Vengeance of the Pirate Queen(90)

“My point is,” I continue, “that I’m used to seeing evil in men. I looked high and low for it in you, but I couldn’t find it. So I thought to scare you off by showing you the evil in me. That didn’t work, either.”

He smiles softly. “You gave it your best effort to prevent us from happening. I commend you for it.”

I fight off a laugh. Kearan’s eyes trace my lips, taking in my smiles like they’re sunshine.

“I don’t like that it was you who made me see I shouldn’t be so hard on myself,” I say. “Alosa tried to tell me. Mandsy and Niridia both tried. But I never told them the full story. I don’t think I could believe it until someone knew the whole truth of it. I don’t like that it was finally you. A man. I don’t need a man to prove anything to me.”

He takes some time to process that. “The thing is that you love Alosa and those girls you fought with. Their good opinions mean the world to you. I was expendable. My good opinion wasn’t something you wanted. You lost nothing by telling me.”

“No, instead I gained everything, including a desire for you to think well of me.”

And more importantly, a reason to think well of myself.

“It’s all right to need a little help sometimes,” he says. “You must realize that you helped me long before I helped you. Or have you forgotten? If anything, I owed you one.”

The drinking. I was what made him finally stop and take back his life.

I had forgotten. I’d been too caught up in accepting so much from him. But I saved him just as much as he ever saved me.

That’s what a partnership looks like.

That’s what love looks like.

That word still makes me uncomfortable. I can’t say that I’m ready for it yet. But I am ready to see where this goes. To try. To open myself to someone who will not think less of me for being me.

“Almost forgot,” Kearan says. He goes to the floor where I discarded his coat before climbing into the bath. He reaches into one of the many pockets and pulls out the last thing I’d expected to see.

It’s the tricorne he gifted me our first day at sea.

“How did you …?”

“I snagged it before Vengeance went down. I hoped you might accept it eventually.”

“Where have you been keeping it all this time?”

“Close to my heart.”

The answer is ridiculous, but I adore it anyway. He reaches his hand out and puts the tricorne on my head. It gets caught on my ponytail, so I undo it and regather my hair closer to my neck.

“I like you,” I say, even though the words are as sharp to my consciousness as any blade is to my body.

“I like you more,” he says.

“That may have been true once. I don’t think so anymore.”

“No?”

I step closer, so we’re sharing the same breath.

“No.”

And I finally take the kiss I want.

Or rather, we share it.





Chapter 26





IT’S NOT AT ALL like the last few times.

Then I was changed by the panaceum or weakened with an injury or high off the thrill of victory and covered in blood.

But now? Now I’m fully myself.

And he kisses me in the way a pirate assassin ought to be kissed.

With fervor.

His arms wrap around me, trapping me against him. One lands on the small of my back while the other presses between my shoulder blades. At first, I worry about what to do with my arms, but they find the most natural position around his neck. All the better to keep his mouth fused to mine.

He smells of salt and leather and soap. He tastes like water. He feels like death.

Yes, death. That sweet, sweet moment just before I end someone. When I know I’m relishing in vengeance yet again. He is that feeling magnified by a hundred. A sense of accomplishment and rightness and mine.

He is mine just as much as those lives I take.

But he burns with life. I feel the heat of him from my head to my toes. It’s more effective than any fire. Makes me feel alive in a way temperature can only hint at.

This is a dance I enthusiastically take part in. The dance of our lips to the music of our rapid breathing.

I know how to issue out threats with the merest of gestures, but I didn’t realize how my blood could pump faster when he moves his hands to my waist, moves his thumbs along the straight line of my stomach.

And when he lifts me onto the desk, I suck in a breath of air before he captures my lips again. His hands are on my legs now, widening them so he can slip between and press our bodies together once more.

That’s when I finally uncoil my arms from around him so I can do some exploring of my own. I wrap my hands around his biceps to feel the strength of his arms from atop his clothes. I clasp my ankles together behind his back, pull him flush against me, let my fingers roam up and down his back.

That night, no more knocks come to the door. No, everyone lets their captain get her rest.

Except that night, I get none.

I’m too busy kissing the man who loves me.





THE DRIFTA LOWER NETS into the water to catch food for everyone during the journey. The Islanders crew the ship. Everyone does their part to help us reach home.

The below-freezing temperatures drift away until it’s only the normal cold of the north. We are close to reaching the Seventeen Isles. Perhaps only a day or two’s sail now.