The Stars Over Bittergate Bay

Chapter 7

7

I t was so bitingly cold that Sidney almost didn’t have the capacity to be embarrassed by standing on the deck of Rookwood’s boat in nothing but his shorts. He knew he looked more boy than man, arms folded around himself, shivering with every gust of wind, but he didn’t care. The call of the sea was not particularly strong or compelling at the current juncture, and he couldn’t imagine that a single merfolk resided in these inhospitable waters.

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Sidney asked, as Rookwood handed him a rough braided rope that was tied to the back of the boat.

“We’ve had confirmation from two different sources.”

“This isn’t just some hilarious prank?” Sidney shivered. Rookwood raised an eyebrow at him.

“Do I seem like the sort of person to inconvenience myself for a joke?” He didn’t, but Sidney was not unused to being the butt of other people’s jokes. Still, when Rookwood placed his hand between Sidney’s shoulder blades, Sidney nearly jumped at the not unpleasant heat of Jonas’s palm against his skin.

Blushing like an idiot who wasn’t about to be eaten by merfolk, Sidney followed as Rookwood led him to the back of the boat and onto the small platform that hung there.

“Swim out a little way, and then come back. Just make sure you’re fully submerged.”

“And all the merfolk are asleep?” Sidney tightened his grip on the rope.

“Probably,” Rookwood shrugged, and before Sidney could tell him that that wasn’t very comforting, the warm pressure of Rookwood’s hand turned to a sharp shove.

The water felt like ice. Sidney’s whole body stiffened as he dropped down below the surface, buffeting in the waves like a badly tied buoy. As he began to rise, he gripped the rope more tightly, twisting it around his wrist as he started to swim.

Sidney was not a strong swimmer. Most of his time in the water was spent on a raft in the shallow part of the creek that ran behind the town he’d grown up in. Half the time it was barely deep enough for a current.

When he broke the surface of the water, the air above him felt warm, which he knew it wasn’t. He gasped in a mouthful of brackish foam and spit it out as he started to swim again, away from the boat, before Jonas could say anything snide, or make any suggestions about his form.

More than once, Sidney was knocked off his tenuous course by a rogue whitecap that had leapt out of nowhere, seemingly just to slap him in the face. He might have been embarrassed by how inept he was sure he looked, except it was too fucking cold to be anything but cold. And then Sidney felt a strong tugging on his ankle. He kicked, and something sharp and thornlike bit into the top of his foot. He opened his mouth to shout in pain and sank below the surface.

Salty water stung his eyes, as Sidney thrashed onto his back, looking for whatever fishing line or hook or idiot fish had thought him food. He was not expecting a pair of wide, yellow eyes to be looking back.

Sidney dropped the rope. His hands spread wide as he tried to swim away from the creature, the merfolk. Its webbed fingers, tipped with talons, dug furiously into Sidney’s foot, leaving a stream of blood in the water. Long inky hair flowed out behind its head, its body humanoid and distinctly inhuman at once. It reached forward with its free arm, trying to grab Sidney around the calf, and Sidney managed to kick it right in the center of its face.

The creature shrieked, a strange, high-pitched gurgle. Sidney got two kicks and a half a stroke away before it grabbed him again, wrenching him backward through the water, digging its talons into his leg. Sidney opened his mouth to scream in pain and emitted a stream of bubbles, the last of the air from his lungs. The water shifted in a rush behind him. Sidney looked back over his shoulder at the same moment that his leg was released.

Jonas Rookwood had entered the fray. Jonas had one of his massive forearms around the merfolk’s neck in a boxer’s headlock. He bared his teeth, wrestling with the creature. In Jonas’s fist was the shining, business end of a harpoon. He dug the barbed tip into the creature’s chest.

Without the merfolk dragging him down, Sidney surged toward the surface, desperate for air. He managed to bob far enough up to take in two good breaths, before water crested over his chin. The line he’d been holding floated on top of the water. Jonas hadn’t surfaced.

