18. Reina

Chapter eighteen

Reina

S oft orange light slips through my lashes as I blink awake. Everything is hazy. My vision, and my memory.

A gentle caress across the bottom of my foot sends a surge of adrenaline through me and I jolt upright. Jasper is sitting at the end of a bed that's not ours, his thumbs massaging the bottoms of my feet as his opal magic twines around them.

"You ought to stop doing that," he says.

"I'll never stop running from you."

He chuffs. "No, passing out in my arms. One might think you trust me or something."

I jerk my feet back and pull my knees into my chest.

Jasper sighs, dropping his hands to his lap. "I wasn't done yet."

"What were you even doing? Selkie magic?" I snap.

He rolls his eyes. "I was healing you."

What?

He must read the scowl on my face because he follows up with, "You never asked me whether I was capable of healing, just if I could heal myself in that moment, and the answer was no. I was too magically drained."

I glare at him as I process this.

He's not just some selkie, then. He's royal blood, high magus. And he's captured a princess of royal blood.

I narrow my eyes, my voice coming out in a whisper. "You're not stealing me to be your queen, are you?"

His face lights up with amusement. "Is that what you're imagining?"

"Be serious, Jasper," I say, my skin flaring blue. "Why have you taken me?"

His smile leaks away and he takes a deep breath. I give him time, despite wanting to shout at him to answer me right this second. I feel as though I may have finally broken through that shell of his, and I don't want him to pull back into it. I want the truth.

He glances over his shoulder, then leans in. "I can't tell you here, but I swear by all the gods I will once we get to Illya."

There's an earnest pleading in his eyes, one that I've never seen. He does want to tell me, but he's worried about who might overhear, especially because we're in someone else's room—someone with a lot more money than us.

"Where are we?"

"Captain Alejandra's room. She is granting us passage."

"At what price?" I ask, knowing he'd smelted down my tiara and we would have limited funds from it.

He shrugs but doesn't meet my gaze. "A gold coin."

With the amount of leverage the captain would have over us—this being a tiny speck of an island seemingly Wol-controlled—one gold does not sound like enough.

"And?" I stretch the word out, elongating it to let him know I know there's an "and" he's not telling me.

"I had to…" He trails off, looking away from me.

"Had toooo ?" I ask with dwindling patience. My mind runs wild in the silence between us. He had to sell me, too? He had to sell himself? The very brief interaction where I saw the captain wouldn't make me think she was that type, but one can never judge the inner workings of the mind of a smuggler.

"I had to tell her things."

"What things ?" I ask, my frustration mounting.

He winces. "Like that you're part of a secret Fynish rebellion and the queen wants you for something."

"You. Told. Her. What?!"

The frustration explodes into full-blown fury in a blink. I throw the closest thing at him; a pillow. He catches it, then holds it up to block the next thing in my hand—I'm not even sure what it is. A compass bounces off the pillow and lands on the bed as I reach for the next thing my hands can find.

"Why would you do that?"

"Rei, stop," he complains, blocking a lamp that goes crashing to the floor.

"You've just painted a target right on us, you idiot!"

The door swings open before I get to throw the next item in my hand. The pistol.

Instinct drives me and I point the flintlock at the woman standing in the open door. It's the same one who'd been working on the papers in the tavern earlier this afternoon. The captain.

She puts her hands up in mock surrender as she comes all the way in and closes the door behind her. "Just wanted to make sure things didn't get out of control. I'm on the hook if you destroy this room, too."

Jasper lowers his pillow an inch. "Please stop. The barman is going to keep our third ruby if you damage anything else."

" Our ruby?" I turn the pistol on him. "You mean my ruby! The one you stole! From my tiara!"

The captain looks at Jasper. "Her tiara?"

He covers his face with the pillow, his voice coming out muffled as he shouts, "I didn't tell her who you are!"

The woman's gaze cuts to me, and though she's doing her best to subdue it, I can see the shock in her eyes. "Princess Reina?" she asks in a hush.

I point the pistol at her, and her hands shoot back up, this time without the mockery.

"You will not speak my name again. I am Amaya," I say, and I don't know why I want to keep up this charade.

Fear?

No.

Being with Jasper the last week has been hard, but less terrifying than being trapped in the palace. And I'm finally promised some answers from him when we reach Illya. If he is a selkie prince or king in need of my help for something, I could forge a powerful alliance with the strongest and most intelligent creatures of the sea through him. Since my feet are no longer bleeding, and I don't feel as if I was beaten half to death, I have to assume he is a powerful magus with healing abilities.

