Chapter 15
Reva
Ipoke my head out of the door leading up to the deck, and all I can hear are teasing shouts.
“You might get further if you were working with bigger wings, there, Jack!”
“Flap those wings, lad.”
“You’re one to talk.”
This is followed by raucous laughter that leaves me reeling.
What is happening?
Jack just shifted forms again, and it’s like no one cares.
As though it were nothing out of the ordinary.
Who knows? Maybe this is a regular occurrence here.
The thought is blowing my mind slightly.
Shifting into your other form in front of people is typically seen as something shameful.
Like you’re an animal letting your feral side take over.
No one ever does it just out of the blue like that without expecting to have rocks thrown at them.
Then again, maybe things are different when you’re a pirate.
Now that I’m outside, I realise how much time must have passed while I was napping. The wind’s picking up, and the last light of the day has already faded away and there’s a chill to the air as I stagger to the edge of the ship and cling to the side.
Then there’s another sharp whistle from above, and a small black bird lands close to where I’m clinging.
Jack reappears in front of me.
Naked.
I let out a surprised gurgle, covering my eyes with my hands, and he chuckles, with zero inhibitions on display as he leaps onto the deck.
One of the nearby crew lets out a shout of laughter before tossing a wad of material at Jack’s face and breaking into another rough, hacking laugh.
Jack ties a shirt around his waist so he’s covering the key bits and then gives me a sly smile. “Sorry about that. You can look now. I’m decent.”
I raise an eyebrow while he chuckles at my expression. “Sorry, sorry,” he repeats as he steps closer again, and I take an instinctive step back, causing him to frown.
“I forget that most people still have modesty. If you spend too much time around us, it’ll be something that disappears quickly enough.” He peers into my face as though he’s monitoring my expression. “Now, I thought I told you to stay downstairs.”
“I was actually more surprised about you turning into a bird than the whole naked thing,” I reply, ignoring the second part of what he said. “Do you... do that a lot?”
“Well, ye-es,” he says slowly, his eyes narrowed like he’s expecting me to start screaming or something. “How else was I going to see what was happening?”
“And what is happening?”
He wiggles his head from side to side in a half-nod, half-shake type motion. “There’s a ship heading our way. Things are about to get a little messy.”
TEN MINUTES LATER, and my feet are stuck in place. I can’t seem to make myself move, but it’s not fear that’s keeping me here.
The deck has erupted into absolute chaos.
And I’m positively glued to the action.
Like a fly caught in a spider’s web, our ship has been lashed to another large vessel with a dozen ropes, and there are crewmembers swinging high up in the air, lobbing things at the other ship.
Onboard our ship, everywhere I look, people are fighting. Some are grappling in hand-to-hand combat while others are shooting at each other with weapons that pulse with magic.
I’ve seen those types of weapon once before. They’re modified to always hit their mark.
A killshot, every time.
I’ve tucked myself away on the staircase leading below deck, so I’m not in the line of fire, but I can still see the action.
A bird darts through the air, dive-bombing the crew on the other ship and pecking out a man’s eyes.
He screams, flailing around helplessly before collapsing in a heap, and I clap my hand to my mouth.
But my horror morphs into a whole other beast as I notice the guy’s uniform.
Not just his either.
All the men on the other ship are all dressed in burgundy, right down to their hats, which have a white insignia in the centre.
The sign of the king’s men.
It’s one of the king’s vessels they’re attacking, which means my sympathy for the other ship dries up quicker than a shallow puddle. It seems like Jack isn’t the only beast-borne person on this ship. In fact, it looks like every member of the crew has an animal side that they’re letting loose.
A boar charges past, launching itself at a man in burgundy who just made their way across. He’s thrown into the water with a scream, and the boar gives a triumphant screech.
There’s a terrible, bone-rattling roar that sounds somewhere behind me. I twist around, my skin prickling as the hair stands on end.
There’s a bear fighting one of the king’s men, standing on its hind legs.
It’s not like any kind of bear I’ve ever seen either, even in storybooks. For one thing, it’s massive, standing at least 10 feet tall. The part of it I can see is scarred, and there are thick blades sticking out from its spine.
It roars again, and everything in me freezes.
“You look like you’ve got steady hands.” A huge bearded man accosts me, clutching a smaller man who looks to be in his fifties or sixties, who is spurting blood from a wound at his side. “Hold your hand out for me, pet.”
I obey, showing him how my hands are stable, despite several heartbeats pounding erratically in my chest.
“Good. I’m Cookie and this is Bones.” He hoists the bleeding man up. “I need you to help me sew him up.”
Bones’ face is covered in a sheen of sweat as I step closer, eyes darting to the wound and back before I slip my arm around Bones on his other side.
Clearly, life on this pirate ship is anything but predictable. But I’ve spent my life learning to be adaptable, and I’m not about to let someone bleed out just because I can’t keep up with what’s going on.
