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“Yes, I remember Rotty.” Scot had only been a member of my crew four months before it all ended. Another one I saved from a horrible situation. He vowed his life to always be faithful to me. And even when I disappeared, he tracked me down, never going back on his word.
“Let’s talk about Rotty.” Scot took a drink. He was the only one who knew the story. The only one who had been there, lived, and heard what truly happened that night. I confessed on a drunken, guilt-filled night when he had to coax Rotty’s dagger from my fingers so I wouldn’t end it all right there. “I’m sure he would love that you have his daughter chained up instead of letting her go.”
“You think I should let her go? She wants nothing more than to kill me.”
“Thought she was just a teeny ball of hissing fur?” Scot grinned at getting a rise out of me.
“She’s also the infamous Puss in Boots.My enemy.” I turned away from him, having had enough of this conversation. “She’s lucky to be alive at all.”
“Sure.” Scot laughed, which grated on my nerves.
“Shut the fuck up.” I gritted, nodding out to the room. “Go find supplies, labor, and any leads on smuggling or royal ships passing in the area.”
While I was a revered pirate sticking it to the man on most days, I still tracked down smuggling ships filled with black-market items from the Unified Nations, the umbrella King Lars and Queen Kennedy worked under to bring all the countries together in alliance. Many countries in the eastern bloc gave a big fuck you to them, declaring they wanted independence. Independence, my ass. It was an excuse for the power-hungry tyrants to rise. A fight between the elite humans and fae to become the next dictator, gaining all the wealth and privilege while most of the people suffered.
The irony in getting Lars’s items back from thieves was that he made sure I was compensated for my piracy. Not much different from how piracy usually started under monarchs before we turned on them. And did I also sell some for my own profit like I did back then? Fuck, yes. After all, I was atradesman.
Scot shot back the rest of his drink with a grunt and did what I asked, leaving me alone at the bar.
Taking a drink, my agitated mood didn’t ebb, and I knew deep down where it stemmed from.
“Goddam cat,” I muttered, guzzling down a huge gulp, my mind lost in my thoughts.
“Shut up, mate. You’re full of shit,” a man with an Australian accent spoke next to me, pulling my attention.
“I’m not,” another man replied, his accent so light I couldn’t pick up exactly what it was. “I swear to you it’s real. I heard even the king of the Unified Nations is looking for it.”
Lars? My ears perked up, the men capturing my full attention as I continued to drink like I was just enjoying the late afternoon and not eavesdropping at all. Sliding my eyes quickly to them, I spied a stocky man with grayish skin and gray-blue spotted hair slicked back, reminding me of a tiger shark. The Aussie’s wide side eyes and broad nose resembled a hammerhead shark.
Shark-shifters.
“Fuck off,” Hammerhead replied with a huff. “There is no way… all that shit was destroyed when the fae wall came down. Someone’s pullin’ your fin, mate.”
“No.” The tiger shark man growled. “It exists.” He took a drink. “My brother worked with a scientist in the Georgia Territory. Someone brought them this magical substance, which didn’t die after the wall dropped. Testing it, they found it even more powerful than fae food, curing diseases, giving humans fae-like qualities and almost eternal life. It would be the greatest discovery ever… and probably the most destructive. Humans would burn this world down to try and get it, and fae will do the same to keep it away from them.” He downed the rest of his drink. “And if the king is seeking it? It might be too late.”
“But your brother and this scientist have it?”
“You don’t fucking get it,” Tiger snapped. “They’ve disappeared. I last heard from him over three weeks ago when they were leaving Hong Kong to go up north, and I haven’t received news from him since. That’s not like him.” His voice tightened. “In my gut, I know something’s wrong. I could hear it in his voice. He told me he felt like they were being followed. That people were after them.” Out of the corner of my eye, Tiger turned to his buddy. “I need your help. You can navigate the waters better than anyone I know.”
“Navigate? Where?”
“Shanghai, China,” Tiger responded. “I’m going to find my brother… and this object they call the nectar.”
My eyes cracked open to the blazing morning sun, and a pounding boomed inside and outside my skull.
“Fuck,” I grumbled. Squinting, I lifted my head, cringing as the sound of hammers hitting wood vibrated through me. “Ouch.” I rubbed my neck, stiff from falling asleep in a deck chair. The sound of the men Scot had hired to rebuild the hole in the ship echoed from below.
I enjoyed drinking but no longer set out to get drunk. Last night we stayed out until the wee hours of the morning, stumbled back, and I passed out in a deck chair.
But even as drunk as I got, the conversation I overheard at the bar kept coming back to me. Most of me wanted to chalk it up to bullshit talk, a yarn his friend was weaving together from paranoia and over exaggerations. But the man’s tone when talking about his brother was so serious and terrified it was hard to ignore.
If Lars was looking for something, wouldn’t I know? At least more than this random guy would. Not that Lars told many about his plans over the years. His ego was the reason he almost lost his throne to Stavros, why Stone took over his mind and body. Why Lexie was killed.
This whole “nectar” thing, which gave humans fae powers, seemed impossible after the fall of the barrier, destroying that type of magic. It sounded like complete bullshit. Yet something dug into the back of my neck, burrowing in and not allowing me to let go of the idea.
“Sleep well?” Tsai shuffled in next to me, her body a carpet of blankets even though it was boiling out.
“I could have used you as a pillow,” I mused, motioning to her layers.
