Self-Control
Chapter forty-nine
There was no time for contemplation aboard the Maralyn. Perhaps there had been at one point, in between the attacks. Space for tea and laughter, for cards and conversation. No longer did the crew have this luxury, for Splinter Point beckoned, and it would not be denied.
Lucianna blinked through the thick curtain of ghostly mist that draped the ship.
“Pull,” Kaiden grunted.
She obeyed his order, yanking the canvas across the opening that led below deck.
They had to batten the hatches to ensure that in a storm, the ship would not take on too much water.
Kaiden told the crew earlier in the day that the preventative measures wouldn’t ensure their survival, but merely increase the odds.
Lucianna had looked to her husband in that moment, expecting a cheeky quip of some kind to lighten the mood. None came.
Finnick had spent the day and a half since their argument in melancholic silence.
The only emotion that twisted his expression was that of concern at the mention of Princess Wren, who was ill and therefore subject to greater harm than the rest of the crew.
While everyone else worked hard to secure the ship and prepare for the fight to come, Wren stayed in the captain’s quarters.
Castien alternated between aiding the crew and caring for his wife.
Lucianna hated herself all the more for her treatment of the princess after learning the secret of her Gift. But there was no time for conversation. All she could do was hope they’d survive to speak once it was over.
Once the hatch was covered and the wood battens in place, the captain stood back and inspected the work. A singular nod was his seal of approval.
“What’s next?” Lucianna asked.
Kaiden ran a hand over his beard, which had grown full but scraggly in their days at sea.
“We wait,” he answered with a heavy sigh. “Kelwin will alert us when he spots the storm. From there we’ll furl the sails, secure the masts, and I will do my best to steer us through.”
“And will we tie ourselves to the ship?” Lucianna asked. “I recall as a child my father doing so during a particularly dangerous storm.”
The captain nodded.
“It would likely be wise to do so. That way it is easier to retrieve someone if they go overboard. I have kept rope on the deck for this reason.”
Kaiden gazed across the ship, and Lucianna did the same.
There was nothing besides a pile of rope and their crew on the main deck.
Gone were the chairs and table they sat at for family meals.
No personal belongings or crates were allowed.
During a storm, anything on the deck became a weapon wielded by the wind and waves.
A chair, when tossed about by a raging tempest, could hit with enough force to kill a man.
Castien and Finnick exited the captain’s quarters, their long black wool coats buttoned over their clothes as a shield from the increasingly cold gale.
Lucianna had layered a similar burgundy coat over her trousers and shirt as well.
Her weapons were attached to her person—as many as she could secure.
If they encountered an enemy of any kind, she would not be caught unarmed.
Even if the weight of her weapons might prove detrimental were she to be tossed overboard.
“The window is covered, and all furniture save the bed has been moved below deck,” Castien informed the captain as he approached with Finnick by his side.
Finnick glanced at her, then down at his boots. Her stomach turned with a mixture of sour guilt and bitterness. If they survived Spinter Point, and Grimhaven after it, what then? Lucianna despised the unknown, and this journey seemed to be plagued with the dreadful concept.
“Good.” Kaiden gestured to Lucianna. “I was just telling Lady Lucianna that we have nothing else to do with our hands but sit on them.”
“Very well. I will remain with Wren until I am needed,” Castien said, his voice scraped of any emotion.
The captain nodded, and Castien departed their small group.
“I am going to check with the boy,” Kaiden abruptly stated, then walked toward the shroud, leaving Lucianna and Finnick alone.
“Have you everything you need to weather the storm?” Finnick asked, surprising her by speaking at all.
“Yes,” she answered. “At least, I think so. Do you?”
Their exchange was meaningless, and Lucianna was not sure if it was better or worse than the silence from before.
“Yes.”
“H-how is Wren?” Lucianna stumbled over the question. The last she spoke to Finnick, she’d accused Wren of using her Gift against her, so Lucianna did not know if her question would be well received.
Finnick cut a hand through his hair, then tucked both his hands into the pockets of his coat.
“She is greatly fatigued and can eat little without losing the contents not long after. Just now, she slept through our moving of the furniture, though we made much noise. Cas is burdened with worry for her.”
“As are you, I imagine,” Lucianna murmured.
Finn dipped his chin.
