Chapter 5 Come back to Me #2
A lock clanked, and the door creaked open. One of the men who’d first shoved her inside the tiny cabin gave her yet another sultry scan before thumbing toward the hallway. “Cap’n wants to see ye.”
Slowly rising, she quickly shoved the Ring into a pocket, swallowed down her terror, and followed the man out the door, down a short hallway draped in shadows.
Desi’s pulse hammered in her ears as she was ushered through the heavy wooden door into a dimly lit cabin.
The air smelled of salt, smoke, and something faintly medicinal.
Flickering lantern light revealed a room that looked like something out of a museum.
A sturdy desk was bolted to the floor, maps and charts scattered across its surface.
Against the bulkhead, shelves were lined with worn books and strange artifacts.
A single cot, barely wide enough for one person, rested against the far wall, its rough wool blanket tucked tight, and a black cat curled up on the pillow.
But it wasn’t the setting that made her breath catch. It was the men.
Four pairs of eyes turned toward her, each gaze heavy and assessing. She hugged her arms across her chest, painfully aware of how her wet suit clung to every curve.
Movement drew her gaze to a man staring out the stern windows.
He turned, those gray-blue eyes locking upon her like a cannon.
Several moments passed. Time seemed to slow.
Sunlight shifted over the desk, the floor, and the walls with the movement of the ship.
A crackling rang through the air as if the meeting of two worlds shifted something in the universe.
The man was broad-shouldered, sea-worn, and far too steady in a world that made no sense.
His black hair brushed the collar of his coat, damp from the sea air, and his eyes, intense, unreadable, held her like a tide she couldn’t escape.
There was something in them. Something old.
Familiar. As if she’d seen that face before…
not in memory, but in a dream that refused to fade.
He should’ve looked at her with suspicion, like the others.
Instead, he watched her as if he’d been waiting a lifetime.
A hint of recognition angled across his face, followed by confusion, amazement, and finally a speck of…
desire…as his gaze took in her skintight wetsuit.
Shrugging out of his coat, he strode toward her.
Her breath caught. What did he intend to do?
A ray of sunlight glinted off the cutlass at his side as he moved closer with the skill and grace of a panther.
There was no way out. The sailor had shut the door behind her, caging her in with these wild, ill-mannered men.
She could fight, but what good would it do?
So, she remained in place, studying the captain as he approached.
There was strength in those eyes, determination, authority.
He lifted his arms. She braced. Flinging his coat in the air, he draped it over her shoulders and drew it tight around her.
The fabric smelled of leather and salt, its unexpected warmth stealing some of her trembling.
“Enough!” He cast a warning glance at the others.
“She’s not a spectacle,” he said in a clipped British accent.
He moved back to his desk and leaned against it, arms crossing over a rather muscular chest. The open collar of his shirt revealed a glimpse of skin—and the unexpected gleam of a silver cross at his throat.
A leather vest perched upon his shoulders, leading down to black pants strapped with belts, housing two knives and a sword.
Black stubble that matched his hair framed his strong jaw as his stormy eyes assessed her.
Eyes that held the weight of someone who’d seen too much for his age.
A dark-skinned woman slunk forward from the shadows, her gaze boring into Desi like a hot knife.
“She be no mere woman, Capitaine,” she hissed, fingers twitching as though longing to trace symbols in the air.
“She wears de skin of a snake! Mark me, she’s a witch, or a siren, come to curse dis ship. Evil walks in her shadow.”
Desi’s stomach clenched. Witch? Siren? What was this, some twisted play?
“Ah, let the lady wear what she wants,” a man to her left said, a lazy grin tugging upon his lips.
His blond hair gleamed in the sunlight, his Irish lilt both playful and unsettling.
“Witch or no, she’s a fine treasure to keep aboard, eh, Cap’n?
Never seen such strange garb on a lass, but I wager it hides a great many charms.” A smooth green stone hung on a cord around his neck while a green sash tightened about his waist. “If she even is human?” he added, glancing at her feet, no doubt expecting to find fins.
“Liam O’Neil, my bosun, Miss…” The captain said by way of introduction before he nodded to another man standing on her other side. “And this is Alden Shaw, my quartermaster.”
The rugged man with a scar slicing his cheek turned sharp eyes her way. “I trust no one who appears out of thin air. Mark my words, Captain. Trouble rides in her wake.” He continued to glare at her as a priest would a demon.
The last man, stout and pale, tilted his head, studying her as though she were an interesting but bothersome anomaly. “She bears no injury. No fever I can detect. She’s clearly a stowaway, though an odd one, but I’ve no use for her unless she’s wounded. May I return to my work, Captain?”
“Aye, you are dismissed.”
The hefty man turned and, using a cane, limped away, leaving behind an odor of ink, herbs, and seawater along with a growl of displeasure.
His departure allowed Desi to see the black woman more clearly. The scarf wrapped around her head matched her plain cotton dress. Her features were kind, her expression pleasant, until she swept spiteful eyes back at Desi and opened her mouth to speak.
But the captain’s raised hand silenced her.
“That’ll be all. Leave us.”
A moment’s hesitation, then slow obedience. The black woman shot her one last warning glance, Alden’s boots thudded reluctantly against the planks, and Liam winked at her before slipping out with a grin.
And then, it was just the two of them.
The ship creaked and groaned, rays of sunlight swaying with the rhythm of the sea. Desi clutched the coat tighter around her shoulders.
“Now then, lass. Let’s start with your name. And how the devil you came to be aboard my ship.”