7
Kissed by the sea
H e looked down at my torn corset, and in a matter of seconds, shrugged off his long black leather coat, draping it around me. He was now wearing a thin white linen shirt, half-open at the chest, that revealed a gold chain with something that looked like a coin dangling from it. If I looked closely—which I did—I could make out intricate black ink stretching across his arms and down to his hands, the patterns like whispers of shadows etched into his skin.
Before I could protest, he lifted me effortlessly and slung me over his shoulder, breaking into a run.
“Put me down, you brute!”
“Donna!” It was the voice of Diego. He was screaming my name and running straight towards us, his sword still dripping crimson red. And suddenly, realization hit so painfully, as if someone was gripping my heart trying to squeeze out all the blood that was left in it .
He killed Dara with that sword. He killed her so cruelly… and he just stood there, clutching the weapon that ended her life.
“No!” I started screaming with all the force that was still in me. I had to go to her. Maybe she was still alive.
“Get me down!” I kicked him with my arms and legs. “I need to get her, I need her, please! Dara!” I cried desperately. “No! Dara! Please!” I screamed with everything I had left, everything. I couldn't contain my sobs. What if that was the last time, what if I never saw her again?
No. I couldn’t.
But when I opened my mouth to scream for her again, a moan of pain escaped my lips instead. The pain in my abdomen came back and I felt the blood coming out of the wound again.
The man who just moments ago tried to kill me, cursed loudly as he stopped running and put me down.
Suddenly, I felt like everything was spinning and the only thing I wanted was to close my eyes.
“Don’t,” he muttered, placing both hands on my face and shaking it gently. “Open them. Open your eyes, c'mon. We need to get you to the sea, savvy?”
Somehow, I managed to whisper Dara's name as he tried to pry my eyes open with his thumbs.
“She is dead," he said. "She died so you could come with us, and now I need to take you to the sea, or you will die.”
He pressed both hands to my wound, applying pressure.
“What are you talking about?” I breathed, feeling weak and dizzy. I didn't think I was hearing him properly .
“That thing back there? Just a little saltwater I carried in a tiny jar. With that wound of yours, it would only relieve the pain and stop the bleeding for a short time. You are losing a lot of blood—I might've stabbed an organ without meaning to. A little water won't do anything, I need to submerge you in the sea for at least a couple of minutes.”
What was he talking about? The sea?
Yes, Lady Love, the sea. Please.
I looked back as best as I could and staggered sideways from the sudden movement, but he was immediately holding me.
“My friends are taking care of that so we can make it to the water, aye?”
I tried to comprehend. I was fighting badly just so I could keep my eyes open, what was he even talking about?
“We just need to keep going a little longer, can you do that? Just a little longer.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but instead, a terrible sound of pain escaped my lips without meaning to.
“Gods. All right then.” He suddenly lifted me again, this time carefully placing me in his arms and putting mine around his neck. I winced at the movement and finally closed my eyes.
“Don’t you dare die.” He began to run, his voice growing faint as he added, “You have something I've been chasing for years.”
?? ?
I must have fainted along the way because suddenly I felt myself collapsing. And immediately after, I was slowly sinking into dark, cold waters. That burning sensation in my abdomen returned, but magically, it disappeared in a second.
What was happening to me?
I opened my eyes underwater, and all I could see was darkness, except for a bright light above me. Too soon, I was aware that what I now feared was not the blood nor the wound, but that I was sinking to the bottom completely and did not know how to rise to the surface.
Up, Lady Love, with both arms. Up.
I unconsciously began to move my arms and legs without direction not knowing what to do with them, but nothing happened. The surface was still so far away that I was beginning to lose hope.
This was it, wasn't it? Killed by the thing I loved most. By the sea that I had spent so many years contemplating from the window, the one for which I had fought the fear of being arrested for simply dipping my feet into its shores in secret every night.
Up, Lady Love. Up.
I needed air, I needed to breathe.
UP.
I screamed. I screamed with everything I had as if my voice alone could’ve lifted me to the surface and saved me. But only a stream of bubbles escaped rising away from me while the water crept in, slipping down my throat bit by bit, stealing the air from my lungs .
Please. Someone.
Air.
And then, a sound of crashing water and a hand reaching mine.
