Page 22

Betts

“I’ve waited long enough for you to get your footing, so now I must ask for the tea.

” Catalina grabs my tray of herring from my hands and holds it over the stone oven as if threatening to roast it.

“Take pity on the lady up the spout whose man is too afraid of hurting the baby to touch her. If I don’t get to live vicariously through your sexual escapades, I have nothing. ”

“Well, what is there to tell—” I grab for the tray, but she turns her back to me.

“Honey, darling, sweetie, bestie, you are the talk of the boat. Anyone with ears has heard your cries of passion…several times a day.”

“A satyr’s appetite is—”

“I know! So don’t hold back the good stuff. I want sensory details. I want to hear the dirty talk. I’m dying here!”

“It started as hate sex,” I say with a shrug. “Not much foreplay, but we were worked up, so it didn’t really matter, I guess. We’d yell at each other, and then our clothes would fall off. It was more of a pounding our point of view into the other one than anything else—”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Gretta wails as she leads Ilya into the kitchen. “If Betts is sharing the details on Flint’s monster goat cock, I want to listen too.”

“Wait for me!” Ilya whispers behind her.

Ilya’s throat muscles still haven’t healed enough to recover her voice.

As the Singing Lizard Lady of the sideshow, she was forced to sing for hours without water, because her scaly skin turned different colors as she became dehydrated.

She sails with us until she can find a home near a natural freshwater source, which unfortunately wasn’t in Boston.

“Gretta?! A proper lady doesn’t talk about her marriage bed activities. It’s rude and common.”

“But I don’t see any ladies here, and you’re not making the beast with two backs in a bed—marriage or any other type. Come on, I’m dying to know about the barbs. What do they feel like? Do they bend, or are you freaky and like the pain?”

“Gretta!” This time, Catty and I both yell at our friend.

“What? He’s a beautiful man who doesn’t know the meaning of the word decency.

He’d whip out his rod and tackle whenever his fancy was piqued to wank away.

Everyone who sleeps in the orlop deck wonders if those barbs get softer as they turn from white to purple.

We had a wager going at one point, but then someone pointed out that the barbs would rip his palms if they didn’t bend. ”

“I don’t believe this,” I say, dropping my face into my hands. My plate clinks against my tray as Catty places it in front of me. “No, knowing this crew, I totally believe this is the topic of your gossip.”

“Well?” Catty asks. “Is that your response?”

“No,” I reply with a sigh. “The purple barbs bend in the most delightful way—”

My companions cheer and giggle. I let them carry on while I swallow one of the smaller fish whole. “And they bend when they’re white too,” I add to make them cackle like hens.

“Now, we must be serious,” I say, waving my hands downward to quiet their laughter. “We went from a bit of fun to trying to nooze me. He says the dreaded L-word on every climax, but not in any other moment.”

“That’s wonderful, right?” Catty asks.

“I’d say that’s a lifetime of Christmases. A man with a barbed cock who’s in creampot love and wants to make your arrangement honest is more than most women can hope for,” Gretta adds with her eyebrow raised in suspicion.

“It goes with why we’re quiffing everywhere but my bed,” I say with anxiety pushing my meal up my gob. “He says beds are for working girls and wives.”

“Well, he’s not calling you a whore, so what’s the problem?”

“I think he’s implying that if Betts invites him to her bed, she’s proposing marriage,” Catty answers Gretta.

“He’s also pushing his seed back inside me after we—”

“He wants a pregnancy to tie you to him,” Gretta adds with wide eyes.

I shrug as I struggle to rip the largest fish in half with my human fingers.

“Oh. Hell. No. You tell that Kill Devil to let his seed run where it may. If he’s so obsessed with getting you up the spout, then he can carry the burden for the ten months.

Betts, you don’t want this. I’m married to my soulmate, about to hold my baby in my arms before the next full moon, and I can tell you that you don’t want this,” Catty says, rubbing her ginormous belly.

“Who knows? Maybe she will lay eggs,” Ilya whispers. “I laid an egg once. It was unfertilized, so it was more tragic than anything.”

“I won’t lay eggs since I fully converted from Kraken shifter to human…

thanks to Pastor Richard,” I say with a sigh.

I pick at the scales on the larger fish.

“I think that was half of his allure. He ran the orphanage for the island, and boats seemed to drop off children daily. If I married him, I would inherit a house full of children. Oh, how I miss playing with them in the surf! Funny, I miss the family more than the man.”

“Is that why you don’t stop Flint from pushing you up the spout?” Gretta asks with an eyebrow wiggle.

“Probably because there is no harm in it,” I say, holding back my tears.

“Don’t tell him…or anyone…but…only the man who takes my soulbeak can get me pregnant.

Unfortunately, I gave that honor to Richard.

Flint’s antics will have no consequences.

It’s time I told him, too. He might not be as keen after he finds I’m barren. ”

“I’m so sorry,” Ilya whispers as she pats my hand.

“I volunteer as tribute,” Gretta says with her hand over her heart. “I’ll bang Flint, and you can have the baby.”

“Buss my cheeks! Not on your life!” I yell, throwing my napkin at her.

