“Come inside,” the healer said and stepped back. “She has the chills and should be awake by now, yet she still continues to sleep. I don’t understand why.”

The room had at least a dozen beds, and the queen mother was on one of them. Gwyn sat on a chair by her side. On the floor was a bottle of elixir like the one Athol had given me earlier at the market. I pulled up a chair and joined Gwyn.

Sweat coated the queen mother’s skin, yet she was shivering.

“Her reaction seems normal, lass, yet she does not wake up,” the healer said. “I’ve never seen anything like this before, but then again, I deal with herbs. A fractured mind and a shattered soul cannot be healed with herbs.”

I wanted to tell Athol to shut up. With every word that left his mouth, Storm grew paler under his tan.

“Come.” I extended my hand to Storm.

He hesitated, fear filtering from his psyche.

“She needs to hear your voice, he’lahn,” I said. My eyes met with Gwyn’s, and I indicated the door. She understood and nodded. Standing, she firmly took Athol’s arm and nudged him out of the room. I waited until the door closed behind them before I spoke again.

“Sit, please.”

“I don’t know what to tell her,” Storm said.

“Everything. When I talked to her, I told her about the islanders, you, and the other captains since she remembered them. Just talk to her. About the past. When you were young. The things that happened after she left. Anything she might have missed when you were growing up. How you found the island.”

He still hesitated.

“Please. It will be good for her to hear your voice and about your life, Storm. And you’ll feel better once you share your past with her.”

Taking a deep breath, Storm took my hand and came to sit beside me. He was so large he dwarfed the chair. Like earlier in the tower, he stared at her.

“I’ll wait outside—”

“No.” His grip tightened. He shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Yes, Storm. You can.”

“I can’t do it alone. Not without you.”

My heart melted. “Then I’ll stay.”

He didn’t speak right away. Instead, he reached out with the other hand and lifted the wet strands of hair from her sweaty forehead.

“She’s not like I imagined,” he said. “As the king’s mistress, I expected her to be powerful. Unbreakable. Cold and mean. Instead, she’s frail. Fragile. I must start by erasing everything I thought I knew about her. Let go of the anger. The loathing.”

Holy crap!

He frowned. “No, there’s no basis for such feelings. I want to start at the beginning. The morning I woke up and found her gone. My grandfather had told me she… you had taken Tully to see a healer because he wasn’t feeling well. Since he was sickly as a child, I didn’t question this. But every day I waited for you to come back. I climbed the tree, the lookout Tully and I used whenever we wanted to see if Father was coming home. I climbed it every day after lessons and waited for you and Tully to come home. I checked in the morning before I left, then in the evening after the instructor let us out. I couldn’t even let Nerissa, Ryun, or Deck come up, yet that had been our tree. I guess I didn’t want them to see me so vulnerable and hurt. The tears. The anger.”

Tears filled my eyes, and his hand tightened around mine as though to console me.

“After the first week, I stayed longer and longer, until sunset, and Grandma would beg me to come down. When that failed, Grandpa would take the ladder and get me down. I didn’t understand what was taking you so long. Tully was never sick for that long.”

A deep sigh left him, and he went silent. I wasn’t sure he’d continue.

“Then I overheard Grandpa and Grandma talking. They said you weren’t coming back. You couldn’t because you had to choose only one son to live with you. I didn’t understand why. But I understood one thing. You’d chosen Tully, not me.”

He chuckled, and a sob escaped me, tears rolling down my cheek.

“I figured something had to be wrong with me and that was why you’d chosen him. Was it my wings? I had them, and he didn’t. It was the only thing physically different about me. Was it because I always bothered you and Father with questions about everything I saw and did while Tully was the quiet one? Was it because I was competitive and loved to win when we played games or a sport while Tully was content watching from the sidelines?”

He let go of my hand and picked up his mother’s, his touch gentle. I rested my chin on the heel of my hands and cried for the child he once was and the pain he’d endured.

