The Shift of the Tide

by Jeffe Kennedy

  “And when they do find a way through…” Jepp trailed off, fingering her own blade.

  I nodded. “I think some already have.” And I told them about the shark I’d encountered, so near Nahanau. Jepp’s expression turned ferocious.

  “We need to get back with all speed,” she told Kral. “Danu only knows how far those creatures have infiltrated.”

  As if her words had summoned the attack, the lookout shouted from above—a Dasnarian word I didn’t know, but that galvanized the entire crew. Jepp whirled and drew her daggers, putting herself between me and the rail, while Kral seemed to grow a foot taller. He drew his sword in one hand, a huge knife in the other, striding back and forth, calling orders.

  “Shapeshift into a defensive form already,” Jepp tossed at me, frowning.

  I shook my head, steeling myself for the admission. “Can’t. Still recovering.”

  “Then get below,” Jepp ordered me, but I ignored her, trying to see what had everyone so excited.

  “Too late to get everyone into armor,” Kral said, returning. Then scowled at me. “You were told to get below.”

  “I can’t shift, but I’m not defenseless,” I replied in a mild tone, “and you may need me.”

  He made a disgusted sound. “I know you and your missish qualms about using magic. If you’re not willing to do that, batting your pretty blue eyes at these things won’t make any difference.”

  “I’ve got her covered,” Marskal said, with quiet assurance. I glanced at him, to find he’d also drawn a sword and a short dagger. He met my gaze equably. “But if I tell you to get below, you do.”

  I rolled my pretty blue eyes at him, then pushed past Jepp to the rail, following her line of sight. A black cloud rose out of the sludge covering the sea. Wishing for enhanced long sight or the spy glass again, I strained to see. Then Jepp cursed, and an arrow whizzed past my head, neatly nailing something zooming toward the ship and dropping it from the sky.

  Glancing back, I saw the archer was a pretty woman—she had to be Dasnarian, with that height and coloring, her blonde hair in a long braid down her back—wielding a bow with impressive skill. Clearly she was the woman who’d nearly taken us out of the sky. Though several of Kral’s men had joined her, none matched her cool speed and calm aim as she loosed several more arrows in succession.

  “Kral’s ex-wife,” Jepp explained. “Long story.”

  “Annulled,” Kral growled. “Incoming.”

  “Behind me,” Marskal instructed, cool as ever, neatly maneuvering so that I stood inside a triangular shield of the three warriors. The creatures pinpointed and dropped by the archers had been the advance, their numbers intensifying. Yes, I certainly did remember these fish-birds, but these had that same wrongness, that not-smell. It was, I suddenly realized, the smell of something not alive and yet not decaying. I really wanted a closer look at one.

  Jepp spun in a whirl of blades, pieces of fish birds dropping to the deck, black ichor spraying in a foul mist. On her left, protecting her weaker side—though with Jepp it hardly counted as “weak”—Kral bellowed, swinging his huge sword with devastating skill and speed. And Marskal—well, I’d seen him spar, but never fight full-out. As he did in everything, he fought with neat economy. No dramatics, no elaborate tricks with the blade. He simply picked off each comer, with sword or knife, his face as calm as if he drilled against a practice dummy. Moranu knew why, but the sight aroused me beyond reason.

  A fish-bird, wounded but still twitching, dropped to the deck at my feet, oozing unnatural black fluids, and I crouched to examine it. Leery of touching it, I caressed it with a light magical tendril. Foul. Dead and not dead. This wasn’t the bright green, vibrant, if mutated creature we’d encountered before. Its life force had gone elsewhere—and it had become a statically preserved carcass, mindless, animated from elsewhere.

  Making sure I could, ignoring the increasing frenetic fighting around me, I manifested a very small globe of magic. Applied it to the carcass as a test—and it vanished. Good enough.

  Marskal yanked me to my feet. “I said, get below, now.”

  “Cover me,” I replied. “I need to see.”

  His jaw tightened, his brown eyes molten in his otherwise impassive face, splattered with blood, both red and black, and I thought I’d have to fight through him. But he came to a decision, nodded crisply. “Fast. I can’t protect you for long.”

