Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Abang echoes through the hallway as Sig’s door slams into the wall when I storm from the room.
I fly up the steps to the main deck and spot Weston standing with his back to me, looking out over the side of the ship.
He’s not alone. Some of the crew have already started their daily tasks in the early hour of the morning.
Anger rises in me as my eyes fall on his back. Dane lied to me this entire time, but despite all the truth Weston has admitted, he’s also lied about something that is too important for me to let go.
And after last night, after this morning?
After he keeps pushing me away, then drawing me closer?
Now, to find out that all of it has been laced with lies about what he knows?
I can’t hold it in any longer.
Eirlik stands near the mainmast, and I stomp over to him, pulling his sword from his scabbard and marching straight at Weston.
“Oi!” Eirlik yells from behind me. “Captain! Incoming!”
He turns right as I level my sword at the center of his chest.
“You better start fucking explaining, Captain.”
He is completely unfazed. The only acknowledgement is his eyes traveling up the blade of the sword, then landing on my scowl.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, princess.”
I swipe at him and he reacts, leaning back just out of reach before straightening again.
“Cap!” someone yells, and Weston reaches up, snatching a sword out of the air and holding it at the ready.
“I think you know exactly what I’m talking about,” I say through clenched teeth.
“If you’re going to point a sword at me this early in the morning, the least you can do is enlighten me, so I know what we’re fighting about now.”
He holds my gaze, and we stare each other down, waiting for the other to strike first. I could pick any number of things that have happened since yesterday, but there’s only one thing that matters. He’s told me to trust him, time and time again, and I do.
Did.
He needs to answer for the lies, for tricking me into believing that he was always telling the truth.
“You’ve been lying to me,” I say, my voice hard and cold.
“I haven’t lied to you.”
“Lied to me, hid things from me. It’s all the same!”
He shakes his head as we slowly circle each other. “It is not anywhere close to the same.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Where did you get that ring?”
A flash of surprise crosses his face and is gone the next instant, but I see his fingers flutter on the hilt of the sword out of the corner of my eye. He didn’t know I discovered it. I use his surprise to my advantage and strike, our blades clanging as he matches every blow.
“The ring is mine,” he says with a grunt as he pushes me back, blade to blade.
Another round of strikes, and I drive harder. My strength isn’t what it was last time, and he isn’t besting me as easily as before.
“Why do you have the seal of Blackwood on your finger, Weston?” I yell. I hear a quiet gasp somewhere on the deck, but ignore it.
My fury is bubbling over. All I want to do is wear him down and force him to tell me everything. My motions are out of my control, my body moving out of instinct and rage instead of calculation. My limbs shake, my mind races, and I struggle to put words together.
He steps backward, and I charge after him, swiping again out of anger, but missing as he steps away smoothly again.
“You’re fighting with too much emotion,” he says. “Focus.” Our blades clash and he pushes me backward, allowing him time to recuperate. Leave it to him to still train me, even after attacking him on deck.
“I can’t focus on anything other than how you hid everything from me.
” My voice wavers with fury and despair, as I try to fight back the tears I already spilled with Sig, but this time, they are filled with anger.
“You let me believe everything Dane said when you knew he was lying. You let me hate everyone. Hate you! And then you hide from me that you’re from my kingdom? ”
The words slip, and I can’t take them back. My kingdom. Not Blackwood, not home. Mine. His expression stays stoic as he watches me, without even a flicker of surprise.
“You wouldn’t have believed me if I told you.”
“Yes I would—”
“Don’t lie to yourself, princess.” Irritation coats his voice and his eyes narrow.
He stalks toward me as he speaks, striking out and pushing me backward, our blades clashing as I block.
“You wouldn’t have believed a word I said.
You didn’t. You found every reason to believe someone who was manipulating you.
The only way I could help you was to have you figure it out on your own.
To show you all of this and lead you to the truth.
Just telling you I wasn’t the monster in his story would have done nothing. ”
I glare at him, my chest heaving as his words sink in.
He’s right. I didn’t believe anything they told me.
I was so convinced it was all mind games, part of a way to control me and turn me against people I cared about, that nothing they said would have changed my mind.
