by S Lawrence
“Colin, I need to get to the kitchen. Now.” I can hear boots beyond the door. His eyes widen and he nods. Grabbing my free hand, he practically drags me as he takes off at a sprint.
“Kellihan will protect you, Miss. So will I,” he whispers as we scramble down a set of stairs into the belly of the ship.
I start to correct him but hesitate, smiling. Let those captains come. Time to make some allies on this boat.
He stops in front of a door, then opens it and thrusts me inside. I turn and he nods as he closes it in my face. I hear him turn in front of it and I realize he has placed himself as my first guard. Dear boy.
“Miss?” The gruff voice from behind me makes me turn.
“You did mean it, didn’t you? That I’m welcome here?” He nods once slowly. “I…” I feel tears once more, and they piss me off. “I don’t know if I can trust them.”
He pats a stool at his side, and my feet move forward while my brain tells me that I don’t know if I can even trust him. I stop just before the seat and stand, staring at it and him.
“I’m many things, lass, but a liar is not one of them. You are welcome here, and I will always tell you the truth.” My shoulders slump.
“I’m sorry.” I plop down, clutching the wooden box to my chest tightly he just shakes his head.
“No need. I can’t imagine how you must feel or what you must think. I don’t remember my life before I was on a ship but I can remember the warnings of the men that came on the tides. And that was long ago. The men that rule the seas now are much worse.”
A commotion and loud voices can be heard through the closed door, and he looks at me before wiping his hands on his apron. He pauses by my side on his way to the door and pats my shoulder once before carrying on. I don’t turn; instead, I keep my back to the door. I know myself. If I see one look of disappointment, I will buckle. Give in to them and maybe just hand the chest over. I don’t want to do that, I can’t do it.
I know they want to believe that story, that they are the ones that help the girl and that I’m the girl. What I don’t know is why. Chewing at my lip, I admit what my biggest worry is -- what if they will pretend to care for me, trick me into believing they are better than the others, then take what they want and throw me away?
Or worse.
“They are honorable.” I jump at the voice that doesn’t belong to Kellihan. My eyes dart around the room.
I finally see him only because he shifts slightly into the light, from where the shadows had hidden him completely.
“Excuse me?” My voice sounds shriller than I wish.
“The captains. They are good men. They wouldn’t use you and then throw you out like trash.” My eyes widen, and I wonder if I had spoken out loud. “Most of the men on these crews are strays, ones thrown away or running from the other captains. These men take them in, treat them fairly, and fight for what’s right. They are not your average pirates.”
“Have you known them long?” He nods at my question.
“Their whole lives, practically.” I frown, looking at his face closely. He looks no older than Fallon and the others.
I decide to listen to what he has said with an open mind. “Do they bring women onboard often?” I shake my head as the question slips from between my lips.
He smiles. “I see. No. You are the first.”
He sees. He sees, does he? Admit it, Reyna, you are mad at yourself for being so transparent.
“I’ve heard Wilder’s story. Are you the girl?” I shrug. How should I know? “Do you want to be?”
I open my mouth to answer then close it. Do I want to be? “I don’t know what that would even mean.”
“What if it meant sharing your life… with all of them?” His eyes narrow as I feel my chest heat before it moves to my face. “So, not a horrible idea.”
The door bangs open before I can answer him, and I turn my head to look as Kellihan comes in, closing it in five astonished faces.
“I informed them that you will be helping me finish the evening meal.” He grins, and I can’t help but smile back.
“I was just talking to …” I turn to ask the man’s name but he’s gone. Looking around, I don’t see any other way out of here. “Is there another door?”
He shakes his head, brows drawn down in concern.
I think of the letter once more.
A god that has been watching over me is what the one named Remy had said.
Maybe it wasn’t just me that was watched over.
* * *
She’s smart. I watch her look around the kitchen before she glances at the chest. Soon, she will believe. I don’t care if she shares her bed with the ones chosen to help her, but love strengthens people, makes them capable of immense sacrifice and strength.
My mind wanders to Raven and her men; their sacrifice was one of legends. Sean and Michael became true myths because of their love for one another and those they protected.
They still roam the worlds, protecting when they can, even checking on this one when they feel the pull of those that remain here.
Five to protect her, to love her, to help her rule.
Chapter 17
REMY
Nestor is gone. Playing one of his many roles, I’m sure.
My bones ache, and I feel as if my skin has grown thin from the hundreds of extra years he’s added to my life. I long for my eternal sleep. I’m unconnected to those that remain on this earth.
I feel like a mythical vampire but without the eternal youth or sexiness. I am just an ancient old man who has lost everything and everyone. Don’t get me wrong, my life has been filled with amazing sights and things, great heart-expanding loves, but it is time for me to go.
I look down at the phone screen, so out of place in this new world. She is smiling in the photo and she looks so like my child. My child, gone from this world for many lifetimes. She didn’t have a long life.
