THE SLEEPY LITTLE HAMLET OF WINTER KEEP slipped away in the midday sun.
Aiko and I were on horses at dawn, riding the five hours from the Burnt Woods to Winter Keep. The horses made good time, and we were there before noon.
A couple, with a small, adorable vampire child between them, met us at the stables. They handed us food and led us quickly to where the small, delightfully clean, and well-maintained boat was moored.
Otep, the male, walked me through the vessel, showing me all the quirks he knew about, where he stored things, and how the ship had a natural starboard list. I could tell this was his boat, and he was giving it up for me.
I would do what I could to get it back to him, someday.
Aiko was a little wary about the whole thing but climbed in after I instructed him how to untie the ship. Otep waited until we were away from the dock on the tide to disappear back to his house and family.
Letting the tide guide us, I moved us away from Winter Keep due north. The new land from the Spine wasn’t explored yet, and we’d have to give a wide berth.
The maps we had of the water were better on the east side of the Spine. The west side maps were all old, but I did remember some of Cold Bay.
The anxiety coming off Aiko was shocking.
I pulled a rope to unfurl the foretriangle sheet for more speed, and he jumped off his seat.
“Relax. I’m just getting the sail down.” I pulled the sheet tight and secured it.
“People… do this for… fun?” His teeth were chattering.
Turning and hitching a hip, I studied him. “Are you frightened?”
“It’s water. It’s cold water. It’s a lot of cold water.”
“It’s an ocean. Have you never been?”
He shook his head rapidly. “I’m not fond of water.”
“But you’re in a boat.”
His eyes grew wide. “A boat implies water.”
The mainsail slacked in the wind, and we slowed. I grabbed the ropes and tacked the boat to catch the wind again.
By the time I turned back to Aiko, he was paler than the sheet I had just reset on the mast.
I was desperately trying not to laugh.
“So, let me get this straight. You served a psychotic king, dealt with a psychotic queen, and managed to survive all of that—but a boat is doing in your bravery?”
“Not the boat. The ocean it’s on.”
I checked the compass to make sure that we were heading northwest now. “S’Kir has water all the way around it, and I don’t see how you’ve avoided it. You have a more efficient system of transportation than we do, and every child in West S’Kir has gone to the ocean at least once by ten.”
“We don’t do anything for fun,” he said. “Savion has ruled as a tyrant for three thousand years. No one knows what fun is.”
I sat next to him, arm on the wheel that controlled the rudder. “Aiko. The only thing you have to know about the ocean is that it doesn’t care about you. Once you know that, it’s fine.”
He wrinkled his face in a sour expression. “How does that help me?”
I laughed. “Because it’s true. The ocean is neither good nor evil. It doesn’t care about if you live or die in its waves. Once you accept that, you can learn to respect it and protect yourself while being in awe of it and enjoying it.”
Wrapping his arms around himself, he stared straight ahead. “I don’t like it.”
Trying not laugh, I adjusted the rudder to make sure we were heading the right way. “If you want, you can go below deck.”
“Yes.” Aiko stood and walked into the cabin that the little sailboat had.
Chuckling, I started counting to myself. Just about the time that I hit seventy-five, Aiko popped back out of the cabin, looking pale and green around the edges.
“Did you do that on purpose?”
“You didn’t give me a chance to explain that staring at the horizon was the most effective counter to seasickness.”
Aiko growled. “You’re enjoying this.”
“Maybe. A little.”
He folded his arms and plopped back onto the bench. “Fine. I’ll stay upstairs.”
“Topside.”
“Really?”
I held the wheel with one hand and looked at him. “I’m assuming that you don’t want to learn to sail at this point. But the truth is that if you are on any ship, ever, you need to know what things are called. If I yell that the port bow line is loose, and I need you to grab it, I don’t want you falling off. Turning around and going back for you is a pain, and in this water? You’ll be dead very quickly.”
He was utterly horrified. “Dead?”
I let out a deep breath. “S’Kir is a big, big island. Five hundred leagues in every direction. The Spine split us in half, giving each half two hundred and fifty leagues, and the magic forbade sailing around that divide. We have four oceans: North Ocean, the Western Sea, the South Ocean and the Dawn Sea.
“The South of our island is warm. Comfortable, mild, never very cold. When you get to North Landing, and Winter Keep, it can get really damn cold for half the year. The old stories tell us that further north of the end of land, a week of full sail, is a land of ice.
“When the North of S’Kir is warm, that ice melts and cools the water of the North Ocean. Then it gets cold and keeps the water cold.
“The ocean doesn’t care about you. If you fall in, that cold water will steal your heat and stop your heart. It will kill you. Even you, vampire. Because once your blood cools, and you find yourself begging for more, the ocean will not care.” I glanced at him. “In fact, you’d die a far more terrible death in the ocean than any druid ever would.”
He growled. “You are not helping me.”
“I am. Whether you believe me or not.” I turned back to face the bow of our boat. “The ocean does not care.”
* * *
Aiko really hated sailing.
There was no way to measure his hate.
He did not enjoy being on the water at all, and I couldn’t stop laughing at him.
Even though he learned, and helped when he could, he just grumbled about everything. He was cold, he was tired, and he was constantly damp. The food was awful, and the water tasted funny.
It all stopped being funny when we were two days from Winter Keep, and at least three from North Landing.
The wind snapped around, taking the entire sail with it, filling both the mainsail and foretriangle, yanking us forward, hard. Aiko fell back against the stern, snagging the wheel as he fell, accidentally taking us back the other way.
The rudder stuck on a towrope, heading us for a jagged coastline, as fast as I had ever moved on the water before.
