Page 84 of Seaborn and the Seven Seas

“We’ve had enough fun for the night. Go to bed.” Theron’s gaze cut to Fraya, the edge gone. He didn’t take his seat back. He continued to stand. “Take them to their chambers. I must change our plan now that the queen knows we’re here.” He lifted his mug and drained it in one long pull, not a drop lost.

“We have to escort the children,” I said, my voice stern. “That’s not an option.”

“Selene can handle it.” He set his tankard down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

I crossed my arms. “By herself?”

“No, of course not. We—I—there’s a team.”

“You have soldiers?” Minha stopped her cup halfway.

His voice was barely above a murmur. “There are those of us who have been fighting the Seelie queen long before you knew who she was. We don’t carry banners. We don’t have a kingdom. But we have people in the right places.”

Whoever “we” were, this rebellion, if they were as strong and fast as Theron, they would see the end of the Seelie queen. I hoped.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The room held four cots pushed against opposite walls, a washstand wedged in the corner, and barely enough floor to stand without turning sideways. The ceiling sat low. A single candle half gone burned on the table in the back.

Minha and Jina claimed the far cots. Fraya and I took what was left.

I slipped off my boots and lay back, staring at the ceiling. The mattress smelled of someone else’s sleep. I’d slept in tighter spaces—the cavern floor, Minha on one side, Jina pressed close on the other. But on the cot, I had some cushion, some support beneath me. I wondered how my family fared. The guilt of being free sat heavier than the walls ever had.

Sleep didn’t come.

The tavern below went quiet—no voices, no scrape of chairs. Just the creak of the building settling for the night and the distant pull of the sea.

I counted the knots in the ceiling planks. Lost count. Started again.

My mind went where it had no business going—to Theron and Selene. The way she’d greeted him, warm and too friendly. The two of them somewhere, doing things that sent unwanted heat through my stomach.

I’d seen them together once on his ship. The way he’d kissed her like she was the only thing that mattered. The way his hands had moved like he knew every inch of her. The way he made her moan and arch her back.

I didn’t want to imagine this. And yet I couldn’t stop.

Oh, gods. I pressed the back of my hand to my cheek. Too hot.

Stop.

Where had Theron even gone? What business was urgent enough to leave at this hour? Track down the carriage driver who’d sold us out? Meet with his rebel contacts? Plan whatever came next now that the Seelie queen knew where we were? Or was he making another woman at a different tavern feel good.

It didn’t matter.

It wasn’t my concern.

He could do whatever—whoever—he wanted.

Ugh. Stop thinking about him.

A woman’s laugh, low and soft, escaped through the wall. Then a murmur, too muffled to catch words. Then another laugh.

My jaw tightened. I told myself it was none of my concern what Theron did with other women. Told myself a couple of times for good measure. What little good that did.

I was out of bed and into the hall before the third attempt convinced me. I had no idea what I would say to him, only to tell him being loud was rude. Yes, that’s it.

The hallway stretched dim, one wall lantern burning low at the far end.

Two pirates spilled out from one of the rooms, a man and a woman both flushed and laughing, nearly colliding with me before catching themselves. The woman clapped a hand over her mouth. The man blinked. They exchanged a look and moved around me down the hall, still laughing.