“I fear that her state will weaken her chances of surviving in the event of a tragedy. My only hope is that Splinter Point is not as bad as the legends say, or that the Tides are kinder to us than other sailors of the past.”
Lucianna did not say anything in reply. She had no such hope, but she was determined to fight death, just as she promised her father and brother before she left. Valengard by marriage she may be, but she had Morrowe blood. And Morrowes did not cower.
She stole a glance at her husband through the mist. He stared off into the hazy distance, his mind far away from where he stood.
How was it that she was more afraid of him than of death?
He was nothing but a man. A handsome, frustrating, tease of a man, but a man nonetheless.
Yet her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth whenever she considered speaking to him about something deeper than their external circumstances.
It was not as though conversation would do them any good anyway.
Across the ship, Cora and Petals leaned against the hull, speaking in low tones.
Each of them wore slight smiles, and Lucianna was envious of their ease.
Though she was loath to admit her husband had done good in promising Petals a companion in Cora .
. . it seemed he was right to do so. Cora’s brazen intensity was balanced by Petals’s more reserved nature.
She had no physical prowess, but he had much.
If their friendship grew into love, Lucianna suspected the two would have a resplendent marriage.
Again she looked at her husband. The action was involuntary and uncontrollable.
His blond hair was mussed. The mist dampened the tips of the locks and made his curls more pronounced.
Shadows were smudged beneath his eyes like soot.
His jaw was sharper than ever, cutting across the high collar of his coat like the edge of a blade.
“I know better than to think you admiring me,” Finnick rasped, startling her as he did not so much as glance in her direction to indicate his catching her. “So you must be enraptured for another reason. Do you wish to say something, little thief?”
Her heart jumped at the nickname. She never thought she’d be glad to hear the words fall from his lips. Yet warmth spread through her chest like mist on the deck.
“And if I was admiring you?” The words tumbled from her mouth without thought or pretense. She blamed her recklessness on the lack of sleep and increase of stress. “It is my right as your wife, is it not?”
A ghost of a smirk flickered over his mouth.
“That it is. However, I suspect I am not welcome to the same privilege.”
Her skin heated at his words. She licked the salt off her lips and swallowed her fears.
“And I suspect that would not stop you.”
He hummed. “I see now. You are restless and wish for a fight. I’m afraid I’m too tired to be of service. Perhaps you can argue with someone else.”
Her heart that had begun to beat at a frantic rhythm slowed and sank.
“Tired, or afraid of losing?” she shot back.
Lucianna was goading him, and they both knew it. Slowly, Finnick turned his attention upon her. His sapphire eyes glowed in the shadowy mist. Her breath quickened at the intensity in his gaze.
“I do not have the wherewithal to control myself at the moment, Lucianna. You are treading a dangerous path.” The gravelly tone of his voice combined with the alluring sparkle of his gaze made the hairs on her arms stand up.
“It is clear to me that you do not possess a modicum of self-control, Lord Valengard. Your reputation has assured me of it.”
Perilous indeed was the route Lucianna had taken. But her heart pounded in anticipation all the same. For all her speech about needing space, she did not long for it any more.
She longed for battle.
And her husband granted her desire.
Finnick’s eyes flashed with anger. He crowded her toward the side of the ship opposite their fellow crewmembers. Framed her body with his hands on the ledge and bent so his mouth was near enough to taste their mingled breath.
“You speak as though you know me intimately,” he growled. Her breath caught at his choice of words. “But you do not. If you did, you would understand that I have spent the entirety of our marriage holding back, despite how regularly you test my limits.”
Her mouth filled with moisture and her head swam at his nearness.
His breath was warm against her skin. Each word he spoke she felt all the way in her toes.
Her fingertips tingled with the desire to run through his hair and over the corded muscles hiding beneath his coat.
His gaze dipped to her lips, and they parted as if on command.
He was so close. All it would take was a tilt of the head by either of them, and their mouths would brush.
The warmth she felt was ripped away as Finnick jerked back. Clarity cut through the fog in Lucianna’s mind. Finnick ran a shaking hand over his mouth and shook his head a little.
Had he used his Gift? Was that what it felt like?
She pressed a hand to her abdomen to stay the fluttering within it.
“Lucianna—” Finnick rasped right as Kelwin shouted from the crow’s nest, “Brace for a storm!”