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My arms whirl as I try to reclaim my balance, but it’s too late. I slip off the edge and a scream tears through me, loud enough to rupture my eardrums as I plummet toward the water. For a moment, time seems to stretch indefinitely. My heartbeat slows to a strong, steady rhythm as the wind rushes past my face. I stare up at Sebastian, crouched on the edge of the plank with a smirk on his lip. The necklace dangles from his hand as he watches me fall.
This is it… My last moments and those godsdamn dimples still get to me.
I close my eyes, knowing the ground can’t be much farther, but as I let go, I’m snatched from the sky. My body is launched up before I fall again, each bounce losing momentum. I’m in something, some kind of web. I suck air into my lungs, my eyes shooting wide as I push myself up, finding a rope net all around me, stretched taut from the ship to the dock.
Sebastian chuckles up above and I scowl up at where he now sits on the plank. “Memorize it, darling. That sinking pit in your stomach as you fall toward the unforgiving waves… Remember it next time you want to test me because there won’t be a net to save you. I don’t have to honor my end of the deal. You didn’t. I’m doing this out of the kindness of my heart, but if you continue to be difficult, I won’t.”
He stands and hops onto the deck, disappearing from view.
This mother fucker… My breath rakes in and out of my lungs as I flip and crawl off the net. I storm up the ramp and across the deck. The crew on board freezes in place, watching me as I stalk up to him. Sebastian’s back is toward me. Either he’s oblivious to the fact I’ve re-boarded or he doesn’t care and thinks I’m not a threat.
Regardless, he’s going to find out that he’s sadly mistaken.
I yank his arm, spinning him around to face me. My ears are hot, my nostrils burning as the salty air scotches through my windpipe. His eyebrows lift, but that’s all he gets to do before I lift my hands, angling my fingers toward the ground, and start pulling strings. Every man on board except for Sebastian snaps straight. Their motions are erratic as they fight to regain control. I make them step toward the rail, specifically the side of the Jolly Roger that lacks a net.
“I… helped… you…” I seethe between breaths, continuing to move the men slowly toward the edge. “I made sure you lived.” Stepping forward, Sebastian matches my movement backward. “If it weren’t for me, that serpent would’ve ripped out your throat.” Taking another step, I halt his crew along the banister, leaning their weight over the rail. “If it weren’t for me, you’d have a sword through your face. Must I continue to name every way in which I assured you won?”
Sebastian’s eyes are flexed wide as he watches in horror. His crew teeters on the edge of the rail. One push and they’ll all fall. Slowly, he turns those green eyes back on me and swallows hard. “No… That’s enough.”
“Good. I’ll be boarding this ship. You’ll need to send someone to retrieve my things.” I let the magic fall and the crew jolts back from the rail, scattering like roaches in the light. “Do you understand now, Captain?”
Sebastian cranes his neck to look me up and down. “What are you?”
I narrow my gaze at him as my body trembles from the adrenaline. “I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. I’ll be in my room.”
Without a glance back, I hurry to the companionway and the crew scatters as I near, giving me a straight shot.
14
Scarlet
Ithrustmyfingersthrough my hair and huff, staring at the lines of text that all seem to blend at this point. My back aches, my eyes burn. I’ve been at this for hours, and not once has that insufferable pirate captain darkened my door.
Not that I want him to.
It’s been a day since we left port and I’ve avoided the man like a plague. Mostly, that’s consisted of spending the day helping the only person on this ship who doesn’t shrink at the sight of me. Smee’s been tasked with logging inventory in the storage bay, the lowest level of the ship, and though the air is musky, it’s better than running into him.
The soft scratching of our pens against parchment fills the silence. For the most part of the last three hours, neither of us has bothered to strike up a conversation. We let our minds entertain us as we get the job done, at least that is until I find her staring at me through the open void on the shelves. Her honey-colored, brown eyes narrow and when I try to ignore the feeling of being watched, she reaches through the shelf and yanks the pen from my hand.
“You can’t avoid him forever.” Her head ticks to the side as her glare deepens. “This is my quiet time. This is where I escape from the men and their antics. At this rate—seeing as you’ve been working circles around me—I won’t have an excuse to slip away to work down here.”
“He pushed me off his ship. He’s dead to me.”
She snorts. “Dead to you? I don’t need a blood oath to see the way you look at him—or how he looks at you. You’re both fucking smitten, knee-deep in the Cupcake Phase. He’s nowhere near dead to you. I’m pretty sure if he batted his eyelashes at you from the doorway, you’d swoon.”
“What is the cupcake phase?” I ask, shaking my head at her as if it’ll help me understand. Is that a commoner thing? A pirate thing? Sometimes I feel like she speaks a foreign language.
“Dear gods… We need to get you out more. Your innocence is showing.” Her eyes roll before they glance back at me. “The cupcake phase is when two people first get together. Nothing else in the world exists but the two of them. They have this uncontrollable urge to touch each other at all times and can’t stop staring. It’s obnoxious, but I get it. The blood oath really sped things up for y’all on that front.”
“And you think we’re in this? Have you seen him?” I set the wooden placard I’ve been using to write on down, along with my paper. “I might’ve agreed with you a couple days ago, when we first got to the ship, but I barely recognize him now. It makes it seem like I didn’t know anything about him at all.”
“That’s because you didn’t. The both of you have been thrust onto this collision course and shaken up with magic. Nothing is normal, but it has only been a handful of days. My brother hasn’t felt much of anything in years and now he’s been hit with every emotion you feel. It wasn’t right, what he did…but he’s also going through more than any of us can understand.”
“You shouldn’t make excuses for him. Noble men own their decisions. They think before they act. I’m not a toy that he can dangle off a ship to get a rise out of and he didn’t respect that.”
Smee gives me a knowing look. “Says the girl who would’ve died three days ago.”
My body stiffens as I zone out on the floor.