“You should let her and teach her a lesson. A child is a blessing. Pregnancy is a curse. It’s the shitting through your teeth leading to backaches, to exhaustion, to the pimples.

So. Many. Pimples. Chub’s skin is perfect from head to toe, while I’m a pimply monster.

What if he hates our baby because it’s a pimply monster?

” Catty pauses from her tirade to fetch a fish knife from across the kitchen.

“Your baby won’t be a pimply monster,” says Gretta.

“You don’t know that! I found a pimple…between my thighs…”

“Did Chub make you a fireship, Catty?” I ask with concern. Birthing a baby is dangerous enough without a doctor onboard. If she has a disease of the marriage box, I don’t know what to do.

“Good Lord in the heavens! It’s the pregnancy pimples on the pins themselves—not the box between. I tell you, Betts. If you love that little body of yours as much as your man seems to, you will rinse that spunk out of you the moment his musketoon fires. Soulbeak curse or none!”

“If I agree, will you stop waving that knife at me?” I ask with a giggle.

“There’s my sunrise,” Flint says as he sweeps into the room.

Thank goodness we switched conversation topics from manly barbs to baby pimples.

He kisses my forehead on his way to the crew’s communal bowl of hardtack.

Gretta folds her hands under her chin to swoon while Catty waves a warning finger at me.

“Hey,” I say, raising my grog to my lips so he doesn’t kiss my fishy mouth. I take a hefty gulp until he’s out of arm’s reach. “I was just grabbing dinner, but I’m finished now. Are you busy?”

“No,” he says, biting his lower lip. That one word holds a cannon of naughty promise, and he’s waiting for me to light the fuse.

“Eze relieved me at the helm because some nutmeg yelled land ho from the ratlines. He wants to be at the helm when the sun rises so he can steer us in. I think he should have left my arse there and got some sleep first, but his choice.”

“He’s very driven to go home,” Catty says, giving me a knowing nod.

“I wonder what her name is,” Gretta adds.

“Now, he hasn’t shared, so it’s not ours to discuss,” I scold, but I’m nodding at Catty too. Whoever this mystery person is, they’ve got Eze’s full attention.

“You are the pirate queens of the Caribbean. Everything is yours to discuss,” Chub says as he enters the kitchen.

He walks past the bowl of hardtack to wrap his arms around Catty.

The pair share a toe-curling kiss before he lays his head on her dairy.

“Just make sure that nutmeg sails around to the island's north end to allow her river to claim our hull. If he drives straight to the east beach, we’ll catch on the jagged bottom and walk ashore with no ride home. Boulders hide in the shallows.”

“It’s his home, I’m sure he remembers the way,” I suggest, wanting to defend me hearty.

“And he was a squirrely rascal in short pants the last time he laid eyes on it. Besides, he lived there, so he never sailed to there.”

“Good point,” Gretta interjects.

“In any event, his determination leaves my night free. Did you need something, Captain? I am forever at your service,” Flint says with a gentlemanly bow.

Chub and Catty roll their eyes and make gagging noises.

I can’t help but giggle when he acts like this. How many nights did I dream of a courtly gentleman sweeping me off my tentacles when I was a child? Almost as many nights as my young adult self dreamed of what he does when he drops that veneer…

Good. Keep those smutty thoughts, Betts. You will need them if tonight goes to plan.

“In your training, we didn’t require you to learn the ratlines. It isn’t as pressing as the ledgers, navigation, and taking watch at the helm. However, I think it’s a rite of passage for everyone who goes on account to visit the Crow’s Nest. Have you ever climbed up there?”

“No, I can’t say I ever had the motivation to climb higher than a building and stand in a basket no larger than a bathtub, but there’s a first for everything.”

“Landlubber has a yellow belly,” Chub says with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “Captain’s duty to make him climb up, now.”

“You aren’t scared, are you?” Gretta asks.

All four of us pirate queens turn our fluttering eyelashes to a blushing Flint.

“I’m not scared of anything except losing the favor of my lady love,” he says, taking my hand and kissing my knuckles. His nose wrinkles. I bet it’s the fishy scent.

“You’ll want to drain this first,” Chub says, holding up a mug of full-strength rum for Flint. He nods as he takes the cup. With a salute to me, he throws back the liquid and drinks his fill.

“Chug this,” Catty whispers, trading my mug of grog for another mug.

I’m blasted with the scent of mint and parsley as I raise the rim to my mouth.

I wet my lips with it, swirl it through my teeth, and swallow.

As if reading my mind, Catty drops a rag soaked in the same strong concoction beside my plate before she casually wanders back to the oven.

I wipe my hands clean while Gretta and Chub joke with Flint.

I share a shaky smile with Flint as he pulls me from my chair.

He may be scared of the climb up, but I’m terrified of the conversation we must have at the summit.

What if all his dirty talk masks a true desire to sire a child?

Could his bedhopping and marriage disruption hide a buried yearning for fatherhood?

Will a life in the sweet trade be enough?

If we eventually retire like Catty and Chub, will he be disappointed that I can’t get pregnant?

I should tell him before I completely fall in love with him…which was weeks ago.