“Lastly,” she said, “I want to kill you.”
The disgruntled voices of his men were interrupted by Vali’s dry laugh. He would have guessed this was her ultimate motivation all along, his blood in payment for the lives of her family. It was never wise to bargain with someone who had very little left to lose. And he expected nothing less of a Ledgersdóttir.
“I will grant you one try, Jarl Ailsa. Does this appease you?”
“One try would be all I need.” She practically beamed like the moon with delight. “But I want three. One for each life you took from me: my father and my two sisters.”
Vali grimaced with displeasure. This was going to be very uncomfortable seeing as his right shoulder was barely hanging onto his arm. But he already needed extensive medical attention for the wolven bite, so he might as well get this over with.
“You have a deal. Three jabs, then you belong to me.”
Seela pushed her way through the crew gathered around them, but Vali did not look at her. His eyes were on Ailsa and the way she seemed to flip a switch with the simple opportunity of stabbing him to death.
“Captain, you cannot be considering this mortal’s demands. She has no place to request anything at all!”
“Shut your mouth, or I’ll demand your throat next,” Ailsa spat. The commander’s eyes widened at her brazenness, the coil before her strike. Vali stepped between them both before Seela threw the mortal overboard.
“Enough,” he said. “Seela, I have wronged this woman in the eyes of her culture, and we shall settle this once and for all so we can move past it.” He extended his arm and offered the golden dagger. Ailsa accepted it gingerly, palming the hilt. Her eyes admired the craftsmanship of the gilded handle like it was a work of art.
He stood in the center of the deck and outstretched his arms, wincing at the pull of his injured soldier. “Do your worst, heathen.”
Her fingers gripped the handle with the confidence of an assassin, and he very much dreaded the bloodlust that filmed her gaze and the sureness accompanying her strides. She was on him before he could take a guarded breath, the blade sinking into the hollow part of his stomach.
“For Marrin,” she muttered in his ear as he doubled over. Agony ripped through him as she pulled the blade from his stomach, but his face remained unchanged. Without hesitating, she pierced his right lung with another perfectly placed blow, slipped expertly between his ribs like she had done this a thousand times. The air rushed from his chest on a sharp hiss.
“For Lochare,” she said. He fell to his knees as the hurt began to steal his strength. She paused before the final blow, tilting his chin with a single finger beneath his jaw. And as he looked up at her, his breath ragged and teeth clenched, he found the anger from her gaze was gone. Inside their dark depths was a pain as great as the one bleeding inside him.
She was a fearless combination of fight and fear, of rage and regret. There was a hurt set in her gaze every time it washed over him, only broken by fleeting moments of warranted anger. She was a warrior spirit trapped inside a fallacious body, one broken by a condition that rattled the air inside her chest.
She was deceivingly dangerous, and he thought she was undeniably beautiful.
The muscles in her jaw feathered to hide the tremble, and her grip on the dagger adjusted. Vali only nodded, encouraging her to finish this. To fill the void of her grief with his blood. She needed this, and he would give it to her. If only to selfishly relieve him of an ounce of his own guilt.
She raised the dagger and let it fall. But Vali felt nothing because the blade sunk into the left side of his chest, where his heart should have been. “For my father,” she whispered in a voice so smooth it was almost a consolation to his pain. Her hand slipped from the shaft of his dagger, the splatter of his blood hidden in the crimson of her gown.
He had half a mind to let her stab him again, as the last one missed its mark through no fault of her own. But he only pulled the knife from his chest with a groan that heaved from his stomach, spitting up a mouth full of blood in the process.
He sat back on his heels and breathed through the pain pulsing from all the places she tore him apart. The floorboards beneath his knees were slick with his blood, the smell of metal floating on the crisp night breeze. Ailsa stared down at him in horror, not perceiving how he was still alive despite the lethal blows she delivered.
“Just as I thought,” she said. “You are a monster.”
Vali stood to his feet, his knees shaking. The magic in his blood currently spilled across the deck and prolonging the healing process. He heaved a long sigh and looked up at the moon, unable to witness the way she was looked at him. The acknowledgment of his worst fears was written plain across her face.
“No, Jarl Ailsa. I’m much worse.”
“Is there anyone on this damned ship who can realign an arm?” Vali seethed as the elfin healer fumbled with his joint like he was tearing off the thigh of a roasted chicken. For hours he had been poked and prodded, pulled and tortured by every healer on board. But magic was useless on a wolven’s bite, and his people were not skilled in a wound that required mundane practices. Not when the wolven were driven out of the High Branches long ago.
“Hel take me, if he doesn’t shut up soon, I’m going to cut his arm off myself,” a soft voice mumbled across the quarter deck. His eyes shot to the source of the sound, finding the mortal woman leaning against the wooden edge, her head bent low to hide her words. But he could hear even her softest giggle from across the ship—an irritatingly pretty sound. Ivor smiled in reply.
“I thought we agreed no more stabbing,” he muttered in her direction. Her cheeks flushed slightly; aware she had been caught.
She pushed off the side of the boat and crossed her arms. Vali noticed she had changed into a new gown, one that was black as pitch and flattered every sharp angle of her body. She wrapped a leather belt around her thin waist with an iron dagger tucked into its sheath. The blade did nothing to protect her here; she was nothing more than a snake with broken fangs. Her only venom her words.
Her eyes assessed his bare chest and traced the runes painted across his skin, tracing his own markings. Her gaze left hot trails as they lingered over the holes she left in him, already starting to heal. She then locked on the broken skin covering his deformed shoulder girdle. “I can reset your arm.” She cautiously added, “if you’d like.”
“Why would you help me?” he asked, wary of her assistance. She’d most likely twist his arm to further his misery.
“Because although your wailing was satisfying at first, it has become quite annoying, and it is personally offending me to watch your healers repeatedly butcher their attempts.” She reached out and slid her chilled fingertips over his collarbone without waiting for permission. He stiffened; the uninvited touch sent an iron rod down his spine. The pads of her fingers palpated the deformed lining of his muscles, not so gently nudging the space where the ball and socket separated.