Page 153 of Tempest

I may yet have cards left to play.

Chapter Twenty-Eight Before

SHE KNEW IT was a dream.

The sea was too flat, the waves beyond the gallery windows an impossible stretch of unbroken blue. As if no breath of wind stirred the water, and no current ran its course. The world held the ship in limbo, without so much as a sway or creak. And the Covenant itself was strange, the edges of her vision hazy, the light taking on a soft golden edge.

Cat did not dream often, or for very long. It was a mercy, she used to think, to escape into the blackness of sleep, with no nightmares to taunt her. The waking world was nightmare enough, between Ryman and the island and the relentless heat. She expected to wake up quickly, but the dream stretched, endless as the still sea. And warm, as if the sun played over her bare skin.

No, not the sun, she realized, looking down at her arm.

A long-fingered hand closed around her wrist, encircling the fragile bones. Not her hand, or the hand of a woman at all. And certainly not Ryman, who was pale white and forceful. This touch was tender, achingly so, despite the rough feel of the unfamiliar skin. Calluses, scars, burns from rope and gunpowder. It was the harsh hand of a harsh life.

And yet, gentle with her. Cat felt like a pearl in an open palm.

She dared not raise her gaze from the hand as it traveled, steadily running up her arm. Cat knew what she would find—storm-green eyes, a curtain of blond curls, the smell of salt and tobacco and sweet taquil. Part of her wanted to look, to glimpse Valerian Kane so close, his body warm and lean against her back. Even if it were only a dream, an impossible wish. But looking meant admitting what so much of her already knew and fought so hard to deny. That she felt for a man beyond her husband, and a pirate captain at that. An enemy of the Crown. A lawless outcast, loyal only to a ship and a crew. To the Lyrian Sea.

Her lips parted, tasting smoke. Still she dared not turn and risk an even worse outcome.

Waking up.

Instead, she watched as the fingers walked a path, brushing the inside of her elbow in a way that made her shiver. His skin was darker than hers, a golden tan against freckled white. The hand kept moving, palm now flush against her bicep.

Shivering, Cat realized she was naked in the dream, with only the blankets of the bunk beneath her as she lay on her side. They were cool under her legs, the length of her stretched out across the thin mattress.

Another shiver crept down her spine as the hand reached the top of her arm then traced the arc of her shoulder blade. This time she desperately fought the urge to look, to let amber eyes meet green, to taste something more than smoke. She could not bear it if he disappeared, if the light shifted, the golden gleam replaced by iron morning.

One by one, the fingers walked her spine. The warmth grew, both behind her and within her, twin forces calling out, feeding each other. Cat certainly felt summoned, her spine pressing up against the hot planes of his torso. His hand was gone, curling around her hip to let their bodies lay flush together, the soft down of his chest hair against her shoulder blades. She could not help but arch into it, trying to lay every inch of skin she could against Valerian Kane.

It was a delightful torture, suspended in the dream, terrified it might end. And terrified it might continue.

He did not speak, but his breath huffed against her ear. It hitched as his fingers curled, finding the dip at the swell of her hip, the arcing curve that formed a valley between leg and stomach, leading in a single direction.

His fingers followed it like pilgrims on a holy road.

Then Cat lost her breath too, her head tipping back. A stubbled cheek brushed her own, a line of teeth grazed her jaw. It was too much to bear, too much to resist. Far more than she had ever felt, and yet still less, unreal and fleeting. She turned into him, forgetting her fear, eyes open, yearning to see.

But there was no Valerian, no Captain Kane. There was only a flash of green, like the last gleam of a setting sun on the endless horizon. And then daylight, the real, brutal kind, as Cat jolted awake.

Her eyes stung, her mouth was dry, and her head spun with too many cups of taquil.

Shakily, Cat removed her hand from between her legs and forced herself out of the bunk. Her stomach churned, sick from the evening, sick from the dream.

“Torture,” she murmured, her skin still aflame.

* * *

THE COVENANT HAD already left Morovant’s Seadragon and Drowning Key behind, the little island barely a smudge on the horizon by the time Cat regained her wits.

Between the maps in her cabin and the simple calculations born of the sun’s position, she charted their heading as best she could as the days passed. The most important part was clear—the Covenant was not sailing north to Beacon Island and the city of Archenport. She had looped, moving southwest again, maneuvering amongst the smaller islands back towards Rosby.

Her time on the Covenant made it easy to forget what lay ahead. Yes, Kane and his crew had avoided a simple trap up north. But Cat had no such luck. No matter what, her road ended in a lonely cage.

She tried to make herself useful, offering to help Cook peel vegetables or stir his pot of gods knew what. Or swab the decks with Ratter, her hands red and raw after a few minutes. She even tried cleaning the pistols and muskets, though she could not put them back together without Brimley helping her refit the pieces. Somehow, she managed to turn every one-man job into a two-person undertaking. All together, she was hopeless at the easiest tasks aboard a sailing vessel; even the so-called womanly endeavors, like mending a sail, were far better performed by the able sailors.

No use, Cat thought, scrubbing her hands clean in a bucket of seawater. She had gained a few cuts across her otherwise unmarred skin and they stung, wounds hissing against the salt. But she leaned into the pain. It was grounding and real, slowing the seconds as they ticked away.

Then she returned to her work, mending a particularly ragged tear in the sheet from the mizzenmast. Her stitches were ugly and crooked but slowly doing the job. Until a shadow fell over her, obscuring her handiwork.