Sidney filled his mouth with as much air as he could and dove back down, leg stinging, chest aching, head throbbing. All secondary to the fact that he had to help Jonas. Before Sidney had made it deep enough that he could even open his eyes, a warm, firm body collided with him.

For the first time since he’d entered Bittergate Bay, Sidney’s chest breached the surface of the water. Beneath him, muscular, tattooed forearms wrapped around his hips, and a head of dark, red-tinted hair collided with the bottom of Sidney’s chin.

“Fuck,” Jonas panted. His amber eyes were wide, and water streamed off his cheeks and nose and into his beard as they bobbed in the water. “Lost my harpoon.”

Jonas tightened his grip on Sidney as he paddled them the fifteen yards back to the boat. He’d certainly spilled enough merfolk blood to keep the creature’s fellows at bay, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious, injured as they both were.

When they reached the boat, Jonas hoisted Sidney partially onto his shoulder, placing him on the edge of the narrow swim platform. The strain of heaving himself out of the water brought Jonas’s attention to three angry claw marks slashed across his right shoulder.

“You’re b-b-bleeding,” Sidney managed through chattering teeth. Sidney’s left knee was folded up to his chest, where the gashes on his leg were draining watery blood down his calf and over his foot. They were far more concerning than Jonas’ injury.

“I’ll be alright.” Jonas got to his feet on the platform. “Come on, we need to get you inside.” He reached over to pull Sidney up, but Sidney was already halfway to standing on his own. He placed a slippery, shaking hand on the back panel of the boat and supported his weight on his good leg, as Jonas watched in amazement.

“D-d-d-do you think it worked?” Sidney grabbed Jonas’s outstretched arm to balance himself as he began to shift his bad leg over the back of the boat.

“I do.” Jonas said, still awestruck by how Sidney wrangled himself onto the boat without so much as a whimper of discomfort. It was an injury that would have brought plenty of heartier men to their knees, and Sidney seemed determined to grit his teeth and bare it. His hands were shaking as he steadied himself, turning to reach back and offer Jonas his arm. Jonas didn’t need it, so he didn’t take it, waving Sidney away gently.

“How’s the leg?” Jonas asked.

“Stings.” Sidney’s chest heaved from the effort he’d expended. His lips were turning blue, his muscles twitching in the cold. For a moment, Jonas’s mind was strangely preoccupied with the shape and angles of Sidney’s body. Just for a moment.

“I’ve got bandages downstairs.” Jonas moved to Sidney’s injured side, and tucked himself under Sidney’s arm, trying to take the bulk of his weight, which, judging by the way his ribs were poking out, couldn’t have been more than sixty pounds. “Lean into me.”

“You’re hurt,” Sidney protested.

“Good lord, Quince. Don’t be an idiot.” Sidney rolled his eyes, and Jonas ignored him, half helping, half hauling Sidney to the narrow steps that led to the small cabin below deck.

It wasn’t much. A bathroom was tucked into the alcove behind the stairs, and in front of them stretched the full length of the cabin. Primarily, the space was a bed beneath a low ceiling. It was the perfect size for Jonas alone and would have been snug with two. In the narrow open space where they stood, a table was folded into the wall on their right. On the other side was small ice chest, a single stove burner, and a cabinet which held dried goods, instant coffee, tea, whiskey and the full extent of the boat’s kitchenware.

Jonas made sure Sidney had a hand on a wall before he stepped forward, tugging open the storage drawers beneath the bed to produce towels and more blankets. Even Jonas, whose skin was preternaturally warm, was beginning to feel the ache of cold setting in.

“Here,” he stood with three towels in his arms. “Extra blankets there,” he pointed to the pile of them he’d placed on the end of the bed. “Dry off and then wrap yourself up. I’ll be out in a minute with bandages.” He handed Sidney two towels, tucked the other under his arm for himself, and went into the bathroom to ungracefully shuck his wet clothes. He wrestled more vigorously with his pants than he had with the merfolk, the wet fabric tightly suctioned to his thighs.

