Free The Sea Queen (The Dark Queens Book 1) by Jovee Winters Page B

incarceration.

Chapter 7
    Calypso
    “Shilling for your thoughts,” Nimue said softly.
    “Hm?” I glanced up at her with a frown.
    She was dressed in a soft gown of spun glowworm silk dyed a rich, brocaded blue. Her dark hair was pinned high on her head, with a simple curl laid across her shoulder. And she held a spoonful of soup inches from her mouth, staring at me as though I’d suddenly sprouted a third eye.
    “What?” I made a show of rubbing my palms across my fin.
    As she set the spoon down in her half-empty bowl of clam chowder, a pretty frown marred her forehead.
    “You’ll give yourself wrinkles, mistress,” I chastised her, rubbing a thumb across it and smoothing out her skin, which was much too motherly an action for a servant to take.
    Good gods, I felt so out of it today.
    “I’m sorry,” I folded my hands in my lap. “I’m not quite sure what’s come over me today.”
    “Sex, I’d imagine.”
    Jutting my jaw, I nodded. “Yes, I did have it last night. But why would sex make me feel so discombobulated?”
    A servant—a maiden I recognized as Stygia—idled by, peeked in at the two of us, and swiftly turned on her fin, swimming in the other direction.
    My murderous glare probably had something to do with her reaction; then again, I’d not quite forgiven Stygia for nearly destroying my children’s happiness, not the way Nim and Sircco had.
    Those two had such soft, mushy hearts.
    “I suppose it is time to talk of the birds and the bees.”
    “Why? I wish to speak of sex, Consort.”
    Her sparkling laughter lifted my mood just slightly.
    “It is called a euphemism, Janita. A polite way of referencing romance, sex, and what not.”
    “It is stupid.”
    She shrugged. “Fine, let’s talk about sex in all its glorious detail. Was it debauched, naughty, did you flog that dolphin?”
    What in the world was she talking about? I patted her hand, fearing my daughter-in-law was quite out of her mind. “There weren’t no dolphins in the room, mistress.”
    Flinching, looking as though she’d just bitten into a sour lemon, she waved a hand. “Never mind. What I want to know is, how did it go?”
    Surely they’d felt the raw currents of power Hades and I had created. Then again, I wasn’t supposed to be Calypso right now.
    “Fine. We had sex and I loved it. His cock felt lovely. Yes. Lovely.” I shook my head, but still a frown tugged at my lips.
    As if sensing I was still mulling over my thoughts, Nim said nothing. She resumed eating the chowder I’d made her.
    “I do not think our arrangement is going to work out,” I said it, looking up at her with a little bit of shock at my own words, but realizing they were also true.
    My heart was heavy, because it wouldn’t work. It couldn’t possibly.
    “The sex, you don’t wish to have sex with him again? But I thought you said you liked it?”
    “Oh, I loved it. I want more, in fact.” I blinked, adjusting my fishy bum on the seat. “The problem is he touches me too much.”
    “Mm. Janita, there is a fair bit of touching involved in the act.”
    “No,” I flicked a wrist, “I can handle that kind of touching. I mean, he kissed my cheek this afternoon and last night, after I’d floated his bottom—”
    “Mmhmm.” She bit her lip.
    “He called me by a name. And it’d sounded an awful lot like a pet name.”
    It’d felt too familiar, too...nice.
    It wasn’t that I didn’t want what I’d witnessed between Nim and Sircco, but the intimacy of more was rather terrifying now that Hades had opened the door that way.
    I was a woman used to having my way, doing as I willed, when I willed it. Men were bothersome bores good for only one thing.
    And yet when he’d looked into my eyes today my soul had quivered.
    “That all sounds wonderful to me,” Nim said.
    “Not to me,” I shook my head. “I do not want more than sex. I will give him two weeks of sex and then I am sending him away for good.”
    “Hm.” Her eyes clouded and she