Just when I think my world feels stable, something rips that feeling away from me. Everything has changed, and it all started with Mara attacking. I didn’t expect the avalanche that would come after it and I feel like I’m drowning, and something tells me it isn’t over.
I almost know everything I need to make my own choices, to see things in my own way, not just how others tell me. Dane took that ability away from me, just as my father has always done, but now I’m taking it back.
After all the chaos, the change, the feelings and emotions, there’s one thing I know for certain.
I’m a Castaway now, and I need the truth from my captain.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Abang echoes through the hallway as Sig’s door slams into the wall when I storm from the room. I fly up the steps to the main deck and spot Weston standing with his back to me, looking out over the side of the ship. He’s not alone. Some of the crew have already started their daily tasks in the early hour of the morning.
Anger rises in me as my eyes fall on his back. Dane lied to me this entire time, but despite all the truth Weston has admitted, he’s also lied about something that is too important for me to let go.
And after last night, after this morning?
After he keeps pushing me away, then drawing me closer?
Now, to find out that all of it has been laced with lies about what he knows?
I can’t hold it in any longer.
Eirlik stands near the mainmast, and I stomp over to him, pulling his sword from his scabbard and marching straight at Weston.
“Oi!” Eirlik yells from behind me. “Captain! Incoming!”
He turns right as I level my sword at the center of his chest.
“You better start fucking explaining, Captain.”
He is completely unfazed. The only acknowledgement is his eyes traveling up the blade of the sword, then landing on my scowl.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, princess.”
I swipe at him and he reacts, leaning back just out of reach before straightening again.
“Cap!” someone yells, and Weston reaches up, snatching a sword out of the air and holding it at the ready.
“I think you know exactly what I’m talking about,” I say through clenched teeth.
“If you’re going to point a sword at me this early in the morning, the least you can do is enlighten me, so I know what we’re fighting about now.”
He holds my gaze, and we stare each other down, waiting for the other to strike first. I could pick any number of things that have happened since yesterday, but there’s only one thing that matters. He’s told me to trust him, time and time again, and I do.
Did.
He needs to answer for the lies, for tricking me into believing that he was always telling the truth.
“You’ve been lying to me,” I say, my voice hard and cold.
“I haven’t lied to you.”
“Lied to me, hid things from me. It’s all the same!”
He shakes his head as we slowly circle each other. “It is not anywhere close to the same.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Where did you get that ring?”
A flash of surprise crosses his face and is gone the next instant, but I see his fingers flutter on the hilt of the sword out of the corner of my eye. He didn’t know I discovered it. I use his surprise to my advantage and strike, our blades clanging as he matches every blow.
