A Pirate's Dream (3 page)

He flicked his tail, as if in annoyance, and the movement caused the bronze scales to ripple as though heated by fire.

Holy Calypso, he was magnificent.

“Why have you called me?” his thunderous voice boomed, quickening through the air like a thunder strike.

She grew aware of the swirling mists crawling onto shore. The rainbows were very nearly gone now, nothing more than a hint of color. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to screw up her courage, but the hag spoke instead.

“Ssshe ssstole from the Hag. Took an orb.”

The king never even glanced behind Nimue’s shoulder; his eyes had remained firmly affixed on Nimue. Swallowing hard under his penetrating glare, she lifted her chin.

“Is this true?”

She could deny it. A true pirate would. There was no honor among thieves. And yet, her father had never raised her to be as the rest.

“Yes. It’s true. But,” she was quick to assert, “it wasn’t for the reason you might think.”

“Why?”

Lightning crashed mere yards from where she stood.

Holy mother of Calypso! She suddenly regretted very much her rash decision this morning. What had she been thinking to sneak away to a place where no one would know where to find her?

Opening her mouth, words on her tongue, Nimue began to feel shame.

How stupid would it sound to say that she’d done it all to prove to her parents she was capable of taking care of herself? She was in a worse position now than she’d ever been before in her life. As far as she was concerned, she couldn’t have bungled things worse, even if she’d tried.

Reaching for the pendant, Nimue rubbed at its head furiously, trying in vain to calm her riotous emotions as her stomach heaved. If this didn’t end soon, she was going to lose the remains of her morning repast.

Up until that point, Sircco had watched her dispassionately, but suddenly, he hissed and snapped, “Where did you get that sea dragon?”

“You know the termsss,” the Hag spoke, interrupting him. The sound of her dry, dusty voice grated on Nimue’s ears. “An eye for an eye. The Hag demandsss her due.”

Finally, Sircco looked over at the hag. “You are owed recompense, Hag. This much is true.”

“No. Wait!” Nimue held out her hands. “I stole nothing. I gave it back. I only wish to leave this island while I still can.”

The faint wavering mix of colors in the sky would be gone in less than a minute.

Calypso save her.

But they both ignored her, as though she weren’t there.

“I want her.” The Hag pointed at Nimue’s chest.

Sircco merely shook his head. “Nay. I deny you, beast.”

Nimue might have sagged with relief, if it weren’t for the fact that she’d definitely heard an unspoken
but
in there. Slipping a hand to the hilt of her sword, she took three steadying breaths.

She was Hook’s daughter.

The hag stomped her pretty little foot. “I demand reparation.”

“And that you shall have. How often do you feed, creature?”

What? Why was that even important?

Nimue withdrew her blade. She would die before she allowed him to feed her to that thing.

Black eyes blazed. “Once a year, if I’m lucky.”

He lifted a brow. “Ask and it shall be given you.”

The hag licked her plump red lips greedily. “A year’s worth of food.”

“No.”

The creature’s nostrils flared. “Eight months.”

He said nothing.

“Fine. Six. But not a month less.”

“Done!” he boomed, and the sea shook.

The moment he said it, the bands around Nimue were removed. Wanting to sob with joy and the realization that she might actually live to see another day, she began running for her boat.

Nobody tried to stop her. No one shouted at her.

She jumped into the raft just as the last wash of color faded from the sky. The island and the hag vanished with it.

Laughing hysterically with relief even as tears rolled from her eyes, Nimue decided that she’d had more than enough adventure to last her a lifetime.

“Where do you think you’re going?” His voice was no longer like thunder; it was dark and sensuous, filled with a type of heat that caressed her flesh like sun-warmed honey.

The king wasn’t sitting upon his throne, but now bobbed upon the waters beside her, and he was no longer larger than life. He was still a glorious male, but more like her father in height and build. She could just barely make out the strong flick of his tail beneath the now-calm sea.

She shook her head. “I’m for home, King. I’ve no wish to dally longer. Thank you for the timely intercession.”

A slow smile spread across his full lips, and her heart hammered wildly in her throat. Why had that smile suddenly made her break out in a wash of cold sweat?

