Page 24 of In Violent Waves

Never again would she float along the current or admire her powerful tail. Gritting her teeth, she breathed sharply through her nose, trying to focus on the physical pain and not the emotional one. Her legs and those lower muscles. What was the name?

It was the same name as a baby cow. That part she remembered just fine.

“Calves,” she mumbled to herself.

“Excuse me?”

“This muscle,” she squeezed it, “it’s called a calf.”

Wilder’s head tilted to the side, his brows pinching together.

“It is,” he replied slowly, as if she were on the verge of a mental breakdown.

And she was. She was in pain, excruciating pain, and she was lost, with no hope of return.

Lyra looked at her surroundings, taking a deep breath again to clear her head.

She felt a buzzing numbness as the yarrow flooded her senses. It pried her from pain’s grip slowly, releasing each tightened finger with an arduous pull.

“Did you know you could brew the leaves of this plant for tea? Or pulverize it into a poultice to stop bleeding?”

Wilder squeezed the bridge of his nose with two fingers.

“I did not—and I don’t care to.”

Lyra hummed her disagreement but lay back to look up at the stars twinkling between the boughs of the cedar tree.

Wilder had saved her, hadn’t left her in the hands of those humans. He had also gotten her the yarrow to ease her suffering. Which was wholly at odds with what she knew about his kind. And if it was important to his king that she make it alive and uninjured, it meant that he wouldn’t torture or kill her immediately.

She held onto that thought and pushed everything else away.

Wilder studied her more closely now that she couldn’t see him.

Lyra was strange—not in a bad way, but in an unpredictable way. She stared up at the stars with quiet fascination. But she seemed to be amazed by everything, really.

The Wilds might send her into shock. It was everything this mortal land was, but better. The air was clearer, the stars brighter, and there was a richer vibrancy to the colors of the plants.

Lyra held her hand up in front of her, tracing the outline of her fingers. She smiled, and it was a bright, lovely thing. Wholly at odds with her sneer or smirk, it was genuine.

“What are you doing?”

“Tracing constellations,” she breathed and tilted her head to the side to stare at him.

When he didn’t reply, she went back to stargazing but shared her thoughts.

“This is Orwandil.” She outlined the constellation also known as the Great Hunter. “He fell in love with a goddess. The gods became jealous and killed him with a giant scorpion. And in her grief, she immortalized him in the stars.”

“We have an entire day of walking ahead of us. Sleep. I will not be carrying you,” he ordered.

She glared at the stars, and he could see the muscles of her jaw quivering.

“Let’s get something straight right now,” she snarled. “While I amtechnicallyyour captive, you will not command me to do anything. I will follow you to the Wilds because it is far too late for me to return to the sea, so I am trapped here.” Her voice shook as if those words had caused her pain. “But do not think for one second,Princeling, that I will follow your orders if I don’t want to.”

Wilder stared at her with a mix of frustration and humor. She was infuriating, insufferable, really, and he had never wanted to put someone in their place so badly. He ground his teeth and opened his mouth, preparing to lay into her. And yet, she rolled onto her side and flipped her hair over her shoulder.

“Save it. I won’t be listening to anything you have to say.”

His jaw snapped shut so quickly that the sound echoed through the woods.