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Dashing out into the street, I looked around. “Killian?”

No, no, no… don’t leave me. I’ll give us a chance!

He was my lifeline. The one who kept me together.

Circling around, desperation and grief heaved my body when I could no longer feel him near.

Killian was gone, and something in my gut told me it was for good.

Collapsing on the cement, I sobbed, my wails curving my body over itself.

My best friend had left me. My father was dead. I had nothing and no one.

It was only me.

Maybe I could have loved Killian. Perhaps this is what I need to figure out. Killian deserved so much happiness, but I could not give him what he wanted right now.

After my father died, my heart perished with him. It was empty and cold. It craved vengeance. It sought the blood of my victim to fill it again, to pump life into my veins.

I couldn’t love anyone until I fulfilled my vow to my father. +Until Croygen became another victim to the Davy Jones’s locker.

I would not rest.

I would become the most ruthless pirate, and I would seek my revenge.

Chapter 4

Croygen

Two years after departure

The muggy air made my shirt cling to my skin, the fans overhead and the slight breeze from the ocean doing little to ebb the stuffy heat in the packed tavern. A large figure crashed against my table, forcing me to grab my drink before it spilled. His attacker appeared, peeling him off and punching him again, flinging his body onto another table across from me.

The fight was probably over something stupid. No one here, including the bartender, would stop it. Let them wear each other out until they both forgot why they were brawling in the first place.

Or kill each other.

Either option was probable. Especially here.

“Fuck off, bloody eejit,” the giant bearded Scotsman across from me muttered into his cup, scowling at the men. “Was shit this bad back then?”

“It was worse,” I replied. “We were just a hell of a lot younger then. Wewerethose assholes.” I motioned to the pair.

Scot snorted into his drink. “Yeah, I remember skelping ya pretty good.”

“Think your memory is faulty, my friend.” I rolled my shoulders, settling into my chair.

The Scotsman was probably the only person I trusted out here. He had been with me for a long time. His alliance to me had never wavered, which was rare in this profession as a “tradesman.” Even when I disappeared, giving up piracy after the fall of the Golden Era when pirates like Blackbeard, Ned Lowe, and Sam Bellamy reigned over the high seas. I took a sip of whiskey, trying to appear relaxed like I was any other person enjoying the evening, though I was aware of everything here. Shifting under my dark lashes, my gaze darted around the space, keeping tabs on every single person and interaction.

This wasn’t a place tourists would find themselves since the island of Salt Cray, part of the Turks and Caicos Islands, had become the new “Port Royal” for the modern wave of pirates. It ballooned after the wall between Earth and the Otherworld fell. Human technology crashed, and fae were now known to humans, throwing the world into chaos.

Chaos was fertilizer for piracy. A vacuum in our world that was ripe to take advantage of. Should my connection to the rulers of the Unified Nations make me feel guilty about doing so? If it did, I drank it away, as staying in the neutral area was my nature. This territory was still owned by the British, which was under the umbrella of Lars and Kennedy, but separate enough to give me the excuse I was just helping Larsdistributehis new technology to a wider audience across the globe.

I was a pirate, and I needed to remember that, and not who I was before I got domesticated by Zoey and the rest.

When I left piracy, lost and alone, I met a woman I considered my soulmate. For a long time, I pursued her. Didanythingfor her, convinced she would see it too and love me. Little did I know she not only loved someone else, but someone I now considered a friend. She was such a con artist it took me centuries to see through her shit. She twisted me up so much, but I kept going back for more.

“Never again,” I muttered into my drink, taking another swig.