Page 30

Betts

“You should go inside,” Sabrina says. “You don’t want the bugs picking at your wound.”

“You sound like you’re my mother,” I quip. My stitches hurt like hell and are as crooked as a harbormaster. I guess that’s what I get for allowing Teeth to sew them.

“How the roles have flipped, eh? What possessed you to take on Magda?”

“I don’t know. I guess to prove I deserve my new life, or maybe to establish myself here. She’s something else. I like to think I earned a place among her friends by standing up to her. Anyway, how did you find us?”

“Teeth and I went to Mexico—you know, to the safe house where they expected Catalina months ago. He needed to say goodbye to Chub one more time…in case they chose to live inland. The men had each other’s backs for decades…

he can’t just let go….not when we just let go of our first clutch of hatchlings.

In any event, you weren’t there. We planned to go where we last saw you and look for clues.

We watched you wreck, but we were too far away to save you. ”

“It worked out,” I say without taking my eyes off the sea. Sabrina looks out and back at me, then out again, raising her eyebrows. “Flint’s out there. Gunter saw him after the wreck.”

“I didn’t pass him or a raft,” Sabrina says, rubbing my back. “Do you want us to visit the boat halves?”

“They’re too unstable,” I reply, grabbing her other hand as if I can ground my emotions through her.

I can’t allow anyone to see me cry over Flint.

I just won the crew’s respect back from the weakness of my head injury by fighting a vampiress.

They need time to remember all I’ve done for them and how they support me.

Sabs follows my gaze to the party on the beach.

From our spot on the dune, we look down on the bonfire that reaches for the stars.

Teeth hauls in two giant fish from the sea while a few men gut another fish from his previous haul.

Gretta hasn’t left Gunter’s arms since he returned, so the pair sit by the fire with Branko and Magda.

The old salt holds his vampires, either to comfort her or to keep her under control.

Either way, I’m happy he’s keeping watch over the festivities.

He will be their leader if anyone decides to stay.

How can we ever leave? Can the boat be salvaged?

“There’s food and fun down there,” Sabs says, bumping my shoulder against her. “I know you are allergic to both, but it would be good for you to join them.”

“Hardy, har, har—” My eyes roll in a perfect imitation of her.

A few dozen villagers have joined me hearties on the beach.

They pass around baskets of fruits to go with the roasting fish.

Teeth and Branko play host. A small band of villagers play their drums, while a couple of me hearties join in with their flutes.

I’m happy they had time to grab their prized possessions—thanks to the ringing of the all-call bell.

The groups seem to mix well…especially at the edge of the dancing and merry-making.

A small woman pushes a lanky young man toward Eze.

They have the same build, posture, profile, and way of rubbing their neck when they’re nervous.

Eze does it first, then the thinner man, and then Eze rubs his neck again.

The difference in their heights is almost two feet, so the juvenile isn’t a teen yet…

but almost. I count the years Eze was sailing with us on my fingers, and it’s plausible this youth is his son.

The small woman retreats into the arms of a rotund man who holds a toddler on his hip.

Oh Eze! Sailing with us helped him escape his grief over his mother’s death, but look at what he missed! I must not make the same mistake. Love may find Eze again, but I’m not that lucky.

“I must wait. As soon as I turn my back to the sea, he will appear.” I don’t have to say who he is.

“The party is by the sea, too. You know, you will seem more likable if you mope down there instead of up here.”

“Go join your party,” I reply. She’s got twice the strength but lets me push her over. Her eyes sparkle as she looks down over Teeth’s dancing with Branko, and she bites her lip on her girlish giggle. “You know, we’re as in love as you. It’s just different because we’re different.”

She nods but doesn’t say what we’re both thinking. It’s because I’m different. I may have let go of the pain and rage of losing my soulbeak, but I never recovered my soul. Will we ever be as carefree as Sabs and Teeth?

“I’ll see it for myself when he arrives. Be sure to give him hell for his tardiness,” She murmurs.

Her words of encouragement pull down the corners of my mouth.

As she slithers away on her tentacles, Teeth perks up.

He zeros in on her as if he heard every word—which is impossible.

However, he ingested her soulbeak, so he has a part of her inside him.

Their connection is as stable as the energetic cord that holds the ocean to the beach.

I envy her ability to give that to him.

Other times, I feel a phantom pain or tingle in my heart, and I know it’s the piece I left within Richard.

My punishment is more than denying that connection to Flint; it's the reminder of the cord I allowed to die in the man who used me. If I had that cord to Flint now, I would find him. Eyes closed, I’d swim into the deep with unerring accuracy.

My eyes flutter closed as I imagine reuniting with him beneath the wreck.

Our tentacles would intertwine—because, of course, he would choose to be a kraken, like Teeth—and Flint would take me in his arms. He’d say something filthy like—

“Did they leave you here as an offering to me, or would just any satyr who climbs up the beach do? Seriously. How am I to resist your pouty lips, closed eyes, and swinging dairy? What happened to your shirt? Who cut your hair?”

“Flint!” He stands over me with his hands on his hips. He’s covered in sand, seaweed, and rust. His hair hangs in long, dirty tangles. I scrunch my legs to jump to my feet, but my wound brings a cry from my lips.

“You’re injured, too! Who do I have to kill?” He drops to his hands and knees to run his palms over me. I want to spill the story, but his physical touch overwhelms me.

“I thought you were dead. But I couldn’t move from here, or they would believe you were dead.

Then I’d start crying, and captains aren’t allowed to cry.

So, while I was sad you were dead, I had to act like you weren’t dead, but you’re not dead when I thought you were dead. ” I point at the party below.

