Eros led the way. He was accompanied by Neri, their children, a handful of advisors, and the same twelve royal guards that shadowed him everywhere. They halted at a large cove flanked by near-vertical limestone cliffs. A pale stretch of sand unfurled beneath their feet, strewn with boulders and blue grass.
While guards led the small crowd along a narrow path to the cliffs above, Haven craned her neck to peer at the clear night sky. Delphine and Surai were somewhere above, scouting the lands in case Eros wasn’t as wise as she originally thought and this was some elaborate trap.
Once she spotted the two shadows engraved against the stars—one small and one large—she relaxed, sweeping her attention back to the cove, where the moon shone against the still-as-glass surface.
“Maybe it’s a swimming contest,” she muttered, forcing a smile to hide her nerves.
“Or some crude ceremony that involves swimming together naked,” Xandrian quipped, not looking the least bit disturbed by the idea. He caught Stolas’s raised brow and added, “Mortal kings are known to be depraved, and more than a few would love to claim a night with immortals such as ourselves.”
Stolas clucked his tongue as his focus slid to the people watching above. “And the spectators?”
Xandrian lifted a shoulder. “Wouldn’t be the first time a king wanted an audience.”
Bell met her amused gaze. “Any sign of selkies?”
Goddess could only hope not. This far south, selkies and other water creatures typically stayed away from inland waters close to mortal cities. Nothing got men more roused to hunt than the whisper of a selkie infesting nearby waters.
And Haven still hadn’t gotten over nearly drowning the last time she swam in selkie-infested waters, before Archeron—
She flung the thought away like it was fire, but not before it seared through the layers of defenses she’d constructed and allowed unwanted memories to surface. Archeron’s arms steady and protective around her waist as he saved her from drowning, the fight they’d had afterward. She had wanted runemarks and he refused to entertain the idea because of the consequences. She thought he was being overly cautious and stubborn.
If only she had known—
Eros was approaching. Sending the unwelcome memories skittering back to the hole where she buried all things Archeron, Haven refocused on the king, squaring her shoulders as she did. “If I had known we were going to swim I would have brought my bathing suit.”
His flash of teeth couldn’t quite be considered a smile. “As you know, after the Curse fell, the city of Luthaire held out for hundreds of years before the chaos bled into the palace. The royals fled, taking with them their most precious belongings, mainly priceless magickal artifacts gifted from the Asgardians.”
“Their sudden exodus is documented in the histories,” Haven answered, wondering where he was going with the story.
“On the road they were set upon by thieves and criminals. Fearing the heirlooms passed down for millennia would be lost, they hid the most powerful of their belongings in caves and estuaries, with carefully spelled maps that detailed their locations.”
Haven smoothed back a loose strand of her hair being blown around her face by the soft breeze. “You want me to retrieve one of those artifacts?”
Such an endeavor hardly seemed like a challenge, or worth their time.
He jerked his chin to the tallest cliff, and she followed his gaze to a shadowy area set halfway down the vertical face. “The final missing treasure is hidden deep inside that cave. Bring it to me and you shall have your alliance.”
Haven swallowed as something nagged at her. Something important. “What will I be retrieving?”
“Look for an iron box covered in ancient runes.” Her mouth parted to respond and he added, “The what is unimportant.”
Something still tugged at her. A feeling of not quite rightness. Tucking the end of her tunic into her waistband, she studied the cove, senses flicking out, trying to discern what it was that bothered her—
“It’s too quiet,” she murmured. “There are no birds or fish, nothing in the water or the nearby trees.”
She shifted her gaze back to the shore to find Stolas’s eyes watching her, the fiery gold ring glowing in warning.
He felt it too.
“Oh. Did I fail to mention the sea orc that lives in the cave above? My apologies, I blame the copious amounts of whiskey and rye I consumed earlier.”
If his cutting sarcasm in his words wasn’t clear enough, the acidic tone left no doubt Eros knew he’d been used for information—and he wasn’t