The Shift of the Tide

by Jeffe Kennedy

  I reached between us and gripped his shaft, sliding up to tease the sensitive head, and he groaned in my mouth. “Temptress,” he muttered, pulling half out of the kiss. “We should get up.”

  “An hour until the sun touches the horizon,” I said. “Plenty of time. And I need you.”

  His huff of a laugh was part groan. “Half an hour, if that. This old soldier has something of an internal clock, too.”

  “Plenty of time,” I repeated in a velvety tone, rolling him onto his back and holding him at the right angle to be sheathed in me. He threw his head back with a groan, clenching his teeth over it, neck muscles taut and enticing, so I bent to lick and nibble at them.

  “Bless Moranu, woman,” he groaned. “Warn a fellow next time.”

  “I like taking you by surprise.” I sank my blunt teeth most satisfyingly into the thick muscle on the side of his throat, loving having him fill me there, too, and dragged the woman’s nails he’d mocked down his naked chest. His hands vised on my hips.

  “Play nice,” he warned.

  I let go of his neck and straightened, rolling my hips to torment him another way. Lifting the mass of my hair—which, ugh, I was definitely cutting off at the first opportunity—I arched my back. His gaze dragged over me and he slid gentler hands up to my breasts, cupping them and thumbing my nipples, making me purr.

  “So lovely,” he murmured. “Your eyes almost glow in this light, bluer than the deep sea.”

  “Very good petting.” I rocked my hips lazily, lowering my lids at the waves of pleasure from having him so deep inside me.

  He caught his breath, hands tightening on me. Narrowing his eyes, he caught onto my game. “We don’t have time to draw this out.”

  I clamped my inner muscles on him, making him shudder. “What are you going to do about it?”

  “You should know by now not to dare me.” With that, he flipped me onto my back. I shrieked with surprise and laughter, losing my breath, then gasping for it as he impaled me. Without a pause he thrust into me, establishing a fast, hard rhythm. I wrapped my legs around his narrow hips, cupping his face and feathering my thumbs over his cheekbones. His face ridged with arousal and fierce determination, he still turned his head to kiss my palm.

  A hard blade of toned muscle, he stroked against my softer body, spearing me with his unrelenting thrusts. Until, completely unmoored, I had to grab onto his shoulders, as I unraveled in the best of ways—coming apart in the steadfast circle of his body.

  After a brief swim to clean up, we walked down the beach to the harbor at a fast clip. Glorianna’s rising sun crested the flat sea, spilling pink and gold over the sky and water. Marskal eyed it then me.

  “We’re going to be late.”

  I shrugged, maybe exaggerating it a little. “The Tala don’t care for—”

  He clamped a hand over my mouth, tucking my head under his arm and rubbing knuckles on my scalp. “Don’t say it,” he warned.

  I slipped his hold, skipping away and laughing. Because I felt like it, I twirled, spinning in a dance and leaping through the shallow surf.

  Marskal ran after me, grinning. “That’s better.”

  I slid him a smile, cocking my head. “Why did you think I was lonely? Before.”

  He considered me, clearly debating his answer. He’d put on the remains of his shirt, tucking the ragged ends together inside his fighting leathers, but it still showed. Along with the vivid bite mark on his neck.

  Mine, some animal part of me purred.

  “I don’t know,” he finally replied. “A feeling? Maybe I was wrong. But you just seemed… alone. I knew you felt alien among us, and that you missed Annfwn and being around other Tala.”

  “How did you know those things?” I wondered. I’d certainly never said. Rarely even contemplated that. The old me hadn’t liked to dwell.

  “A look in your eyes, maybe. Even when you were in a group, laughing and talking, there was this look to you, like you felt alone.” He cracked his neck, rolling it off. “Might have been my own fancy.”

  “No.” I almost didn’t say more, but he deserved the more. “I think you were right. I was lonely and didn’t know it.” Or, I supposed, I had known it, but had seen it as practicing for Final Form, not as something I could change. Feeling a little shy for no good reason, I took his hand. I shouldn’t have hesitated, because he laced his fingers with mine, holding me in a reassuringly strong clasp, and giving me a warm smile.

