Page 49 of Found at Sea

16

Kellan

I’d never known I could hurt that much without any physical pain. When Fletcher had said those words, it’d felt like my heart had been cracked open. It was a wound not seen with my eyes, but one I felt deep inside my soul.

He feared me and even more than that, he hated me.

By forcing him to be my cabin boy, it’d angered him, but what he didn’t realize was I’d done it to protect him. If the merman following us was after him, I wanted him by my side at all times.

I was familiar with men fearing me, and it’d never bothered me until the one man whose smile warmed me from the inside out was the one afraid.

Fletcher cried himself to sleep that night, and as each second passed, the ache in my chest grew larger.

I lay beside him, fighting the urge to pull him into my arms.

He means nothing to me, I told myself.I only want him for what he can give me. Answers.

If that was true, then why did seeing him upset hurt so much?

When sleep finally found him, I could no longer fight the need to touch him, and I gently brushed the hair from his eyes. His forehead wrinkled as a small whimper left him, and he pressed his face into my hand.

The action tugged at my chest, and I knew without a doubt that somehow he had found his way into the heart I’d long since thought dead.

I fell asleep a little before dawn and was awoken too soon by Fletcher rolling away from me. Opening my eyes, I was met with his glare. The fire inside him was a mere simmer right then, but I knew he’d burn me alive if given the chance.

Part of me might’ve even let him, if only to end my misery once and for all.

“I did not give you permission to leave,” I said as he began parting from the room.

Fletcher stopped walking and turned back to me. “Pardon me,Captain. But I am only doing what’s expected of a cabin boy and retrieving your morning meal.”

He left without another word.

I sat up and ran a hand through my hair, feeling lost on what to do. The only advantage to him fearing me was that he’d at least do as I ordered. Yet, I got the impression he more so hated me than feared me. I’d have Alek continue keeping an eye on him, just in case he thought to do something asinine.

After standing from the bed and getting dressed for the day, I walked into the study and sat at the table.

Fletcher returned minutes later with two bowls, one for me and one for him. He placed mine in front of me before taking his seat on the opposite end of the table and grabbing his journal. He avoided looking at me as he flipped through the pages of the small leather book and picked at his food.

I regarded the bowl of fish and potatoes before looking back at him.

“Should I be worried of poison, boy?”

“I don’t know,” Fletcher said with a shrug, still refusing to look at me. “Taste it and find out.”

Despite the fact it was directed at me, I smirked.

Fletcher’s stubbornness, wit, and sharp tongue were what drew me to him from the very beginning. It still did. Knowing the food was safe—as I’d only been trying to get him to smile when asking if it was poisoned—I started eating.

“Looks like the fates have spared you,” Fletcher commented after several minutes of us eating in silence. “For now.”

“Tell me, boy,” I said after wiping at my mouth. “Do you hate me because of what I’d planned for Alek or is it because of my crimes against the merfolk?”

“Both,” he answered. But then his eyes flashed to me and his brow scrunched. “You saidplanned.”

“Aye.” I pushed my bowl away from me and stood from the table. “There’s a woman on the island we’re traveling to who I hope can help him. What he decides to do after that is his choice.”

I walked toward the door, ready to begin the day. I also needed time alone to think.