Chapter 36 Chosen
Chapter thirty-six
Chosen
Rose
Among the old Norse, a man’s fylgja walked before him as both warning and guardian.
Some were wolves, some were birds, and some—when fate was most peculiar—were shaped like the sea itself.
— From The Mysterious Deep: A Comprehensive Understanding
Idrank in the smell of my husband wrapped around me. He smelled of sea salt spray and whiskey. We’d stayed up far into the night, eager to be everything and anything to each other. The clock was a timer that wouldn’t release its hold on our throats, no matter how we tried to pry those fingers away.
Four days marked our reddened skin, and as the sun filtered into our cabin, so did the fifth day. The Wraith held up just as Bash said it would. At a vicious pace of seven knots, she hadn’t buckled an inch.
I still didn’t know what to expect from today since Morwenna might as well have been a ghost on this ship. She only left her room to get food and always returned to eat it without a word to anyone, much to Dilly’s dismay.
Even Blackbeard was much put out about the situation.
He often stood outside Billy’s old cabin, disappearing only when Morwenna came out.
Almost as if he were guarding her. There was something there that meant something.
It was Bash who pointed out that their eyes shared that eerie brightness.
The only difference was that Blackbeard’s eyes were green rather than blue.
Dilly was losing her mind looking for answers, but by now she’d read Edmond’s journal five times over. There was nothing left to learn from the pages that remained within it.
The time for research was done. Instead, we’d learn through trial and error. There were worse fates…probably.
My mouth was dry with sleep, and with no signs of Bash waking, I braved the chilly air in search of water. Wrapping a blanket around my shoulders, I made for the liquor cabinet where water usually lived.
Sure enough, a tall glass remained, but as I looked out the back window and witnessed the pink skies of a sunrise that I both dreaded and craved. I wanted this mark off my skin and to know we were all safe, but I was terrified of the cost.
If it were only me paying it, then I could live with that, but bargains rarely adhered to the expectations mortals held.
Then there was also the fact that if I was successful, I would be handing over something powerful to a man who would withhold his mother’s freedom.
If I ever wondered if Edmonds was a decent man, I now had my answer.
Billy would have said there was more than one way to gut a fish, but with this mark on my skin, options were limited.
I stared at the serpent eating its own tail, glittering in the dim cabin light illuminated by a waking sky.
In many ways, I was that serpent. Destroying myself a little bit more with each plot and scheme I concocted.
Cool metal brushed against my neck, swiping the hair there to the side. Like muscle memory, I shivered at his touch. So lost in thought that I never heard him get out of bed. I stepped back into Bash’s warmth and was rewarded with the press of his lips to my bare shoulder.
I closed my eyes and drank in the moment.
“You are worrying,” he said, voice gravelly from sleep.
His hand wandered down my arm, brushing the blanket away while he traced the curve of his hook across my collarbone. It sent a bolt of lightning through me, and soon I was forgetting that I had anything to worry about at all.
“I thought I’d share some of the burden with you and do my share of worrying,” I whispered, breathy.
His lips traveled across my shoulder and up my neck, and I was fraying at the edges, threatening to come undone.
“Will worrying change anything?” he murmured.
I lifted my hand to press against the back of his head, holding him against me.
“Some say that worrying is just being prepared for any scenario,” I answered.
He chuckled, and I was happy to hear it. It felt like a privilege that was reserved only for my ears these days. He was grappling with the weight of his past while remaining constantly aware of the danger I’d put us in. We both knew that I would do it again and again to have him here with me.
His hand and hook drifted lower down my body, and I let the blanket fall to the ground, removing every visible barrier between us. He murmured an approval as he lowered his body to kneel before me. His hand on my hip and the curve of his hook dipped into my hips and forced me to spin to face him.
Seeing my captain on his knees, naked, with every hard edge of him on full display, was a sight that I would spend my life trying to put into words. For now, though, my lips simply parted as I pushed out a long breath of anticipation.
My body sang for him without him doing anything.
The anticipation of what I knew would be as potent as any aphrodisiac.
He ran his hook between my legs, and I whimpered as I fought to keep my eyes open.
