Troy
Her hair was tumbling over the side of the bed as I rose onto my knees, climbing from the bed I had made myself on the floor for a second night. She was sideways on the mattress, her head closest to , with one arm dangling over the side of the bed as she slept.
And, for the second night in a row, I had held her hand in mine as we fell asleep.
During the day, she barely gave a passing glance, her deanor sowhat cold and standoffish. But at night, when it was just the two of us... well, I would take what I could get.
I walked slowly across the floorboards, wincing as I opened the door and it creaked loudly, the sound seeming to echo in the small room. She always slept like the dead, thankfully, and I closed the door behind as I slipped into the darkened hallway.
Keaton was waiting for at the helm as I walked out onto the main deck, looking up into the clear, star-laced sky as the sails hung heavy in the gentle breeze. I walked up the stairs, turning my head to the horizon where the sun was just rising into view, casting an ominous red glare across the still water.
“Red sun in morning, sailors take warning,” Keaton quipped, his hands resting on the helm.
I nodded shortly, a chill touching the back of my neck as I looked back over the water once more. Not a single cloud in the sky, not one white capped wave. Stillness. Calm.
“How long do we have before the storm hits?” I asked, reaching his side and pulling the map from the inner pocket of my jacket.
He shrugged, arching his brow, “If only soone would let us use the radar system—”
“Damian will spot us the second we power up the ship, Keaton. You’ve seen his cruisers. You know the kind of tech they have on board—”
“Aye, well, how useful are radars when tracking a ghost?”
The Persephone was truly a ghost lurking in open water. We were invisible. We needed to stay that way, at least until we reached the southern pass.
“We’re still on course. Don’t worry,” Keaton said, smiling as he tossed my compass. I caught it, opening it, and checking to make sure he was correct.
“We’re not going anywhere in this weather,” I said, tucking the compass in my pocket and motioning up to the sails with the rolled map still in my hand. They were still, deflated, and the boat was rocking back and forth in the sea instead of pushing forward towards our destination.
“We can turn the engines on—”
“Not for another day, at least. Not until we’ve traveled out of Damian’s range—”
“Sotis, I wonder who the captain of this ship is.” Keaton gave a sideways smile, taking his hands from the helm and crossing his arms over his chest.
“I just read the maps, Keat. Nothing more.”
He walked behind , clapping on the shoulder as he headed for the stairs. “Best be getting back before Myla wakes up.”
“How did that go?”
“Our first night, you an?” Keaton snorted, shaking his head.
“I don’t need the gory details—”
He waved his hand in dismissal, standing on the top step, “Put her straight to bed, in a gentlemanly way. No fun was had. Not yet.”
There was a twinkle in his eye that made my heart squeeze with jealousy. He caught it, leaning his back against the railing while giving a knowing look.
“Things not going well with the princess?”
“She hates when you call her that, you know,” I said, unrolling the map and spreading it on the table on the other side of the helm.
Keaton shrugged, tapping his foot, “Oh? What should I call her then, if not princess? Kitchen wench?”
I shook my head, smiling to myself. “She has a temper, Keaton. I wouldn’t tempt her—”
“Can you imagine what that one will be like when she cos into her powers?” Keaton laughed, shaking his head back and forth. “She’s a formidable creature, Troy. I’d be wary of her, if I were you.”
“Oh?” I said, unable to stop myself from laughing. But Keaton’s expression was suddenly totally serious, his eyes narrowing on mine for a mont before he relaxed, exhaling deeply.
“You told what you knew about Maeve’s involvent in... everything. But I can’t help but wonder if there’s more you’re not telling .”
“She’s completely ignorant of anything related to Damian, I assure you.” I understood Keaton’s wariness. Alpha Damian was not a man to be crossed. He had been Roro’s Beta at one point, taking over for the old fool before I was born. Keaton and I had been too young, too far removed from the pack of Poldesse and the rest of the pack lands to understand what happened, but we worked for the Alpha enough to be cognoscente of the dangers involved. How many tis had we seen his pack mbers strung up on the docks, their lifeless bodies swinging in the breeze? Or worse, co across a boat sowhere deep in the waters off the coast of the Isles and seen the carnage inside, a glimpse of what he did to his traitors and dissenters.
And now we were in the thick of it, at the very center of Damian’s grand plan. What that grand plan was, exactly...well, I didn’t know for sure.
I caught Keaton’s eye and shrugged, feeling exposed. “I couldn’t leave her behind, Keaton.”
“Because you believe she’s your mate? Or because you feel—”
“I...I aided in this ss. I was bait, Keaton. Damian used , used all of us—”
“Aye, well, not much we can do about it now.” Keaton tapped his fingers on the railing, watching closely.
“I know you want to say more,” I said with a touch of bitterness.
“What exactly do you plan to do with the girl, Troy?”
“Get her sowhere safe. Then sohow get word to her parents about her whereabouts without—”
“Aye, it’s too late for that, Troy,” he said, a dire warning in his tone. “Don’t pretend to be ignorant of Alpha Ethan—”
“He’s her father, Keaton.” I ground my teeth, shaking my head before breaking from his gaze and looking down at the map for no reason other than I couldn’t dwell on the subject any longer.
Yes, I knew about Ethan. Alpha Ethan, the king, once the Alpha of Drogomor and the unchallenged ruler of the pack lands, at least by general concession. And then there was her mother, Rosalie. Oh, jeez. Don’t even get started on that.