People didn’t live until old age after the war. We were lucky we had Nestor and Mimi as friends. They made certain we had things others didn’t, but still tragedy struck more often than not.
So many of the few that had survived were lost the first few years. People didn’t know how to live without the most basic things, like pharmacies. My aunt had made sure we had books of remedy recipes from the old world when we were travelers.
I had never been so proud of my Gypsy blood and heritage. It saved us. We had packed the books with our histories and lore. Nestor and Mimi had saved more books and art, when they could.
Glancing around, I feel lucky to be surrounded by some of the most beautiful art that had ever been created. Things once housed in museums hang from the cavern walls. I don’t know how Nestor found this unusual home but I have been forever grateful. Maybe he didn’t find it; maybe he made it.
Through the window in the front, I look out at the faded caravans brought here so long ago when people began to raid camps. It was Nestor and this place that saved us. Saved my family, and possibly will save the world now. Over the years, the others moved away as new settlements were built. They moved to create new families and lives.
I have long been forgotten, the caravans forgotten, our bloodline forgotten.
It has been for the best. It was what I had foreseen, what I painted for her. Looking back down, I look at the features I have painted a hundred times throughout the years. Long after Nestor hid the book in the chest, I painted her.
Pushing up slowly, I hold onto the arms while my legs adjust to my weight, hating the fact that I’m no longer young. What seems like hours later, I finally straighten and shuffle through the room into the large cave located off the back of the living area, pausing at the entrance to light the torch and use it to light the others as I move along the wall. Finally, at the end of the room, I place it in the holder and turn to face the massive wall.
It is covered top to bottom with a mural of a possible future, and at its center is Reyna, the green tablet in her hands and the magic flowing from her bod
y. For so many years, I’ve painted the wall, one picture over another as we waited to see which future will happen.
This is the last version, the last vision I had so many years ago. How many years, I can’t remember exactly. I look back at the phone in my hand, touching the screen so it lights up once again.
I hear his footsteps as he returns. “I’m back here, Nestor.”
He strides in, wearing some outfit and smelling of the sea. “She is amazing.” His eyes look at the wall and he grins, nodding. “This is the only future, Remy. We did it. You did it.”
I blink away the tears that spring to my eyes. “I can finally leave this world.” He whips his face to mine. “It’s time, my friend. I’ve done what I can. I’m ready.”
It’s quiet for a long time, and I can hear him swallowing. “Soon. I promise, Remy.” He moves closer, and I’m once again amazed that he still looks the same as he did that first day he appeared to me. The day I sent Cora the paintings of her future. “I don’t know what I will do without you.”
The quiet admission hurts my heart.
Chapter 18
LASH
The looks on their faces is almost too much. Maybe she is magic, for she’s certainly cast some kind of spell on Fallon’s cantankerous old cook. He actually smiled as he slammed the fucking door.
She will rule these ships if we don’t stop her.
Leaning against the wall with one foot pulled up, I try to feign nonchalance but I’m shaken. Fear. I don’t like the taste of it or the rejection she hit me with earlier. I have no footing with her.
I have nothing to offer her, besides my body and my charm.
Looking down, I try to hide my worry but I feel Wilder at my side and I know he has seen. Like Hagen, there isn’t much he misses, but with Wilder, it's different. Hagen is looking for threats, dangers to us. Wilder sees into us, always has.
“You okay?” He says the words quietly as the others argue about what to do.
The boy is still standing between us and the door, and Fallon is glaring at him. I watch as a bead of sweat runs from his hairline down his temple, streaking down to disappear below his jaw. I can practically smell the fear leaking from his skin, but he refuses to step aside, and my respect for the kid grows.
I glance to my right, but Wilder isn’t looking at me or the others. His gaze is unfocused, far away as he thinks.
“I’m fine.” I’m not, but there’s nothing he or anyone can do about it.
“It was hard to have her hands on my back,” he murmurs, and I can feel my skin flinch. I keep a huge cat on my ship to kill vermin and often his skin will twitch. I imagine that is what my back looks like now.
I roll my shoulders, trying to erase the phantom feelings. “For me too. It’s been a very long time since I’ve allowed anyone at my back.”
He nods, understanding. I don’t need to say more, and he knows I won’t.
“What else is bothering you?” Like I said, he sees too much.
Sighing, I push away from the wall and start toward the stairs, needing to be out of the hallway. I know he follows even though I hear nothing. He moves on silent feet.
We leave the others to fight for her attention.
The stars are starting to shine, and the moon is above the horizon. It is full tonight and blazes almost as brightly as the sun. I stand at the rail and try to think of anything but the truth to say.
While it is the truth, it’s not something I want to voice out loud.
“She will see you. Not this outer shell you use but the actual you. She will see your soul.” My jaw muscles flex as I clench my teeth together tightly. “I found a book in our ruins, and it talked about the powers of the old gods, the ones that both destroyed and saved our world. They could see people’s true selves. You are so much more than you believe, Lash. Don’t let the things done so long ago steal this from you. Just give her a chance.”