“For months, I searched for answers, but my grandparents stuck to their story of Tully being ill and needing you. I asked them if Tully needed our father, too, since he stopped coming.”

He paused and angled his head, and for a moment, I thought he would stop.

“Then one day we were playing a game at school, where the chosen leaders could pick other students to join their team. This snooty girl in my class I had secretly liked pointed at me and said, “I don’t want Storm Orath on my team. He’s unlovable. That’s why his mother left him. She couldn’t find anything in him to love.”

My breath hitched as another sob escaped, but I doubted Storm heard me. He wore a tiny smile as though looking back and finding the moment funny while my heart shattered into tiny pieces. And I’d thought my childhood had been shitty. Mine had nothing on his.

“I remember standing in front of the group and staring at her and not once thinking she was lying or trying to hurt me. She’d given me an explanation for something that had eluded me for months. While Nerissa jumped on her, pounded her, and ripped out her hair, I turned and walked away. I never climbed that tree again. I never asked Grandpa and Grandma about why you left me. And I never shed another tear, not even when the fire gutted our home and they died.”

He paused and angled his head again. This time, he put his mother’s hand down and got up.

“Stay here,” he said.

Before he reached the door, it flew open, and a heavy-breathing Levi stood in the threshold. I’d say he looked worried.

“We need to go,” Levi said. “The ship is here, but trouble followed it.” His eyes went to the queen mother. “Is that…?”

“My mother.” Storm turned and, without hesitating, walked to the bed, scooped her up, and handed her to Levi. “Take her to the ship.”

I raced toward the door. “Gwyn! We can’t leave without her.”

“We’ll find her,” Storm said and swept me off my feet at a run. “On to my back.”

I grabbed on to his neck as he heaved me to his back without slowing down. Outside the room, swordsmen and shieldmaidens already had their weapons drawn. They raced toward the stairs.

“Gwyn!” I yelled.

“Over here.” She was at the other end of the room with Nereus.

“Take her to the ship, Nereus,” I called.

We followed the others to the front of the building, up a set of stairs to an open trap door. It led to a huge room with a high ceiling. From the barrels and sacks piled and secured in rows around the room and the sounds of sloshing water, we were in a warehouse by the docks. We headed to the wide doors leading outside, where several ships docked. All had broken masts, except the one at the farthest end. It had lanterns on the deck, and the sails were open.

The crew sprinted toward it. Shouts and sounds of hooves pounding on the ground reached us, but I couldn’t tell the direction they were coming from.

Storm went into a partial shift while in a full run. His chin, mouth, ,  ears shifted and changed shape. Hair sprouted from his pores as a Kelpie muzzle replaced his human face. His neck corded and grew bigger, forcing me to adjust my grip around it. Bones snapped, his shoulders expanding as muscles trembled and spasmed as they rearranged themselves.

A rip filled the air as his wings broke through his shirt and expanded. Then, we were in the air. Below, the crew sprinted, lugging the chest and sacks of loot from the palace. I tried to find Gwyn, Nereus, and Banan, but it was impossible to identify them in the darkness. Levi cradled the queen mother close, but he and the captains were in the rear, probably making sure no one was left behind.

Storm landed on the deck, where Zale and his crew of six were getting the ship ready to sail. Two were hauling up the anchor. Another was up mast opening the last sails. I hopped off his back.

“Need help?” Zale called out from near the helm.

“Pull away from the pier. They’ll jump, shift, and make it. Go to the cabin,” he told me then took off again.

I ran to the cabin as lightning split the sky. Someone had lit candelabra. Instead of stepping inside, I dumped my bow and bag of arrows inside and ran back to the deck, my eyes searching for those chasing us.

Flashes of lightning split the sky as Storm flew above the crew racing to the ship. The ones carrying the loot were in the rear by the captains, who helped with the chests. Storm dipped, then shot up again, carrying someone. I knew it was his mother.

