“What if we change things up?” he muttered under his breath.
He wiggled his toes, pushing them farther up under her tunic. She bit her lip against the breathless scream wanting to escape from his icy touch. Moments later, a jolt of power through her stomach made her wince.
“Sorry.” He slowed down the rush of energy.
Relaxing back into the bed, she sighed with relief. “It’s alright.” She paused, glancing over her shoulder at Eric slumped against the door. “I worry about Eric. He’s barely slept since I found you.”
“Tomorrow, either Adrian or I will take his place. The door doesn’t lock, so one of us needs to sleep in front of it.” When she opened her mouth to respond, he snorted and interrupted, as if he knew what she would say. “No, we would be poor excuses of men if we let you sleep on the floor. These beds are barely big enough for the two of us to lie on together. Besides, Eric doesn’t stay still while he sleeps, and Adrian tends to talk in his sleep.”
“How did I miss him talking in his sleep before?” Adrian faced the wall, still asleep. She could barely make out the thin blanket as it rose and fell with his steady breaths.
“He does. Not every night, obviously, but he did it often enough to have me craft my own bed so I didn’t need to share one with him any longer.” He picked up her hand again, but this time, no heat or power moved through it.
“You shared a bed until recently, though.” Rhea blushed. The words slipped out before she could stop them.
He choked on a laugh, burying his face against his thigh to muffle the sound.
“You watched us sleep?” he asked when he got himself under control.
“Well, no. Not really. I checked in at different times of the day and night.”
Adrian rolled over and kicked the blanked off. They stopped talking, worried the others would wake up.
~
“Were you awake all night?” Eric’s voice made Rhea jump in her sleep and both guys froze, James’s heart beating frantically in his chest.
When she stilled again, James replied, “Yeah.”
“You need to get some sleep. I’ll go get something for us to eat. I don’t believe we’ve left the harbor yet, though.” Eric crouched lower, his fingers brushing against her cheek. “How are you?”
“Let her sleep, Ric.” James’s eyes stung as he rubbed them. The trickle of power between them slowed as he fought sleep. He now braced his calf against her arm.
Rhea stirred, and both of them went quiet. Her breathing evened out in sleep once more.
“Sleep, James. I’ll keep an eye on her and make sure you wake up if she needs you.”
James’s eyelids started to droop again, and he finally agreed. He wouldn’t be of use to her if he couldn’t stay awake when she woke.
~
Stretching, Rhea sat up. Her stomach rolled, making her groan softly. Something seemed off about the way the ship rocked, almost like more than the waves tossed it around. “What’s going on?” She trailed off, realizing Adrian sat next to her, gaze darting wildly around the room.
He stood when he noticed she was awake. “Good, you’re up. Hate to do this to you, but we need to leave.”
“What? I don’t understand. Where did the others go?” Her heart thundered in her ears. The last time she misplaced the boys, they wound up arrested. She sat up, head spinning slightly, to search the room for James and Eric.
“James accidentally gave you the suggestion to sleep.” He shoved a shoulder against the door, trying to get it to open. It squeaked as it moved. “No one realized he possessed the ability to put someone to sleep.” Grunting, he pushed even harder. It barely opened.
Her head pounded, and she wanted to beg the ship to quit moving. “I’m confused. What? The last thing I remember, James and I laid awake on the bed, talking. And at some point Eric awoke, but my memory seems foggy?” Did she really miss all of that? If she could get herself to process everything happening around her, but it was hard to focus.
“Something’s wrong. The ship seems to be moving oddly. It could be choppy water, but my gut tells me it’s something more. And what the heck is blocking the door? Did someone put it there on purpose?”
“Mirror?” Rhea searched the room for the bird.
“She went out with Eric.” He turned, digging his heels in as he put all his weight into moving the door with his back. “She seems to like him.”
Grumbling about her bird’s lack of loyalty, she joined him at the door. “How can I help?”
