Chapter 25 #2
“Now, you can’t be going back on your word,” they said, before I could protest. “It’s all a princess has.”
“And my father’s seal,” I offered, trying to match the lightness in their tone with a joke of my own. When they grinned, relief rushed through me. That, at least, I’d done right. “It’s beautiful.” And certainly not fashionable. “Please, let me pay you for it.”
“If you insist,” they said, with a sigh. “You can pay me by dancing with me whilst you wear it. I’ll accept in public, or in private, in any position you’d like. I’m adaptable.”
I shook my head. “Flirting aside, Elnyta, you know what that’s worth.”
“Sure I do. That’s why I bothered to wrap the damned thing.” They lifted it and set it against the wall. “Saw it and thought of you. What can I say. Didn’t even get the last owner’s blood on it when I gutted him.”
My head spun.
They turned back to me, laughter in their eyes.
“It’s a joke, princess. We looted a ship adrift nor-nor-east from here.
Full of plagued bodies. I’ve got plenty more like this one that I’m going to sell you, but it hurts to look at someone with such beauty crushing themselves into,” they waved a hand to the west. “Expectations.”
Their eyes ran up and down my body—not in a suggestive way, but as if they were measuring me.
“There’s two kinds of predator, Audrey.” They walked over to the table where the jug of tisane sat before the empty hearth.
“One that camouflages itself and strikes when their prey is unaware, and one that announces how dangerous it is loudly and takes what it wants.” They poured us both a drink.
“Your camouflage is so bad I could see it from leagues away.”
But it wasn’t. I wouldn’t be alive if I couldn’t camouflage.
I settled in the chair, taking the drink they’d poured me. “You got the children.”
“I got the children,” they agreed. “There were more than I expected. Younger, too. Older ones must’ve been protecting them.”
“Can you tell me?” I asked.
Elnyta obliged, kicking one leg up to rest their ankle on their knee, telling me about the seas, the good conditions, the way they’d slowly coaxed out the scared children. I listened while I turned the camouflage comment over in my head.
I’d lived under my father’s nose all this time by making myself small.
I presented only what he wanted to see: the worst parts of myself, the malleable parts, the vulnerable and foolish parts.
It wasn’t an act. An exaggeration, mayhap, but not an act.
And that brought me shame, that I wasn’t pretending to be scared of him, or feigning overwhelm when he called on me.
The thought of crushing myself down to be that person again made me feel sick.
I could do it. I knew I could.
But…would they believe it?
And, if they did—could I live with that?
“I’m sorry to bore you,” the Captain said. I started.
“You didn’t.” I reached out without thinking, squeezing their hand. They’d removed the rings from their fingers or opted not to wear them today. “I was thinking about what you said.”
“About how I saw nothing but you from across the waves?” they asked me, swirling their drink lazily.
The delightful fizz of anticipation low in my belly was lovely. But the twinge I felt behind my ribs was…unexpected.
“About the camouflage,” I admitted, choosing to be honest.
“Damn,” they sighed, but there was no real disappointment in their tone—nor the laughter I expected. “Did you want to be an orca, then?”
The question made me revisit my knowledge of the sea animal. They were predators, and efficient; I wasn’t sure if they were ambush predators, but, going off Elnyta’s context… “It’s safer.”
“Don’t know about that,” they drawled. “Krakens are pretty safe, princess.”
The idea made me laugh. “Am I a kraken?” I asked them, amused.
“No orca I’ve ever come across has taken a whole city,” they told me, topping up their drink.
“And you’ve come across a kraken who has?”
A quick, small wink was followed by, “Do I have some tales to tell, if you’ve got ears to listen.”
“You won’t call me a siren?” I asked, enjoying the change in tone as I tried to pull myself back. “Hypnotic, beautiful?”
“Why would I tell you something you know?” they asked, scoffing. “T’would be a waste of time, and that’s not my intention.”
“And yet you’ve been so well-mannered, sitting over there, regaling me with tales.”
They tilted their head. “A princess ought to go first.” They straightened their leg and, with their empty hand, patted their knee.
The anticipation was there, coiled tightly within my muscles. The set up was perfect. But for a moment I was back in the orchard, the wind howling outside and the cold sinking its talons into my soul.
“If I climbed into your lap,” I said, holding my memories close while making space for the lessons I’d learned. “What happens next? Not the sex. What happens tomorrow, and in a quarter-moon, and a season?”
