Page 13

Hybris/Flint

“Flint, go to your bunk and stay there,” Chub lectures me. “Betts may have entertained your crashing her meeting with her family, but I won’t put up with that level of disrespect. Stealing, lying, and disrespecting the captain would put any matey off the plank—”

“If we had any planks to spare,” I grouse with an eye roll because I’ve had it with my disrespecting Betts. She’s in an elected position, not appointed by the King or ordained by God.

“I hope you learn how much further you will go in life when you think before you speak…if you live beyond tonight. We must band together as brothers and sisters, trusting one another to guard our backs. We don’t kill to save ourselves but to save our hearties and the boat we call home.

So there’s no room for scoundrels,” he says, pushing me by my lower back toward the galley stairs like I was a maiden in need of her fainting couch.

“Yeah, yeah,” I say, stepping down the top step to appease him.

Thankfully, the windbag runs out of air and turns toward a crash in the cannon galley.

Other than the thin joists holding the two halves of the boat together, it’s an empty cavern from the sterncastle deck to the forecastle deck.

The tops of people’s heads move in the cannon galley below like ants marching on a pantry floor.

They swing the cannons forty-five degrees, so they face the bow instead of the little doors on the sides of the boat.

The doors are locked, so it seems like overkill to me.

I don’t know how the cannons would undo the mechanism…

maybe the fear is that they will burst through.

When a second crash reverberates from below, Chub disappears as he jumps into the hole.

“Good riddance, killjoy,” I mutter, changing my path. Instead of climbing down to the galley, I take the steps upward to the sterncastle deck.

Betts rests one elbow on the wheel spokes as she faces the port side.

She taps a silent rhythm, betraying her anxiety.

With her spyglass trained on the prize, I can’t read her face.

Her hair blows around as if it has a life of its own.

She’s a wild creature, no matter how prim and proper she forces herself to be.

Tresses tease the opening of her blouse that reaches her waistband.

A sword hangs from the leather belt slung around her hips, as well as a cat-o'-nine tail.

The weapons tap her thighs in the same rhythm as her fingers.

“I could help you release the tension before the battle, you know.”

She scowls at me as I predicted she would.

I love how she challenges any attempt at showing her affection.

I’d lose an ear if she knew how much I enjoy her annoyance with me.

Annoyance isn’t indifference. The people who mattered to me in Boston ignored me—out of indifference or shame.

But Betts can’t ignore my propositions, I irritate her too much.

She’s like a lidded pot, boiling on the stove. I vent her fury before she explodes.

“Tension keeps a pirate alive,” she sneers. “Didn’t Chub tell you to hide with the other rodents?”

“Yes, he did,” I say with a beaming smile. She’s prickly, but she’s allowing me to stay. “Your quartermaster is good at his job and very loyal to you.”

“Chub’s the best,” she says, looking through the spyglass again as if the prize will vanish or pounce on us if she doesn’t constantly watch it. “I’ll miss him dearly.”

“Are you throwing him overboard, mid-battle? I’d say wait until afterward, but still, mid-battle is a good choice because it makes his death look accidental. Fewer rules, more chaos, sounds like exactly what you want.”

My heart leaps into my mouth when she lowers the spyglass and flashes those arresting green eyes at me.

Her smile doesn’t quite reach them, but I’m progressing beyond a scowl for once.

With that little display of comradery, I softly finish climbing the sterncastle stairs and lean against the railing at the top, trying to look as non-threatening as possible.

She may call me a rodent, but she’s as skittish as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

One move too quick, and she will draw that wicked sword.

What would it feel like to have it against my throat as she glares into my eyes? Will it be as thrilling as in my dreams?

“We’re dropping Chub and Catty in Mexico,” she says to the sunset on the horizon. “They wish to retire and start a homestead. My job is to get them there before Catty’s baby comes.”

“Is that why we blew out of Boston like the hounds of hell chased us and headed due south?”

“No,” she says with a hollow chuckle. “We fled to outrun the husbands chasing you. How could you live in a town where everyone was mad at you?”

“Mad at me ? No, I made no marriage vows. Those husbands were better suited to throw their anger at their loose wives who broke their vows and their daughters who couldn’t stand their rules. And they should thank their lucky stars that I was the one pleasuring their wives and daughters.”

“Thank you? Why would they thank you?”

“Because I never gave or took the heart of any adulterer or curious debutante,” I say with a lump in my throat.

I cross the deck so we can speak quietly.

The crew is busy, but if I want her to open up to me, we can’t shout over the work being completed below us.

“Every woman knew where they stood with me.”

Platitudes of love and forever were pillow talk, instead of promises between hearts aligned.

I grew weary of the sweet words until I learned to play the game, too.

“Those women loved their husbands the same amount before and after their time with me. If they compared us, I made sure the women always saw me as less. Even the eligible bachelors who pined after the debutantes I deflowered were above me. I may have been more available than respectable men, but I knew my place as second best.”

“Then that’s where I went wrong,” she mutters, dropping the spyglass to her waist. She tucks the instrument into her belt to place both hands through the spokes of the wheel like in a jailer’s yoke.

“Did you fall in love with a scoundrel like me?”

“Not quite,” she says to her shuffling feet. “I was the scoundrel, but unknowingly.”

“I’m so sorry. Is that what you see when you look at me? Yourself?”

She gasps and blasts me with her shocked stare.

“I’m not surprised,” I say with a shrug. “I get that a lot. I remind everyone of a time they weren’t faithful or of when someone was unfaithful to them. It’s a lot of nonsense, but everyone must walk their own journey.”