“The door isn’t wide enough for us to both push on it.” His gaze darted around, taking inventory of everything the room contained. “I don’t know.”
Something scraped across the floor in the hallway as the door flew open. Adrian tumbled through the doorway, landing at his older brother’s feet.
“Hey. Nice of you to join us down here.” He grinned up at Eric from the floor.
Eric glanced down. “Quit messing around. We tried to get down here sooner, but the ship is under attack.”
“Who would attack us this close to the docks?” Rhea questioned, glancing at the porthole in their room.
Behind his brother, James fidgeted with his fingers, grimacing. “We’re not exactly close to either port. Our ship set sail two days ago.”
“How did I miss out on two days?” The boat pitched forward, knocking her into Adrian who was in the process of standing up.
“Oomph.” He let out a pained groan as her knee jabbed into him.
Apologizing, she stood up, offering him her hand.
He waved it off. Curling up on the floor, he groaned out, “I’ll stay here for a moment.”
Kneeling down on the floor, she asked, “Are you okay? I didn’t think I got you so hard.”
Adrian wheezed. “There’s an innuendo in there somewhere.”
James grabbed her arm, pulling her up. “He’ll be fine. Let him breathe it off.”
“You’re still not off the hook. How did I lose two days?” Rhea crossed her arms over her chest, waiting.
An explosion rocked the ship, forcing her to stumble into James.
Eric helped Adrian to his feet. “We’ll explain on the way up.”
They made it into the hallway before James pulled her into his chest, bracing against another brutal wave.
“Every time I stopped touching you, you started to get ill again. Eventually, I knew I couldn’t keep healing you and fight sleep. Tiredly, I pushed a little extra power into you and wished for you to sleep too deeply for the sailing to make you sick. It worked. Unfortunately, it worked too well.”
He pushed her ahead of him, trying to keep them both steady with one hand on the wall. “This morning, Eric and I went to get food with plans to find a way to wake you up when we returned to the room. On our way back, the first attack came.”
Rhea tried to find a way to be angry with him, but she really couldn’t. He didn’t intentionally put her to sleep for two days. Clearly he kept up hope she’d wake up on her own. Sleeping also saved her from two days of misery.
They climbed the stairs, nearly falling as a wave overtook the ship, spraying them with water as they reached the top. She was more thankful than ever to be wearing breeches.
Adrian and Eric both leaned through the doorway, lifting her free of the stairs. “How are you doing, Rhea?” Eric questioned as he drew her into his chest.
“My blood is pounding too hard for me to get sick,” she responded.
“Good, because we probably won’t be getting out of this without using some sort of magic. And we’ll possibly be thrown overboard once the threat of pirates disappears.”
Rhea already assumed they would be. “It pains me to admit it, but we can’t let the captain and his crew get boarded by pirates.”
“We are all in agreement, Rhea. I don’t know if you realize exactly how bad the reputation of mages has become.”
Sighing, she took a step away from him. “Even though I grew up away from this threat doesn’t mean I did
n’t realize how bad the problem has become.”
Something hit the ship, causing it to shudder and shift. She stumbled into Eric. He widened his stance to catch her. Water rose over the side of the ship, crashing down on everyone on deck. Letting out a curse, he grumbled against her about not possessing an affinity for water as the rest of the group sputtered.
Attention swinging over the railing, Adrian’s face went pale. “Company will be here soon.”
The boat shook again, with James grabbing Adrian to keep him from going over. An alarm of some sort sounded, and someone screamed something about putting a fire out.
“Stay here with the twins. I’m going to go check out the fire.” Eric made sure to steady Rhea as he backed away, turning in the direction of the bow of the ship.
“No way will we let him go off alone. We stick together. In fact, we’ll be so stuck together we won’t even be able to pee alone,” Adrian grumbled, grabbing Rhea’s hand as he marched unsteadily after his brother.
James followed. “It only works if we get out of here alive.”