  “Tell me more about my eyes.”

  He arched a brow. “More petting about how beautiful you are?”

  I laughed, swinging our joined hands. “Not that—though I like that—I mean how they look different sometimes. I’m thinking about something.”

  “Hmm.” Now his brows drew together in thought.

  The beach had ended at the great rocky spur that tumbled down from the mountainside to curve out into the water, forming one arc of the harbor, so we cut up to the path through the trees. We were nearly there. I found myself looking out at the higher view of the ocean, the sky bluing. No running away, I told myself.

  As if reading my impulse, Marskal squeezed my hand, not tethering, but reassuring. “It’s like when you looked at the Star in the Council yesterday,” he said. “And kind of how your magic looks—your eyes take on a slightly different shape, and have a similar light in them.” He studied me, gaze roving over my face. “It’s both obvious in my mind’s eye, and simultaneously difficult to put into words.”

  “That’s all right. That much helps.” I wasn’t sure what I’d do with the information, but I’d think about it. The path took us onto the long pier, where both ships waited at the end, tugging on their ropes, sails partially furled. We’d been sighted, shouts passed along, and last-minute preparations accelerating. Marskal didn’t let go of my hand, though, and I didn’t try to shake him loose.

  Ursula waited aboard the Tala ship, in intense conversation with Dafne. She lifted a hand to acknowledge us, but didn’t pause otherwise. Jepp stood at the foot of the gangplank up to the Hákyrling, emanating impatience. Closing the distance, she seized me in a hug.

  “I’d already prayed to Danu to smite you if I missed saying goodbye because you dallied.” She gave me a fierce smile, her dark eyes damp. How could I have imagined she was angry with me? “Kral is about tear my hide off with his determination to be heading out already.”

  “What’s involved in smiting?”

  She laughed and hugged me again, pressing a kiss to my cheek. “I have no idea. But now you don’t have to worry. Be careful. I’ll miss you.”

  “You be careful,” I replied. “Don’t take chances.”

  “Me?” She grinned, pulled a dagger and spun it. “I’m the definition of careful.”

  “I’ll pray to Moranu to cover what Danu misses then.”

  “I appreciate that.” She’d gone abruptly serious, bowing to me. Then she gave Marskal the Hawks’ salute and bowed again. “Lieutenant. I know you’re always on alert, but…” She flicked a glance at me.

  “Understood,” he said gravely. Then pulled her into a hug. “And stop saluting me. Though if you get yourself killed, I’m kicking you out of the Hawks.”

  “What?” she demanded. “No wake, no big party extolling my virtues? I’m owed that!”

  He shook his head. “Nothing. Unmarked grave. So no heroics.”

  “Danu take it,” she growled, but her eyes had an even more marked shine. “I’m done with the two of you.” She turned to climb the plank, not looking back.

  Dafne finished with Ursula and started down toward us. Marskal darted up to assist her, as the pitch of the ship on the waves gave her already rolling walk an unsteady cant. She hung onto him with a grateful smile and they chatted on the way down. Who knew what about.

  She looked me over. “You look like a pauper’s daughter, all big eyes and ragged clothes. You’ll be happy to know that Jepp and Kral transferred your things onto the Tala ship, so you can change.” She held out the box she car
ried. “This I hoped to put directly into your hands.”

  The wooden box that held the map-sticks. I took it automatically, but searched her face. “Are you sure you want to entrust these to me? I can’t shapeshift anymore.”

  She studied me seriously. “You will. And besides, Kiraka told me to give them to you. They’re meant for a shapeshifter to use and you’re going to the land of shapeshifters. The Tala will make better use of them than I ever could.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I hope it works for you.” She cast a glance at Marskal and away. “Final Form, if that’s what you decide. I’m sorry that I was angry. I was mostly hurt that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth.”

  “I’m sorry, too.” All these muddy mossback emotions and relationships. I needed to navigate them better. “It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you.”

  She smiled slightly. “Or rather, that it wasn’t me specifically who you didn’t trust.”

  I nodded, throat oddly tight. Maybe that lurked at the heart of Tala caginess. Trust wasn’t part of my makeup. Something else to learn to change. I handed the box to Marskal, who had a thoughtful expression, and hugged her.

