Chapter 3
Rowan grinned as he perched on the rail of the Siren Song, one hand gripping the ropes, and leaned out over the sparkling blue waters of the Broken Sea.
Wind whistled between his teeth, the sun slowly baking his skin.
This was the life he’d fought for. The freedom he would never give up, not even for love.
So it was a good thing his beloved was the Deep Water Demon.
Ahead, their quarry, the Sweet Lettie, sped over the waves, the promise of violence and riches scenting the air in her wake. She was a beautiful two-masted ship sailing south from Kefrye, a bit smaller than the Siren Song and painted with feathery white detailing along her sides.
It wouldn’t be long now until Rowan had her in his clutches.
They’d spent days chasing the spry little ship, bearing down then backing off, steering her toward the Teeth where her doom waited.
Despite their closeness in size, the Siren could have caught the Sweet Lettie a dozen times over by now.
But it was all a part of the little game Rowan and Yves liked to play.
Last year, during the first summer of their marriage, the Ghost Hawk and the Deep Water Demon had struggled to balance their insatiable desire to be near each other with their need for freedom on the sea.
Wanderlust had been the only thing that kept Rowan in thrall before he met Yves, and they’d experienced the inevitable growing pains of two people who were fiercely independent, yet unhealthily possessive of one another.
So they’d devised this game. From spring to fall, the peak pirating season, they moved independently of one another, free to go about their business as they pleased.
But on a prearranged date and location, one of them would lie in wait, and the other would bring him a little treat. A bit of foreplay to whet the appetite.
It allowed them to see each other regularly while still operating independently. But more importantly, it made the sex hotter.
Anticipation kindled in Rowan’s gut, knowing Yves waited for him somewhere among the Teeth.
To make up for the time Yves had missed last spring repairing the Kraken after the battle of Wave Harbor, they’d gotten an early start on the season this year.
It would be the first time they’d seen each other in the nearly two months since departing their home island of Illusion at the spring thaw.
Sometimes Rowan felt like a cat bringing half-dead rodents to its master.
Usually Yves gobbled up whatever Rowan deigned to bring him, but this time Yves had requested the Sweet Lettie specifically, and refused to reveal why.
The ship had been easy enough to find, and now they were almost to the arranged destination. They were almost together again.
Ahead, the Sweet Lettie banked starboard toward the Teeth.
No doubt her captain intended to lose their pursuers within the shallow, labyrinthine channels between the rocky white islands.
Rowan had used a similar tactic before, which ultimately resulted in his eye being stabbed out.
Unfortunately for the Sweet Lettie, the same Teeth that made pursuit near impossible also held a myriad of places to hide a ship.
She would find no salvation between those white shores.
It was time to turn up the heat, and scare those soft merchant fools so bad that they wouldn’t see the Kraken’s Fury lurking until it was too late.
Rowan jumped down from the rail, pleated Kefryean skirt fluttering around his calves, and strode up to the quarterdeck, where his first mate, Logan, waited.
“It’s time.”
Logan smiled wryly beneath the fringe of wavy blond hair smushed down by his hat. He always seemed simultaneously amused and exasperated at times like this. He was the voice of reason most days, the anchor that kept the Ghost Hawk from flying too close to the sun.
Logan signaled to the crew members in the rigging.
“Let’s put on some speed! It’s time to catch us a ship!”
The crew shouted back in excitement, jumping to adjust the sails to more efficiently catch the wind. The canvases filled, and the Siren immediately picked up speed.
They caught up to the Sweet Lettie quickly, and soon Rowan could hear the panicked shouts of the Lettie’s crew carrying over the water.
His own crew now worked in practiced silence, and though he had trained them to do so himself, it always surprised him how in tune each crew member was with the others, moving as if in a natural dance.
Rowan set the spyglass to his good eye, searching the Sweet Lettie’s deck for anything that might give the Siren Song an advantage.
A merchant ship, especially a Kefryean one, wouldn’t have many guns.
Kefrye had fallen to Marra’s might years ago, and they were kept minimally armed to prevent the people from rising up against their much more powerful oppressors.
Hence why they were such easy prey for pirates.