“We didn’t escape from the king’s men twice to be killed off by pirates.”
Flying back to her, Mirror landed and clung to Rhea’s tunic, claws digging into her shoulder as she squawked loudly in her ear.
They stopped, nearly running into Eric as he braced himself against a wall. The entire bow of the ship was in flames. “I don’t know if I can consume the fire’s energy without putting it somewhere else,” he yelled over the sound of fire and fighting ships.
“Put it in the water. It can’t burn anything there. Or, better yet, put it on the other ship.” A chill swept over her as they got pelted with another oversized wave. Staggering to her hands and knees, she coughed, trying to clear her lungs.
Eric shook his hands, drops of water flying everywhere in his attempt to dry them. He leaned against the wall, raising an arm to point at the fire. “Here goes nothing.” Tilting his head, he considered the fire. He inhaled deeply, drawing the flames out of the wood.
Adrian pulled her against his chest, tucking them against a wall as the boat rocked violently. Their position shielded them from all but a small spray of water, which meant the fire didn’t receive a well-needed splash either.
His skin took on a red-orange glow as Eric continued to pull, absorbing the heat. Gasping, he dropped to his knees. Rhea’s heart pounded as steam rose from him. He couldn’t take much more without some sort of outlet. Holes formed across his tunic, singed from the heat of his skin.
Shouts rose up from the crew as another explosion rocked the ship.
Letting her go, Adrian and James moved up and dropped to the deck next to Eric, each of them placing a hand on his back. “Give us some of the power, Ric.” James’s pitched his voice low enough Rhea struggled to make out what he said.
Eric shook his head. “Too much.”
“Then give us some of the power,” Adrian replied with a new seriousness brought on by recent events.
They still needed an outlet for their power. If they ended up with too much, Adrian could make mountains where there shouldn’t be any, and James could raise the dead. People would be right to fear mages.
Eric grunted as he attempted to extinguish another fire. Rhea needed to find an answer soon, or he would burn from the inside. Her first instinct of putting his power into the sea wouldn’t help him. Fire couldn’t burn in a body of water. The boat would go down if they didn’t do something, though.
“Give your power to Mirror. She can handle it.” Rhea didn’t tell them her bird would give the excess power to her. The waves swelled, some of them sloshing over the edges of the boat.
The boat rocked and water rose over the boat, casting it in darkness before drenching everyone on deck. Bracing both of her feet, she waited. Eric resisted a moment more before the power became too great. A sliver of triumph washed through her veins when she realized he chose to put his trust in her.
Power flowed through her connection to Mirror, filling her with white-hot magic. Rhea’s lip bled as she bit down hard to hold back an agonized scream. She didn’t specialize in fire, but she could use his power to save the ship.
Water erupted like a geyser, shooting higher than the sails of the boat. Pushing all of her excess power into the wave, she created a reflective surface. It wouldn’t hold for long, but if she kept reinforcing it with the extra power, it would keep them safe while Eric continued to pull the flames from the ship.
Shouts rose up, and Rhea flinched as another flaming projectile hurled in the direction of the boat. She’d never actually attempted this. Would it even work? The projectile hissed and fizzled as it hit the wall of water, and her heart froze. As soon as it dropped harmlessly into the sea, she breathed a sigh of relief.
A presence directly behind her startled her. Spinning, she lost her hold on the towering wall of water. Adrian stood behind her. “Keep it up. I’ll take care of the pirates.”
On the other side of the ship, the captain gave orders to his crew. Without the overload of power, Eric could stand unassisted again as he put out the last of the fire. Luckily, the damage to the ship appeared limited to the top deck.
Once the push of Eric’s magic dissipated, Rhea struggled to maintain the wall as she was forced to tap into her own power. Sweat dripped into her eyes, and her body trembled, legs threatening to buckle.
“You can do it, Rhea,” Adrian muttered as he concentrated on the ship on the other side of her wall.
