Chapter 4
B elow, on deck, the crew enjoys a feast.
Nolan and I enjoy ours up in the crow’s nest, where Charlie laid us out a blanket and brought us a basket full of food and drinks.
“You don’t like it?” asks Nolan, watching me as I pick at the food on my plate.
Confused, I glance up at him, still amazed at the man sitting across from me. That this man, this fae, broad-shouldered and dazzling and uncatchable, is my husband.
“No, I do,” I say, glancing down at the roasted pheasant displayed upon a bed of greens and tomatoes.
There’s bread too, fresh from a bakery in the nearest port.
It’s got the most pleasantly sweet aftertaste, and as much as I’m excited for Charlie to bring us a selection from the dessert table down below, I’m considering filling up on this bread instead.
“It’s wonderful. I just…” I laugh, covering my mouth, embarrassed at my own silliness.
Nolan raises a teasing eyebrow. “We’ve only been wed half an hour, Darling. Surely you’re not expecting me to telepathically read the rest of your thoughts.”
“Not yet,” I say. “I just…I figure the more slowly I eat, the longer I can draw out tonight.”
“That disturbed by what I’m planning for after the wedding, are you?” says Nolan, his voice light, though there’s slight concern in the way the corners of his eyes wrinkle.
Again, I flush. “No. No, I just imagined this moment so many times when I was…away. Let myself picture it, smell the smells—the lavender is perfect, by the way—but I’ve fantasized about it so often without ever truly believing it would come to pass.
I just want it to last as long as possible. I want to sit in it for a while.”
“And that plan involves eating one bite every five minutes?”
“Indeed.”
Nolan offers me a look of feigned annoyance, then says, “We’ll keep this wedding going for a fortnight if that’s what you want, Darling.”
“With breaks, though,” I say.
My husband raises a brow.
“For the activities you have planned for after the wedding, of course,” I say, and his face lights up with a deft grin.
“Not with the pace at which you’re eating,” he says, stabbing a piece of my pheasant with his fork and popping it in his mouth.
We sit in silence for a moment, watching the reception play out beneath us.
Most everyone appears to be done eating, and the chairs have been moved out of the way to make room for dancing.
In the far corner, Michael sways and spins to the music.
I watch as Maddox saunters toward him, soon mirroring Michael’s dance moves.
I giggle, watching Maddox’s bulky form attempt Michael’s rather erratic movements.
“You’re not the only one who’s amused,” says Nolan, nodding toward the other side of the deck.
Charlie is watching from afar, hand over her mouth to suppress what I imagine has to be a giggle.
Soon, she’s prancing over to the other side of the deck, and joining Maddox and Michael in on the dance.
When the song shifts, Michael takes her hand, and Maddox takes the other, and the three spin around in a circle, falling down at Michael’s cues.
“You should go down there,” says Nolan. “Dance with them.”
I shake my head. “No. For the longest time, Michael only ever interacted with family. And then, when he started interacting with others, it was only with family around. Watching him have fun and play without me nearby—that’s another dream I never thought I’d get to see.”
And then, for what has to be the seventh time tonight, the tears are rolling down my cheeks.
My husband catches them with a crooked finger, then lifts my chin to look at him. “I can’t stop staring at you.”
I blush. “Charlie did pretty well with my hair, didn’t she?”
Nolan shakes his head. “No—I mean, yes—but it’s just that I keep looking over and thinking ‘that’s my wife.’”
A question lingers on my tongue, but it’s stuck behind the fear of how presumptuous it might sound.
“Ask it,” Nolan says, reading my mind despite his earlier assertion that he couldn’t.
“When did you first imagine it—me being your wife, I mean?” The question comes out unsure, dry, cracked.
Nolan sits back in his chair, examines me for a long while.
“It’s alright if you don’t remember,” I say softly.
“No, I remember. It’s just that there are two possible answers, and I’m not sure which one you’re looking for.”
“I assure you I won’t leave you if you tell me both.”
“Very well, then,” says Nolan, crossing his arms. “The first time I imagined proposing to you was the day I overheard Peter’s pitiful excuse for a proposal.
It was a fleeting thought, at first. But only because I caught myself enamored with a daydream of how I would do it better.
Of how it would be about you and not me, and how I’d have picked out the ring beforehand.
How I’d make sure you knew it was because I’d been pondering it for a long while, not because in the heat of the moment, I simply wanted to get into bed with you…
” The corner of his lip twitches. “Not that the two are mutually exclusive.”
My heart races in my chest as he continues, “But I caught myself thinking about it over the next few days. At that point, I told myself it was my Mating Mark infiltrating my thoughts. But even then, I knew it wasn’t just that.
I knew you were kind, and though there were so many things about you that irritated me to the very core of my being, I knew I wanted better for you than what I’d overheard.
I told myself I was just feeling protective. ”
“And the second time?” I ask.
“The second time…” he says, “was the night we spent at the Carlisles’. Throughout our time there, I kept finding myself forgetting to pretend. Calling you my wife felt so natural, so right… It terrified me. That was why I was so cruel to you that evening, I’m ashamed to admit.”
“You weren’t cruel,” I say, thinking of Nolan cornering me by the desk in the bedroom the Carlisles had arranged for us. “I’d just pried into your past. You weren’t ready to tell me what had happened with Iaso, but I weaseled the information out of Lady Carlisle anyway. It wasn’t fair to you.”
Nolan’s brow lowers. “That’s where you’re wrong, Darling. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t ready to tell you. Iaso’s death was as integral to your past as it was to mine. It was selfish to pretend I owned it. And it was worse to say the awful things I did to you that night.”
