Of Magic and Rum (Beyond a Contemporary Mythos)

Chapter 21

“Your mate?” I reel backward, defensively curling my arms to my chest. “I’d say you’re delusional, but that much is abundantly clear.”

N?kk grins, with a serpentine twist of lip and flash of pointy incisors. “Your willing participation would’ve been far preferred, but something tells me I’m going to enjoy your oppression.”

This man is a few pearls short of an oyster.

Taking another step back, I stiffen when my butt meets one of the cold, wet cave walls. “And if I never accept this?”

“Eventually, you will.” N?kk clicks his nails together, crossing one foot in front of the other as he strides to a curved rock, collecting water dripping from the ceiling. He dips his hand in, holding some in his palm, and walks toward me.

I hiss and call to my powers, willing the oceans to drown him from the inside out. Saltwater bubbles from his mouth, dribbling down his chin, but he doesn’t gurgle or choke. His eyes remain focused on me, and with little regard for my attempts to kill him, he reaches out and lets the water trickle over my skin. The blue scales appear down the length of my arm, and his gaze turns feral and ravenous.

“Because that will be the last water I give you until you agree to be my mate.” N?kk slips his hands behind his back. “And if you’re anything like me, which, being aquatic, I assume you are, it becomes increasingly uncomfortable without water and inconveniently never kills you.”

Unease pulls my throat tight, and I press my fingertips against the moisture behind me, grazing on it as long as I can before he’ll undoubtedly force me away.

Find me, Jack.

I repeat these three words as if, by some universal miracle, Jack will hear them and use them to find me.

N?kk cants his head to the side like he’s studying me before his hand lifts. Droplets of water float past my head, and soon, the cave wall behind me is bone dry. “Clever. But I meant it. I’ll cause you pain as long as it takes for you to agree.”

“How romantic. I’m succumbing to your charm already,” I say without emotion or inflection.

Seeing as N?kk has no intentions of threatening my life, this has become a matter of distracting him, keeping him busy long enough for Jack to find me. Despite Jack being human, he ironically has more of an advantage over him than I do, given our aquatic powers cancel each other.

“Curious about why a powerful sea nymph has joined with pirates .” N?kk sits at the table, crossing his legs and resting his forearm on one knee.

By the Seas. This is going to be a long night.

“Why? Does being a sea nymph somehow put me above them?”

He stares at me blankly. “Of course it does. We are immortal. We control an element humans have yet to discover barely half of.”

Irritation pricks my skin, and I can already feel my throat drying, the process accelerated by heavy emotion. “We are not the same. Just because we both call a body of water home doesn’t make us alike. I’m one with the Seven Seas.” I take a step toward him, pointing at myself. “ I’m a protector of Atlantis. And you?” I scan his body and sneer. “Are nothing more than a lake troll who lures creatures to your banks for sport.”

No sooner have the words left my lips than N?kk’s in front of me with his hand wrapped around my throat. He’s tightening his grip on my neck, but not enough to hinder my breathing. “I could choke you without the need for water, Nymph.”

Despite fear rearing its ugly head, I suppress it and square my jaw. “You’re doing a wonderful job selling yourself to me, N?kk. It’s a wonder you haven’t been scooped up by now.”

A snarl vibrates from N?kk’s chest, and he releases me only to snatch my chin between two fingers. “I can play like this all day. But how long will you last, Protector of Atlantis , until you succumb to me?”

Yanking from his touch, I dig my nails into my palms. “I’d have thought you, too, would be used to people underestimating you.”

“Such fire you have,” he says, walking toward a small body of water surrounded by jagged rocks. “I wonder where you get it from. Your—late mother, perhaps?”

Shock hits my system like a rip current, and I stagger backward. Hardly anyone remembers my mother, not even me. I’d been so young when the universe took her from us, but for him to somehow know she’s dead? “How could you possibly?—”

“It took me a moment to recognize you, that much, I’ll admit.” Dozens of piranha leap from the pool’s surface, snapping their jaws at the diced meat N?kk plops into the water. “But I’m older than your father.” His icy eyes cut me a glare, gauging my reaction.

He could be prying me for more information to build on what little he already knows. So, I play dumb and stay dead of winter silent.

“Considering my age, if you know anything about custom, Rhode ,” he pauses after lacing my real name with venom to rival that of a lionfish.

I’ve given up trying to rationalize how he knows anything about me.

“Then you know,” he continues. “That an offer of mating from someone of my ancient caliber is a privilege.”

The man’s ego knows no bounds.

“If you know so much about me , you should also know you’d require my father’s blessing.” I press my hands at the outside of my thighs to keep them from shaking.

