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The pull toward her is a current I did not command. It coaxes me like a moon tugging at the sea—quiet, inevitable, and it leaves me off-balance in the best possible way.
She stands at the rail as the docks come into view, the tunic of the Tide Lands settling around her like it was made for her.
Sea-silk catches the light—pale aquamarine embroidered with tiny mother-of-pearl shells along the collar—and the way the fabric hugs her shoulders and eases over her hips makes the whole world sharper.
Even the salt smells different when she is near, sweeter somehow, like citrus and kelp and a memory you want to keep.
“What?” she asks, smoothing a hand over the cloth, nervousness and defiance braided under her question.
“Nothing, Telya.” My voice comes out softer than I intend.
“But you were looking at me.”
Her chin lifts, teasing with the bravado she practices like prayer.
“How can I help it?”
I step closer until the space between us is a breath.
“You look beautiful, Phoebe.”
I reach out without thinking to cup her face. My pinky rests at the crest of where my claiming bite fades into the bloom of her skin.
The heat there answers me like a current.
Her eyes warm first—slow, bright—and then her smile follows, so wide and sudden it blinds me.
“Thank you,” she says, and there is a small, almost incredulous light in her voice as if she cannot quite believe someone as dangerous as me would speak such softness.
I lower my head in a small, gentlemanly bow, old courtesy made new by the tilt of her lips.
My hands lower, finding her hips to steady her as the boat lurches with the wake. The contact is plain and intimate, an ordinary tyranny of gravity and tenderness.
The crew hurry about, ropes creaking, a plank thudding against keel.
The world reasserts itself with the practical noise of men at work.
I barely notice them.
All that exists then is the heat of her under my palms, the tilt of her head, the quick hitch in her breath when I tighten my hold. Phoebe.
My Telya.
I almost say the words aloud—almost claim them like a benediction—before something like sense returns and I keep them for myself.
The first mate passes, bowing his head and Phoebe smiles at him, earning a growl from me. My hands tighten on her hips, and I am tempted to toss the man off the ship.
Instead I murmur, low enough that only she can hear, “Save that smile for me if you’d like the rest of Nightfall to have a chance.”
She laughs—a soft, disbelieving sound—and for a blink the sea answers with a gull’s cry and everything feels like a promise I might be allowed to keep.
When she laughs, something in me slackens and risks breaking. When she frowns, the tide inside me tightens until my hands ache to fix whatever line has frayed.
I am supposed to be the steady one.
I keep storms in bottles and men in line.
I am not meant to be undone by a mere woman.
