Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Darkness shrouds the room. Only a sliver of moonlight shines through the row of small windows above the bed. I’ve been lying awake for hours, not moving a muscle, and waiting for the noises outside the room to cease and Weston’s breaths to slow.
Scrubbing the deck took me the entire day, and the suns were setting when I finally stowed the bucket away and headed to the mess to fuel my growling stomach.
If his goal was to exhaust me, he accomplished it.
I can barely move. My neck and back ache, my knees are stiff and rubbed raw.
I can hardly close my hand from grasping the scrub brush all day.
But I refuse to be deterred from my plan. I will fight through the pain.
After I washed and changed in the crew bathrooms, I went straight to bed, well before Weston returned, and was already curled up and feigning sleep when he undressed and settled on his side.
Then I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
I kept the sheets drawn up over my shoulder so my clothes weren’t visible. Fuck Weston’s rule. I can’t waste any time for this escape, and I won’t leave without my dagger.
He stole it from me, and I am going to steal it back.
Now, I lay here waiting for the right time. I send a quick prayer to the gods to let this go smoothly so I can get back home.
Weston hasn’t moved for a while. His rustling and shifting ceased as he fell into a deep slumber. It’s time to make my move.
Lifting it slowly, I peel the bedding back, trying to be silent and avoid the rustle of the linens as I set it down between us.
I pause, straining to hear any indication that the movement disrupted him, but he still lays completely unmoving, the rise and fall of his chest the only sign he is still alive.
My limbs shake as I slowly shift on the mattress, propping myself up and biting my lip as the fatigue threatens to let me fall.
With every large movement, I pause and check that he’s still asleep until I’m lying on my stomach.
I slowly lift to all fours and move closer, crawling across the space between us, heading straight for the pillow.
This is the first time I’ve actually looked at him in this bed since I lay facing the other direction.
I sneak a glance at his face and can’t help but notice how different he looks.
It’s nothing like the grumpy and angry Weston I see every day.
The muscles in his cheeks and jaw are relaxed.
His brow isn’t bunched in the middle or downcast with disapproval aimed at me. His lips are parted slightly.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
Focus, Lennox.
I move closer until I’m right alongside him; the pillow concealing my dagger within reach.
Another quick glance tells me he’s still asleep.
His hand rests low on his chest as his breathing stays steady, and the glint of metal catches my eye.
A thick gold band sits on the third finger, marring his otherwise empty hand.
Is Weston married?
What woman could put up with this incessantly irritating man enough to marry him? Something deep inside me squirms at the thought, and I ignore it before realizing it can’t be true. This band is on the wrong hand.
No more reason to feel sorry for that poor imaginary woman.
Yanking my eyes away from the ring and trying to ignore the bare muscular chest beneath it, I focus back on my task.
There’s no sign that my dagger is under the pillow, but I know it’s there. I heard him unsheathe it again tonight and slide it between the sheets when I was faking sleep.
I need to be careful. The blade could be pointing in either direction, and I don’t want to slice open my hand. The last thing I need is an injury to tend to on my way off the ship.
Holding my breath, I extend my arm slowly, trying not to shift the bed as I reach.
My fingers slide under the cool sheet, flat as possible, so I don’t jostle his resting head.
They slide over the metal, and I try to avoid the sharp edge as I move toward the hilt.
I stretch a little farther, my balance wavering slightly on my one shaky arm.
I stop short as my fingertips brush against something warm.
Fuck.
Everything happens so quickly, I don’t have time to process that Weston’s other hand is under the pillow, wrapped around the hilt of my dagger. I am suddenly flipping in the air, my back slamming down onto the bed as a heavy weight lands on top of me.
Weston hovers, his face so close to mine we share a breath.
His forearm presses against my chest, his hips lining up square with mine, pinning me beneath him.
Heat pools between my thighs as I gape up at him until I feel cold metal digging into my neck.
I lift my chin to avoid being sliced open, but my eyes don’t leave his.
He stares right through me, his glassy gaze unblinking, his disheveled hair falling over his forehead.
I don’t move. I don’t say a word. He doesn’t look like he’s awake, but I’m scared to break his trance and have him move against me, slicing through my skin before he knows what he’s doing.