  I’d already pulled hard on the magic. It’s not a physical thing, so it doesn’t need time. Like shapeshifting, it’s there or it’s not. At least I had that. “Get me to the rail.”

  He cursed but moved, spinning me to the rail, somehow getting me past Jepp’s whirlwind of knives. I didn’t hesitate, but released the magic in a sparkling blast.

  Instantly, the sky was empty.

  I almost laughed at the way they all faltered in mid swing, stumbling into a halt as their targets vanished, their deadly rhythm interrupted. Kral and Jepp swung on me with astonished expressions. Marskal only looked at me, shook his head with a soft laugh, and began cleaning his blades. Kral wasn’t nearly so amused.

  “This is what you can do?” he thundered. A deep scratch from a fish-bird talon bled profusely under one eye, giving him a decidedly dramatic mien. Otherwise the ichor had vanished along with the carcasses. “All this time?”

  I shrugged, pushing my hair out of my face. “Sometimes.” One benefit of rarely using my magic was it built up nicely. And that hadn’t been a difficult task.

  He swelled as if he might explode. “If you were my woman, I’d—”

  “Ho-kay,” Jepp said, inserting herself between us. “Let’s not annoy the powerful sorceress. Come on below, baby, and I’ll kiss those wounds to make them better.” She tossed me an opaque look, nodding in agreement with whatever Kral muttered at her, drilling me with angry glares as she led him away.

  “How do you feel?” Marskal asked me. He looked me up and down. “Are you wounded at all?”

  “With such brilliant warriors to protect me?” I smiled easily. “Not a bit. You?”

  “Miraculously, given what I’d heard about the speed of those creatures, I’m fine. Only a few scratches.”

  “They were slow,” I replied, reviewing the brief attack in my mind.

  He laughed. “That was slow?”

  “Compared to when they were alive, yes.”

  His expression changed, and he glanced over the water, as if he might see them still. “Those were animated by Deyrr?”

  I wrapped my arms around myself and nodded, feeling a bit sick now that the fever of fight had fled my body. “I examined one.”

  “Then they made it through the barrier.”

  “Small things pass more easily.”

  “I’d better tell Kral to make all speed then. You rest. I’ll find you.”

  Needing no further urging, I did as he suggested. If I could have, I’d have shifted to the form of a small cat to take advantage of the easy dozing. I almost felt the little claws and satisfying relaxed resilience of the form just a thought away. So easy to fit into that one, but the rime of fear held me back. It made no sense, but I didn’t want to try again and not be able to. You’ve lost your nerve. I didn’t think that was true. Not entirely. But no need to test my ability when I was so tired.

  As it was, I curled up in the shady nook at the prow of the ship—up top, thank you, as I had no wish to be trapped inside.

  The freshening air streamed over me as the Hákyrling flew before the wind, headed to the harbor at Nahanau, and I slept deeply, thankfully without dreams.

  When I awoke, Marskal sat near my feet. He had his back against the gunwale and long legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at his booted ankles, hands folded in his lap. His chin lolled down to his chest as he, too, slept, but he sat in such a way that his outstretched legs blocked my egress, and I’d have to tiptoe over him to get by. I was tempted to try, just to see if I could. I bet I could, and it would be so satisfying to see his face when he figured out
I’d outfoxed him.

  Then I noticed he held a piece of my hem twined between his fingers. Not my hair this time, but still. Torn between affection for his foibles and irritation at being leashed, I took a moment to gaze up at the brilliant array of stars. Full night had fallen, but Moranu’s moon was out of sight. She’d be at three-quarters, waning to new. Out on that wretched and dying peninsula of land, the priests and priestesses of Deyrr had to be watching it, too, waiting to exploit the power of shadows and change.

  Marskal stirred, then snapped up his head, scanning for danger.

  “Always guarding me,” I said. “Even in his sleep.” I tugged my hem from his grasp and he gave me a slow smile, not at all bothered by my tart tone.

  “Call it a habit at this point,” he said. “I feel better knowing I’m keeping an eye on you.”

