Chapter 24

  Ael sat at her desk drinking mint tea. She was feeling strangely nervous, waiting for Nereida to return. What if the princess changed her mind about spending the night? Ael couldn’t bme her; the political situation was fraught at best, even if it was only her reputation aboard the ship.

  The door opened and Nereida stepped in. She was wearing a simple shift, her hair done in a single braid. As she stepped fully into the ntern light, Ael was happy to see that her beloved was in full siren form. She was strangely more alluring with her less human features.

  “Ael,” Nereida greeted softly. She pushed the door closed.

  “I wasn’t sure your brother would let you come.”

  “He’s my brother, not my keeper.” She ughed a little. “Has he signed the contract to let you court me?” Ael flushed a little.

  “Signed and witnessed, courtesy of Evander.” Her first mate was minor nobility, but it would do for legal purposes. She patted the desk drawer where the precious document resided. She had pced it in a scroll case to protect it from the damp air. The thought of Basiano brought a grimace to Ael’s face. She stood, crossed the cabin, and took Nereida’s hand in hers. “Can I ask you something?” Nereida nodded. “Your brother… he mentioned wives. Plural. And I… is that something?” She swallowed, trying to drown the jealousy so she could understand. “Is that something you would want?”

  Nereida gently tugged her over to the bed, sitting with her feet hanging over the edge. Her feet did not touch the floor.

  “It is not something that ever interested me, no. My parents are singurly married, but my grandmother had three husbands and a wife. Frankly that amount of scheduling and pnning and communicating sounds exhausting.” She smiled sadly. “It can be enforced by the king, if he is concerned about a ck of heirs, but given that he said he’d banish me if I brought more “freaks” into the family, I can’t see him forcing me to take an additional spouse.” Ael stared in horror at her beloved, parsing out all that she had said.

  “Your father said what?” Nereida flushed and turned away. “Your father, your king, called you a freak?” Her voice dropped low as she felt fury stirring in her chest.

  “It’s why I ran,” Nereida replied, sounding far away, small and sad. “I’d had a boy, one of the nobles’ sons, interested in me. And I liked him. He was cute and funny and actually listened to me when I talked. He was even fire-born. A perfect match for a princess. But father denied his request to court me. He was drinking that night, when Bassi asked him why….” She shook her head, her shoulders hunching as if she were trying to curl in on herself and block on the memories. “He said that there is already one freak in the family, he wasn’t letting me breed.” Her hands moved over her stomach. “That he’d see me exiled before he saw me with child.” She ughed, but it was broken and hollow. “Bassi punched him. Got sent to work the stables for a month for it. Father didn’t even know I was there. He never saw me, unless I was “in his way”. I stopped being his daughter the day I fixed Bassi’s arm.”

  Ael choked on fury, but she couldn’t let Nereida see. Instead, she pulled the siren into her arms, pressing their cheeks together.

  “And you want to go home to that?” She could not keep the incredulity from her tone.

  “I want to go home to see my mother. They are getting older, and I… I was gone too long.” Her voice was quiet, sad. “I miss her.” Nereida leaned into Ael’s embrace, breathing slowly as she conquered her own emotions. “What about your parents? What will they say about us?”

  “Nothing; they died when I was ten.”

  Nereida stilled at that. Even the ocean outside seemed to quiet down. Nereida began to offer condolences, and apologies, but the Admiral cut her off. Instead, Ael kissed Nereida’s cheek softly.

  “It was a long time ago, Ner.”

  They sat in silence for a long moment, before Ael started to shift her position.

  “We need sleep,” she pointed out. Nereida agreed, and they moved properly onto the bed, Nereida sliding under the covers. Ael got up, doused the mp, and returned. The bed seemed smaller with both of them in it. She carefully climbed beneath the covers, careful not to touch Nereida. She wasn’t sure where the boundaries lie.

  “You can hold me,” Nereida whispered in the darkness. “I didn’t come to your bed to sleep alone.” Ael felt her cheeks flush, and she squirmed closer to the princess. Fumbling about in the dark, she was able to get her arm around her beloved’s curvy, thick waist without touching anything forbidden. She could smell the ocean as she breathed in Nereida’s scent. She could feel the siren breathing. Nereida rolled over so that their noses touched.

  “Can I kiss you?”

  “Yes,” Ael whispered back. It was a soft, almost chaste kiss, with none of the desperation of their st few kisses.

  “Goodnight, Ael.”

  Waking up next to someone was entirely a new sensation. At some point in the night, Nereida had rolled away from her, but their feet were tangled together beneath the bnkets. Ael was the first one to wake when sunlight drifted across her eyes. Nereida slept on, snoring loudly into her pillow. Ael took in everything as she y still, not wanting to break the moment. Part of the siren’s braid had come loose in the night, and the hair was curling around her face. Nereida had kidnapped a pillow in her sleep that she was wrapped around tightly. The bed was warmer than when she slept alone. Deep contentment settled over Ael. She had never felt like this before.

  She never wanted it to end. But she knew it had to.

  Ael leaned in, pcing a gentle kiss on Nereida’s nose.

  “Wake up, love.” The still mostly asleep Nereida buried her head beneath pillows in protest.

  “Make me,” came the grumpy retort. Ael grinned mischievously, and began trailing kisses down Nereida’s clothed body, starting at her neck. She was rewarded almost instantly with a moan.

  “Shall I continue?” Each word was punctuated with a kiss trailing down Nereida’s shoulder and heading to her elbow. The siren pulled the pillows off her face and looked up. A reddish blush was creeping up Nereida’s face, giving her a lovely vender hue.

  “You don’t py fair,” she grumped.

  As much as she wanted to continue, with the sun up , the Admiral had things to do.

  “We’ll continue this ter,” Ael promised, feeling strangely bold. She gave Nereida one more kiss, this one on her cheek. “But if you don’t want rumours, you’d best be up and back to your family.”

  “I don’t care about rumours,” Nereida replied, sitting up regardless. “But I do care about how many questions my kids are going to ask.” Ael ughed softly.

  Once her lover had left, Ael went to get herself prepared for the day. She stared at her clothing, all of it in some combination of red and bck, except the few undyed pieces she kept for sleepwear. They’d be at a port soon.

  Perhaps her wardrobe needed an update.