I want to believe him.
“A chance for what? Rule the world, rule these ships, or rule us?” It comes out harsher than I intended, but he doesn’t react.
“To love you.” My heart pounds loudly in my ears at his quiet words.
Fuck. A part of me wants to laugh; the other, the bigger part, feels like crying. I was made unlovable years ago.
“What if I don’t want her love?” I growl out, pinning him with a glare.
He just looks at me, and I hate what I see in his eyes. It’s what I used to see every time I dragged myself back to the shithole they had us sleep in when we were little. The others were kept in a different area, but he and I shared a pallet. I remember how that small area behind the crates was the only place we felt safe for years.
Wilder had been lucky, for his mind had led him out of the darkness. The captains discovered his affinity for numbers and words, and his neat handwriting cemented his role at the desk in the captain’s quarters.
I didn’t know how to read or write back then. My head shakes as I slam the door on the memories.
“We all want to be loved,” he finally answers.
“I fucking don’t want it or need it.” I hate the cold sweat that breaks out on my skin as the door in my mind bulges from the pressure of the memories locked behind it.
“That wasn’t love, brother,” he calls out softly as I turn, running for the other rail. Grabbing the rope, I swing myself out and over in a single smooth motion. My demons are chasing me as my feet hit my own deck, and I stride into my quarters. I shut the door and slide down it as I gasp for breath.
Chapter 19
FALLON
Wilder’s words float on the breeze, reaching my ears just as I’m about to step onto the deck. They make me pause, and I watch as Lash swings away.
We all run from the memories of our childhood. Race away from the demons that threaten to pull us back into the darkness. Some of us remember more from before, and those memories and the fantasy of what our lives could have been cut worse than the whips some times.
My back has been itching since I felt her hands on it.
Other than those on the ships, no one has ever seen the scars, much less touched them. I don’t let myself think about them ninety percent of the time but the other ten percent, I can feel each strike, each split of the skin, and the itching from the healing.
Kellihan had taken care of us after each beating, sneaking in to slather some concoction on the wounds to keep us from dying from infection.
No matter how much we begged him to let us do just that.
“Are you just going to stand there in the shadows?” Wilder doesn’t turn, just continues to stare out at the sea.
“I was just thinking,” I murmur as I step up the last rung and onto the moonlit deck.
“She is stirring up old memories, opening old wounds.” I look over at his words and see lines of tension bracketing his eyes. “I don’t know if it is good or bad.”
“Neither do I.” I turn away from the sea, leaning on the rail with my elbows. “Has anyone touched yours?”
There is no need to say what, for he knows. His head shakes. “Not other than when they were created.”
We are silent, both fighting to lock things we don’t wish to remember away. I must admit that those memories are at least some of the things that drive us. Years we have fought the pirate king. Years of making allies, both on sea and the land. We listened as rumors began to grow. Rumors of something buried long ago. Buried beneath ice and rock, which has begun to melt. It was on one of our trips north that I was attacked. The sea I went into was littered with chunks of ice.
Yet I woke far down the mountain coast, a place no current could have pushed me. For not the first time, I wonder about how I could have gotten there.
“Wilder?” He looks at me. “How did you guys find me? The Rose was in Arctic waters when I went over.”
“You been puzzling that out too, huh?” Footsteps stop his answer, and we both turn our heads to the top of the stairs.
Cyder and Hagen emerge, one after the o
ther. “That boy won’t move, even after I threatened to whip him.” Cyder shakes his head in disbelief.
“Maybe because he knows you won’t actually whip him,” Hagen grumbles. “You should only threaten what you are willing to do.”
“Whatever. YOU picked him up and shook him like a doll, and still he refused.” His voice is filled with pride, and I grin.
“Colin is a good lad. Not his fault he’s already half in love with her.” I sigh. “Hell, it won’t be long before everyone is.” I give them both a hard look. “Good thing too. If the King learns of her, if she’s the one, she will need all the protection she can get until she finds whatever is hidden.”
They all nod their heads.
“I still can’t figure out how he found where I was,” I say out loud, even though I didn’t mean to.
“I don’t think he was looking for you.” Hagen’s words startle me.
“Who then, if not me?”
“Her.” One word, and I feel a chill skitter over my skin. “There’ve been whispers that he searches for a woman. Maybe he’s heard the story, too.” He shrugs.
I glance at Wilder. “I’m sure he could have, but why start looking now?” He shakes his head.
“He could have more information.” Cyder looks at Hagen and then the rest of us.
It’s as good an answer as any. I realize we should reach out to some of our contacts that are hidden closer to the King. When I refocus, Hagen is looking at me and nods. Turning on his heel, he stalks across the deck, grabbing the rope when he reaches it. He is graceful as he swings across then repeats his actions until he reaches his own ship. He is our handler of intelligence, the one with the spies. It isn’t long before I can see a small boat rowing away. It will be days before we hear anything.
“So do you think she’s going to let us read that letter or see in that chest?” Cyder grumbles.
