Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
James
“Belichime, this as you know, is James. He is going to be helping out in the kitchen. He is not allowed near the knives yet.” Samuel smirks, the weird mutual understanding between us is still simmering just underneath the surface.
“So, for now, he will help you with the baking.” My spine stiffens at his condescending tone.
He is talking to a woman younger than I am in a way that suggests he is asking her to watch a petulant little child he happened to find, and now needs to take care of.
“Wonderful. It was getting quite busy with all the baking, so it will be good to have an extra pair of hands,” Belichime tells me.
Her lips curl up, her almost golden eyes sparkling with mischief.
Like she is trying to reassure me that working in the kitchen won’t be so horrible, and after all, staying locked up in one room would have slowly made me insane.
Samuel just nods, before striding out of the kitchen as if he has suddenly remembered himself. The heavy oak door slams shut, leaving me with Belichime’s silence, fire crackling, metal and glass clicking together, and loud voices shouting at each other.
“Come on, want a tour of the kitchen? I will avoid the knives, so you won’t try to kill our Cap’n again,” Belichime teases me.
She does not only seem to be far too young to be a pirate, but she also seems far too kind too.
A trait I could and should exploit, to win her trust. Make her talk to me about the other pirates, how she and her brother ended up here.
Every time I want to open my mouth, my stomach twists and turns, and it feels like my body is buzzing with an energy I can’t quite shake.
Just the idea of using the only one on this ship who has shown me kindness makes me ashamed of myself.
I nod and let Belichime walk me through the kitchen.
Her voice drifts in and out, like I am drifting in the ocean, my head bobbing up and down as she keeps talking.
I don’t catch all of her words, because they sound far away like my head is underwater.
“Oh and this here is Herb, one of the ship cats. They help keep mice and rats away from our food. Like all cats, he is magical. He controls dreams and sleep. So if you ever have trouble sleeping, he might help you,” she says cheerily.
I have questions, but the effects of being without my fated mate are about to hit me full force. Strings of multicolored lights blur the edge of my vision. Every breath I take lets less air get into my lungs, The heaviness of the air, full of sea and spices isn’t helping either.
“Alright?” I only catch the last anxious word falling from Belichime’s lips.
“Yes, just dizzy” my lips feel heavy, my mouth dry. I barely hear my own voice. I don’t have the energy to repeat myself.
“Best sit down. I don’t need some unconscious faun-fucker lying about in my kitchen,” a pirate I’ve seen but not spoken to before tells me.
I have no time to answer him. Air slams out of me as broad, strong hands push me onto a hard surface just as I open my mouth to answer him.
My stomach rumbles as warm metal is pushed into my hands.
“Drink the broth,” I get told. They still think this is nothing more than a common cold.
Fixable with gritting your teeth and drinking your fluids.
It won’t, but I have grown weary of explaining myself to people who do not acknowledge what I have.
Simply because it is not something they are familiar with.
Fae more so than the fauns they hate so much remind me of humans.
The darker, sadder parts of humans, the bits I do not miss about being away from earth.
I just drink the broth which does make me feel less weak.
“Thank you. I am ready to get started,” I say after the first two sips warm my body from the inside out, reminding myself of the plan. Reminding myself of my intentions, my plan for being here. My plan to help Peter.
Peter, who through dreams, let me know he is coming for me.
“You’re really skilled at baking, you know,” Belichime tells me when we are finally done.
I smile at her, ready to rest a little before dinner.
Hopefully, my cooperation in the kitchen has granted me the right to decide where I eat, unlike this morning.
I am longing for some rest, some quiet. The moments in the bedroom that is my cell, are the only moments that don’t make me stay on high alert.
Like prey wandering through the forest sensing a predator nearby, not knowing when or where they are going to strike.
Conversations during meals have not given me any useful information. All it would give me now is a loud consistent stream of chatter grating on my already frayed nerves. Hammering around in my already pounding head.
Alas, the second I follow the kitchen crew out of the door, I see him.
Captain Killian Tregear, spoiled Prince of the fae.
I suppress a chuckle at the sight of his ostentatious hat.
Does he really need clothes to make him feel more important?
The weight of the heavy, feather-adorned felt hat to replace the crown he no doubt wears back in his realm?
For the longest time, I hoped he would just get back to said realm, leaving Peter and me alone.
But that ship has sailed, and now I hope he will never get to see his homelands ever again.
Warm, rough skin brushes against my own as strong fingers wrap around my wrist. His hands lack the softness and smoothness you would expect from a prince’s hand.
“Where are you trying to run off to?”
I roll my eyes. Sure, I wanted to go back to my cell, but that is not the same as running off.
“Nowhere. I am stuck here, remember? I just figured I could go back to my room, “ I say being honest for the first time since I met him.
“And not join us for dinner? Don’t think so, darling. I told you how it works here on the Obsidian Oath before. We work together, we eat together.”
My leather soles scuff over the wood as I am once again dragged over the wooden boards.
I stare at my feet, stumbling again. The wood inside is redder than it is black, unlike outside.
Smooth, worn down from feet walking these rooms. Come to think of it, Killian only dragged me along the upper deck once.
Until I almost fell. Since then, he has never dragged me above deck again.
My supple leather shoes struggle with the wooden floorboards on the lower decks, but above deck, where the wood is perpetually damp, it is even worse.
Even Captain Pestilence has somehow figured that out.
“You’re not going to hide out in the room.
Let the whole crew see how terribly ill humans get when they are away from their mate,” he taunts.
Realization washes over me. He is doing this on purpose.