Rowan wondered once again why Yves would ask him to retrieve this ship specifically.
Was there something on board he desired?
A particular piece of treasure or an important person they could ransom?
Rowan knew that Marra had recently installed a new governor in Kefrye, and dignitaries typically flocked to things like that.
The Sweet Lettie was quite a fancy little ship, perhaps one that important people would book passage on.
Rowan’s gaze raked the deck of the ship. The crew seemed frantic, unprepared. They had bet their survival on the Lettie’s quickness and ability to maneuver through the shallow waters of the Teeth. Unfortunately for them, they were being chased by the one pirate ship that could catch anyone.
The Sweet Lettie banked to starboard, passing behind the first of the jagged white islands. Rowan lost sight of her for a moment, only the top half of the masts visible over the debris-strewn rocks. He lowered the spyglass and whistled.
Nephele, his gray hunting hawk, chirruped in answer and took off from one of the yardarms above, gliding down and landing on the scarred leather encasing his shoulder. Rowan fed her a treat from the pouch on his belt and scratched at the soft speckled feathers on her chest.
“Wanna go visit Yves?” Rowan cooed at her.
Nephele swallowed the treat almost whole and cocked her head at him, fixing him in her golden gaze.
The hawk was none too fond of Yves, but she mostly tolerated his presence.
She leaned over and nibbled at a strand of Rowan’s light blond ponytail.
“He’ll have a treat for you,” Rowan wheedled.
Nephele was a sucker for treats, especially the expensive cuts of meat Yves bribed her with.
Rowan was quite sure he’d fed her a piece of a human once, but chose not to think about it too closely.
Nephele shifted on Rowan’s shoulder as the Siren finally banked around the edge of the island, her claws digging into the leather.
“Oh, fine.” Rowan took out another treat and showed it to her.
She snapped her beak, the hawkish equivalent of licking her lips.
“Go tell Yves we’re almost there,” Rowan told her, then tossed the treat high over the water.
Nephele took off, swooping over the rail and catching the tasty morsel midair.
Her wings beat a few times, rising up to circle the Siren once before flying off toward where the Kraken lay in wait.
The Siren quickly gained on her prey now, cutting through the water like Nephele through the sky.
“Try to nudge them toward the Canine,” Rowan said to Logan, his eye still trained on the ship ahead of them.
The Canine was the tall, slightly pointed island the Kraken would be hiding behind.
It resided on the other side of the Teeth, and the Siren would need to carefully herd the other ship toward it in order for their plan to work.
The Kraken was much larger than both the Siren and Lettie, and wouldn’t be able to navigate the more shallow channels near the interior of the islands.
If the crew of the Lettie caught on that they were being herded in a specific direction and veered off course, the Siren would be on her own to take down their prey, ruining the game.
“Aye, Captain,” Logan replied.
Rowan looked back toward the Lettie, then flipped up his eyepatch and squinted at it.
It had become a habit of his since discovering the green stone sphere nestled in his eye socket allowed him to see things beyond the norm.
Nothing changed, no flickers of color or shadow.
Satisfied, he flipped the eyepatch back down, hiding the jade eye again.
The Siren banked to starboard, as if she was trying to come up on the Lettie’s side.
The Lettie turned down another channel, and the Siren quickly corrected course to follow.
They dogged the other ship, always staying just far enough away to pretend that they couldn’t catch up.
Always nudging the unsuspecting merchant further and further into their trap at the Canine.
The closer they drew, the faster Rowan’s heart beat.
Not because battle was imminent, but because every fathom of water the two ships gobbled up drew him ever closer to reuniting with his beloved.
Finally, the Canine appeared ahead. Logan deftly steered the Siren around a jut of rock that hid beneath the waves, and Rowan set the spyglass back to his eye as the rest of the crew prepared for battle in silence.
He searched the skies for Nephele’s sleek form and found her wheeling through the air currents around the Canine’s white peak over a hundred feet above.
Plenty of height to hide even the Kraken’s impressive masts.
A spike of anxiety lodged in Rowan’s gut, as it always did. Worry that this time the Kraken wouldn’t be there. That fate had found some way to wrench Yves from him.