Page 30 of A Princess, Stolen (A Kiss of Revenge, Blood, and Love #1)

The wind was now whistling through the broken windshield as loudly as a teakettle.

I clung to the railing I had crawled to again.

Mom had been crying. I pushed the images back, there was no time for them now, but one thing had become clear to me: There was a reason I had forgotten everything.

It sounded heroic when Dad said that Mom had sacrificed herself for me and that she had wanted it that way.

But had it really been that way or did he simply say it to calm me down?

Maybe Mom would only have decided that if she had been able to think about it in peace, like someone had asked her that morning.

She was so afraid. Panicking and desperate. She knew she was going to die.

And I—I screamed for Dad!

Dad! I looked out with a pounding heart. The sea suddenly seemed calmer as if it had ejected its greatest anger. We were standing perpendicular to the crests of the waves again. Maybe the worst was over.

I looked at the men, but they still seemed uneasy.

With his back to everyone, Sparta looked out.

Nathan stood next to a box with black levers next to the wheel; the greyhound-faced guy and Troy were trying to reattach a detached panel; Taurus, Delphi, and Pan were fiddling with the lodged head of the crane while the rest of the crew came up to the bridge.

Either they didn’t know I was here or they didn’t care.

There were a handful of men in blue overalls wearing orange life jackets.

“Most of the windows on the lower deck are broken,” one reported, who reminded me of a hobbit. “Water in all the corridors and chambers.”

“Fuck!” Nathan turned to the speaker. “How high?”

“Knee-deep.”

“Knee-deep?” Taurus looked at the top of the smaller man’s head. “Maybe for you.”

Someone snorted and sparks flew from a broken cable.

Nathan walked over and examined the cable. “We need to turn off the electricity until the lines are fixed. Completely.”

“If we do that, we won’t be able to run the pumps,” the one with the greyhound face who did the magic tricks interjected. “And we need the pumps for the water.”

“If we don’t turn off the electricity, we might have a nice little fire on the Agamemnon. Then you can spread your wings, Icarus.”

I wanted to remember the name Icarus for the greyhound man, but all I heard was fire. The black fogman forced his way into my thoughts, but luckily, someone disrupted the beginning of the mental imagery.

“Boss,” a tiny man with a dark bowl cut shouted breathlessly, who had just come in the door and was almost drowning in his life preserver like the hobbit. “Ilias is injured.” He pronounced it as Iliad like the famous epic by Homer.

Dismayed, Pan jumped up.

Nathan looked from him to the smaller one. “What happened?”

“His back…a cupboard was ripped from its foothold and fell on him. He can hardly move.”

“Okay.” A grim determination appeared on Nathan’s face. “We don’t have much time. You”—he nodded to the hobbit—“take care of Ilias. The rest of you, bail the water with buckets! Troy, turn off the power to the entire cutter.”

He gave further orders while I grabbed the bucket, which had now rolled forward as if it were the most natural thing in the world. It stank horribly, so I rinsed it out with water.

“What are you doing?” Nathan asked, irritated.

“Helping. You said we needed to bail water.”

He stared at me strangely before nodding weakly. Apparently, he had no problem with me acting as a crew member, so I marched off after Pan.

“I should be with Ilias, not anyone else,” Pan growled to himself. Then he turned to me. “We in eye of storm. You pray no start again.”

My stomach seemed to turn inside out. “I thought the worst was over,” I replied, confused, which only earned me a shake of the head from Pan.

In the corridor where my cell was, I searched for a place between the men who formed a work chain from inside to outside.

I passed bucket after bucket. I was invigorated by all the adrenaline and unable to think clearly.

Everything hurt, but I didn’t complain, not about my sore icy fingers, my numb feet, or my exhaustion.

I didn’t even think about home. A little later, the lights went out in the corridor too, and shortly afterward, Troy appeared with a flashlight between his teeth and helped with the bailing.

It was eerie and dark, the shadows of the men dancing across the walls in the dim light.

It was far too quiet. No one spoke, and only now and then, Troy would give a brief order.

Apparently, he was in charge when Nathan wasn’t around.

That surprised me, but there was no time to think about it. Doing something kept the fear at bay.

At some point, the hobbits carried a semi-dry mattress past us.

Then they fetched Pan and Taurus to help Ilias up.

Just like Pan, Ilias was huge, and when Troy shone the flashlight on him to see how he was doing, I actually recoiled.

It was as if I was seeing Pan, who was standing next to me, in the mirror.

They looked identical, from the Medusa curls to the dimple in their strong chin to the mole on their left cheek.

I groaned inwardly. Why did colossus Pan have to have a twin brother?

Why not Troy, Icarus, or Delphi? At least, they had been nice to me from the beginning.

Ilias’ tortured groan ripped me out of my thoughts and Sparta fished a hip flask out of his rain jacket.

“Cognac…helps with pain,” he stated simply, and Pan poured the alcohol into Ilias’ mouth, sip by sip.

I waited silently, the water now only up to my ankles.

Nobody looked at me with hatred today, but nobody spoke to me either.

Still, it would be progress if we ever got out of this storm unscathed.

I wasn’t interested in fraternizing with my captors, but it would still be advantageous if these men liked me—or at least, no longer hated me.

Especially since Isaac would be coming on board at some point and I had no idea what he was up to. It would be good to have advocates.

We continued to bail until the rocking became too much and I staggered back to the bridge followed by Pan and Troy.

The storm regained strength with the Agamemnon still battered, full of water, and listing.

Although the engine was running again thanks to the emergency generator, the cutter could barely cope with the mountains of monster waves.

Breakers repeatedly pounded the hull, pushing the Agamemnon deeper into the sea. Deeper and deeper.

