Chapter 6
Poor Ashkade’s face turned two shades greener the moment our feet hit the deck. He clenched his crutch as he guided us over to two women who watched over the dockworkers loading the cargo and the deckhands prepping the ship.
The short, middle-aged woman sporting a wide-brim hat over her hair stepped forward to greet us.
Her loose, comfortable pants and tattered shirt had probably seen many days and nights on the open sea.
I couldn’t help but stare wide-eyed at the pistol at her hip.
“Afternoon. You must be the other two passengers. Name’s Captain Vetti Larsel.
” Curiosity shone in her dark eyes as she regarded me.
“In all my years of sailing, I’ve never seen a Siren before. ”
“Oh come, don’t stare at her,” the other woman piped up.
Her windblown orange curls tickled my face as she gave me a rather out-of-nowhere embrace around my shoulders.
She giggled, a far cry from the seriousness the other woman exhibited although they appeared similar in age.
A pretty splash of freckles dusted her nose and cheeks like grains of sand.
She was adorable, from her frizzy mane to her obnoxiously bright patchwork dress.
“Lyneca, darling,” the captain said with a gentleness in her voice I didn’t quite expect. “Release the Siren, please.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Lyneca twirled away from me and gave us newcomers a flamboyant curtsy. “Lyneca O’Gaine, first mate and ship’s cook. Nice to meet you, loves.”
Two unfamiliar faces already had me overwhelmed, but luckily Captain Larsel didn’t bother to introduce us to the deckhands who would travel alongside us.
The two women ushered us around the ship, pointing out important places for us to note.
Apparently, Ashkade would have the captain’s quarters, and Reiven and Captain Larsel would each take one of the officer’s quarters, but there was no mention of where I’d be sleeping.
Maybe with the crew? Our tour ended on the quarterdeck, at the helm of the ship, where Captain Larsel explained the route they had plotted out.
“Around six weeks in we’ll need to make a stop for supplies. Unfortunately, it’ll have to be at Redsand Cove. While I’d like to avoid it, it’s the only way we can make it without starving ourselves.”
My blood went cold at the mention of that island.
I had never been there, but word reached even Kirdiak of the shady characters and treachery that teemed on Redsand Cove like fish in a reef without predators.
The Eventide Brigade, a group of especially powerful pirates, had slaughtered the previous inhabitants of the island and claimed it as their own.
It was mostly lawless there, from what I heard, but the Eventide Brigade was the only authority that would bring respect from the awful Humans who called piracy their way of life.
“Assuming good wind and fair weather, we estimate about three months until arrival at Ghrysim Isle,” the captain said.
It was a long time to be magically chained to Reiven, but I’d been held captive for six years, so I could power through. I had to.
“Captain! You’re fully loaded!” one dockworker shouted up to us.
Captain Larsel shouted back her thanks, and upon confirming that the crew had finished their preparations for departure, her brow furrowed as she studied the deckhands milling about on the main deck below us. “Hey, where’s that new carpenter kid?”
Lyneca shaded her eyes from the sun and glanced around too. “I don’t see him.”
“We leave him behind then. Raise the gangplank!”
Just as the crew moved to follow the captain’s bellowed order, another voice broke through the crashing waves and screeching seabirds.
“Wait! I’m coming!” A young man sprinted up the gangplank and leaped onto the deck, glancing about wildly. He visibly cringed at the weight of the captain’s glare when he raised his eyes up to us.
“Gatelo!” she barked. He cringed again. “Where the Mourner Hell were you?”
“Sorry, got waylaid…” His gaze fell on me and lingered, so I openly studied him right back.
Shaggy brown hair fell over his forehead and a cruel scar cut across the corner of his lips.
His shirt fluttered in the wind, left unbuttoned to reveal his lean, tanned body, marked by several small scars across his torso. He flashed me a grin. “Hi there.”
Young. Obviously interested in me. A perfect tool.
I wasn’t sure how I’d use him just yet, but with a bit of flirtation and sweet-talking, I had a wonderful feeling he’d do anything I wanted. Just like Jereq.
“Waylaid by what, a pretty girl? You’ll be scrubbing the deck for three weeks for your tardiness,” Captain Larsel snapped.
