Treat (Terraway Book 5)

by Mary E. Twomey

  My eyes shut to fend off the hurt I tried not to feel. “Bev has the stone on her, so she’s becoming the person I know again. It’s the stone. I guess it’s warping her mind.”

  “I don’t care. You… You’re important to me.” He cleared his throat and dropped his hand. “You’re important to all of Terraway. No one would dare talk like that about Mariang. I won’t let your mother, of all people, tear you down while I’m in earshot.”

  I nodded, wishing I wasn’t standing in front of him in only my underwear, covering my breasts with my arms. “Thank you.” I turned to stare at the water that was only just barely visible in the dim light. “So how does this work?”

  Finn sat down, dangling his legs in before sliding off the smooth rock-lined edge and immersing himself in the waters. I heard him howl from under the surface and covered my mouth, not sure how to be helpful while he thrashed under the water, as if fighting an invisible sea monster. It was a whole minute before he emerged, chest heaving not from near suffocation, but from enduring physical torture at the water’s hands.

  He looked like he was coming up from a deep sea dive or something, his face glowing like he’d undergone a religious experience. “I’ve needed that for a long time.” He glanced down at his torso that moments ago had been laced with abrasions. Now there were faint pink marks instead of angry black bruises, and most of the cuts were completely gone. He leaned his elbows on the edge at my feet, scooping up a handful of the water and drinking it down, making a face at the burn that looked more akin to whiskey than water. “The water rebuilds as it heals. It won’t fix everything, but it’ll give you a far better recovery time. Gets rid of infection, and helps mend internal fissures and sickness in your bones. It hurts,” he admitted, “but the longer you can endure it, the more it will do to heal you.”

  I was hesitant as he held his arms up to me, though I was about two minutes from passing out. “I can’t hold my breath underwater,” I admitted, my inhalations ragged each time my ribs contracted.

  “I can help with that.” The corner of Finn’s lips lifted in a sexy smile I tried not to focus on. “Come here, sinta. I can fix it all.”

  There was so much that was broken about me. I wondered if it could fix the emptiness, the pain that gnawed at my insides, and all the other things that haunted me. The waters were magical, so I decided to gamble on them, knowing I couldn’t get much worse at this point. “Close your eyes. I don’t want you to see me.”

  Finn chuckled in his deep, sensual way. “It’d be just like you to tease me with your breasts pressed against me all this time and then not let me see them. Come here. I won’t look.”

  I hung my head as I fought off a heavy swoon that nearly made my knees succumb to gravity. “Um, this is almost as embarrassing as me being mostly naked right now, but I can’t swim, and it looks like it might be over my head.” I watched the surface of the water lap at his collarbone in dismay.

  “You can’t swim?”

  I scratched at the filthy bandage on my right forearm. “Look, the things I didn’t have the luxury of growing up could pile a mile high. I’m just telling you so you don’t leave me in here to drown.”

  “I won’t let you drown. I’m the best thing to have in the water if you can’t swim.” He met my eyes with a promise beaming through. “I’m perfect for you.”

  I swallowed hard, still nervous for too many reasons. I reached as far down as I could toward his arms until the horrible scabs on my back started opening again. I bit my lip as I let myself fall into Finn’s embrace, leaving behind my former self as the water started boiling on my skin. I began to panic as my arms wrapped around his neck. “Ah! Ow! It’s burning me! Let me out!”

  Finn pinched the bridge of my nose and dipped me under the surface, immersing me in the water that only seemed to want to stab me deeper the more it got of me. His lips pressed to mine at an angle, but instead of kissing me, he started breathing for me, pushing air into my lungs as I screamed into his mouth. I felt a bubbling all over my skin, as if the impurities inside were trying to squeeze themselves out through my pores. The heat filtered into my mouth, my screams doubling when an invisible dentist straightened two of my molars without anesthesia.

