Chapter Twenty-Eight Before #3
“You don’t know the half of it,” he murmured again, his tempest eyes on the waves and the last inches of sunlight.
Her fingers curled, as if she could keep him steady.
There was no mistaking the look on Valerian’s face.
Flushed and gasping for breath, a light sheen of sweat gleaming on his collarbone.
Black pupils blown wide, eating up the green of his gaze.
The way his hands flexed on either side of her hips, as if he fought the urge to hold her.
The raw want, the desire. She felt the same—near drowning with the need for him.
Valerian touched her again, but just to break her grip on his shirt. This time, his fingers felt like ice, and when he turned away, Cat remained, frozen as a Meridian winter.
She watched him go, steady in his pace, outwardly the sure and swaggering captain of the Covenant. He left her alone at the helm, with nothing but the first stars overhead and the wheel of the ship creaking softly.
For a blistering moment, Cat thought about seizing it. Gripping the wood as Valerian did, spinning the ship off course and away from its heading. To anywhere else in the world.
Instead, she descended the quarterdeck, never looking up. She moved swiftly, lest she throw the last of her shame away and chase Valerian through the ship.
But she did not lock her cabin door and waited for a knock all night.
It never came.
* * *
SHE AWOKE TO the rough scuff of boots overhead, too many feet shuffling across the quarterdeck.
The borrowed bunk had become a haven, despite the threadbare blankets and lumpy mattress.
It was better than any bed shared with Ryman Rose, and Cat clung to it, even as she groaned into her pillow, the events of the previous day racing back to her.
Ana’s words, Cat’s shameful request to join the ship—Valerian’s kiss.
And his rejection afterwards, stalking away from her, leaving her gasping in his wake.
Just another conquest to add to his other trophies.
It was all too much to face first thing in the morning, and she refused to get up.
But the sounds on deck persisted, impossible to ignore. The day had begun, and she peered out through slitted eyes, bracing for the warm burst of sun.
There was only the cold, bare light before dawn, washed weak and blue, barely a ghost between the thin curtains of Valerian’s cabin.
Cat sighed in relief. She had an hour or so yet before the day would truly begin.
An hour more to sleep or simply lie quiet, avoiding all thought of what lay ahead.
Or what she had already done, the taste of Valerian Kane still lingering on her lips.
The boots scuffed again, steps sounding directly above her. At the helm, beside the ship’s wheel and the compass.
Much as she wanted to shut her eyes and retreat to the cover of the blankets, Cat sat up, training her focus on the ceiling.
By now, she knew what it was to sail on the Covenant.
What the routines were, which chores and tasks happened when.
What the wheel sounded like when it spun, the tiller creaking, the great rudder of a greater ship moving with the pull of ropes and gears.
And Cat moved with it, feeling the gentle but undeniable shift of the Covenant turning onto a different course.
Or towards their final destination.
Sickness leapt up in Cat’s throat, an image of Rosby already branded in her mind.
She saw it silhouetted against the rising dawn, black as a yawning grave.
Before she knew it, her bare feet were on the timbers, her borrowed nightgown whipping around her as she hurried for the deck, all her thoughts narrowed to one.
Please turn around.
She flung open the outer door to find a low fog, thick as a storm cloud, obscuring the sea in almost every direction. The pale blue of ebbing night fought through at spare intervals, the gaps offering a glimpse of the distant horizon. Cat spun, hunting for Rosby through the gloom.
Around her, far more crew than expected moved on the deck, early to their errands, hazy shadows in the fog. A few crept along the rails, while more climbed into the rigging, the weak light glinting on metal. Belt buckles. Jewelry. Knives.
Long guns.
Her heartbeat sputtered, her eyes widening as more of the deck came into sharp, terrible focus.
At the prow, Cavallid doused the lantern dangling from the bowsprit, just above the carved lion.
At the mainmast, Mr. Brimley did the same, scurrying up to blow out the flame.
Cat turned in time to see the last lamp extinguished on the quarterdeck, plunging the helm deeper into darkness.
But not Valerian Kane. Somehow, the captain of the ship still stood out against the blue-gray shadows, his silhouette carved against the shuttered sky.
Cat stared up at him, trying to read the stern expression on his face.
He wore the same clothes as the evening before, albeit armed with his gun and knives.
