Chapter 35 #3
“Fuck.” Rowan scrambled to a hatch in the deck and drew out a lantern, flint, and steel.
He opened the shutter just a crack, hoping the wick hadn’t fallen victim to the rain, and struck the steel.
Sparks flared and died under the storm’s onslaught.
He struck again. Again. Each spark dying before it could catch.
He looked back over his shoulder, but couldn’t find the Kraken’s blue light.
“Come on,” he muttered, striking the flint again, clutching it so hard his fingers ached.
It sparked, caught, sputtered. Rowan slammed the shutter closed before the storm could put the tender flame out.
He stumbled back to the rail and held the lantern aloft, waiting for the blue light to appear again.
There, at the top of a wave. Rowan flicked the shutter open and closed again, signaling, “stay back” and “rocks” over and over till the Kraken disappeared behind another swell.
Rowan slumped against the rail. Shaking.
Hoping they’d seen his warning. Overhead, the black winged flag snapped, and the storm practically snarled its displeasure at being denied another victim.
Another bolt of lightning flashed overhead, and the Kraken reappeared. They’d somehow managed to veer off the collision course with the rocks, and were dragging chains and the aft anchor to slow their speed. The stoic figure at the bow was nowhere to be seen.
A sigh of relief caught in Rowan’s throat before a great tearing sounded from the top of the Siren’s main mast. The massive flag broke free of its earthly attachments.
It twisted on the wind, undulating like a great black serpent.
Rowan watched, almost mesmerized by its violent dance.
And it felt like the last of his hope was flying away with it.
When it would inevitably settle and sink beneath the surface of the sea, despair would settle with it.
Rowan couldn’t let that happen. No matter what, he was a fighter, and the flag had been with him almost since the beginning, sewn by his and Logan’s own hands.
It bore burn marks and patches where cannonballs and bullets had ripped through it.
Scars that mirrored his own. A tapestry of all he and the Siren and their crew had endured together.
He wouldn’t let this symbol of his career, the life he’d built for himself and his friends, slip into the night.
A corner of the flag whipped past his face, and he lunged after it, boots clumsy and slipping on the slick deck. It twisted out of his grasp. Taunting. He lunged again and missed, crashing face down onto the sodden boards.
Suddenly, all the hours of being awake in the pounding rain caught up with him, and he stayed down, turning over onto his back to watch his flag disappear into the endless storm.
“Fuck!” he screamed, and even that was carried off by the wind.
He lacked the strength to get up, freezing rain streaming down his face.
If a few tears mingled with the rain, well, no one was there to see it.
Thunder boomed like the sky itself would tumble down upon his head.
Rowan’s body began to shiver, and he knew he should go wake Logan to keep watch in his place.
But fatigue kept him rooted to the spot.
He wished Yves was here. All he wanted was to curl up in Yves’s warm embrace and sleep till the storm blew itself out, even if that took a lifetime.
Rowan wanted to close his eyes, but he kept his gaze trained on the low ceiling of clouds above him, seeing in his mind’s eye that stoic figure on the Kraken’s bow with shadows writhing behind it.
Why was the demon manifesting like that?
So obvious even blocked by Rowan’s eyepatch.
Fear clamped around Rowan’s gut. Had the demon taken over?
Had Rowan lost his last chance to forgive, and be forgiven?
And if Yves hadn’t been consumed, was he worried about Rowan or still mad?
The stretch of roiling sea between them felt like an uncrossable chasm.
Rowan had succumbed to Yves’s loveless seduction time and time again, until it became too much.
He’d stabbed Yves, and even knowing it wouldn’t kill him, guilt ate at him, and loneliness held him down like a loveless fuck.
Did Yves still love him? Or had Rowan gone back to being his breakable human plaything?
Hopelessness yawned in the bottom of his chest, yet some part of him still reached out for Yves. Clung to the love they’d shared. As if his yearning would draw Yves to him across the chasm of the water.
A wave smacked the hull, causing the Siren to shudder and groan.
Rowan pressed his palms to the deck, feeling the shockwaves through the wood and willing the timbers to hold strong.
More water washed over the rail, and Rowan struggled to his knees, but could only watch listlessly as a third massive wave rushed toward him.