Once Jonas stripped, he recovered his first aid kit from the cabinet under the sink. He wiped the excess blood off his shoulder before dousing the wound in antiseptic. Then he gathered up all the bandages he had and the rest of the antiseptic. With a deep, fortifying breath, Jonas cinched his towel around his waist and walked back into the cabin. He hadn’t done triage in a while. That was all.

Sidney sat on the foot of the bed, a towel low around his narrow hips, and the other folded neatly on the bedspread beside him, when it should have been around his head or shoulders. His hair was still far too damp and hung over his face as he leaned forward.

Sidney prodded gently with long fingers at the skin near his wound. Was there nothing about this man that could not be described as long and thin? The next thought Jonas had made his cheeks heat, and he studiously didn’t look at the place where the thin towel was draped over Sidney’s lap. Instead, he decided to be irritated, because Sidney apparently had something like negative survival instincts. He’d only taken one blanket from the stack Jonas had left and had draped it loosely around his shoulders.

“No.” Jonas shook his head. “Scoot back and get under the blankets.”

“I’ll s-s-stain everything.”

“I don’t care.” Jonas grabbed the towel from beside Sidney and held it out to him. “If you catch your death, I’ll never hear the end of it from Karolina. Dry your hair.”

“It is dry,” Sidney said. Jonas dropped the towel over Sidney’s head.

“No, it isn’t.” Sidney grumbled and yanked the towel down, scrubbing it over his hair, pouting like a child. Jonas ignored him, kneeling down to check Sidney’s leg.

Sidney didn’t whimper or hiss. Hell, he barely flinched. Jonas cleaned the gouges in his leg and the top of his foot as gently as he could, then lifted Sidney’s heel, bracing it against his own knee as he wound the linen bandages around Sidney’s leg and tied them off beneath the arch of his foot.

“You’re quite good at that,” Sidney said.

“Field medicine,” Jonas responded, unhappy with how loose the bandage was at Sidney’s ankle. He untied the bottom knot and began to adjust.

“You were a solider?”

“For a little while,” Jonas admitted, getting the bandage to a better spot. “It didn’t suit.”

“Your resume truly is long and varied,” Sidney said, and Jonas couldn’t tell whether he was being cheeky or if his tone was actual amazement. Which would have been wildly unnecessary.

“Flatterer,” Jonas accused. Sidney flushed, and Jonas felt unduly pleased by that. Which was strange. Gods. What had gotten into him? Jonas stood and cleared his throat. “Now, scoot back and lie down, so I can get you under some blankets.” Sidney gave him a skeptical glance, and Jonas could see the flush on his cheeks deepen. Likely from the cold. “Please don’t make me tackle you, Quince. It’ll be undignified for both of us.”

Sidney snorted but scooted backward. When he was far enough on the mattress that the entirety of his bandaged leg was supported, he collapsed onto his side, pulling his arms into his chest, wrapping his sad shoulder blanket tightly around his chest. Jonas ignored how low the towel around Sidney’s waist had slid.

“How l-long until we get back?” Sidney’s teeth were still clicking together.

“Not long,” Jonas said. “But I wouldn’t worry about that now.” Jonas grabbed the softest blanket from his stack, a cashmere throw; a gift from someone who far overestimated Jonas’s appreciation for luxury. It covered Sidney from his shoulder to his feet but little else. Next was an old woolen camp blanket that weighed a metric ton. Jonas spread it out with a shake, before tossing it over Sidney’s body and the majority of the bed, where it still had extra fabric to spare. Finally came the comforter that had been meant for the cabin bed, piled on top for good measure.

“Are you trying to c-crush me?” Sidney chattered.

“No. I’m trying to keep you from getting hypothermia.” He glanced down at himself and his injured shoulder where he was feeling the cold more readily. His own clothes he’d tossed over the heater in the bathroom to dry. It wouldn’t do to go up to the wheelhouse undressed, not in the wind, with his beard and hair still damp. The pile of blankets that made up Sidney Quince was shaking slightly. Jonas sighed.