“Leave the loot behind,” he yelled down to his people. “Get to the ship. All hands on deck.”

I held the cabin door open as he approached. When he landed, he took her inside and left again. Our pursuers were now on the pier. Dark figures on horses with swords raised. The first bolt hit the ground in front of them, and their horses reared.

Some veered to the left and right, away from the bolts, hoping to escape being hit. From our interaction at the palace entrance, they should know we wouldn’t deliberately zap them, but only a fool would tempt fate. A barrage of white flashes cut them off. This time, they backed off. Or so I thought.

More came from behind the first group. They must have found Tully, and he or the generals must have ordered them to stop us.

The new arrivals jumped off their horses and raced toward the water. If they made it and shifted, they could climb our ship and attack. Storm cut them off, the clouds spitting bolts and striking the ground around them until they were surrounded.

It looked like a cascading effect in a fireworks display, except the bolts came from the sky and they were real and lethal.

The hero of the moment didn’t even miss a beat. He grabbed the chests his people had left and brought them on board one at a time. He plucked someone from the ground and flew back. It was Gwyn.

When he landed on the deck with Gwyn, the others were right behind him. The ship was already pulling away. Some jumped onto the deck, rolling as they landed, while others ran across the plank before it dropped.

“In here, Gwyn,” I called.

The woman entered the room and went straight to the queen mother. I stayed on the deck, joining the crew in their victorious cheer as the ship pulled away from the docks. The barrage of lightning continued.

My eyes connected with Banan. He wore a wide grin. I searched for Nereus among the crew on the deck, but I didn’t see him.

“Where’s Nereus?”

“He wasn’t planning on coming, lass,” Banan said. “He chose to stay and work with Lord Conyngham and the underground movement. He meant to tell you, but he didn’t get a chance.”

It took a great man to walk away from what he’d been seeking for a very long time when it was within his grasp. And to do it for a greater good made him a hero in my eyes.

“He said you should never stop practicing with your arrows because the next time you meet, you’d better not miss. He said you’d understand.”

Yep, I’d missed quite a bit of my targets during practice. I hugged Banan.

“Thanks, Banan. I know I’ll see him again.”

“Welcome to our band of merry pirates, Swordsman Banan,” one of our shieldmaidens said as she walked past us. She turned and winked at him.

It was Donnelly, the feisty shieldmaiden who’d wanted to slice off Tully’s tongue. The look on Banan’s face as he watched her had me shaking my head.

“I think I’m in love,” he whispered.

I laughed. He was going to fall in love every day at this rate.

“Go after her,” I urged, and he took off.

Sighing, I watched the port grow smaller. “Be safe, Nereus. Be safe, Lord Conyngham. We’ll meet again.”

Turning, I searched the deck for Storm and found him talking to Levi, Zale, Nerissa, and Kheelan by the wheel. Since it appeared they were having a mini captains-only conference, I went to join Gwyn in the cabin.

This time, I looked around the cabin and laughed when I recognized the two lounges by the massive desk and the huge bed.

“Are you okay, lass?” Gwyn asked, peering at me from behind the bed canopy. She was removing the queen mother’s boots.

“Yes. Do you know whose ship Captain Zale commandeered?”

“I don’t believe I do, but from the grin on your face, I assume you do.”

“Lord Conyngham’s.” The irony of it didn’t escape me. This was the ship that had brought me to Hy’Brasil, and now I was leaving on it. “He said it was his favorite ship. He’s going to be livid.”

“He has many ships.”

“Captain Zale busted his rudders. That won’t go over well with him either. He is kind of anal.”

“He is kind of cute,” Gwyn shot back.

I laughed. “Why you naughty, naughty pirate. Sorry, I automatically call anyone living on the rogue islands a pirate.”

“I don’t mind. This is going to be fun. A lifetime of adventure,” she added on a sigh.

I couldn’t help but agree with her. Life on the islands was filled with danger and mayhem, but damn if it didn’t make one feel alive. Living with the man I adored was going to be one hell of an adventure. 

