Chapter 4
Chapter Four
"Oh, balls," I murmured.
Dust settled around my ankles as I stared down the alley I tried to escape through. A shadow filled its mouth, lantern light wavering behind it. I didn’t need its light to see that I was in trouble.
August Quincy, heir to the Crown and Compass, patron of my studies, and my husband to be, was blocking my path.
"Corynne," he said in mock surprise.
I grabbed onto my satchel and backed up until cold brick pressed against my spine.
"My lord," I answered, just as snidely.
He stepped forward with a vicious smile. Firelight glinted off his black ring, outlining the compass rose with a crown perched above it in a burning blaze of orange.
His smile was polite, but I didn’t miss the cruelty in his eyes.
"You’ve caused quite a bit of trouble," he said pleasantly, rocking up onto his tiptoes. "Bothering my colleagues for a patronage I’ve already so graciously given." He looked me up and down, making me all too aware of the dirty trousers I tried to disguise myself in.
"Imagine that," I said through gritted teeth. "A woman trying to live out from under the thumb of a man. Blasphemy, really."
His eyes hardened just as footsteps tromped up beside me. Extreme halitosis blasted the air. It took all of my composure to keep from gagging.
"Sorry, my lord," one panted. "She’s quick."
He didn’t deign to respond to the man, too busy trying to win our stare-down.
"You have two choices, Corynne. You can either come quietly like a lady, or we will take you screaming like a prisoner."
I barked out a laugh that surprised even myself. A lady, my ass. He never thought of me as anything other than a trophy on his arm.
"Like a lady," I repeated. "Do you practice saying that in the mirror, or does it come naturally when you’re justifying abducting one?"
His lip twitched, eyes glinting a shade of lunatic I wasn’t fond of.
"Like a prisoner it is."
"Don’t you dare—"
The world went dark as the smell of old burlap enveloped me. I shifted my weight, throwing my body to the side in hopes of shaking off the bastard, but his grip was too tight.
"Let me go!"
"There, there, Corynne." August’s voice lacked empathy in the same way his dead heart did. "‘T’will all be okay once we’re back home. Although, some punishment for this… indiscretion of yours may be warranted. This is no way to treat your fiancé, and certainly not the patron funding your dreams."
"Whose dreams?" I shrieked.
Firm hands grabbed my thighs and I nearly wet myself as I was thrown over a broad shoulder. Whoever thought it romantic to be carried this way had clearly never had their pelvic bone meet that of a brute acromion and clavicle joint before.
"Clearly not mine," I continued, because if I was going to be dragged through darkened streets with zero dignity, they were going to hear about it. "I simply wanted to map the stars—"
"Shut her up," August growled.
"I beg your pardon!"
Pain exploded behind my eyes, and the stars that danced there were none that I’d ever placed on worn parchment. Black swarmed my vision, taking me under just before the roiling nausea could make me vomit.
The last thing I heard before sleep claimed me was August’s cruel voice.
"The day women finally learn they are meant for nothing other than fucking and breeding is the day man will celebrate its greatest victory."
The world rolled back and forth as I rose to consciousness. Or perhaps it was just the all-consuming vertigo making me feel I was tunneling into Charybdis’s maw.
I inhaled deeply in an effort to tame it, but the intrusion of dank wood, rusting iron and body odor made it impossible. Gods, my head ached.
Where was I?
After a deep, steadying breath, I let my eyelids flutter open. Once my surroundings came together in the lantern light, the rolling sensation made sense and I was even more livid.
"Seriously, August?" I shouted. "You put me in the brig?" My shouts escalated to screams. If anyone heard me, however, they didn’t feel the need to come to my rescue.
No matter. I’d wiggled out of tight situations before, and I could do it again.
Though the brig was on a well-maintained ship, because August Quincy would live with nothing but the best, it had obviously never been given the same treatment.
Rusting iron bars, a bench bolted to the wall, and enough damp wood to make my clothes cling in all the wrong places made up what constituted my home for the next week.
I shoved myself upright and immediately regretted it as the nausea roiled inside.
"Perfect," I muttered. "Just… perfect—"
My eyes bulged, hands frantically searching my torso for the satchel that never left my side. A satchel that held the entirety of my life’s work.
Gone. It was gone.
I grabbed the bars and rattled them hard enough to make my arms ache.
