Chapter Twenty-Seven After #2
Every step up the ladder was a knife, and the deck itself a sword.
The lanterns swung with the tide, and swaying globes of light ran down the ship, illuminating pockets of the Covenant.
Not that Cat needed the light. They could blindfold her, and she would still know her way around the vessel.
Certainly to Cook’s galley, and the captain’s cabin.
Her vision blurred and she blinked fiercely, hoping no one saw the tears she refused to shed.
Tears for what? she scolded herself. Pull yourself together.
She was still a mighty thing, the Covenant.
While the ships in Archenport harbor were certainly larger and grander, fresh from the rebuilt shipyards of Allisport, with more firepower and filigree, Cat had to admit the Covenant still beat them all in her eyes.
They were only cubs, gigantic but clumsy, while Valerian’s lion still prowled the sea.
There was no ship to match the smooth lines of her hull and rails, her intricate spiderwebs of rigging, or lethal rows of cannons along the decks.
And no captain to match the one who stood before her now, the last to climb over the rail.
My head or his, his head or theirs, she told herself, bracing for whatever he decided to throw her way.
She did not miss the crew giving her a wider berth. But same as their captain, they had not attacked her on sight. If they were out for revenge, they did not show it. Brimley even gave her a thin-lipped smile, the reassuring kind.
In spite of herself, Cat returned it, sick as it made her feel.
“Have the prisoners brought up on deck.” Valerian gestured to Adelo with a finger. “Make sure Captain Fell gets a good look at them before you bring him to me.”
“Aye, sir,” Adelo answered, disappearing at once.
To the brig. Cat could hardly picture the collected crew of the Fledge crammed into the ship’s jail, but it was an amusing image all the same. She only hoped Whisten got the worst of it, squashed in the corner with the piss bucket.
Then she realized Valerian stood at the quarterdeck, door held open beside him.
He said nothing, only waited, the lanterns casting shifting shadows across his face.
As they swayed, his features changed, somehow angry, worried, despairing, and entranced all at once.
In the darkness, he seemed younger too, the dim light smoothing out the lines of care she knew as well as the ship.
Or even better.
Cat felt the curious eyes of the crew studying her. She would give them no cause to question the captain’s coldness as little more than another quarrel between lovers. After all, Cat vastly preferred being seen as capricious to being known as a traitor.
At least until Fell arrived and blew the last bits of her escape plan to smithereens.
“Captain,” she drawled, taking long strides towards him. “Shall we?”
A muscle feathered in his cheek as he ground his teeth. It was a small point scored, but a point all the same. Smiling, she entered the council chamber, but not before Valerian scored a point of his own.
Again, his hand trailed, grasping her upper arm, palm pressed to the exact spot of her single tattoo. The rose beneath her sleeve burned again, as if freshly inked. Now his touch was gentle and lingering, a tease.
Then his scent hit her, and Cat’s head spun.
This time, there was no blaming the cigar smoke or alcohol.
Such was Valerian’s way. He wore no perfumed oil like Jasper Fell or the more flamboyant captains, nor did he smell of fish guts like the rest. Somehow, beneath the tobacco smoke and stinging taquil, there was always the sea clinging to him, fresh and salty and filled with the promise of a new horizon.
Her steps faltered and she cursed, stumbling into the room beneath the quarterdeck.
While Valerian lit the lamps, she took a steadying breath, only to be hit with the smell of him again. Chewing her lip, she forced another gasp, and another. Drowning herself with him, until her body finally adjusted to his presence again.
There was no antidote to Valerian, the only cure more poison.
She sorely hoped he felt it too, struggling to endure her, the same old wounds torn anew.
But he gave no indication, keenly fixed on the oil lamps, bringing the warm glow of the deck into the chamber.
The darkness lifted, revealing the same long table and the same mismatched chairs she had always known.
The Covenant had not changed much over the last ten years, but for the usual repairs and replacements.
Broken glass, fresh paint, decks smoothed by endless shifts with scrubbing stone.
The bullet holes were long gone, repaired years before.
The Covenant bore other scars now, and Cat Rose was the worst of them all.
Her heart thrummed against her rib cage. There had been blood on timbers here before. There might be more soon enough.
“If you’re going to kill me, can I make a suggestion?” she said to Valerian’s back, refusing to sit at the table. If she was going to die, she preferred to do it on her own two feet.
He swung around, eyebrows shooting into his hairline, his many adornments gleaming against the lamplight. He managed to look both surprised and affronted.
“Even cornered, Cat Rose still had demands to make,” he scoffed.
She took it in stride.
“I would prefer to be shot,” Cat said briskly. She raised her chin, swallowing against the rough sensation of an invisible noose. “I’ve seen enough men hang. It does not seem a pleasant experience.”
Finishing with the last lamp, Valerian went to the chairs. After nearly a decade as captain of the Covenant, he no longer had any qualms about taking the head of the table. He eased down with his usual grace, always balanced, a boot on the tabletop.
“I’ll take that into consideration,” he shot back, steepling his hands on his abdomen. His many jeweled rings winked.
“Oh?” Cat arched an eyebrow. “Do you have another idea?”
He grinned darkly, his eyes running rough over her body. And not in the way Cat used to enjoy. Still, she shivered despite her best efforts.
“Many.”
She bit her lip, glancing back at the council door, and the main deck beyond it, filled with familiar faces.
“You never told the crew,” she murmured.
Valerian hardened, the edge of his jaw set. His storm eyes went dark.
“I did not.”
Cat shrugged. “I suppose it is an embarrassing thing to admit.”
His teeth flashed, a row of white punctuated by gleaming gold. “I didn’t tell them for your sake,” he said evenly, though a red flush spread over his bronzed cheeks. “But since you don’t seem to mind, I can make an announcement right now.”
“Go ahead.” Cat took a forceful step forwards and braced her hands against the table. “Tell them I’m the reason they’re still alive and not hanged in the Archenport harbor. Tell them I’m the reason they lived to fight another day.” Wearily, she heaved a sigh. “Ill-advised as that may be.”
Valerian did not flinch beneath her onslaught.
This was hardly the worst he had seen of her, and she of him.
Compared to their spats of the past, this was a civilized discussion.
But Cat knew she had lost any claim to civility from Valerian Kane.
He was not the man she had known and loved, no longer a partner or a lifeline. He was an opponent. One of many.
“The new governor must be a fearsome man to send Cat Rose running.” He ran his tongue over his lip, as if tasting her fear.
It sent another shiver down her spine, the terrifying kind. Her fingers curled on the tabletop, knuckles white as she formed two shaking fists.
“He is, Val,” she said firmly, trying to make him see. To make him listen. “What he did to Harry—”
His own fist sounded like the blast of a cannon, the slap of flesh on wood making Cat jump in her skin.
Somehow, his eyes were worse. They ringed a vicious white, the irises burning in two green circles, crackling like the sky before the first bolt of lightning.
“That’s enough,” he hissed out.
I should know better than to bring up Harry, Cat thought, wincing at her misstep. Morovant was not just Valerian’s mentor, but the closest thing he ever had to a father.
And I watched his limbs be torn off.
Like Valerian had, Cat ran her tongue over her lips, wetting skin dry and cracked from the sun. She did not miss the way his murderous stare flickered, his eyes tracing the same path.
Something familiar tightened in her core, a rope pulling taut.
I may yet have cards left to play.