“You have been cut?”

She glanced down at the mark the hag had given her. “Aye.”

“How do you feel?” His stormy eyes studied her, as if seeking any signs of sickness.

She shrugged. “Oddly, fine.”

Leaning in, he sniffed, and it caught her so off guard that she yelped, nearly toppling off her seat when his nose brushed her flesh.

“I do not smell poison in you. You are fine.”

Then, reaching forward, he gripped her seahorse. His knuckles brushed against the top swell of her left breast, and she couldn’t seem to remember how to breathe properly.

“I know this little one. He belongs to my sister.”

Nimue licked her lips, locked in the intense stare of the Sea King. His eyes, they were so... “Hypnotic,” she mumbled, never realizing she’d said it out loud.

Lightning flashed inside their bronze depths, making her feel as though she’d just tumbled into eternity.

“She only ever gave one of her sea dragons away. To her. To...” His nostrils flared, and he abruptly pulled back from her.

Trembling, but not from the cold, she couldn’t do anything other than stare at him.

“You are Hook’s daughter.”

The way he said her father’s name, there was respect, but there was also a thread of anger laced behind it. Frowning, she stared at the suddenly boiling water that surrounded the king.

“What is your name?” he demanded.

“Nimue. My name is Nimue.”

His nostrils flared. “Nimue.”

The way he said her name, as though he’d tasted every vowel—good goddess, but it had felt like a fluttering stroke against her soul.

“Nimue, daughter of Hook, you belong to me.”

Those words were enough to snap her out of the lusty, drugged haze she was in. “Excuse me?”

“I bought your freedom. A trade. The hag and I. Six months, you will be mine.”

Swallowing hard, her fingers numb, she shook her head violently. “You don’t own me. I’m going back to my ship. I’m—”

He slapped a hand on the bow of her vessel, preventing her from moving even an inch. “Oh, but I do, little pirate. You were a fool to do what you did. The price has been paid. And you will come with me now.”

“I never agreed to this!” she snapped, kicking out at him when his hand gripped her ankle.

As angry as she was, the moment his hand touched her heated flesh, it was like being bathed in lightning. Power hummed through his fingertips, rolling like thousands of tiny fingers against her skin, making her forget simple things, like how to breathe.

“You agreed the moment you summoned me. Everything has a price, Nimue. Now”—his fingers curled possessively around her ankle—“you can come willingly, or you can fight this. But either way, you’re coming.”

She shivered at the intensity of his words. What had she done? Her parents would be so worried. Smee would blame himself for all this.

What had she been thinking that she could steal a soul orb from the hag?

“At... at least let me tell my parents.”

He shook his head. “I will tell them. Now come here.”

Command brooking no arguments, Nimue knew she could fight this, tell him to go to Davy Jones’ locker, but in the end, he was too powerful and would win. Snarling at him, she moved across the bench, getting so close to him that when she breathed, her breasts brushed against his solid chest.

Naïve and foolish she might have been, but she was far from stupid. As he leaned forward, she reached for the stiletto she’d tucked inside the heel of her boot.

She pulled it out and had it pointed at his torso when his lips brushed hers, and the power she’d felt from his fingers on her skin was nothing compared to the raw energy that poured from his lips.

A groan echoed between them, and she had no idea if she’d made it or he had, but his soft strokes morphed into something hungry and deeper, fuller. She wasn’t sure how her mouth had opened or how his tongue had slipped inside, but she didn’t care—because she was drowning in the taste of salt and brine and sea, lost in a swirl of vivid colors. Just as she was sure she would die if she didn’t take a breath, something sweet and fresh and full passed from his lips to hers.

Then his powerful arm banded around her waist, and she was yanked into the deep abyss.

*

D
anika smiled as she gazed into the hovering droplet of seawater. She’d been unable to give Nimue the type of attention she’d given the other girls, mainly because of the way Hook and Trishelle had hidden her away from the world.

But she’d never forgotten the spunky little girl with ribbons in her curls who had proclaimed she would someday live in the sea.

