Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
Killian
“Strumpet,” I scream. I am two-hundred-and-twenty-five years old.
I should be able to deal with one human.
I should be able to deal with my own messed-up desires and emotions.
I had to push about how fake his relationship with Peter was AGAIN.
At this point I don’t even know what I am trying to prove myself anymore.
Not that it matters. What matters now is to make sure James is safe. He knows nothing here. We are close to the ocean, and he cannot swim. He can get in a world of trouble, even when he is not running into the wilderness, trying to get away from me. I rush after him, hoping I can catch up with him.
By the time I run into the pub I saw him go into before, he is already walking back, clearly scared. “Darling,” I say, causing him to jump up. “It is me.”
For the first time since I met him, he relaxes when he notices it’s me who walked up to him.
It settles in my stomach like a sip of warm tea.
“Captain Tregear, I asked your friend here if it’s true he is with Peter, and he panicked.
I thought he froze up and when I walked up to him, he tried to walk out like he needed to escape me,” the bartender explains.
“James, I promise you no harm will come to you if you let this gentleman just speak,” I tell James, but the bartender no longer seems so willing to talk. “Never mind, I just wanted to say, he should not believe everything Peter told him. Peter might not be welcome here, but he is.”
“Thank you,” James whispers, and then he turns around, walking out of the pub. Eyes trained on the shell path leading to the docks. His shoulders slumped forward. I did this, I made him so sad that he is walking back to the ship he sees as a prison like a puppy that got kicked in the head.
“James, I am sorry, I should not have,” I start, going over the imaginary list of things I shouldn’t have. Suddenly, I don’t know how to start anymore. Maybe, I should just start with the kidnapping, maybe that was the first mistake I made.
“No, you shouldn’t have, but that is to be expected.
You have seen me as a means to an end from the start.
You still do now. I don’t know how, but I am going to make sure that I will get away from this ship.
And that my brothers and I will leave Silvermist behind,” he says with so much ice in his voice.
That even the waves slow down as if they are contemplating freezing over.
“I…” I want to tell him that I don’t, that I never did, but that would just be lying to him.
So I just go, following him back to the Obsidian Oath, where my crew is waiting for us, trying to see if I managed to get him to our side.
This entire day has been a bag of shit. At least, everyone has the common sense not to talk to either of us.
The second I sit down in my quarters, I ring the bell to get a servant to give me some tea.
I need to get some work done. I need to focus on actually being a captain, and I need a way out of this mess of my own making.
James does not want my help. I have been screaming I am not like Peter, like all my years in the nine realms have not taught me that screaming good intentions negates the goodness of said intentions.
Trading James in for Celeste as I planned all along is no longer an option either.
Not just because I am certain that now he is seeing the truth, he would no longer take Peter back.
But because he tore at my defenses much like the oceans turn mountains into sand—slowly, without intending to do so.
Now I can only hope that Peter won’t come for him, and that with James, even if he is unwilling to help, I still have a trump to get Celeste back.
I’m praying I don’t have to tell my crew that I’ve been captivated.
By golden eyes that darken when they’re angry and a grin that is more wickedness than joy.
I’ve been captivated to the point where I can’t offer up a landlubber to get my sister back.
Or maybe I am praying that James will start to feel the same so that I can tell my crew.
“How can I help you, Cap’n?” Dexter asks me. I felt like hours have passed since I sat down at my desk. Dexter being here, because I rang the bell, shows me that it has merely been minutes.
“Just a tea with some honey, please, Dexter,” I tell him, opening the chest with the letters Celeste has sent me.
Hopefully, reading them again will shed more light on who Peter is.
And how I can finally get to him. James might not be willing to do this with me, to help me.
But I will help him, even if that is the only thing I can do for him.
“Here you go, Captain,” Dexter says, placing a steaming mug of tea in front of me.
Again, time has passed without me even noticing it.
Frustration gnaws at me from the inside, giving me a headache and sweaty palms. I just need to focus, and I am starting to realize more and more that I am not going to be able to fix this alone.
“Thank you, Dexter, can you get Seviin and Samuel in here?” Dexter smiles and leaves to get my boatswain and quartermaster.
What good is having a third and second in command if you do not ask them for help when you need it most?
Unable to get anything done in the few minutes I am waiting for them, I just drink my tea.
Soon, as if they both knew how much I needed them, they walk into my quarters.
“How was your outing with the brat, Cap?” Seviin says.
She has taken to calling James a brat. I smile, because she isn’t wrong…
He is a brat. Clearly, I am just not as skilled in dealing with brats as I thought I was.
“Oh, you know, another mess. I keep fucking it up wanting too much, too soon. But if Peter isn’t even coming for the one he considers to be his newest fated mate, how will I ever be able to get him aboard the Obsidian Oath on my terms,” I tell them both.
