Chapter 37
YOU’RE NOT HIM. YOU’LL NEVER BE HIM
RUNE
Warm sunlight pours through the round window beside the bed like molten gold.
It runs over the rivets in the fabric, pooling around our bodies.
Odi’s soft breath caresses my chest in her peaceful sleep.
She’s been in my arms since sundown. Spending a night of bliss exploring each other’s bodies hadn't been at the forefront of my mind when we first came back to the ship, but the moment my feet hit the deck, I needed sleep and to have Odi wrapped in my arms, and I have no intention of moving from my bed any time soon. I don’t even remember when I fell asleep, only waking when the sound of that wretched bird became too loud to possibly ignore.
Soft, cotton sheets mould to the shape of us entwined together.
I can feel the beat of her heart against my chest. It’s slow and steady.
Like the ocean gently lapping at the side of The Gilded Hart.
I can’t recall a time that I have ever felt this relaxed.
I feel as if I could lay in bed forever . . . and that never happens.
I lightly trace a finger up and down her arm, watching goose bumps appear on the surface of her skin in my wake.
How did we get so tangled together? And what do I do now, tell her I love her, only to let her go?
Dark brown waves of hair sprawl over her sun-kissed skin.
Glistening like melted chocolate. With a soft sigh, she nuzzles into the crook of my arm further and I catch a waft of her scent.
Fresh spring blossoms in a fruit orchard, mixed with the scent of my soap.
She reminds me of a meadow I saw once on the mainland.
The rolling green hills were covered in low growing wild flowers bathed in dappled sunlight.
She feels so lovely in my arms that I can’t help but slowly shift my weight so I’m on my side looking down at her.
Then I begin to trace faint kisses across her collar bone until the skin melts into the mound of her supple breasts that lay bare in the sun, beckoning me to nuzzle my nose into them.
Odi stirs gently by the time I reach her navel.
Her hand finds the top of my head, then I shiver as her fingers dig into my hair, nails dragging across my scalp. “Why are you awake?” she softly moans. “It’s too early.”
I smile, pressing another kiss to her stomach before moving my attention to her face. She giggles softly as I pepper more kisses over her eyelids, and down the tip of her nose. “Hard to sleep when there’s a viper in my bed.”
She pulls back, attention caught on the words. Her lips part, but before she has time to respond I claim them with mine, pulling her closer into my chest. Once I’ve kissed her soundly, I pull back. “Only because you’re cool to the touch, and being with you feels dangerous . . . and exciting.”
Her umber eyes squint, but a smile dances on her lips. “Ass,” she murmurs before pushing me flat so she can lay across my chest, resting her chin on her hand.
The sun gleams behind her, dusting the edges of her silhouette in gold.
With one hand behind my head, I reach the other out to tuck loose strands of her glossy hair behind an ear.
I’ve memorised the shape of her now, but there are still so many parts of her I’ve yet to discover. “Tell me about your mother.”
Her brow pinches. “My mother?”
I nod once. “Yes. I know enough about your father, but you don’t talk about her.”
She sighs softly. “What do you want to know?”
A small grin dances on my lips. “Everything.”
“Nobody’s ever asked me that before,” her voice trails off, laced with emotion.
Internally, I wince. I asked her with humour and she answered with pain.
The echo of it pushes against her tongue looking for an escape, and perhaps she just needs somewhere for that pain to go.
Someone to hold the weight of it for a while.
Someone to gently prod the barrier of grief she uses to protect herself. “I’m asking.”
Her jaw tightens, and for a moment I think she’s going to refuse, then a soft sigh escapes her lips. “She died fifteen years ago.”
The pain in her voice mirrors my own. Grief calling to grief. So I reach for her and gently squeeze her hand. “I’m so sorry.”
Odi is silent for a moment. Thinking. Her mind taking her back to a place she probably told herself she’d never visit again. I brush my thumb over her velvet cheek, letting her know I’m still here. “What was she like?”
“Too pure for this world. A wood nymph that fell in love with a pirate.” Her eyes glisten over. “Torn between land and sea.”
The words are raw, and I think I’m starting to understand. “Was she a deer like you?”
She nods, and I catch my breath at the way her hair spills over her shoulder to brush against my ribs.
“When I was seven. She gave me a necklace. Told me that it was so special only the ocean could offer it as a gift,” she murmurs, instinctively reaching for her neck. “I wish I still had it. It’s the only thing of her I had left.”
