Chapter 38 #2
“I didn’t use to.” He straightened and turned her around to face him. As he tucked hair behind her ear, he said, “I bleed. I feel pain. I crave.” Augustus set his forehead to hers, and his hands tightened around her waist. “I love.”
Her heart squeezed. “Augustus.”
“You’ve pulled me down from the sky and reminded me how mortal I am.” He stared into her eyes. “It’s not all bad, is it? Being a small, insignificant human in the grand scheme of things?”
“As long as I get to be in your arms in the end, everything else we have to face makes it all worth it.”
Selene spun free of the memory, and she gripped the railing, her back cold with his absence, her tears a hot trail down her cheeks. This wasn’t fair. They’d just found each other again.
Suddenly, the air clamped too tight around her ribs. His scent was everywhere—in the grain of wood, in the fabric, in her own skin.
Selene ran from the room, swiping the tears from her face, and burst onto the deck above.
Roman, perched on a crate, startled and half-rolled out of his slouch. The wind plastered his untucked shirt against his strong chest. “Eva?”
“Stop calling me that.” She should have given more thought to her emotional state before rushing from her quarters. Not only did she look a mess, but she also had no patience for kindness or civility.
Roman stood and reached as if to touch her.
She flinched.
With a sigh, he lowered his arms and allowed her a little bit of distance. “What’s wrong? Did someone—?”
“No.”
The word cracked her open, jagged as glass. So many someones to blame for this. So many choices. And the gods… They wrote their prophecies in blood and left her and Augustus to deal with the stains.
A sob broke from her chest, and she collapsed into the abrupt emptiness.
Roman caught her. Held her. Rocked her. He brushed her back with slow, small circles. “I’ve got you,” he whispered, then kissed the crown of her head.
She inhaled out of habit, and instead of sun and wind and sea, she breathed in campfires and forests ravaged by storms.
Selene wrenched out of his arms. “Stop. You have to stop.”
Roman’s full lips dipped in the corners. “There was a time when I was the one you sought for comfort.”
“I don’t know you.”
Her mind knew that to be true. Something pulsing and deep within her said otherwise.
“You’ve been very careful to avoid trying,” he said. “I hoped you might start asking questions.”
Selene rolled her eyes. “Now that you aren’t beholden to Aspasia’s rule of law, I’m supposed to care? Half your people tried to kill me for simply existing. I want nothing to do with any of you. Who we ever were centuries ago doesn’t change who we are today.”
“I chose to fight in this war for you, Eva. We all did.”
“For me, but not Augustus.”
Roman’s nose flared on a sharp breath. “Michail isn’t who you think he is. There’s a reason we—”
“I don’t care!” she screamed. “I don’t care, Roman. I love him despite all reasons not to. You can’t begin to imagine what we’ve been through together, and he’s been there for all of it.”
“Has he? All of it?” He pointed to her scar. “Was he there when this happened? Where was he when that man beat you in the street and kidnapped you?”
Selene shrank back. The secrets Augustus kept back then threw everything into question, and she hated that. But she’d be damned if she shared any of that with Roman. “Augustus can’t be with me every second.”
“Why did the color just drain from your face, then? What happened?”
“What happened,” Blaze cut in, “is none of your fucking business.”
The Ranger strode up behind, a smile like a blade stretching ear to ear. His presence didn’t ease the moment—it sharpened it.
Selene didn’t want his help.
Blaze was outfitted similarly to Roman, only his shirt was tucked, and his boots were laced to the tops of his calves.
The spark in his eyes, the slant of his grin, the slight stubble of beard growth…
exactly Augustus’s type. He was the one person she had to worry about where Augustus’s loyalty was concerned.
“I’ll let you two fight amongst yourselves,” she said and started away.
Blaze took her carefully by the elbow as she passed and dipped his head to whisper. “Can we talk?”
She couldn’t even look him in the eye. “I have nothing to say to you.”
She’d trusted him—had let him in without a second thought—and he’d kissed Augustus at the first opportunity. Worse, he hadn’t fought to save Augustus when they’d been docked in Warian Bay. He’d sided against her and, in turn, Augustus.
“You clearly have a lot to say,” he countered, and then that cocksure smile returned for Roman. “And you... Don’t even think about using this time to worm your way into her bed. Or is it her heart you’re after? I can’t tell. I suppose it could be both.”
“She’s my—”
“Uh-uh-uh,” Blazed crooned, taunting, a lullaby primed for nightmares. “Some things should remain an inside voice. I know it’s hard, but give it a try.” The corners of Blaze’s eyes crinkled with his smile. “Wouldn’t want to throw you overboard because you said something I find off-color.”
Roman stepped forward until their chests came together—he had an inch or two on Blaze and stared down his nose. “Who I speak to, and how, isn’t your concern.”
Blaze only smiled. “While Augustus is away, consider me his proxy. Everything you say to Selene is my concern.”
