Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
No one bothered to come fetch me, not even the blasted man himself. After pacing the captain’s quarters for an absurd amount of time, I gave up on propriety and stomped out the door, ready to deliver a scathing assessment of pirate hospitality to anyone unfortunate enough to cross my path.
I stopped the moment I crossed the threshold.
The deck of the Mourning Star had been transformed.
Lanterns hung from every rigging line and rail, casting a warm, flickering glow over the polished wood rather than the usual eerie green.
A small table sat near the stern, draped in fine black linens and set with candles that danced in the gentle breeze.
The scent of roasted meat and spiced wine wafted through the air.
Perhaps I was about to discover a side of piracy I hadn’t expected.
Silas stood at the rail with his back turned to me, both hands clasped behind him as he gazed out over the water.
Unsure what to say, I cleared my throat and went with the first thing that came to mind. “You didn’t come for me.”
Dammit, Corynne.
Must I always be so confrontational?
He glanced over his shoulder. “I thought you’d find your way when you were ready.”
“A ship full of men and not a single one is a gentleman?”
“Seems fitting for a ship with one woman and not a lady in sight.”
“You dirty bastard,” I said, but smiled despite myself. I’d never quite felt like a lady and, to be honest, being on this ship was the first time I didn’t have to act like one. I had always sucked at propriety, anyway.
“A more fitting description for me than gentleman, yes.”
His lip quirked, there and gone so fast that I could have imagined it. I realized with no small amount of alarm that I was watching his face close enough to catch it. I cleared my throat and looked over the table at the spread of food and flickering candles.
“Do you mind telling me what all of this is for? Do you often dine alone under the stars in finery?”
He turned then and cleared his throat. “I thought that, perhaps, some apologies were in order.”
I nearly stumbled backward, perplexed by both the words and the gleam of regret shining in his grey-blue eyes.
“What ever for?”
I wasn’t sure why I asked the question. Captain Silas Draven had plenty to apologize for, including but not limited to torture, murder, manipulation, abduction, and denying orgasms to a well-deserving woman…
That steady gaze seared right through me, his eyes roving over every inch, and it took every effort to hold my composure and not melt into a puddle.
“Have a seat, Miss Godwin.”
“Oh no, Silas.” I shook my head, emphasizing his name as I half-laughed. “In the span of a week, you’ve nearly killed me and then nearly fucked me. We’re well past Miss Godwin.”
“Then what shall I call you while we dine?” Was that bastard amused? “What name encompasses both killing and fucking?”
“Whatever pleases you,” I said, lifting my chin even though my cheeks heated at that word on his tongue. I could imagine him closer, lips brushing my ear as he asked that very question.
Nope, shut it down, Corynne, you heathen woman!
Truly, it was a test. I wanted him to decide to call me by my name.
Silas walked toward the table, staring me down the whole way until he pulled out one of the chairs.
“Then Miss Godwin will do.”
“You’re insufferable,” I growled.
“I’ve been called worse.”
“Oh, I’ll bet you have.”
Silas gestured toward the open seat without a word, and I humored him by taking it.
Whatever sort of act he was playing at, I was determined to get to the bottom of it.
I wouldn’t have a man treating me this way just because of a consensual act between two willing adults, no matter how much they disliked each other.
“So,” he said as he took a seat across from me. “How has your evening been?”
I couldn’t stop the snort-laugh that burst past my lips. “Besides the extremely unsatisfying ending you provided in your quarters, it’s been fine.”
Silas looked away, and I could have sworn I saw color blossom over his cheeks. I dismissed the thought, however. There was no way a man like him felt anything other than rage and bloodlust. Right?
He cleared his throat. “I should have been more direct. How was the visit with the physician?”
I narrowed my eyes, trying to catch any deception behind the words. Was he honestly taking an interest in my wellbeing? Or was he simply making sure his captive would live long enough to be of use?