“Come on. Let’s get you downstairs,” I say.
“Oh, no.” Bones’ eyes flutter open, and he rolls his neck to gaze blearily at me. “I didn’t think it was my time, but there’s an angel here.”
“Maybe save your cheesy lines ‘til after you’re not bleeding out all over her hand, eh?” Cookie replies drily as I fail to suppress a snort of laughter.
Together we drag him down the stairs and safely into the med bay and there I help Bones to lay on the bed while Cookie bustles about, pulling out supplies.
“Are you going to help take the pain away?” he asks me with a dopey smile. “You could use your mouth.”
A chuckle sneaks out despite the tense situation and I wet my lips, swallowing hard as I pluck a huge needle from Cookie’s fingers.
“And why can’t you sew him up yourself?” I ask.
“Fat fingers.” Cookie thrusts his hands at me. He’s right. They are thick and twisted and don’t seem to bend all that easily.
He then pours dark liquid from an unlabelled bottle down Bones’ throat before glancing up at me. “Looks like there’s something stuck in there. Brace him for me.”
I grab his shoulders, holding him down as Cookie tugs shrapnel from his wound, clumsily stuffing some gauze into it before continuing, “My hands got broken years back. Never healed quite right.”
I thought all shifters had unnaturally fast healing, so I can’t imagine what must have happened for his fingers to be that badly broken.
Cookie wipes at the wound before shooting me a pointed look. “He’s ready for you to start.”
I clear my throat. “Do you, uh, have any gloves in here?” I ask. Just on the off-chance, I’ll form yet another mate bond with the next person whose flesh I make contact with.
Cookie raises an eyebrow, but rummages through the cupboards and drawers until he digs out a pair of thin gloves.
They’ll mess up my dexterity, but have to be better than the alternative.
I don them and get to work, sewing a line of stitches as neatly as I can while Bones moans and writhes on the cot.
“You can still cook, though?” I ask.
“Mostly stirring and shouting.” He gives a self-deprecating grin. “I leave the knife work to the others.”
There’s another chorus of yells and thumps from up on the deck, and I force my head to stay down. “Do either of you know what all of that’s about?” I ask, using my shoulder to gesture above us since both my hands are occupied.
Cookie snorts. “You know how long we’ve been cooped up on this ship? Months. Months without a port stop or a place to roam freely.”
“But... it’s one of the king’s ships. Won’t their crew raise the alarm?”
“Not if they’re all dead, they won’t.”
That shuts me up quickly. I can’t think of a damn thing to say in reply.
I wish Kit were here with me. Right now, it feels a lot like I just stepped cluelessly into a bog and I’m already up to my neck in trouble.
Cookie pours more dark liquid down Bones’ throat and then takes his own swig before holding it out to me.
“Better not,” I reply.
“Good call.”
“Most of us have got history with the king’s men,” Cookie continued with a shrug, gesturing down to his twisted fingers. “You know who he and his father before him used as fodder for his wars? Us beast-borne folk.”
“We’re cast-offs,” Bones slurs. “Used to be one of the king’s forces myself.”
“We’ve got some strong wards onboard, which means we’re masked from view when their ships get close enough to catch a glimpse. Means we’re a surprise to them every time.” He gives a low chuckle before helping Bones to take another swig of alcohol.
“Oh.”
I finish stitching Bones’ flesh in silence before giving it a careful inspection.
Now that I’ve stopped stabbing at him with a needle, Bones lays back, fisting the bottle of booze in a tight grip.
Cookie gets to his feet, muttering something about checking the passageway while I slump against the wall.
“What did you think of our resident murder bear?” Bones asks, peering at me. “One swipe and your guts are hanging out. Pretty efficient, ain’t he?”
It was terrifying. A true monster with those spikes sticking out of it. But something in the way it moved seemed almost... familiar.
I cast my mind over the different members of the crew that Jack pointed out to me and there’s only one face I can think of that would fit.
Something about his presence has all my instincts going haywire.
And while initially, I’d thought it was thanks to there being an unwanted bond between us, now I’m questioning that.
“The bear was Torin, wasn’t it?”
“Ding, ding, ding,” Bones replies with a wet chuckle. “I’ve never met a human that looks more like a bear in my life.”
“You know what they say happened to his last crew before he joined with the captain, though, don’t you?” He twists his head so he’s looking at me when I shake my head.
“Mutiny,” he adds gravely. “Every member of that crew wound up dead, along with their captain. They say the captain was planning on selling off some of his more valuable crew, and I guess things got messy. Anyway, only two people came out alive.”
“Torin,” I breathe. “And who was the—”
I don’t get to finish my question as Cookie reappears in the doorway, supporting another crewmember.
And that’s how I find myself the temporary ship’s surgeon, despite having no qualifications and no idea what I’m doing. Cookie slaps me on the shoulder as he scoops Bones into his arms, carrying him out of the room.
“Welcome to the family, pet.”