7. Jasper

Chapter seven

Jasper

I realize all too late that there's a drop on the other side of the exit. Fortunately, it's only a few feet. I land on the smooth rocks and the last of my air escapes in a grunt as I avoid falling onto Reina.

Water splashes down around us as we both pant.

She looks up at me with hate in her eyes. "You kissed me."

I grin and shake my head. "If you think that was a kiss, I feel sorry for you."

She scoffs, but her cheeks flare with color.

I can't stop the laugh that escapes me. "You've never been kissed, have you?"

"Of course I have, you idiot."

She stomps away from the waterfall, wringing her loose, transparent clothes. I suddenly realize I can see the curve of her slender body, the tan lines where her skin was covered from the sun, and the pink of her nipples. I dart my eyes back up to her face. She's paying me no attention as she tries to dry herself off.

"How much of their tongue went down your throat?" I ask, trying and failing to get a handle on my wandering thoughts.

"My throat?" she squeals, her face getting even redder. "None!"

I shake out my hair. "Then obviously you've never been properly kissed."

She scoffs and laughs at the same time. Her frustration is so amusing. "I don't know how selkies kiss, but there's nothing ‘proper' about sticking your tongue in someone else's mouth."

I lean against the rocks beside her. "You can't hate it until you've tried it."

"Vulgar man," she mumbles.

I smirk. "Not a Man."

She growls. "You are infuriating."

I do my best to keep my wandering eyes to myself as she twists the water from her clothes and hair. There's something about her that makes me hungry, and not for fish. When she healed my hands, it was like a warm sea current flowed through my very soul. Her eyes glowed blue, shimmering like the sun from the bottom of a shallow gully, and I felt as though I could almost see down to her spirit.

The way she gently caressed my palms as she healed me felt like something more than the hollow act she made it out to be. Yes, perhaps I am her only salvation, but there was more to her touch than hatred.

Or maybe I'm delusional from dehydration.

I look toward the horizon. Lazy clouds are painted in red and gold as the first light of the rising sun burns into the sky. Sometimes I forget how beautiful it can be on land.

What if I'm taking this beauty away from her? What if I fail, and she's the vile wretch's captive forever? How could she escape him if she doesn't know the most basic things about the world, like swimming? How could she survive him and the other hunters who will pursue her if she can't fend for herself?

If I teach her competency, train her, perhaps she could help improve my chances of survival. That would require me telling her the truth, which she may or may not believe. Even if she does believe me, would she want to help? She has her own rebellion to tend to. The woes of a few surviving selkies would pale in comparison to her love for her people. For her sister…

Maybe if I can build some trust, turn her on to my charms, then she'll care for my plight.

The sun blazes over the crest of the sea and I firm my resolve. "First lesson, princess. The tide is low at dawn and dusk, when Eyzanth and Nol'Ther pull the souls of the dead down to the afterworld. If you need to navigate by sea in a smaller craft, dawn is your best chance."

I can feel her watching me from my peripheral vision. I want to look at her, to see what she's thinking, but I don't want her to know what I'm thinking. What if she uses this information against me?

"So, midnight and midday are more dangerous?" she asks.

I nod. "Higher swells, faster winds, and bigger gusts."

"Anything else I should know like that?"

"Monsters from the deep venture out in the dark to hunt. Moonslight is perfect for them to see by, but harder for us who live closer to the light. The Gods' Eclipse in a few weeks will be much worse. Some of the selkie bands believe even the Voice of the Abyss may rise that night to feast on the creatures of the land."

Reina's gut growls loudly. "The voice from my abyssal stomach is rising first. Can the next lesson be about fishing?"

"So eager to learn from me."

"Only to hasten my escape from you." She gives me a perfectly pleasant smile that belies her words. "I'd like to get that underway, so if we could hop to it?"

I sketch a bow. "Yes, of course, my princess."

Her cheeks blaze. "I am not y our princess."

"I could always make you my captive again, if you'd prefer," I say, flicking the copper manacles attached to my belt.

She glares at my waist, but then her eyes travel up my body with a slower, more exploratory drag. When she meets my gaze again, her face is flushed. Something about her appreciative perusal emboldens me.

"Like what you see?"

Her lip peels back in a snarl and she turns away. "Don't flatter yourself. You look like a drowned rat."

I laugh. "You must be one of those girls whose mood sours when they're hungry."

She whirls back to face me with fury in her pinched scowl. "No, I'm the kind of woman whose mood sours when she's a fucking prisoner to be sold!"

The wash of the surf is loud in my ears. Reina's shoulders rise and fall heavily as she glares at me. It'll do no good to apologize to her. It won't do any good to tell the truth right now, either. I need to follow the plan. Grow her trust. If it's a thing that can be grown. She is a Ki'ah Ohn, after all.

Doing this makes me sick to my stomach. I would much rather have her consent, so I have to try. I have to somehow get us to a place where we're not enemies. I suck down a deep breath and steel my resolve.

I can do this. For my family, and my sanity, I will make her my ally.

Eventually.

I turn away from the rocks toward the sandy beachhead. "There are several edible plants and creatures in the shallows that are easier to catch than fish. If you're starving and you don't have the energy or tools to get a fish, these things can save your life."

I crouch at the water's edge and point to a spot where little bubbles are emerging from the sand. "This is an indication that there's something below that you can likely eat."

Reina watches intently as I dig my fingers into the sand and twist, churning it. The shell emerges as another wash of seawater comes over the hole I've created.

I hold the coin-sized clam up. "These have hard shells, but the meat inside is tender."