Maybe he’d mean it.
His eyes flutter as I stare into them, his pupils widening as he slowly comes to. My cheeks heat as his gaze trails over my face, then down to the blade he holds to my throat. I watch as the realization strikes him barely a moment before he speaks.
“What are you doing, princess?” His voice is deep and gravelly with sleep.
“Nothing,” I lie. He caught me, but I’m still not going to admit to my plan.
The word comes out breathier than I intended, but I don’t break the eye contact as his search mine for the lie.
I ignore the throbbing between my thighs as I feel every plane of his body pushing me down, and instead try to focus on slowing my heaving breaths.
The cold press of the dagger is gone instantly as he flips the blade away from my throat and tosses it across the bed, out of my reach.
Even without the threat of breaking skin, I don’t move.
I stay frozen beneath him as he shifts his weight, lifting one side of his body off mine as he looks down toward our feet.
His eyes rake over me and my skin burns beneath my clothes.
My gaze lowers, following his, until he snaps his head toward me, his stare intensifying.
“You were trying to escape again.”
It isn’t a question, so I stay silent, pressing my lips together, and breathing through my nose, trying to slow the rapid pounding of my heart.
His arm lifts off my chest and I feel like I can breathe again, until he sits back on his heels, his knees between my thighs.
I almost choke on my breath as the moonlight illuminates every hard angle on his shirtless torso.
My mouth dries as my eyes graze his skin, snagging on a large gnarled scar that slashes across his abdomen, just above the defined muscles that disappear into his low hanging waistband.
This isn’t the first time I’ve had him pressed against me, but it is the first time I can actually see it.
I can understand Sig’s statement about women being happy to be in my position because Weston looks like someone straight out of Tila’s books.
I’ve been around training men all my life, and no one has looked anything like Weston.
Even Dane, with his height and broad frame, doesn’t feel like this.
His hand wraps under my thigh and he swings my leg over his knees, dropping it on the other side of him, only to plant his hand on my hip and push me off the side of the bed. My knees hit the floor with a loud thud and I snap back up to glare at him.
“Hey! What the fuck was that for?”
“What did I say about outdoor clothes in my bed?” he says as he snatches the dagger back up and swings his legs over the side to stand.
That’s it? Is he going to ignore the part where he held my dagger to my throat and pinned me to the bed?
I scramble to my feet and snarl at him, “That’s all you have to say right now? No apology for almost killing me?”
His loose linen pants are distracting as they hang low on his hips.
He strides over to the desk and opens the top drawer before dropping my dagger inside.
The drawer slams and I hear a click before he pulls a key.
He stares me down as he lifts the key and slides it right into his pocket, his eyebrow lifting slightly, as if challenging me to try to take it.
“What else do you want me to say, princess? I didn’t kill you. Didn’t even nick you. There would be no need for an apology if you hadn’t been trying to leave.”
“Can you blame me? Why would I want to be around you?”
With all the emotions welling up inside me, I don’t even think before I hurl those words at him. I don’t feel even a sliver of guilt, though, because they’re true. Why would I want to be here? I didn’t come here on my own. He captured me. He’s a grown man. He can take a little dose of truth.
He lets out a huff. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“I don’t belong here, Captain.”
He crosses his arms over his chest, his muscles rippling in the moonlight. “You do, but that is beside the point. You still aren’t going anywhere.”
“That may be what you believe, but I will get out of here,” I grind out, matching his stance and crossing my arms, too.
This is not part of my plan. Admitting that I still want to leave is only going to undo any progress I had made over the past two days. But he just caught me trying to leave. That alone clued him in to how I feel, so voicing it won’t change anything.
He jerks his head toward the door. “Go try it.”
I pause, waiting to see if he is serious, but his face stays stoic.
Walking to the door, I feel his eyes on me the entire way.
The handle turns as I twist it, but when I pull, nothing happens.
The door doesn’t budge. I pull harder, quickly scanning for a lock I had missed when I hear his footsteps padding up behind me.
I release the handle and step back from the door as he stops next to me. His gaze holds mine as he reaches out and turns the handle, pulling the door open with ease.