I walked toward the captain’s desk and searched the chests. Expensive clothes. Custom-made boots. Drinks with weird labels. Where was the food? I was so hungry I felt nauseous.

Banan had served on this ship. He’d know where all the food was hidden. I told Gwyn I needed food and left to find Banan.

I found the new crew member below the deck, showing the others where everything was kept. Majority of his audience were shieldmaidens. Banan had found his piece of heaven. He found mine in a large stash of thick, hard biscuits, overly salty pickled vegetables, and beef jerky. At least they looked like beef jerky. They tasted like salted cardboard.

I hugged him with gratitude and received envious looks from his admirers. Grinning, I carried my food back to the cabin. My excursion below the decks also told me sneaky Lord Conyngham had lied when he’d helped Captain Ren a week ago. The ship had several private cabins below the captain’s. These were for the officers. Lord Conyngham could have easily given me one of those cabins during our journey to Hy’Brasil. He’d been looking out for me even though he’d had doubts about my identity.

Storm was still conferencing with the other captains, and Gwyn was busy getting the queen mother ready for bed. She’d even found the bathroom, which also had a tub. I must have missed that during our journey to Hy’Brasil, unless it was new.

I settled on a lounge and ate my hearty pirate meal, washing it down with ale. Stuffed, I removed my gown, the golden hair piece the seamstress at the palace had placed on my head, and boots, and curled up on the lounge. Singing, I stroked the bridle around my neck.

How differently tonight had ended. If Storm hadn’t arrived for me, I’d be bonded with a different bridle.

 

~*~

 

I woke up to gentle arms lifting me from the lounge. The familiar warmth and scent had me saying, “Storm?”

“Go back to sleep, muh’Lexi.”

I buried my face in his nape as he took my place on the lounge and covered us. I was draped on his chest, my legs between his. He kissed my forehead, his arms tightening around me. I frowned. He was tense, his emotions all over the place. Somehow, I knew the cause.

“How is she doing?”

“Not so well.”

I lifted my head and peered at him in the dark. Someone had turned off the candles. I stroked his cheek, then scooted up and kissed him, slowly at first as though I was teaching my taste buds to re-appreciate the taste of him. And he tasted so good.

When he tried to deepen the kiss, I backed off, pressed my lips to his cheek, then jaw, and finally his nape, where I nestled.

“I’ve missed your kisses,” I said.

A chuckle rumbled through his chest. “Is that why you won’t let me kiss you, mo ghrá?”

“No, that’s preserving my modesty. If you kiss me, I won’t want you to stop, which will lead to me ripping off your clothes and shocking Gwyn. You already shocked her by stripping on the battlement. So, I can kiss you, but you can’t kiss me back.”

This time, his chest shook with silent laughter. “By the gods, I’ve missed you. The way your mind works, the way you feel in my arms, and the way you taste.”

He had me at how my mind works. And I’d eased his worries about his mother.

“Not as much as I missed you. Actually, on the scale of who’s missed the other the most, I, hands down, trounce you.”

“How do you figure?”

“While you were healing and completely knocked out, I was wide awake, listening to people say stupid things about our people, which made me want to smack them, and wishing I was back at home in your arms.”

His lips pressed against my temple. “I adore you, Lexi, my mate.”

“I adore you more.”

“Not even possible.”

“Tell me about her. What happened?”

He sighed. “She cried.”

“While you were talking to her?”

“Yes. Gwyn needed to stretch her legs, so I sent her outside and sat with her. I was telling her about training for regional games when tears slipped from under her closed eyelids. I stopped and, uh, I apologized for making her cry.”

My throat closed. I wanted to cry without knowing what he’d told her. And he was still referring to his mother as “her.”

“Was it a bad period in your life?”

“It was okay.”

“Okay” in man language meant “sucked.” “I’m going to love you so hard, Storm Orath,” I vowed.