“Would you have me believe that a man as controlling as you wouldn’t have asked the physician yourself?”
After a long moment, he gave a simple nod of concession.
“Well played, Miss Godwin. I take it your herbs are helping?” Silas’s gaze moved over my face and lingered a second longer than proper etiquette would suggest. There was a hint of playfulness there, and he smiled before he added, “You look two steps away from death rather than just the one.”
I blinked, all snark dying on the tip of my tongue. Of all the things I had expected out of his mouth, a backhanded compliment had not been among them.
“Look at that,” I murmured, tipping my head and smiling despite myself. “Silas Draven, the cursed captain of the Mourning Star notices when a woman isn’t actively dying. I’ll try not to let it go to my head.”
He grunted, the sound almost amused, but said nothing further as he pulled the lids off of three silver serving trays.
The smell wafting through the sea breeze was ten times more potent than when I’d stepped out of his quarters, and my stomach growled loudly in response.
I’d had nothing but stale bread and dried meat since I’d been on this bloody ship.
I was ready to eat.
“I thought perhaps you were due for a decent meal.”
Gloriously fat meat pies were laid in front of me alongside toasted bread and an array of cheese and olives.
Vegetables soaked in butter and herbs taunted me from across the table, and the aroma of a bowl of hearty broth nearly sent me into a faint.
Finch barely had time to set it down before I grabbed it and slurped the broth, reveling in the feel of the steaming liquid warming my sore throat.
When the last drop hit my tongue, I set the bowl back down and wiped my chin with the back of my hand, only to Silas’s amused gaze directed my way.
“Don’t look at me like that. You’ve starved me for days.”
“That I have,” he agreed. It should have been off-putting, but something about the honesty was comforting. The beast didn’t hide his teeth and claws behind pretty lies.
I wasted no time digging into the meat pie in front of me, scooping vegetables off another plate and greedily adding them to my broth bowl. I had half a mind to skip the silverware in favor of my hands, but decided that would be crossing a line of dignity I’d rather stay on this side of for now.
The stars shone brilliantly in the sky, with nothing to dim their radiance but the lanterns that swayed around us. There was not even a stray cloud to blot them out.
My mind strayed to the scars on Silas’s back, a map of one specific day and time in history. It was the secret to the Stella Mortis, something I needed desperately if I was to save myself and come out from under the thumb of men and the world they’d built only for themselves.
“Tell me how it works,” I said, looking down from the heavens to the gruff pirate sitting in front of me. “The map.”
“That’s not information you’re privy to,” he said as he wiped his mouth.
“On the contrary, Captain Draven, in order for me to discern the pattern, I need to discover what comes next. I can’t pinpoint the exact time without the complete map.
The more information I have, the better.
So how does it work? You were wounded last night.
Is that going to affect my ability to decipher the map?
Are there more useless scars back there? ”
He watched me for a long time before he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. Ropes of muscle flexed as he did, and it was an effort to keep my eyes from drifting over his perfect form.
Silas gave me a look of cold calculation, as if weighing how much and how little he could share.
“I’ve been cursed,” Silas said with no trace of his usual mocking tone. “Cursed to remain at sea by a blood witch. The only way to break it is the Stella Mortis, and the only way to find it is to kill whoever stands in my way so that their blood may raise another piece of the map.”
There was a flicker of something akin to desperation in his eyes, a raw vulnerability I'd never witnessed. A chill settled in my gut, a premonition of the perilous path ahead.
A reluctant understanding bloomed inside my brain.
He was not simply hunting power or chasing a myth for the sake of legend.
Every scar on his back was a mark of how far he was willing to go to claw his way free of something that had already taken too many pieces of him.
The despair in his eyes was not some sort of performance, but the look of a man who had been drowning for longer than most people lived.
And buried deep was a hope that he had finally found someone who might be able to understand the current that kept pulling him under.
A struggle against magic, and magic far older and more sinister than I’d ever imagined.