Brie
I gasp as cold water rushes over my head and shoulders, flowing down my body in icy rivelets. The woman leaning against the doorframe nearby smirks at my expense as I shiver violently, trying desperately to cover my naked body with my arm braced over my breasts and my hand shielding the apex of my thighs.
Another bucket of water is dumped over my head, and I swallow some of it, choking.
“It’s not that bad,” Monica smirks, her arms crossed over her chest as she watches another woman, a young maid or something, start scrubbing sand from my hair for a fourth time.
“Wh-why is it-it so c-c-cold?” I stammer through chattering teeth.
“It’s filtered water, that’s why.” She untangles her arms and knocks on the doorframe, her pretty, angular face shining with pride. “This ship might look like something out of the stone-age, but it’s high-tech. We have running water aboard. Engines below if we need more power than the sails can provide.”
“Do-do you have w-warm water, by chance?”
She smiles at me but her eyes flash with something I can only describe as distrust. “Yeah, we do.”
The maid dumps a third bucket of cold water over my head to wash out the sharp, unscented soap that makes my skin feel incredibly tight and dry, but the sand is gone, swirling into a drain at my feet.
I’m in a wash room of some kind. Clothing hangs from a line stretching from wall to wall behind my back, where several large, circular windows are open to the warm, tropical sun.
This ship is just… massive. It’s like a small city inside. Monica, Alex’s mate, jumped into the skiff with us and gave her mate an earful that made me blush so deeply she asked if I was about to be sick, and honestly, I might have been.
I’m starving and tired to the point I can barely keep my eyes open despite having frigid water poured over my body repeatedly.
I’m also worried sick about Logan.
I’m worried about what kind of conversation we’re going to have to have when he wakes up.
“Did Jackass send you up with some ointment for those wounds or anything?” Monica asks, stepping into the room and grabbing a fluffy towel from the line.
“J-Jackass?”
“Jackson, the healer,” she amends, the corner of her mouth tilting into a wry kind of smile.
I shake my head, sniffling. “No, he didn’t. He had his hands full with–with Logan.”
“Your mate?” One of her blonde brows arches to her hairline.
I meet her eyes, the color of whiskey, and nod, but she doesn’t look convinced.
Her gaze drops from my face to my naked body, paying extra attention to my neck. “I don’t see a mark.”
“It’s–It’s early,” I grit out, wondering when she’s going to pass me the towel. “We haven’t gotten to that yet.”
“Ah, I see.” She gracefully drapes the towel over my shoulders. “No bother. He should live, I think. You’ll have plenty of time to experience that.”
I follow her back to the doorframe, which has been her perch for the last half hour while I had my body and hair viciously scrubbed until I was sparkling clean. The maid scurries out of the room, leaving behind the change of clothes Alex fetched for me, but when I move toward them, Monica shakes her head. “They’re not going to fit. Come with me.”
“In just this?” I wrap the towel around my body, still sopping wet.
She turns without answering my question, and I have no choice but to follow her through the winding, narrow hallways. Everything is made of wood. From the floorboards to the ceilings, the only color is a warm mahogany, polished and gleaming in the light spilling from vintage-looking sconces. Doors line the walls. We pass a few stairwells that must lead both up to the deck and down to the depths of the ship, but Monica just keeps walking, humming an unrecognizable tune. All the while, I follow her in nothing but a towel, dripping water all over the floor.
Finally, she reaches a room at the far end of the hallway. She turns the knob, and sunlight spills toward us as she steps inside, holding the door open for me.
I cautiously enter behind her, scanning the room.
“Alex insists you're good people in a rough situation,” she says, walking toward a row of cabinets built into the wall. Just like the hallway, the entire room is made from warm toned wood. A large bed rests in the center, bolted to the floor, but that’s it in terms of furniture. “We don’t ever just… find people washed up on the beach, especially this one.”
“I thought we were in KiloKilo,” I whisper.
She pulls what looks like a robe from the cabinet. It’s a thin material woven in shades of deep brown and pale cream. She hands it to me, meeting my eyes, then reaches back in for what looks like a nightgown.
“Oh, we are. KiloKilo has… hundreds of islands trapped within its veil. This one is… hard to reach, which means we’re hard to find.” A chill licks up my skin. She notices my skin pebbling before smirking and turning toward the windows, saying, “But you’re safe here with us, however you got here. However you got through that veil.”
I drop the towel and pull on the robe while she isn’t looking but my senses are going haywire. Are we safe? She’s obviously incredibly suspicious of me, and I share that same sentiment about her… but she’s the Luna of this nomadic, sea-faring pack.
“You don’t live on this island, do you?”
“No,” she replies, turning, confirming my suspicions. “We’ll be returning to our home soon, I believe. It depends on the weather and whether we’re still being followed.”
“Followed by who?” I ask.
“Don’t worry about it now,” she says with a shrug. “I’ve been told to let you get some sleep, it looks like you could use it.” She glances down at my tattered legs. “I’ll have Alex bring some medicine for that back from the camp. That’s why you were washed with cold water, you know. Hot water would’ve burned something fierce.”
She starts for the door, but I stop her by asking, “Logan–his mouth was tinged blue when Jackass–Jackson was cutting into his back.” I swallow hard, closing my eyes against the image of Logan’s injuries. “What was that?”
“Herbs to keep him asleep. They’re harmless.” Monica’s eyes soften as she takes me in, smiling softly to herself. “You have a little sister, don’t you?”
I freeze. “H-how did you know?”