“You’re holding her against her will,” Keaton said boldly, pursing his lips, “We already have Damian on our ass. The last thing we need is her parents after us. Her mother, Troy? The White Queen? Co on.”
We had heard the stories as children, of course. Rosalie’s powers were imnse and undisputed. She was the force that held our kind together, the right hand to the Moon Goddess herself.
“I’m not risking Maeve’s life by turning this ship around and attempting to pass back through the channel—”
“I’m not asking you to do that,” Keaton’s voice was harsh, serious, his eyes stone cold. “We need to leave her sowhere and run. Soon.”
“Leave her?”
“Drop her in one of the skiffs and take leave through the pass without her.”
“You can’t be serious.” I almost laughed, but Keaton was serious. He was as serious as he could possibly be.
“Everyone is at risk with her aboard, Troy. Don’t think I don’t know why you’re dragging your feet in doing the inevitable. This lust you feel, this responsibility, it’s nonsense—”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“She hasn’t co into her powers yet. She can’t feel the mate bond. You have no ground to believe—”
“She could be pregnant, Keaton. There’s a real chance.” I swallowed hard, looking away from him and gripping the helm for dear life.
Keaton clicked his tongue, shaking his head. “You dumbass.”
“I was doing what—”
“You were never her breeder. Your mission was to get Roro out of his dungeon, or prison, or wherever the hell they were keeping him.”
“But it was more than that. I showed you the map he gave .”
Keaton waved his hand in dismissal, “A myth, nothing more.”
“I believe it’s more. And I know Damian won’t stop until he finds her. I can’t give her up to him. I can’t let her return to her family and put them at risk.” I raised my hand to stop him from interrupting, knowing full well Ethan and Rosalie had already been a part of a war and ended it just fine. “Damian’s after sothing. He wanted this map enough to have Roro killed for it. Roro said Maeve was the key, whatever that ans. He needs whatever is in the tomb, and he needs Maeve for it, I know it. I won’t let him have her. I won’t.”
Keaton was staring at , his face blank of all expression. He shrugged, sighing deeply as he finally surrendered and continued his journey down the stairs. “I’ll go on your treasure hunt because I wouldn’t be a pirate if I didn’t,” he said dramatically, “but the second this gets out of hand, I’m tossing her overboard.”
“She’ll take you with her, I guarantee it.”
“Aye, well, that’ll be the day.”
He walked across the lower deck, whistling casually as though he hadn’t just attempted to rip to pieces. I bit the inside of my lip, shaking my head. “You can have whatever treasure we find—”
“Oh, I know,” he laughed, looking up at over his shoulder, then he slipped through the doors and out of sight.
***
Maeve
I spread my fingers over the map, trying to make sense of the seemingly ancient script and hand drawn curves of the unfamiliar lands. It was so different compared to the maps Troy used to navigate the ship, so old-fashioned and almost mythical. I turned it upside down, looking at the tiny pictures along the margins; drawings of wolves and the moon cycles, of course. A strange looking flower and a man with red eyes. The Moon Goddess herself, depicted as a woman with long, flowing white hair covering her naked breasts, her skin sketched in silver.
She had a necklace on, so kind of gem the centerpiece of the jewelry. I held the map closer to my face, trying to make out the details in the dim light of the oil lamp next to the bed. Where had I seen this before? The Moon Goddess was rarely depicted as a woman; she was generally drawn or referenced as a wolf, a great white wolf. And in the rare instances she was depicted in her human form, well, it was all up to interpretation.
But I was stuck on the necklace, so distant, long forgotten mory tickling the back of my mind as I looked at it.
“The temple!” I exclaid, nearly jumping off the bed. Of course. I had seen it before. Mom used to take with her to the temple in Winter Forest, a great white building made of granite. It was an ancient place, an eerie place, the very place where all of the White Queens before her had been buried beneath the stone floor.
I never paid attention to Mom’s long, drawn out, and carefully calculated prayers. My mind always wondered, as did my eyes, and I vaguely rembered the faded mural on the ceiling of the temple where the Moon Goddess and her divine descendants were painted in living color.
The Moon Goddess had been painted in her human form, white haired with her face obscured. Around her neck was a large, ornate necklace, the centerpiece a large, milky-white stone set in pure silver.
I always thought that was a power move, but if anyone could wear silver without having a near fatal reaction, it was sure to be the Moon Goddess.
The settings design was repeated on the face of the statue behind the altar at the head of the temple. The Moon Goddess statue was even more ornate and beautiful than the painting, and in the center of her neck, a perfect circle, the center blank, empty. I rember touching it once, feeling a kink in the granite that was made a tool of so kind, like soone had ssed up on the carving. But when I touched it I felt emptiness, like sothing was missing, the space only as big as my thumb filling with sudden dread.
Sothing had been there at one point. Sothing that was now gone, now lost.
I looked over the map again, a fire burning in my blood. The symbol was repeated in the margins several tis, and then again towards the center of the map, the circle faded and worn as though soone had repeatedly traced a route to it over and over for dozens, if not hundreds, or years.
The door to the room opened and I looked up, seeing Troy appear. He had been gone since the earliest hours of the morning, returning just as I was waking to make it down to the kitchen for another day of kneading and shaping bread.
“It’s a gem,” I said abruptly before he had even entered the room fully. He looked at , giving a quizzical stare.
“What is?”
“What Damian is after. It’s a gem.”
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