Falling for the Huntsman (To Win a Dark Heart #12)

Chapter 1 Alaric

CHAPTER ONE

ALARIC

They say the sea is cruel, so I learned to be crueler.

The sailor flinched as the hot iron touched his forearm, but I pressed harder. “You steal from my hold, you wear my mark.”

He gritted his teeth, and I saw the fury behind his pain.

Good. Let him remember it.

This wasn’t punishment. It was justice. A lesson.

Sure, he stole only a little salve for his new, un-trained hands.

But all whalers’ hands burned and stained from doing the work we did.

And now, this man would burn for his thievery.

He finally broke, and tears streamed down his face. He had to be about nineteen years of age.

Young, but never too young to avoid accountability.

I threw the brand onto the deck, finding the rest of the whalers still as statues.

They stared wide-eyed.

It’d been a while since I branded a sailor with the “AG” initials of my whaling empire.

“Get back to work,” I barked.

No hesitations.

My men flensed the whale, their blades flashing in the moonlight, red and silver. Sharks thrashed near the stern, drawn to the feast. The sea tonight was not blue… but black and crimson with greed.

With five fleets, an empire built on blood and blubber, and enough barrels of whale oil to burn through kingdoms, I had done the unthinkable.

Crowned rulers flinched when they saw my sails on the horizon.

People at every bay and port bowed to my whims.

I had enough gold and treasure to fill all the mansions and palaces in the Tempest Seas.

I should’ve felt triumphant.

Victorious.

Invincible.

Instead, I stood on the deck and stared into the boiling dark, the scent of burning flesh curling through the salt-drenched air like a ghost.

In the thick of the grime and gore, emptiness.

“That was a fine day,” said Destin, my first mate and cousin. He folded his arms, his expression sober. “When they’re done, we’ll get over three thousand barrels out of all this, Captain.”

I nodded, rubbing my jaw.

Three thousand barrels. The yield most men would kill for.

It should’ve thrilled me.

It didn’t.

“Something wrong?” Destin asked.

I glanced at him, the mirror of myself: same dark hair, same sun-worn skin, same calloused hands from a life built on whale blood. We were both twenty-five. Too young to have seen this much death and carnage. Too rich to care.

Still, I’d never tell him.

Or anyone.

“Nothing,” I said, turning back to the sea.

“Do you regret not closing the deal with the queen?” Destin asked, prying like a sailor picking apart crab legs for dinner. He knew better than to do this.

I gave him a warning look, enough to put him in place. He took a step back.

“I don’t regret anything,” I said. Although… my mind wandered to a few days ago, moments before we left the port at Moanalei Kingdom.

The sky hung low, with clouds that foreshadowed a storm.

The port, once so full of life and color, had changed under Sereth’s rule.

Guards patrolled the docks, always keeping track of who came and went. They acted like seagulls circling over the sea, looking for something to feed on.

And at that moment, standing at the port not so long ago, the bird’s voices wailed across the sky.

Ships groaned against their moorings.

The whole place smelled of rot and grime.

And then there was Sereth, standing beneath a black parasol. Her skin nearly matched the color of her white gloves, her lips the color of blood, and her hair black as ebony. Her cloak billowed in the breeze, dark as a funeral.

But even her beauty could not hide her past.

She had blood on those snow white hands: the blood of her stepmother.

It haunted her eyes. Haunted her kingdom. She couldn’t walk anywhere without a guard at her side. Her people feared her. Most had already turned to me for protection, for hope.

But I wasn’t a savior. I was a whaler. Not a leader.

Sereth had tried to strike a deal before we set sail: flashing those cold eyes, offering investment in my fleet. She needed my power. My reputation. She wanted to buy back control of her crumbling reign.

No one fooled me.

Everyone was afraid of me, even her. But still… she was fierce. Her armies rivaled the size of my crews. She ruled with an iron hand, a sharp tongue, and the shadow of her own crime behind her.

I could’ve been that crime.

I’d once sworn to her stepmother that I’d take Sereth to sea, kill her, and toss her overboard.

But I didn’t.

And I’d kept one vow ever since: I’d never bow to a crown again. I followed laws, not rulers. I lived on my own terms.

“I don’t bow to the queen,” I said.

Destin nodded. “I know, Alaric.”

“I bow to no one.”

