Page 46

Skip tilts his head as if questioning me.

“I swear to it, Skip. And I promise if you free me I will find Sedge and the rest of the pork from last night. Or the fish, we barely touched the fish we were so full. I’ll give you as much food as you want.” I’m starting to feel ridiculous pleading with a cat but I go on. “If those skeleton people get in here, they’ll attack me and I know the captain would be very mad at you if you let that happen.”

The tabby opens his mouth in a big yawn, canines showing, then turns, showing me its rear, and pads its way across the room and over to the chair where his breeches are. I didn’t even have to tell him, he’s already jumping up on the chair and fishing out the keys. I hear metal being unclipped and then the jangling of the keys and the next thing I know Skip is leaping off the chair and trotting toward me with the ring of keys in his mouth.

I watch in awe as he drops the keys right outside the bars of the cell.

“Mew,” he says plainly.

I reach through and take the keys. “Thank you, thank you. Good kitty.”

Then I get to my feet and fumble with the lock awkwardly. With the way it is on the outside it’s hard to get the key in but I eventually succeed. It happens at the same time the fighting from above sounds like it’s escalating with more muskets and pistols going off, the air smelling of powder.

I quickly open the door and step out of the cage and into the room, then go for the door out of his quarters. Naturally that’s locked from the outside, so I can’t get out either and none of the keys I have on the ring seem to work with it.

Blast, I swear. But then I think what the wordblastactually means.

I look over at his row of weapons and eye the flintlock musket. The king let me handle a musket once during a target practice outing. I understood the fascination with guns but to me it was far too impersonal to use. If I had to kill something, I wanted to do it face-to-face and with my bare hands.

But I do remember how it works and how to use one. I pick it off the wall and peer at it, unsure if it’s loaded with gunpowder or not. I jam the end of it against the ground just in case, so that if there is powder it will go back into the vent to take the spark from the striking flint.

Only one way to test it. I glance over at Skip who gives me a loud “meow” and then I aim it at the lock at the door, close enough that I shouldn’t miss.

I pull the trigger and the flint strikes.

The bullet fires, the sound of the blast filling the room followed by the door’s lock being blown off and clattering to the floor in pieces.

I don’t have time to reload the gun and I wouldn’t know how anyway, so I run back to the weapons, grab a knife, and then go back to the door, opening it to the chaos on the other side.

Except that at the moment, all of the skirmish seems to be happening on the top deck. I look behind me at Skip, gesturing with my head to follow me but he only goes under the table. Probably a smart move.

But me, I feel I must be on the offensive.

I step out, looking up the stairs to see a skeleton walking past, skin half-rotting off its horrible face, waving a sword around while Thane knocks it out of its hand with his cutlass.

“Looks like the pretty princess got out of her cage,” a gravely voice says from behind me. The sound of it makes my stomach turn.

I turn around to face Sterling who is leering at me.

“You should be upstairs fighting,” I tell him, searching for bravado.

“I think I’d rather be fighting you,” he says, smiling to show strangely perfect teeth. He reaches out and grabs my arm, trying to pull me away into the dark depths of the ship but I dig my heels in.

“You can’t touch me,” I tell him, trying to yank my arm away but to no avail. “I belong to him. He branded me. He claimed me in his name.”

Sterling frowns. “He did not.”

“You want to see?” I ask and then I reach down and gather my dress, pulling it up to show my hip.

His expression goes from wanton lust to one of pure disbelief, then hatred.

He actually steps back from me.

“That bastard claimed you,” he says with a wet growl. “I didn’t think he’d have the nerve.”

“He did,” I tell him, feeling emboldened now. “I belong to Captain Ramsay Battista and no one else. That’s his name in my skin. I’m his property.”

He snaps at me like he’s a mangy dog. “It’s your funeral then, poppet. You don’t know what you’ve signed up for.” He shoves me aside with a meaty hand so I go flying against the railing of the stairs. I can’t believe that Ramsay was telling the truth when he said his brand would keep me safe. “I’ve got to go help bring in a mermaid.”