They sat back, raising their brows. “You aren’t worried about your virginity?”
“Virginity is a belief, not a physical reality.” There was no chance anyone who cared about it would be allowed near me anyway. “Would this change anything, Elnyta?”
I had enough wheat to get by, if I had to.
But I wasn’t really concerned about the wheat.
“If you want me to promise you’ll be my one and only…
” The sentence trailed off into the quiet.
Outside my tower, the noise of the keep continued as usual.
“I have lovers in different ports. I’d recommend you take lovers on different ships.
Life is too short, and our hearts are too big, to put false borders on our maps. ”
Some of the unease in my belly settled. It was an honest answer, and not dissimilar to the concept Raider’s Ban held.
Pushing thoughts of Chay away, I looked at the Steppe-style braids Elnyta wore in their hair and suspected the philosophy was a sign of regional similarity between the two.
These things were fine as concepts, except…
“If I did climb into your lap, and you told people, and I was discredited, the license I’ve signed is worthless. ”
Their expression hardened. For the first time since I’d met them, they looked like the deadly pirate captain I’d feared they might be.
Elnyta leant forward, the leather of their vest creaking, and looped their hands gently between their knees. “What experience might’ve led you to think of such things, princess?” they asked, their voice low and dangerous.
“Why?”
Their only response was a flex of the fingers on one hand. I recognized the move. I’d spent enough time holding a knife to know how those joints could get jarred. The backs of their hands were a darker brown than their palms. This close, I could see the old scars left from knicks and cuts.
Staring straight into the cold depths of their hazel eyes, I asked, “What if I fall in love with you?”
“What if you do?”
My heart squeezed in my chest. “You’re likely to break my heart.”
“Clear eyes, clear skies,” they murmured. “I’m nothing if not honest. And I’m not turning that into a joke out of respect for the hurt you’ve got there, Audrey, but by the seven winds I hope you can, in return for my restraint, give me the name of the knave who bruised that haughty heart of yours.”
“I am not haughty.”
“As you say, princess,” they agreed, a spark of humor thawing their demeanor. “If you climb into my lap, might their name slip from your lips so I can hunt them down?”
I snorted, topping up my tisane. “Captain, if anyone needed to be hunted down, I’ve the means and I’ve got the method.”
“Then you’ve naught to fear from a silly little dalliance with a silly backwater pirate like me.”
“Don’t call my favorite captain backwater.”
“Or what?”
On one hand, I enjoyed their company. I liked the green of the silk they’d got for me, and the humor that felt so effortless when they were around.
I liked how they saw me.
On the other hand, my heart was still healing and I knew it. Would that make me more vulnerable to trusting too easily, or to be painfully wary?
If I did slip onto their lap, and decided I liked it there, and they were gone most of the time? If I ached for them while they were at sea and spent hours watching the horizon for their sails? If they decided they were tired of me, or vanished, one day, lost to the waves?
Promises were lies. They built pretty dreams that distracted from the pain of reality.
Nothing was certain. I could break their heart as easily as they broke mine. I might decide in ten minutes I didn’t like them after all.
“You know who my father is,” I said, daring them to use those words as an excuse to go. “And what he’d likely do to you.”
They raised their brows. “If I was asking him to climb on my lap, he’d have a say in the matter. And you’ve no idea who mine is, since we’re comparing the slope of our hulls. Should I tell you about him, so we’re even?”
“Would you like to?” I offered, because it seemed like the only response. I drew in a deep breath, holding those memories tightly, before I released it, letting them go.
“It’s not the usual method I use to get pretty ladies onto my knee,” they said, thoughtfully. “I’m always happy to expand my horizons.”
I had the answers I needed from them. With my heart bumping anxiously behind my ribs, I stood and stepped around the serving table between us, making Elnyta lean back.
There was space for me there, in the gap between their knees and in the circle of their arms. It was terrifying, but everything was when it was new.
I took the cup from their hand to set it on the table behind us, stepping one foot high to straddle their thigh, letting my skirts and fate tumble where they would.
From their expression and the fast grin that flashed over their mouth, I’d taken them off guard. Their hands were strong on my hips. Their chest rose and fell with a few quick breaths as I shifted my weight ever so slightly, so the heat of their thigh was nestled up against my clit.