Chapter Twenty-Eight Before
SHE KNEW IT was a dream.
The sea was too flat, the waves beyond the gallery windows an impossible stretch of unbroken blue.
As if no breath of wind stirred the water, and no current ran its course.
The world held the ship in limbo, without so much as a sway or creak.
And the Covenant itself was strange, the edges of her vision hazy, the light taking on a soft golden edge.
Cat did not dream often, or for very long.
It was a mercy, she used to think, to escape into the blackness of sleep, with no nightmares to taunt her.
The waking world was nightmare enough, between Ryman and the island and the relentless heat.
She expected to wake up quickly, but the dream stretched, endless as the still sea.
And warm, as if the sun played over her bare skin.
No, not the sun, she realized, looking down at her arm.
A long-fingered hand closed around her wrist, encircling the fragile bones.
Not her hand, or the hand of a woman at all.
And certainly not Ryman, who was pale white and forceful.
This touch was tender, achingly so, despite the rough feel of the unfamiliar skin.
Calluses, scars, burns from rope and gunpowder. It was the harsh hand of a harsh life.
And yet, gentle with her. Cat felt like a pearl in an open palm.
She dared not raise her gaze from the hand as it traveled, steadily running up her arm.
Cat knew what she would find—storm-green eyes, a curtain of blond curls, the smell of salt and tobacco and sweet taquil.
Part of her wanted to look, to glimpse Valerian Kane so close, his body warm and lean against her back.
Even if it were only a dream, an impossible wish.
But looking meant admitting what so much of her already knew and fought so hard to deny.
That she felt for a man beyond her husband, and a pirate captain at that.
An enemy of the Crown. A lawless outcast, loyal only to a ship and a crew. To the Lyrian Sea.
Her lips parted, tasting smoke. Still she dared not turn and risk an even worse outcome.
Waking up.
Instead, she watched as the fingers walked a path, brushing the inside of her elbow in a way that made her shiver. His skin was darker than hers, a golden tan against freckled white. The hand kept moving, palm now flush against her bicep.
Shivering, Cat realized she was naked in the dream, with only the blankets of the bunk beneath her as she lay on her side. They were cool under her legs, the length of her stretched out across the thin mattress.
Another shiver crept down her spine as the hand reached the top of her arm then traced the arc of her shoulder blade.
This time she desperately fought the urge to look, to let amber eyes meet green, to taste something more than smoke.
She could not bear it if he disappeared, if the light shifted, the golden gleam replaced by iron morning.
One by one, the fingers walked her spine.
The warmth grew, both behind her and within her, twin forces calling out, feeding each other.
Cat certainly felt summoned, her spine pressing up against the hot planes of his torso.
His hand was gone, curling around her hip to let their bodies lay flush together, the soft down of his chest hair against her shoulder blades.
She could not help but arch into it, trying to lay every inch of skin she could against Valerian Kane.
It was a delightful torture, suspended in the dream, terrified it might end. And terrified it might continue.
He did not speak, but his breath huffed against her ear. It hitched as his fingers curled, finding the dip at the swell of her hip, the arcing curve that formed a valley between leg and stomach, leading in a single direction.
His fingers followed it like pilgrims on a holy road.
Then Cat lost her breath too, her head tipping back.
A stubbled cheek brushed her own, a line of teeth grazed her jaw.
It was too much to bear, too much to resist. Far more than she had ever felt, and yet still less, unreal and fleeting.
She turned into him, forgetting her fear, eyes open, yearning to see.
But there was no Valerian, no Captain Kane. There was only a flash of green, like the last gleam of a setting sun on the endless horizon. And then daylight, the real, brutal kind, as Cat jolted awake.
Her eyes stung, her mouth was dry, and her head spun with too many cups of taquil.
Shakily, Cat removed her hand from between her legs and forced herself out of the bunk. Her stomach churned, sick from the evening, sick from the dream.
“Torture,” she murmured, her skin still aflame.
* * *
THE COVENANT HAD already left Morovant’s Seadragon and Drowning Key behind, the little island barely a smudge on the horizon by the time Cat regained her wits.
Between the maps in her cabin and the simple calculations born of the sun’s position, she charted their heading as best she could as the days passed.
