Falling for the Doomed Bride (Bluebeard’s Tale #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter one

Sofie

There I was, trying and failing to sleep off the truly terrible day I was fleeing from, when the ship shuddered almost to a stop.

My eyes popped open, and I thought a single word: Pirates.

Why in the name of Aestas did it have to be pirates?

Judging by the colorful language filtering through the cabin door, Valiant Strider was being boarded by vile privateers, not the royal navy of Endergeist. And how I would’ve preferred the navy! Even with a bounty on my head, I could’ve negotiated with them. Eventually.

Probably.

But pirates? They wouldn’t care whether I lived or died…or understand just how dangerous I could be.

More shouts, creaks and the dancing light of torches when there should have been little else but a pale half moon and a dark sea had me jumping out of bed. I’d never dressed so quickly in my life. From the clomping sound of boots outside the captain’s cabin, the pirates were already aboard.

And since I’d relented when the captain insisted I take his quarters, that meant they’d be bursting through my door any moment now.

“Curse my dratted luck,” I muttered, wincing at the word choice as I scrambled for my cloak, magic practically sizzling at my fingertips. I wasn’t about to wait for these wretched pirates to intrude.

I didn’t relish the thought of inflicting more harm today. But if they thought they could collect King Venet’s bounty on me, they were mistaken.

I swung my fur-trimmed cloak over my shoulders and threw open the door to the deck of Valiant Strider. I didn’t even make it a step. It was chaos out there. Complete and utter chaos—and not the fun kind.

Swords clanged, wood splintered under steel, and a faint haze of weak magic hung in the air. A man I recognized from the crew stumbled forward, clutching his side as blood darkened his shirt, his face instantly as snow-pale as mine.

But I was a balancer, and I was trained to manage moments like this.

I cupped my hands around my mouth, amplifying my voice with magic as I said, as very calmly as possible, “I am Sorceress Sofie Dar’Vester. Who is in charge here?”

All eyes turned to me at once. One pirate froze with his hand at a crewmember’s collarbone, her locket suspended in his hand just before he could yank the chain from her neck.

Pirates are fools. Lockets like that had barely a lick of gold to coat them, and nothing inside but a clipping of hair from a sweetheart back on land. And I highly doubted these pirates knew what to do with a lover’s lock. The only potions these louts cared for was the cheap, fermented kind.

I cleared my throat, about to ask again, when a new figure climbed over the ship’s rail.

So. The pirate captain had finally deigned to join his crew. A cowardly move, if you asked me, sending his men to board Valiant Strider and take the brunt of the attack.

Loose curls of hair, dark as the sea, framed this smug captain’s face as he regarded me, the muscles on his bare, tattooed arms rippling as he hung onto one of the lines.

I didn’t like the looks of him one bit. For one thing, he was smart enough to stay well back from me, as if he sensed my true nature.

“Fine night to flee from a kingdom, isn’t it, milady?” he asked me in a silky, accented voice, sizing me up in a way that had me shivering.

I lifted my chin, unafraid to meet his eye. “I suppose you should know better than I would.”

“This is her,” he informed his crew, never taking his eyes off me. “A woman whose heart is as black as ours. Maybe more. Cursing an infant princess?” He tisked at me. “Do you have any heart at all?”

“Test me and find out.”

“Sharp words, from a defenseless girl.”

“Girl?” My nostrils flared, my eyes hooded. “I’m downgraded with every utterance by you. First I’m a lady, then a mere woman, and now a girl? What will I be next?”

He ran a hand down his short beard, woven with thread of a dark color I couldn’t make out in this light.

Was this Blackbeard? Silverbeard? Pirate lords liked to color-code themselves like the indexes in Dewspell Academy’s Grande Library. To have such a name was some kind of honor.

“I know exactly what you’ll be next,” he said, his voice pitched even lower so that only I could hear. His teeth flashed in the torchlight, ivory and lacking the stains and rot I expected.

“And what, Dusk preserve us, might that be?” I asked haughtily, hoping he could not see my growing nerves.

His smile widened, yet stopped well before it reached his eyes as he replied, “You’ll see.” He raised his cutlass high. “Finish this. We don’t need to trouble him.”

Before I could pull a spell, three female pirates rushed me, shoving me backwards into the captain’s cabin. I stumbled, then went sprawling onto the floor.

One of the women guffawed. “Gotta get you pretty for the captain, sorceress.”

My lip curled in distaste. Why was she saying it like that? Of course I was a sorceress, tried and tested and given my badge of office by the headmaster of Dewspell Academy herself.

“She’s right,” crooned another pirate, her dark hair in hypnotic, swaying braids decorated by gold and turquoise beads. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. “Can’t wear those traveling clothes.”

“I’m fine as I am, thank you,” I started to say, but the words slowed and garbled. What I heard myself say was, “Yes. Must be pretty.”

Must be pretty? I don’t think I’d ever said those words in my life. Just hearing them made me want to slap myself. I was the daughter of a shield-maiden, for the north’s sake!

In a daze, I reached for the pirate’s hand that was offered to me, standing woozily. “Is this your trunk?” one of them asked as she ushered me back inside the captain’s cabin.

Feeling half in a dream, I nodded. Somewhere in the back of my mind, where it did me no good, alarm bells rang.

With the three pirates assisting me, I pulled off my overdress and replaced it with the purple velvet gown I’d just worn to Princess Auravelle’s naming day, tugging the fitted sleeves up over my chemise and holding out my arms obediently while the attaching ribbons were tied.

The pirates’ touch was surprisingly delicate and precise, as if they’d once been lady’s maids.

“Don’t you look nice,” one said.

