The king straightened, crossing his arms over his jacked-up chest. “Would you swear it? In a binding?”

Rage went very still before nodding once. “You have my word. Let me and my mate go and I will bring you the king’s head.”

‘Rage, what’s a binding?’

“Fetch the mage,” the king told Melody, who scurried off at his word.

‘Rage,’ I pressed my mate.

He sighed. ‘It’s a magical agreement I can’t back out of. Similar to the one you took with Surlama to give her monthly blood donations.’

Oh…

Oh! I remembered Surlama laughing and saying something about a curse falling upon me and my children—or was it that I wouldn’t have children? Either way, she’d promised bad things would happen if I didn’t fulfill my promise. Which reminded me … when was the next full moon? Definitely had to kill Surlama before then.

Kill Surlama.

Bring back Honor.

Get the alpha king’s head.

No big deal. Normal to-do-list, right?

‘So if you don’t kill your uncle, you’ll…’ I purposefully left my statement open, waiting for Rage to clue me in on the consequence of his oath.

‘If I don’t fulfill the terms of our agreement in time, I’ll die.’

I shook my head. ‘Do not make me come to the Realm of the Dead for you, Rage.’

“Steele, once we’ve finished with the mage, tell the girls in the kitchen we’ll have guests for breakfast,” King Ozark said.

Breakfast? Oh, right. Being nocturnal, selkies were probably just having their first meal. I snickered nervously and then said to the king, “I hope you don’t mean have the guests for breakfast.”

Rage closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘You have no filter, love.’

Grimacing, I forced my gaze back up to the selkie king. “It’s a nervous habit. I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, I called Rage an asshole in front of all the other alpha heirs on my first day.”

King Ozark raised his eyebrows, seemingly amused. “Indeed?”

I nodded.

‘The last time he asked that question of someone, they got their head cut off.’

“I’m going to shut up now,” I said with a wave. And yet, I couldn’t seem to stop: “I like my head where it is—attached to my neck and all that.”

Rage groaned, but King Ozark’s eyes were dancing with delight.

Yeah, I wasn’t going to win a diplomacy award anytime soon, but at least I seemed to amuse him.

“Is she always like this?” King Ozark asked Rage.

Rage took a deep breath and then shook his head. “Not typically.”

Aww—

‘Usually, you’re worse,’ he said with a wink.

Whaa—? ‘That was just rude,’ I said, digging my elbow into his side. ‘You’re not exactly Mr. Congeniality yourself.’

Rage cleared his throat, and I looked up to find King Ozark staring at us. This time, I bit my tongue.

“If we’re both going to be ruling our people on the same island eventually, it would be good to get off on the right foot,” the selkie king said.

‘Or flipper…’ I chirped to Rage, this time being careful to keep my thoughts inside my head.

“I want to be reasonable … give you every chance for success. I myself was only a year older than you when I became king.”

‘How does he know how old you are?’

‘Please, Nai, I’m trying to get a read on him.’

Ugh.

“What kind of timeline are you proposing?” he said to the king.

“A year. I’ll give you a year to dethrone Declan and bring me his head.” He held out his hands. “I think building trust between our two races would benefit us both.”

“Trust would be a good thing to start with,” Rage replied.

‘Maybe don’t use quite so much sarcasm,’ I told Rage.

‘Do you think he noticed?’

‘Let’s hope not. I wasn’t kidding about liking my head where it is.’

Not even a breath later, the slapping of rubber against rock drew my attention toward the entrance. Was that flip-flops?

I turned and, sure enough, a male mage wearing Bermuda shorts, flip-flops, and a Hawaiian shirt with none of its buttons fastened, waltzed into the room. His body was thin but lithe, and all eight of his abdominal muscles popped like little squares between the two sides of his shirt. I knew better than to judge a mage by his appearance, but this dude looked young. He pushed his bleach-blond hair out of his eyes and grinned at the selkie king, showcasing his mage mark, a thin triangle with a single dot inside.

“Hey, Ozzie, whassup?” he drawled. “Mel said you needed a binding or somethin’?”

Did he…? I frowned, certain I’d heard that wrong.

“It’s King Ozark,” the king growled. “Not Ozzie.”

The mage shook his head. “Uhh … trust me, Ozzie is cooler—” He held up his hands when the king snarled. “But suit yourself. What can I do for ya?”

‘He’s got a teenage mage who might be high or drunk.’ Could mages get high? My attention went from the sixteen- or seventeen-year-old young man to Rage. ‘And you’re going to let that kid do a binding on you?’

‘Do you have a better suggestion?’ Rage responded.

King Ozark finished telling the mage what he wanted, and the young man grimaced.

“What?” Ozark snapped. “Can’t you do a simple binding?”

“Simple?” the young mage asked. “Sure. But what you’re proposing ain’t no simple binding. There are terms and limitations, like timing and what if—”

“You’re supposed to be a prodigy. Why do I keep you around? Can you do it or not?” Ozark bellowed.

The young man’s gaze darted back and forth between the king and Rage while tapping his chin as if weighing whether or not the binding was possible. “What’s your affinity, Alpha Heir?”

‘Damn. Not info I wanted the selkie king knowing.’

Rage took a deep breath and said, “Fire.”

The mage dude’s attention jumped to me, and his eyes widened slightly. I glanced down only to see the mark on my chest was peeking out over the stretched-out neckline of my damp shirt.

“Yeah,” the young man said. “I can do it.”

‘I don’t trust him,’ I said to Rage. ‘Something is off. He only said yes after he saw the tip of my high mage fire mark.’

‘Are you sure that was it, or was he checking out your breasts?’ Rage asked, his voice laced with possessiveness.

I didn’t know. Not . ‘Killing him might upset this tenuous trust thing you’ve got going on with the king. Maybe hold that thought for a bit.”

The mage listed off items, everything from a wooden bowl to an iron needle, a glass of fresh water, and strips of muslin. Steele wrote the list onto a small notepad he had produced from his pocket, and seconds later, I heard shouts from outside the great hall echoing the list.

Way to put the hive mind to use.

The longer the mage spent listing off items, the more it felt wrong.

There was too much; it felt showy. Surlama hadn’t required a million things to work her magical binding. In fact, I didn’t recall anything more than the tools she used to get my blood. Then again, her minion had appeared with the elixir, so who knew what kind of ritual she went through even though the ingredients were two: blood and mage wine. The Keeper of Souls didn’t use any fancy props either for our agreement.