“Just the way you carry yourself, how you’re not showing how damned afraid you are.” She shrugs again, but her expression flashes with a sadness I… find familiar. “I have one, too. Us older sisters, well, we carry the weight for everyone, don’t we? We’re naturally gifted in staying strong, acting like everything’s okay.”
“Is your sister here?”
“No, she’s not.” She smiles faintly at me, but her eyes say something else entirely. Hidden grief only someone like me would understand shines there, buried deep. “Rest. You’re safe. Your mate will be brought up shortly, I assume.” She glances at the bed and back to me, and I realize that she knows. Somehow, she knows we’re lying, like she’s one of those uncanny people who can sniff out the mate bond on others. “Do you want a cot brought up?”
“No,” I reply with conviction, praying my cheeks don’t go bright red. “That’s unnecessary.”
“Well, all right, then. If you need contraceptive tonics, just let me know.” She winks at me before striding out of the room. Her pale blue, cotton dress hugs her trim waist, and she’s tall. Nearly as tall as Maeve, I think. Her leather vest matches the leather belt she wears around her waist, several blades catching the light of the sun before she shuts the door behind her, and I’m suddenly, inexplicitly, alone.
The only sounds that reach me are the soft creaking of the boat as it drifts in the gentle water.
I lie down flat on the bed.
I fall into a deep sleep before my head even touches the pillow.
I don’t dream. It’s the darkest, deepest kind of sleep imaginable. I feel like my eyes have been closed for mere seconds when I wake to darkness and a star filled sky twinking through the windows over the bed.
I sit up as voices drift throughout the room, coming from the gap beneath the door. It takes me a moment to recognize the voices, and I stiffen as Logan’s voice whispers toward me, low and hushed.
“It’s unnecessary to drag her into this when I’m willing to tell you everything you want to know, right here, right now.”
“She’s part of this, too. You have to understand the position I’m in as Alpha. You are a stranger, an outlander, coming from a world I thought, until your mate revealed the veil around Eastonia has been destroyed, was gone. I have questions… for both of you.”
I hear several steps in the hallway just outside the door, like both men are widening their stances, preparing for a fight.
Logan says under his breath, “She likely doesn’t remember being in that water, but I do. I swam for hours through a storm from hell itself wondering if she was dead in my arms. Let her rest.”
“Who is she?”
“My mate.”
“Your insistence to get her back to her family… plus…” Alex chuckles, then sighs, “you’re a warrior of some kind. No one with an easy life has as many scars as you do in all of the places they’d be found after repeated fights in both forms.”
“Her parents will know by now that her–our–ship went down. They’re looking for her.”
“If they’re beyond the sea barrier of KiloKilo, they won’t be able to find her.”
“That’s why,” Logan grinds out, losing his patience, “we’re leaving. All I’m asking is that you’re able to shelter us for a few days while I come up with a plan and she rests.”
“And I’m asking how the fuck you got through that veil.”
The tension rises. I imagine them on the verge of transformation in that snug hallway. My heart twists as I slowly switch my position, preparing to slide out of bed to fetch the nightgown Monica laid out for me, but then I hear Sawyer’s voice.
“Alex, we should let them stay.”
“I have no problem with that as long as I can talk to them both,” he replies hotly.
“If she’s awake,” Logan presses, “We’ll talk, but I want a moment with her.”
“To plot? Scheme? I don’t think so. I have my pack to worry about now. Everyone’s questioning how you got here, where you’re from–”
“And I have the impression you're hiding,” Logan growls. “That’s what's happening here, right? When I woke up, I heard the conversations happening around me. You’re out of medicine, out of provisions. You’ve been stuck here in this lagoon for weeks. Why?”
The floorboards creak as someone, likely Alex, takes a cautious step. “My problems could easily be yours. That’s why we need to be on the same page. I will help you both, if you help me.”
“Help you, how?”
“You got through the veil. We need to, as well.” My skin prickles with adrenaline as Alex continues. “You’re a warrior with experience at sea, from what I understand, based on what you mumbled to Jackson when you were coming down from the high of his herbs. I need you on my ship.”
I slip out of the robe and slide the nightgown over my shoulders. It’s shortsleeve and baggy, but it covers my body to the knees, at least. I creep over the floorboards to the cabinet, wincing as I slowly open a drawer in search of underwear of any kind. I find something to wear, at least, tugging a pair of cotton shorts up my thighs and whirl back to the door in time to hear Logan ask, “And what do you need Brie for?”
“She’s just extra cargo. Someone to keep you in line.”
“You’d be holding her hostage to get me to do what you want? Do you really think I’m the kind of man who would willing put my fucking mate through something like that?”
“What are your other options, warrior? You have no boat, no maps of the islands, no idea where the veil rests, and no hope of crossing without getting wrecked, again, and sucked back into KiloKilo’s hold. We are your only option. I am not holding you captive, Logan. I am pleading for your help.” Alex’s tone drops at the end, harboring an emotion I’m unable to place. Desperation lines his words, yes, but there’s something deeper there.
Fear.
Logan takes several beats to digest Alex’s words.
But then the knob turns, and he says, “If she’s asleep, we’ll wait until morning. There’s nothing she can add to this–”
The door opens enough to spill light into the room, highlighting me standing there like an idiot, eavesdropping.
Logan’s meets my eyes and hangs his head, murmuring, “Fuck.”
He opens the door a little wider, light creeping toward my toes over the floorboards. Alex heaves a breath, nodding, and says, “Well then, let’s all sit down and sort this out, shall we?”