Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
I was a damned liar.
The doorknob was warm under my palm when I finally let it go. I waited to hear the telltale shuffling behind the door, but none came. Should I go back in and check to make sure she’s all right? Did she need help getting dressed?
“Fuck off,” I grumbled aloud.
Corynne Godwin was a means to an end and nothing more. Who gave a shit if she was suffering on the other side of that door? As long as she was alive and could find the fixed point on my map, I didn’t care about her well-being.
I pushed off the wall in search of Finch and found him at the helm of my ship, thumb running down a navigation chart. He wore a focused expression that told me he’d been eavesdropping and didn’t want me to know.
He’d always been a terrible liar.
“Make port, Finch.”
His head swiveled toward me, brow furrowed and his stumpy nose wrinkled. “We’re three days out from—”
“I know where we are. We don’t have time to make it to the Sister Islands.”
“Captain?” The confusion on his face made me want to swing a sword at it. I didn’t like being questioned. He knew that.
Rather than kill him, I said, “She’s of no use to me dead. Send for a physician when we dock.” I set her shoulder myself and did what I could for the fever, but we would need an actual physician if she were to make it.
“Where to?”
I paused, not wanting to voice the destination. The pirate island was a pain in my ass, but it couldn’t be helped. The Crown and Compass would be after us and I didn’t need eyes on my infamous ship. “Make way to Deadveil.”
After a moment, Finch answered, “Aye,” and I looked away because I didn’t feel like answering the questions brimming in his eyes.
My crew loved Deadveil. It always offered a night of lust-filled merriment for them, a chance to sate the never-ending hunger and quench the thirst that was an ever-present flame in our throats.
It was our curse, after all. To fuck but never feel, eat yet never taste. ‘Twas the price we paid for my greed.
I cleared my throat and swept the thought away. I had more pressing matters to deal with tonight. “Keep the crew off the deck.”
I didn’t stay to hear his response. My orders were given, and he knew the consequences when they weren’t followed.
Deadveil was almost two days' sail from the coast we just left. I spent the passing hours finding reasons to be anywhere but my cabin. I’d scalped men one-handed and ran blades through their chests without hesitation.
I’d taken a sword to the heart more times than I could count.
It was the woman in my quarters that had me cowering.
I’d not seen or heard from Corynne since I’d shut the door behind me, and I still wasn’t sure what to do.
The heat of the day passed as the sun dipped below the burning horizon, and my crew disappeared into the belly of the ship.
Waves lapped against the side, restless with the rumbling thunder off in the distance.
It would be a long night sailing through a roiling sea, but there was nothing to be done for it.
A lesser man would be afraid, perhaps even try to make port at the nearest island. Not I. There was only one person on this ship who could die, and she was safe sailing under my flag until I willed it otherwise.
I sat down at the helm and turned my gaze upward to the glittering night sky, searching for answers I’d yet to find, even in my long lifetime.
The skin on my back itched as I did so. My fists clenched of their own accord to resist scratching.
How long had I worn these scars without knowing they were a replica of the stars dotting the night sky?
Walking around without the faintest fucking clue that the answer may be above me rather than in front of me?
One thing I did know for certain, however, was that if I ever got my hands on the fucking witch that cursed me, who was so content to watch me suffer, I’d butterfly her rib cage and tie her to the front of the ship as an ornament for all to see.
“Even your gods will not be able to save you,” I sneered.
Once upon a time, I’d been a mortal man who feared death like the rest of them. I’d come to learn that there was something worse than death. It wasn’t the inability to be satiated by sex or food. It wasn’t a never-ending life spent being weathered in the sun.
The true curse was captaining a ghost ship that could never sink.
Commanding a crew that could never die. Being damned to its helm.
For if ever I stepped foot on land again, my remaining memories would drain away to nothing.
I knew this, because every twenty-five or so years I woke up with sand on my face, mud covering my boots, and no recollection of how I’d gotten there.
The few clues I suspected I left for myself were useless.
No memories remained other than that I was the cursed captain of this ship and the only thing that could break this curse was a map of scars on my back that revealed itself when I spilled another’s blood.
My crew and I were stuck in a torturous loop of time, destined to live for eternity until a greater force could break whatever cursed loop we lived in and set us free.
A force that looked exactly like Corynne Godwin.