Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Darkness creeps over the sky before we finally leave the lookout. Dane and the others lingered in the area for hours before giving up and going elsewhere, and I felt a sense of relief wash over me once they were gone.
It has disappeared now though, as we head back through the tunnels to the ship, and dread slowly fills me. I know I told Sig I could handle Weston, but it is significantly worse this time around than after my first shift. If he was angry about some mud, I don’t want to see his reaction to this.
Hopefully, the gods are looking down on us and Weston is below deck, so Sig and I have a chance to sneak to the infirmary and get rid of the evidence.
My blood-stained shirt with missing sleeves isn’t exactly inconspicuous.
That’s not even considering all the other grass and dirt smeared over us, and my wild waves from the salted water.
Sig doesn’t look much better.
After Mara saw us and brought Dane and Storm to search the area, we can’t take any chances that they aren’t still out looking.
We take extra precautions when we exit the portal before hurrying to the gangway.
The deck is dim and quiet, and relief floods me as my feet hit the boards, until the soft sound of voices carries to my ears.
I hear Weston before I see him. Stopping in the middle of the gangway, I drop my head back, closing my eyes and bracing myself for what’s about to happen.
“Oh fuck, here we go,” Sig grumbles under her breath.
Our steps drag as we take our time to get to the deck, but once we crest the top, my worries are realized.
Weston sits perched on top of a barrel, his back to us, as he talks with some of the crew.
Auralie and Stassia are among them, everyone lounging on the deck or other crates and barrels, enjoying the balmy, clear night.
He hasn’t seen us yet, and I glance toward the entrance below and consider making a run for it.
The opportunity disappears when Auralie spots us, her eyes and mouth growing wide.
Silence falls over the group as all eyes shift to us.
Weston turns to look over his shoulder, his smile dropping quickly, only to be replaced by a hardened jaw.
“Clear the deck. Now,” he commands and springs to his feet. Everyone in the group jumps up and scrambles, disappearing below deck without a word or a glance in our direction. Weston charges toward us, a look of fury on his face that I haven’t seen since we came back from my first shift.
“Someone better start fucking explaining,” he growls, as he looks back and forth between us.
He jerks to a halt, barely an arm’s length away as his eyes trail over me, up my slung arm and over my blood-soaked clothes to the dressing.
His knuckles turn white as his fists clench at his sides.
Shoulders pulling back and stiffening, he looks like he’s ready to pounce, but holds himself back.
He’s not touching me like last time, not after I told him not to.
Sig starts to speak, but I cut her off. She isn’t responsible for what happened today. I am, and I won’t let her try to take the fall for me.
“We were attacked. It was my fault. Sig had nothing to do with it.”
He looks sharply at her. “They found the lookout?”
“Not exactly.” Her words trail off and he stares expectantly.
“I climbed out of it. Sig followed, so I wasn’t alone. We were found, and we escaped.”
“What possessed you to climb out of our safe hold?” he grinds out.
I know my reason will soften his anger. At least I hope it will. He knows what it is like to protect people he cares about, and that is all I did today.
“My friend was in trouble. He’s close to Fin’s age. There was no other option. I had to help him.”
Just like you helped me.
“She saved his life, Cap, and mine.” He glares at her, but she continues, “She pushed me out of the way when Mara attacked.”
“Who saw you?”
“Only Roley and Mara,” I say.
“She brought Dane and Storm back to the lookout to search for us,” Sig explains. “They looked right past us. The island kept us hidden.”
“Why didn’t you come straight back?” His eyes darken as he looks down at my arm again.
“We couldn’t risk coming back in daylight, not with them searching for us. We went back to the lookout and waited until nightfall,” Sig says.
His glare settles on me again. “You didn’t go back.”
It isn’t a question, but I can hear the word left unsaid.
Why?
I don’t have an answer for him, because I honestly don’t know the answer myself. So I take the easy way, just as I had when the questions got tough earlier.
“I stayed with Sig.”
“Leave, Signee,” he growls, his gaze fixed on the floorboards.
Sig glances at me, and I give her a small nod. She knows I can handle his wrath alone, especially when I did exactly what Weston would have done. Despite how it turned out, we came back to the ship. Both of us. That must mean something to him, after all this time.
“Aye, Cap,” she says, and steps around him, limping toward the steps until she disappears below.
Once the sound of her footsteps fades, he steps away from me, hands on his hips, and begins pacing.
“Can you please explain to me why you keep putting yourself in danger?” His voice is still harsh, full of anger and frustration, but he refuses to look at me.
“I’m not doing it on purpose.”
His head snaps up as he shoots me a glare, and I retract my words.
“Alright, today was on purpose. But I had a good reason.”
“No reason will ever be good enough to put yourself at risk.”
“You’re wrong, and you know it.”
He halts, his body turning toward me as he speaks. “I’m not wrong, princess. You disobeyed my orders, you put yourself and Sig at risk, not to mention those of us that would have had to come get you if they had captured you.”
“He’s a child! He’s barely older than Fin!
He could have died, and I wasn’t going to let that happen.
You would have helped him too, just like you helped me.
You wouldn’t have done nothing and just let him die.
I know you wouldn’t have, because despite everything that I’ve been told, deep down you’re not the monster you’ve been made out to be. ”
“It’s different with you.” He brushes past my declaration like my changing beliefs about him are the most meaningless thing in the world.
“Why is it different with me?” I snap.
“Because I’m responsible for you.”
“You’re responsible for every one of us, yet you clearly treat me differently. I’m the only one that gets yelled at for facing the dangers out there. I’m not fucking breakable!”
