Page 26 of A Princess, Stolen (A Kiss of Revenge, Blood, and Love #1)

“None of your business! Eat, now, because I don’t plan on sitting here forever.”

“I…I can’t.” This time, I blurted out the words violently and looked at him imploringly. He should understand that there was something I couldn’t say in front of the whole crew.

“Okay. So you can’t.” He stared at me for a while and seemed to be thinking about how to interpret my expression.

Then he nodded to the men, and without saying a word, they all rose.

Even Taurus, who was still eating, stuck his bread between his teeth.

In silence, they took their plates and used cutlery, and left the room one by one.

Since Troy was the last to leave the room, he looked at me intently and shook his head while nodding his chin toward Nathan.

Don’t provoke him! is how I interpreted his look.

I nodded back almost imperceptibly.

Luckily, Nathan didn’t see it because he turned his back on me and closed the door. He stood in front of it with his arms crossed. Basically, he didn’t do anything; nothing that indicated any danger to me. He just stared at me intently. Maybe that was the reason my heart pounded wildly.

“I…I can’t eat that,” I stammered awkwardly.

He still said nothing.

I blinked. “You mustn’t tell anyone.”

“Tell them what?”

“What I’m about to tell you. Promise me.”

His lips grew thin, his gaze cool. “I can’t do that.”

“Please. It’s important. Vital to my survival.

Remember your promise that nothing will happen to me here.

” It was underhanded to mention the promise, but he didn’t know that Troy had told me about Lea and the bayous.

He stared at me silently for a few seconds and his eyes narrowed.

“Okay,” he finally said reluctantly, “I promise if it doesn’t jeopardize the plan. ”

“It doesn’t.”

“Then go ahead.”

“I’m allergic to all kinds of nuts and egg whites.” So, now I had revealed my best-kept secret to the man who held my life in his hands.

For a while, Nathan stood there as still as he had days ago when I had told him I had to use the bathroom. “You are allergic to egg white and nuts?” he asked slowly as if his mind refused to formulate the sentence. Yes, almost as if he didn’t even know what an allergy was.

I nodded.

“That’s why you didn’t want to eat anything. Not even the cake.”

I nodded again.

“How bad is it?”

“Bad.”

He snorted impatiently. “How bad, I want to know!”

“Do you know what anaphylactic shock is?”

“Of course. Just because I don’t make billions doesn’t mean I’m stupid,” he replied angrily.

“I didn’t mean…”

“What do you think we are? Complete idiots?”

“Criminals. Serious criminals.”

“Watch it, but yes!”

“But you are, aren’t you?” I said quietly.

We looked at each other and I thought about last night when his pupils had dilated so much that it seemed as if he liked me. I had heard and read many times that that only ever happened when you liked the person you were speaking to. But he couldn’t like me. But what if he did?

“I told you, don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?” I asked, confused.

“Stop using your charm, blinking, and your pretty face. It doesn’t work on me. It doesn’t work on anyone here. Even if it does, you’ll only invite disaster on board.”

“And I told you that it’s a tic.”

“Get rid of it!”

“I can’t turn it off. You can’t control tics. That’s their nature.”

“Their nature? For God’s sake, do something else! Shuffle your feet, make faces…do something that makes you ugly!”

I blinked again. Unintentionally.

He swore angrily, went out, and came back with a packet of crackers and packaged bread. After studying the ingredients, he tossed both onto the table. “Your daily bread. You can eat it without any worries, okay!” He reached for the door handle, but I held him back.

“Nathan.”

“What?”

Thank you , I wanted to say, but I remained silent because I didn’t owe him any thanks. After all, I was probably here mainly because of him and he had had me locked up. “Never mind.”

He looked at me but showed no emotion. “Stay here until I come get you, okay?”

“Yes.”

He sighed with thin lips. I probably blinked again.

It was only when I was eating that I realized how hungry I had actually been.

I finished two loaves of bread and almost the entire packet of crackers when Nathan returned and took me to the tiny shower room right next to the even tinier bathroom.

He posted Pan as a guard outside, which was worrying for two reasons.

First, it was Pan. Second, Nathan believed I needed to be guarded for my protection even though he had said the men weren’t killers.

But maybe they would do something else to me, like stick my head in the toilet in an improvised waterboarding.

Mykonos appeared to be just waiting for the right moment.