The cool metal of it always seemed to intensify these feelings.
Part of me knew it was because of the confidence with which he wielded it.
He no longer ran from this new side of him.
“Bash,” I whispered, begging.
His lip curled up as he pressed a kiss to my thigh.
“Yes, Captain?” he said.
I rolled my eyes. I was done with that title. I only ever used it to get him back. I didn’t want the responsibility. Too many decisions with far too many consequences followed that title.
“I’m retired, remember?” I said.
His laugh was deep and all mine to keep.
Without warning, he lifted my leg and placed it over his shoulder, laying me out before him without anything between us. I ran my hands through his hair, tangling them with a slight pull lest he think I suddenly developed a knack for patience.
My husband, my captain, on his knees for me, dipped his mouth between my legs, and my entire body quivered with the weight of his lips on me.
He pulled my leg tighter around him as if worried I would pull away, which was truly a ludicrous notion.
In fact, I dug my hands into his hair and held him as he ran his tongue over the most sensitive part of me.
I didn’t want to be teased. The balance between life and death felt too close this morning, and so all I wanted to do was come on his lips and prove to myself just how alive we were.
He was relentless in his pace. Consuming me and making no apologies for his hunger. My chest rose and fell with the pressure of his lips and tongue, and it was quickly becoming too much.
“Bash,” I begged.
I begged him to spare me, to end me, to devour me. He was always good about knowing what I needed, though, and he didn’t give in to the frantic plea of his name. Instead, he licked me long and hard, and I fell into him, my body falling over with only his determination to keep me alive.
He held me while I shook, and that lightning broke me apart inside and out. The intensity of it, fast and relentless, just like him.
When I once more learned to breathe again, Bash stood and spun me back around, where pink skies were giving way to the curse of blue.
“More,” I ordered, like we could outrun the day if we only lost ourselves in each other.
Wrapping his arm around my waist, he carried me to that window like he knew what I feared. He probably did. There was very little I could hide from him.
“Bend over, Rose,” he ordered, and fuck if I didn’t love it when he ordered me around like this.
I did as he said, bracing my hands on the windowsill and forcing myself to watch the breaking dawn.
Behind me, Bash curled his hand around my hair, pulling just enough that if I moved even slightly, I would feel pain. Another command. I recognized the need in him for control, and I was happy to give him all of that and more. So even though I wanted to beg him to push into me, I didn’t.
I let him decide, with only the slight arch of my back giving away my impatience. I wanted him to fill me, to be the only thing I needed.
His hook ran along the back of my spine, and even though it made me shiver with need, I unarched it, knowing he didn’t appreciate even the hint of command.
I was rewarded with him pressing into me, my body warm and ready for him. Always. I was always ready for this man who showed me how good I could feel for the first time in a dingy tavern.
He slid into me slowly and methodically, none of the chaos I wanted as blue conquered pink outside.
A terrible fear gripped my heart for just a moment before he made me forget.
Maybe it was remembering after all. All I knew was that as he held my hair and my waist in place, I was remade by the slam of his hips into mine.
He was long and hard, hitting everywhere at once without the calm pace he often used.
The way he slid in and out of me with reverence–no, this was different.
This was a reminder that we were both alive and that this day would not claim us.
I held still, but the pressure building, somewhere between painful and euphoric, forced my lips open, and when I praised his name, he increased his pace.
Sweat coated our bodies, but soon the salt of the sea would wash it out, and so we slid together.
Beautiful and tragic until the waves crashed over me, and it was all I could do not to collapse right there and then.
Bash bit out his pleasure as he spilled into me, and even after we stopped moving together, we stayed like that, watching the last of the pink be claimed by daylight.
When he finally slid out of me, I stood and pressed my sweat-slick body into his.
He wrapped his arms around my waist and pressed a kiss to my shoulder.
“Whatever comes,” he said.
“We face it together.” I ended.
And it was as real as any vow made on any sea.
Just as blue skies once claimed pink, now orange skies overtook the once blue. I stood on deck with the rest of the crew of the Wraith, watching as we could no longer outrun time.