," she says.

"As you wish," I say, thrusting her into the sea.

The water rocks the raft, making Reina sit back on her heels to stay steady. When the water is up to my waist, I jump onto the raft and grab my paddle.

"West is that way," I say, pointing my paddle away from the rising sun behind us. The high clouds are tinged with gold and pink. It's picturesque.

"I know which way west is," she snaps.

It was picturesque.

The more fire she brings, the more I want to tease. I can't help but rise to the occasion for her.

"Forgive me. You'd said the queen didn't educate you, so I was trying to…fill in some of the gaps," I say with a salacious smirk.

She rolls her eyes. "So indecent."

We paddle in silence for a solid half hour, keeping close enough to the shore that nothing too big will come investigate what we are.

Finally, the silence has eaten away my resolve. "Was that your first orgasm?"

"You're disgusting." She scoffs. "And who said I orgasmed?"

I laugh loudly, unable to contain it.

"Oh, shut up!" She slaps me with her wet paddle.

"Well, was it?" I ask, shaking the water from my back.

"I'm not answering you," she mumbles.

So many firsts belong to me now.

I love it.

"You're a virgin, aren't you."

"You are too bold, sir," Reina declares, and I can hear the "princess" in her tone. I've truly offended her this time.

I turn and bow. "My apologies. I don't know how Ki'ah Ohn make small talk."

"Then let's not talk at all. Silence is better than what comes out of your mouth," she grouses, paddling harder.

You love at least one thing that comes out of my mouth, I think, and barely manage to keep in my head. Reina must recognize my smirk, or some other thing that gives me away.

"You're vile," she says, then paddles harder still.

"I didn't say anything."

"It's what's in your head."

"How do you know what's in my head?" I ask, glancing over at her.

She growls. "I could see it on your face!"

"See what, princess?"

Her cheeks are bright red. "Something about your tongue."

Another laugh bursts from me. She does know me already.

"See, I wasn't wrong," she says, and I notice a little smile she's trying to hide.

We paddle on, and after an hour of fighting the waves of the shallows, I call for us to stop. Reina sits down on the edge of the raft, then rolls her shoulders and her neck, wincing at the gesture.

"May I?" I ask, holding my hands up toward her sore muscles.

She grimaces, sighs, then nods. Ah, all the stages of her brat surrendering. I love to see it.

I start light, squeezing the muscles in her shoulder near her neck. Reina hums, but it's not the deep, guttural moan of satisfaction I desire. I work my way down her back, and when I reach the middle, right next to her shoulder blade, she groans, "Right there."

I work the tight muscle, and she relaxes into my touch, making more of those wonderful noises. The sound of her painful pleasure sends fire coasting up my arms into my gut. I shouldn't take enjoyment from it. I know I wouldn't if I wasn't still in Heat. Fucking selkie anatomy.

"Gods," she whispers. "I didn't know."

My voice comes out in a hoarse whisper. "What didn't you know?"

"How good touch could feel." She inhales deeply and her bunched muscles loosen further.

"You don't get daily massages from your palace slaves?" I ask.

"There are no slaves in the palace," she bites out, and then sighs. "Even if there were massage slaves, I'm not allowed to be touched."

I keep my hands moving rhythmically through the shock. Not only had she never orgasmed, but she'd never even been touched in a non-intimate way. In a healing way. I scowl, trying not to think of how lonely that sounds.

Then I remember the way her skin glowed when her mother's guard grabbed her arm in the palace. She'd burned him. Perhaps that's the reason for the no-touching rule.

"So, who helped get you in that fine dress you wore to the wedding reception?" I taunt, trying to bring levity back to the situation.

Reina's body tenses as she sits up straighter. "Alyse," she whispers, her voice pained.

An ache blooms in my stomach. I slide my hand up to the back of her neck and grip her softly, securely. "She may yet live."

"I'm fine now, thank you." Her voice is somber, and she pulls away from me. "We should keep going."

The urge to wrap her in my arms is almost overwhelming. Instead, I pick up my paddle and stroke through the water harder than before. I work myself to a heavy sweat and punish the waves with Reina's anguish, wishing it was the queen I was carving through and not the sea.

The sandy beach gives way to towering cliffs when we reach the northwest end of the island. The rocks are coated in snaking vines and thick green plants that enjoy the softer winds on this side. Between the roots that so stubbornly burrow into the rock, I can see flecks of copper, gold, and even diamonds.

We break and I drag my fingers through the water to send a detecting pulse out. My magic returns with a highly detailed layout of what's within a few meters of us, and a vague representation of what's beyond. I sense the piers, two of them, and larger boats just around the next cliff's edge.

But I also sense rhythmic pulsing—perhaps machines. The vibrations are coming off the cliff face beside us. Perhaps I was wrong about it being a smuggling port. It may be a mining operation. Either way, there are ships that will be able to take us to Illya.

The waves crash against the cliffs with the violence of the afternoon wind. Even with it being gentler on this end, the sea is treacherous for our tiny raft made of shipwreck.

"Get down and hold on," I tell Reina as I abandon my paddle and jump into the water.

She lies flat on the wood and digs her fingers into the sides of it, anchoring herself. I transform my lower half and use my powerful selkie tail to push us closer to the port. The water rocks us roughly, but Reina remains silent through the turbulence.

Finally, we crest the outer edge of the cove. The port is larger than I expected, with two full-sized merchant vessels anchored in the shallows and several rowboats going to and from their sides.

A city carved directly into the cliffs lifts up and back from the port, where a smaller village of wood is constructed. There must be at least four hundred Men living here. Suddenly, I'm not so confident I could kill everyone on the island.

I regain my legs and pull myself onto the raft. The paddle does fuck all to steer us in the water, so I use it to push off the sharp rocks and angle us into the port.

"Ho there!" someone yells in Wolish from the first sailing ship we're approaching.

Reina shouts at them. "Help me!"

I whirl around and grab her. "Remember my promise, princess. I will kill them, and that blood will be on your hands."

The muscles in her jaw tense. "No, it'll be on yours."

"Help," she screams again, waving her other arm frantically.

This isn't catastrophic. Those aboard the vessel won't think she needs saving from me , but rather the sea. Until, of course, we get within chatting range.

The Men on the ship are scrambling around, yelling about men overboard and calling for ropes. I have to get her under control somehow…and I know just how to do it.

Her desperation will be her own damning downfall.