Page 181 of Between Despair and Hope

Withfairweatherandopen seas, the trip to the horn of Olistos should have taken two weeks. But Seyma’s Gulf was treacherous without massive squalls nearly upending the ship, let alone with the type of weather the gods had decided to curse us with. We were approaching the end of our third week on the water and still had days before reaching the horn. After rounding it, we’d still have to head east for a while, to reach the Seaborn Queen. Sometimes I wondered if travel by land would have been faster.

I’d been at sea enough in my life to have discovered my sea-legs, and yet I was finding myself trying not to vomit more often than not, the tilt of the deck precarious at best, downright deadly at worst. Mairin spent most of her time with her eyes on the horizon, and part of me wondered if it was as a lookout for her mother. Oddly enough, it was Nixy who spent most of his time with me. He had sworn up and down he knew a cure for my sickness, and after an hour of my head being in a bucket, I finally caved, demanding for him to show me.

Starting on the inside of my wrists, Nixy used a surprisingly gentle touch to firmly press deep into my skin. But when the first few spots did little to ease my nausea, I grew irritated with him, trying to push him away from where he pressed into my back.

“This is pointless.”

“Hold still, Venia,” he hissed, a soft grunt of a breath puffing over my bare shoulder. I’d stripped down to my thin undershirt, the fabric an easier barrier for him to dig into. I was shocked the man had made no crude comments. It had been a few years since I’d been around him, and it seemed he’d matured. Or so I hoped. He was a few years younger than me, and ever since he joined the guard almost a decade prior, he’d been trying to bed me. Though I’d made it abundantly clear to him it would never happen, and I only saw him as a friend, if that, he had always burned for my attention. This was the closest he’d ever been to seeing me naked; I had braced myself for his commentary, and he surprised me by not saying anything stupid.

“It hurts,” I whined.

“No shit. I can’t get to the right spot if you keep wiggling away from me. Do you want to stop getting sick all over the ship or not?”

“Alright, Nixy.” I sighed, straightening and bracing myself. “Do your worst.”

“If it works, you have to do something for me,” he said, digging into a spot on either side of my spine. I worried he’d not only fail, but I’d start pissing blood.

“I’m not going to sleep with you.”

“That’s not what I want. Gods. I’d like you to call me by my name.”

I snorted, but he didn’t say anything, just continued kneading my skin. The ship rolled, knocking me backward into him, and my stomach rioted. Fumbling for my bucket, I nearly missed as Nixy held it under my mouth, a steady hand on my back.

“Divine hell, Ven. Desperate measures, as they say. Lie down.”

“Very funny,” I said, wiping the spittle from my mouth.

“I’m serious. On your back.” He patted his bed, the bunk below Brenna’s, an expectant look on his face which turned faintly irritated after a moment. “Aonara’s tits. I’m not going to do anything you won’t thank me for later.” He grinned, deep brown eyes twinkling, though I could tell he meant me no harm. Glaring daggers at him, I did as I was told, lying down and crossing my arms over my chest.

“Fucking hell, Venia. Would you put your arms down and relax? I’m not going to look at your tits any more than I already do.” He rolled his eyes and pushed up his sleeves, revealing umber forearms more muscular than I remembered. He wasn’t unattractive, not by any means. But he was young, and between that and his unyielding eagerness, I found him annoying. Dewalt had been the only man I’d found attractive in the last decade or so, and that was only because I hadn’t ruled out the idea the gods themselves had chiseled him from stone.

Mairin was Dewalt’s opposite. I knew it would do me no good to think of those full, rounded curves or her plump behind and the way her breeches clung tightly to it. Gods, when she bent over after dinner only hours before, ass within reach, it had taken everything in me to keep my hands to myself. If Dewalt had been hewn from stone, Mairin was molded from clay, Rhia’s soft fingertips gifting her with elegant abundance.

Thinking about her body that way was quite the stupid thing to do when Nixy leaned over my prone form, pressing on my upper abdomen. Tempted to cross my arms over myself again, nipples hardened from arousal thanks to the merrow, I closed my eyes and thought about just how little she’d spoken to me in the past few weeks. Though I’d been staring into the bottom of a sick bucket more often than not, she had kept away. She’d even refused to sleep in the bunks Beau had gifted to us below the captain’s quarters. Instead, I shared with only Nixy and Brenna, an uncomfortable affair all around, while Mairin slept in the berth with the other sailors. She truly wanted me to find out who I was now that I was free to do it, and she’d barely entertained me in recent weeks. In fact, part of me wondered if she spent time with Brenna on purpose, just to keep me away. She knew I wanted nothing to do with the woman, so she provided a good barrier.

Part of me wondered if she’d realized wanting to be with me was a mistake and was letting me down gracefully.

“What the fuck are you doing?Don’t move.” Compulsion heavy in my voice, Nixy froze, straddled atop me, thumbs pressing into my stomach. My eyes had snapped open the second he threw a heavy leg over my body, and he was about to topple over now that I’d prevented him from moving. “Explain.”

“I have to press on both spots beneath your breastbone. I couldn’t reach properly, so I straddled you.” Voice stilted, Nixy answered under the compulsion, unable to lie.

“No other motivation?”

“No. But—” He sputtered a bit, fighting my divinity. “I knew the view would be good, and I wasn’t wrong.”

I was about to reprimand him when the ship hit a wave, and he fell over, still stuck in the same position. Laughing, I released him from the compulsion and sat up. He brushed himself off and rubbed a hand over his head, hair shaved short, before glaring up at me from the ground.

“Not coughing your guts up, I see.”

“Shit. I’m not.”

“I’m going to have a lump,” he said, rubbing his head once more. “Between that and the favor I just did you, I want mine. Call me Hawley.”

“Hawley Nixy? Did your parents hate you?”

“You know my surname is Nix, not Nixy.” He scowled, dark eyebrows knitting.

A loud thud resounded from above us, and I knew Hyše had returned. Since it was too early for her nap, it meant the weather was about to somehow get worse.

---