Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
“You, you’re forced to kill people?” she stammered. “As in the only way to break your curse is murder?” As she said it, the slight color she’d gained from eating drained away. She shivered, her eyes fluttering shut.
And I was glad of it, because I didn’t have to look into her eyes when I answered, “Yes.”
“There have to be hundreds of scars on your back.”
“Indeed, there are.”
“So you’ve killed hundreds of people.” Corynne swallowed, eyes still squeezed shut, and I couldn’t help but watch the movement of her delicate throat.
“Yes, I have.”
“Do you feel bad about it?”
What sort of question was that? How could I answer it without sending her overboard again? The truth was I had long since lost the ability to feel guilt. In its place remained a banked, smoldering rage, and desperation to get off this damned ship.
“In my lifetime, I have killed thousands. If there was a time I felt guilt, I can’t remember it. Not after so many moments of waking up on the shore with no memory of how I’d gotten there, my back clear and knowing I had to start anew. So no. I don’t.”
I let the honesty linger there. If the truth made her pull away, then she would be better for it. Distance was the only kindness I had left to offer between the two of us.
She opened her eyes. “You’re a monster,” she whispered.
“I’ve never claimed to be anything else, Miss Godwin, and you’d do well to remember it.”
She swallowed again and turned her head, staring out over the water with a contemplative frown. I expected her to run, or give me a piece of her mind. What else could she feel besides disgust or horror?
Instead, she whispered, “I do not condone what you have done, but I do understand it.”
She looked back at me, eyes shimmering even as her gaze sharpened. A tear slid down her cheek, glinting silver in the moonlight.
“This upsets you,” I said stupidly.
“What did you hope I’d feel?” she asked quietly.
Compassion, my mind supplied. Rather than speak that aloud, I simply answered, “I don’t know.”
“Let me get this straight. I’m reading your murder map so that you can, what, break this curse and live happily ever after?”
“I don’t know,” I said again, and it was the truth.
Would I shrivel and die as time collapsed on me after the curse broke?
Would I live in solitude with the regret of my past on my shoulders?
Perhaps memories would come flooding back and destroy me in the process.
For all I knew, I would die after I broke the curse.
There was no certainty in a better life for me.
And, even if there were, I didn’t know if the man underneath the monster I’d become would be able to live with what I’d done.
Corynne nodded, and I would have given anything to know what she was thinking. The tension in her body did not ease, but the crease in her brow softened.
“There are conditions,” she said finally. “Firstly, I want my own cabin. No more sleeping in the brig.”
The fact that she thought she was in a position to make demands was charming, but I heard her out. Oddly, I found myself hoping she’d demand more.
“Secondly,” she said, holding up two fingers. “I want to eat whatever you do. Nothing stale or molding. Whatever is good enough for the captain will be good enough for me.”
I hadn’t the heart to tell her that food tasted like ash in my mouth and I didn’t care if it was warm or good.
Part of the curse was that I could no longer enjoy the simple things in life, such as taste or touch.
She’s already been eating what I did, because stale and molding food was all the same to me.
Perhaps, though, I could make an effort on her behalf.
“And thirdly…” She paused, tucking her bottom lip between her teeth, and I became jealous that it wasn’t my teeth holding that pouty lip captive. Then, as if she summoned all of the courage she possessed, she lifted her chin and demanded, “I want my journal back.”
I took in the fierce way she held herself: her clenched fists, the immovable set of her jaw. She wouldn’t take no for an answer.
It was too bad, really. She would have to.
“Firstly,” I mimicked, “the cabin can be arranged. Secondly, you shall have warm food in your belly each night, even when my crew is scurrying for rats to put over the spit.”
Guilt flashed in her eyes, and I thought it would make her waver. It didn’t. Interesting. So, Miss Godwin had a selfish side.
The thought made my cock stir in my pants. What else would she take for herself?
I didn’t continue speaking. She stared back at me as I watched her, waiting.
She was the first to break. “And what of my third condition? What of my journal?”
I held her stare as the silence stretched between us, but Corynne was stubborn. She would not be appeased by silence.
“You already know the answer,” I said quietly.
Her eyes widened and for a heartbeat, she simply looked at me as if she’d not expected me to refuse so plainly. The shock burned away as quickly as it had come. Color flooded her cheeks and her mouth tightened with stubborn fury.
The journal sat locked in my desk, its cover still faintly warm to the touch. She believed it belonged to her when in reality, it never had. Giving it to her would mean handing over the last physical proof that any of this time with her had ever been mine.
“Gods, you are such a damned brute!” she shouted, and I had to hide the traitorous smile twitching the corner of my lips.
I was enjoying her company far more than I’d admit, and the last thing I wanted was to watch it collapse back into negative territory. I could tolerate her anger. Ic ould not tolerate her hate.
In an effort to steer the proverbial ship in a different direction, I challenged her. “You’ll get it back when you earn it.”
“I have to earn my property back? That’s something a bloody brute pirate would say!”
“Well, as you’ve already established, I am a bloody brute pirate. You can read the stars without your journal.”
“I need to write down my findings!”
“I’ve supplied you with ink and parchment.”
“You’re a godsdamned insufferable bastard, Silas Draven.”
Her cheeks flushed that maddening shade of rose pink, bringing back flashes of the deeper fuchsia they’d been right before she’d almost come on my fingers.
I decided, in that moment, that I would see them flush that color again, and I would see them do it under the stars she loved so dearly.
I would use her mind, her body, and her very soul.
Even if it did make me the worst sort of bastard.