And there were nights when none of them could stand to be apart at all. Those nights were like being back in the cave at the stone sanctuary of the Keeper of the Jewel, a tangle of limbs and breath and sweat, the three of them discovering each other. Cressida had a gift, or perhaps the mark led her instincts, and even in bed with both of them she managed to balance them. She managed to love them both at once, and never did Reza feel that she showed any kind of favoritism. Even when he did feel those jealous pangs, knowing that she was with Kelly on an evening when he was alone, they sent him into a rage for loneliness, not envy. He missed her when she wasn’t in his arms, and he supposed Kelly did as well.
It was a dance, and one that they grew ever more skillful at dancing. By the time they put in to the first island port where they would find members of the den and restock the ship, Reza and his co-alpha and their mate had the moves damned near perfected. Reza and Kelly stayed more or less always in Cressida’s orbit, and the den orbited them. They were their own solar system, and Cressida the sun.
There were three small port towns where Kelly had been forced to leave off members of his den, three little dots on a map of the Caribbean, and each one presented the same obstacles. Taxes were expensive, and every town required a tax to put to port and a payment for the berth, and all the goods and supplies they needed were expensive, and also taxed. They’d begun to sell their own possessions because they were so short on coin, with no real time to waste ferrying cargo or people for a fee. Then, when they actually found the dispersed members of Kelly’s den, they had to convince them to come to the island.
Most of them did. In the first town, all of them agreed to come. There were a dozen people altogether, led by Cort’s wife, whose sister had been married to Harry, and those two women had fire in their hearts, to be sure. Reza liked them and their determination immediately. They were quick to say to hell with the small fishing village, and they came close to him and Cressida immediately, hugging and sniffing and curious. Ella, Cort’s wife, had a fondness for braiding Cressida’s hair, which she took with good humor even if Cressida had never struck Reza has a hair-braiding kind of woman.
In the second town, only one woman with her young son chose to join them. Kelly was crushed. The rest of the den left to survive there felt abandoned, and refused to acknowledge him as alpha again. They had resigned themselves to the life that he had left them to. Heartbroken, Kelly stayed in the captain’s quarters for a few days, drinking himself into oblivion. Reza said nothing of it, letting Cressida console him night after night as best she could. Reza, of course, understood being turned away from one’s family. He regretted that Kelly now knew what it felt like. No one should know what that feels like. Reza even brought him a flagon of ale himself on the third night, while the men were all in town enjoying a last night in port. Cressida had gone with Ella to take inventory.
“I abandoned them,” Kelly mumbled drunkenly, as Reza set the flagon down on the long table in the captain’s quarters. “I just lef’ them.”
Kelly was sprawled across the bed on his back, shirtless. Reza took a seat at the table.
“You knew some of them might not come back,” he reminded him gently. “The important thing is that you came back.”
“Late,” Kelly sighed. “Too late.”
“For who?”
Kelly lifted his head, squinting one eye at Reza. “Hmph.”
Reza tilted the flagon of wine to him. “You have fulfilled your word. You returned and offered them a home, as you said you would. Your debt is paid, my friend. I think you are not upset about that. You are upset that now you have nothing holding you back. Now all you have to do is live your life.”
Reza thought this was Kelly’s problem, because it was his as well. So much time spent on one goal: for Reza, it had been returning home, and for Kelly, it had been finding a home for his den. Now that they had accomplished these things, they were left to their own devices, and…what next? Once they made it back to the island, once the den was settled, life would simply…continue apace. The reality of having families and homes, of having attachments, was quite overwhelming for two men who had carried such a weight of loss between them for so long.
That night, Kelly flapped a hand at Reza and spluttered, “Piss off,” instead of acknowledging it. But Reza knew he was right all the same.
“You’re pissed enough for us both,” he muttered, taking his flagon of ale, and leaving Kelly to his inebriation.
The next morning, though, Kelly emerged from the captain’s quarters fresh and sober, and they weighed anchor and got on their way. One town left.
Chapter 12
The morning, when they put to port in the last town, Kelly had expected Cressida to meet him on the top deck. She always accompanied him to speak with the families. Seeing him with a mate seemed to please most people, and if he was being really honest with himself, having her by his side gave him courage and strength and pride.
He knew it was going to be a difficult day, too. He was going to speak with Hilda, Esterbrook’s widow. It had been hard enough telling Harry’s wife what had happened, and she had Ella there to comfort her, and Cort to help her raise her son. Of course the den would collectively take care of Esterbrook’s children, two girls, but there was no one to comfort Hilda, really, except Kelly himself. And Cressida. He marveled sometimes at how well she understood and empathized with the women of his den. And without the Jewel of So Sur, even.
So he was somewhat at a loss when she didn’t appear, as she usually did, right as the town chapel’s bell struck seven, the sun an early-morning glow in the sky. He stood, waiting, for another quarter of an hour, and just as he’d resolved himself to go knock on the door of the captain’s quarters, she emerged from below decks.
“Cress?” He went to her, catching her hand, and raised his free hand to trail the backs of his knuckles along the curve of her jaw. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She smiled, but she looked tired. “Just a bit of a bug, I think. I’m sorry I’m late.”
“Do you want to stay aboard instead?” Kelly asked, frowning.
She shook her head. “No, I want to go with you. I’m fine. Honestly. I’ll have some tea and be fine. Let’s go.”
Reza arrived on the top deck, too, and shot Kelly a nod. He’d hold the ship while they were gone. Cort arrived with a pack, a small bundle made up of all of Esterbrook’s things to give to Hilda, and they set off.
