Page 172 of Tempest

“Put him in the boat.” Valerian’s voice was like the crack of a whip.

For the first time in his life, Ryman dodged a blow, ducking away from a sailor trying to shove him towards the sea ladder. He took weaving steps, and Cat wondered if he had gone mad in the brig, tormented by the bars of a cell he could not gnaw his way through.

“Take her,” he snarled, shoving Cat with all his strength, sending her sprawling back into Valerian’s hard chest. He caught her, but Cat barely felt the firm arms holding her steady.

Her vision narrowed to Ryman Rose, all the rest falling away. He leered, his fleshy, pale face wavering, his features distorted by her thrumming rage.

“Fuck her or sell her, I care not. Though I warn you she is barren, a poor quality for a wife,” he added. His laughter scraped, worse than steel on stone. “But I suppose it will be a welcome advantage for a whore.”

Blood filled her mouth and her head and the hole in her chest, thunderous and roaring. The blood kept flowing, an endless tide, threatening to pull her under, until everything washed red, and the impossible blue of the Lyrian Sea turned scarlet.

This is not his world.

But it could be mine.

Distantly, she thought of the metallic click.

The world slowed, the moment sharpened, and the memory formed, demanding to never be forgotten.

Cat doubted she ever would.

Her body turned to Valerian, but only for a second. It was not him she grabbed for, her arm reaching down to his hip. Her fingers closed around the smooth, cool hilt of a flintlock pistol, the hammer already drawn, the chamber loaded and ready to fire. When she swung back around, arm raised, gun aimed, Ryman’s leer froze on his hateful, ghastly face.

This time, when her husband screamed, she did not flinch. Or falter.

“You foolish woman—”

A thunderclap and flash of lightning exploded, smoke blooming from the gun in a gray storm cloud. The force of it catapulted through her, and she lurched, almost losing her balance. But Cat refused to fall.

Ryman did not have the same choice.

He gaped at her, a fish on the shore, mouth flapping as he wheezed for one more gasp of air. It whistled through the hole in his chest, sputtering blood and breath like a carafe pouring wine. The blood won out, a river of it spreading from the wound, soaking through his shirt and down his body.

He gurgled as he pitched forwards, slumping onto his knees. Without thought, Cat lunged towards him before he could fall, grabbing Ryman by the roots of his thin hair, wrenching his head back with her free hand.

His watery eyes rolled, his lips fighting to speak.

“You foolish woman,” he sputtered again, blood flecking the air.

Cat did not flinch.

“You foolish man,” she shot back. “You played by the rules of a different world. A world that does not exist here.”

Amongst the crew, a silver smile gleamed. But Cat only spared Ana a passing glance. She dared not miss Ryman’s last rattling breath, or the spiraling look of despair finally creeping across his face.

It was the same despair she felt every day in his presence.

“A world that will never remember you at all,” she said, letting him drop with a meaty thunk.

So ended Lord Ryman Rose, keeled over on the deck of a pirate ship, without anyone to mourn him.

Chapter Thirty-One After

THE DIM SPACE between sleep and waking stretched, holding Cat suspended. And then it faded all at once, chased off by a shout somewhere on the quarterdeck, a gruff voice echoing through the timbers overhead.

Her eyes shot open to disorienting blackness. A second later she realized her head was buried in the pillows, and her face was strangely wet. Groaning to herself, Cat inhaled, only to be walloped with the overpowering scent of Valerian Kane. Salt, tobacco, sweat, and a spicy sweetness beneath. It was enough to make her lightheaded, her mind spinning as she flipped onto her back.

As she had the night before, Cat sucked in another breath, forcing more of Valerian down her throat, to suffocate herself with him until she could finally bear the smell and taste. Only then did she rise up on her elbows to get her bearings.