“You—”
A female coughed from above. Roslyn stood between Luc and Xavier, all three Rangers in various positions of leisure. Picking nails, half-reclined, twirling knives… Their message was crystal clear: they’d be over that railing in seconds if things went sideways.
“Go, Roman,” Selene said. “We have nothing to say to each other.”
Roman backed away from Blaze and met her eyes. “You can’t avoid me forever.”
“Watch me.”
Without another word, he joined a group of his own people on the far side of the deck. Selene knew better than to think this was the end.
“He’s a piece of work,” Blaze said.
“We’re not bonding over this. We’re not friends. In fact, I’d rather you never speak to me again.”
His expression turned downcast. “I fucked up. I never meant to hurt you, and neither did Augustus.”
“And yet, I stand here hurt by both of you.”
Blaze’s brows climbed his forehead. “You forgave him, though.”
“I love him. He’s mine. I’m his. Nothing you do or say changes that.”
He raised his hands defensively. “I wouldn’t dream otherwise.”
She almost believed him. She wanted to believe him. But she could only see what her imagination had produced in graphic detail since learning the truth. Wild kisses. Frenzied undressing. Bruising, desperate fingers.
Selene didn’t know the details—hadn’t wanted them—but even the most innocent version of their kiss was a betrayal. And Blaze had inserted himself in a place that was hers, so fuck him and fuck his feelings.
“Stay away from us,” she ground out, eyes pricking with fresh tears.
“He’s my best friend, Selene. And I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’ve always loved him.”
“You left him to die.”
Blaze reared back as if slapped. “That’s unfair.”
“We never should have left him on the street. Gods, I knew better.” She shook her head. “He’s always putting everyone else first—”
“Like you did back in Perean?”
This time, she reeled back. She’d have done exactly the same thing in Augustus’s shoes.
Blaze put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Selene, we will get him back. This isn’t the end.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Maybe not.” Blaze glanced around at Omar’s family, the Drynopians, and the few remaining pirates from Cassia’s crew.
The intermingled groups worked in silence, but more often, they laughed with each other and spoke with animated hands.
“I know what it looks like to lose to Thorne, and trust me, you don’t want to see that happen to anyone aboard.
” He looked into her eyes. “No matter how much you might hate some of us.”
Her throat tightened. “I don’t trust you. It’s different.”
“Okay. I can work with that.”
“I would rather you didn’t.”
Blaze guided her to sit on the crate Roman had recently vacated, then hopped up beside her. Their arms brushed warmly and alerted her to the chill in the air.
“Augustus and I were young boys together,” he began. “Lili was there too, of course, and we were inseparable for years and years. Eventually, Augustus and I became…more. One night, deep into our cups and too many months into a dry spell, we—”
“I don’t need the details of your sex life.”
He grimaced. “Sorry. Of course, you don’t. Anyway, I wanted to see more of the world, and he said he did, too. We planned when and where we’d leave the fleet, and I had no reason to doubt that he was coming.
“When the time came, he balked. He couldn’t see a life on land and begged me to give it another year.” Blaze shifted his weight and released a sigh. “I didn’t see it the same way, and we fought. I called him a coward, among some other truly detestable things.
“In the end, I didn’t love him enough to stay, and he didn’t love me enough to go. I walked away in anger, foolishly believing he’d follow.” He laughed to himself. “I was so fucking sure, and it nearly broke me to watch the Akias sail away with him still aboard.”
But, he’d done the complete opposite for her.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Blaze knocked their shoulders together. “Don’t you dare apologize. I’m only telling you so you understand—he never loved me the way he loves you. Gods, he was living in a fucking palace when I found you two. That alone told me everything I needed to know.”
“And the kiss?” She may not want to know about their sex life, but she needed to know why this happened. “Did you hope he might come back to you? He’d lived a life on land, so now he must be ready to follow you around the globe?”
His thumb worried at a callus on his palm, as if he could scrape the guilt out through his skin. “A part of me hoped he might, but I knew how it would end. If it helps, he was honest about his feelings for you. Like you said before—he is yours just as much as you are his.”
Blaze sighed, and his gaze rose to the star-spattered sky. “And now we all know where we stand, for better or worse. My only regret is that you got hurt in the process. I really am fond of you—I was from the moment we met.”
Selene nodded. The entire situation hurt more because she’d been just as fond of him. “Thank you for saying that and for being honest with me.”
“Here’s a little more honesty for you, my dear friend”—he took her hand and squeezed—“I’m getting Augustus back to you.
I know it might not look like it, but none of us has turned our backs on him.
If I thought that, I wouldn’t be here.” Blaze turned her chin up and forced her to look at him. “Believe me?”
Her throat closed. She could only nod.
Blaze kissed her forehead, then pulled her in close. “We’ll get him back, Selene. We just need a little more help.”
For the first time in hours, hope stirred—fragile, but alive—in her chest.