I felt myself being carried to the surface, just as I had been moments ago when I was pulled into the sea.
Suddenly, the sun hit my face, and I gasped desperately for air as someone grabbed me and swam towards a rope.
It was him again. The man with the scar above his left eye.
And now that I could see his face clearly, without shadows obscuring it or dizziness preventing me from keeping my eyes open, I could take in every detail, each feature sharpened by our proximity.
Strands of his now wet dark hair clung to his face, but even so, I could see the small freckles dotting his warm, olive-tan skin, making it clear it had been kissed by the relentless sun.
Looking closely, I noticed his scar didn't just sit above his left eye; it ran across his entire eye, though the upper part was more pronounced. It didn’t mar his beauty, if anything, it made him even more intriguing, as if it were a symbol of his resilience.
And I couldn’t help but wonder about the story behind it.
“You are a very strange pirate.” He smirked.
And because he spoke, I found myself staring at his open mouth, surely searching for air after the effort of swimming. His lips were a reddish pink, and drops of water trickled down his short beard that went from mustache to chin to sideburns, and of course, it was beautiful too. Or maybe it was just the fact that I hadn't been this close to many mouths in my life. Or I had simply swallowed a lot of water, because I was no longer thinking anything but nonsense.
He reached to the rope with his right hand and with his other arm he grabbed me tightly by the waist. The rope began to move forward, and when I looked ahead, my mouth and eyes opened in their own accord when I saw where the rope came from.
I sighed in surprise.
Rising ahead like a dark omen, a ship loomed over us, its blood-red sails billowing against the pale sky like a storm’s warning. It was somehow small, but it looked almost too grand, too powerful, its hulking mass casting a shadow over the water—an imposing majestic predator, waiting for its prey to come closer. And as we approached, I could see it was a single-masted sailing vessel with ten cannons. Probably very fast for its size. When we were close enough, I could see that the figurehead was a wooden mermaid with white wings already worn out, but the color of the green tail was still noticeable, and no flag was hoisted.
I was being pulled by a stranger to a ship, and yet, beneath the fear tightening in my chest, something else stirred—an undeniable pull, as if it called to me, just like the sea called me every night from the shore.
“We are going up now.” His voice drew my attention away from the ship, and I turned to face him. He smiled when he noticed my mouth still hanging open, and I quickly shut it, not wanting to reveal that this was my first time seeing a ship up close.
I nodded. Because yes, of course—all right—we were going in. I was about to set foot on a ship for the first time in my life .
“Would you mind getting my hair out of my face? We're going to need my eyes,” he said, smiling.
Not knowing what to do, I removed my right arm from his neck, leaving the left one so I could have some support and not sink, and moved away the hair from his forehead. With the wet black strands of hair no longer in his eyes, I could see the full depth of their blue color. They were a light shade of cyan, but it somehow held a deepness to it, intense and unwavering like the depths of the ocean, and I immediately remembered something I read in a book about people with blue eyes having an ancestor who lived near the Sculptor’s Sea. And I thought of how lucky he was, for having a story and carrying the ocean in his eyes.
The painted black lines above them made some tiny dark spots in his pupils stand out, like turtles swimming in a crystal-clear sea.
He was still smiling as we were being pulled up. And as the sun hit his entire face, something shiny caught my eye. He had a small gold hoop earring in his right ear from which a little white pearl hung.
And just in case any doubt lingered, as my feet touched the deck and I saw three men dressed in what were clearly not royal uniforms, I knew.
And my heart began to race because it knew too—that I was on a pirate ship.
And what was most disconcerting was that I was fully healed and fine.
I glanced down at my wet, torn white dress, stained with blood, and did my best to cover myself with the black leather coat the stranger with the pearl earring had given me earlier. I coughed a couple of times and tried to catch my breath.
Before I could ask what was happening, the man who a few moments ago had stabbed me in the stomach with a knife and then saved my life, took a few steps back. Tilting his head to the side, he looked at me up and down before fixing his gaze on my eyes.
He then extended his hand, and immediately one of the other men handed him a tricorn brown leather hat. Not breaking eye contact and still smiling , he placed it on his head and said, “Captain Calico Pierce.”
Oh.
I instinctively looked up towards the dark red sails on the mast. So this had to be—
“Welcome aboard The Rebecca, love.”