Page 36

I give him a discerning glance. He really insists on such a charade, doesn’t he? As if he has any real manners at all.

“If you please,” he adds and I sit down reluctantly, gathering in my dress, and he takes his place beside me at the head of the table.

The door to his chambers opens and a very tall gangly man steps in, long blond hair swept back in a braid and a softness to his eyes that the other pirates seem to lack, marred only by a long scar down one side of his face. He’s carrying a roasted boar on the plate, or at least the bottom half of one.

The man sets it down on the middle of the table while the boy from earlier, the captain’s nephew, runs in with bowls and forks and dishtowels, placing it beside the boar before he runs back out of the room.

“Sorry it’s not the boar’s head,” the captain says to me. “That’s Drakos’ favorite, and with the way he dislodged your husband yesterday, he more than deserves it.” He nods at the man. “Sedge, make sure you have your fair share, too. No rationing tonight. We need to keep up our strength for what’s to come.”

Sedge nods and motions with his hands quickly.

The captain eyes his hands and then says, “Yes, a bottle or two of the Madeira wine, thank you.”

“Can he not speak?” I ask as Sedge leaves.

The captain reaches over and hands me my plate and fork. “No. Never could. Can write some and talk using his hands. Just a little…I wouldn’t call him slow, he’s quite bright, but lucky.”

“Lucky?” I repeat, the bitterness coating my tongue as I remember what it was like to go without a voice.

“Aye,” he says, spearing a piece of meat with his fork and putting it on my plate. “Maybe not so much being a mute, but in that the way he looks at the world reminds me of my…well…” he clears his throat and drifts off, now spooning some cooked tropical fruits onto my plate, a sauce of sorts.

Reminds you of your…?I want to ask. From the sudden darkness in his eyes, I can tell it’s something he doesn’t want to talk about.

Sedge comes back in with a dusty bottle of wine and two goblets, placing them in front of the captain. He stares at him with an expectant look and though Sedge doesn’t look childish in any way, there is that softness in his eyes I saw earlier and the slightest hint of a smile above a round chin.

“That will be all Sedge,” he says and Sedge nods, going out the door and closing it behind him.

“How did he end up as part of the crew?” I ask, gingerly picking up my fork as if I hadn’t held one in years.

“I killed his family,” the captain says it so simply that for a moment I don’t think I’m hearing him right.

“Oh,” I say, putting my fork back down.

He gives me a quick smile. “You’re disappointed in me, luv. You shouldn’t be.”

“Because you’re a pirate.”

“Because sometimes we do what we must to survive.”

“You don’t have to kill people…” but the moment I say that, I stop and think of what I am. A killer like him. Maybe I never took a life when I was a Syren, but I eventually would have. I was raised to be one.

“But sometimes you do,” he says. “And anyway, I killed them and regretted it when I discovered him, still alive and hiding from me. So I took him. He was my first brand.”

My fork clatters against the plate. “You took him andbrandedhim?”

He shrugs. “He became my property.”

“He’s a human,” I implore him.

“Yes. He is a human. And the world is changing, Princess. If I hadn’t taken Sedge, he would have died. There would have been no one to look after him. Society shuns those that are different. They refuse them any care. So I took him on the ship. We had no need for a cook but it turns out he was rather good at it, something he was allowed to do in his life before. He took a shine to it and to us. Perhaps because we treated him like a normal human being and not a child.”

“But you still branded him like he’s livestock.” I’m unable to keep the disgust out of my tone.

“I told you that you wouldn’t understand. But it was for his own safety too.”

My eyes go big. “You have men ravishing each other on this ship?”

“Ravishing?” He lets out a large bark of a laugh. “Oh. Well. Yes. There’s some of that. Wanted by both parties, mind you. We don’t think about things like that too deeply here.”