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“Now,” he said. “Which one of you dared to lead an attack on my ship?”
“I did,” a familiar dark voice said.
I followed the voice, gasping when I saw its owner.
Jacques de Villiers.
CHAPTER 17—REUNITED
Jacques gave a lopsided grin as his eyes met mine. I automatically reached up and fixed my hair in response.
“Ah, I remember you,” Adrian said, waving his knife haphazardly in Jacques’s face. “You’re the lover, right? Did you come for your future bride?”
I could tell Jacques was laughing even though there was no sound coming from his parted lips.
“Fascinating theory,” Jacques replied flatly.
Adrian turned back to me, wetting his lips and holding his dagger tight. Even though he was smiling, there was a hollowness in his eyes I hadn’t seen before.
“The fool must truly love you, princess,” Adrian said. “It would be a shame if I had to cut his heart out.”
I padded across the deck with bare, wet feet. “Adrian, please—”
“Give me a reason not to kill him.”
Adrian waited, eyes drilling a hole through me. He probably expected some disgusting romantic line—that I loved Jacques and couldn’t live without him, or some nonsense—but the truth was I was terrified of Jacques. He stared at me like a demon, no compassion or affection of any sort.
And I definitely wasn’t going to say,Because he’s my future stepson.I’d rather get my own throat cut than to die from that kind of embarrassment.
“You want the Eros, don’t you?” I asked. “Think of him as insurance. With him as your prisoner, you can command me to do whatever you wish.”
Adrian looked at me as if I had eaten bugs in front of him. The confusion on his face morphed into disbelief, a laugh escaping his lips with the roll of his eyes.
“You shouldn’t give me those kinds of ideas, princess,” he said, stepping in closer. “You have no idea what I’ll ask you to do.”
He leaned down, his eyes scanning my body for a quick moment before he straightened and cleared his throat. I puffed out some air, frowning at Jacques for the situation he had now put me in.
“Very well,” Adrian said. “Take them to the brig. We’ll decide what to do with them later.”
Adrian didn’t look at me as he walked away. I could feel a sharpness around him, as if he were wearing daggers as a shield to keep anyone from coming close. As he walked off, I glanced at Henrik, whose eyes had gone dark and heavy. He glanced between Jacques and me, taking in a breath before stepping forward and ordering the men to continue their orders.
The men forced Jacques and his crew forward with their hands tied behind their backs, down into the brig below. Jacques’s eyes caught mine for a brief moment as they took him down, a knowing smirk still across his face.
That smirk was something to be afraid of. I knew it. What I didn’t know waswhy.
***
I didn’t speak to anyone until evening the next day. By then, the clothes Adrian had lent me had been washed and dried out in the sun, along with some other clothes from those who had perished the night before.
The dead men of the enemy were stripped bare and thrown overboard, while the dead men of Adrian’s ship were kept clothed before being thrown into a water grave with the others. I knew some of the men who had been killed in battle, and to think I’d never see them on the ship again was an eerie, echoing type of pain.
I could even still smell their blood when I stepped on the deck. I could still see the floorboards stained deep with it, even though every floorboard had been deeply scrubbed.
Death. I hated it. I hated how much it took from me. I hated how much it took from others.
At the thought, my knees went weak and I had to hold on to Adrian’s bookshelves for support. I barely heard his footsteps come toward me, vaguely remembering that he was in the room.
“Hey,” he whispered, taking a gentle hold on my elbow and shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
