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He didn’t recognize me. The last time he saw me, I was twelve. This could work in my favor. If he discovered my identity, he would figure out why I was here. Take away my advantage of surprise. But if I pretended to be an admirer, easily seduced by him, playing on his ego, I could get close.
Close enough to kill.
Pushing through my aversion, I moved closer to him like I wanted him to search me any way he saw fit. His crew moved with me; their guns raised as if I was some big threat.
I was. But not yet.
“You know who I am, don’t you?” Croygen craned his neck to look down at me, not backing away from my nearness, his ego puffing his chest.
“Yes,” I purred. The sound was an aphrodisiac, even to fellow fae. “I very much know who you are.” Tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, I lowered my gaze, dipping my lashes down coyly. “I’m not working for anyone. I just heard the notorious Silver-Tongue Devil was in port.” I glanced up, subtly biting at my bottom lip, familiar with the power I had over men.
His gaze went to my lips, but he was good enough to hide his emotions. Croygen might know how to play the game, but he wasn’t any different from any other arrogant male I had come across in my time.
They all bowed.
“I wanted to see if the legends about you were true.” Every seductive word made me feel ill, betraying my father. Betraying myself. I loathed him with every fiber of my being.
Back in the day, Croygen had many women try to sneak onto the ship. Most were found hiding, naked, declaring their love for him as though he was some god. This angle I was playing was completely believable because it had happened all the time.
Croygen’s eyes met mine, and the air in my lungs hitched. If it was even possible, he had gotten even more gorgeous since I last saw him. Still, his eyes held a hardness, a seriousness that was never there before. Somehow it made him even more formidable. Thrilling.
I detested him for it.
“So…” He leaned in so close his mouth almost grazed mine, his voice gravelly and low. “You came here to see if I lived up to the hype?” He tucked more hair behind my ear, exposing my neck. Leaning into me, his breath glided down my skin. “If my tongue could lick through you with a verse, make you cry out in prose, provoke a shudder with a sonnet? TheDevilwould only break you in the end… and you’d beg for it.”
My skin flushed, my breath struggling to move in and out of my lungs, my body shivering as he whispered roughly against my ear, depriving me of all thought except the desire sparking something deep inside.
He leaned back, his dark gaze going to mine. I didn’t move. I didn’t respond, unsure what I would do if he touched me.
Something in his eyes flickered, but it was gone before I could figure it out. A slow, arrogant grin pulled up the side of his face, his full lips parting in a scoff. “I’m not that fucking stupid.” In a blink, his entire disposition flipped, his expression now cold and guarded. “Corb, pull the gangway.” He nodded at the cyclops.
“What?” I exclaimed.
“But we’re leaving port,” the Scotsman countered.
“Yes.” Croygen’s focus shifted over to me. “And now she is our prisoner.” He started to stroll deeper onto the ship. “Whoever she is spying for will learn not to let their pets roam free.”
“You’re kidnapping me?” His men moved around me. The huge cyclops he called Corb towed in the small plank, then stood guard, making sure I didn’t get away this time.
What the fuck just happened?
“Kidnapping is such a strong term. Picking up a stray is more like it.” Croygen lifted a brow at me. “Vane, take her below to the brig. Zid, Scot, Corb, prepare the ship for sail.” He turned for the helm. He stopped, his gaze drifting to where Scot picked up the rest of my clothes, pausing on the jacket in the Scotsman’s hands.
Fear poured down my throat, sizzling like acid in my stomach.
Would he recognize it? Connect the dots between us?
The jacket I wore, one of my most prized possessions, was his.
The night he sent me away, I took it. Wanting a piece of him, wanting to hurt him, and wanting a reason he would come for me. Hunt me down to claim it back. I naively thought it connected me to him. Like a rope I could hold on to, and he would heave me back in.
He cut that link and left me in a girl’s school to rot. Where I was never accepted, even by the teachers. I was beaten, starved, and humiliated daily. I ran away, living on the streets.
That was also the last night I saw my father alive.
That jacket held my revenge like a sponge. My hate was woven in its threads, my hurt absorbed into the lining. With every kill, every rise in the ranks of piracy, I wore it like it would punish Croygen.
His attention went over it briefly before he turned away, showing no recognition of the item he used to wear. It strangely pissed me off. I had held onto it like a battle cry, and he didn’t even recollect it was his at one time. Another thing forgotten. Thrown away.