He steps forward, gesturing at my bandaged arm. “Clearly, you are. You were reckless. No one else comes back to my ship having put themselves in danger.”
“Every time we leave this ship we put ourselves in danger.”
“You let your guard down!” he yells, throwing his arm up wildly toward the beach. “I told you to never let your guard down. That girl shouldn’t have been able to touch you with all your training, yet here you are, wounded and bleeding on my watch.”
“She threw a knife at my back, Weston. What did you expect me to do?”
His eyes fly to mine at the use of his name, and I flinch, surprised myself at how easily it slipped out.
He looks away again, his face sobered, the wild anger from moments ago hidden away back under the stern facade of the captain.
His voice is dangerously low. “You’re off shift duties until I say so.”
Turning abruptly, he stalks back toward the steps, but I chase after him.
“You can’t do that! You can’t just trap me here!”
“It’s my ship princess, I can do whatever the fuck I want.”
All the old feelings of being trapped in the castle, hidden away and isolated from the world, come rushing back, and I do everything to stomp them down. I won’t let him do that to me, not here, not without an explanation.
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“To keep you safe!” he yells over his shoulder.
“Bullshit! Stop being a coward and tell me the real reason!”
An angry growl erupts as he spins back toward me, and before I can even process his change in direction, his hands wrap around my face and his lips crash into mine.
My mind is a blank void.
The fight.
The pain.
The chaos.
It’s all gone.
There’s only Weston.
His lips move against mine, hard and desperate, like I’m the only source of air and he can’t breathe.
Oh gods, Weston is kissing me.
And I don’t want him to stop.
His hand moves off my jaw, weaving through my hair and cradling the back of my head, angling me to deepen the kiss and causing my eyes to flutter shut.
My head spins and my knees buckle, but he doesn’t let me fall.
One arm releases me and wraps around my waist, pulling me tighter to him, so the toes of my boots barely touch the floor.
Desire rushes through my veins, and I sigh into him, my mouth parting slightly, and he doesn’t waste it.
His tongue slides along mine, stroking and savoring and igniting an inferno inside me.
I reach up and fist his collar, pulling him closer, the pain from my arm that’s trapped between us completely forgotten.
All I can feel is him.
His grip tightens, his fist clenching in my hair and I moan into him, the sound only fueling him more. He bends, not breaking the kiss, as he picks me up so we’re on the same level, wrapping my legs around him and pulling me against his body.
A memory from the night in the pool flashes in my mind. It was the last time he held me this way, and now there’s no doubt this was exactly what was on his mind. As fast as the thought came, it’s gone again, replaced by the need to get even closer.
I clutch his jaw, his closely shaven beard prickling my palm and scraping against my chin as his lips and tongue continue to move against mine, sending chills down my spine with every movement.
His grip tightens on my ass as he hikes me higher, and I tilt my hips into him, pressing myself against the ridges of his muscles.
Every previous thought I had about him, every worry, every perception, is shattered, only to be replaced with his feelings. Worry, protection, concern. He pours it into the kiss.
Is this why he’s been so domineering? Because he cares about what happens to me?
I weave my fingers through his hair, my nails scraping the back of his neck, which is met with a low grumble in his chest.
Then he tears his lips away.
As quickly as it started, he’s gone, and lowering me down until my feet hit the deck as he abruptly steps away.
“Fuck!” he yells as he turns his back to me, throwing his arms up and tugging at his hair. I stumble slightly, my balance thrown from the lightheaded daze that kiss left me in.
What the fuck just happened?
My chest heaves as I try to catch my breath, my mind still reeling as I watch the tension ripple through his arms and across shoulders.
Lacing his fingers together behind his head, he stares out across the ship.
He doesn’t move; he doesn’t speak. There’s only the rolling of the waves and the creaking of the ship in the silent night.
“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath, before he stomps toward the stairs and disappears below. Not a word or even a glance back as I stand here reeling, my lips swollen and tingling, and my stomach flipping over.
“Jorn!” His yell comes from somewhere in the ship, followed by muffled voices, then Jorn’s crow.
The solitude of the deck grounds me, and every part of this day rushes back. Now it’s my turn to pace.
Once again, my world on Dawnlin has been completely turned upside down. Everything I thought I knew, thought I understood, thought I felt, is brought into question yet again.
And then he does this.
He kisses me, then immediately regrets it.
The sinking feeling in my stomach tells me he may have, but I didn’t, and that somehow makes it all worse.
I looked into Dane’s eyes today, watched as he and the others searched for me.
I heard the way he spoke about getting me back, and convincing me again that he is right.
There’s no doubt in his mind that I will come back to them, to him, and that everything I’ve learned and experienced here is all a lie.
But I didn’t.
I didn’t go back.
I could have jumped out of the lookout again, ran straight into his arms, and been back at camp minutes later. Sig wouldn’t have followed that time.
I didn’t move.
The pull I felt to return to Dane when I was first taken by the Castaways has dulled, almost completely disappeared, the only remnant one tiny sliver of doubt from unanswered questions.
My mind spins as I pace, and my emotions are so overbearing that I’m starting to feel numb, except for the throbbing pain starting up again in my arm.
Footsteps pull me out of the reverie, and I look up to find Sig slowly approaching. Her clothes are changed, her limp gone. She takes in my face, which I’m sure looks as stricken as I feel, but there’s no judgment or question there, just a friend standing to support whatever I’m going through.
“Come on,” she says quietly. She extends a hand to me and I reach out to take it. “Let’s get that arm cleaned up.”