"August! You dirty rat, face me!"
No answer. Not even a lazy "calm down, Corynne" from above. Just footsteps across creaky boards and the distant murmur of men who didn’t give a shit if I lived or died as long as I stayed quiet while doing it.
I crouched at the lock, squinting at the iron illuminated by swinging lantern-light. It was a standard lock; nothing custom or fancy. Something I could easily pick with my hair pin. I slid it free from my disheveled curls, not wanting to think about the matting I’d need to untangle later.
"Alright, Corynne," I sighed as I set to work making the pin useful and slipping it into the keyhole. "What you intend to do after you unlock this door, who knows. There are only a hundred men waiting upstairs to drag you back down here, kicking and screaming." But I’d deal with that when it came to it. I can’t abide cages, and had to breathe carefully to keep the rising panic at bay. First, I needed to not be trapped. Then I’d deal with the consequences.
Tiny clicks from the mechanics were barely audible and I couldn’t seem to find the one sure turn that would let me out.
"Rusted garbage," I grumbled. I adjusted, cursed under my breath, and tried again.
After a moment, shadows pooled down the stairs. I jumped back, hiding the pin between my breasts as I scrambled back to the floor where they’d left me. I let my head loll forward and waited for whomever intended to join me in the shithole.
"Captain Quincy said to check on her," someone murmured from atop the stairs.
"Imagine we don’t and say we did? She’s just a woman, after all," said another.
"Locked in a cell, for that matter."
"I think she’s fine down there."
"Me too. Let’s report back and get the hell off brig duty."
I opened my eyes, livid. "How dare they not check on me because I’m a woman. I’ll show them ‘just a woman’ when I hit them over the head with a piss bucket," I seethed to myself. I stomped back to the lock to give it another go. This time, I would get it dammit.
My grip tightened on the pin until my fingers hurt.
Almost immediately, I heard it: click.
"There." I smiled and kept working the inside. "Come on," I whispered. "Come on…"
I turned the pin carefully—
The ship jolted, a hard lurch that slammed my shoulder into the bars and sent a jolt of pain all the way down my back. I cried out, the pin flying out of my hand and disappearing into the dark.
"No!"
I dropped to my knees, fumbling in the dimness, fingers sweeping the floor. I found splinters, grime and absolutely nothing useful.
The ship lurched again and I went rolling across the floor. The ache in my head doubled and I was sure that the gods were determined to see me dead.
Crashes sounded above, alongside a chorus of frantic shouts. They were saying something, but it was hard to hear through the ringing in my ears. I gave them a good rub then used the bars to help me stand.
"Boarded!" One shout came down the stairs. "We’re being boarded!"
My heart sank. I’d admit, I was not too educated on either ship etiquette or usual vernacular, however, the meaning of boarded seemed like an obvious one.
But boarded by whom?
"Pirates!" Came another shout from above. "Captain Quincy!"
Ah.
"Not good," I breathed. "This is not good."
Pirates were menacing filth that terrorized both sea and land, sinking merchant ships, raiding sea ports, ravaging and pillaging any coastal city where they could dock.
If we were being boarded by pirates, then one thing was for certain: this ship was about to sail to the bottom of the sea, and I was locked in the godsforsaken brig.
My only comfort was that August might be going down with me. Wasn’t the captain supposed to go down with his ship?
"I wouldn’t argue," I ground out as I tried to steady myself.
On deck, desperate screaming erupted.
Not one scream, but several. A sizable crew’s worth of screams.
The ship lurched again, harder, and I grabbed the bars to keep from going flat on my face.
The pounding footsteps doubled and my heart dropped to my feet.
Screams were accompanied by victorious yells alongside grunts of pain.
Something dripped through the cracks from above, hitting my hair and face in a lazy drizzle.
I wiped at it, but what came back wasn’t water.
Blood. There was a slaughter on deck.
"Shit."
I scrambled back into the darkest corner, chest rising and falling in an erratic rhythm as fear seized control. I’d been preparing to fight a hundred sailors. I was no match for a hundred pirates.
The single lantern-light flickered, its flames sizzling as the bloody seawater fell like rain from above until the glow died.
The darkness was followed by an eerie silence.
Not even the crash of waves against the ship made a noise.
For a breath, the sea went still until one, steady cadence sounded on deck.
And it was headed for the steps.