“Oh, Remy, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter.” If that is true then why is her face a nice shade of rouge and her lips are pulled together? “I will get the Masters to break the seal your father created. We won’t have to marry.”
Remy bites his bottom lip. “Did you mean what you said? That you wanted me to do better?”
Buckman is moving around inside his bedroom but looks to be staying in there. Talen doesn’t want to make a spectacle of herself with Remy.
“You’re putting too much thought into it. I do not look for affection from you. Not now or ever.”
“But if we must marry, surely we will have to kiss at least once.
She smiles. “At our wedding.”
He is glad that she can’t see his nervousness. “I’ve never kissed a girl before. Have you kissed a man before?”
“Yes. I’ve kissed a few.”
“Talen?”
“What?” She is getting angry now.
“Will you please kiss me? Like you kissed these other men.”
“Why?”
“In case we don’t marry, I’d rather kiss you now then possibly kiss someone else later.”
“Will you never ask me again?”
“If that is what you want, sure.”
“Okay. I will then.”
“Okay.” He gets down and stands before her.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
Kip practically crawls out of the captain’s bedroom with his sides lumpy from overeating. Buckman is spoiling him. He climbs into her bed, his bloated stomach making strange sounds. There’s a swish sound as he plops down. He instantly falls asleep. A full belly always makes one tired. She carefully moves out of the bed to not disturb him.
“I don’t want to hear about this kiss afterwards. And you’re only getting one.”
“Understood. But what if…?”
“I said one.”
“Okay. What do you want me to do?”
“Goodness. You flirt with all these women and you couldn’t get one kiss from any of them?”
“They wanted more than a kiss. I didn’t want to disappoint them with my inexperience.”
She wonders about other things that he may want from her. “You better never, and I mean never, ask me to do something else with you just because you haven’t done it yet. We have the inn for those kinds of services.”
“Oh, that. I would never ask that of any woman unless I was married to her.”
“You would ask your wife for sex?”
“No. I would attempt to seduce her first.”
“Well, you’ve got the charm to get a woman interested, but to seduce her, I doubt you can master that.”
“Well, if we were married, wouldn’t we do that?”
“Just what I need. A virgin prince on my wedding night.”
“Are you not a virgin?”
“That’s a very private thing to ask me.”
“I want to know how much experience you have.”
“Yes, I am. That doesn’t mean I want an inexperienced man for my first time.”
He takes a step back. “So you want me to go and experience things with someone else before I am intimate with you?”
“Why are we talking about this? Weren’t we only going to kiss?”
“Right. I got side-tracked. I’ll let you make the first move.”
She throws her hands up in the air. “You’re hopeless, Remy.” She quickly grabs him by the collar of his shirt and brings him close to her face. Both of them can feel each other’s hearts racing.
The boat starts rocking. The captain comes barreling out of his bedroom, parts of his clothes wagging behind him. He runs up the stairs and starts yelling at the crew.
“Maybe we should see what is happening?” Remy says.
“Do you want to talk about Desmond being related to you? If he is Hestin’s son, that would make him your cousin and the true heir to Dragmoore.”
He looks deeply into her eyes, drowning out the shouting upstairs. “No. I don’t care about that at all.”
Talen puts her one hand at the back of Remy’s head and the other around his waist. She is using him as a way to keep balance but at the same time as a way to show him some affection. He decides to mimic her position. He takes a small step towards her. She takes a small step towards him. They are within lips touching. The boat rocks to the left and her face goes into his shoulder. They laugh as the boat rocks them to the right. During the one moment when the boat is steady, they lean in and touch lips. Her grip on the back of his head tightens as she reaches her fingers up through his hair and tugs on it. Her fingers are mashed between strands of hair as the kiss deepens. Once more he mimics her movements but doesn’t grip her hair as roughly as she is gripping his. He can’t admit to her that he likes the way she is being forceful with him. The boat starts rocking back and forth again but they appear to stand still, locked in their tight embrace.