  Hmm. The way he’d come to calm alert reminded me of how he’d looked fighting, and something about that quiet precision led my mind to how it would feel to have that meticulous focus on pleasuring me. And I felt better. Restless enough to shift, but with nowhere to put that energy. You’ve lost your nerve. I was not thinking about it. I needed something to take my mind off worrying, and he had volunteered.

  “Hungry?” he asked, cocking his head to read my face.

  “Yes.” I slid over to climb onto his lap, straddling him and cradling his rough cheeks between my palms. Kissing him deeply, showing him the depth of my need. This felt good and right. Human. Skin to skin.

  He recovered from his initial surprise—I might have moved too fast in the blaze of desire—and stroked his hands up my back under my hair, holding me close and escalating the kiss with even more intense desire. I hummed with delight and he groaned a harmonious counterpoint. Through my thin dress, against my heating sex, I felt him hard and ready. I reached down, but he grabbed my wrist, stopping me and breaking the kiss.

  “Not so fast,” he breathed.

  I considered him. “You’ve changed your mind?” The turnabout had to be what bothered me, the true reason for the sense of crushing disappointment. Like Zyr, I’d always had my choice of lovers, back when I’d taken them. I hadn’t expected for Marskal to refuse me now.

  “Never,” he said, still holding my hand away from his groin, but straightening and combing his fingers up through my hair to cup my skull, then kissing me deeply and fervently. I squirmed a little, gasping for the breath he’d stolen, but in all the intensity of his grip made me feel safe, rather than trapped. Finally, he withdrew, backing out of the kiss slowly, enticing me to follow, and he laughed, a warm, dark sound. “But not here, where anyone can see.”

  “The Tala don’t care for such things,” I said, though it wasn’t entirely true.

  “This mossback does. The things I want to do to you need privacy.”

  “Indoors?” I asked, dubiously, though his words heated my blood.

  “Unless you want to swim or fly us to a private island.” He didn’t exactly dare me, but I felt the inherent testing of my nerve in the suggestion. “Have you tried to shift again?”

  I crawled off of him, standing, and shaking out my gown and hair. “Even if I wanted to try, I don’t know this part of the ocean. I suppose we’ll have to postpone to another time.”

  He rose to his feet, fast enough to surprise me, and pulled me against him, fisting his hands in my hair, just tight enough to tip my chin up for him to study my face. He brushed my lips with his, soft, searching, with a gentleness belied by the ferocity of his grip. “Is that what you want—to wait?”

  “No,” I breathed. “Who knows what tomorrow will bring? I want to follow the impulse of the moment.”

  “Is that all this is to you? An impulse of the moment. A passing fancy.” He kissed the corner of my mouth, then the underside of my jaw. I slipped my hands inside his open shirt, splaying them against his excellent musculature.

  “It can’t be more than that,” I said, making myself think through the sweet, swirling arousal. “You know that. You have to remember it. This can’t be more than right now. Sex only. Because I’ll be—”

  “I know. The dragon. That’s in the future, not tonight.” He trailed his lips down my throat and I arched for him, the pull on my hair relaxing as he murmured approval. “Besides—I don’t believe you’re so cavalier. You talked about me with Jepp.”

  “There is no talking with Jepp—she talks and the other person is left to confirm or deny.”

  “And yet, you didn’t deny.”

  Hadn’t I? I couldn’t recall exactly what I’d said. It didn’t matter. “What I want is irrelevant.” I pushed out of his delightfully strong hold, gripping his shoulders to make him look at me. “My life is not my own. We can have this, for now, if you’re willing to accept that, but long term…” I let go of him and shrugged for the inevitability of fate. “How I feel doesn’t matter.”

  “There’s a particular style to that Tala shrug of yours,” he said. “Elaborate, languid, and full of lies.”

  “Lies?” I raised my brows. I’d expected anger from him, but not this.

  “I’ve seen you in action, shapeshifter.” He picked up a lock of my hair, winding it around his finger and tugging me closer. “You are powerfully in charge of your destiny. Nothing stops you from taking what you want.”

  I laughed, liking that image of myself. “Hmm. I do want you.”

  “Then take.” He’d eased us close enough together again that my peaked nipples brushed against his chest, the silk a lovely tease of things to come.

  “Tonight might be all we have,” I warned him.