  She held onto me, then stepped back, making a face. “Eyew. You’re all damp and sandy.” She glanced at Marskal. “You, too. I don’t even want to know what you two were doing all night. And morning. Lieutenant, I should mention that your things are packed up and on the ship, also. That shirt might need to be retired for polishing the deck.”

  He grinned at her. “It has sentimental value.”

  She slid her gaze to me with a knowing smirk, one that covered deeper emotions. It struck me suddenly that Jepp and I were leaving her here again. This time she wanted to stay, and was secure in the happiness of her circumstances, but still—it had to be reminding her of that abandonment, with the Hákyrling already pulling out.

  “I can only imagine,” Dafne was telling Marskal. “I’m terrible at goodbyes, so I’m going to pretend you’re going off on a jaunt and will be back soon.”

  “Dafne,” I said, before she could go. She turned back, wiping the tears off her face. And I realized I didn’t know what I wanted to say. Something to make her happy. “Your daughter,” I said, breaking my superstition against speaking of the unborn. I gestured to Dafne’s swollen belly. “She’s healthy and full of magic. I can feel it.”

  Fresh tears welled from Dafne’s eyes, and she dashed them away impatiently, smiling through them. “I weep at the least thing these days,” she said. “Thank you. That means a great a deal to me.” She hastened off, very nearly at a trot.

  Marskal put a hand on my back, guiding me up the gangplank. “Well done,” he murmured. “And lightning didn’t flash out of the sky.”

  I made a pig snorting sound at him, and he laughed. A good sound.

  We made it out of the harbor quickly, the light Tala ship leaping through the waves, and soon we were surrounded by open sea. A pod of dolphins—the group I’d played with, I thought, though it was hard to tell from human form—followed along for a while, making me long to join them.

  Because I needed to keep to my resolve to at least try to lift my wounded sword arm, after we cleaned up, I took myself off to a private corner of the deck. I considered the form, remembering how it felt, testing the sensation of anticipated joy and freedom. How it might feel to leap overboard and be one with them.

  But, like a saboteur in the dark, the twisted fear grabbed hold, phantom pain riddling my body. The sensation of running full speed into a wall made my head ache. Apparently lifting a wounded arm hurt. I sank to the deck to rest, lifting my face to the sun, and imagining the breeze blowing over it meant I flew through the sky.

  “Making any progress?” Marskal asked, running a hand over my hair and dropping beside me to sit cross-legged. He’d stopped me from cutting the nasty mess off, sitting patiently with a comb and oil after I bathed, working out the knots in short order. Baffling to me.

  “How did you know?” I asked, eyeing him. He gleamed with sweat. Having stripped down to an old shirt and short pants, he’d been sparring with Ursula, Harlan, and a few other Hawks. Then, after Ursula and Harlan retired to go over strategy, Marskal and the others continued running drills. Also baffling.

  “I saw you watching the pod of dolphins and guessed. It’s one of your favorite forms.”

  The man observed far too much. “Are you ready to take on the sleeper spies and Dasnarian forces single-handedly?”

  He gave me a cocky grin. “Bring ’em on.”

  I sat back on my heels, considering. “Tala children drill in shapeshifting, like you do with your Hawks. Practicing over and over like that.”

  He regarded me calmly. “Could be a good path to pursue. I’d certainly do something like that with an injury—go back to basics, warm up again with simple exercises, rebuild strength and flexibility.”

  I laughed at him. “You make everything sound so simple.”

  “I’m a simple kind of guy,” he said, picking up a lock of my hair dashing itself across my face and winding it around his finger.

  “Now who’s lying?”

  He smiled easily. “Not a lie so much as an…” He tugged me closer, searching for the word.

  Obligingly, I kissed him. “Oversimplification?” I offered.

  “Nicely played. We’ll go with that. So, do you want me to help you with your exercises? You’d have to teach me shapeshifting basics.”

  “And share Tala secrets?” I replied archly. “Never! But my brother Zyr does teach the children. I’m thinking of asking him.”

  “Good idea. Will he be nearby?”