“There’s a cabin downstairs we could use.” His hand slipped between us and crept toward the junction between my thighs. “We’d have to kick Kheelan or Nerissa out first.”

My body trembled, and heat pooled low in my belly. I wanted to say yes. It had been so long since he touched me, and my body desperately craved a release. I wanted to let those fingers reach their destination, but I was too aware of the other two people in the cabin to give in. Kicking someone out of their cabin didn’t seem right either.

Laughing, I grabbed Storm’s wrist and brought his hand to my back. He ran it up and down my butt cheeks as though memorizing their shape, and I let him. It felt so nice to feel his hands on any part of my body, and the chemise and silk bloomers offered very little barrier to the heat from his hand and its effect.

“I don’t mean that,” I said.

Who was I kidding? I meant that, too.

“I was talking about in general. I’m going to love you and put you first every day. That’s the promise I made to myself and to your mother when she and I last spoke.”

His hand went still, and my body protested.

“She spoke to you about me?”

“Whenever she was coherent. She said she loved you but never put you first. She made me promise to put you first. I’d already planned on it, so it was an easy promise to make.”

“Lexi?”

“Yes?”

“I need to kiss you.”

“You can’t.”

“I wasn’t asking, lass. That was a warning.” He cupped my face then captured my mouth in a searing kiss that had me moaning and pressing against him.

His fingers sank into my hair, gripping my head, and he went into an all-out kissing assault that left me dazed and achy. I crawled up and straddled him while he nibbled and sucked on my tongue. He started with slow, languid thrusts, but I needed it hard, and he gave it to me again, a dueling of teeth, tongue, and lips.

He was so damn irresistible. So delicious.

When we came up for air, his erection was nestled between my butt cheeks and a pulse beat a steady staccato rhythm between my thighs. I wanted to love him and mate with him so much it hurt to stop.

He tucked my head under his chin and covered us again. There was nothing I could do about his arousal or mine, except sleep them offthem ot. The problem was sleep was the last thing on my mind.

“I’m sorry you had a shitty childhood,” I murmured.

“You had a shitty one, too.”

“I had Tommy, and Dad was around a little longer.” His parents had died months apart. Then his grandparents had followed. “Was Nerissa’s family nice?”

“Very, but it was different. I’m going to love you hard, muh’Lexi. Both ways. In general and in the bedroom.”

“Does that mean we can’t anywhere else?”

“Like now? Up on the deck? Or below?”

I sighed. “Don’t tease. How soon before we reach the Mac Lir?”

“Two days.”

It was going to be the longest two days of my life.

“Can you wait that long?” Storm teased.

“Shut up.”

“I knew it. I’m going to have fun changing your mind, starting now.” He stood easily with me, and I wrapped my legs around his midsection and my arms around his neck. The coat fell to the lounge, but he didn’t pick it up.

“Where are we going?”

“I want to show you the stars.” He walked to the door, gently opened it, and closed it behind us.

The deck was quiet, most of the crew down below. A few were taking a turn on the lookout, and Nerissa was on the helm with one of her shieldmaidens keeping her company.

“Beautiful night,” she said.

“I could have the first turn while you two sleep,” Storm offered.

“No, we are good, Cap’n. But my bed is empty.”

Storm looked at me, checking my reaction. I shook my head.

“Thanks for the offer, but she wants to wait and make me suffer after my heroic rescue.”

My jaw dropped. “You didn’t have to tell her that.”

“You are the one making us wait, muh’Lexi. I’m ready. I told you, after a battle, making love is the only way to spend the adrenaline rushing through our veins. Don’t you feel it? The urge to tear the clothes off my body?”

I did, damn it. I buried my face in his nape while chuckles from Nerissa and the shieldmaiden followed us. Gah, he was so mean. I bit his neck, and he groaned.

“That’s a start,” he said in a voice gone husky.

“That’s for embarrassing me.”