“I can’t keep this up.” A whimper escaped as her wall started to lower.
“Hold on a little bit more.”
The world seemed to slow as multiple things happened at once. Her wall collapsed as some sort of land mass shot out of the sea, straight through the center of the other ship. One last small projectile shot through the air, catching her in the stomach. Breath whooshed out of her as she fell to the ground. Voices screamed her name, as fog seemed to crowd her vision. It didn’t hurt to breathe, but a curious iciness spread through her stomach, making her lose consciousness.
Chapter Ten
Relationships
Stumbling through the doors of an inn, they were shown to a small, dark room without being questioned. “We could have lost her,” Adrian grumbled as they laid her down on the bed.
All of James’s concentration focused on Rhea. His body trembled, fingers firmly pressed against her shoulders, and Eric knew his brother’s lower body would be like ice as the healer continued to shove everything he could into her frail body. With every fragment of shrapnel removed, the tiny cuts healed immediately. The wound in her stomach oozed blood, even after a day and a half of trying to heal her. Rhea lost a lot of blood, and Eric feared his brother wouldn’t be able to save her.
He gazed at her with helplessness as he shut the door to their room and paced to the window. Mirror nestled into a pouch on his belt, her chirps and squawks reassuring the three of them Rhea still lived, even if she wouldn’t wake up.
Though Eric spent most of this journey resenting her help, wishing she would go and leave him and his brothers alone, he could no longer deny she came to their rescue on more than one occasion. His heart raced as he realized somewhere in the past couple of days, she earned his respect, and possibly even some degree of affection.
The twins stared at her, and he half hoped she stayed asleep until the wound in her stomach healed enough to stop bleeding. Rhea previously mentioned something about sharing their power with each other. They’d never shared power like that before the pirate attack. He wondered if he could try it now, sharing their power when not in crisis mode.
Adrian bounced his leg with nervous energy as he stared at her from across the room. “What if she doesn’t get better?”
Scowling at Adrian, he replied, “She will.” He met James’s eye and added, “I have faith in you.”
His brother’s cheeks flushed with pleasure, and Eric realized he should have told James how proud he was sooner.
Pulling his eye
s away from Rhea, but not his healing touch, James’s gaze flicked over the contents of the room before pausing at some unseen sight on the ceiling. “I want to try something. Can I borrow Mirror?”
“What are you going to try?” Eric found himself protective of Rhea’s familiar. He wouldn’t let anyone harm something important to her, because when she woke, she would take his head.
“Earlier Rhea mentioned something about sharing power. I want to try using Mirror to boost my ability to heal her.” He nodded at his hands plastered to her skin. “I can keep trying like this, but eventually I’m going to need to sleep. Or worse, I’ll burn out, and then there won’t be anyone left to heal her.”
He took a mental step back to really take in his youngest brother’s appearance. Veins stood out on James’s pale arms, reminding him of when their mom became sick. The skin on his hands, blue from prolonged healing. Dark smudges ringed his eyes, and his dry lips cracked and bled.
He stood up, handing over the glass bird. “I’ll be back shortly. I’m going to find something for us to eat. Adrian, help James.” Eric stomped out of the room, his boots falling quickly as he left the room. He couldn’t stand not being able to help any longer, and James needed something to help him sustain his energy.
~
Adrian moved to his twin, grumbling under his breath about being told what to do. Like he needed to be ordered to help his best friend and brother. They may be competitive and argue, but he knew no matter what, James always had his back, the same way he always backed James. “How do you suggest we do this?”
The bird already seemed to know what to do. She fluttered lazily near James’s head. Light from the window reflected off of her body. James held a hand out to her, and Adrian brushed his fingers over her silvery feathers. As soon as both of them touched the bird, a green glow shimmered over her. Mirror hovered silently as the color filled the room. Energy started to pool between the twins, rejuvenating them.
Falling For Them Volume 2: Reverse Harem Collection Page 92