His mouth and brow were hard and grim, the lines on his face dug deeper by the darkness.
It made his eyes all the more piercing, taking in every inch of the ship.
His helmsman stood by his shoulder, Ana by the other.
The absolute silence in which the crew worked was most frightening of all.
They were ghosts, fading in and out of sight, readying the ship with little more than a light footstep or a hiss of rope.
Cat’s heartbeat sounded louder than the sail unfurling overhead, her pulse a drumbeat drowning out the clink of a pistol being loaded.
One gun after another. Flintlocks, rifles, muskets.
The swivel guns on the rails, like cannons in miniature, their first shots loaded from neatly organized piles already assembled on deck.
They’re hunting, Cat thought, the sickness of Rosby turning to cold terror.
And then Valerian’s eyes found her, leaping from a sailor coiling rope to her upturned face.
It felt like a twisted mirror of the evening before, when he stared down at her from the quarterdeck, inviting her in.
A few hours ago, it had been difficult to look at him and not think of his hands, the graze of his teeth, the warmth of his chest pressed against her back in her dream.
Now she knew what he tasted like but could think only of the knife at his hip, the pistol at the other. And the storm in his eyes, eager to be unleashed on whatever unsuspecting souls wandered across his path.
He did not blink, still staring at her as he spoke in a whisper, orders spilling from his mouth like blood from a wound.
The helmsman leapt to obey, spinning the wheel to whatever heading Valerian named.
Ana moved swiftly from his side, her black hair loose around her face, a matching swath of kohl streaked around her eyes, a curved knife with a wicked edge at her hip.
It gave her the look of some warrior god, dangerous and divine.
Cat braced as the first mate padded down the stairs, waiting to be grabbed and thrown back in her cabin.
She was barefoot, but why, Cat had no idea and there was no chance to ask.
Ana passed her with only a sliding glance, the look in her vibrantly painted eyes stern, but not unkind.
She motioned as she walked the deck, her feet making no noise at all.
Her fingers danced, communicating without words, signaling to other members of the crew.
For what, Cat had no idea, but they certainly did.
Sailors fell in behind her, their eyes painted in the same fashion, naked blades at their hips, their own shoes discarded.
Perhaps it will be like the Credence, she thought, remembering the crossing. Perhaps the prize will surrender without a shot fired, and all this will be over without bloodshed.
Even in her mind, it felt like a foolish hope. The crew were ready for battle, hungry for it even.
You don’t know the half of it, Valerian had said.
He was not lying.
It was like seeing the Covenant for the first time all over again, when she clung to the wreck of the Venerable. The pirate ship was not a sanctuary but a beast of the sea, a predator who feasted on the spoils of the Lyrian with no concern for whatever she left in her bloody wake.
Through it all, Valerian stared down on her, his gaze an anchor holding her to the deck. Finally, he motioned with his hand too, throwing out a signal.
And Garedo melted out of the gloom. Before Cat could open her mouth to greet him, he had her by the arm, his usually kind face stoic.
“Return to your cabin, my lady,” he muttered under his breath, barely a whisper, softer than silk.
Cat wanted to obey. She willed her feet to step, her body to relent and allow Mr. Garedo to lead her back to the quarterdeck.
But her chest tightened, as if invisible walls were suddenly pressing at her from all sides.
Maybe they were. The walls of a cabin—not Valerian’s—but the little cabin on the Venerable, the one she had shared with her maid, Sara, clutching prayer beads through a storm.
Sara, who drowned when the Venerable exploded, trapped beneath the deck in a sinking ship.
Somehow her body made it to the surface, floating up to bid farewell.
Will mine?
“I’m not going inside,” Cat snapped, twisting against Mr. Garedo’s grip. It was weak, his hands still gentle even if his face was not, and she broke his hold easily. The motion set her off balance and Cat stumbled, fighting to breathe against the sensation of being crushed. Or drowned. “I’m not—”
The hand over her mouth was harsh, the one grasping her neck harsher still.
Rough skin, calluses, fingers digging in to keep her from thrashing free.
They were the same hands that had held her at dusk, and yet so vastly different.
Cat tried to fight him off, raising her fists to push back on Valerian’s chest. She might as well have smacked a brick wall; he never wavered, bearing down on her with grim focus.