Damon felt his aesta gently shaking him awake the next morning. He sat up, bumping his head against the roof of the shelter, remembering where he was. Ocean waves crashed against the shore, and a flock of birds chirped noisily through the sunlit sky overhead.
“Solas,” whispered Malon. “There’s a ship on the horizon.”
She was wearing her dress. He was still naked, and strangely self-conscious about it, despite the previous night’s intimacy.
“ The Reunion ?” he guessed, reaching for his trousers.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I tried to dreamspell to seta last night, but I couldn’t reach her.”
“That’s less than ideal,” he said. “Should we be worried?”
“Not just yet.” Malon crossed her arms, her expression taking on a thoughtful caste. “I would assume they are burning the candle at both ends in search of us, rather than having given up so quickly. She may likely have been awake and at the ship’s wheel.”
“That does sound about right.”
Damon pulled his clothing on and moved to stand next to her. The ship was coming from the east, and he had to shield his eyes against the glare to get a better look at it.
“It looks as though it has sails,” said Malon. “That does, unfortunately, rule out our ship.”
“When you first saw it earlier, did you send up a flare with your magic?”
She shook her head, frowning. Damon shared the sentiment. There was basically nothing of interest on their tiny little island, except for the two of them. It was possible they’d been spotted the previous night by the glow of their fire, but the intentions of the mystery vessel were impossible to guess.
“Well, I suppose we should get ready,” he said. “This is close enough to what we wanted, after all.”
They sat on the beach, watching the ship grow larger on the horizon, along with a few others that appeared in its wake. The foremost ship sent out a dinghy, and Damon took in the faces of their apparent rescuers as they neared the island’s shallows.
The men were tanned, some to the point of having that rugged, leathery quality imbued onto their skin. Some were shirtless, while others wore vests. They were all armed, all in good shape, aside from a few missing fingers and a generally disheveled appearance about them.
The majority of them leered openly at Malon in a manner that Damon didn’t like from the start. He would have been annoyed by that, once upon a time, but given the sheer level of power both he and his aesta could throw around, it seemed like a nonissue.
“Pirates, if I had to wager,” said Damon.
“Behave, solas,” said Malon, setting a hand on his shoulder. “We know nothing of these men as of yet and shouldn’t judge them on appearances alone.”
“Wise, if slightly naïve thinking.”
She leaned in closer. “Regardless of what they intend, I’m sure it likely involves bringing us back to their ship. We’ll have far more options once we’re aboard, and I would prefer them to do the rowing, rather than us.”
Damon snorted. “Is that my aesta speaking, or the Red Sorceress?”
She grinned back at him. Despite harboring little hope that the encounter would go smoothly, Damon tried to play the part of the harmless castaway, waving to the men as they splashed down into the shallows.
“True Divine,” he called. “We’re relieved beyond words to see some friendly faces out here.”
“My name is Leah Rosewood,” said Malon. “This is my son, Anders. Please, we are in desperate straits and beg of you for help.”
“Huh.” A man with a scraggly beard seemed to be in charge of the landing party, and he exchanged a glance with the others. “Just you here on this island?”
“Just us,” said Damon.
“The King sent a rum thief ashore here as punishment a few weeks back,” said the man. “Idea was to make him sweat for a time, see how puckered his blowhole would be once all is said and done. Good chance he’ll much prefer the two of you to ol’ Sandtooth.”
“I know I will,” said another man, looking Malon up and down. “For sure about that.”
Malon squeezed Damon’s shoulder, all but pleading with him to let the comment and the leering go. He nodded slowly in a way that he hoped would express the extent of his patience. Bountiful, but far from limitless.
They squeezed into the dinghy, which had only a single seat left open. Damon pulled Malon into his lap, ignoring the comments from the pirates.
“Comfy?” he whispered.
She wiggled around, sighed, and leaned back against him. “I’ve had worse seats.”
The dinghy set off, immediately rocking against the ocean’s choppy waves. Damon put his arms around his aesta and held her tight, fighting back the uncomfortable prospect of stepping onto the ship with a full-blown erection if he didn’t calm himself.
An unusually large wave sent the dinghy rolling with the motion of the ocean. Malon bounced in his lap, letting out a little oomph noise as her buttocks came to rest on his crotch again. Damon gave her a little squeeze that seemed to come as much from his arms as it did a certain burgeoning appendage down below.
He tried not to think about her as his aesta, or her as the woman he’d repeatedly made come the night before. Much in the manner of the way not thinking about a thing often proves to be counterproductive, it didn’t work as well as he’d hoped.
He was as hyper-aware of her body now as he had been when they’d been rolling around naked on the sandy bedroll. He could feel the inhale of each breath, smell the sand and sea salt scent on her hair, feel her shifting in an attempt to solve the same problem with which he was currently at skirmish.
“I’ll take a cramped ride in a dinghy over another night on that smelly bedroll.” Malon squeezed his knee in a manner clearly intended to be reassuring. Her fingers were soft, delicate little points of pleasure against his leg, and didn’t exactly help the situation.
“I didn’t mind,” he whispered. “I liked having you so close.”
“As did I,” she said quickly. “I just mean that this is, well, it’s not a big deal, solas. Just a little thing.” She hesitated, wincing a little. “I’m not speaking of your…” She cleared her throat. “I just mean.”
“I know what you mean, and we’ll no doubt have a discussion on it once we’ve made it through this.”
“An active discussion, I hope.” She shifted in a manner that was intentional and unhelpful. It spoke to the core of so much of the conflict he’d seen in her, that even now, she couldn’t decide whether to tease him or help him calm down.
Their destination drew into view a minute or so after Damon had completely given up on keeping his enthusiasm under control. He was kneading one of Malon’s thighs with his fingers and using his other hand to gently rock her back and forth. A single man aboard the dinghy was doing a piss poor job of pretending not to stare at them. The others were busy with rowing.
The dinghy pulled up next to the pirate ship. Ropes and ladders were tossed to secure the tiny vessel and get them into place to climb up. The leader of the boarding party went first, followed by Malon, followed by Damon, who nearly had to shove another man overboard before he could scurry up the ladder to secure the valuable view it would have provided.
He took a series of deep breaths on his way up, thankful to his aesta for climbing slowly ahead of him. He was more or less back to normal when he climbed over the ship’s railing and onto the deck, which was a good thing, because the situation he found there was instantly tense.
Near two dozen men milled about on the ship’s deck, doing everything from sipping from flasks, to roughhousing with one another, to pissing over the side of the deck. It was one of those collections of people in which, in Damon’s opinion, had a distinctive smell.
Their attention was already turning toward Malon, sending smiles and whistles and bawdy words aplenty her way. Damon didn’t have quite the necessary air of physical intimidation needed to ward the feedback off with his presence, so he leaned into it.
“I think a few of them might find you appealing, aesta,” he said, forcing a smile.
“What gave it away?” She smirked and took his hand into hers. “I’ve no wish to cause unnecessary harm, but Leandra’s grace… some men make it so easy for me to justify.”
“Let’s see about speaking to their leader first,” said Damon. “Make the situation clear to him.”
“Oh, I think it’s clear enough already, ain’t it?” A loud voice came from just within the ship’s cabin.
Damon frowned, surprised that someone could hear him from such a distance.
It wasn’t the only surprise he had in that same moment. A tall, broad shouldered pirate came out onto the deck, pulling a wide eyed Vel alongside him, her wrists bound with rope.