Page 164 of Tempest

And then killed so many men with the same smirk on his face, as if they were not men at all.

Chapter Twenty-Nine After

SLOWLY, CAT PULLED out a chair and sat down at the table, leaving Valerian alone at the head. Her black skirts pooled around her, the intricate Arcayan beadwork at the hem catching the light. She held his gaze all the while, careful to let her curls spill over one shoulder, leaving her exposed collarbone bare to the lamplight.

Just as Valerian liked.

“What are you going to do with me?” she murmured, sitting straight as a lady. Rigid and useless.

She hoped he would soften, if only a little. He used to hate when she retreated into her ladylike habits, born of another life and a harsher cage. But Valerian’s piercing stare remained unchanged.

He ran his fingers over the table, but Cat felt them as keenly as if dragged over her skin. He filled the close air of the council chamber, his usual heat making the room feel tight and cloying. It was a threat as much as a reminder. He was the apex predator here, and Cat was merely prey.

“When I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know.”

Frustration boiled, and Cat felt her skin might ignite. Her good manners dropped as quickly as they came, her finger pointing an accusation across the table.

“I told you this was coming. I told you to run while you—while we could,” she said, sputtering with rage. And exasperation. She tossed her head, chestnut hair spilling across her face. “I tried, Valerian. You wouldn’t listen. You forced my hand.”

“I’m no judge, but I fear the punishment does not fit the crime.”

“Hate me all you want,” she spat, feeling as murderous as he looked. “Just don’t forget I saved your life too.”

His chair careened backwards, slamming against the timbers as Valerian shot to his feet. He towered over the table, and while Cat told herself to hold her ground, she shook doing it.

“And what about the lives you doomed?” he roared, seizing either side of her chair to drag her forwards until he was all she could see, his arms a cage on either side of her shoulders. “With your whispers and your secrets?”

His scent enveloped her again, the smell of the sea so strong, she remembered the old legends of Valerian Kane. That his veins ran with salt water, and not blood.

Cat knew firsthand that was hardly true, having tasted such blood herself.

Then he laughed over her, halfway to howling like a mad dog.

Cat bared her teeth. “What’s so funny?”

With a shrug, he released her chair, the front legs swinging forwards to land on the floor. Cat flinched at the impact as Valerian walked away, his weaving gait in perfect rhythm with the swells of the tide.

When he spun back to face her, Cat flinched again. She had seen heartache and sorrow and rage on Valerian Kane too many times to count. But never grief. It turned him inside out, the light racing from his eyes, the smile gone from his lips as if it had never existed at all.

“They call me the deadliest pirate in the Lyrian Sea,” he breathed. “They say I’ve sunk more ships than any other captain, killed more crews.”

The lamps flickered on his face, as if burning in his skin. Cat did not doubt it. Something certainly burned in Valerian now.

“But I don’t hold a candle to you, Widow Rose.”

True, Cat thought, her stomach twisting so violently, she feared she would be sick all over the timbers or her own new boots. Valerian held her eyes through it all, the same wretched sickness on his face, the same heartache welling up in his eyes. Until a knock at the door snapped them from the painful hurricane, and both Cat and Valerian turned to face the sound.

“As requested, Captain,” Adelo said from the other side.

With two quick strides, Valerian returned to his chair, his face wiped clean of every emotion. It was dizzying to watch.

“Bring him in,” he called out.

For a moment, Cat thought she had been thrown back through time. There was Jasper Fell in chains, captured on the Covenant, his hair loose and eyes menacing. She knew how this dance went.

But it was not Ana shuffling him along, calling him a Meridian dog. Adelo was a diligent mate, but he was not the Seawolf. And this was not ten years ago, when a different Cat Rose and a different Valerian Kane sat in similar positions.

“We searched him, as ordered,” Adelo said, laying out a spread of Fell’s items, including the tightly folded documents from the governor.