  “When we get to the cliffside city this evening?” I patted his cheek. “Oh, my darling mossback, everyone will be there. Prepare to be overwhelmed.”

  “Do I have to be blindfolded this time?” He looked distinctly unhappy about that, and I paused to mull, as I hadn’t thought about it.

  “Well, Ursula and Harlan won’t be. Everyone else will stay aboard the ship until they travel to Ordnung. That’s been the usual protocol. I’ll make a case for you, so no.”

  “Do you have that much power?”

  I raised my brows at him. “I am of Salena’s line.”

  “So… yes?” He tugged me into a kiss again. “I like a powerful woman.”

  I laughed, enjoying this playful side of him, the easy calm before the storm. “Keep that in mind when my family are interrogating you about everything in the world.”

  “They’ll be there, too?” He’d gone still, arrested by some thought.

  “When I said everyone, I meant it.”

  “How do you plan to introduce me?” he asked, very casually.

  “As Marskal, I thought. Or do you prefer ‘Lieutenant’? Maybe you have a family name I should include.”

  He gave me a long look. “That’s not what I meant, and I think you know it.”

  “I don’t think I do know. Does it matter?”

  He didn’t reply immediately, studying the lock of hair wrapped around his finger. “No. No, I suppose it doesn’t.”

  “Marskal,” I said softly. He lifted his gaze to meet mine, his face that remote mask that meant he hid what he felt. He’d used it before so I wouldn’t know he loved me, I realized. Now he covered something else. “I’m not practiced at this, and I’m not teasing when I say I’m not like mossback girls. If you want me introduce you a certain way, then you have to tell me.”

  His mouth quirked, eyes roving over my face. “Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re teasing me or being brutally honest in your tricky Tala style.”

  I kissed him, lingering over the taste. “Can’t all of that be true at once?”

  He laughed at me. “Only you.” He took a breath. “I want you to introduce me as your lover—or whatever name is appropriate for what we are to each other.”

  I looked into his steady brown eyes. They opened into that love now, hiding nothing, asking for more. “My brother Zyr will not be kind if I do that.�
��

  Marskal’s mouth firmed. “I can handle myself.”

  He could, too. I believed that now. “All right, lover,” I breathed against his mouth, kissing him again. “Want to find a private place with me?”

  “Yes,” he replied, real happiness in his eyes.

  It surprised me, how much I liked that I’d put it there.

  ~ 20 ~

  We sailed into the cove at the foot of the cliff city of Annfwn just as the sun set. The four of us gathered at the rail, watching the white, flower-draped cliffs rise taller and taller as we approached.

  “It still amazes me that we can get here so fast,” I commented.

  “You saw the maps,” Ursula replied. “Without the barrier, it’s a fairly short distance by straight line from Annfwn to Nahanau.” She gave me a wry grin. “We just sent you the long way around last time. You can blame your king for that.”

  “It’s unbelievable,” Marskal breathed, sounding awed as I’d rarely heard him. Except maybe talking about seeing me for the first time, which pleased my vanity excessively. “And I’d expected a great deal.”

  Seeing it as he must be—and having been away long enough that I drank in the sight, too—I took a moment just to enjoy the beauty of my homeland. Even with the sun angled so low, the water shone with a crystalline purity, retaining hints of the shining turquoise of daylight. The white sand beaches stretched in each direction, bordered by verdant, fruit-bearing trees at either end. Farther to the north would be my clan’s enclave, but I hadn’t exaggerated my certainty—confirmed by the staymach messengers—that they’d all be in the cliff city to greet us.

  Staymachs in bird form had been flying back and forth for the last couple of hours after we’d been sighted, carrying messages. Among the instructions for visitors, they’d surprised us by directing the ship to sail directly into the cliff city cove, rather than to one of the harbors up and down the coast where the Annfwn navy was kept.

  My friends and family would be curious about why I hadn’t flown ahead personally, as I invariably would have in the past, and anticipating their questions was knotting my stomach. My hands tightened on the rail, and Marskal ghosted a caress over one, noticing, as always. I let out the breath that had wanted to snarl in my lungs and focused on savoring the sight of Annfwn.