Page 29 of A Princess, Stolen (A Kiss of Revenge, Blood, and Love #1)

N athan went out again to retrieve my life preserver, but the water had washed it overboard. He gave me his and tied it so tightly that I couldn’t get it off on my own. “Not even in a trance,” he teased and shook his head again, completely dumbfounded. “We’ll talk about this later.”

I didn’t know how to explain everything to him properly since I barely understood myself. Why had I even seen Mom? The last time was years ago. Was it my fear?

As we climbed the stairs to the bridge, Nathan followed so that I wouldn’t fall. In the control room, I sat on my jump seat completely soaked, and pulled my legs up, placing my feet on the seat. Everyone stared at me strangely but said nothing.

I was completely beside myself. Because of Mom and Nathan.

I could still feel his kiss on my lips, my first real kiss.

I had imagined it differently. And even though my thoughts had rarely turned to the subject, I had painted this moment in pastel colors.

Now, there was a picture full of chaos and darkness, full of anger and wildness.

Full of turbulence. And yet I loved the image.

I kept glancing at Nathan, and every now and then, he caught my eye. Then, he smiled so slightly that I imagined none of the others could see it, only me.

However, my feelings were swiftly replaced by the fear of capsizing. The wind shifted. The severe weather changed course and the violent gusts and high seas unleashed a formidable storm over the next hour. No one was talking about storm tails anymore because we were in the middle of the inferno.

I needed the bucket. I vomited until there was nothing left in my stomach before I looked out from where I was huddled in my corner.

The waves grew into mountains and the wind howled across the main deck as if God was playing a giant pan flute.

The rain descended from the sky like a waterfall.

The cupboard doors merely rattled due to the little leeway they had thanks to Troy’s cable ties, and dishes, tools, and a thousand other things clattered as they shifted from side to side.

It was spooky. The Agamemnon suddenly seemed like a tiny nutshell that was being tossed back and forth by the fury of the sea.

I looked at Nathan but his gaze was focused. For minutes, the waves had barely been visible through the spray. Everything was as white as a blind eye.

I was relieving my hand from the frantic grasping when a violent shudder ran through the cutter and I was tossed hard from my seat onto my knees. It took a while for me to realize that a wave had broadsided us.

There was chaos on the bridge. Sparta had also fallen and the others were clinging to consoles and rails.

“Water over the deck and hatches!” I heard Nathan shout.

I pulled myself onto the jump seat and stared out.

My fear turned to panic that was purely about survival.

I saw through the spray that they weren’t waves but breakers.

They seemed as high as houses, much higher than the cutter.

I clung to a railing. The Agamemnon tipped sideways, rose at an angle, and for a split second, all I saw was a dark gray wall of water.

Simply water. Only water. A rising monstrous wave.

The rusty steel groaned, and suddenly, we were floating on the crest, weightless in the sky.

Then, the cutter plunged downward like a roller-coaster ride and slammed broadside into the wave’s trough.

I was knocked off my feet and thrown against Pan, who was closest to me.

“Sit!” he yelled, this time, though, it didn’t sound angry, just fearful.

A dangerous situation seemed to have become a life-threatening one.

Coming from all sides, these waves were too high for the small cutter.

With my heart racing, I crawled back to the wall and gripped the rail with both hands.

My eyes fell on Nathan. I saw him from the side.

He looked like he was fighting the sea. Actually, he always seemed to be fighting something.

“Turn!” I heard him saying almost imploringly. I assumed he meant the cutter. I knew from Dad that a boat could be knocked over by side waves, so the bow had to be perpendicular to the waves. It was called riding the waves.

I didn’t get a chance to think about it any further because another blow shook the hull. I kneeled and peered through the windshield before the bow was slammed into the sea again at an angle. Spray and water washed over the glass, and for a few seconds, we were blinded by the sea.

“Shit!” the man with the greyhound face shouted from somewhere.

“Turn around, damn it!” Everyone suddenly shouted in unison.

Sparta threw up in the bucket that had rolled away from me and a frightened Pan crossed himself.

It was as if death had suddenly entered the room.

The bow sank further than I had believed possible.

Water flowed over the deck, buoys, cranes, and nets.