It’s a lie—partially. There are a few situations in which I’d require his approval, but this certainly isn’t one of them.

“And you think he’d object? Two powerful creatures of the waters joining forces? Creating offspring to rival that of a sea serpent or Kraken?” One piranha briefly latches to the tip of N?kk’s finger, and he doesn’t so much as wince.

Nausea coils in my stomach at the thought of sex with this thing. I can’t recall his true form, but I remember the stories told to me as a child. And this grimly beautiful man standing by me? It’s a mirage .

“It’s funny how piranhas have developed such a bad reputation with mortals. They depict them in stories as bloodthirsty man-eaters and vile creatures.” N?kk tosses the remaining meat in his palm to the water, brushes his hands of excess crumbs, and stands.

The air within the cave suddenly becomes chillier and danker, and I wrap my arms around myself. “It’s not like they’re exactly the prettiest of fish.”

N?kk smirks and slips his hands behind his back. “Not everything needs to be beautiful to have worth.” He dips his head to look me dead in the eye. “—except you, of course.”

I know what he means but refuse to take a compliment from this sea snail.

“I’m only worthy because of my beauty?” I press against the cave wall behind me, rubbing my lips together. They’ve grown increasingly drier.

“I—” N?kk blinks, taken off guard. I doubt he does this often, considering he kidnapped the first aquatic female to strut on this island and claimed her his mate. “—I only meant to refer to you as attractive.”

I roll my eyes and shift to the other foot. “You’re saying beauty holds only so much worth because this isn’t your true form.” Displaying a hand down his body, I squint at him. “What is your true form, anyway? How far off base was I—calling you a troll?”

N?kk shakes his head and moves to the hearth ablaze with orange flames. A ladle sticks out from an iron pot, and he stirs whatever is inside. “Why should it matter? I can take any form I wish.”

“Any? And this is what you went with?”

His appearance isn’t unattractive —quite the opposite—but I won’t let him have the satisfaction. As handsome as he managed to make himself appear, it’s a lie .

N?kk freezes and aggressively shoves the spoon back into the pot with an echoing clang , spilling boiling contents over the sides. He spins on his heel and shoots me a glare that could melt the marrow in my bones. “Not what you prefer, my dear?” His form gets lost in darkness, a shadow swallowing him before appearing in front of me. But it’s no longer N?kk’s face—it’s Jack’s . “Perhaps this is more to your liking.”

A jellyfish’s sting shoots through my veins, and I seethe at the monster stealing my pirate captain’s face. But N?kk can’t even do this right. He’s got Jack’s face and eyes, but he doesn’t sound like him. He doesn’t walk or carry himself like him. And the bit of chest I can see poking from the shirt—he sure as hell didn’t get Jack’s physique right.

Despite the consequences, I spit right in the son of bitch’s face. Because it’s worth it. Jack’s worth it. They’re all worth it. “You couldn’t dream of being half the man Calico Jack is as a deity, let alone a mortal , N?kk.”

N?kk is physically shaking, and he slaps a hand over his eye, wiping my saliva away. The previous face he’d chosen returns. He lets out enough of a monstrous growl to rattle pebbles from the cave ceiling, several bouncing off my head, but I ignore them. “Of all the insufferable females to grace my island, it had to be you.”

And now he’s singing an entirely different tune.

“Mm, spoiled goods , N?kk?” I’m a breath from his face, fighting the compulsion to gag from the damp stench he’s exuding. The sun doesn’t settle in this being’s skin; the salt from the water and air don’t cling to it. He’s a bog creature. And I’ll live an eternity suffering from thirst before giving myself to him.

N?kk snarls before turning his back on me. “I will not spend another thousand years alone.” His right hand is trembling, and he stretches his fingers wide before curling them into a fist and waiting for the tremor to pass.

My bottom lip has begun to crack, and I lick it, but my tongue is like coarse sand against it. “I’d rather be alone than forced into eternal companionship with someone I don’t wish to be with.”

“It’s because you’ve never had to endure seclusion.” Keeping his back to me, N?kk grabs a small wooden bowl from the table and moves to the hearth, scooping the steaming contents into it. “It can drive you mad. Force you into such an abysmal place of desperation you’ll do just about anything to numb the pain, even if it’s temporary.” N?kk takes exaggerated sips from the bowl, occasionally tossing me a challenging stare from the corner of his eyes.

My mouth no longer maintains moisture, and the sound of water sloshing in the bowl causes pain in my temple. “This sounds like excuses from a weak mind.”

N?kk tilts his head back, draining the rest of the broth, letting some of it roll down his chin and not bothering to wipe it away. “Your cousin was weak then?” He rests the bowl on the table and snaps his fingers. “Wait, no. Your uncle .”