  I thrashed in Finn’s grip as injuries that were years old started reminding me of the pain they’d caused when they first made themselves a permanent part of my body. I rubbed my thighs together as the scar on the inside of my left thigh burned like I was being stabbed all over again. The wound ran deep, so the medicine of the water went just as far, feeling like it was attacking my whole leg. I kicked and jerked around in the water that felt impossibly deep, despite the fact that Finn was anchored to the bottom. He worked off the bandage on my arm with one hand, and I screamed anew as the water got to the crusty skin, healing the burn he’d accidentally made happen. I felt the stab wound on my bicep crackle and pop as it was cleaned deep down to the bone.

  Finn brought my head up to part the surface of the water, letting me breathe on my own. “Drink some of the water. You need it.”

  I obeyed, breathing through my teeth as the burning rippled through my insides. Something in my gut felt like it was repairing and rebuilding, making me worry at what could possibly have been wrong in my abdomen that I hadn’t realized. Then I felt something in my head twinge and pop, making me terrified that I might be having a stroke. I was far from any sort of hospital.

  Slowly, in tiny caresses of mercy, the agony began to subside into mere ripples of torture. My torn muscles repaired themselves with gentle licks at my skin that warmed my insides without burning them. I began to relax into Finn, slumping in his arms like a limp noodle in the almost darkness. I whimpered in his embrace, letting him hold me in the aftermath of the water’s brutal ravaging. I was left breathless, and my already roughed-up body was overly exhausted.

  “Just relax.” Finn brushed his fingers through my wet tangles, his palm trailing down over my back and cupping my butt in a way that was positively covetous. He laced light kisses down my exposed neck, his lips puckering on my shoulder and lingering far too long for me to not have pushed him away.

  “I’m seeing someone,” I said quietly, but unapologetic. Someone who couldn’t commit to me. Someone who had tried to bed my friend a week ago.

  “How would you feel if he accidentally fell off a cliff?”

  I pulled back, frowning. “Don’t joke like that. I love him.”

  “A strange thing to say when you’re a scrap of clothing away from being naked in my arms.” He gripped my thigh, tracing up and down as he relished the feel of my legs wrapped around his waist, my body needing his to stay afloat.

  Hopefully that was the only reason my body needed his.

  “I didn’t hide my own clothes from myself, you know. You could’ve just as easily given me your shirt to wear.”

  “You have no idea the state your back was in. It looked like Serena was one step away from peeling your skin clean off. A shirt would only have hurt you more when we had to rip it off you later.”

  The only way to hide my body from his sight was to keep it pressed against him under the water, which didn’t seem like the right option. “I’m too naked. I feel like we should talk about something boring, like grocery shopping or the price of gas or something.”

  “I don’t have much to say on either of those topics. And I think you’re the exact right amount of naked, with one exception.” His finger traced the edge of my underwear, treating me to a shiver I was embarrassed by.

  “We definitely need a change of subject. Can I get out yet?”

  “Give the water a few more minutes. You don’t know if you’ll ever be granted this privilege again. Only a handful ever have been. You have no idea how many injuries I’ve needed the healing waters for, and Banak wouldn’t even share it with me, his number two. This is just as good for me as it is for you.”

  I tried to turn my head and look at what was left of the damage on my back. “Did it work? I can move a whole lot better.
” I wriggled my shoulders to test my scabs, but stopped when Finn let out a low, lusty moan as he wet his lips. “Is my back still torn up?”

  As if he was blind and needed to read the braille on my spine, Finn’s fingers ghosted over the slight curve of my back, teasing the line of my underwear again just like he knew he shouldn’t. “I can see scarring, but it’s healed as much as it can. You won’t suffer infection, and you don’t need stitches or bandages anymore.” He peered over my shoulder, his sharp intake of breath alerting me that something was very wrong.

  “What? What are you looking at?”

  “Nothing. It’s just the scarring. It looks like… I mean, from this angle at least it looks like you were cut in the exact shape of two bat wings spread across your back and shoulders.” He held me unselfishly as I buried my nose in his gills again, the supple skin feathering over my face. His grip tightened protectively. “What did they do to you?”