“I just want you in my arms, lass, with nothing between us. Not even air, and I’m not ashamed of it.”

He hadn’t been kidding about having fun changing my mind. He was enjoying it. I gripped his face and kissed him to shut him up, which was probably what he wanted, because my back was pressed against a rail and his hands crushed me to him as our mouths meshed and our tongues danced.

He tore his mouth from mine and stared at me in the darkness. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but the swell of love and desire so deep and vast coursed through me and drowned my resistance. I initiated the next kiss, letting him know I wanted him just as much.

A groan rumbled through his chest. He buried his mouth on my neck, and I felt him move without knowing where he was going. I didn’t care. When he stopped, I hoped we were in a cabin. Any cabin. He lowered me, and turned me around, arms pulling me flush with him. My head spun, and I was disoriented when I opened my eyes, expecting to see a bed.

Instead, my hands were by a rail. We were on the highest deck, above the one with the helm, and it was deserted. His large body blocked anyone watching us from seeing me, not that I would have cared.

He ran kisses along my nape and tilted my head sideways to capture my mouth. His free hand slipped under my arm and closed on one breast, first squeezing it then zeroing in on my aching nipples.

A moan escaped me, my hands reaching up to pull his head closer, my chest bursting as I struggled to breathe. It wasn’t enough. I needed to feel his skin against mine.

I tried to turn around, but he wouldn’t let me. Trapped between the rails and his body, there was nothing to do but let him have control. Not that I was complaining. My body craved his touch, and I needed everything Tully had done erased from my head.

His other hand closed on my left breast while the right one stopped tormenting me and crept lower, bunching my chemise along the way. Anticipation had wetness pooling between my thighs and my body trembling. When his mouth left mine and followed a trail to my shoulder, I turned my head and kissed his ear, taking it between my teeth and bearing down.

“Lexi,” he rasped.

“Make the ache stop,” I begged in a voice I didn’t recognize.

His slow movement stopped, and I protested too soon. Moving fast, he lifted my leg and rested it on his knee, which he’d propped on a lower rail. At the same time, he lifted my chemise and slipped a hand under the waistband of my bloomers. I became dizzy with anticipation when he cupped my heated flesh and stopped.

He just stopped. What the hell?

“Please,” I whispered.

“Don’t beg, lass. I’m savoring the feel of you. So many emotions pouring from you and arousing me in ways I never knew possible. You want me.”

“I do.”

“So much,” he teased.

“Storm,” I hissed.

Chuckling, he slipped one finger between the folds of my nether lips and swept it across my clit.

I gasped at the sensations. He groaned.

“So wet just for me, Lexi?”

“For you.” How could he doubt that? Surely, he wasn’t thinking of Tully now? “Just you, Storm. Always.”

Growling, he did it again and kissed me, swallowing the sounds I made. With every swipe, the pressure grew. I tucked my hips and pushed against his hand, and his hips followed. I could feel his erection pushing through his breeches. I needed him inside me. I didn’t care if Nerissa heard us.

Just as I reached behind me to find him, he slid one finger inside my moist interior, and I hissed, my hands closing on his thigh and my fingers digging into his flesh.

Damn, that felt so good.

His movements were slow and sensual, and I got lost in him. When he added a second finger and angled his trajectory, I almost blacked out. The sensations were overwhelming, yet I didn’t want him to stop. He whispered words in Gaelic, his voice becoming gruff as he pushed me higher and higher until my body couldn’t contain the pressure anymore.

My body fell apart, stars exploding in my head. If his mouth didn’t capture mine, my cries would have filled the night air.

“Bite me again,” he ordered, still driving me insane with his gifted hands, prolonging the wave as it swept through my body.

I sank my teeth into his sensitive ear, and his movements grew frenzied. I didn’t think it was possible, but the second crest caught me by surprise, and it was greater than the first one. This time, my cries mingled with the waves slapping the hull of the ship.

Body limp, tremors shooting through me, I fell against him.