The rocking becomes intense, making them break apart. They tumble to the floor. Banged up and in a little bit of pain, they help each other up. He has both of his arms around her waist and she now has her arms on top of his arms. He pulls her in and tries to capture her mouth.
“We need to find out what’s happening out there,” she says. She leaves his embrace and goes up the stairs.
Remy needs a minute to take in what happened. His heart is beating so fast. “There’s no way that I could ever kill her now. Not when I…”
Kip opens his eyes. He hasn’t seen them kiss but he has heard Remy say the words “kill” and “her” in the same sentence. His bares his teeth.
Buckman is at the wheel turning hard. “You idiots had best get downstairs. This is no place for those that have no training.”
Talen finds Logan trying to help the women get downstairs. Why do people feel the need to see a storm where it is the most dangerous? The men think they can lend their inexperienced hands to a crew who is more than experienced—this is their life after all.
Talen runs over to Buckman. “Captain, what kind of storm is this? We had one before but this one is different.”
All around the ship waves are crashing but none of the water is spilling onto the deck. The masts are getting beaten by the sheets of rain and wind whipping around them.
“Aye, Miss Dragniss.” His attention turns to the crew. “Oi, pick up yer mettle and put it to the front. Don’t make me ask you again.” He grabs Talen’s hand and puts it on the wheel. “You feel that?”
“I feel tugging.” Indeed she feels the wheel being ripped from her. How Buckman is able to keep control over it is a mystery to her.
“We are not in a normal storm, my dear. It’s…”
“It’s the Gracken! Captain!”
“Grab the spears, young Gerald. The rest of you, don’t take them eyes off the sea.”
Logan runs to Talen. “Come, Talen.”
Remy pushes Logan out of the way. “Get your hands off her.”
“Kip.” Talen runs for the captain’s cabin.
Almost like it was waiting, a wave comes crashing over Talen and whisks her away.
“Talen!” Remy looks over the side.
Talen is dangling from a rope.
“Get out of the way, boy.” Logan shoves Remy to the side.
Remy isn’t having any of that. He punches Logan. The two start fighting until a whistle is blown. When they part, they see Maria holding onto some coiled rope.
“She’ll be dead before either of you knock the other out. Get out of the way, you stupid men.” She looks over the side. “Talen, make sure that you grab this tightly. You’re going to feel a tremendous pull, like the ocean has you in its undertow. That’s just the force of the Gracken under you.”
Talen nods. The wind wraps around her, pulling her this way and that way. Her grip on the rope both tightens and loosens seconds apart. She and the rope swing wildly to the left and then to the right. She slams into the side of the ship. She was already in pain from falling downst
airs. Now she has new pain. More severe injuries to be sure.
“Please save her, Maria,” Remy says.
Maria ties the rope around her waist and then tosses the rest of it overboard. Talen gets smacked in the face with the new rope. She grips the new rope and lets go of the other one. Like Maria said, there is a strong pull underneath her. It’s getting stronger little by little.
Maria starts backing up towards the middle of the ship, pulling on the rope. Lucky that her body is stocky. She’s got a lot of muscle from working on the ship.
Talen looks below. There is no whirlpool or opening of any kind that suggests there is a monster under the water. The ship turns violently and Talen loses her grip. She falls a few inches from the rope and almost misses the very end of it.
Maria is pulled forward.
Buckman turns the wheel hard to the right. “He’s going to come up on the port side. What are you idiots doing? Get those spears ready.”
Maria almost loses her ground with the sudden weight being lifted off the other end of the rope. “Talen, you still there?”
The force under her is grabbing at Talen’s feet even though there is nothing touching her.
Maria is having a hard time pulling the rope up. “It must have her.”
“Don’t say that.” Remy starts pulling on the rope.
The moonlight shines down on the water below Talen. Through the dark of the water, something is coming through.
“Where are my spears, Gerald?” Buckman yells out over the rage of the storm.
One of the masts cracks. It holds together but Buckman clearly sees the crack down the middle which will get wider if the wind doesn’t stop hitting it.
