Mira
Chapter twenty-six
Severed Bloodlines
I left our captain’s quarters with my blood boiling.
I knew he could hear my heart beating out of my chest, could feel the rage pouring off me in waves.
I don’t know why he thinks this is a good idea.
He’s going to put everyone in danger, mostly himself.
He’s always throwing himself into the fire like he thinks he’s invincible. Maybe he is.
Trying to take down the most powerful witch alive is a death wish. Even if we somehow make a deal with Taika, it would just be another debt hanging over our heads. A deadly debt, owed to an even deadlier witch.
I had to leave the room before I pushed him further, before I told him exactly why we shouldn’t go after her.
If the sirens are asking for Taika, they need her for something.
Maybe they have a debt to settle too. Part of me wishes they would have come to me instead of Kai. After all… I’m one of them.
We spend the day sailing. I avoid Kai as much as possible, which isn’t hard. He and Jay are locked away in the study plotting gods know what. I’m tired, and all I want is the open sea and the quiet, endless horizon.
The sun has long since set. I climb the ladder to my favorite spot high up on the ship’s tallest sail, where the ocean breeze kisses my face and the night feels endless.
Up here, with the world quiet and still, it always feels like if I just reach out far enough, I could pluck a star from the sky and tuck it into my pocket, saving a wish for another night.
Below, the deck is mostly dark aside from a few glowing lanterns. Some of the crew linger near the railings, smoking, sipping rum, and swapping old sea tales. I love this time of night when nothing is happening. When the world feels hushed and the moonlight turns the ocean into a silver mirror.
I listen to the waves splashing against the ship’s hull and feel the gentle sway of the deck beneath me. I lick my lips and taste salt, the ocean’s breath on my skin. The sea was my first love. It was supposed to be my only love until he came along
Making my way down the ladder from the sail, I decide to explore the parts of the ship I’ve never dared to before.
Taking advantage of the quiet night, I slip past a few crewmates, nodding to them as I pass.
I keep my steps light, careful not to startle anyone.
Before I boarded The Leviathan, Kai told me his father was still here, very sick but still alive.
I haven’t heard a word about him since. Part of me wants to ask—the other part doesn’t care to dig.
For all I know, the bastard could be dead.
But an uneasy feeling settles over me, prickling the back of my neck. For the first time on this ship, I felt unsafe. I quicken my pace, glancing over my shoulder, seeing nothing.
Then a strong hand grabs me, yanking me into a side door so fast I can’t fight back.
Whoever this is knows exactly what he’s doing.
The tall figure shoves me down a few steps, picks me up again, and slams me into the wall.
Pain explodes in my skull, my vision going hazy.
I try to focus, but the room is nearly pitch black, only the moonlight spilling in through a small window.
“So you’re the one who’s brainwashed my son,” a voice rasps from the dark, cold and venomous.
“Such a pity.” My heart stutters in my chest. Captain Eldoris.
The man who slaughtered my mother in front of me when I was just a child.
The man whose life mission is to wipe out my entire bloodline. Now he has me.
If he’s as insane as they say, he’s a loose cannon. He could kill me right here and no one would know. Kai has no idea where I went. I haven’t seen him since morning. If he were following me, I would have noticed.
I am alone.
“A pity?” I spit at him, trying to steady my breath.
“Mhmm,” he groans, locking the door behind him with a click that makes my blood run cold. Now it really is just him and me.
Rage burns through me. I want to gut the bastard who destroyed my family, the monster who haunted my nightmares.
“Pity I’ll have to kill you like your mother,” he sneered, stepping closer. “My son will be heartbroken, but he’ll get over it. You’re just another dumb wench.”
Red bleeds across my vision. My voice trembles with fury. “I’m not just another one,” I hiss. “I am the one. And you’ve already made your last mistake.” If he kills me, Kai will fall too. “If you don’t want to watch your son die, then put that blade down. Because killing me is killing him.”
He moves like smoke, quick and twisted. “He's tied to you?” he spits, venom thick on his tongue. “What a disgrace.” He steps closer, and the cold in his eyes slices deeper than any steel. “Maybe I’ll kill you both. Tear out his heart by ending you. Let him drown in the bond he never asked for.”
He lunges at me, his long, bony fingers wrapping around my neck.
He lifts me off the ground effortlessly.
I gasp, clawing at his hands as he squeezes, cutting off my air.
He reeks of tobacco and rum, his eyes wild.
“I make no mistakes, child,” he growls. “You are a disease. I could end it all now. Wipe your bloodline from the sea forever.”
His grip tightens and my legs kick uselessly as I try to fight back. He’s too strong. I feel helpless—exactly how he wants me. I’ve never let my guard down this much before, and now it might get me killed.
He has me pinned to the wall, no room to move, no room to breathe.
Everything starts going fuzzy, my ears ringing like a war drum.
Then I hear the faint noise of a lock unclicking.
“What the fuck did I tell you about touching my treasure, old man?” Kai’s voice is low, lethal. “You wish to die where you stand?”
Eldoris drops me, and I crumple to the ground, gasping for air.
My throat burns, bruises already blooming beneath my skin from where his fingers crushed me.
I can’t catch a breath. My body aches from the fall, from the lack of oxygen.
Bile rises in my throat, but I swallow it down, focusing on the scene in front of me.
