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“I just wanted to clear Moon.”
“Moon’s cleared.”
“Okay, good…”
There was a squeak of boots as Marko turned to face her.
“I know what ye are.”
She froze, mouth opening to deny it. But no words came out at the flash in his eyes, daring her to interrupt.
“I also know ye made a deal with our captain, so he wouldn’t dare let ye stay here if yer a liability. I don’t care. I might be old and sometimes senile, but I had my fair share of encounters with yer kind to know how and when to act. But ye have to watch out because not all our crew likes yer kind. Act like ye are supposed to, and stop baiting Wheeler. If he finds out yer not just an ordinary boy….”
At least her gender was still a secret, but she could already see where the statement was going.
“He would kill me?” she asked quietly.
“He would try to, and ye would kill him,” Marko said firmly. “Ye will meet my sword when that happens.”
It took her a second to register that the confrontation was over as Marko walked away, declaring where he stood while also warning her. While it went better than expected, she didn’t relax, knowing it only meant one thing: Isaiah still called the shots.
“Get over it,” she muttered to herself. “It is what it is.”
She swallowed her emotions, steeled her shoulders, and dragged out cleaning materials to get rid of the mess that they had made. Like she did every night, Nicola waited for the crew to fall asleep and the assigned guard to make his rounds before she left her spot to do her other thing.
“What did you find out?”
“He has a record of every business transaction they have made in codes so that no one outside this ship will figure out the details.” There was an impressed note in Maddox’s voice before the man cleared his throat. “He’s well-organized.”
It would have befuddled her before she landed here, but Isaiah was proving to be wrong about a lot of things. The unpredictability irked her.
“And?”
“No unique skull figure like the one on the claw. I asked the crew, too. They are not big on symbolism around here. All they have are those black flags.”
Which meant either Isaiah had done it alone…or he hadn’t done it at all. A notorious pirate capable of murder couldn’t be this innocent, could he?
“Keep looking. I will do the same on my end.”
“Sure.” A pause. “By the way, you smell.”
She rolled her eyes at his stoic face. “Gee, you think? Go. Get some sleep. I will update you this morning.”
She watched him go, then finished up most of her nightly tasks. She wandered around, pausing near the captain’s cabin until she found a small opening in a back window. She found a closet big enough to fit even more boxes, and there were a few stacks inside laden with gold and glitter. Her mouth watered when she spotted one containing bottles of wine, but she continued her scan until a sound filtered in her ears.
It was low, melodic, and just a tad husky. Her brain went “siren” and swiftly went into self-preservation mode, but a few more seconds had her comprehending it was coming from inside. She looked more closely until she found the second door in the closet, hidden behind some hung clothes and half-open. Isaiah was singing a melody that didn’t sound familiar, but the mention of pirates lost at the treacherous seas felt so intimate. Taken aback to find this side of him, she stayed where she was, listening to the haunting melody that seeped its way into her bones. The volume lowered toward the end, then stopped as the door swung open.
Steam filled the closet space, blurring her vision for a second. When it disappeared, her eyes widened at the sight of the ship captain in all his muscled glory, with droplets of water still clinging to every bit of exposed tanned skin. Scars completed the look, stark on his broad shoulders, then trailing down to narrower hips. The indent of a V-shape resting on his lower torso disappeared beneath a towel wrapped around his waist.
“One glass,” he murmured, reaching up to pluck a glass from a top shelf. His muscles flexed.
Yet he had given his crew five of the finest bottles just a few days ago to go with their cheap spirits and festivities. The song restarted, then paused when he sipped the red liquid. Pleasure clouded his brown eyes that she missed his towel dropping until he had turned around, exposing a firm ass. She gasped inwardly and ducked, heat flashing in her body and pulse racing hard. That snapped Nicola out of her shock and had her scrambling away as fast as she could, until she circled back to the area where she had come from.
Her pulse still raced, and she still smelled. She glared at no one in particular, then dragged more cleaning materials out to the deck. Nicola spent the remaining hours re-cleaning the floors until everything was bright and polished, muttering under her breath from time to time.
“Who the hell are you? Why aren’t you kidnapping anyone? Why are you giving your damn crew bottles of wines instead of instilling fear in them?”
He was a mystery that shouldn’t occupy her mind more than it already did, and she had so many questions.