I still refuse to acknowledge how he knows so much about my family.

“You and he are nothing alike.” I had intended to lace my words with a growl, but my voice cracks, and I seethe at him instead.

“Are we not?” N?kk sits on the table’s edge and folds his hands in his lap. “Was he too not desperate for a companion? Forced her to be with him?”

My shoulders start to slump, but I force them back and fight the urge to wince from the strain. “He made her his entire world .”

N?kk’s hands move to the table, gripping it so tightly his fingers shake. “You think I can’t do the same?”

In quite the literal sense, I’m withering away in a freezing corner of a cave, and he dares to ask this? I give him the middle finger as my answer.

“Those two have lived a very long and fulfilling relationship after they surpassed the rockiness.” N?kk drums his fingers against the wood. “I dare say she grew to love him. You can do the same, Rhode. End your suffering. Agree to be mine. And we, too, can eventually be as your uncle and his beloved are.”

She grew to love him because she had no one else to love. The Underworld tied her to him with no hope of escape. I do have that hope. And the possibility of something true with Jack. Something I’ve chosen . I close my eyes and hang my head, calling to my powers by only a fraction, barely a sliver, only using enough to mist my skin. An ounce of relief settles over me before being lifted away.

I flare my eyes open, and N?kk stands there with a hand outstretched, pulling the water from me. Hundreds of tiny droplets suspend in the air before he lowers his hand, and they fall to the cave floor as forgotten fog. My knees find the ground in a slump. I need to preserve my strength, and pretending I still possess the ability to stand after he takes my last effort to cure myself would be futile.

“It’s pointless to try, Rhode. You cannot beat me. Suffer or succumb. Those are your only choices.” N?kk slides the chair in front of the hearth and reclines, settling.

No. I have many choices. And they’re out there looking for me. I can’t beat him alone but with my crew? We can make him pay. I need to hold out—force my mind anywhere else from the pain ratcheting through my body, begging for water.

I’d fallen asleep, lulled by the flickering flame of the hearth and the consistent rhythm of a single drop of water landing in a puddle on the cave floor from a jagged ceiling rock. Sometime later, I snap awake with a gasp. A knot has formed in my neck from my chin hanging toward my chest at an awkward angle. A violin sounds from the darkness—a macabre melody with soothing undertones. It’s almost hypnotic and makes my head fuzzy despite how weak my body has become.

N?kk slithers into the light, a dark wooden violin at his shoulder. He grins at me, a flash of dagger teeth catching the still blazing fire. “Look who’s awake. I think it was due to my particular aptness with a good set of strings.”

The music swirls through my mind like liquid metal, waiting to harden, to imprint itself there. I pinch my eyes together so tightly that I see stars in the blackness behind my lids. “You mean—” I pause, swallowing what little saliva I have left to coat my gravelly throat “—that tune that sounds like a cat’s tail being run over by a chariot?”

N?kk chuckles, but his tone is noncommittal and distant at best. “Soon, you won’t have the strength to speak above a whisper, and that’s what you chose to say?” He edges closer, his hands moving with more flourish, his playing elbow propped skyward.

It’s a bizarre feeling to be lured by music when Sirens do little to affect me. But as he changes the tune to something far more ancient and primal, my limbs relax, and my chin lifts in his direction.

“Do you enjoy my playing, Nymph?” N?kk’s voice echoes in my skull like we’re both ensconced in a glass bottle.

No. And I could care less if his fiddle-playing rivals muses, bards, and demons.

But no matter how often I replay these thoughts to convince myself it’s how I feel, my eyes lazily open and my cracked lips part to say, “Yes.”

N?kk’s smile widens, and he stands above me now, his body swaying with the melody. “There’s nothing quite like a perfectly tuned instrument. And I’ve made it a permanent staple of mine.” He slowly sinks until he’s squatting in front of me, still playing and grinning like a fox who finally cornered the rabbit they’ve been chasing.

I say nothing, partly because my throat cannot handle it, and I can’t tear my eyes away from his fingers nimbly working the strings.

Find. Me. Jack.

“Now, Rhode, my dear, all you have to do is say one little word. Your suffering will end, and you can listen to this music for the rest of eternity,” N?kk whispers and lowers his face to mine, his serpent-like eyes fixed on me. “Will you be my mate ?”

My throat bobs, but nothing happens save for a burning pain and a strained breath. I chew on some of the dead skin falling from my bottom lip before opening my mouth to speak. N?kk’s face has blurred, the violin now in sharp focus, sea mist floating from the strings as he plays.

“Like fucking hell, she will,” a voice roars from the cave entrance.

No, not just a voice. His voice. Jack Rackham. My Jack.