I held my breath and stared, stunned by the white wall in front of us.

A roaring mixture of water, spray, and wind.

But something was different. Something squeaked and creaked as if the cutter was about to burst apart and the nails were flying around our ears like projectiles.

A dark feeling trembled in my stomach like a premonition.

I blinked and then I saw it. Something flying, yellow.

“Watch out, get down!” I shouted and ducked, and the next moment, the flying thing crashed full force into the bridge window.

Glass shattered and a collective scream reverberated over the consoles and equipment.

When I looked up, the top of a fishing crane was sticking out of the front window exactly where Nathan had been standing.

He was kneeling on the floor, staring into my eyes, dazed and shocked.

Everyone else glanced in my direction in silence. Taurus was on all fours, pulling a shard of glass out of his hand when the next blows struck the ship’s hull like bolts.

I no longer knew which way was up or down.

I slipped around, hit something, and suddenly felt a weight on me, heavy and wet from the rain.

“Stay down!” Nathan shouted as a torrent of water poured through the broken window and washed over us.

He pushed my head to the floor and pressed his next to it as the next giant wave broke over the Agamemnon.

“Stay down. Everyone,” Nathan commanded the room and jumped up himself. “Pan, stay with her!”

I had no idea what he was doing when another blow struck, and suddenly, Pan was half on top of me, pressing me to the floor with his massive body.

I was so dizzy with fear that it didn’t even bother me. Buckets and tools slid across the floor as if we were listing. No one spoke. No one shouted. I tried to grab hold of something, but I couldn’t find anything, only Pan held me in place.

The engine stopped roaring with the next crash and the lights went out.

The sudden darkness sent me into panic overload, and although the sea was still raging and the rain clattering, it seemed to me as if it was uncannily quiet.

“The engines have failed!” I heard Delphi shout from somewhere, sounding terribly loud to me.

Trembling, I raised my head to search for Nathan but didn’t find him. Instead, I saw Sparta at the helm next to the part of the crane that had shattered the window. “That miserable fool!” he shouted angrily. “He has to play the hero.”

Pan rose to his knees over me but swayed threateningly. “Nathan hanging on ropes over bow! Without vest!”

“What?” Shocked, my heart skipped a beat.

Taurus, who was kneeling next to us, spat blood into the water that was washing over the floor. “He’ll kill himself. And then we all will be screwed. Shit!”

I propped myself up on my arms, trying to rise, but Pan pushed me down. “Stay down. I watch!”

“What about Nathan?” I screamed. The bow sank and a load of spray hissed through the window followed by a deafening crash.

Wood splintered somewhere and Pan threw himself on top of me.

His weight squeezed the air out of my lungs, and for an instant, the darkness seemed to be the belly of a whale that had swallowed us.

Please, don’t let anything happen to Nathan! I thought, and as if my prayer had been answered, the door flew open and Nathan was catapulted onto the bridge as if the ocean had spat him out.

Water flowed from his jet-black hair and soaked clothes. He must have hurt himself too because a stream of blood ran from his hairline down his temple. “The lifeboat was completely demolished by the crane,” he said grimly, but still, I wanted to throw my arms around him simply because he was back.

“You should put on a life jacket if you’re going out there again,” I heard Sparta spit out angrily. Pan rose halfway above me so that I could at least see something. Nathan staggered to the helm that Sparta was holding. “We’re all out,” he replied tersely.

Sparta handed him the helm. “Where’s yours?”

“Willa’s wearing it. Hers went overboard.”

Sparta gave me a withering look but spared me the comments as he took off his life jacket. “Take mine.”

“No.” Nathan checked something on a desk.

“Come on! You know…”

“No!” Nathan looked up and eyed Sparta darkly. “You know I don’t want to hear it. Put it back on! Just put that goddamn thing back on, got it?”

“But…”

“No buts. We’re one short now, but I’m in charge and I say put yours back on!”

Sparta blanched, his dreadlocks hanging around his head like waterlogged wool, but he put the jacket back on, cursing.

Shivering, I rubbed my arms. The new memory buzzed through my head.

Where are the life jackets? Where’s the fire extinguisher?

I can’t swim! And neither can Willa .