  “They wanted to know where the stone was. I told them it was already in Lumipad, but they didn’t believe me. They still think only I can carry it, so they thought I was lying. They tortured Bishop for so long, Finn!” I finally had the required moisture in my body to make tears with. They fell with a grateful release, sliding down Finn’s muscular back in a slow trickle. My grief mingled in with the healing waters, and I prayed there would be restoration granted to my internal agony. “They assumed Bishop was my boyfriend, but when tearing him apart didn’t get a different answer out of me, Serena took my clothes, held me down and carved that into my skin with her knife. Said I could still reap, but I’d never forget who owned me.”

  Finn lifted me higher on his body so he could look me in the eye. “I’ll fix it.”

  “You already did. I can move now without my back skin ripping off. Well done on the whole healing waters thing. If only the spas and doctors back home knew about this. You could make the medical profession a thing of the past.”

  “Let me rephrase. I’ll take care of her for you. No one marks up my… No one marks you up and lives to brag about it. If Ezra and the guys haven’t already killed her, I’ll bring you her head so you know she’s not going to come after you again. I don’t want you losing sleep thinking she’s still coming for you.”

  I grimaced. My fingers found their way into his hair to give it a slight scolding tug. “Ick! I don’t need her head. Thanks for the bloody vengeance and all, but I think you’ve earned your gold star just by getting me out of there and bringing me here. Thank you. It’s more than I could’ve hoped for.”

  Finn pressed his cheek to mine, his stubble scratching my jaw and exciting nerve endings in places I wished weren’t pressed up against him at that exact moment. “I need you safe.” His tongue reached out and licked my earlobe, as if I was his tasty treat. His words sent shivers through me, and in the dim light with no witnesses, I clung to my beacon of safety.

  Twenty-Eight.

  A Cabin on the Beach

  “I need you to cool down.” I jerked my head to the side. “I told you I’m seeing someone, and I’m not sure how much of this whole thing I can honestly pass off as being for the greater good.”

  “Tell me his name.”

  “No.”

  “Tell me anything about him.”

  “Why? He’s seeing someone, you know. If you’re looking for me to set you up with a guy, you’ll have to look elsewhere.”

  Finn breathed heavily in my ear. “I don’t like you with someone else.”

  “Then get used to disappointment, because it’s already done. I’m happy, Finn,” I lied. The truth was, I couldn’t be further than happy with the non-arrangement I had with Von. “And honestly, we’re too different. You live here, and I can’t even swim! We’d be a disaster together.” My eyes locked with his. “And you’re still letting women sell themselves for food to your jackwagon of a king. You’ve got to know I can’t be with someone who does that.”

  Finn’s eyes steeled when he stared into mine, both of our ingrained defiance rising a moderate amount. “I don’t make them do that. I just do what the king asks of me. It’s called a job.”

  “I’m familiar with the inner workings of a… What did you call it again? A job? But your conscience is off the map on this. Where does it end? What if I was toe up and wanted to sell my body to Banak in all of his disgustington glory? What then?”

  Finn sneered at me, knowing I was being ridiculous to prove a point. “You wouldn’t do that. No matter how desperate things got, you wouldn’t do that.”

  “Would you let me? Would you take me back to his sex dungeon and close the door with a shrug?”

  His eyes bored into mine with fiery determination. His hand slipped from my hip downward, gripping my butt with a hard squeeze. “That would kill me, and you know it. I wouldn’t let that happen.”

  “What if it was my only option?”

  “I’d offer myself, my home as a better option.” The conversation took a left turn, and I found myself lost in the mess I’d thought I had a handle on. Finn was serious, and I was getting nervous. I debated which fart joke I should tell to divert the topic when Finn’s lips grazed mine. He puckered my lower lip so he could suck on it like a tantalizing piece of candy he knew he shouldn’t have, but slid into his pocket like a greedy child anyway.