  “I’m a soldier. I live with that reality every day.”

  “All right then.” I kissed him, the feeling oddly like feeding from a flower, the sweetness and life flowing into me. “Take me inside.”

  ~ 14 ~

  I might’ve laughed that his private indoor place turned out to be the old cabin I’d shared with Jepp and Dafne. Except that it seemed fitting. Someone had taken away the three hammocks and put in a largish bed, but Dafne’s desk still stood in the same place. I could imagine her working there while Jepp and I paced the floor in our shared restlessness. Always during a storm. Otherwise I’d be out swimming or flying.

  Odd to feel a nostalgia for the time I didn’t spend with them. Opening one of the desk drawers, I found it stocked with scribing supplies, as if Dafne might return to use them at any moment. Jepp’s thought, no doubt, and it made me smile that she might feel the same fondness for that shared journey. They’d both completed their assignments, while I’d continued on by myself, always keeping mine secret. Had that been the wrong choice?

  Marskal finished opening the portholes, a row of three that let in the night air and occasional sea spray, and came up behind me, moving my hair aside and kissing the back of my neck. I hummed an encouragement, fitting my bottom against his crotch, the fire between us flaring to life as if we’d never banked it for the short trip below.

  “Still alright?” he asked against my skin.

  “Of course. Why?”

  “You seem sad.”

  I laughed. “No, I don’t. I’m not ever sad.” Not that I liked to show.

  “Because you’re Tala, not human.” He kissed the hollow at the juncture of my neck and shoulder, then licked it and I purred my approval, leaning my weight into him.

  “Exactly,” I replied, my voice throaty. “We live in the moment. No regrets for the past; no worries about the future.”

  “Lies.” He spanned my waist with his long-fingered hands, then slid them up to cup my breasts. At the same time, he sank his teeth into that tender juncture at my neck, making me gasp and writhe in truth. Oh yes. My mossback lover might do just fine.

  He held me there, teasing my breasts and nipples, alternately biting, licking, and kissing that spot that drove me wild. My fingers tingled with the desire to grow claws, to bite in turn. Instead I dug them into his forearms where he’d rolled up his cuffs, the tanned skin wiry with dark hair, corded and hard from his wa
rrior ways. His hands tightened on my breasts, rough now with his desire, and I arched in his arms, making him work to hold me.

  He laughed again, that same dark, drunken sound, and it went to my core. “Wild thing,” he muttered, and spun me around, lifting me up onto the desk, and pushing between my spread thighs. I wrapped my legs around his lean hips, vising him, holding him tight against me, so I could rub against him for my pleasure. He leaned a hand against the desk, bracing himself, and recaptured my hair, winding it around his fist and dragging my head back so my breasts thrust into the air. His avid mouth took them, hot through the silk, the scrape of his teeth so keen I cried out the savage need.

  “Shh,” he urged. “People will hear.”

  “So proper.” I laughed, which became a moan when he lightly bit my nipple, then sucked hard. “So private, my mossback lover.”

  “Yes.” He lifted his head to stare fiercely into my eyes. Letting go of my hair, he picked me up and set me on my feet. Then gathered my loose gown and pulled it over my head, tossing it to the floor. His normally quiet eyes burned with an almost savage hunger as he took me in. I let him look his fill, arrested by the way he arranged my long hair over my shoulders, reverently tracing the lines of my body. “Private, yes,” he murmured, more to himself than to me. “At least with this. Here, in this place and time, I have you to myself.” His gaze flicked up to mine. “Is it mossback of me to be so selfish?”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “It’s not in me to share.”

  “Mossback ways, not Tala.”

  “Let me guess: the Tala don’t care for such things.” He feathered his fingertips over my breasts, tracing my belly and the flare of my hips.

  “Some couples are exclusive,” I told him, a strange catch in my throat. Something about the way he touched me. That tenderness. I almost preferred the savage side. I knew how to handle that. “But it’s rare. And frowned upon.”

  He hmmd thoughtfully, kissed the round of my shoulder. “Rayfe is possessive of Andi—I’ve seen it. And she of him. I was there that day, when she threw herself in front of him, to save his life.”