“And I bet you had a head injury,” he says with the smirk I love.

“That’s beside the point—” My words are cut off by his laughter, and I find myself smiling too. I run my hand down his face to reaffirm he’s here and alive. He runs his fingers through my hair, allowing the strands to flutter out of his grasp with the wind.

“They’re celebrating down there,” he says quietly, “while you sit injured up here.” He hands me my trunk of treasures—including my conch shell—and I can’t love him more.

“All your heroes are down there—Teeth, Branko, Magda. She gave me this,” I reply, leaning back to show him my stomach. “My idiot brother-in-law had to sew me up.”

“I knew I should have learned to sew,” he says, running a fingertip along the edges of the angry wound. “You’d have a more wicked scar. This one should heal. It may disappear.”

“That’s awful,” I whisper, releasing my elbows to lie flat. I unlace my pants, and he helps me glide them over my hips. “I’d better stress the stitches, then. I earned this wound, and nobody will believe I beat up a vampiress without it.”

“Indeed, it’s my job to make an honest woman out of you. Let’s see how much that thread stretches…and someday, when you’re ready, I’m going to marry you. Betts, I’m going to make you an honest woman in every way,” he says, leaning over my lap.

He holds my legs apart while lapping at my slit.

I kick furiously until my calves release my boots with a splash of seawater.

He laughs against my core, vibrating me deliciously, as he works my pants off my legs.

With his focus no longer distracted by clothes, he feasts like a starving man.

I relish in his experience and silently thank all the women who taught him to please me.

As I climax over his mouth and chin, I hold his head against my pelvis.

I may never let him go. It doesn’t matter if I can gaze into those feral eyes as he undresses himself, I need to touch him in order to believe I’m not dreaming.

My hands memorize his chest, shoulders, neck, and face.

I’ll never forget the brush of his wet hair over my skin or the dots of seawater that fall from him.

“Tell me if I hurt you,” he growls through clenched jaws.

I allow him to gingerly wrap my legs around his waist, but the motion hurts too much to remain there as he enters me.

Instead, my heels drift upward to rest by his ears, with my rear cushioning his claim.

With ourselves situated, he can lose himself in our reunion, and I can return to burning his every detail in my mind.

Avast ye! I love how his fingers rub my clit in fast circles, making sure I peak first. His thrusts intensify as my walls clench down on his cock.

He claws the sand around me until he’s wrapped his arms around us.

Blood drips from my wounds like an offering to the island.

Pain mixes with pleasure until I’m swept away by my orgasm.

My thighs threaten to strangle him as he roars his release against my neck.

The party cheers back at us, informing us of the show we just performed, but I don’t care.

Who needs modesty when you can have this?

I come down from my high to find my collarbone wet from his tears.

“I thought I lost you. I thought I lost you,” he sobs as his trauma reaches his heart. “You reached for me from the helm. I couldn’t catch you.”

“Shush, shush,” I say, holding him tighter. “The wreck was bigger than both of us. I didn’t blame you.”

“I felt like I failed you, Betts. I felt like you finally asked me to save you, and I failed to follow through.”

“There’s no way you could have found me—”

“I went back to the boat. I went to the helm. You weren’t there. I went through the kitchen and the Captain’s Quarters. You weren’t there. I looked for you. I swear, Betts, I would have looked for you forever.”

“And I was right here, waiting for you,” I reply with tears clogging my throat. “I would have waited forever, too. Without the soulbond, we wouldn’t—”

It’s his turn to shush me with his fingers over my lips.

“No, no. We found each other, Betts. Don’t you see, we did? Soulbeak exchange or not, we’re soulmates who will find each other across any continent and any ocean. You could launch yourself to the moon, and the stars would show me where you are.”

“You think so?”

Our eyes meet as he pulls back to rest on his elbows.

His thrusts slow to gentle rocking. “You told me once you didn’t need to reverse the spell because you are whole on your own.

I knew you were lying then, but I didn’t understand how.

I thought maybe you wanted Chevelle to reverse the spell, so I could fill your belly with kids, but your stories of the orphanage proved you had other plans. Now I know, Bettina, you’re a liar.”

“I am whole on my own—injured, but in one piece.”

“You weren’t whole on your own, meaning in your skin. You were whole because you were in the same room as me. We are two halves to one soul. I love you, Bettina. You are whole when you’re with me.”

“I love you, too.”

“Then you won’t mind if we stay here.”

“But we have no shelter, no money, no land,” I protest as he withdraws.

“I won’t be separated from you again.”

“We were on the same shipwreck. Becoming landlubbers doesn’t guarantee that a hurricane or fire won’t befall us here.”

“You don’t understand. Being with you doesn’t mean tying our ankles together or tethering our souls with a magical soulbond.

I want to build something real with you…

here. I want a house bursting with children who need parents.

Us. They need us as much as we need them…

to complete our family,” he pleads against my dairy.

“Build a normal life with me here instead of chasing a pirate’s legend.

I have no skills or house to offer you, but I’m asking anyway. ”

“You found your way on a pirate ship, how will living on the island be any different?” I can’t believe I’m about to agree to this. Maybe it’s the post-love-making high, but I want to be his more than anything. I’ll give up the sweet trade to be his wife.

“Exactly,” he replies, kissing my nose. “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you.”

“Even live in a hovel because we’re both rubbish at building things? It will be the opposite of the dusty wealth you had in Boston.”

“It will be the opposite…because our home will be full of love and laughter. I promise I will make you the happiest woman on earth.”

“You already have,” I say, pulling him into a tender kiss.