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Heat crept into my cheeks, and I tried to chew down the guilt with another mouthful of jerky. I had no right to feel relieved that the male I loved no longer wanted to murder the male I was desperately trying not to care about. One I shouldn’t care about.

Rythos opened the door and stepped aside, letting me pass into the narrow hallway leading towards the main deck.

I managed two steps into the cool night air before my feet left the ground.

Strong arms wrapped around my waist and squeezed until a startled laugh burst from me, the world spinning as Solas swung me in a circle.

“You scared us, sweetheart,” he said, finally setting me back on my feet.

He smiled down at me with the warmth of someone who truly cared.

Something inside my chest expanded, filling one of the countless cracks that had formed there.

He looked different. The stubble I'd remembered had grown into almost a full beard, and his auburn hair was tied back with a strip of leather, loose strands whipping across his hazel eyes in the ocean breeze.

“I missed you,” I said honestly, my voice coming out like a fragile piece of my heart that I knew he would fix.

His smile somehow grew wider. “Of course you did.” His large hand ruffled my hair. “But family always finds their way back to each other.”

Family.

He barely had time to step away, dragging his hand from my hair with a teasing glance at Rythos, who I could only assume was glaring behind me, before Aldric moved in front of me.

Tears glistened in my brother's eyes as he paused in front of me, muscles locking as if waging a war within himself.

Aldric had never been one for affection. Father had made certain of that. Tenderness had been treated like another weakness to beat from his son, and somewhere along the way, my brother had learned to keep every soft thing locked behind his ribs.

But Aldric had always been the one who followed the rules, and I had always been the one who broke them for him.

I closed the distance and wrapped my arms around him.

He went rigid for half a heartbeat before his arms crushed me so tightly that the breath whooshed out of me.

“I'm so glad you're okay,” he whispered, his voice cracking beneath the weight of everything he was trying not to show.

“You shouldn’t be on this ship.” I narrowed my eyes at Solas over Aldric’s shoulder. “Either of you. One drop from the Dead Sea and you would be dead.”

Solas rolled his eyes and crossed his arms against his broad chest. “Life is not worth living if we do not take risks for the ones we love.”

“He is right,” Aldric rumbled against me. “Something I learnt far too late.”

I pulled back from Aldric and found myself staring into familiar brown eyes. Father’s eyes, but without that hard edge of cruelty that had always sharpened them into something cold.

On Aldric, they were warm.

I lifted my hand to his cheek, my thumb brushing over the smooth skin beneath his eye.

“Thank you.” My gaze shifted to Solas. “Both of you. For coming after me.”

Emotion tightened my throat, but I swallowed it down.

“But if either of you put your own lives at risk for mine again, I will rip your throat out myself.”

“There she is.” Solas barked a laugh. I shook my head and gestured for them to follow as I walked towards the centre of the ship and settled onto one of the overturned barrels clustered beneath the towering main mast. Ropes and rigging stretched above us, disappearing into the sails billowing softly beneath the night sky. “I want to know everything,” I said, my gaze drifting upwards.

Ropes and netting disappeared into the darkness above the sails, leading to a small circular balcony tucked high against the mast. It was too dark to see if anyone stood there.

Yet I could feel the faint pull beneath my ribs.