Chapter Twenty-Eight Before #2
“Pretty girls can do more than whore, Lady Rose. By the Sea and the Song, I thought you had schooling?” Ana said, swatting her on the arm.
Cat almost fell over with the force. “I’d wager you’ve been given more than any man aboard this ship.
You’re not nothing and you’re not bound to that fool, no matter what anyone else says. ”
“I wish that were true,” Cat muttered, nursing the now-sore spot on her bicep.
But Ana was undeterred, her black eyes sparking like live coals.
“This is the Lyrian Sea, not your cursed Empire,” she said, leaping back to her feet and hauling Cat with her. “You’re playing by the rules of a different world. A world that does not exist here.”
The rules of a different world.
Indeed, Cat had found herself as far as humanly possible from the stiff parlors and rainy streets of Meridia.
She glanced up at the severely blue sky, then the turquoise waters fading into the mist around Kiers Island.
A knuckle of green ridges poked up out of the cloud, the slopes green and bursting with plant life the likes of which Meridia had never seen before.
“Perhaps,” she murmured, weighing all behind against what might lie ahead. It still seemed impossible, an insurmountable peak to climb. “I’ll think on it.”
“Good,” Ana said. She took a step back, meaning to return to her own work. Then she flicked the needle back with a twist of her wrist. Wincing, Cat caught it in her skirt. “And enough with the chores. If you want to be useful, stop getting in the way.”
With a wink she was gone, laughing her way down the deck.
Cat grumbled and returned to her stitches, which Garedo eventually corrected with a kind look and swift fingers.
* * *
THE RULES OF a different world.
Ana’s words ate up her thoughts, until Cat could no longer focus on even the smallest of tasks.
They terrified her and made her bold in the same measure, a new horizon unfolding with every passing moment.
She stalked the deck, glancing between the blazing sunset and the stairs below, weighing possibilities never in reach before.
To tell Ryman exactly what she thought of him.
To refuse to go back to Rosby.
To flee.
To run off, as Ana had said, and pursue a new life in a new world.
It was a fearsome endeavor, a path with no end she could see. A path I can hardly walk alone, she thought, slowing her pace at the rail.
Perhaps I don’t have to.
Her gaze lifted from the waters of the Lyrian to the helm of the ship, and a tall silhouette cut against the sunset.
He stood alone, without Ana, without his helmsman, one hand easy on the ship’s wheel, holding course through calm waters and gentle winds.
Scarlet clouds streaked behind him like a banner, edging him in flame.
Valerian Kane was already looking at her, his gaze an arrow aimed true.
The rules of a different world.
The words carried her up the steps of the quarterdeck, one hand light on the rail, the other trembling against her skirts.
In both fear and anticipation, her heart leapt in her chest. But there was no fear greater than that of returning to Rosby, to Ryman.
To the life she had already lived and could not stomach living again. This seemed easier by comparison.
“Lady Rose,” Valerian said, his voice somehow louder than the sea, and just as deep. He stood like a hero in a story, all long, lean lines, his hair spun gold.
She reached his side in an instant, barely feeling the timbers below her feet.
“Captain.”
The dream spiraled, sharp as a real memory, and Cat could not help but eye his fingers, still firmly curled around the smooth wood of the wheel.
They were a sailor’s hands, striped with scars and calluses, brick rough.
Agile and swift. Blazing through playing cards.
Firm at the ship’s wheel. Gentle and fleeting on her arm. Wicked in her dreams.
“How do you find the work of a ship?” His voice broke the whirlpool of thoughts, and Cat’s eyes jumped back to his face.
“Impossible,” she replied without hesitation, even as her heart pounded. She knew what she wanted but could not fathom how to say it. “Endless.”
That seemed to amuse Valerian, and he grinned, nodding.
“Enticing,” Cat added, her voice sharper.
His smile did the same, lips curling.
“I can’t say I’ve ever heard someone describe swabbing the decks or braiding rope as enticing,” he replied, his hand leaving the wheel. His boots thumped, one after the other, closing the distance between them. “I can see the question on your tongue. Ask it.”
It was almost a relief to be given such a chance. Cat sighed, her shoulders dropping in release as she held Valerian’s curious stare. Green eyes ticked over her face, and she could feel him trying to read her.
“Might there be something here for me?” She tried to hold the forceful tone, to sound resolute as she felt. And desperate too. “On the Covenant?