The town was small and compact, a naval outpost, so kept more or less in good condition, roads clean enough and safe enough. Esterbrook’s wife lived above the bakery where she worked, and she was so ecstatic to see Kelly and Cort’s faces that she burst into tears on the spot. First of joy, and then once Kelly had sat her down and Cort had given her the pack, her tears turned into agonizing sobs. It was horrible, as it had been with Harry’s wife.
“I’m sorry, Hilda,” Kelly told her softly. “He was a good man. One of the best. We all miss him. But he gave his life for us to have a home.”
Hilda nodded, sniffling into the handkerchief Cort had given her. “He always believed in you, James. I’m glad he wasn’t wrong. Of course I’ll go with you.”
Kelly smiled, sad and touched. “Let’s get your things packed up, then.”
And it was as they were helping Hilda fold what clothes she’d want to have on the island, and pack away what mementos they could reasonably fit, and get her two daughters packed as well, that Kelly realized that Cressida had disappeared again. She wasn’t in the kitchen helping Cort or in the bedroom helping Hilda. She wasn’t in the bakery helping the two girls or even outside just getting some air.
When at last he found her, he found her in the washroom.
“Cress?” She had a cool handcloth pressed against her face, and was slumped against the wall by a basin of fresh water. “Are you all right?”
She lowered the towel and looked at him, and breathed out a laugh. “I think so.”
He didn’t get it. “Are you sick? Do you need to go back to the ship? Do you need a doctor?” He went to her, pulling her into his arms and easing a hand over the pale fall of her hair.
She smiled and he was struck by how much affection he suddenly saw in the expression. Not that he doubt she loved him, but on this day in particular, she seemed to love him especially well.
“What is it?” he asked stupidly. “What’s going on?”
“I’m with child,” she told him, shaking her head a little. “You perfect idiot.”
Kelly stared at her, astonished, as joy and terror simultaneously gripped his heart, the joy more than the terror, but certainly both combined. He hugged her impulsively tighter, and then his grip gentled.
“Is it…me?” he asked her, blinking. “Or…”
“Well, I don’t know,” she admitted, looking earnestly back at him. “Does it matter?”
Kelly hesitated. He didn’t want to lie to her. So he paused, thinking about it for once before he just blurted any old thing, and found that in his heart, when he thought of the children of his future, they were as perfectly balanced as he and Cressida and Reza. So he shook his head, and smiled back to her.
“No,” he said quietly. “It really doesn’t.”
Chapter 13
They returned to the island with nearly double the people they’d carried when they left. It had been nearly a year since Cressida had seen the island last, and watching its proud emerald peak rise up through the horizon again filled her heart with a calm and contentment that she had not felt since the first time she’d held her son in her arms. Now she felt the joy of both, standing at the forecastle gazing up at the island’s mountain brow, her son nestled in her arms.
Reza stood beside her, his gaze moving always between the island and her, and now her son as well. Protective. Adoring. The boy had James’s look, in the end, and so they’d named him Harry Esterbrook Kelly, but Cressida had said that they would raise him together. All of them. The first new addition to this strange den, built on an island of tigers and protected by a mystical jewel.
“You shall have all the fruit you could ever want,” Cressida cooed to the infant, shooting Reza a teasing grin.
He snorted. “And your mother will see you raised to loot and pillage.”
She laughed. “And your fathers will see you roar and howl. You are going to have a strange life, Harry.”
“An amazing life,” Kelly called from the wheel as he guided them into the little bay where they would drop anchor. For now.
Cressida loved her mates, and she loved her son, but her heart would always be wild. And she thought that one day—perhaps not soon, but one day—she would weigh anchor again and have another adventure. Perhaps with one of her mates, perhaps with her son, or perhaps on her own after all. That was as she liked it: free and unpredictable, possible and new. She would never abandon Reza and Kelly, not really, but her ship was still out there somewhere. And someday she fully intended to take it back.
But for now, there was love and Harry and this incredible new home.
They’d seen the ship approach, and those who had stayed behind met them on the beach. Cressida was delighted to see Prija and Fat Tom hand in hand, and they came forward to gush over Harry and exchange firm handshakes, meet Ella and Hilda and the other women and children, and lead them from the beach up to the mountain. There were gifts from the tribe along the way, fruit and handwoven mats, saris from the women and skins from the warriors. In the long months since they’d been gone, Fat Tom had organized the bears left behind, and Prija had called in some of the women of the tribe, and together they had rebuilt the rope bridge, safer and sturdier, giving them all a much easier way up and down the mountain. And where the Keeper’s sanctuary had once been, they had constructed a network of huts not unlike the tribal village, at the center of which was the cave and the light pool, left untouched, where Cressida and Reza and Kelly would live with Harry.
That first evening, they shared a celebratory meal with the tribe. Chief Sajja blessed Harry on behalf of the island, and Prija returned the Jewel of So Sur to Cressida, its rightful Keeper. Having the weight of it around her neck once more truly did feel like coming home, and Cressida sat by the fire with Harry in her arms. She watched Kelly arm wrestle with Chaiya, listened to Reza sing to Kamala’s infant daughter, born while they were away as well, and felt Harry’s tiny hands toying with the jewel between her breasts. Her heart was so full of light and gratitude that she had to wipe a few happy tears from her eyes. No wonder she had never been satisfied by the rules and boring men, by fine houses and clothes and baubles. Her heart had known that this was out in the world, that this perfect bliss was possible. Her soul had driven her to find it, to find them, to find this. This, then, was home. And perhaps this, too, was freedom. Loving unabashedly, living unchained. Cressida hugged her son close, the Jewel of So Sur between them, and knew contentment at last.
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Alphas of Black Fortune (Complete Boxed Set) Page 23