Page 129 of Tempest

“Some,” she offered.

Enough.

Across the tavern, someone laughed uproariously as a glass shattered. Neither Fell nor Cat reacted, holding each other’s gaze as they would a rope thrown between them. Both pulled hard, refusing to relinquish their grasp. But Cat felt his resolve weaken, the slight tremor under her hand indication enough.

Jasper Fell was afraid.

And furious.

“Cat,” he hissed, making to move.

But she clucked her tongue, and her eyes sharpened, a flash of warning. With her free hand, her fingers trailed the length of his arm, circling at the hem of his sleeve. Fell snarled under his breath, but she did not relent, pulling the fabric up an inch, exposing a stretch of skin.

And the black edge of a navy tattoo, the paws of the Meridian lion threatening to claw free.

“I’m going to get up from this table, and I’m going to walk out the door. You are not going to follow me. You’re going to stay here for an hour or so. And then you’re going to go back to the Fledge, raise anchor, and sail away from this place,” she said, her voice barely a whisper, but unyielding as good steel. “Without me.”

It was not the strength of her hand that kept him in place, but Fell’s good sense of self-preservation. He glared at her, wild-eyed, all the rage he could not use on full display in his expression.

“Then you’re as good as dead,” he bit out. “The governor will have you hanged.”

“He’ll have to catch me first,” Cat replied smoothly. Then she sneered. “Besides, you know I like to gamble.”

“And if I call your bluff?”

“Only one of us is bluffing, Jasper. And it isn’t me,” she replied, finally releasing his arm.

Slowly, Cat leaned back in her chair, peeking out beyond the brim of her hat. The sailors in the room were armed men of the pirate republic, shattered but not destroyed. And more than enough leverage to send Fell scurrying.

“One shout and I’ll have you in chains or worse. Were you even paying attention at the docks? Did you even see the people around you?” she spat, looking back to Fell. “They are all fleeing your Empire, running from the master you serve. You are in enemy territory, and you would do well to act like it.”

Fell’s cheeks flushed darker, betraying both his anger and his frustration. “You planned this the entire time, the whole chase—you always knew we would end up here,” he hissed. “So it was in Alvaris—just another step in your game. Did you even find anything there, or did you just lie down for some coin to help you escape?”

Alvaris was for Ana, she thought, ignoring the foul insinuation. It was only the desperate insult of an even more desperate man, cornered and facing defeat, if not death itself.

“Yes, I always knew,” Cat said instead, enjoying the furious look on his face.

Until his hand slipped off the table, darting quickly below—to the gun at his hip.

Whatever truce lay between them shattered like glass, and Cat leapt back from the table, her chair scraping across the floor. Still seated, Fell froze, his eyes darting between her and the rest of the room. Her body trembled but she would not show it, not with Fell still so close at hand. Even so, she tasted freedom, the relentless weight of the noose around her neck growing lighter.

“Make the smart choice,” she said forcefully, bending her knees to offer one last mocking curtsy.

Fell took the opportunity to stand, faster than she realized he could, barring the way out of the tavern. One hand was already on her wrist, his grip bruising, the silver ring on his finger digging into her skin. The other remained on his infernal pistol.

“Your crew need not die here, Jasper,” Cat hissed, speaking before he could try to drag her out. “I’m giving you a chance to walk away. A chance you never gave me.”

Fell did not move, the seconds stretching longer and longer. Cat’s pulse thrummed, a hammering flame against his palm. She knew he could feel it, reading her fear as he would the swell of the open sea.

Her breath caught, a scream rising up in her throat. As much as she did not want to send Jasper Fell to the grave, she would if she needed to.

“What was it you told me then, Jasper?” she murmured, searching his face. “Ah, yes. Their head or mine. It stayed with me, the best prayer I’ve ever had. I hear it all the time, in every waking second and in my dreams. My head or theirs. Their head or mine. You know what I will always choose, Captain. What about you?”

His gaze flared, black pupils blowing wide against circling silver.

Cat traced the familiar lines of his cheekbones and long nose to lips thin and pursed white. His brow, dark as a storm cloud over lightning eyes, drew tight.

“For Crown and Empire,” Fell finally hissed, his grip crushing, until Cat thought the bones in her wrist might shatter.