Eldoris steps toward Kai, rage twisting his face.
“I could have rid the world of her cursed bloodline,” he snarls.
“You always find a way to fuck things up. You’ve been in the way since you were a child.
Now you tied your soul to this filthy disease?
Maybe I should kill one of you, so I can watch the other die. ”
I can’t see Kai’s face, but I can feel his anger radiating through the room, thick and suffocating.
His shadow grows larger as he steps forward, his magic crackling just beneath the surface.
“If this is what you’ve become in your lucid moments,” Kai says, voice cold as steel, “then there’s no point keeping you alive. ”
Eldoris moves closer, sneering. Kai drew his sword, the moonlight glinting off the blade. “You’d kill me for her?” Eldoris roars. “Your own blood? Your father!?”
“I would kill anyone for her. Especially my sick twisted father.” The next sound is wet and final, Kai’s blade sliding through Eldoris’s stomach.
The old man chokes on his own blood as his worthless body slides off the blade and hits the floor.
The scent of iron fills the room, stinging my nose, thick and metallic.
Kai stands over him, staring down. Eldoris gurgles, blood bubbling up his throat as he choked out his final words. “Taika… my love… free me…” His voice drains away with his last breath.
“What the fuck? What did he just say?” Kai growls, his shadow falling over the lifeless body.
I can feel the crack in his heart, the weight of what he’s done pressing into him like a crushing wave. All I can think is that Captain Eldoris, the man who haunted my nightmares, has just been brought down by the one person no one ever saw coming.
The room reeks of blood, old smoke, rum, and death. My mind reels to make sense of what I’ve just seen.
Why would Eldoris’s final word be Taika?
Why would he beg her to free him? Was there something between them Kai hadn’t told me?
But even as my thoughts spiral, one truth anchors itself in my chest. Kai killed him.
Not out of spite from Eldoris being a terrible father, but for me.
He severed the past to protect our future.
And I don't know if I'll ever find the words for what that means, for what he means.
Kai rushes over, scoops me up like I weigh nothing, and carries me out of the godsforsaken room I didn’t even know existed, leaving his father’s body behind to rot. No one has ever fought for me like that. No one has ever chosen me like that.
Back in our quarters, he lays me gently on the bed and lights the lantern. Then he sits beside me in silence, his hazel eyes swirling with gold and green and firelight, like molten honey dripping down a moss-covered branch.
His hand brushes the side of my face, then slides down to my neck.
His eyes go wide with fury, his heartbeat slowing to that eerie crawl that means he’s on the edge of something dangerous.
He doesn’t have to say a word. I know the bruises must look bad.
He looks breathtaking like this, all sharp lines and soft shadows, the moonlight spilling in through the window and highlighting every perfect angle.
“Can you breathe okay?” he asks, his voice tight with worry and his eyes softening as they meet mine.
I try to speak, but it feels like swallowing glass. “Enough,” I croak out, raspy and broken.
“Good. Drink,” he murmurs, holding out a glass of water. “It’ll help open your airway a little.”
I take a sip of the water, wincing as it slides down my raw, burning throat. Kai doesn’t say a word. He just watches me, his gaze tracking every tiny movement like he’s afraid I might disappear if he blinks.
A few moments pass before I find enough strength to speak. “Are you okay?” I rasp out. I don’t care about myself right now. All I can think about is him, what he’s just done. He’s lost the only parent he has left in this world. And he’s the one who ended it.
I know he’s ruthless. The tales of him cutting down men twice his age, taking ships by force, earning the title of Pirate Lord at such a young age, they aren’t just stories. But seeing it with my own eyes… seeing how far he’ll go to protect me still stuns me.
Now he has ended two pirate legends in the matter of days. No one will come for him again. “I’m fine, Mira,” he murmurs, eyes flicking back to my throat, his fingers brushing gently over the bruises forming there. “I need you to be okay.”
I can feel the rage simmering in him, hot and crackling just beneath the surface, like lava about to explode from a volcano. The magic under his skin pulses with it, wild and electric. “I can feel you,” I whispers, laying my hand gently over his. “Everything inside you.”
He looks at me, broken and unyielding all at once. “He wouldn’t have stopped,” he says, voice low and raw. “Not until you were gone. I didn’t want to do it, but there was no other way.” He swallows hard. “If I’d let him live, I would’ve lost you.”
I reach up, brushing my fingers along the side of his face. He closes his eyes, leaning into my touch like it’s the only thing keeping him from slipping under. When he opens them again, something burns there, grief and love. “I know,” I say softly. “I know what it cost you.”
He looks at me like I am the last light in a world he barely believes in anymore. “I love you, Mira,” he whispers. “I would burn the world for you.”
Then he kisses me, slow and sure. Every part of me feels warm, safe, whole. Gods, he is everything. Hearing those three words from his lips makes me feel complete.
“I love you too, Kai,” I breathe. “My quiet. My chaos. My home.” His expression shifts, like the stars themselves have lit up just for him.
He moves closer, resting his forehead against mine, his breath steady as he inhales me in, like he’s memorizing the moment.
Then he presses a kiss to my cheek, soft and sure.
If I hadn’t just been nearly choked to death, we’d already be tangled in each other. But for now, just lying here wrapped in each other and the warm glow of the lantern is enough. In this moment, it feels like our souls have tied themselves together all over again. And I never want it to end.