It wasn’t until after living with them for months, watching them care about me and trust me, and coming to trust them that I saw they weren’t anything like Dane said.
But he still hasn’t answered my question. He hasn’t acknowledged the crucial piece of information he knew and that he hid it from me.
“You know who I am, don’t you? You and Sig know.”
He lowers his sword and stands up straight, his voice dropping low. “I do, princess.”
My vision blackens around the edges as my anger hones in on him with the admission.
Now it’s my turn to stalk toward him. “That’s why you treat me differently?
” My hands collide with his chest as I push him with all my strength.
He staggers back slightly, but stays silent.
“That’s why you are such an insufferable asshole?
” I push him again. “That’s why you’re so overbearingly protective?
” His face contorts with annoyance on the third push, and he shoots me a look, challenging me to do it again.
“You’ve been here longer than I’ve been alive,” I yell. “I’m not your princess. I should mean nothing to you!”
“That’s enough,” he growls.
“No! It’s not enough! Because you still aren’t answering me!” I reach out one final time, but he swats my wrists away, his sword clattering to the deck.
A growl erupts from his throat and he stoops down, wrapping his arm around my thighs, and throws me over his shoulder. The hilt of the sword is ripped from my fingers before it clatters to the floor alongside his.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Weston? Put me down! Now!” I try to wiggle and roll out of his grasp, but he ignores me, his arm only clamping down harder as he walks toward the steps, taking them quickly down to the first deck.
“I order you to put me down!” I scream as I slam my fists into his back, trying to push away and break out of his grasp. If he wants to treat me like a princess, then I’ll start acting like one.
He stomps down the hallway and I shriek when he tilts me backward as we pass through the doorway, so my head doesn’t hit the wooden beam above.
Slamming the door behind us, he crosses the room and I’m flying through the air, dropping right into his chair.
Fire flares in his eyes as he grips the arms on either side of me, leaning forward so there’s only a breath between us.
“There. Now you can scream at me all you want. You may be my princess, but this is still my ship.”
I ignore him. He will not distract me from my anger by pulling rank.
“You’ve told me to trust you, but you’ve hidden everything from me! And now you’re making this about you!”
“It’s not about me. This has always been about you!” he yells and I shift back in the chair.
He stands, scrubbing his hands over his face, and I can see there’s more he isn’t saying.
I don’t care what Edmond has taught me about being diplomatic and not letting emotions get involved when you are negotiating.
I’m furious with Weston. Furious about everything he’s kept from me, and everything he let me believe.
“How did you figure out I was a princess?”
“I didn’t have to figure it out,” he snaps. “I knew from the moment I saw you who you were.”
I rear back. How could he have known? I’ve never met one of the Castaways in my life, and no one on the island knows I’m a princess, not even Dane.
“How did you know? And why did you keep it from me?”
“What part of you weren’t going to believe anything I said to you, don’t you understand?”
“You could have tried,” I snap back.
He turns his back to me and wrings his hands through his hair. “Fuck, Rem, she’s as bad as you are.”
My heart screeches to a halt in my chest.
Rem.
Does Weston know my father?
“What did you just say?”
He turns back around, his jaw working and the muscles in his cheeks fluttering. Hands held together at his waist, his fingers twist the ring around so the seal is now visible.
“You asked me where I got this,” he says, the anger from moments ago gone and replaced with seriousness. “I didn’t lie to you, princess. It is mine. I got it from the king…when he named me First Guard.”
I suck in a breath, and his eyes roam my face, reading the shock there.
I stare right back in silence, trying to find the lie, but I can’t see it. All words escape me as my eyes scan his. He’s telling me the truth, finally.
But I can’t believe it.
He breaks the silence first. “I turned it around so you wouldn’t recognize it as the same one the current First Guard wears.”
“We don’t have a First Guard.” My words come out in a whisper, the shock still making it hard to speak.
His gaze snaps to mine. “What do you mean you don’t have one? Who has been protecting him? Traveling with him? Managing the guards for the kingdom?”
I shake my head. “We’ve never had one.”
“Fuck, Remmington!” He paces the space in front of me, his chest heaving and jaw tight. “He never replaced me?”