Lycan Tides: Guardians of Light, Book 3

by Renee Wildes

  He nodded, and his lower lip quivered. “Something scawy in the water. It’s watchin’ us.”

  “It’s okay,” she soothed. “It can’t leave the water, so we’re safe on land.” If it could, she figured it would have by now. “Let’s just get Braeca and Trystan and have some of that wonderful chowder I promised you.”

  His face brightened somewhat.

  Hopefully whatever it was would be gone by the time they made the long climb back home…in the dark.

  Mari was not at her stand. Finora wondered what the problem was. In fact, the entire market area seemed unpopulated. She got her answer when she approached Kale’s smithy. A sizable knot of men gathered around a hooded and cloaked woman who seemed to be looking at some decorative bronze. Their focus on the woman, so singular to the exclusion of all else, was eerie. An earthquake couldn’t have moved them. Finora trembled as she passed by. The level of arousal scent rivaled Madame Jasmine’s. She cursed as a tingle of awareness made her breasts swell and her nipples tighten, even from this distance.

  The woman turned. Finora caught a glimpse of gold eyes and a knowing smirk afore Kale stepped betwixt the unknown woman and Finora’s line of sight. As she and Ioain approached the schoolhouse, the effect dissipated but left Finora reeling and gasping.

  Mistress Greta grasped her arm with a frown of concern. “Are you all right, child?”

  “Mama?” Braeca’s eyes were wide.

  Finora flashed what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “I’m fine, poppet. Just worked a little hard today, and I forgot lunch. Some of Bowen’s chowder and I’ll be fine. Let’s go meet Trystan at The Mermaid.”

  Mistress Greta looked unconvinced. “If you’re sure.”

  “I’m sure.” Finora straightened. “Let’s go. They’re waiting for us.” She headed back down to The Mermaid and entered the cheery warmth of the tavern. The glowing peat fires and the reel the band played in the corner dispelled the lingering unease from her bizarre trip to town. What cared she for a new whore in town? Obviously her imagination had gotten the best of her.

  Mari sat at a corner table with Trystan, their heads bent over a tattered leatherbound book. Trystan looked up at their approach. He didn’t smile, but his eyes softened and he pushed away from the table enough for Ioain to clamber into his lap. “Hungry?”

  Ioain nodded. “We been washin’ all day!”

  Finora dropped into a chair and motioned Tess over. “Three ciders,” she ordered. “And chowder all around.” When Tess left, she turned to Mari. “Find anything interesting?”

  “Well, this is the first reference I could find of a Rhattan captain going to Arcadia,” Mari replied. “It’s a Captain Owen of the Banur Dream, some seventy years ago. He has awful handwriting, though, and worse spelling. But he mentions trading with a Southron vessel. Oil for wine and dried fruit…blahblahblah.”

  “Blah!” Ioain shrieked, and giggled.

  Everyone looked up, then smiled and went back to whatever they were doing.

  Trystan’s gaze captured Finora’s. “But he mentions a mage aboard the Southron vessel, notin’ the other crew half-fawnin’, half-cringin’ around him like whipped curs, driven to obey his ev’ry command despite their own personal aversion or fear. As if they couldna help themselves.”

  “The power to allure, you said,” Finora recalled.

  “Aye. An’ Finora?” Trystan’s face was an odd mix of elation and hesitation. “His name was Spiridon.”

  She shrugged. “So?”

  Mari leaned forward. “Spiridon’s the name of the red-haired lord who moved into Widow Sera’s manor.”

  “With his daughter,” Trystan finished, his voice tight, his shoulders rigid.

  “The power to allure…” Gold eyes… “The market!” Finora exclaimed.

  “What?” Mari and Trystan asked in tandem.

  “I think I just saw the daughter in Kale’s smithy.”

  Chapter Eight

  “M-my lord?”

  Spiridon frowned over his goblet of wine at the houseman. “What do you want?”

  “There’s an important visitor requesting an audience. He’s traveled far with an urgent matter to discuss.”

  Spiridon grabbed the man’s mind with his own, ripping the memory from the human’s brain. Darkness cloaked in seawater. A denizen of Cilaniestra. Not merfolk…seal-folk. Selkie. One far too full of his own importance. One with an offer, and a request. A trade.