“We’ve spent all our lives hunting though,” Destin said and sighed. Was he getting soft? I frowned at him, ready to knock some sense into his skull. He was dreaming again.

It drove me crazy.

“I am a huntsman,” I said. “I hunt. And as long as I’m hunting, I am the one in power.”

Destin’s eyes riveted on the mass below that no longer resembled a humpback, but a carcass with a metallic stench. “No man is too powerful to be hunted, Alaric.”

That was enough. I shoved my cousin, and he gasped, but he didn’t fight back.

Never did.

He was too loyal.

Instead, he frowned, and before he could speak, I snapped. “I am the huntsman, Destin.” I slammed my fist on the rail and added, “You are distracted again, cousin. Get that sea witch out of your mind or I will.”

Sea witch. Destin fell in love years ago with a mysterious young woman but the witch disappeared.

“At least I have a witch,” he muttered.

I cursed and shook my head. I didn’t need a witch. I didn’t need anyone.

I stormed off.

No man is too powerful to be hunted? Did Destin even realize what I’d built? The power in my hands? I had become so wealthy, so notorious, so large that nobody could touch me. Anyone who touched me would be killed.

My men were loyal to me, this business, and this life on the stormy sea.

As I walked onto the helm and took hold of the ship’s wheel, I noticed two figures standing to the side. They were tall for teenagers, and very slender. Sereth asked if I might give them safe passage to the kingdom of Corallure, the home of her estranged husband, Elias.

She didn’t explain who they were, but paid a handsome sum for their safe delivery. “You must ensure they are promptly taken to the king and queen of Corallure.” Sereth had handed me a sealed envelope. “With this,” she added. That note was in my quarters now.

Curiosity may have forced anyone else to open it, but I didn’t have time or a care for that.

Sereth asked a favor.

She offered good money.

And I said yes.

The teenagers stared at the whale, somber looks in their eyes. The girl then glanced my way, her expression hollow. Her name was Lilo, and, for whatever reason, I felt myself mirrored in her.

A haunted look.

An invisible guard around the soul.

Her twin, Niko, glanced at me too, and it was then I noticed he was holding something. A knife? He fidgeted with it before it disappeared in his fingers. No, his sleeve?

I dismissed it as a hallucination.

Whalers did that a lot, possessed by what we did.

And while we killed, the teens kept to themselves, which I appreciated.

The last thing I needed was to have two troublesome teenagers meddling in my whaling empire.

I frowned, and the twins, who were obviously scared of me like everyone else, quickly redirected their attention to the remnants of the dead whale.

I looked at the sky, finding the stars spread out vast and beautiful. It was peaceful amidst the splashing of the sharks and the cursing and irreverent shanties of my sailors as they flensed the whale.

“Captain!”

I groaned. If there was one more thing we needed to deal with today, someone would get hurt. It was a young sailor, one who had joined our crew recently, if I remembered correctly.

“There’s a calf swimming around the ship. It’s probably looking for its mother.”

The mother…

We killed her.

That was her mass floating in the water as the men finished flensing. If we left the calf alone, it would die a slow, miserable death. Starvation. Slowly nipped to pieces by sharks.

“Kill it,” I said.

The boy visibly shrank. I handed him a harpoon. “You kill it.”

And I followed him.

His fingers shook. He didn’t aim properly.

Miss.

The calf swam in circles, dazed and shocked, wailing for its mother.

The boy braced for punishment.

I picked up a bloody harpoon, guiding the boy to finish the job.

“Steady,” I said.

I’d done this thousands of times. Trained thousands of men. Killed thousands of whales.

The harpoon let out a soft airy noise as it launched through the air.

The calf struggled.

Then floated.

I turned to the boy. “You miss again, I’ll leave you in the water. Understand?”

I didn’t even know his name.

He just shuddered. “Aye aye captain.”

I returned to the helm and rubbed my temple. The men drew in the dead calf, their harpoons shooting at the sharks before they took all our kill.

The boy looked over the side, his face pale, and he puked.

I closed my eyes, imagining our target destination, Corallure Kingdom. Thinking about the destination always distracted me.

The goal distracted me.

But my thoughts betrayed me.

He’s too young for this.

They say the sea is cruel. But cruelty wasn’t the hardest part.

It was pretending it never bothered you.