Page 167 of Tempest

Fell raised a black eyebrow. “I take it they have not improved?”

Valerian grinned.

“You let me know. And—” he added, pausing to strap the gun belt and holster back into place around his hips. The flintlock slid along his side, where it had lain years ago. “I’ll be taking this back.”

While Adelo bustled in, taking Fell by the shackles, Kane adjusted the pistol.

“You know, I never took you for a thief, Fell.”

The navy captain tossed him a pointed smile, the type better suited to a Meridian ballroom.

“Never took you for anything else, Kane,” he replied.

Valerian only nodded, watching him go. “Keep your crew in order.” His voice dropped, laced with an air of command. And a warning. “Or I will.”

To Cat’s surprise, Fell returned a shallow nod, before being wrestled out the door.

It swung on creaking hinges, slamming closed. Plunging both lady and pirate into thick, heavy silence.

Cat’s eyes trailed to the documents on the table. She knew what they were—her warrant of execution. And Fell’s letter of passage from the governor, stating he was on official business for the Meridian navy. Neither would condemn her. Not yet, at least.

“Who said I’m assembling an armada?”

She looked up to see Valerian squared to her across the table. His gaze burned. Suddenly the flintlock at his hip did not look quite so handsome. Especially when he drummed a finger over the silver, tracing old curves and new nicks.

The lie was easy, carefully laid.

“I lived in Archenport until two weeks ago, when they put me in the prisons of Fort Morden, and waved a death warrant in my face,” Cat said, ripping open the papers to send them sliding across the table. Valerian barely glanced down. “Sailors talk. Ships are going missing. Storms are breaking out of season. And there’s no man I know who can bring a ship through a storm like you can, Valerian.” Her breath caught, the whole of the Lyrian Sea spiraling before her eyes. “What are you planning?”

He did not answer for a long time. The quiet fell again, broken only by the shouts of men on deck, the creak of the ship settling beneath them. They were familiar sounds, too easy to lean into, like a warm bath. Cat kept tight, refusing to relax no matter how much her body wanted to.

Again, the grief flashed over his face. With a jolt, Cat realized he mourned not just Morovant or the pirate republic.

He mourns me too.

“You lost the right to know,” he said coldly, stalking to the chamber door. He was all knives and gold and ringing shot. A predator, a conqueror.

A king who always refused the crown.

“Am I free to leave?” she called out, though she already knew the answer.

He stopped short, one hand on the latch. Both shoulders rose and fell, betraying the heavy breaths he took to keep steady and anchored.

Anchored against me.

Once more Cat wondered if the smell of her body affected him as much as his did her. If he was also overwhelmed with the desire to run hands over hot skin, tracing old, familiar roads between collarbone and hip. To press fevered lips to scars and tattoos, worshiping each the way they deserved.

There was no way to tell with his back turned, his face hidden, his emotions shielded from even Cat Rose.

“Put my things back where you found them, Cat,” he growled, wrenching open the door without so much as a backwards glance.

Cat lowered her face, hiding the satisfied curl of her mouth.

Her voice carried, finding his ears before he could lock her in for the night.

“I will when I’m finished with your things, Valerian.”

Chapter Thirty Before