Storm held me close and nuzzled my neck, whispering the same words he’d said to me before Captain Ren’s men threw him overboard. I repeated them in my fuzzy head and wondered what they meant.

“I told you I’d show you the stars,” Storm whispered and kissed my nape.

And he had. “They exploded.”

He chuckled while I rested my head on his chest, body still humming, my breathing slowly returning to normal.

His hand eased from my sensitive nub, spanned my stomach, caressing and pausing to play with my belly button. He stroked my side as though learning the texture of my skin, or maybe discovering my curves.

I sighed blissfully. I loved the feel of his skin against mine. As if that wasn’t enough, he caught the arched bottom of the bridle around my neck and stroked my skin with it. The two sides looped around my neck fell over my breasts and brushed across my nipples with each movement. I trembled as the sensations from the tight buds combined with the aftermath of the orgasm rocked through me. A woman could become addicted to this kind of loving, yet it was only the tip.

“I can’t wait to fully make you mine, Lexi. To feel you tremble as we join and I get lost in your arms.”

Me, too. Me, too. “We don’t have to use Nerissa’s cabin. You can see the stars right here.” My hand crept behind me to find his erection.

A moan escaped him as he pressed against my hand. He took my questing hand, kissed the knuckles, and placed it on the top rail of the deck.

“Not tonight. Tonight, I get to enjoy you. Look at the sky. See how big, beautiful, and endless the stars are? They hold nothing on you.”

I realized Storm was talking about actual stars. I snuggled and studied the sky. The dark surface of the water reflected the crescent moon, but the endless cascade of stars got lost in the ripples. He wrapped his arms around my midsection and rested his chin on my head.

“They are beautiful,” I said. “And the sky seems wider.”

“Yes, they are, but you outshine them.”

I giggled. The damn bridle appeared to have developed a life of its own and was still moving under my chemise. It tickled.

“You find my compliment funny?” Storm asked.

“No, it’s cute, but the bridle is restless,” I said.

“It will calm down once I stop focusing on what I want to do to your body.”

“Really? Like what?”

“No, I’m done talking. When I do, I only make things worse for me. Then the bridle will continue to crawl all over you every second of every hour. If it bothers you, let me know and I’ll lock it in one of the trunks in the cabin.”

“Lock it away? That’s mean.”

“Why does it get to enjoy what I can’t?”

“Well, I’m never giving it up.” I even loved that it responded to his naughty thoughts.

“It will settle into place once we mate and become one. Ignore it, and help me find something boring to numb my senses. Like the weather, or how calm and tranquil the ocean is. Makes me want to go for a swim. Would you like to swim with me?”

“Why not? Just remember, I don’t have a swim suit, so that means—”

“Forget I asked. Think up something quick because right now, I have a one-track mind and it leads to you.”

I laughed. “You see that constellation?” I pointed at a group of stars. “That’s the flying horse, Pegasus.”

He snorted. “No, lass. That is the white horse of Mac Lir, our sea god. Powerful with a thick mane and tail and huge wings, some say it was the first Kelpie. When it drew the god’s boat across the ocean, it flew over the waves. But those of our people who believe in the old religion say it is the white horse of the Goddess Epona. You see the stars in the back?”

“Andromeda?”

He chuckled again. “That is Goddess Epona riding it. She is the goddess of horses.”

I’d better wipe my memory clean of everything I’d learned about constellations and their origins. He pointed out Orion.

“That is Cernunnos. And those”—he indicated Gemini, the twins in Greek mythology,—“are two men battling over the love of a woman.”

He had a story behind most constellations, and they were beautiful and funny.

When we went back to the cabin, it was late. Nerissa was gone, and the shieldmaiden she’d been chatting with was alone at the helm. I recognized her as the sassy Donnelly.

“Someone should take over soon, Donnelly,” Storm told her.

“He’ll be here. Goodnight, Captain Storm. Goodnight, Silver.”