An alliance with selkiekind would give me control of the seas. Killing the queen will be easier if she has nowhere to run but up to Seter, and then it'll just be a matter of hunting her down in the frigid north.

Gods, I've truly become the perfect usurper the rebellion wanted me to be.

"Are we going to talk about this, or start shooting?" Alejandra asks.

I lower the pistol and Jasper lowers his pillow—as if that could've spared him.

Alejandra walks over to the fireplace and begins building a fire. Jasper gives me a very pitiful expression that pulls on my heartstrings. He puts his hands out, reaching toward my feet but stopping halfway. I put the trigger lock in place and set the pistol aside, then lower my legs back to the mattress.

Warmth seeps into my feet as he massages his magic into me. There's an undercurrent of electricity that shoots from his thumbs all the way up to my core, and I fight the sensation that's trying to bloom there.

Sparks fly in the fireplace and catch on the kindling Alejandra's built up. "I'll go first, I suppose," she says. "Jasper told me you were with the rebellion planning to overthrow the queen of Fynren, but nothing else. You could say I am a sect of that rebellion, working on starting up my own over in Wolfsheim."

Jasper and I exchange the same furrowed-brow look of confusion.

"It's not all roses and daisies over there, either. King Ladron…" She stops herself and scowls. "He's different. I remember what he was like when I was young, and he is not that man now."

"Wealth and power change Men," Jasper says, and I know that was a capital "M" men by how he emphasized it. He believes we're all capable of becoming vile bastards when enticed by enough money or power.

Alejandra shakes her head and the silver streaks in her hair glisten from the growing firelight. "It's more than that. When my father died, the king took me and my little brother into the palace and raised us like his own. One day he was Uncle Diego, and the next he was King Ladron.

"All that is to say, I understand your plight, Amaya ." She winks at me as she leans an arm against the mantle. "I'm not here to stop you, or make gains from you, and while I do need to be compensated for the resources you'll take in our travels, I want to help you."

Perhaps Alejandra would take me home, to the rebellion. She seems capable enough to fight off Jasper, and she just said she's working on her own. Our little secret together—and gods, she hardly knows me.

That's when I notice the milky pink band glimmering around her wrist, and a matching one on Jasper's. They made a pact of secrecy, something only high-blood magi can perform. The cost and the price vary on the agreement, but it was likely no small amount of magic to forge that bond.

I'm not personally aware of the status of things in Wolfsheim, and Alejandra could be lying through her teeth, but the glimmer of that secrecy mark on her wrist says otherwise. I think I can trust her. At least, more than most.

"I very much need your help," I say, holding her gaze.

"Other than getting off this island?" she asks.

Jasper is intently staring at my feet, the massage still ongoing though I can tell the wounds are fully healed. His eyes flick up to my face for a fraction of a second and I see the guilt walled up inside him. He's waiting for me to tell the whole truth, that Jasper has nothing to do with my rebellion and he's just some selkie who's stolen me for his own gain.

And I could.

I should .

But Jasper said he'd give me answers when we got to Illya. He must've conjured up some good story, and if I'm going to get the real answer out of him—and more importantly, an alliance with the selkies—I need to stick to it, not escape him. Moreover, if I reveal Jasper's true intent with me, it'll make Alejandra question the secrecy pact she made with him, and I need all the allies I can get to play nice together.

I close my eyes as the weight of my politicking drags me into exhaustion. Then I shake my head. "It's yet to be seen what else I might need, but I'm sure having a powerful captain of the Wol royal household on my side will be essential at some point."

"As having someone like you will be for me," she says quietly, confirming my earlier suspicion.

I open my eyes and look at her in earnest. "Thank you very much. I'm sorry for the mess I've caused. It's difficult to be compliant when you don't know everything that's going on," I say pointedly to Jasper, who becomes even more interested in my feet.

Alejandra nods. "It's understandable. I wouldn't be either if I'd been left in the dark."

None of us know what to say. Only the crackling of the fire and the distant roar of the sea fill the room. Jasper's hands work into the sore spots of my arches and then slide down to my heels, the massage never-ending. I honestly don't want it to.