I reach my hand across the table and find his. His fingers actually flinch underneath my gentle touch. Like he’s not expecting it or doesn’t feel as if he deserves it. “You could always make it up to me now.”
Nolan’s eyes fill with gratitude, and he pulls his chair forward so that he’s right in front of me, his knees and thighs pressing in on the outside of mine. My heart pounds as he leans in close and traces my Mating Mark with his finger. “Do you know what I see when I look at you, Darling?”
“What?” I breathe.
“I see the Mate I never deserved. I see the adversary to my every flaw. I see the furnace that softens the iron and turns it into something moldable, something useful, the furnace that turns iron into a blade. I see the sugar that makes the tea less bitter. I see a woman whose strength was always too elusive for me to recognize. A quiet strength, the type that endures. I see patience and kindness and a woman who can douse a runaway fire with a soft word. I see a woman who would do anything, who has done anything, to protect her family. I see a soft embrace for Michael to wrap himself up in. A patient sister who will play the same game with him for hours on end. I see…” He takes my arm and traces his finger over the red marks that Michael left as he scratched me earlier, when he was panicking over Nolan trying to carry him.
“I see someone who carries the pain for others so they don’t have to bear it on their own. ”
I’m torn in two at his words, because as much as my heart swells at the thought Nolan thinks all these things about me, my mind is caught on one quality and one alone.
“You should see a woman who bargained away her child.”
Nolan frowns, and something like anger flashes in his eyes. “Look at me,” he says, at which point I realize I’m twiddling the ring on my finger. “Darling, look at me.”
My eyes obey.
“You are my wife. And I won’t tolerate anyone saying awful things about you. Not even you. Do you understand?”
“They might be awful, but that doesn’t make them any less true,” I say.
“Why must you always spin every scrap of evidence against anyone else in the most positive light, yet with anything that could possibly be used against you, you act as your own prosecutor? Darling, don’t you understand what you rescued me from?”
I blink at him through tears as he continues.
“When the Sister whisked me away to her lair of shadows…” Nolan grits his teeth and glances to the floor of the crow’s nest as he rubs his forehead.
“All I could think about was the warden. Of all the times he forced me…” Nolan closes his eyes, takes in a deep breath.
“The Sister toyed with me first. I knew where it was headed, of course. And I just kept thinking, ‘It’s happening again. I told myself it would never happen again, and it’s happening again. ’”
Sweat breaks out on my husband’s brow, and when I reach out to touch him, he flinches.
Frustrated with himself, he looks at me with forlorn eyes.
“When the Nomad summoned the Sister, it was just as she was…” He takes a steadying breath.
“Just as she was undressing me. I… I started seeing black around my vision. I thought that was why she had disappeared, that my body was just panicking itself into blindness. But she was gone, and when she came back, she told me you’d made a bargain to get me back.
I’m sorry, Darling. But I can’t sit here and listen to you berate yourself when you did nothing but agree to a childless life so that I could be free. ”
Tears sting at my eyes, and as I stroke his face, he slowly softens under my touch.
“So please. You can tell me anything,” he says. “You can tell me your concerns, your worries, your fears. But please don’t call yourself awful. I can’t bear to hear it.”
I nod. “Okay.”
He smiles softly. “Okay.” Then he clears his throat and stands, gesturing to the ladder that leads down to the deck. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, it’s my wedding day, and I would like to dance with my wife.”
When I reach the bottom of the ladder, Charlie, Maddox, and Michael are there to greet me. The crew lets out a cacophony of whoops and hollers, at which point Nolan informs them that if he hears of anyone looking up my gown as I climbed the ladder, there will be one less eye on the ship.
The hollers dissipate after that.
Before Nolan reaches the bottom, Charlie whisks me aside and hands me a teacup brimming with a foul liquid.
“What is this? Some pirate wedding custom?” I ask, nose crinkling at the unpalatable substance.
“No, but it is an I-don’t-want-to-get-pregnant custom,” she says.
“Had to pick it up from the market today. You wouldn’t believe the vendor.
One of those herb lady sorts, kind of odd.
Still, it will keep you from having to worry about having children.
Apparently, this is the premier formula for preventing pregnancy. ”
“Nolan told you, then?” I ask. “About the bargain?”
Charlie frowns at me. “I’m sorry, Winds. You never should have been put in the situation to make that decision.”
My stomach writhes, and I can’t quite bring myself to believe that.
“Thank you for this,” I say, lifting the chalice, then immediately wincing as I take a sip of what tastes like dishwater. “Actually, I retract my thanks.”
“Well, you’ll be retracting your retraction when tonight you can do as you will with your husband without concern. Just make sure you take it every night.” When she glimpses the anxiety on my face, she says, “Don’t worry, I bought up the herb lady’s entire stock.”
I let out a sigh of relief, hug Charlie, then choke down the rest of the potion.
By the time Nolan comes to get me for the dance, Charlie is already shoving me in his direction.
“And now we present to you,” she yells over the crowd, “the captain and his pirate queen!”
The crowd erupts into cheers, at which point Nolan shoots Charlie an acidic glare. “We’re privateers,” he says, all scolding.
“Sure we are,” Charlie says with a wink.
I let out a laugh, and my husband, still rolling his eyes, whisks me out to the dance floor so quickly, I gasp.
He chuckles at my surprise, but the melody of the strings is captivating, so the captain and I dance, and the stars watch, and all is right in the world.