He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for impact.
The wave crashed over him, almost sweeping him away, and when it passed, he sat there shivering, head down with salt water dripping into his eyes.
Something shifted in the atmosphere. A lull in the storm? A sound only half heard? Rowan raised his head to face whatever it was head-on.
Yves stepped over the rail as another wave broke over the back of the ship, haloing him in silvered droplets as lightning flashed overhead.
The Siren’s black flag trailed from his shoulders like a cape, twisted around the shadow tentacles that writhed behind him.
In a long charcoal coat with pearls at the collar, he was a picture of contrasts.
Onyx hair and alabaster skin. He was not a demon, but a god born of this ferocious sea.
A force of nature greater than any storm.
It felt right to be here, kneeling before him in supplication.
A mere mortal before an unfathomable god.
Yves’s booted feet settled on the deck, the flag still trailing over the rail.
The wind snatched Rowan’s gasp away into the night, sharp air caressing his lips like a lover’s bite.
Yves’s face was twisted in a rictus of rage, or pain.
His eyes completely black, consumed by the demon.
Inhuman and terrifying. He stared at Rowan as if looking through him, and for a few seconds Rowan thought Yves didn’t recognize him again.
If this reunion was to be a reckoning, if Yves and the demon wanted to devour him for good, would Rowan fight or let himself be consumed?
Yet the instant their eyes met, the inhuman pain fell away, stars returning to the black voids in Yves’s eye sockets. He returned Rowan’s pleading gaze with emotion so raw Rowan could see it even through the godly guise.
Yves’s coral lips parted, his ruby wedding ring glinting like blood on his finger as he reached out. He took one step in Rowan’s direction. He said something, words lost to the storm.
The thrall over Rowan snapped. He lurched to his feet, fatigue falling away, but Yves was already sprinting across the slick deck.
He crashed into Rowan’s arms just as thunder cracked above them.
Rowan didn’t care if Yves was still angry.
Nor did he care about his own residual resentment.
He only wanted to hold Yves and know he was here.
Yves had come for him, and love must still live between them.
Yves’s arms enclosed him tightly, almost squeezing the breath from his lungs. Lips moving against his neck, forming words Rowan couldn’t hear. But neither of them let go.
Finally, Yves pulled back. He framed Rowan’s scarred face between his hands, drinking in the sight of him. Rowan was sure he looked like a drowned rat, nothing compared to Yves’s beauty. Even soaking wet, he was godly.
Yves drew a deep breath, and it was as if he’d inhaled the wind itself. The storm fell to a quiet lull, and Yves spoke, his deep voice rumbling like thunder. “I thought I’d lost you. I shouldn’t…I’m sorry. Please…”
Forgive me was lost to the wind and waves.
Rowan searched Yves’s expression, earnestness mixed with anticipation of heartbreak.
“You abandoned the Kraken.” Rowan’s voice sounded rough from shouting over the storm. How had he even gotten here? Had he swam all this way? Even with the demon’s strength, he should have been lost to the undertow.
“I needed to see you with my own eyes. I needed to know you were safe.”
Yves drew Rowan to his chest, tucking Rowan’s head into his neck and holding him there until everything faded away but the galloping pound of Yves’s heart.
Had he really been so worried? So frightened?
Rowan’s hands fisted in the back of Yves’s sodden, ridiculously expensive coat, and something cracked open in him.
Hope. All the love that he had tried to keep buried the last few weeks.
All the tenderness beaten into submission by his own anger and Yves’s behavior.
It flooded to the surface, more powerful than the storm still thrashing around them.
Rowan raised his face to look at his beloved, haloed by lightning. Where a fully-human body would be cold from submergence in the sea, Yves’s hands scorched Rowan’s skin, chasing away his chills. Warmth kindled in his chest, his sluggish and hopeless heart beating faster. He needed to know.
Rowan leaned forward, eyes fluttering closed.
Thunder rumbled, drowning out the small, surprised noise Yves made as Rowan captured his lips.
His long fingers weaved into Rowan’s soaked hair, hanging lank around his ears.
Rowan’s tongue slipped into his hot mouth, the kiss deepening, warmth spreading through him as if he was drinking it away from Yves’s body.