  Hmm…

  “His name?” Spiridon demanded.

  “M-matteo, my lord.”

  Spiridon found himself intrigued, and sprawled back in his chair. “Send him in.”

  The scent of sea salt and fish hit him first. This Matteo, who dripped seawater all over the marble-tiled floor, had the pale skin of one who avoided the sun, as would any deep-sea creature, but it was scarred and covered hard muscle. He moved with the aggressive stance of a predator, a warrior, with deceptive liquid brown eyes. Clothed in a robe of woven sea fronds, he wore a circlet of gold and rubies on his brow, undoubtedly filched from some sunken vessel. Spiridon took him in at a glance. Hard body, devious mind, weak character. Scheming. Selfish. Me. Mine.

  Just the sort of man Spiridon hoped to meet. Greedy. Amoral. Easily controlled. He flexed his hand, watching the emerald flash in the ring on his finger. “Speak, Matteo.”

  The selkie royal stiffened. “I am Prince Matteo, merchant.”

  The beast awoke at his “guest’s” curled lip and sneering tone. Spiridon watched his nails lengthen into claws as his hand tightened around the goblet, picturing it being Prince Matteo’s neck. He almost felt the pulse pounding against his fingers. “Indeed, if you are here to trade information, you are a merchant. Thank you for clarifying.”

  Color slashed the selkie upstart’s cheeks. His lips thinned.

  The beast growled. “My time is limited,” Spiridon stated. “As is my patience. Speak or get out. Your offer means little to me.”

  “Even when it involves Cilaniestra?” Matteo taunted. “You seek ships to carry you to Arcadia, but what of warriors to take those ships and bring them to you?”

  “Cease your riddles. What’s on your mind?”

  “We—the bulls under my command—could scour the waters, find appropriate ships, overtake the crews and force them to sail into this very harbor.” His liquid seal-brown eyes narrowed. “You would be in my debt, merchant.”

  “Nay.” Spiridon shook his head and took a sip of wine. His beast wished it tasted of blood. Later, he soothed. This could work to our advantage. “I know you’re not offering this out of the goodness of your heart, selkie. Speak. What do you wish in return?”

  Matteo’s eyes blazed with an unholy light. “A skin.”

  “You already have one.”

  “A very specific skin.” Matteo took a deep breath. “King Griogair’s daughter is the woman on the cliff, running the Light. The human fisherman hid her skin, and she has been unable to find it. They say you’re a sorcerer. You could use magic to find it and give it to me. I in turn will recloak her in it and grant her fondest wish to return her to the sea.”

  “Again out of the goodness of your heart?”

  Matteo bared his sharp tusks. “Hardly. She was promised to me as a bride by her sire. By marrying the daughter of a powerful rival, the daughter of his favorite cow, I’d be in a position to expand my power when I take over my own pod. It would be little to overrun his. I’d be king under the sea, and I could make you king above it.”

  “She has two brats off that fisherman.” The beast gloated as Spiridon watched the selkie’s face flush at that little reminder. “No cow would leave her offspring.”

  “She’ll have no choice,” Matteo spat. “The song of the deep haunts her bones, her soul. Cows are weak. She’ll be unable to resist the allure. Once she hits the water, she’s mine. Cilaniestra wishes the two children in Her service. They both have the sight. The cow sees storms as does her dam. The bull sees the truth in any creature. They could be
of use to you—and to Her. But do with them what you wish. I care not. I will give Finora many more children to chase after. She will have no time for concern for her human abominations.”

  In Spiridon’s experience, that was not how motherhood worked. Anuk’s mother had died defending her egg from him, and it was his. He’d had to kill her to take it. Regrettable, that. The other dragons had turned against him for that one, dragon killing dragon, banished him in the hot dark of the earth for centuries. With Anuk. His last act was to bind the egg to him with magic. They could not remove it. They’d condemned her along with him.

  Still, to get his hands on two gifted servants, and the ships he needed, without having to lift a claw of his own… Spiridon cocked his head, considering. “All you want is the skin?”

  “It means naught to you,” Matteo replied. “But all to me. Have we a deal?”

  “Agreed.” Spiridon drew a knife. “I need six ships, with full crews. You will bring them to me, and the children of the selkie witch on the cliff.”