Wide-eyed, Pan stared out in horror as he sat on the mattress with Ilias and held him tight. I crouched in my seat, thinking only about how I wanted to survive. That was it. Then, I would never ask for anything again in my entire life!

It was dark, the ship rocking back and forth in the darkness, and all I could hear was the wind screaming, the dark roar of the sea, and the crashing of the breakers against the hull, playing Russian roulette with us.

With every wave, I feared the cutter would simply break in two.

Eventually, after hours and a faint shimmering gray in the sky, the wind died down.

I was so relieved that tears ran down my face, but no one mocked me.

Nathan walked past me, his lips forming a silent “Thank you.” Troy rubbed his wet, straggly hair with both hands and grinned at me, and Pan slapped me on the back of the head, growled something, and nodded at me.

In his homeland, that might have meant, Not bad, prinsessa . I don’t know.

Nathan announced that repairs would be carried out over the next day and a half; that’s how long we would be anchored.

The sky was a new azure blue and the sun beat down on the main deck at over eighty-five degrees while the men, some of them shirtless, scooped water, insulated and patched up disconnected cables, re-attached cupboards and dressers, and temporarily repaired Plexiglas panels with tape.

Delphi tended superficial lacerations and handed out dressing materials.

In the afternoon, when all the pipes and electronic systems had been repaired and checked, the engines were running smoothly again.

Nathan switched on the pumps and the Agamemnon lost its list. I picked up broken dishes that had fallen out of a lower cupboard despite the precautions, helped carry water, and assisted Troy with minor repairs and later with cooking.

I kept encountering the men in the corridors during the day, individually or in groups, but they left me alone and one of the hobbits even smiled at me, as did Castor.

Perhaps someone told them about the crane that almost hit Nathan or they were simply too exhausted to bother me.

Only Sparta, Taurus, and Ilias still looked at me as if I had brought the plague on board.

Okay, Taurus seemed less grim than before, but Ilias knocked the glass of water out of my hand that Pan and I tried to give him.

And Sparta and Mykonos, the guy with the short military haircut and spongy skin, pushed me twice against the wall as if by accident as I walked past them.

After that, I was careful not to encounter them while alone, which was easier with Sparta than with Mykonos since I could smell his camphor scent from ten yards away.

As a precaution, I retreated to the storage room next to the kitchen.

Here, the storm had knocked off two shelves, but nobody had time to screw them back on; other things were more important.

So, I forced the dented cans onto the undamaged shelves, eating several cans of canned peaches in the process.

With my fingers. An absurdity since Dad had always placed such importance on good manners.

Today, I didn’t care. I had survived a hurricane in the Atlantic.

My painted nails had broken off and blackened, I had blisters on my fingers, bruises everywhere, and terribly sore arms—but it didn’t matter.

Then I ate six slices of bread from the bag and was truly full for the first time in a long time since the crackers from the previous morning hadn’t remained in my stomach for long.

As evening approached, I noticed the silence. My head had been pounding all day from all the banging and knocking on the Agamemnon, but now the noises had stopped. With a can of green beans in my hand, I peered out the window at the main deck at the bow.

Everyone was gone.

Something about it suddenly made me nervous.

The calm seemed like the eye of the storm we had been in only a few hours ago; as if something terrible may happen at any moment.

I squeezed the can of green beans onto the shelf and entered the corridor, but still, there was not a soul around.

I listened. Nothing. I didn’t even hear a suppressed murmur.

Inside the bridge tower, I climbed a story, but the bridge was locked and no one responded to my knocks or muffled “Hello?”

I knew what that might mean. They were probably discussing something and I sincerely hoped it had nothing to do with me but with the cutter.

I slowly walked back down the stairs. As I took the last step, the door to the stern opened and Troy came in.

His eyelids were swollen. He looked overly tired, like all of us, but unlike usual, there was a look of unease on his always-cheerful face.

“I’m supposed to take you to Nathan,” he stated briefly.

I immediately felt queasy. “Why?”

“Don’t ask, just come with me.” He grabbed my arm. That was strange. Had the rules of the game on board changed a hundred and eighty degrees?

“You don’t have to hold me like there’s any real possibility of me escaping,” I said as he opened the door and pulled me outside.

He didn’t reply but let go. For a moment, I looked at the sun, hanging low and golden over a narrow strip of land as if it had grown too heavy for the sky. I blinked. Was that actually land or ice? Where were we? I looked around. Seagulls were screeching in the orange dusk.

As if from a great distance, I heard Dad say, “Look over there, Willa. Where birds are, there are fish. And where there are fish, there might be dolphins. Maybe we’ll see some baby dolphins.”

It couldn’t be ice. Dolphins preferred tropical waters to the Arctic Ocean. Besides, Nathan had recently suggested that we weren’t far from land.

Troy escorted me until I stepped around the structure and saw the crew. It was bizarre. The men, perhaps unconsciously, formed a kind of honor guard with Nathan standing at the end.

When he spotted me, he came toward me down the passage. His expression was indecipherable, his steps mechanical. In his dark clothes, he seemed aloof and cold, not at all like the Nathan who had kissed me a day ago. Or had it been longer?

With rising panic, the back of my neck tingled. I tried to gauge the men’s mood, but my senses were going crazy. “What is…” The rest of my question was stuck in my throat because I noticed the cell phone in Nathan’s hand.

“Isaac,” he said, pressing the phone into my hand. “He wants to speak to you.” He said it neutrally, almost impersonally as if it was none of his business, but I noticed something in his eyes that made me tremble: fear.

Why is he afraid? Of what?

My heart raced. During the days of the storm, I had completely blocked out Isaac, now, however, the memory of him almost bowled me over. Shakily, I grabbed the phone and pressed it to my ear.

“Good evening, little lady.”