Everything he does, he does on purpose. Every taunt.
Every meal—Whether he denies it, forces me to eat it alone, or forces me to have it with him and the rest of the crew in the mess.
It’s all a well-thought-out part of the game he is playing with me.
That is why I could not kill him when I had my hand on the razor blade. He was once again two steps ahead of me. He knows all the steps by heart. Meanwhile, I am struggling to figure out what dance we’re performing.
Frustration gnaws at me. It was not just my naivety that got me into this situation.
I can’t even count the number of times I asked Peter to tell me more about Killian.
About the worst enemy he has. Every question was shut down by promises—that I did not need to worry about things like this.
According to him, Killian came here just to bother Peter.
Out of a jealousy for everything Peter had that Killian could not have.
I took his word for it. I had no reason not to. Now that I have seen Killian Tregear in the flesh, I know what kind of master manipulator he is. I have a hard time believing he traveled through the realms just to bother another prince.
“You know you never told me how you met Peter,” I try when I sit down on my stool. Next to him, of course. By force, not by choice; never by choice.
“Nice try, Darling. I am not going to get involved in your relationship. Why stir the pot in a happy, healthy, relationship, right? I am sure lover-goat has told you how we met. I mean, he lied. The moment this man says the sky is blue is when it will turn purple.” Killian smirks.
All the pirates laugh, but whether they are used to laughing when their Captain speaks, or if they really find his remarks funny is unclear.
Before today, I wouldn’t have thought it to be relevant.
Now, in this odd sense of clarity, I realize that if all the pirates know Peter, something more is going on than he has been telling me.
“I was trying to give you a chance, to tell your side of the story. In a way. you did though, right? You confirmed what Peter told me. You are just a selfish son of a bitch, jealous of everything he has that you cannot…” The change is minimal, but suddenly, I see the muscle in his jaw getting more pronounced.
His jaw tightens and his gray eyes darken to a stormy black…
I am on to something here. Peter must have been right.
Captain Pestilence did come here because he was jealous of Peter.
Maybe not all of it, but something. I mean what other reason would there be for the Ice Prince of the Obsidian Oath to finally have a reaction to all I have been spouting and screaming since I boarded the ship?
His reaction now is more visceral than the time I nicked his neck with a razor, attempting to kill him.
Having finally found a button to push, I am not about to let up.
“You know,” I start, eating slowly, “I kept wondering why you kidnapped me. I know you keep telling me you need Peter to come and rescue me. But it doesn’t make sense.
Sure, I doubt you would be able to take him out on his own terrain,” I continue, and the entire mess becomes quiet.
It is an eerie quiet that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Every fiber in my body is screaming at me to stop, to cower and hide.
But I won’t, not when I am finally getting to him.
“Still, there must have been other ways for you to get Peter out here.
Hell, I know he has been hunting you like the monster you are. “
Silver plates clatter to the floor with a dull clang, followed by the scraping of wood over wood, as the normally emotionless prince jumps up.
His left eye twitches, to the rhythm of his hook prostheses clicking in and out of its casing as Killian keeps twisting it back and forth, over and over again.
“You have no fucking clue what the hell you are talking about,” he roars, his voice low and rough, like the hull of the ship dragging over the hangman’s cliffs rock beaches.
“Are you sure? Because truth hurts, and you look pretty hurt right about now.” My grin is all teeth and arrogant satisfaction at the way he crumbles.
“Unless you want to take a little dip, you best shut the fuck up.” His words come out quieter now. As if even the words are reluctant to come out of his mouth. All my self-preservation must be left behind at the shores of Silvermist Lake.
Because no matter how much I know I need to stop, how much I understand inherently that he is not making empty threats, I still won’t stop. I know that if I don’t shut up now, I will end up on the bottom of the sea. Well, if the Kinga does not get to me first. But I no longer care..
“But the real reason you kidnapped me, why you keep hovering around me… You want me, don’t you? For the simple reason Peter has me all of me. Every single night.” I smirk and then my feet leave the floor.
“You fucking, brat. You think you know shit. If I wanted you I would have had you begging my name like a prayer. And I would not need to alter your mind to do so. I would play your body like he plays that fucking flute,” he snarls, voice is almost beastly.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, an alarm goes off, something about the flute and altering my mind.
But the lack of oxygen, my heels rattling against the steps of the ladder as I am being dragged above deck, deletes every other thought from my mind.
The scent of salt and water hits my nostrils.
I can shut my eyes and ignore the sun, pretending we’re still below deck.
But there is no way for me to shut the smell of the ocean out.
“Fuck, no, stop! I can’t swim,” I plead with a man as unmovable as the colorless peaks themselves.
“That would be relevant if I had any desire to keep you alive. He will still come for you, and I cannot wait to see the look on his face when this time, I am the one who’s breaking a promise.
” His answer is another warning sign that gets overridden by the fear taking hold of my body.
Clouding my every thought and emotion. The scent of iron mixes with the scent of salt water as I am being shoved over a wooden plank.
“WALK.” A single cold demand, telling me to end my life.
“No,” is my monosyllable reply, but my voice is far from steady. It’s not harsh and cold. My voice cracks even over those two letters, splinters digging under my nails as I hold on to the plank like the lifeline that it is.
“Fucking walk or I will make you…,” Killian snarls, the wood creaking as he steps onto the plank.
My vision blurs, white light pulling at the edges.
I try to speak, but no words come out. My throat is too thick, too swollen to swallow.
It makes me feel out of breath. I don’t want to cry.
I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me break.
But I am more scared than I have ever been.