Page 177 of Tempest

A thunder cloud crossed his face, his expression darkening. Before Cat could think to move, he had her, his free hand closing around her bicep. His long fingers encircled her upper arm entirely, his iron grip forcing her along. Cat could only grimace, allowing herself to be marched back out onto the beach. But she kept her head held high, refusing to lose what little pride or dignity she had left.

“I should just keelhaul you and be done with it,” Valerian hissed under his breath as he walked her down the beach.

The threat glanced off, meaningless. If you haven’t killed me yet, you never will, Cat wanted to say. But it felt too daring a card to reveal.

“You should,” she snapped, tossing the rum bottle into the sand. “Be done with it. With me, with this. With whatever you think you’re doing. It’s going to end up getting you and all of us killed anyway.”

“Us?” Valerian dropped her arm as if her skin had suddenly turned to flame, and Cat stumbled, tripping into the shallows. He threw her a look of revulsion. “There is no us where you and I are concerned, not anymore.”

The Covenant seemed to watch over them from its anchorage, the black silhouette of the ship dotted with a few burning lamps. Cat huffed at it, the once-comforting sight a looming prison.

“Don’t change the subject, Valerian.” She rounded back to him with a snarl, putting the ship behind her. “The war is over, the Meridian returned. Morovant is dead, half the pirates of the republic dead with him. And the rest are running.”

Valerian crooked a half smile, thin as a knife.

“No one is running, Cat.”

He stared at her through the moonlight, half of him washed in blue shadow, the other gilded by light from the tavern lanterns. The pirate seemed torn in two, one side calm and still, the other burning. Cat wavered, trying to take his measure, weighing the Valerian Kane she had known against the man standing in front of her now. He was the same and yet—

Sharper, harder. More desperate.

More dangerous.

Her heartbeat quickened, her mouth going dry.

To her immense surprise, he began to laugh, the sound low and rough.

“You think I’m alone in this, don’t you?” he chuckled, grinning.

Cat wanted to raise her chin or toss her hair, to question his bold confidence in the face of absolute destruction. But her thoughts blurred, too many things coming together at once.

Other captains survived, but how many? How many ships and crews remain?

How many sail with Valerian now?

Her brow arched, her voice cutting. “I think you’re the only one stupid enough to keep fighting the navy head on.”

His grin widened, flames flickering in one eye, the moon glowing in the other. “I do so enjoy when you are wrong.”

“Treasure the moment; it happens so rarely.” Cat flushed and ducked her head, trying to hide the scarlet bloom certainly spreading across her cheeks. She scuffed her foot through the wet sand, the tide lapping up against her ankles. “So Vex,” she muttered, shaking her head. “He did not sail with Morovant’s armada six months ago. He did not fight then. What changed?”

Why now?

Why you?

She studied Valerian again, trying to balance the fearsome legend of Captain Kane with the flesh and blood towering over her. Gunpowder burns and rope scars, battered fingers, a bronzed face and sun-bleached hair. Muscles carved by years of hard labor before the mast, and a mind sharpened on the whetstone of survival. A commander but not a master, beloved and respected in equal measure. And remarkable, brilliant, a sailor the likes of which the sea had never seen before and might never see again.

He had only one flaw Cat knew of—the heart still beating in his chest, a merciful, bleeding heart he tried so hard to hide.

Chapter Thirty-Two Before

RYMAN STARED WITH empty eyes, his body slumped in a puddle of his own blood.

Cat straightened, the flintlock still in hand, her fingers gripped so tightly, she feared the gun might mold to her flesh. She refused to blink, lest it all be a dream. She would not bear it, to wake up and find Ryman still alive, or worse, right next to her. But he didn’t move, his toadish face pressed against the timbers of a pirate ship. She could smell his blood, the scent so strong it was overpowering. With a shiver, she realized it wasn’t just all over the deck, but her boots, her skirts—her face. It made her skin crawl, entirely too horrid to be a dream or hallucination. And the pistol was too heavy in her hand, the barrel still smoking as her husband’s corpse cooled.

This is real, she told herself, a prayer as much as an assertion. Slowly, she blinked her stinging eyes and exhaled through gritted teeth. The body remained, indisputable.

Ryman Rose was dead.