Gerald comes with a few shiny gold spears. He passes them out to the larger crewmen.
“Aim for the eyes on the tentacles, lads. This beast isn’t going to show us his face. He knows what happened last time.”
Talen sees a tentacle creeping out of the water, showing just a little bit of itself like one of the whores at the inn back home. Something to tease the wanting customer. Its bright pink outer layer has dozens of eyes all blinking furiously together. Some of the eyes are blue, others are green, and one in the center is bright red. That’s the eye that is fixated on Talen. It’s piercing her skin without touching her. The inner layer is dark pink with tiny white suctions dotted all over.
She isn’t sure if she can, because the Gracken looks like an animal, but isn’t technically an animal. It’s worth a shot. “Can you hear me?”
The red eye closes. The other eyes remain open and blinking madly.
“If you can hear me and understand me, please tell me why you want to kill me?”
The red eye opens. The tentacle squirms around her but doesn’t make contact. The ship is dipping in and out of the water hard and fast. Talen is getting soaked over and over. Her hair is slapping against her face. She can’t see the full body of the creature. The tentacle itself is scary. She isn’t sure that she wants to see the full Gracken.
“I guess you can’t hear me or understand me.”
The tentacle makes contact. It wraps around her. How can something so squishy be so forceful?
Maria feels the tug. “It’s got her!”
Logan tries to help Maria pull on the rope. Remy can’t take his eyes off Talen who is not struggling in the tentacle’s grip.
The crewmen haven’t thrown their spears yet. The captain yells to one of the crewmen to take over the wheel. He grabs a spear from one of the men and aims it at the red eye.
Tell that foolish captain to lower his spear or I shall rip this ship apart.
“Oh my goodness, you can talk to me.” She directs her voice upwards. “Captain Buckman!”
“Talen? It’ll be all right.”
“Don’t throw it. It says to not throw it or it will tear your ship apart.”
Remy grabs Buckman’s arm. “Believe her. She can talk to any animal.”
“The Gracken is not an animal. She is delusional.”
“Captain, the prince might be right. Shouldn’t the Gracken have already eaten her?”
Buckman bites down hard on his bottom lip. “Well, blow me overboard.” He stands down, signals to the others to stand down as well.
Talen looks back at the tentacle wrapped around her. She is now eye to eye with the red eye.
I must take you, Talen.
“You’re going to eat me?”
Trust me.
Talen lets go of the rope and the tentacle brings her down into the water. The red eye glows as it sinks beneath the darkness of the ocean.
Maria doesn’t feel the tension anymore on the rope. She pulls it up finding no Talen attached. Remy loses his mind and it takes Logan and Maria to keep him on the ship.
“That wasn’t normal,” Gerald says to Buckman.
“No, it wasn’t. What kind of person is Talen?”
The storm is lifting. The waves die down. Less rocking. Clear skies.
Remy gets free of Logan and Maria and jumps overboard. He plummets into the water.
Maria can’t chase after. Logan hesitates. No one is coming to the prince’s rescue. Buckman throws the golden spear at his cabin and, as it makes contact with the wood door, a ringing comes from it.
Queen Galaria grips her chest as she steps down from her crystal throne.
“My queen?” one of her lady guards says.
“I’m fine. But we need to visit the shore.”
“Yes, my queen.”
Galaria stands without difficulty but she has been shaken up. It’s not something she has felt since the most tragic day of her life.
Chapter Nine
Talen rolls up onto a black sand beach. She opens her eyes and coughs up water. As she crawls up more, out of the water’s reach, she notices that the black sand has tiny white crystals in it.
The shoreline is littered with shells of all colors and shapes mixed in with the crystals that glisten under the moonlight. Behind her is the Glistenberry Forest. The red berries glow brightly under the moonlight. Their sweetness lies in the core where the seeds are. The skin is tart.
“How did I get here?”
She gets to her feet. She can’t see the Seraphina anywhere on the horizon.