  “Agreed. And you will locate the lost sealskin of Finora, daughter of Griogair and Fiona, and turn it and her over to me.”

  “I will need something of hers, something personal, to set the locator spell, but agreed. A blood-oath binding.” Spiridon pricked his palm with the blade, allowing one drop of blood to drip into his cup. Then he rose and approached Matteo, holding out the knife. “One drop in the cup, if you please.”

  Matteo complied.

  Spiridon mixed the liquid with the blade of the knife. Careful to speak the words of the binding spell in draconian ancient, he whispered over the brew. “Blood oath binding, afore Cilaniestra hear our vow. A trade. Me to he, one sealskin of Finora shena Fiona. He to me, six ships and the two half-human offspring of Finora shena Fiona. To the completion of the trade, or to death, whichever come first. A vow of silence on he, to not speak of this agreement lest death come swiftly.”

  The mixture flared with moonlight. Cilaniestra’s shark-toothed smile appeared on the surface. Then it faded. Spiridon took a sip, then held the cup out to Matteo. “Drink.”

  Matteo finished the bespelled wine.

  Spiridon motioned for him to keep the knife. “This knife bears the weight of the spell. Whoever you knick with the tip will be bound to our agreement. Use it on each man of the crews on the ships you take. They will give us no difficulty then.”

  Matteo sheathed the knife, then stood waiting.

  “We are done here,” Spiridon stated. “You may go.”

  An ugly red mottling spread across Matteo’s cheeks at being dismissed. “Don’t push me, wizard.”

  Spiridon allowed the beast partial freedom. Scales and claws flashed over his right arm, as he took the goblet back. “Nay, selkie. ’Tis you should not push me. Now go.”

  Matteo paled and fled with rather undignified haste.

  “Royal blood must be thin indeed in that family.” Spiridon snorted, and poured himself more wine.

  ***

  Anuk backed away from the grate, through which she’d been eavesdropping. So the woman keeper of the Light was a trapped selkie princess? She recalled their eyes meeting in the market. The selkie Finora had not been unaffected by the beast’s allure, but a creature of the tides and the moon would be vulnerable to such an elemental force as desire and lust. She’d had a small boy with her—one of the two children Spiridon had voiced interest in. Anuk frowned and tried to envision his face. All she could recall was dark, curly hair and wide, dark eyes tinged with fear.

  But fear of what? His mother? That didn’t seem right, somehow.

  The selkie Finora felt familiar. Why, Anuk wasn’t sure. They’d never met. If what that pompous selkie princeling said was true, Finora was trapped to this town, and Anuk had never ventured out in public afore today. And yet, it felt as if they had met afore. Like a forgotten flavor on the tongue, or an elusive scent, tickling the edges of her mind but refusing to come forth.

  What did Spiridon want with the children? There had been a dark undercurrent to the spell Spiridon had cast that made Anuk uneasy. She mulled it over in her mind as she returned to her rooms to dress for dinner. Shopping had been profitable indeed this day. Gavin Reed had told her of Mick’s promotion, and she’d considered the ramifications of having two of her father’s captains under her own personal allure. She’d know what transpired beyond what her father chose to tell her.

  A twinge struck her at that thought. For some time she’d been suspicious he withheld information from her. That he gave her but the barest answer to her questions—no more, no less. Partners, yet…he didn’t trust her.

  That hurt. She was his daughter, his own flesh and blood. He was the only parent she remembered. She loved him. She’d do anything for him. And yet, the expression on his face when he thought she wasn’t looking…an unspeakable wariness in his eyes.

  The knocking on the door jerked her from her thoughts. “Enter,” she called.

  “Would ye care for a bath, m’lady?” the maid asked.

  “I would, with the jasmine bath oil. Then pull the brown silk gown. Inform the kitchen staff we are having two guests for dinner.”

  “At once, m’lady.” The maid started the bathwater, and soon the room filled with jasmine-scented steam. She laid the requested gown on the bed, unlaced Anuk’s current dress and set out the drying cloths.

  “Return in half a candlemark,” Anuk ordered.

  The maid showed herself out of the room, and Anuk slipped into the hot, oily water. She’d invited the new Captain Mick and the blacksmith Kale to dinner. Two more souls secured. Two more sets of eyes and ears in her employ. She wondered, were they loyal to her father…or to her? Were they to give contradictory orders, whom would the men follow?