“Must be polite for the captain,” the other said, “and very lady-like. Agreeable, too.”

The back of my mind, already filled with tolling bells, achieved another noise: my own voice, chiming, siren powers. I was in a siren’s thrall.

That’s not what I said, of course. Instead of pulling myself free, I murmured my agreement.

The pirates plopped me in a chair at the captain’s private table. One opened the cabin door and hollered, “Bring the wine!” while I just sat there, swaying with the sea.

Seconds or hours later, I opened my eyes as another rough, sleeveless male pirate set a crystal goblet in front of me.

He poured the wine almost to the gold rim of the expensive drinking vessel, unbothered by the rocking of the ship.

Distant hammering added to the ship’s tumult, and I had the idea the ship was being disassembled while I sat here.

The thought didn’t bother me at all.

I must’ve slumped over, because the next thing I knew the big man was hauling me off the floor and setting me back in my chair.

“Hmph,” was all he said to me. He stood back from the table, the goblet in his hand. He offered it to me.

“Drink,” he commanded.

I continued to glance between the goblet and his face. Slowly, his dark, kohl-lined eyes on me, he drank, then returned the goblet to me. I took it obediently, his big hands curled around mine. Mine must’ve been cold, for his felt as hot as fire.

“Are you going to make this difficult?” he asked, his voice low and almost melodic.

I shook my head. “No.”

“No what?” he prompted.

“No. Why would I?” Why should I? my addled mind echoed. I was perfectly happy here. Deliriously happy. I was safe, and comfortable, and had all I desired just being close to…

“Who are you?” I asked.

He regarded me for a long moment, as if convinced this was a trick.

Like the captain, he had tattoos on his muscled arms, the ink fresh and dark as night on his brown skin.

I began to notice other things about him, too.

The melted chocolate of his eyes, the scar in his brow, big hands that plucked the crystal goblet from the table gently, the three earrings in each of his ears.

I even noticed the color of the thread in his short beard.

It was blue.

No. This is Bluebeard! You know what happens to women taken by Bluebeard—

As if I were a marionette and he held my strings, I lifted the goblet and drank.

My snared mind wouldn’t pass the message along to the rest of me. I just kept looking at him, doe eyed. I think I even twirled a lock of my red hair.

He couldn’t really be Bluebeard, could he?

I’d already met the captain, a different man, more wiry in build than this.

This one was twice as handsome and at least as strong, his beard well-kept like a man of the northern isles would.

He was the kind of man they’d love back home, even if he only had a couple daggers on him and was dressed in uselessly fine clothes. Minus the jacket. Or a shirt.

He leaned over me, his broad chest and the silk waistcoat over it taking up the whole of my view. “I wonder if you’ll be the one.”

“Of course I’m the one.” Now it was my turn to scoff.

He raised his scarred brow. “And what one is that? Do you even know?”

“You know.“ I smiled like a simpering fool. “The one for you.”

He withdrew sharply, sucking in a breath as though I’d stabbed him. “I’ll settle for the one who can break the curse.”

My smile broadened. “Curses are my specialty!”

His lip curled. “You have a deeply disturbing smile.”

I canted my head, fluttering my lashes. “Why, thank you.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

“Of course it is. I aim to be terrifying. It’s an important part of what I do.”

“Which is what? Cursing infants in their cradles? Not even pirates go after babes in arms. You just might be cold enough for the job.” He ran a hand down his beard. “I’m more interested in whether you can remove curses.”

“Remove them, move them, improve them, I know curses like I know my own name.” I extended my hand, palm down, for him to take. “I’m Sofie, by the way.”

He stared at my hand a moment, then took it as if I were handing him a cursed jewel. He made no move to kiss it, though I rather wondered what his beard would feel like on my skin. He was just about the handsomest man I’d ever—

Wake up, you fool! You need to get up and fight!

My brow furrowed, unsure what to make of my own mind.

“Jax,” the pirate introduced himself, still holding my hand. As if this was very inconvenient for him, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring. A peculiar, swirling stone was set in the gold band. “Your”—he choked on the word—“husband.”

“Of course,” I said, still smiling. My eyes widened. “Oh! I suppose that makes me your wife.”

“For now,” he said.

“Oh, no. For always. Forever, and ever…”

“Nothing lasts forever, my dear. Least of all my wives.”

In the span of a breath, he downed the last of his wine, slammed the goblet onto the table with such force I thought it would break, and stalked out of my dream-like field of vision. I heard the door fly open.

“It’s done,” he said.

The siren was there, a note of protest in her enchanting voice. “But don’t you want Violet to—”

“The ring’s on her finger and we shared a celebratory glass of wine. According to the laws of the sea, that’s enough.” Though his voice lowered, I could still hear him. “That’s plenty.”

And then the three lady pirates were back, lifting me up from my chair before I could tumble over again. I was feeling awfully dizzy…

“Congratulations,” one said, sounding not at all like my impromptu marriage was a good thing.

Woozy from the mix of magic and wine. I continued to walk with the pirates, tottering obediently towards the captain’s bed before collapsing onto the feather-topped ropes.

I woke what could’ve been days later, facedown in a drool-dampened, sideways pillow.

For a few blissful moments, I was dazed, not remembering where I was, what I’d done or what had befallen me as I’d fled Endergeist and its furious king.

And then my full faculties returned.

I launched out of bed, pausing only to rid myself of the slipper that was stubbornly clinging to my foot. Throwing open the door to the captain’s cabin, I bellowed at the top of my lungs, “Captain Bluebeard, you did not just marry me!”

With a burst of magic to shed my pirate attendants, I charged out of the cabin like a bull—straight into Bluebeard’s back.