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“You don’t want to feed me yourself?” Sultry, suggestive, my lids lowered on him.
“I’d rather lick it off you.” He flirted back, but he didn’t reach for the keys hanging on his belt. “But you’d have to take a bath first,gata.Then I’ll eat whatever you want.” By his impeccable appearance, I could tell he took hygiene to the extreme, which wasn’t common in the pirate world. Not that they were dirty like they used to be back in the day. But it wasn’t easy living and working on a boat, and you wouldn’t look like you came off a runway.
Vane seemed to defy that. Clearly, his name held more than one meaning.
“Then lead me to a bathroom.” I moved as close to the bars as I could. “I will be deeply grateful.”
“As much as I would love to,Bella, I’m under strict orders not to open this door.”
An alarm batted against my ribs. Working hard to keep it from showing, I twisted my face in a pout. “Please, I have to go really bad. Just to pee. That’s all I ask. Unless you want me to go right here.” I looked straight at him. “And I’m figuring it’s you who’d have to clean it up.” I wrinkled my nose. “Do you really want to clean up cat pee? You know how that strong smell sticks on you.” I laid it on thick. It was true, but only in my cat form when I wanted to spray and make my presence clear.
He flinched, his chest rising with disgust at the thought.
“It would never get out of your clothes.” I motioned down to him, my legs squeezing together, wiggling around like my bladder was about to explode. “I’m going to pee now if you don’t take me to the bathroom.”
His forehead wrinkled with doubt, his eyes casting back at the stairs as if the captain would be standing right there.
“Pleeeaassee.” I vibrated my voice, not with desire or fear, but calm. To ease his anxiety. The voices in his head were telling him to follow his captain’s orders. Glamour didn’t work on fellow fae like it did on humans, but the endorphins I put out could take the edge off.
He sucked in, setting the plate of food on the table nearby. “Okay, but I will be with you every step, and if you make one wrong move, I will cut your throat,Bella. No matter what the captain said.” His expression turned serious, his hand pulling at the keys on his belt. “You understand?”
“Yes.” I nodded.
Vane reached down, unclipping the keys from his belt while I continued my charade of being in utter pain. Not that I had to pretend all that much.
The sound of the key turning in the lock soared my heart up into my throat, my muscles locking down. Preparing. Waiting.
Timing was everything
It was a split second. My teeth ground together as my hands wrapped around the toxic metal, gritting back the agony tearing through my limbs as I rammed the door into him with all my might.
The bars smashed into his face, cracking the cartilage in his nose. He stumbled back with a cry, and I pounced, taking his thin, fit body to the ground. My fingers went to a spot on his neck, pressing down. His body thrashed against mine, my thighs clamping down, holding on while he wiggled and grew weaker under me. Pinching the carotid arteries more firmly, I felt his body go lax, falling unconscious under me.
“Your captain taught me that move.” I patted Vane’s cheek, climbing off him. He was maybe five feet, ten inches and thin, but solid muscle. Straining, I pulled him into the cell, shoving him inside and relieving him of his gun.
“Sorry, pretty boy.” I slammed the door and locked it. I did feel kind of guilty. Vane actually seemed like a nice enough guy. Obnoxiously hypersexual, but that appeared to be just him. The stereotypical Latin lover. But I couldn’t allow him to wake up and get to me before I fulfilled my mission. “It’s not personal.”
But it was personal with Croygen.
Slinking up the stairs, I cautiously listened for any other movement. During the night out at sea, there was usually one who stayed up on watch while the rest slept. At this hour, the one most likely on watch was now locked up in the brig.
The calm lapping of waves kissed the side of the ship, the rigging tapping in rhythm to the very light wind. It was one of those perfect nights. The moon headed west, although dawn was still hours away, and everything was tranquil. Typically, on a night like this, I would stroll quietly, lost in my thoughts, staring off into the dark ocean, watching the moonlight glittering off the water.
My happy place.
But it contradicted with what I was about to do. For centuries, I had been plotting this, waiting for my chance, and it all seemed anticlimactic. I had devised hundreds of scenarios over time, but this wasn’t one of them. I didn’t come on in battle like some movie, covered in blood, screaming for my father’s revenge. I came silently and calmly like a lapping wave, sans pants and underwear and only wearing a tank.
A knot tugged in my stomach as I crept toward the captain’s quarters, but I shoved it away. Nothing would stop me now.
My bare toes padded over the wood, slipping up to his door. My skin prickled like I could feel him on the other side, my entire body sensing him. Twisting the knob, my heart leaped when it unlatched. Another thing I knew about Croygen was he never locked his door, the result of a childhood fear of being locked in a room and drowning. Relieved that quirk of his hadn’t changed, I opened the door slowly and quietly, using every catlike quality I had, silently entering the room.
A slight squeak barked like an alarm, my body stilling, oxygen holding in my lungs, my gaze darting to the far end of the dark room. My pulse beat in my ears as I scanned the shadows for any movement, my gun ready to fire. But nothing stirred.
Slipping fully inside, I closed the door with a soft click, moving deeper into the room, so glad my sight was excellent in the dark. I captured every detail of Croygen’s chamber, and the simplicity of it caught me a little off guard.
He used to love grand things, not a peacock or obnoxious, but he enjoyed the money that flowed in. Croygen’s style of clothing had always been low-key; his leather or velvet jackets were his signature pieces. But his room was where he had displayed his wealth. Velvets from Eastern Asia, silks from China, tapestries from Paris. In his quarters, he was king. He used to have a long mahogany table from Spain, filled with drink and food for his guests, a huge sleigh bed dripping in dark silk sheets, and sparkling chandeliers over priceless rugs and art on the walls. It was a lair for his women, intimidation for his competitors, and an insult to the governments trying to bring him down.
But this room was humble. No table for private guests, only an old desk, two chairs, and a wall full of books and charts behind shatterproof glass. There were closets, a door to a private bath, and a platform king bed lined up along the wall of windows, giving stunning views of the sea outside. No silks or tapestries, nothing to suggest Croygen was the king of pirates. Though I would not be fooled. One can change their outfit, but not their spots.
