still not hiding the overconfident quirk of his lips.
Dagen’s focus stops at Tobias. “Who are you?”
“Tobias Nathaniel, the Prince of—”
“The Black Sea,” he finishes for him. “I’ve heard of you.”
Tobias stands taller. All of a sudden pleased that his dumb name has been passed around while quickly forgetting that he’s talking to my prisoner not a friend. “Yeah? I didn’t know my name went up that far north.”
“It does,” Dagen states. “But nothing that you should brag about. Might want to leave that off your introduction next time.”
“What? Now, why?”
“It doesn’t matter why,” I snap. “Who cares what men like him think about you?”
Tobias shifts his weight. “I care because I’m not a cut-throat asshole who goes and steals ships and—”
“Rapes women,” Dagen fills in. “Steals from other sailors who carry aid for villages and—”
“I don’t rape women.”
“That’s not what’s spoken about you when I’m—”
“What’s raping women?” I ask Tobias. He looks down at me with furrowed brows, looking upset and angry. My head snaps to Dagen, and I step forward, extending my arm for him to leave.
He upset my best friend, and I’ve had enough of him already.
Dagen gives me an amused look. “You can’t just tell me to go?”
My brows deepen further.
“Did I make your friend mad?”
Another step from me.
“What are you going to do, Blood?” he taunts. “Throw me across the room again?”
I reach around my waist and pull out his blade, which does nothing to his straight-laced face.
“Killing a man with his own knife,” he marvels. “Classic barbian right there.”
I close the distance between us, stopping when our chests brush. My eyes barely meet his shoulders when I peer up at him. His blue eyes entertained as our gazes lock.
“Question is,” Dagen continues. “Do you have the gall to do it?”
I believe gall means courage, and if that’s the case, I’m surprised the Viking doesn’t recognize that I do.
Then again, I read that Vikings were stubborn creatures who were tunnel-visioned and tenacious.
“Pretty little thing like you doesn’t like hurting—”
“Watch it,” Tobias seethes behind me. “I don’t know how y’all treat women at home but you won’t be talking to her like that.”
Dagen doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t even blink at the anger lacing through Tobias’s tone. What he does do is lean forward, coercing me to smell the leather that always trails off him.
“You don’t need a bodyguard,” he mutters, holding my agitated stare. “Especially a pirate who’ll rob you blind and—” The sound of boots echo behind me, and I know it’s Tobias stomping toward him.
“That’s enough,” I order Tobias. “Stay where you stand.”
“Two minutes and I’ve already had enough of this man,” he shouts. “You should’ve—”
“You don’t have to live on this island day in and out,” I counter. “And I need information out of this man. I need to know how he got by the veil. How do you get by the veil? He’s the second man from another civilization that has come here without my permission.”
“We’ve been through this,” Tobias replies. “All I know is that it’s just me.” I want to press him further, but we’ve been back and forth on this subject. He claims he doesn’t know, and I’ve accepted it, but with a watchful eye.
“You’re a man of power,” I tell my best friend as Dagen glances down at my lips. “Your body exceeds it. Something about you makes no sense, you don’t remember your father or mother but you weren’t affected by Kali’s singing that day when Rohana was taken. You must come from—something.”
He must be something unearthly because there is no way he should be here. But Tobias fails to believe it while I know he’s in denial. He doesn’t like to speak about his past, doesn’t remember much, he claims, and Isolde has a hard time reading him when she shouldn’t.
“A man that’s about to be attacked doesn’t just stand around for it to happen,” Dagen exceeds through our conversation. “I’ll finish my half of our conversation later.”
He leaves the room, his boots now making a reverberating sound off the pristine tiles so I know he was eavesdropping before.
“I don’t know how I’m able to cross through,” Tobias mutters. “I’m sorry, Davina, I know it leaves you unsettled.”
I turn to face him, his chin tucked into his chest that is decorated with a long gold chain that I gave him years ago. A ruby pendant hangs off of it, the color of my hair to remind him of me whenever he has to go back