  Why was she even thinking such a thing? Her goal and her father’s were the same. More power, wealth, prestige. They worked together. Didn’t they? Curse Gavin Reed for making her doubt. Death-compensation, looking out for the servants…what madness was that?

  And yet, the loyalty he commanded was absolute, without being a tyrant.

  Something to think about. Along with that “cows are weak” statement made by that idiot selkie prince. Anuk so wanted to enlighten him on the error of his beliefs. Preferably with fang and claw. She almost felt sorry for the unknown princess, being bound to that pompous ass for the rest of her days.

  Why was she even thinking about another woman’s plight? It was no concern of hers. Getting her missing skin to Matteo would make all Spiridon’s plans come to fruition. That should have been her only concern.

  Curse Gavin Reed anyway! She’d been naught but confused since she’d met him.

  Just thinking about the human made her body come alive in the most annoying fashion. She ducked under the water. It didn’t help. She would take both Kale and Mick tonight. That should quiet the unsettling yearning for Reed. Remembering the rush, she tried to imagine what two at once would be like, and became dizzy just considering it. Her beast awoke with a vengeance. Her body pulsed with need.

  She washed and dried quickly, not wanting the touch of the maids. When the maid returned, she assisted with lacing the new gown. Anuk dismissed her. Dinner wasn’t for another hour yet. She’d have to find something to occupy her time. Something to divert her mind from the achy state of her body.

  The library. There were those volumes on the top shelf she’d wanted to investigate. She strode down the hall to stumble through the library doorway. Gavin Reed possessed this room. Anuk couldn’t even look at the rug afore the fireplace. She lifted her eyes to the shelves. There—the history section. Where was that little red volume? A History of Dragons?

  There it was. She lifted her skirts with one hand to climb the ladder. Reaching out a hand, she hesitated, waiting to see if it had been bespelled by her father. Once, when she was younger, she’d touched one of his magic books and gotten a nasty shock. She’d learned to be cautious. But it seemed mundane. She slipped it off the shelf and carried it down. Settling into
her rocking chair, she opened the book.

  The artwork was fantastic, drawn by someone who knew dragons. The proportions and detailing were perfect. She went to the title page. It was written by Rala Kahn Androcles shena Vana Kahn Androcles. As she read the name, a tingle caressed her fingertips, and the book seemed to grow thicker. The number of pages doubled, nay tripled. Beneath the standard black lettering were red runes dried, rusted brown. Startled, she moved to close the book.

  “Ouch!” She’d caught her finger on a rough edge of the clasp. She stared in dismay at the blood welling, the spreading stain absorbing into the paper. Her father would kill her for ruining one of his precious books. Panicked, she opened the book to the offending page—and froze.

  There was no bloodstain. The black lettering was gone. The red-to-brown runes were now discernable words, though how she knew them—they weren’t in any recognizable dialect that she spoke or read—she’d no idea. But she recognized two things right off. One, the book was written in blood. Dragon blood. And two, it knew her. It had been waiting for her. Her, Anuk. It was her blood that had turned the lettering. She now held the true book, a book intended only for her. Had she never found it, she knew it would remain a short amusing biology of dragons. But now? What sort of book was it now?

  She turned to the first page. “Blood to blood…daughter to daughter…Hear and heed these words…” What in the world? She could hear the words written, as a voice in her head. A female voice, in the ancient bardic style. She slammed the cover closed, and the book shrank down to its original history format. Well!

  A sudden need to keep it secret struck her. She would read it in her room. She met a houseman at the foot of the stairs. “I have a sudden headache. I wish to take dinner in my rooms,” she told him. “Please convey my regrets to my father and our guests.”

  “Yes, m’lady.” He bowed. “Shall I send for the physician?”

  “Nay—just a maid with willowbark tea.” Anuk swept up the stairs to her room. A few minutes later, a timid knock announced the kitchen maid with a tray. “There on the table.” Anuk pointed. “Undo the lacing and begone.” She locked the door behind the girl, shimmied out of the gown and tossed it over a chair. Donning a simple linen shift, she wrapped herself in a woolen shawl and curled up in bed with her book and the tea. Wouldn’t do to leave the tea untouched.