“Budge.” Jonas knocked Sidney’s feet with his knee. Sidney lifted himself up onto one elbow, looking down at Jonas with an arched eyebrow.

“What?”

“You’re still shivering. You need more heat, and I’m the closest thing to a radiator on hand.” Sidney blinked at him for a moment, and then lay back down, scooting back without a word.

It was a practical solution, nothing more. It did seem far too suggestive, or perhaps just rude, to lay with his back to Sidney, so Jonas laid on his hip, leaving them face to face. Sidney’s lips were slightly less blue. Jonas kept the cashmere blanket between them, both for modesty’s sake, and that to have wormed between it would have put them chest to chest. As it was, there was barely six inches between them, and less between their feet.

“Alright?” Jonas asked. Sidney nodded. Jonas tugged the upper two blankets up to his chin and breathed in a sigh of relief. Laying down felt very nice indeed. Not so awkward now that they were both settled.

“What’s the likelihood that that merfolk will crawl on board and k-k-kill us?”

“Low. I left it alive, primarily as a warning. They’ll take the hint. They’re not dumb creatures.”

“And the mark is gone? You’re sure.”

“Fairly,” Jonas said. “You don’t really smell like it anymore.”

“Smell like it?” Sidney’s eyebrows approached his hairline. Jonas hadn’t realized how odd that would sound.

“You smelled like, well, Menelaus, I suppose. The sea. Warm, salty. You don’t smell like it now.”

“What do I— Sorry, are you sure I don’t smell like it now?” Sidney asked, tilting his chin down and inhaling deeply. Jonas chuckled.

“No, now you smell like bracken and…” Jonas leaned forward, his face arguably too close to Sidney’s neck. Creatures had a good sense of smell, fae and demons alike, but the human Jonas was pretending to be would have to get closer. Though he shouldn’t have. Adrenaline was clouding his judgement.

Still, there was a soft warm smell to Sidney. A dry place, likely a library, and a sharpness of pine, almost like cologne. “You smell like books and trees.” Jonas said, trying to ignore the intimacy of the declaration. Sidney only cocked his head, his wet hair leaving a dark stain on the blanket below him.

“That’s what I smell like?”

“Everyone has a smell,” Jonas shrugged. Sidney leaned forward and inhaled.

“You smell warm,” he said.

“Almost always,” Jonas agreed. “Here, give me your hands.” Sidney slid his hands out from beneath the cashmere, meeting Jonas’s palms in the space between their chests. His fingers were practically ice shards. Jonas huffed as drew Sidney’s hands toward his chest. The bulk of his body was the hottest. That was all.

“My god, you’re like a furnace,” Sidney breathed. “You must hate the summer.”

“There’s a reason I live so far north.” Sidney stretched out his hands, his fingertips grazing the skin just below Jonas’s sternum, pressing just enough that Jonas could feel the gentle scratch of his fingernails. It was a nice sensation, and Jonas didn’t say anything as fingernails became the soft push of the pads of Sidney’s fingers. Something in the back of Jonas’s mind was beginning to panic, but it didn’t mean anything. He was warm. Sidney was cold. Nothing more.

“You have a lot of tattoos,” Sidney said. Jonas looked down to see where Sidney’s fingers pushed gently against the lines of black ink. Jonas’s chest was mostly taken up by a star chart that ran over the ribs on his right side. “I thought I knew all the constellations, but I don’t recognize this one.”

“Different skies have different constellations,” Jonas said. He traced the line Sidney was examining, making the shape of stars he knew from years of looking up at them every night. “That’s Peregrine, the traveler.”

“From the magenta cosmos?” Sidney asked. Jonas nodded. Sidney watched him, his dark eyes bright and studious, and, for a moment, Jonas wondered if Sidney was about to expose him. To say, ‘you’re from there too.’ And then what? Immediately the question humans always asked: ‘what can you do for me?’ But Sidney didn’t. He dropped his gaze, eyes shadowed by long, dark lashes.