The most important part was clear—the Covenant was not sailing north to Beacon Island and the city of Archenport.
She had looped, moving southwest again, maneuvering amongst the smaller islands back towards Rosby.
Her time on the Covenant made it easy to forget what lay ahead. Yes, Kane and his crew had avoided a simple trap up north. But Cat had no such luck. No matter what, her road ended in a lonely cage.
She tried to make herself useful, offering to help Cook peel vegetables or stir his pot of gods knew what.
Or swab the decks with Ratter, her hands red and raw after a few minutes.
She even tried cleaning the pistols and muskets, though she could not put them back together without Brimley helping her refit the pieces.
Somehow, she managed to turn every one-man job into a two-person undertaking.
All together, she was hopeless at the easiest tasks aboard a sailing vessel; even the so-called womanly endeavors, like mending a sail, were far better performed by the able sailors.
No use, Cat thought, scrubbing her hands clean in a bucket of seawater. She had gained a few cuts across her otherwise unmarred skin and they stung, wounds hissing against the salt. But she leaned into the pain. It was grounding and real, slowing the seconds as they ticked away.
Then she returned to her work, mending a particularly ragged tear in the sheet from the mizzenmast. Her stitches were ugly and crooked but slowly doing the job. Until a shadow fell over her, obscuring her handiwork.
Cat read the curves of the shadow. It was not the captain, who seemed to be avoiding her. After their night in the Drowning Drink and her dream, when she shivered and came undone in his hands, Cat was glad for it.
It was Ana who dogged Cat’s footsteps whenever she had a free moment. As first mate, those moments were few, but the Seawolf found enough time to be a welcome nuisance.
While Cat huddled beneath a borrowed hat, doing her best to keep the relentless sun off her face, Ana did no such thing, her glorious mane of raven hair blowing free. She plopped down next to Cat without so much as a hello and frowned at her stitches.
Cat braced for a scolding but met a thoughtful look instead.
“Where were you headed, before all this?” Ana muttered, leaning back on her hands. She splayed out like a woman on a fine chaise lounge, not a pirate on a ship cutting through open sea.
Cat almost laughed. “Before you blew up the Venerable and my life?”
Ana only blinked at her. “Yes, before that.”
“Archenport,” she offered, putting down her needle. “We were invited by the governor.”
Though it was barely weeks since Captain Quine had dropped anchor in Rosby harbor, it already felt so far away.
Her hopes to ingratiate herself into Archenport society were shattered, ripped apart with the Venerable.
Shaky as the plans had been, they were something to hold on to.
She could still hear Lieutenant Fell whispering, offering welcome advice that she took like a precious jewel.
Now he languished in the brig of a pirate ship, while she mourned on its deck.
I should endeavor to keep him company, as any lady would.
Or at least make sure he has not rotted away.
But try as she might, Cat could not force herself to go below, even for Lieutenant Fell’s sake.
Her days without Ryman Rose and his venom would soon be at an end, and Cat did not intend to waste them.
If Ana noticed her melancholy, she kindly ignored it. Instead, she squinted at the sun and smirked. “I suppose we’ve done you a favor. Rumor is the new governor’s a bit of a worm.”
Cat huffed and shook her head. “I have a worm of my own,” she grumbled, picking up the needle again. She stabbed at the sheet, picturing it was Ryman instead.
Without blinking, Ana reached across and took the needle from her, tucking it away. But she was not annoyed. Her full brows furrowed, dark eyes warm.
“Why haven’t you run off yet?” she said softly.
Beneath her hat, Cat blinked furiously. “I beg your pardon?”
Ana shrugged and tipped her head back, face turned into the wind filling the sails.
“One day with a man like that and I’d be off with the morning tide. I don’t understand why you stay.”
It took all Cat’s well-drilled poise to keep her hands steady, to not tear apart her line of stitches in a burst of anger.
“Because there is nowhere else for me to go,” she snapped, frustrated with the simplicity of it all. And the indignity of explaining something so obvious, not to mention embarrassing. “I’m not like you, Ana. I don’t have—well, anything.”
Ana smiled. Her eyes roved over Cat in a meaningful way. “A mirror would disagree.”
Cat shrunk away from her, a hand flying to the scarf around her collar. “I’m not doing that—”