  The room and the whole palace slipped away from us, replaced by lightbulb flashes of green and silver that shocked me and drew me in for more. I fell down the rabbit hole with a gluttonous groan that fueled his passion, igniting mine in the same breath.

  Finn’s other hand slid down my body, ghosting over my legs and gripping my feet that he loved to treat himself to. The massage was deep, and filled with too many things both of us loved. His movements grew rough the more excited he became, and I slowly began to see past the brushes of color and music. I heard a slow-building cacophony of trumpets that should have been alarm bells to warn me away.

  “I’m seeing someone!” I protested, but it was too late. The colors were swirling around me like a tornado. Music in the form of trumpets of every shape and size started playing, drowning out splashes of the water as the kiss took on a mind of its own. I gasped into Finn’s mouth as the kiss mutated into a frenzy neither of us had any control over. There was need, there was biting, there was sucking and plenty of writhing. We couldn’t stop the addiction that only grew with each forbidden hit. We toppled over the precipice of restraint so we could completely possess the madness that engulfed us whenever we finally let our guards down.

  The music was enchanting, bewitching us in our cozy borrowed haven as a few misplaced seconds turned into whole minutes of regret. “No!” I cried the moment I managed to pry my lips off of Finn’s. I jerked myself backwards, slipping out of his arms and flailing as I sunk below the surface of the water, kicking at random and waving my arms in the water like I’d seen swimmers do in movies. They made it look so effortless. I started swallowing water, taking a portion into my lungs as Finn came to his senses and yanked me up. He tipped my top half over his forearm to push any water out of me that burned as it healed things I didn’t realize were still wrong inside my body.

  He was out of breath, though it had nothing to do with the water. His eyes were unfocused, his fingers clumsy and his lips parted as he steadied us both against the side of the pool. “What w-was that?” he stammered. “Did you see that?”

  “The colors? I know. Pretty, but we can’t do that again. It was an accident, and we have to be more careful.”

  Finn’s head snapped toward me. “I didn’t accidentally kiss you. I meant every second of that. I wasn’t talking about that, though. The cabin.”

  “The what?”

  “Did you see it? There was a cabin set on a white-sanded beach. We were picking mangoes and buhay off our property and feeding them to each other.” His gaze slid downward, biting his lower lip in obvious lust. “We were slightly less naked than we are now. Beautiful. You really didn’t see any of that?”

  My pounding heart plummeted, and despit
e the fact that I would be completely exposed, I pulled myself out of the water so we didn’t fall into the trap again. I crossed my quaking arms over my chest as I stood, finally feeling taller than him. “I need a towel and some clothes, please, if you can scrounge any up.”

  “You don’t need a towel. I can suck the water off of you just by touching your skin.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “A towel, please.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “So many things. But I don’t want to walk around mostly naked. That problem’s fixable.” I harrumphed, frustrated at both of us. “I told you I was seeing someone. You shouldn’t have kissed me. And don’t tell anyone about the vision. Put it out of your mind as best you can.”

  Finn hefted himself up out of the water and stood dripping before me, making me the shortest person in the room again. I turned my back to him to shield my body, my cheeks burning. “I’m not putting anything out of my mind. Is that normal? Is that what happens when you kiss an Omen in the water or something?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it!”

  “Fine!” Finn stomped off, moved down the hallway, barked out of the Hari room to the guards, and waited a minute before two blanket-sized cream-colored fluffy towels were presented to him. Clothes were ordered for us, but those would take a bit longer.

  Finn wrapped his towel around his shoulders and held mine out for me to cuddle my body into. I breathed a little easier now that I was covered. I peeled off my underwear and cast it into the pile of clothes that were so filthy, they were only fit for the garbage can.

  Finn watched me avoid his eyes. “What does it mean that I saw a vision? Will that happen every time from now on?”

  “There won’t be any more times,” I corrected him. “That was the last one, and I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

  “I know, but it still did.” He dropped his note of aggression and rubbed my arms through the towel. “What does it mean? Will that come true? Will we get a cabin in your world someday?” His voice lowered. “Will I get to run away with you?”