“This one I recognize,” Sidney’s hand trailed slightly lower, over the curve of Jonas’s stomach. “Lupus, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

“An asterism, people used to say. Part of Centaurus. The mad dog about to be killed.”

“I never liked that,” Jonas said. “Who’s to say the creature doesn’t best the centaur?”

“That probably doesn’t make for a compelling story,” Sidney smiled. He had a lovely smile.

“I think that fully depends on who’s telling the story.”

“Or who’s listening,” Sidney conceded. Jonas nodded.

“True enough.”

“Are all your tattoos stars, then?”

“No,” Jonas replied, his hand immediately pressing against the mandala between his collarbones, at the base of his throat. Sidney looked at it, his fingers hovering a centimeter off Jonas’s skin, as though he couldn’t really see without touching. But he didn’t touch. Jonas swallowed and closed his eyes, so he couldn’t watch Sidney study him. The anticipation of sensation was doing strange things to the pit of his stomach.

Jonas took a deep breath and relaxed into the comfortable warmth of the blankets. It was both strange and not strange to have someone so close. Or perhaps it might have been stranger if it was someone else. Sidney Quince felt oddly safe. It was a fallacy to feel that way about any human, of course. Especially one so willing to be in over their head.

“Turn,” Sidney’s voice was quiet, his fingertips gentle as he pushed Jonas’s jaw up, away from Sidney’s face. Jonas moved without thinking of anything aside from how cool the tips of Sidney’s fingers still were. How nice the gentle pressure felt against his skin.

Sidney’s hand drifted slowly over Jonas’s neck. Jonas almost sighed, just catching the sound and turning it to a hitch in his breath, nothing more. When he opened his eyes, Sidney wasn’t looking at his tattoos anymore. His eyelids were low, his mouth barely open, and a deep brush of color had returned to his cheeks.

Jonas would have had to be made of stone to be unaffected, but it was the twist of anticipation at the base of his spine that told him this little exercise in indulgence had moved into dangerous territory.

“You saved my life.” Sidney’s voice was quiet, the tremor gone from it. Jonas’s work beneath the blankets was likely done. If he was the sort who learned from his mistakes, he would have gotten out of bed.

“Well, better that than having Karolina dog me about it the rest of my life,” Jonas said, more gruffly than he’d intended. Sidney drew his hand away.

“I appreciate the effort all the same.”

“Just do me a favor and don’t kiss any more strange creatures.”

“She looked human,” Sidney protested, smiling. Jonas couldn’t look away from his lips.

“They often do.”

When Sidney kissed him, Jonas had to choke down a moan. The sudden press of Sidney’s cool mouth shocked Jonas’s body as much as jumping in the Bittergate had an hour before. Jonas jolted, and Sidney jerked away.

“I am so sorry,” Sidney whispered, his eyes wide, mouth open, lips flushed. Jonas could feel nothing except all the places where their bodies nearly touched. There was no graceful way to extricate himself, nothing that didn’t reveal the absurd strength of his arousal.

So, he gave in.

Jonas threaded one hand through the back of Sidney’s damp hair and pulled him close, pressing their lips together. Sidney opened his mouth for Jonas, and that was. That was something. Jonas leaned in, deepening the kiss into a slow, languid thing. He tasted salt on the seam of Sidney’s lips and felt more than heard the whimper that came soft and sweet from Sidney’s throat. He could have chased that sound all day, drawing it out of Sidney in a hundred different ways. But that wasn’t going to happen. At all. Jonas pulled back; his breathing labored in a way that he could not account for.

“Stay there where it’s warm,” he said. And then he got up, holding the towel around his waist, as he pulled back the blankets and slid toward the end of the bed.

Why had he said that? Was he going to get back into bed? He’d told himself no more humans, and he’d meant it. At least, he thought he had. He could hear Sidney shift on the bed behind him, and steeled himself, refusing to look back. “I’ll toss your clothes down.”