Sparta and Taurus too. I wasn’t so sure about Pan anymore.

I hadn’t forgotten his words about his mom.

They had been so out of character for him.

So that I could shower in peace, I decided to trust Nathan, and maybe Pan was merely standing outside the door to stop me from trying to escape again.

I quickly slipped out of my dress, which clung to me like stiff whipped cream.

Then, I took off my underwear, turned on the old showerhead, and lathered myself from my toes to the top of my head with the men’s shower gel that was lying around.

It smelled of mint, and with the warm water, it felt tingly and invigorating on my skin.

For several minutes, I closed my eyes and imagined being in my bathroom temple.

It felt so good to wash away all the grime, this first shock of my abduction.

I was so engrossed in my cleansing ritual that I cried out in surprise when I stumbled against the wall. Instinctively, I ducked expecting a blow, but there was no one there. I was alone.

“Prinsessa? You okay?” came from outside.

“Yes,” I called back quickly so Pan would not come in and see me stark naked.

I shook my head in confusion. You’re probably just exhausted , I told myself. That was probably why I slipped.

I rinsed my hair and stumbled again, this time against the faucet. I sat down on the floor for a moment and took a deep breath. Just move slowly .

Shakily, I dried myself while sitting on the wet floor and rubbed my hair.

I held on to a bar with one hand and slipped into the clothes that Troy had brought me earlier.

Men’s underpants, an ancient ribbed undershirt, jeans, and a burgundy hoodie.

The outfit of the first shift. Fantastic!

Plus white socks and a pair of sturdy boots like everyone wore here—needless to say, everything was several sizes too big for me, but the outfit was extremely warm.

For the first time, I wasn’t so cold anymore.

While it was still wet, I braided my hair and wrapped the band and ring together in a strand.

When I peered into the mirror to check if the ring could be seen from the outside, I flinched.

The shadows under my eyes looked like they had been painted on with a short-bristle brush.

The tube of paint in my paint box was called liturgical black.

My eyes were red and glassy from all the crying, my gaze frightened.

Luckily, Dad never saw me in that state.

I was about to open the door when my shoulder hit the wall. “Crap, damn it!”

“You’re swearing?” That was Nathan.

“And?” You’re eavesdropping! Annoyed, I rubbed my shoulder and tried to get over the shock of having apparently gotten into a washing machine that was throwing me around at will. This time, I was certain I hadn’t tripped.

Nathan knocked vigorously. “Are you finished? If not, hurry up!”

The first thing I noticed when I stepped into the corridor was the general bustle of the crew. Troy was disappearing into a room with a handful of cable ties while shouting and hammering was going on above deck.

“What’s going on?” I thought about Isaac.

Maybe he was coming aboard and the men were preparing for his arrival—whatever there was to do.

However, then another thought struck, rising straight out of the darkness of my fear.

I hastily climbed the ladder far enough to look outside.

My heart skipped a beat. Salt was in the air, salt and the wild roar of the ocean.

Storm winds whipped across the sea, causing the waves to smash against the hull from all sides.

Nathan had followed me. “Category five. That’s why I untied you this morning. No one should be tied up below deck in a storm.”

“In a storm?” I felt myself turning pale. That was why I was staggering the whole time.

“We’re going around the area, but we can’t avoid the storm’s tail end.”

“But…” I climbed back down and braced myself against the wall as black dots flickered in my field of vision. “A storm,” I whispered. Just like back then .

Out of my memory came a sound like a champagne cork popping, an explosive pop followed by a dull hum that echoed in my ears. I blinked and was caught in the noise for a few seconds even though everything around me seemed silent as if someone had muted the sound.

“What is it?”

I felt Nathan touch my shoulder and forced myself to stay in the present because I didn’t want to drift back into the past. With puffed-out cheeks, I breathed in on two and out on four a few times in a row. “I hate thunderstorms. I hate storms. I hate the Atlantic,” I managed to say at some point.

“I know,” he replied softly, pulling his hand back.

He knew? “How?”

He looked at me almost gently. “We all know. Or we thought so. Your mom drowned. It was in the press. Not that I would have thought of it myself, it was a long time ago. But…some of us…meticulously collected data and facts about you.” His hair fell across his face despite the headband and he automatically pushed it back.

“All I knew was that your mom was dead. You told me. I suspected that the Atlantic would not be at the top of your list for hostage shelters .”