“It’s not fair to you,” she whispers. “I’m sorry I never took your feelings into account. I just hugged my anger so tightly that it seemed to justify my actions. I didn’t consider you as a person.”

“Apology accepted, although I doubt I know half your sins,” I say, elbowing her the way I saw Teeth elbow Chub earlier. That’s how pirates make friends, right?

“He was a pastor in Trinidad.”

“Was? Did the crew kill him and tie him to the front of the boat with the other figureheads?” We share a small smile as her eyes fill with tears.

“We left his body in Trinidad,” she says before clearing the tears from her throat.

“Do I want to know who took him out?” I ask with a gulp.

“Catty, with her spinnerets and husband’s follow-through,” she says with a teary smirk. “Don’t look so surprised. She’s vicious when provoked.”

“A true hearty,” I say, not hiding my jealousy. I want to be the one who took out the evil pastor to balance the scales in my favor when it’s not my affair. “Can I ask how you got tangled in the robes of a pastor, or is that too personal?”

“I wasn’t living on the island, but visited monthly. His wife ran a traveling ministry, so she hopped from island to island while he ran the orphanage at their home parish.”

“So, a man of the cloth had trouble keeping the cloth on his body. I’m not surprised. My father’s most scandalous party members were the most holy in the community. That’s why I kept to the whorehouse—fewer secrets and lies,” I reply with a shrug.

I’m rewarded with her laugh. A real laugh—not the snort she gives everyone else who tries to cheer her up.

Her laugh isn’t the giggle Sabrina has, either.

It’s throaty, husky, and involves her whole body as she vibrates hard enough to send her hair flying.

I’m dazzled by the lightning that flashes in her eyes and the little pink tongue between her pearly, white teeth.

They are slightly pointed for a human, but perfect for someone born a kraken.

“Cannons secured and snipers in the ratlines, Captain,” Eze says as he jogs up the stairs. He frowns at me but continues to debrief Betts. “What are our orders?”

“Man your stations as if it’s a normal night. Day crew can sit quietly below deck, except for those with the long rifles in the rigging. They must look like regular climbers, manning the sails. Night watch too. They must be ready to help me turn the boat in a hurry.”

“The extra mateys in the ratlines will make turning this ship easier than the girls turning tricks at Maude’s tavern. Don’t worry, we’ve got this,” he replies with a sarcastic salute that makes Betts snort.

Not a belly laugh to release her emotions—a snort for polite company.

After he leaves, Betts is back to Captain Betts.

Her posture is stiff. White knuckles hold the wheel where she’d hung limply before our interruption.

I missed my opportunity to ask if she’s still a kraken, but I hold her adulterous secret to my chest like a prized jewel.

I’m relieved the ire between us has nothing to do with me.

“I guess you didn’t help me escape my stormy bath because of some revenge plot against the pastor?” She gives me a guilty grin before shaking it off her face.

“I didn’t help you, because I had a decision to make,” she says with a deep breath that blows the hair on her forehead into the wind. “Flint, your father lied. You aren’t aboard to be an apprentice. He hired us to—”

“Krakens! Kraken attack!” Greenhorn yells the signal from the Crow’s Nest.

“Flint, use your sleeve to block the lantern’s light and then lower it to let the light flash. I think the other boat is sending a distress signal,” Betts commands as she spins the wheel to port.

“Port aweigh!” Her yell is repeated along the ratlines as the sails turn.

The boat lists hard to the side with the swift change in direction.

My body is flung onto the railing, which punches me in the gut.

I lift my jacket so the broad panel blocks the light of the lantern, then lower it in short bursts.

“The other boat is responding,” I shout while repeating my cadence of flashes and blocks. Sure enough, the prize responds with the same rhythm. “She’s calling to us.”

“Her biggest mistake yet,” Betts says with a wiggle of her eyebrows. Her feet are planted wider than her shoulders as she struggles to maintain the boat’s tight turn despite the listing. If she falls, the wheel will spin. Will we capsize?

Bettina’s so small and fragile—barely taller than the wheel itself. Why isn’t anyone helping her? Is everyone too busy to see her struggle? Is that by her design? Well, not while I’m here. Something inside me shifts, and I’m at her back as the next wave bats the hull.

“I’m not taking this from you,” I whisper in her ear as she stiffens between me and the helm. “Tell me what to do. Let me give you my strength.”

“Hold me steady,” she says through clenched jaws. Not hold the boat . Not hold her steady. Hold me . The difference isn’t lost on me. When was the last time someone held her? If her last embrace came from the pastor, it doesn’t count, because his fake embrace tore her apart.

“Brace yourself and throw your arse to stern!” Chub’s yell from the cannon galley pulls a gasp from Betts’s lips. He’s hoping everyone leaning in the opposite direction will save us.

My hooves rub her leather boots as I frame her.

I hold the wheel at waist height to cage her in place.

Her soft curves fit perfectly against my body as my heat warms her.

Red hair tangles in my horns, tying us together.

I hold my breath as the planks groan, the sails glide over us, and the water splashes over the sides.

The crew cheers when the boat rights itself, facing the boat in distress.

I’m silent as I breathe in the scent of the sea on her skin.

My eyes close as images of us float through my head.

Her breathing calms to match mine. Our heartbeats align.

My hands creep upward on the wheel in hopes of touching hers.

“Don’t move,” she whispers. “The boat is fine, but I still need this—just a few more seconds.”

“Bettina, a pack of rabid husbands couldn’t remove me from your side.”