With you, her mind said, though she could not summon the courage to voice it, much as she hoped Valerian perceived the thought anyway.
He did not speak, his smile frozen, losing some of its mischief.
His chest rose and fell between the folds of his collar, open in its usual way.
Her prayer bead still glittered there, turquoise as the sea, a trophy.
A piece of me, Cat thought, yearning to touch it again.
To brush fingers against skin and feel flame beneath.
“Cat.”
The flat tone of his voice, hollow, hard, was like the blow from a hammer. Her resolve shattered, a broken mirror scattering, her heart caught amongst the pieces. She clung to them anyway, much as the sharp edges bit, hope bleeding in her hands.
“I can’t go back to Rosby,” she breathed.
Her feet moved, the spare inches closing, until every breath tasted of Valerian Kane. She glared up at him, desperate and trembling, glad they were alone at the helm, with no witnesses to her fading dignity.
“I can give you anything you like, everything I have left—but I can’t go back. Not with him,” she said, stumbling over the words.
When Valerian moved like a thundercloud above her, Cat could not help but shrink back.
He matched her step for step, marching her from the wheel to stern, until the taffrail pressed against her back.
And the captain of the Covenant leaned over her, so close a few strands of his long hair brushed her temple.
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he said, eyes alight, a flush blooming across his cheeks.
“I do!” Cat shot up at him, feeling her own face flame. “You have other women on your ship, and I can work, I can read, I can clean, I can learn. You said it yourself—”
His hand closed on her shoulder, his grip firm but not bruising, meant to hold her in place. As if Cat might bolt. But her feet were anchored, her body glued to the Covenant, her eyes never leaving Valerian’s face.
To her surprise, she saw the same desperation welling up in his eyes, the same conflict. The same need.
“This is a pirate ship, Lady Rose.” His hand curved, sliding from her clothed shoulder to the bare skin of her neck. Cat could not help but arc into his palm, pressing as much of herself into his hand as she could, seeking more and more.
He did not relent, the edge of his jaw tightening.
“You have seen a piece of us, but you have not seen the whole. Not even close.”
Without thought, Cat’s hand shot out, fingers winding through the chain around his neck. She could break it easily, the gold links thin and weak. Reclaim the prayer bead and what part of herself Valerian Kane seemed to hold.
Cat wanted nothing but to give more.
“I saw the Venerable wrecked and sunk. I swam through the water with the bodies. I saw what you can do, what you are.” She pulled the necklace enough to make him move, closer and closer still. “What this world is.”
He smelled of sweat, salt, smoke. She ventured his skin tasted the same.
“You don’t know the half of it, Lady Rose,” Valerian growled, the air trembling between them.
Cat reveled in it, refusing to let go. Her pulse jumped in her throat, hammering against the callused curve of Valerian’s palm.
“I am willing to see, Captain Kane.”
Another moment stretched, torturous in length, infuriating and silent. The prayer bead dangled, the only thing between them besides the thin cotton of her gown. Out of the corner of Cat’s eye, the dying sunset filled the sea, turning the waves red as blood.
“It would be a kindness to turn you aside, to save you from what you refuse to understand,” Valerian said, shifting a little, so that his broad shoulders obscured her from anyone who might climb up the quarterdeck. He hissed a breath, sighing.
Relenting.
“I am not kind.”
She expected his kiss to burn, to set her on fire, to consume both of them in circling flames.
I should have known he was a storm instead of an inferno.
The hurricane of Valerian swept her up, fiercer than a gale wind, stronger than a crashing wave.
Everything spun, as if the Covenant itself was caught up in the maelstrom.
But they could be sinking to the bottom of the sea for all Cat cared.
There was nothing beyond Valerian. His hands, his teeth, his fingers beneath her jaw, angling her face just so.
She gasped, but his mouth was there to swallow it, lips parted, his breath her own.
Cat only knew what it was to kiss Ryman. After a split second, she promised herself she never would know it again.
Her spine curved, arcing backwards against the stern. It was not the necklace she held now but the folds of Valerian’s shirt, pulling him into her even as he did the same, roughly pressing her to him.
His lips moved against hers and the moments stretched, until she wondered if they might braid together entirely, two bodies melting into one.
Then he tightened, his muscles going rigid, his hands dropping to the taffrail, framing her body with his. And his face turned, lips pulling away, leaving Cat still spinning in the storm’s wake.