Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
The minute the cabin door shut behind us, whatever restraint he’d been holding back snapped. My hair rustled as he whirled, grabbed a nearby decanter by its neck, and hurled it against the wall.
“What were you thinking?” he roared. “As if the sea wasn’t enough to kill you, you walk into the path of inbreds and let them have you instead?”
His fury was a tempest, shaking the very foundations of our shared space as he ripped a chart from the wall and tore it to shreds.
When that wasn’t enough, he picked up a wooden chair that sat across from his desk and threw it hard enough that the legs separated, leaving two in his hands while the chair splintered against the wall.
I watched, a strange calm descending as he unleashed his pent-up frustration, the debris of his anger painting a violent tableau around us.
Silas turned his anger toward the standing bookshelves, pulling them from where they were anchored to the wall and tossing them aside.
Books and ornaments cascaded across the floor.
When the storm finally abated, nearly nothing was left unturned or shattered. Only the rasp of his ragged breathing remained as he stood panting in the wreckage. His gaze met mine again, no longer blazing, but hollow, a silent question hanging heavy in the air.
I swallowed and, with as much steel as I could muster, asked, “Are you finished?”
He looked at me across the wreckage of the cabin, chest heaving, jaw tense. Then he laughed. Silas Draven, brooding captain of the Mourning Star, ran a hand through his hair and laughed.
It was a harsh, broken sound, devoid of humor, more akin to the scraping of rocks than mirth.
He straightened, his shoulders still hunched as if bracing against an invisible blow, and gestured with a sweep of his arm at the chaos he'd wrought.
He took a step toward me. I held my ground, though my heart hammered against my ribs.
His eyes, now clouded with a weariness, scanned my face as if searching for the flicker of fear he expected.
A flicker he would not glimpse.
“Yes,” he answered. “I’m finished.”
He turned away, running another impatient hand through his hair. Under his soiled white tunic, a stain of red bloomed. Had he scraped his back during his fit? Perhaps an old wound had ripped open?
“Sit down,” I instructed. “And take off your shirt.”
He froze before throwing a glance over his shoulder. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, get over yourself,” I said and carefully crossed the room. “Your back is bleeding. Please take off your shirt so that I might see why.”
“I don’t need—”
“I didn’t ask what you needed.” I stepped over a splintered chair leg and moved to the washbasin, which had somehow survived the destruction, and found a clean cloth folded beneath it.
A long moment passed where I wondered how this would go. Would he order me out? Begin throwing things again? But, to my surprise, Silas crossed to the bed, sat on its edge, and pulled the shirt over his head. He dropped it on the floor without looking at me.
“Now, turn around,” I commanded, my voice firm, “and let me look.”
He hesitated, his shoulders tense, but the unspoken threat in my tone seemed to compel him.
Slowly, he turned, offering me a clear view of the ragged gash marring his skin.
I dipped the cloth in the basin, the cool water a stark contrast to the heated tension in the room.
He flinched when I gently cleaned the edges of the wound, a soft grunt escaping his lips.
The raw skin was angry, red, and deep. “This looks nasty,” I murmured, more to myself than to him. “How did this happen?”
Silas didn’t answer, and I didn’t know why that disappointed me.
“Does this hurt?”
He cleared his throat and asked, “What did you say?”
“This,” I said as I dabbed away at the blood. “Does this hurt?”
His jaw tightened and the lines of his body went rigid.
I wanted him to admit it, to take this moment of vulnerability and use it to help me understand him rather than keep the walls between us.
I just saw proof he could hurt the way the rest of us did, but some selfish part of me wanted to hear it too.
“No. It’s fine.”
Disappointment washed over me at his unwillingness to concede. When would he stop hiding?
“Okay, tough guy,” I scoffed, and I forced a small smile. “It won’t stop bleeding.”
“It won’t for a while,” he murmured.
“This really needs a stitch or two.”
“Leave it.”
“I insist, otherwise it will scar—”
“It’s going to scar, anyway,” he sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes.
The defeated sort of certainty in his voice made me pause.
“How do you know?”
“Because,” he said through gritted teeth, “they always do. And no, Miss Godwin, I don’t want to talk about it.”
I kept my eyes on his back, dabbing at the blood still welling in the cut.
The scientist in me wanted to keep pushing.
I needed a full analysis before I could come to a conclusion.
His tone, however, left no room for argument.
I would have to table it for now and bring it back around when he wasn’t so defensive.
Fine. If he didn’t want to talk about it, we would talk about something else still bothering me.
“Who was she?”
Petty, I know, but I didn’t want to think about the events on Deadveil or the fact that he intended to sacrifice me, so that left me with just the moment before I jumped ship and swam over.
“Who?” he asked, though it sounded less like a question and more like a nonchalant statement.
“The woman in your quarters earlier,” I said. I set the cloth aside and took a step away, wanting to see the expressions that fell over his face while I questioned him. “You know, the one giggling whilst I was locked in crew quarters directly below here, listening through the floorboards.”
He turned around then and glanced at me sidelong.
“I heard her laughing,” I continued. “All tinkling giggles while you disrobed her, I assume? Maybe you kissed down her legs while you removed her disgusting stockings?” My cheeks heated, my voice rising in indignation as I went on.