With another grumbled, half-hearted apology, Gatelo meandered away to assist with hoisting the sails. I didn’t even realize the tiny smile that might have betrayed me until some asshole snapped his fingers in front of me, tearing my attention away from my new potential tool.
“Stop making eyes at the crew. Come on Blue, let me show you where you’ll be staying.”
Why did I not like that smirk in his voice? My protests that I wanted to stay topside to watch the water were met with silence and his fingers wrapped around my wrist again. Damn him. I growled and dug my heels into the weathered chestnut wood of the deck, but he just yanked me down the stairs.
“Probably going to make me sleep in the bilge with the rats, right?” I snarled.
But much to my horror, he didn’t drag me further into the bowels of the ship; he pulled me towards one of the officer’s quarters. “While that sounds fun, I don’t trust you not to cause trouble while we’re sleeping, so Ash agreed to let you stay with me.”
“With you? Fuck no. I’ll take the rats.” The thought of sharing a cabin with this insufferable man made my skin crawl.
Reiven rolled his eyes and pushed open the door to his room, nodding for me to go inside. “Welcome to your own personal hell for the next few months. That’s your corner over there.”
He gestured to the corner farthest away from the cot, where my clothes and bag of medical supplies had been stashed, along with a bit of rope and some fabric—was that meant to be a hammock?
Hooks had been nailed into the wall for me to hang it up, but why did he get a cot and I only got a hammock?
Meanwhile, he also had an entire chest of his belongings and a hutch for storage, too.
“I get an entire corner? How generous of you,” I said. “Look, just because we’re chained together doesn’t mean you’re in charge here.”
And yet he went to lounge on the cot as if he owned the entire ship, watching me with a stupid, sardonic grin. “Actually, I am in charge here, and I intend to watch your every move, Siren. So be good.”
Choking down a torrent of curses, I began to clumsily tie up the ends of the hammock. Knots weren’t exactly my specialty. When I tried to sit on it, they came undone, and I crashed into the solid wooden floor, no doubt bruising my ass.
Reiven snickered at my misfortune.
Don’t worry. I’ll make this a special hell for you, too.
The hardest part of this journey was easily going to be living so damn close to the sea, so close to freedom, yet being unable to touch it. I spent most of my time on the main deck staring wistfully into the waves, treasuring the sting of the salty wind and sea spray that tousled my ponytail.
Captain Larsel seemed content to let the three of us passengers do as we pleased, so long as we didn’t get in the crew’s way, but I decided to help Gatelo with his unfortunate punishment of swabbing the deck.
It proved to be the perfect opportunity to test the waters of his interest in me.
He didn’t seem very experienced with women, so that made him even more perfect, even more prone to fall prey to my wheedling words and false smile.
Just as I did when I lived at Nightwhisper, I wore a different mask depending on who I was interacting with.
With Gatelo, I was flirtatious and inflated his feeble ego with an array of insincere compliments.
While around the captain, I faltered back to a more serious facade, offering to help with things like cooking and cleaning.
Lyneca beamed and put me to work washing dishes in the galley, chattering on and on about nothing like she was just excited to have someone who would listen to her.
As thanks for my help, she let me boil some seawater with a small portion of lemons and herbs to make a fragrant bathing concoction.
I made tea laced with the nausea medication for Ashkade, and one cup brightened him up right away.
He hadn’t left his room since our departure and just sat hunched over his workbench, thumbing through books and fiddling with jewelry.
When I asked him what he was doing with the jewelry, he rambled about his experiments with time, showing me platinum rings with glyphs etched into the metal, declaring they were his newest project.
I didn’t understand what he was talking about half of the time, but I pretended to be interested.
I figured that would keep him on my side.
The mask I wore around him was that of a harsh but caring older sibling…
like how I used to treat my younger sister, Veleir.
Remembering her hurt my soul, so I tried not to linger on those memories.
The only person I didn’t hide my true feelings around was Reiven.
He didn’t bother to hide his loathing for me either, or how much he distrusted me.
Luckily, the Druinnic bond gave us enough leeway to be on different levels of the ship, but Reiven rarely allowed that.
He lazed around the top deck as we sailed, keeping a wary eye on me, especially when I’d get close to Gatelo.