“Cut the rope!” I screamed from the port bow, trying to grab a line that got away from me in the violent shift.
“Which one?” Aiko had righted himself and was pulling out the utility knife from the mounted sheath on the bulkhead.
“The one that’s stuck in the rudder! There should only be two!”
He braced himself and leaned over the stern.
The line I was chasing was finally under my control again, and I swung over to the starboard and re-secured it. The wind lurched again, but this time, it brought us tacking away from the sheer rocks without shifting the entire boat.
I jumped into the cockpit where Aiko was standing with the knife and the end of the cut rope. I moved the wheel, and the cut had done exactly what I thought—freed the rudder.
I took the knife out of Aiko’s hand and secured it back in the sheath.
He was still holding the rope, staring at the cut end.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“That was the bag.”
I slumped a little. “Oh, no. The bag…”
Finally, he looked up at me. “The bag with the blood in it.”
My stomach dropped out.
We had lost Aiko’s blood supply. The one we had brilliantly dragged in the water because the water was cold enough to keep it cool. The one he insisted on bringing with him, to keep him alert and healthy.
The one that he had drunk from nearly every eight hours to keep himself under control.
He stared at me, and I stared right back at him.
“How much longer until we’re at North Landing?”
I shook my head. “At least three days. We only turned west about four hours ago, and we have to sail around the remains of the Spine.”
“We have enough food.”
“Yes, more than. Even if it is tough and boring.”
We sat quietly in the mid-afternoon sun, my hand unconsciously steering the boat as we were pulled along. The wind and the water were the only sounds.
“You can have my blood.”
He shifted his eyes to me. “You do remember what happens when I take your blood.”
“Yes.”
Aiko paused. “The connection?”
“Yes.”
He paused again. “The intimacy?”
“Yes.”
Another pause. “The—”
“Screaming orgasm! Yes, yes! I remember what happens.” I swallowed. “You can still have my blood.”
“I shouldn’t.” He sighed. “You can tie me to the bed and hold me down if the bloodlust gets me.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Where am I supposed to sleep? I’ll tie you to the mast. Or better yet, to the bow.”
He looked horrified. “You wouldn’t.”
“You’re right. That’s a terrible idea. I’ll lash you to the hull below the water line.”
“Kimber!”
I tried not to laugh, but it didn’t work. I burst out laughing and grinned at him. “Aiko. You can have blood. There’s a fair trade in that since I get a lot of my power from sex.”
He picked at the peeling lacquer on the back of the boat. “That’s not it at all, Kimber. Your blood tastes amazing, and you’re kind to offer it. But it’s an intimate act…”
I cocked his head. “If you mean you would rather I not come in public…”
“No. I mean, no, I don’t want you to come in public, but that’s still not the issue here. It’s intimate. And kills me to have you that close, to taste you, and not be able to have you. Not be able to make love to you.”
Oh.
Oh.
I stared out at the water, as much as I dared with the rugged coast so close.
Aiko took my hand. “Kimber, we are bound together for our lives. Whether or not we can or can’t take other blood, we are bound.”
“Bound…”
“The lightning after the blood.”
I blinked a few times. “That wasn’t…”
“Your vampire side? Not precisely. It had been awakened already by then. That was your… the king’s fault.”
“Say it, Aiko. It was my father’s fault.”
He exhaled, hard. “It was your father’s fault. When he forced you to take his blood, and he took yours. The link there was enough. But after that, when you took mine… you took it to save your life. The connection, though, that wasn’t part of it.”
“It wouldn’t have been there if I took Odom’s blood?”
“No.”
I steered the boat quietly for a minute or two. I was really starting to wish that the Magic had picked someone else for all this crap.
Glancing over at where Aiko held my hand, I pursed my lips. “The lightning doesn’t happen for most people, does it?”
“It’s rare.”
“How rare?”
Aiko laced his fingers with mine, and then unlaced and repeated that a few times.
My stomach was plunging further and further into the water below us.
“Soul mate rare.”
My voice wouldn’t work. I stared at the coast in the distance. I didn’t know what to say or think.
The lightning had been overwhelming when I felt it.
I had passed out from the connection.
And still, I knew it had been right.
Gods, why me?
“I don’t know what rules the vampire soul mates follow, Aiko.”
“The blood connection is one. There are others, but that’s the big hint.”
“Aiko…”
“Yes. I know. You have your mates. That’s why I’ve been hesitant to talk about it. It’s not fair…”
“It’s not.”
“Not to either of us.”
“I won’t walk away from Roran, Rilen, and Dorian.”
He shook his head. “I suspect they won’t let you. You’ve given me the impression that they… are a little possessive.”
Chuckling, I nodded. “That would be an understatement.”
“I wouldn’t want you to leave them. They obviously make you happy. I’m an interloper. I’m here because there’s a good chance you can’t have blood from anyone else. And you’re the Breaker and the Bright Sword.”
“If I can, Aiko…”
“I’m not leaving, Kimber. I’m not. You are my soul mate, and I will not leave you behind just for carnal connections with someone else. I will stay, and I will protect you. Even if there’s nothing more that I can be to you.”
“I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You’re not asking me at all. I made the decision.”
It was quiet except for the sound of the water against the boat.
“Do we have any idea when the first blood craving will hit me?”
“None.”
“What’s normal for vampires?”
He tipped his head. “It varies, but most of us take blood at least once a day. I know that I can usually go for about three days without before I start to get the craving. It becomes blood madness after about a week. It’s hard to come back from the madness.”
“So for a half vampire, it would probably be twice that?”
“Theoretically.”
Sighing, I corrected the course again. “I hate everything about this, Aiko.”
He turned to me. “I don’t.”