Page 6

While it was forbidden for a vampire to bite someone who wasn’t his contracted sanguine partner, I’d broken that rule many times with Emmaline. There was nothing better than tasting someone while making love. Not to mention how pleasurable it was for the partner.

The number of ungentlemanly thoughts swirling in my mind doubled, and I commanded myself to refocus on her question.

“Yes, I am a sea captain,” I said, not untruthfully. “And I have a magnificent ship. With three sails and six decks.”

The water became shallower the closer I got to the docks, and once I felt the stony ocean floor beneath me, I set her on her feet, allowing her to walk the rest of the way in.

“If I had a ship,” she said wistfully, staring out at the moorings in the distance. “I’d be long gone.”

“Are you looking for passage?” I inquired, as we continued walking through the waist-deep water together.

She shot me a look. “You are rather nosy. Has anyone ever told you that?”

Cognizant of the many eyes watching us, I tried to compose myself respectably. However, my white silk shirt was plastered to my chest in a way that was anything but proper. Revealing lines of sailor’s ink that I’d accumulated in my youth. I caught her glancing down at it, and tried to flatten my grin.

“Maybe my ship isn’t headed in the direction you’re going.”

“What if I don’t know where I’m going?” she countered.

I clasped my hands behind my back. “Everyone has a heading,” I said. “Even if they don’t know their destination.”

She huffed. “Not everyone has the luxury of charting out their life.”

“No?”

She stopped walking and stood with her hands on her hips. “No,” she asserted. “I have no heading. In fact, I’m more like driftwood.”

Driftwood? She thought she was like driftwood? This vibrant witch who was bold enough to run into the harbor without knowing how to swim? Who was powerful enough to bond a familiar and command water to bubble beneath her feet? No, I didn’t believe it.

I reached out and plucked a piece of red seaweed off her cheek. She didn’t flinch when my cold fingers brushed against her wet skin. “Even driftwood finds a place to settle on the beach eventually.”

She crossed her arms. “Not this piece of driftwood.”

Her eyes found mine. So blue and bright, they glittered like sunlight scattering across open water. I lost myself in them, forgetting the troubles that weighed on me. I’d never been more grateful that I’d left my balcony. This. This was what it felt like to live again.

A wave crashed behind us, breaking against our backs, and it knocked her to her knees. I quickly bent to pick her up.

“See,” she said, laughing as I helped her to her feet. “Driftwood.”

When the next wave came, I wrapped an arm around her so she didn’t fall, knowing, full well, that it was improper to touch her this way. And while she didn’t slap me, I likely deserved it.

“You are—most certainly—not driftwood,” I assured her.

She stopped laughing. Her pulse was hammering fast enough that it pulled on instincts I’d spent five hundred years learning to control. I was as ravenous as I’d been on the day I was born into this life.

Behave, I told myself.

I forced myself to let her go, but held out my hand, offering to steady her as we finished our walk to the shore. At first, she ignored the gesture, but quickly reconsidered when another wave came rolling in. Once her warm hand was in mine, I had to hold my free hand behind my back, curling my fingers into a fist to control my bloodlust.

As soon as we cleared the shallows, the crowd that had gathered on the quay made itself known. Someone started clapping, and soon, everyone was cheering.

“This is so ridiculous,” she said as we made our way past the seawall. Water pouring off us in heavy drips.

I placed myself between her and the crowd. “Thank you for the support,” I told the people, “but if you’ll give us some room, it would be appreciated.”

In the sea of faces, I found the woman I’d handed my jacket and cravat to, retrieved them with a quick thanks, and draped the jacket around her shoulders before she could object. As I did, she looked up at me, startled, like no one had done something like that for her in a long time, or possibly ever.

Using the cravat, I wiped trails of water from her forehead.