Page 78 of Tempest

The heat of his embrace burned through her thin shift, just as his bare chest burned against her cheek. And there was no ignoring the smell of him now, the weight of tobacco and salt and sweat threatening to pull Cat beneath a rushing tide. She almost let it, frozen for a moment, unmoving in the arms of a pirate.

When she thrust backwards out of his grasp, scarlet from head to toe, the pirate only made things worse. He didn’t move, grinning, laughing at her as she righted her chair and her dignity.

“You are not the sort of lady I expected,” he said, sighing.

One foot crossed the other and he leaned backwards against the desk, his body braced in front of her. It left little distance between them and did nothing to make him look smaller. If anything, Valerian seemed to take up more space, his body only a few feet from her own. He radiated warmth still, but Cat told herself it was just the close air of the cabin, and the sun beating through the glass.

“I doubt you’ve met a lady before,” she said, abandoning her chair. The remaining arm had splintered in her haste, and she refused to sit in it again, lest it collapse beneath her and truly destroy any shred of her dignity still left.

“True, I haven’t met a lady before.” He shrugged, and a lock of blond hair fell over his shoulder, long enough to brush the base of his throat. The gold chain around his neck gleamed bright against his skin, trailing out of sight beneath his collar. “Even so, not what I expected.”

“I suppose I enjoy being unexpected too,” Cat countered, surprising them both.

His smile flashed, the golden fang glinted in his mouth.

“Indeed, Lady Rose.” His voice deepened. “So, what do you have to offer?”

Though she was a lady of the Meridian, raised to be ignorant of less-polite society, separated from gutter snipes and jeering drunks, Cat was not so foolish as to miss the layers of implication. She remembered when Captain Meedy had asked if there was something else she was willing to trade when Captain Morovant waylaid the Credence. How his gaze had raked her collarbone. Valerian did the same now, his eyes trailing to her exposed shoulder, then her neck, then her clenched fists.

Cat had never felt so exposed, and yet—her breath caught. Her waist still prickled, her cheek still flamed. Every time he touched her, Valerian seemed to leave ripples in his wake. As if she was a pond of still water, his fingers skimming her surface to draw up something deeper and unseen.

Cat did not know what to make of it, the burning echoes and trailing eyes. They unsettled her, confused her, made her head spin and her skin itch.

But it was nothing compared to Ryman or his pale eyes. The way his gaze turned everything cold and gray. Even through layers of silk and petticoats and ribbons. Against bedsheets. On ship decks. In rolling carriages. On the steps of the country estate, sold out from under her. In their decaying room on Rosby. By daylight. By darkness.

I hope he dies in the brig, she thought bitterly.

Valerian allowed her silence, only tipping his head, content to watch. Cat felt a little like an animal being coaxed out of a hole. She supposed it was not so far from the truth.

What do you have to offer?

“To run is to die. To pay is to live.” She gestured to her planted feet, bare on the plank floor. “I am not running.”

“You don’t have much choice in the matter,” Valerian said. “But certainly, we will ransom the officer back to his navy. That can be easily arranged, we’ve done it enough.”

It was a small relief. Jasper Fell did not deserve to die here, and Cat cheered to know it would not be his fate. He may not even be ashamed, if the ransoms were so common as Valerian said.

“Of course, he must agree to the trade,” the captain added wistfully. “Though he doesn’t seem like the sort to choose.”

Cat blinked, confused. “The sort to choose what?”

His smirk curled. “To sail under the black flag.”

“You would offer him a position on your ship?” she said incredulously. A strange feeling washed over her, the drifting sensation again. It is only the ship, Cat told herself, the ship and the waves beneath.

She thought of Greer, the servant who asked to join Morovant’s crew, trading a life of service for a life of plunder.

“Where do you think most of my crew comes from?” He laughed, enjoying her bewilderment. “Half the pirates in the Lyrian Sea were navy once. Be it Meridian or Esperese or Itziman or Arcayan. Why do you think we know how to toy with the fleets so well?”

In her chest, her heartbeat skittered and Cat could not help but think of the she-pirate out on deck. The woman with the flowing river of black hair. Ana, Valerian had called her. And she was not the only woman who served aboard the Covenant.

Did Valerian offer them the choice too?

Her mouth went dry.

Would he offer it to me?

Cat dismissed the thought as quickly as it came. One glimpse at her hand, her soft, white palm, was enough to kill her hope before it could even bloom. She was a lady of the Meridian, a courtly wife. Her only skills were at the card table, her only use what little lords and ladies she might bring into the world. There was no room for her on this ship, or any other.