Page 11 of The Savage Queen

Aisling pressed her palm against his chest, pushing him away from the edge. Wincing at the sheer pain of the pressure on herwounds. The wild splashing of sailors leaping overboard driving Aisling mad.

“Dagfin!”

Dagfin leaned toward her. Those stormy eyes appraised her every feature as though calculating whether Aisling was real or a figment of his imagination as the murúch bespelled him to believe. But Aisling saw the moment she became not real, not imaginary, but a dream just within reach. The tormented longing splintering the softness of his heart.

His need was made heady with the murúch’s song, still entranced by their witchery. Only now, their tricks were twisted by Dagfin’s yearning, unaccustomed to women being aboard ships built for men. Dagfin’s pining made bold, unashamed, and starving.

Aisling tangled her fingers in his shirt, doing her best to restrain him.

“What will it take to keep you from leaping overboard, Fin?” Aisling asked, more to herself than him, heart pounding inside her chest.

“I don’t know that I can help it,” he growled, wrenching his eyes shut as he clawed for clarity. His hand moving to untangle Aisling’s fingers from his shirt so he could race to his death at the murúch’s command. Aisling shook her head. He’d cut her rope and her strength was no match for aFaerak’s. So, Aisling leaned forward and grazed his lips with her own, pulse fluttering as he fought the murúch’s song. He resisted the undying urge to give in to their magic in favor of tasting her.

And then something snapped in his expression. A familiar glint of sanity.

Dagfin stilled, a battle waging in his mind. Such was the magic of more chaotic Unseelie: enchantments of possession, of manipulation, of soul-consuming consequences.

Aisling held her breath. A strange guilt tugging at her conscience the moment his hands moved of their own accord, finding her waist and pressing her against him.

Dagfin’s hands slowly slid up, finding her neck and tilting her head up so her eyes met his own.

“Kiss me,” Aisling said, the memory of Lir and the kiss they’d shared burning her lips against her own volition. Haunting her even now. Yet this was necessary. This kiss for Dagfin, a means to save his life. To prevent him from leaping overboard. A justification she repeated again and again in her mind.

Dagfin shuddered, moving his thigh between both her legs and raising it so they fit together.

Aisling’s stomach knotted, brows drawing together. The murúch’s song growing louder. The chaos around them, spinning faster.

Dagfin lunged forward, pressing his lips to Aisling’s, opening her mouth with his own. Tasting her as though she might vanish whilst inside the tight ring of his arms. She, a charm whispered between lovers, gone as fleetingly as it’d been spoken, making bloody his heart.

He weaved his fingers through her dark tresses. He appeared to relish the torment. The world tilted on the axis of theStarlingas he became familiar with the shape of her mouth. Explored the curves of her body for the first time. The heat of his breath, burning her lips like the fires of salvation.

“Dagfin,” she said, straining for breath each time his mouth left hers. Unsure whether his name on her lips was designed to stop him or ensure he never pulled away.

Her heart thrashed against his own, her abdomen coiling hotly, pushing him back as her dress now dripped with blood. Pain and pleasure weaving artfully together. He’d always been physically stronger than her, they all were, but now that he was aFaerak, his grip bound her to the edge of the ship.

It was Starn who broke their kiss. Climbing up the ship’s edge and stealing Aisling’s attention.

Aisling reached for her brother with every ounce of strength she still harbored but she was a breath too far. Dagfin holding her in place. The edge of her brother’s coat slipping between her fingers.

“Starn!” Aisling screamed.

A blur of color flashed across the ship. Aisling blinked, processing the speed with which Killian grappled Starn to the floor. A flying comet, pummeling the high prince to the deck of theStarlingso hard, Aisling believed the ship might crack in half. The sheer momentum pried Aisling and Dagfin apart at last.

Killian pinned Starn down, the backs of his palms scarlet with gore. Starn struggled beneath his grip, still dazed by the murúch’s enchantment as Killian retrieved a dagger from his breast pocket. Dipping its tip in the pouch at his belt, Killian began his strange practice, carving a knot into Starn’s palms as he’d done his own. Aisling gaped, studying the sight of her brother writhing in pain. A sense of reluctant satisfaction accompanying it. But the moment Killian’s blade lifted, the fog in Starn’s expression lifted, the cruel edge of his severity returning in full force.

Somehow, Killian had broken the enchantment.

Killian rose to his feet, wiping the sweat from his brow before finding Dagfin.

Dagfin was a harder catch. So, Killian hurled the dagger at Aisling.

Aisling raised her arms, instinctively reaching for thedraiocht. But it was unnecessary.

Without hesitation, Dagfin moved, catching the blade and throwing it back. Unwilling for anything, or anyone, to stop himfrom obtaining what desires the magic made potent. The desires Aisling had twisted with a single kiss.

The two fought hand to hand, dealing ghastly blows while their crewmates continued to dive overboard, those quick enough to reach the crags shifting to stone before Aisling’s eyes. The others disappeared beneath the surface. Their last bubbling breaths were all that was left in their wake.

“Steer the ship!” Starn screamed, to anyone who would listen, as the edges of theStarlingsplintered with each scrape against the crags.

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