My jaw drops.
His lips turn up in a smirk as he pushes the door closed again.
“See, princess? You aren’t. Going. Anywhere.” The grumble in his voice sends shivers down my spine, and he brushes past me, heading back to bed.
I silently curse the island and the magic, and a seed of doubt sprouts inside me again. Why is it keeping me here? Why won’t it let me go home? Why is it subjecting me to this monster?
I spin around, scowling at the room, hoping the island knows how much I hate it right now.
Weston slides beneath the covers, resuming the position he was in before I tried to take back my dagger. I stomp to my side of the bed and kick off my boots, ready to curl up and sleep away the defeat.
“Clothes,” he calls out, clearly annoyed.
“Ugh,” I groan and grab the shirt from where I had hidden it under my pillow. I quickly undress, sliding his shirt over my head and pulling it down so it doesn’t reveal too much.
Not that he’s looking; his eyes are closed.
I curl onto my side and pull the blankets back over me.
My body hums with energy, hyperaware of his proximity, and I readjust every few minutes, trying to find a comfortable position.
I’m still way too tense after being pinned underneath him.
I squeeze my thighs together, trying to stop the throbbing that has only barely subsided, and let out a frustrated breath.
I need to clear my mind, focus on something else, not every tingling nerve in my body.
Weston sighs heavily from his side of the bed, but says nothing.
I finally find a comfortable position and stare at the wall. If I stare long enough, hopefully the exhaustion will eventually overtake me.
Minutes pass and I can tell he isn’t asleep. He should be able to relax now that the threat of me getting my dagger and escaping is crushed.
I don’t know what makes me ask it, if it’s the energy or the defeat, a moment of insanity brought on by my eyes gawking at his body earlier, or just pure curiosity, but once the words are out of my mouth, I can’t take them back.
“Where’d you get your scar?”
The question hangs in the room between us, and I wonder if he actually is asleep.
A few beats of silence pass and I nuzzle back into my pillow, relieved that he didn’t hear me ask it, and it’s as if I never did.
His response breaks the silence a moment later. “I’ll answer your question if you answer mine.”
The words give me pause. I have no idea what he wants to ask me, and it feels like his curiosity is coming out of nowhere.
He hasn’t asked me hardly anything except if I’ve eaten since I’ve been on this ship, and I wonder if now is the time.
Is he going to use my vulnerable position to get information out of me?
I can always lie. He can’t see my face, so if it is something I don’t want him to know, he won’t. But if this is it, the inquiry about the healing waters, why would he give me the option to say no?
My curiosity wins out.
“Fine,” I agree.
“Your boyfriend gave it to me,” he grumbles. No explanation, just the statement. I didn’t realize he and Dane had any interaction, and I’m surprised. Especially because I feel like this is something Dane would have told me.
Is Weston lying?
“You must have done something to deserve it,” I say.
Like kill the last Guardian.
A soft chuckle echoes in the otherwise silent room. “Keep telling yourself that, princess.”
Silence falls again as I wait for my question. I wonder if he changed his mind when he doesn’t speak, and my impatience is too much to handle.
“What’s your question?”
He doesn’t answer right away, just shifts and adjusts the blankets, pulling them slightly tighter around me.
“How old are you?”
That’s what he wants to know? My age? On an island with no time, my age shouldn’t matter at all, especially since every person on Dawnlin is of varied ages.
All of us deserve to be here, no matter how old we are.
I can’t believe he didn’t ask me something he truly wanted to know, something that would help his cause.
Maybe he thinks showing a personal interest will soften me. He’s wrong. I answer him anyway. If he squandered a perfectly good chance to find out information, that is his mistake.
“Twenty-one.”
He looses a soft sigh before speaking again, the words barely a mumble, “That’s what I thought. Goodnight, princess.”
The mattress shifts underneath me as I assume he turns away.
My mind reels with what he could need to know my age for, but I decide I don’t care. How do any of the Castaways even know how old they are? They’ve been stuck at this age for as long as they have been here, and no one truly knows how time moves here compared to the real world.
I shrug it off as a mere curiosity and close my eyes, praying for another night without nightmares.
“Goodnight, Captain.”