Page 62 of Take No Prisoners
"Well, it looks like you've managed to heal one, after all." Martiz studied the hen. "Except she's still wounded. What ... how?"
Niall shrugged.
"It's time to harvest the evening meal," Vadim said, tugging Niall with him by his shoulder.
"Yes, fine." Martiz dismissed them with a wave of his hand. "Go teach him death magic."
"If I thought he'd be more delicious than a used mop, I'd offer Elder Martiz as our evening meal," Vadim grumbled as he led the way to a boat made from a hollowed log.
"How did you two become such great friends?"
Niall earned a sardonic grin for his sarcastic remark. "We've always been like this." Vadim motioned to the sea. "Can you feel it?"
"Feel what?" Niall didn't know what he was supposed to feel, beyond the heavy call of the ocean water offering him the same calm he felt when he was near Efren.
"There's a school of fish about a mile out. Sharks have them twisted into a bait ball. They're spinning so furiously some can't breathe. They're begging to be free of their bodies before they feel the imminent pain of a shark bite."
"I don't ..." Except Niall did feel their fear. Their thoughts were much smaller than Vadim's when he spoke in Niall's head, but he recognized them in the same way. "I hear them. I can talk to fish?"
"You can talk to any dying creature. Sometimes they call to us like a siren's song. Other times, they scream in the night."
Vadim's power felt seductive, like the confidence Niall had faked when he'd first bedded Efren. He kept that thought to himself as he harnessed his new power.
"I've never seen anyone take to death that quickly." Vadim chuckled. "If we weren't so damn desperate for new weavers, we would have an easier time training adults."
"This seems like a difficult power for a child to wield," Niall agreed. "How do I call them to me?"
"You don't. Not with my power, anyway. If you can control water, you can float the bodies to us. Otherwise, we'll use the net to scoop up the ones who gave themselves to us."
Niall shook his head. "I want to learn it your way, first. Show me what you did when you fished off the back of Efren's ship."
"Gladly." Vadim handed him a paddle, and they rowed out to the ball of dying fish. Niall shook himself and worked diligently to get the small vessel moving across the water. They paddled against the tide until they caught the same current in which the fish were circling. Then, they could lay off the paddles as the craft drifted toward them.
"You didn't need to seduce Efren," Vadim said once Niall's heart rate had settled to normal. The sound of the fish was growing stronger in his head, but they were still a way off.
"I didn't do it for him," Niall said. "I did it for me."
"Most men are proud to be someone's first. Efren wouldn't have been any different."
"I don't want anyone to fawn over me or think I'm special. Not about sex, and not about my powers. What good does it do if I'm a horrible lay, even if it is my first time?"
Vadim laughed. "You're the wrong kind of mage. People will always think you're special, though I understand what you mean. My first time was anticlimactic. I expected it to mean more because people made it sound so damn special, but it wasn't."
"What happened?"
"Martiz was the same fucking asshole afterward as he was before and during."
Fuck. "How old were you?"
"Eighteen." Vadim shook his head as he studied the bottom of their boat. "I thought I understood consent. My power demands it. I wasn't ready for Martiz, but I didn't know how to tell him to stop once he started."
"I warned Petri before we left them here." Vadim gazed at Niall and smirked. "They've warned everyone since."
Niall couldn't believe he was talking about sex with Efren's former lover, but when he'd planned his day, he hadn't expected to haul a net full of fish begging to die into a boat, either.
Some fish were already half-eaten by the sharks, and Vadim tossed them back to the circling creatures. The rest, they tucked into the enchanted ice chest in the hull.
"Let's get these to Petri to cook for us. Beatrice and Codger Tim both went with Efren." Vadim shook his head and pointed east. "Something went wrong."