Still unwilling to divulge how much of a hold James has on me.
We have no chance to survive outside the fever pitch of my own sudden desires.
“But, it seems like James is finally aware of the fact Peter is a scoundrel. He just walked into his kitchen duty, no complaints at all. He was even joking with Belichime.” The tension that caused a terrible headache eases as I feel the scowl fall from my face.
It is good to know that after the morning I gave him, he is still enjoying himself, even if I cannot push down the bile rising in my throat at knowing there is someone here aboard this ship he likes more than me.
“You are right, that is great. Not just for us, for James too. I truly do not believe that anyone should be in a relationship where they are being treated like that. Manipulated into loving the other person. But I made it so that he hates me. He wants to get his brothers and move back to Earth.” I need to take a deep breath, the reality of living in a realm without James suddenly feels hollow and cold.
I don’t know how that brat—who fought me on every decision, fooled an entire crew, fought so fiercely for a truth I knew never existed—got under my skin like this. Or maybe it is the way he fought, how fierce he is. I mean, it takes a pair of good balls to try to kill me on a ship full of my crew.
“Well, to be fair, he used to hate all of us.” Samuel’s shoulders come up to the pointed tips of his ears as he shrugs.
“He seems to be fine around me now, and he seems to genuinely like Belichime. Maybe he needs to warm up to you too. Have you offered to help him get his brothers to safety if he helps you get Celeste to safety?”
I scoff. Not at Samuel, his idea is smart, so smart I came up with it myself. Instead of being patient, offering him help and nothing more. I had kissed him, pushed him, and lashed out every time he spoke about Peter with even a grain of warmth left. And it had pushed him even further away from me.
Again, I see the kiss happen in front of me, the sigh that was pure pleasure.
How his calloused hands settled on my chest to push me off for barely a second before scrunching into my tailcoat, trying to pull me even closer to him, deepening the kiss.
I can still see him standing in the wheelhouse, not moving long after I have fled to the crow’s nest. I can still feel the confusion running through my veins last night, wondering if he was waiting for me to come back, to kiss him again.
It has been everything on my mind, this need not just to kiss him again, but to be kissed by him, for him to kiss me.
Not just kissing me back. No, I want him to kiss me with all he has for no other reason than his own desire to do so.
“Killian.” The loud snap of two fingers pulls me away from my daydream.
“Sorry, I have a bit of a headache. What did you say, Smee,” I ask Samuel, using the old nickname we have used since we were only hundred-year-old fae.
“I bet it’s just a headache, you nostalgic scallywag.” Samuel grins at me, showing all the white of his teeth.
“I asked how you asked him and what he would do if you go tell him he is a free man onboard the Obsidian Oath now. That he still needs to pull his weight like we all do, but that he will be treated as the rest of the crew from now on. No more locks on his hut, no more mocking from the rest of the crew, no more someone always needing to be around him to watch where he is going.”
My body sinks into my chair at Samuel’s words, all the air is leaving my body.
Seviin, unlike me, is relaxed. She nods at Samuel’s suggestions, clearly agreeing with him.
Because he is right; it is the only way to show James that not only am I serious about helping him but also how different I am from Peter.
I’ll keep telling him that over and over again until I am blue in the face.
Until we are both blue in the face because we always end up in a screaming match.
While showing him the exact same disrespect and level of control as Peter had.
Even the marrow in my bones freezes over at the cold dread of this realization sinking in even deeper.
I am the same as Peter. I have that same urge to keep the person I am attracted to close to me.
To keep them from going away from me, trying to shape the narrative he will have about me.
“Yes, no, you’re right that… I should have thought about that before.
But since James is as stubborn as the very ocean itself, maybe we should come up with another plan too.
It has been years since we came out here to rescue Celeste, to the point where I am not even sure whether or not I will still be welcome back home,” I say, admitting another worry I have not shared before.
I have not discussed it with anyone because I fear admitting it.
“It sucks. His brothers are out there somewhere, and if you make it back home, your father will undoubtedly stop us from coming back here. It would have been good to show him where we come from. What our culture and traditions are,” Seviin says, so fast I have a hard time keeping track of what she is saying.
She does that—she will have some brilliant idea and then get so excited about her own idea that she will rattle it off like there is no tomorrow.
But she is right this time. About how much more James would understand not just me but everyone in the crew if he knew more about who we are as a race.
What makes us this way. She is also right about the fact that we cannot just sail back and forth between our home and Silvermist, due to all the complications she just mentioned.
But I would not be the formidable Captain Tregear if I could not work around that.
“Seviin, you absolute gem, you just gave me an amazing idea. Please close the door to my quarters,” I say, my ass no longer touching the seat of the chair as I am practically standing with how excited I am.