“Kip. Oh, no. I hope Remy takes good care of you. The map? Damn. Oh well, the ship will be docking in another day. I’m sure Remy can manage without me until we meet up at the port. He has Maria to occupy him. I can’t be that far from the South Port. It sits in front of the forest.
That kiss she shared with Remy. She told him it’d be only once. She said they’d never speak about it. And yet, here she is thinking about it. Admittedly, she didn’t like the prince much when she first met him. She didn’t believe any of the stories about him either. How he is a coward and always has been. How all that he is good for is ordering servants around. She knows there is more to him. He has a strained relationship with his father, much like she has with her own. Both of them long for their father’s attention. It makes sense that they bonded from that. More importantly, they both want to be free of Dragmoore. She wants to live with the Masters. But now Kip is in her life. A dragon can’t live in the Veiled Haven. She can’t have him living in the wild close to the Veiled Haven either. The Masters may never let her leave to see him.
That kiss. Why did she kiss him? Why is she entertaining the thought of being his wife? There is a pull towards him. She can’t explain it. She also feels a strange pull to Desmond. It’s like she’s known them her whole life and she always knew she’d marry one of them. That’s ludicrous of course. She’s known of the Marksman but he hasn’t been in her life since the beginning. She’s known of the prince but she never met him until recently.
“You most certainly are not falling for the prince or Desmond.” She fingers her lips, remembering the way Remy’s lip felt on hers. “No. I’m going to forget it ever happened. I’ve kissed plenty of men before. I’ve been kissing men since I was sixteen. He is just another man. That’s a
ll.”
She hugs the line where forest meets sand. Although the Glistenberry Forest has no real dangers, the possibility of trouble lies within. It’s the border forest to the elf city. To Talen’s knowledge, the elves do not interact with anyone anymore, but that doesn’t mean it can’t revert back to when they did. Not having any news from home definitely makes her wonder what disturbances are happening around her that she hasn’t seen yet.
Not far down the shore from her, Remy sits on the beach looking out at the ocean. “How am I not dead?”
The prince gets to his feet, looks in both directions. He sees the Glistenberry Forest and is comforted by the thought that the South Port isn’t far. But which way is it? He heads left. He is thankful that between the berries and the crystals in the black sand, he will have some light to guide him. If he ever sees Talen again, he knows that she’s going to kill him. He abandoned Kip. He wasn’t thinking clearly. He’s kind of grateful to be off that ship. He didn’t like the company.
That kiss he shared with Talen. He touches his lips. He can still feel her on him. The way it felt to hold her close to him. How they got caught up in the moment and forgot the ship was rocking.
“She was feeling sorry for me. She doesn’t like me. Maybe I should just go and find a woman to… No. I can’t do that. She has no idea how I feel. How I never felt this way before. Damn it all. Why did she have to come into my life now?”
He is aghast. He has no idea where he is going. He sits down in the sand. “Come on, you can do this. What will she think if you can’t even find your way to the South Port? I shouldn’t have asked her to kiss me. I just didn’t want to kiss anyone else. I have to tell her how I feel. I have to let her know, seal or no seal, I want to marry her.
He jumps to his feet and continues his walk down the beach. Hunger pains start. He clenches his stomach. He looks down at his belt and sees Talen’s dagger. He doesn’t know how he got it but if he can somehow find an animal to kill he may be able to eat it.
Talen is feeling the hunger pains. The washed out feeling from being underwater for so long, exposed to all sorts of microorganisms that dwell deep in the sand at the bottom of the ocean; she wants to have real sustenance inside her belly. She glances at the berries. One can eat the berries but there are side effects that very few want to experience. You don’t feel it until you reach the center. When you eat the seeds, a very alluring feeling takes over. It changes into an obsessive lust for anyone’s affection. It creates a romantic vibe unmatched by any elf spell or love potion. True, Talen has no one around her to worry about, but that’s not what bothers her. After the effect of lust wears off, it is sometimes replaced with anger. She can’t be sure if she’ll walk away unscathed by the berries’ powers or she’ll be a machine full of anger.
Heir of Dragmoore- The Veiled Haven Page 18