Page 22 of Tempest

Instinctively Cat shrunk away, as if Fell might see right through her dress to the marked flesh beneath. Her skin flamed, the tattoo itching even now.

“Oh, Cat, don’t turn modest on me. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” he said, winking.

It was enough to make her see red.

“And what of your performance?” she snarled back at him. “Does it exhaust you, acting with every breath you take?”

She jabbed between the bars, shoving the captain’s chest. He gave no quarter and his medals bit into the flesh of her palm.

“Jasper Fell, the storied captain, a pirate hunter, another pet of the governor.” Cat spat out the words like poison. “Laughing at bad jokes with worse company, holding on to his new commission with grasping fingers. Hoping it might earn him something a little more permanent, a little more real. A plot of land in Meridia, maybe even a title, something to pass on. Something he never had at all.”

Every sentence landed as she intended it to, cutting deep despite Fell’s best efforts to mask such weakness. His gaze dropped, his jaw clenched.

She twisted the knife with ease.

“An orphan of no name, press-ganged into the Meridian navy, shipped across the ocean as little more than cannon fodder.” She paused, pretending to think. “But I cannot recall—your father was in debtor’s prison, yes? And your mother, she ran off as soon as you could walk?”

A violent flush burned across Fell’s face. His hand twitched, his thumb worrying at the silver swan.

“That is more than enough, Widow Rose,” he said softly.

Cat raised her chin, looking down her nose at him. As if she were still a lady, and Captain Fell bound to obey.

“Wearing that ridiculous ring,” she said, her gaze dropping to his smallest finger. The silver signet gleamed even in the low light. “Stamped with the crest of no one and nothing.”

“Enough!”

His fist hit the bar closest to her head, the ring clanging on the iron. Cat held her ground, enjoying the victory, small as it was.

“My apologies, I am not myself this morning,” she said in a demure voice, as if she were apologizing for a spilled glass of wine. “I wonder why that is.”

His breath came ragged, his gray eyes boring into her own. Fell was not known for his temper, but it existed when provoked. Cat knew better than anyone where to push him. And when to retreat.

“You did not gloat over the others,” she muttered, looking back to the bench and the days clawed into the wood. “You could barely watch the other hangings. But you come to gloat over me?”

“I am not here to gloat,” Fell replied. He raised his fist, examining his swiftly bruising knuckles with a scowl.

Cat arched an eyebrow. “Then this is a very strange goodbye.”

“You are guilty of many crimes over many years,” he said, his voice tight and annoyed. “There’s no denying them all.”

Fell touched the inside of his coat where the execution order must have been. Cat wanted to rip it out of his pocket and tear it apart.

“Which is precisely why we made our deal,” she said, pressing her face to the bars. “You promised me a clean slate and a new start. You owe me that at least, Jasper.”

He glared back at her, only the bars between them.

“I owe you nothing.”

Since earning his commission, Fell smelled like expensive sandalwood oil. Yet another trapping of a man raised high. Even so, it was a welcome reprieve to the smell of the prison and the infernal bucket. Cat inhaled, catching the scent of sweat beneath the perfume. The man beneath the captain.

“You owe me your life, and I don’t mean your rank or your ship,” she said. “I mean the breath in your body. Or have you forgotten?”

“Have you forgotten?” Fell answered, taking her off guard. Then he touched the pistol at his hip, the only thing about his appearance that had not changed in nearly ten years.

His meaning was clear. For a second, the ground beneath Cat’s feet rolled like the deck of a ship, and not the floor of a cell. Her fingers curled, remembering the weight of the same pistol in her own hand, the kick of the recoil, the smell of gunpowder.

And blood, so much blood.