Page 152 of Tempest

She sorely hoped he felt it too, struggling to endure her, the same old wounds torn anew. But he gave no indication, keenly fixed on the oil lamps, bringing the warm glow of the deck into the chamber. The darkness lifted, revealing the same long table and the same mismatched chairs she had always known. The Covenant had not changed much over the last ten years, but for the usual repairs and replacements. Broken glass, fresh paint, decks smoothed by endless shifts with scrubbing stone. The bullet holes were long gone, repaired years before. The Covenant bore other scars now, and Cat Rose was the worst of them all.

Her heart thrummed against her rib cage. There had been blood on timbers here before. There might be more soon enough.

“If you’re going to kill me, can I make a suggestion?” she said to Valerian’s back, refusing to sit at the table. If she was going to die, she preferred to do it on her own two feet.

He swung around, eyebrows shooting into his hairline, his many adornments gleaming against the lamplight. He managed to look both surprised and affronted.

“Even cornered, Cat Rose still had demands to make,” he scoffed.

She took it in stride.

“I would prefer to be shot,” Cat said briskly. She raised her chin, swallowing against the rough sensation of an invisible noose. “I’ve seen enough men hang. It does not seem a pleasant experience.”

Finishing with the last lamp, Valerian went to the chairs. After nearly a decade as captain of the Covenant, he no longer had any qualms about taking the head of the table. He eased down with his usual grace, always balanced, a boot on the tabletop.

“I’ll take that into consideration,” he shot back, steepling his hands on his abdomen. His many jeweled rings winked.

“Oh?” Cat arched an eyebrow. “Do you have another idea?”

He grinned darkly, his eyes running rough over her body. And not in the way Cat used to enjoy. Still, she shivered despite her best efforts.

“Many.”

She bit her lip, glancing back at the council door, and the main deck beyond it, filled with familiar faces.

“You never told the crew,” she murmured.

Valerian hardened, the edge of his jaw set. His storm eyes went dark.

“I did not.”

Cat shrugged. “I suppose it is an embarrassing thing to admit.”

His teeth flashed, a row of white punctuated by gleaming gold. “I didn’t tell them for your sake,” he said evenly, though a red flush spread over his bronzed cheeks. “But since you don’t seem to mind, I can make an announcement right now.”

“Go ahead.” Cat took a forceful step forwards and braced her hands against the table. “Tell them I’m the reason they’re still alive and not hanged in the Archenport harbor. Tell them I’m the reason they lived to fight another day.” Wearily, she heaved a sigh. “Ill-advised as that may be.”

Valerian did not flinch beneath her onslaught. This was hardly the worst he had seen of her, and she of him. Compared to their spats of the past, this was a civilized discussion. But Cat knew she had lost any claim to civility from Valerian Kane. He was not the man she had known and loved, no longer a partner or a lifeline. He was an opponent. One of many.

“The new governor must be a fearsome man to send Cat Rose running.” He ran his tongue over his lip, as if tasting her fear.

It sent another shiver down her spine, the terrifying kind. Her fingers curled on the tabletop, knuckles white as she formed two shaking fists.

“He is, Val,” she said firmly, trying to make him see. To make him listen. “What he did to Harry—”

His own fist sounded like the blast of a cannon, the slap of flesh on wood making Cat jump in her skin.

Somehow, his eyes were worse. They ringed a vicious white, the irises burning in two green circles, crackling like the sky before the first bolt of lightning.

“That’s enough,” he hissed out.

I should know better than to bring up Harry, Cat thought, wincing at her misstep. Morovant was not just Valerian’s mentor, but the closest thing he ever had to a father.

And I watched his limbs be torn off.

Like Valerian had, Cat ran her tongue over her lips, wetting skin dry and cracked from the sun. She did not miss the way his murderous stare flickered, his eyes tracing the same path.

Something familiar tightened in her core, a rope pulling taut.