Alejandra clears her throat. "Well, I'll have someone bring up some water to boil for your bath, and some supper. Since you were unconscious for most of it, I think you'll get the dredges at the bottom of the pot. They're always the best," she says fondly. "All the meat flecks and herbs settle at the bottom."

"I'm looking forward to something other than coconut flesh and fish."

"I'm sure your bowels are, too," Alejandra adds.

I can't help but laugh. "It's true. But really, thank you. For everything."

Alejandra nods and excuses herself.

"She heard our fight up on the mountain, knows the Men tried to take you," Jasper rushes out quickly, like he needed to tell me the moment the captain was gone. "They were talking about how much you might be worth, talking about stowing you in the hold and selling you themselves."

He locks eyes with me, his stare intense like he's trying to communicate something extra.

"She also heard me give you the pistol," he adds. "And heard me say that I would fight Nol'Ther to get you back."

"I see," I say as it starts to make sense.

The captain has some magus power that allows her to hear things, either by way of actual sound, the Sight, or thought-delving—though that's incredibly rare. Only Alyse can do that as far as I know, and she has to maintain eye contact. It was one of the ways we used to tell each other jokes at the table when mother forbade us from speaking.

Alyse …

My heart aches and I pull my knees back up to my chest to shield it from the pain.

"What is it?" Jasper asks, moving a little farther up onto the bed.

"Just thinking about my sister," I whisper into my cocoon.

Distant thunder rumbles, causing blood, and tears, and screams from that night to come pouring into me. The way she begged for help and how her manic smile morphed into fear.

Jasper crawls up next to me. "Can I hold you?"

I glare at him, though being held sounds exactly like what I need. I'm starved for his touch since the moment he gave it to me freely, and I don't want to crave it, but I do.

His face is soft, and vulnerable. "Please?"

Yes. Shield me from the storm, from the world. Let me hide away under your warmth and care until it all disappears, at least for a little while.

"Why?"

He reaches out, but the motion stutters and he drops his hand. "I don't want you to feel so alone."

Irrational anger boils up in me at the offer, or maybe the admission I'm avoiding. "I am alone."

"You're not," he whispers.

"You're going to…leave me," I say, correcting myself from "You're going to sell me to a vile bastard" and tipping off Alejandra.

He shakes his head. "But I'm not."

Something soft and warm flutters inside me, making my voice small. "What do you mean?"

He reaches out again and slides his arm under my knees, then grabs my side. My skin prickles with goosebumps at his warmth and his strength. He keeps me cocooned as he pulls me onto his lap.

My head falls against his chest and heat crawls up my face to my cheeks. The beat of his heart is so fast it sounds like a war drum. Mine feels the same.

He rests his chin against the crown of my head and takes a deep breath. "I'm not going to leave you, and I'll explain more soon."

"What if I want you to?"

His hands tense on me, and then he chuckles. "I'll just have to change your mind somehow, Ohksana'amai."

The sun's essence flares to life in my chest and my magic comes alive, making my eyes glow blue. That heat spreads down to my core, making it tense and achy. Why do those words do this to me? What do they mean?

"I don't think you can," I retort, trying to ignore the way he's affecting my body.

"I think I already am," he says.

His thumb strokes the back of my thigh and sends a shiver up my spine. I don't want to love this feeling of safety and affection from Jasper. He's hurt me. He's not allowed to comfort me. He's not allowed to feel safe.

I pull back from the shelter of my knees. "I disagree."

"Your mouth can disagree," he says in a silky hush that makes my insides turn molten. He leans forward and inhales long and slow, closing his eyes as if he's scenting the most decadent dessert. When he opens them again, they glow a stark opal. "Your body does not."

I swallow hard, trying to ignore the fact that our lips are so close I can feel his breath. "My body is a fucking mutinous bastard."

A rumble of laughter rolls through him, as if my mind will come around to the knowledge my body has at some point, and it's just a matter of time. Warmth spreads farther up my back to my neck, making my muscles tense in anticipation, in the need to grab and hold .

His gaze drifts down to my lips and he licks his. "Rei—"

A heavy knock at the door makes me yelp and flail out of Jasper's grasp.

"Water for the bath," someone says from the other side as several heavy clunks hit the floor.

Jasper runs a hand down his face and sighs. When he opens his eyes again, they're dark and deep, no sign of his lustful magic. I hope mine have faded, too.

Illya can't come soon enough.

I need to know why Jasper Luvine needs me so desperately.