Dread coils in my gut like a snake. All this time, I thought she’d stolen it—like any pirate would.
That’s what made sense to me. But it wasn’t stolen.
It was her mother’s. A gift. And then hers.
And the ocean let her keep it. How do I tell her I carried it in my pocket for weeks, not understanding, only to lose it to the deep when the Sotor came?
I can’t tell her—I can’t. Telling her would only cut her twice—believing she’d lost it, and then hearing the truth from me. That I’d kept it. That it confounded me. I’d believed it could never belong to someone like her. That shame sits deep in my chest.
But it’s mine to carry. I can’t hurt her to unburden myself. Not now.
I gently graze my knuckles across her forearm. “How did she pass?”
Brown eyes map my face. “She was sick, but it wasn’t the visible kind.
The moment she married Ivor, the moment she left the mainland, she grew ill.
Ivor says it was because she had me but I think .
. . I think it was grief. I think becoming so detached from her shift made her waste away.
They knew she needed a doctor, but who treats the wife of a pirate? ”
Something in my chest tightens, gripping my heart with a grasp so tight it threatens to crush it. My tongue presses against the back of my teeth, words clawing to get out, but I swallow them down. Better to keep quiet. Better to let her speak first.
“She insisted on going to the mainland alone, said she’d have a better chance, but it didn’t matter. They locked her up, and she died behind bars while I was stuck on the Sea Bane. I never got to say goodbye,” Odi continues.
Tears well in the corner of her eyes, and I can’t stop myself. I reach for her, wrapping my arms around her waist and pulling her tight. “By the stars, Odi,” I whisper into her hair.
She rests her cheek on my chest. “After that, father swore land would never touch us again. He tried to make me hate it too. Taught me to take what I wanted, to cut first and never ask. Said it was the only way to survive.”
I drag my fingers up her spine, offering some sort of comfort, if that’s even possible. “And you believed him?”
“When you’re a child, all you can do is believe,” her voice is barely a whisper.
The words punch a hollow out in me. There’s the child I used to be too—believing.
Straining for a voice that meant home, the woman who vanished back into the tide and left me clinging to the wreckage of her absence.
Even now, I can taste salt in that memory, the brine she always carried on her skin.
I still believe that she’s out there somewhere.
My chest tightens, for the small, desperate boy who once cast his wishes into the waves, hoping the sea would answer.
Odi traces the shimmering patterns on my chest with her fingers. “I love my father for who he was when I was a little girl. But he hasn’t been that man for a very long time. And I’m never going back.”
I know what it’s like to run from a parent. Yet Ivor is much worse than my own father. Mine might scold me or strip away The Gilded Hart when I return, but he’d never hold a knife to my throat. The thought leaves a cold taste in my mouth. It morphs to others.
Protect her. Don’t let him touch her. Don’t let her think she’s alone in that fear.
The fear that if her father finds her, all her hope of freedom will be lost. That she would spend the rest of her days on his ship believing that she’d never be anything more than his bloody shadow. I won’t let that happen.
Odi moves her head to look up at me. The fire in her eyes is shadowed by unrelenting, feelingless pain.
I reach out to brush her cheek. “As long as you’re here with me, I won’t let him take you. And when we meet again, well, he’ll find I bite harder than he expects.”
With a soft groan, she straightens. Head shaking and jaw tight. “That’s what I’m afraid of. You getting hurt because of me. You, or anyone else here.”
A soft smile tugs the corner of my mouth.
I can’t help the way my body responds to her gentle confession.
I pull myself up into a sitting position, leaning my back against the headboard.
Then I shift her so she’s straddled across my lap, my hands resting gently on her thighs.
“That’s not your fear to carry, little doe. ”
Her shoulders lift and fall with ease. “It’s not something I can put down easily.”
I brush my thumb over her skin. “I’ll take the weight.”
For a brief moment she just stares at me, like she can't trust my truth. Like it’s too hard to swallow when all she’s known is carrying every burden alone. I pull her closer, wanting her to feel my steady embrace. “I have an apology to make,” I murmur.
Her brow raises, a faint smirk dancing on her lips. “Finally admitting that I can wield a blade better than you?”
I huff a soft laugh. “No. That’s never been a question.”
“What then?” She grins, leaning down to brush my lips with hers.