"How do I get to the meat?" she asks, reaching out for it.

I drop it in her waiting palm. "You can smash it with a rock, or apply pressure at the joints here"—I point to the sides of the clam—"and that will force it open."

Reina washes the sand off the shell and takes it back to the rocks near the waterfall. She holds the clam up on one end and then smacks the other joint with a smaller rock. The shell splits and the soft, white meat spills out, making Reina gasp.

"I did it," she whispers, poking the clam. The creature flexes, retracting into the broken shell and she yanks her hand away like it's shocked her.

She looks at me with a grimace. "Now what?"

"Eat it," I say with a shrug.

Her tan face pales with horror. "Alive?"

The urge to tease her rises, but I don't want to risk her ire again. "If you want to cook them, you can boil them in a pot inside their shell to kill them, but since we're currently without a pot or a fire, you'll have to eat it raw. It's perfectly safe."

"For selkies, perhaps," she says, her nose wrinkled as she looks back down at the flexing clam. The shell is split in a way that's pinching the underside of the creature.

"It's suffering, princess. Eat it, or let me." I hold out my hand.

Her eyes widen as she looks between me and the clam, then she hands it to me. "I didn't realize," she says, her face somber.

I pry the shell open and suck the clam out. Reina's face pales until she's nearly green as I chew.

"Oh, my gods," she says in a dry heave.

Little grits of sand crunch between my flat Man-teeth. "It mainly tastes of the sea. The meat is soft and chewy, and the sand gets in it so it's hard to avoid. It can be unsettling, but are you going to let your squeamishness starve you?"

She swallows hard and takes a deep breath. "I'll find some nice fruit farther inland."

"The fruit is more likely to be poisonous than the sea creatures," I say.

"I'll take my chances."

She starts walking toward the trees and I follow.

"What about this?" she asks, pointing to a fallen coconut.

I nod. "It's edible."

She picks up the fruit and inspects it for a moment before bringing it to her mouth. She's so adorably uninformed that she's going to take a bite of coconut husk.

"No, princess," I say, holding her back before she can discover her error the hard way.

I pick up another fallen coconut and look around until I find a rock with a narrow edge. I cut into the husk with the rock, then peel it back. "Many things in nature have a shell to protect it. A good rule to follow would be not to eat the outside until you've seen its inside."

I hold the coconut in one hand and hack at the hard, inner shell with the sharp rock until it cracks. Some of the juice spills down my hand as I rip it open. Reina watches hungrily as I take a sip of the flavorful liquid within. I move to offer her the other half but she's already picking up a rock of her own.

She kneels down and rips off the husk, then wedges the coconut between her knees and hits it until it cracks. I drink my own coconut with pride as I watch the princess's face light up. She looks at me with a grin that makes my heart beat faster, but then she scowls as if she's remembering she's supposed to hate me.

Most of the water spills from her coconut as she struggles to get it open, and I don't dare offer to help her. What little she does get in her mouth makes her moan. She swallows deeply and I'm ashamed that I watch, that same hunger that's not for food swelling inside me.

"You can use the rock to remove the flesh," I say, cutting into my coconut. I scrape off a thin, white sheet of meat and stick it in my mouth. It's a little spongy, but sweet and refreshing.

Reina mirrors me, taking a tentative bite of the coconut flesh. Two chews in, she digs back into the coconut. She rips off strip after strip, shoving them in her mouth until her cheeks are full to bursting.

She's been so controlled, so sheltered, she hasn't had the opportunity to discover that she's capable of fending for herself. It's my duty, then, as the one putting her through this ordeal, to leave her better off than when I took her.

"We'll need more than coconut to fill our bellies," I say.

"Bu' is so gud," she moans, then shoves another bite in her mouth.

"And eating too much of it will make you need to shit."

She stops chewing. "Why 'idn't you tell me 'ooner?"

I chuckle. "I'm telling you now before you eat too much."

She finishes chewing and swallows everything in her cheeks. "I'm still quite hungry."

"If we go back to the raft, I'll show you how to fish."

She puts her coconut halves together, then grabs another coconut and tucks it under her arm before she stands. "For later."

"Coconut husk is good kindling, too," I say, picking up my dried husks. "If we get the coconuts relatively fresh, we can braid the husks to create rope, and that's called sennit."

"What else can we do with it?" she asks as she follows me into the trees without questioning me or my sense of direction for the first time.

"When we've finished cleaning all the meat out of the hard inner shell, we can use it as a bowl for collecting rainwater. We'll need to properly cure them with their own oils after sanding the insides if we want a more permanent solution, but it's a simple process, if not a little time-consuming."

She quickens her pace to walk beside me. "Did your parents teach you this?"

The question spears my heart, but I do my best to keep my expression light. "No, I learned all these things being a terrible scallywag."

One of her eyebrows rises to a sharp point. "Is there a school for scoundrels out there that I don't know about?"

"Something like that."

She continues questioning me on the uses for coconuts as we make our way back to the other side of the island. We reach the shore within the hour, and I'm relieved to see the raft is still there. Yes, I could carry her through the water as my octopus form much faster than using the raft, but then I'll be magically drained by the time we reach the next island, and vulnerable. If we encounter other Men, I have no doubt Reina would take advantage and try to escape me.

But those Men wouldn't be her salvation…they would hurt her.

The thought of the princess being abused by ruffians has me angrier than it should. She's just my bait, and nothing more.

"All right, you selkie scallywag," Reina says, pulling me from thought. She grins and puts her hands on her hips. "Teach me how to fish."