“Chatting all familiarly, as if it weren’t a new arrangement, which tells me—”
“Which tells you what, exactly?” he interrupted with a bemused expression.
I scowled. What did it tell me? I’d prepared this entire holier-than-thou lecture while seething in the dinghy, but somewhere along the way, my grip on my anger had loosened. Now, staring into his waiting eyes, I realized I’d lost the plot entirely.
“It tells me,” I said carefully, “that you have a very relaxed definition of hospitality for a man who kept his other guest locked in the brig until she almost caught her death.”
“Amalya was no guest.”
“Oh, she has a name, does she?” Of course I knew her name, but he didn’t need to know how much, if any, that I’d overheard.
“Most people do, Miss Godwin.”
“You find yourself clever, do you?”
He stood with his back to me. Was he hiding a damned smile?
“Why,” I said, enunciating each word, “was she here?”
“Business.”
“Business,” I repeated. “I’ve never heard a woman laugh like that during business.”
“Like what?”
“Like she knew you personally.”
“If we’d engaged in the acts you think we did, then I suppose she would know me rather personally. The question is, Corynne, why do you care?”
I opened my mouth before closing it again.
Why did I care? The question hung between us and I wasn’t sure how to answer it.
I cared because she’d been having the time of her life while I was locked in a filthy cabin below deck forced to listen.
I cared because he came after me in the harbor, saved me, when no one else in the world would have.
Every man or woman in my life had treated me as their pawn to be used or disposed of as they pleased.
I’d never been able to count on anyone, yet Silas had crossed that water, enucleated the eyes of a man for touching me, and dragged me back under his protection.
The logical part of my brain insisted it was only because he was going to use me too.
He needed someone to decode his map. I had just overheard him discussing it with another woman.
However, I was beginning to believe that it was all under the pretense of ownership and not the actual belief in it.
The fact remained that he had come when I needed him, and not only removed the problem but obliterated it.
That was why I cared.
None of which he needed to know.
“I don’t,” was my answer.
Lies.
Silas turned to face me, those blue-grey eyes piercing as he searched my face for something I hoped he wouldn’t find.
“I don’t care,” I reiterated, this time with conviction, crossing my arms. “It’s the principle of it. I was locked in a filthy room where I could hear your lovemaking. It was inconsiderate.”
“Inconsiderate.”
“Must you repeat everything I say?”
“You swam through a harbor at midnight and nearly got yourself killed because my hospitality was inconsiderate?”
“I swam through a harbor because I wanted fresh air.”
“Fresh air?”
“Yes!” I threw my hands up, regretting ever bringing up the topic if all it would get me was non-answers. But then again, what answers did I want? Did I want grisly details of him bedding her? A fire ignited in the pit of my belly at the mere thought.
“One might think you were looking to escape my hospitality.”
“And if I were?” I countered.
“Yet here you are.”
“Here I am,” I agreed, now fully realizing that my arguments made no sense. Why was I so damned excitable? Over what? So he had a woman on board, what did it matter to me? We weren’t lovers. We were not even friends. Why did the thought of him lying with another set my blood alight?
“My hospitality thus far has been keeping you in the brig and dragging you around whenever I’m ready for you to work.
” Silas took a step toward me, but I stood my ground.
“My hospitality…” Another step forward, and my heart began to race.
”...has made you exhausted and ill. I came after you because I intend to hold you captive until my curse has been lifted and I am a free man. ”
Silas stood toe-to-toe with me now, towering over me as our breaths mingled in the small space between our lips. I had to crane my neck back to meet his gaze, and gods, did it make me lightheaded.
“So I’ll ask you again, Beastie. Why do you care?”
His proximity was a physical force, pressing in on me, making it impossible to think straight.
The air between us crackled with electricity, a current that started charging the moment I'd first laid eyes on him.
My eyes betrayed me by flicking down to his lips before I could wrench them away.
Heat crept up my neck, hot and embarrassing.
“I don’t,” I lied again, my voice barely a whisper.
He leaned, close enough that his breath tickled the shell of my ear, though not close enough to touch.
It felt purposeful, just enough to tease but not enough to satisfy.
“Look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t care,” he murmured, the low rumble of his voice sliding down my spine.
The smell of sea salt and amber surrounded me.
My heart fluttered at the proximity, breath catching in my throat as a wave of pure, unadulterated desire washed over me. One more inch and his mouth would be on my skin, and whatever thin line I was still trying to hold would vanish.
His gaze held mine, and the unwavering intensity made me feel exposed for all to see.
“Your face says one thing, Miss Godwin, and your mouth says another. I’d like to know which one is lying.” A faint smile touched his lips, a mischievous curve that both unnerved and captivated me. “I fucked her, is that what you want to hear?”
My body revolted, head snapping back as my hands clenched. “How dare you—”
Silas grabbed me by the waist, hoisted me onto his desk, and stepped between my legs. We were nose-to-nose, my breath captive in my lungs as the smell of rum lingered between us.
“Do you want me to tell you that I pinned her to this desk and buried my cock inside her? Pulled her hair and bit her neck as I fucked my way to orgasm? How she screamed my name as she came all over my—”
My hand moved before I could stop it. The crack of my palm across his face echoed through the cabin, and the silence that followed it was absolute.