Jericho came up behind her, laying a hand on her shoulder. “The game is set then, my love?”

Glancing up at him, she nodded, smiling demurely. “Yes, and, by the gods, is this one going to be epic.”

Jericho, her lover and best friend, beamed back at her proudly. No more was he keeper of the Moon. Freed of his duties this past year, they were now together, living secluded in a glen far removed from fairy politics.

Nimue and Sircco would be her final project, then no more godmother stuff. It was time for Danika to have her own life with Jericho, to start their lives together.

He brushed his knuckles against her cheek. “And how long until you are all mine again, my rebellious one?”

Nipping at his palm, she held up a finger. “Not long now, dear. Not long now. Did you not see the heat between them? No, this won’t take long at all.”

Leaning back on his heel, he slipped his hands into his pockets. His gaze, admiring and full of pride. “You were quite devious in getting those rainbows.”

She shrugged, fluffing the ends of her chestnut-brown hair. “Well, the Sea Witch did owe me a favor.”

He laughed. “Do I even want to ask?”

Twisting her lips, she snorted. “It involved a healthy dose of liquor, a narwhal, a paint brush, and duct tape. So no, you probably don’t want to ask.”

Chuckling under his breath, he meandered toward the garden to pick berries for their late-afternoon snack.

Leaning back on a rose-print divan, Danika settled in. “And now... let the games begin.”

F
or just about anyone else, being dragged into the sea would have been a horrifying experience, and while Nimue was far from pleased with her captor, she couldn’t help but laugh with delight as sights she’d only ever imagined in the darkest recesses of her imagination sprang to life before her.

A tiny fur ball of a creature danced lazily by her. Entranced by its vivid-pink coloring and the way its wormlike body moved, she thought of a dancer’s flowing skirt. Crooning, she reached out a finger, wanting to see if it felt as silky as it looked, but Sircco smacked her hand.

“How do you not know what an arachnid vermis is?” he all but growled at her.

Inhaling deeply, a perk of being kissed by this arrogant prick, she dropped her hand to her side. She wanted to slap him back, but considered that perhaps angering a Sea King—at least for today, when she was quickly running out of favors—might not be the wisest course of action.

“Of course I knew what it was.” She sniffed.

“And yet, you would touch it? Knowing that if even a sliver of its fur were to prick your skin, you’d be instantly paralyzed.” He’d said it in such a way that she knew he did not believe her.

And well he shouldn’t, because in fact, she hadn’t known.

By the Gods, she’d thought she’d learned all there was to learn about this realm. Apparently, she lacked a fundamental knowledge of the very basic. Shrugging, deigning not to answer, she continued to study this land she’d never seen but had only ever dreamed of from stories and tales.

Every hundred or so yards they descended, the waters turned different shades, every color of the rainbow. The creatures swimming through them were of similar coloration, as well. They’d already been through the reds, oranges, yellows, and now they were in water so green, it glittered like emerald ash.

Sircco had yet to release her. She knew from the accounts her mother had told her often that anyone kissed by the king or queen could walk unhindered through their world, breathing in the water the same as one would breathe air above.

As a child, she’d never been able to fathom how such a feat could be possible without gills. At times, she’d sink to the bottom of her bathtub, close her eyes, and imagine that the gallant King of Seren had bestowed such a blessing upon her. But always, she emerged from her tub, gasping and choking, desperate for air after mere seconds.

The world down here smelled so different from what she’d expected. She’d been thinking of salt and brine, when in fact, there was a lushness to it. Like crushed flowers dipped in myrrh, the scent was exotic, rich, and tantalizing.

Just then, a frogfish swam by, its froggy little legs paddling quickly behind its stumpy little body. Nibbling on a corner of her lip, she dug her fingers into her skirts. She would not reach out to pet it. Would not.

“Do you wish to pet it?”

Eyes wide, she turned to him with a beatific smile that probably seemed senile and foolish, but she didn’t care. This was her dream come true. In all the years she’d wished upon a star, never had she actually imagined this reality being a possibility.

“Yes!” And then crooning, she snatched up the little fish and smiled delightedly when it seemed to wiggle and cuddle up against her.