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“W-we did go to school together years ago, yes. We were very close once.”
“I see. And I could have sworn I heard the word, ‘mate.’” Chandler’s voice was rising, and I remembered how he’d said voices carried over the water. Was Roxbury listening to this?
Surely, I must have been mistaken, seeing as how you’re engaged to me.” He lifted his head and gazed at me, and I easily remembered again why I’d once agreed to marry him. He was a gorgeous young man and his cherry-pie omega scent wafted over to me on the breeze off the ocean. It stirred me a little, like omegas always affected me, but not with any real longing or lust for him like it should have—like omegas should affect an Alpha. It was like viewing beautiful art in a museum. Lovely to look at and desirable in an abstract way, but with no need to actually own it.
He must have realized my feelings, because his features sharpened, and his eyes flashed. “I see,” he said, and began fingering the jeweled amulet I’d noticed that he always wore on a gold chain around his neck. “And are you telling me that you’ve been…intimate…with that pirate? That criminal? That you’ve broken your vow to me?”
I could feel Lex step up behind me and lay a hand on my shoulder for support.
“Chandler, I’d hoped to speak to you about this in private…”
Harrison took a step toward us. “Let’s not be hasty, Brandon. You’ve had a terrible ordeal. Give it some time and you’ll see you’re making a mistake.”
“Were you going to speak to me? Or write me a letter?” Chandler asked with a spiteful tone. “I told you that the voices carried quite well across the water, and you were all shouting pretty loudly at each other. I think I understand all too well.”
I know I flushed then because I could feel my face flaming. I hated the idea that I’d hurt him and embarrassed Lex and Harrison. I could only imagine what Queen Rozamond would have to say about all this. In fact, what if she were hearing our raised voices even now? There was going to be a huge scandal over this thing.
I took a breath and nodded. “Chandler, please listen to me. I said I wanted to just write to you to avoid a scene like this. I know it was cowardly, and you deserve much better. I’d hoped to avoid recriminations, but that was very wrong too. You have the right to express your feelings. I hope you can forgive me. It-it’s just that Roxbury—the captain of that pirate ship—is an old friend that I thought was lost to me years ago. Long before I ever met you, I made promises to him first. We made our own vows to each other. He was a friend that I loved—that I still love—very much. When we met again…well, some things happened between us that neither of us ever planned or intended. I never meant to hurt you. I only hope you can forgive me one day.”
Chandler stood there, still ten feet or so away, and stared at me as he held his amulet and rubbed his thumb slowly over it. He closed his eyes, clearly in pain, and I wished I could find the words that would comfort him. He lowered his head, and I thought he might have sobbed once.
I took a quick step toward him, but the priest Kellan stepped between us and put an arm around his shoulders to comfort him, murmuring to him. “Prince Chandler, please…maybe we could find a place the two of you can speak in private.”
I thought I heard a loud shout, and before I could figure out where it had come from,
I heard a strange, loud popping sound that seemed to come out of the very ether around us. It was so loud, I winced and covered my ears, and I saw others doing the same.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion then. I was standing beside Harrison when the ship lurched violently to the right and we both fell sprawling to the deck.
A strong wind sprang up out of absolutely nowhere, coming straight down out of the sky but blowing only toward the Fancy Lady, and it seemed to be affecting only her. I scrambled back to my feet in time to see her sails catch the powerful wind and bulge out full and streaming. A dozen or more of her braces snapped like string with a loud, pinging sound, and the masts actually groaned as they leaned dangerously far over toward the waves and away from the wind. The whole ship turned away, in fact, as if driven by a hurricane force wind, and I could hear men screaming as they were blown right out of the masts. Other men were hanging from the rigging, their feet swinging in mid-air. Some fell straight down into the ocean.
I fought then to get off the ship and get back to Rox, but I was grabbed and held tightly by Harrison and the other Alphas. All I could do was watch in horror. And call to Roxbury—I called his name over and over, but the wind snatched my voice away.
I could hear his shouts though, coming clearly across the water, and already men were crawling toward the side of the Lady, the side that was about to topple. She was leaning so precariously away from the wind she was in real danger of capsizing. The men gave their weight to try and right the ship, which was almost swamped and turning over more and more on its side. As we watched in horrified fascination, a huge wave swelled up from the same direction as the wind and was driven forward by it. It was like magic. Indeed, it had to have been magic, because there was no other explanation for it. The Fancy Lady was suspended for one terrible moment in time on her side in front of us, and then the huge wave reached her, washing over her and flipping her over in the water like a child’s toy.
She never came up again.
Only the curve of her hull remained above the surface, but even as we watched, it quickly slipped down beneath the black waves until the surface of the ocean was once again smooth and glassy where she had been.
I gave a hoarse cry of agony and heartbreak, and I tried again to jump in to swim toward the last place the Lady had been. Only the combined efforts of Lex, Asher, Wyatt and Harrison were enough to stop me. I could hear the shouts of horror from the sailors on board the other ships too—they were amazed and appalled by what had happened. It seemed that even a pirate deserved a better fate, and they had been under a white flag. Whoever had used their magic against the Fancy Lady was a stone cold, sickening killer.
But I only aware of all that much later. At the time, and in the immediate aftermath, I was much too overcome with grief and pain to think at all clearly. I was out of my mind with it. I would much rather have joined Roxbury in his watery grave, and I tried really hard to break free and join him.
I was vaguely aware that Lex and the captain of the Sudfarman ship had frantically launched boats to search for survivors, though none were ever found. But mostly, I was only aware of pain like I’d never known before. To find Rox again and then to lose him in such a horrifying way was far too hard, too monstrous to even contemplate.
For many days afterward, I simply didn’t.
I existed in a fog of dark despair, the likes of which I’d never known. And in rare moments of lucidity, I began to make plans to join Roxbury as soon as I could.
Chapter Thirteen
Roxbury
I don’t know exactly how I managed to escape the ship as she capsized and sank beneath the waves when no one else did. I had managed to claw my way up the side when the Lady was first in danger of capsizing, so I was at the rail, my arm wrapped tightly around it, when she began to take on water and flip over. I jumped free and dove as she began to go, and I swam for my life to get away, so she wouldn’t drag me down with her. She still tried, but I managed to swim far enough away in those last seconds that I got out of the worst of the deadly, sucking pull of the hull. Managing to break free, I swam up and up toward the surface as soon as I knew I had cleared the hull, swimming endlessly, it seemed, until my lungs felt as if they were bursting. I remember other men in the water around me; some of them had jumped at the last minute too, but they must not have escaped the drag of the ship on its way down.
For the first time I was glad Brandon had gone over to Lex’s ship. It meant he hadn’t been with me as the Lady sank. That one thought helped sustain me as I swam for my life. If he’d been on board, I might not have been able to save him. And I wouldn’t have left him, so I would have died too.
With lungs bursting and little lights exploding behind my eyes, my head finally broke the surface, and I sucked in lungful after lungful of air. As I reached the surface, I realized I was alone. I recalled how the weight of the Fancy Lady had pulled at me as she sank, trying to suck me along with her, though I was swimming desperately to get away, to reach air. Gasping to drag air into my lungs, half out of my mind with rage and grief, I hung over the abyss beneath me, looking around myself frantically, but there was no one on the surface except for me.
