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Her eyes flash wildly in response to that. One day she’ll understand.

I walk around over to the side where her legs and hands are tied to the bars. I take out my dagger and make quick work of cutting her loose from the bars so that she’s entirely free.

“If you don’t wish to use the bucket, I can always escort you to the privy. Perhaps you’ve had enough of humility for now.”

I turn to leave my chambers when I hear a scraping sound and as I turn around to see what it is, I’m met with a bucket full of water right to my face, drenching me.

I close my eyes and let it cascade over me, spitting some out. Then I wipe my sopping hair off my face and give the princess a pointed look. She’s holding the empty bucket in her hands, eyes wild, chest heaving with breath.

“Perhaps I needed a freshening up too,” I tell her, spitting out another bit of water. “I thank you for that.”

Then I give her a little bow, droplets of water coming off me as I do so, before I turn on my heel and leave my chambers, locking the door behind me and leaving her to stew.

CHAPTER10

Maren

I wakeup to something licking my hand.

I lift my head, my body already stiffening, expecting to see one of the pirates on the ground beside me, about to do who knows what.

But what I see instead is the orange tabby cat from the other day. It stops licking my hand once it notices that I’m awake and sits back on its haunches, giving me a curious stare. Its eyes are the soft green of sea glass.

“Hello,” I say to it.

“Mew,” the cat responds.

“I suppose I should get up, shouldn’t I?” I say to it, to which it meows again.

I groan and push myself up halfway, surveying the scene.

I’m lying on the floor of the cage, the bag of food still in the corner. The ground has dried from where I tossed the water through the bars and soaked the captain head to toe. I should regret it since I would have liked to have cleaned myself up and put on a new dress, but the look on his face was worth it. At any rate, if he deems my smell intolerable, then I’m going to revel in it out of spite.

That said, I do feel more filthy than I ever have before and I find myself gravitating toward the clean gown. I sit back, being careful not to put any pressure on where he branded me.

I can scarcely believe he did that. Or I can, it’s just that his method of cruelty took me by surprise. I’m so used to being beaten and battered and called names, that to be branded with a hot iron was something that took me off-guard. Frankly, I was expecting something worse, especially when he humiliated me by taking up my dress and baring my bottom and legs to him. And yet, even though I felt his lust for me once again, he didn’t act on it. I suppose my current state of uncleanliness deterred him and saved me from that type of savagery.

Though he seems to think that by branding me and keeping me in a cage, he’s the one saving me. I don’t understand it. He’s the captain and it’s clear that everyone on the ship, save that Sterling beast, respects and listens to him. Surely Sterling would know to keep his hands off me if the captain told him to. And yet it seemed like branding me was the only way to “claim” me.

It doesn’t really matter though. The way that pirates do things are different than anyone civilized might do. They act according to their own code and there seems to be cultural differences within their own Brethren. Perhaps by the time this voyage is over I’ll have learned a thing or two.

The thought depresses me. I pull my blue dress toward me and hold it up to my face, feeling the clean fabric, pressed by the servants right before we left on our travels. The dress smells like Ferdinand’s palace, like linen and florals and the incense the locals would light.

Daphne.

The smell brings forth the image of Daphne as she was, always pleasant and smiling and terribly funny at times.

Then the horror of seeing her dead hits me like bricks and I blink back the tears this time, determined not to cry. The salt from my tears reminds me too much of home and all I’ve lost since then.

I breathe in deeply, keeping the dress pressed to my face, wishing I could be somewhere else.

But where would I even go? What is there for me?

Home. Keep your head on Limonos. Keep your focus on getting across the Pacific alive. Let Limonos be your compass.

“Mew?”

I bring the dress off my face to see the cat staring at me.