Page 9

Chapter 9

To Hell with Men

Maggie

T his was supposed to be a celebratory send-off before Kaspar inflicted a second proposal on her, but she’d cocked it up.

Instead of enjoying a filthy little fling, she was having feelings.

If only Evrard had been less sweet, less strong, less generous.

Less well-endowed. Less kind.

Then her heart wouldn’t be stinging at the thought of never seeing him again.

“Are you off?” She cupped her hands around the kitten, grateful to have someone to hold.

He grunted in the affirmative, and her stomach hollowed.

Why did his answer disappoint her when she knew it before she even asked?

Maybe some silly part of her was hoping he’d changed his mind.

Like one dip into a human cunny was going to weigh in the balance.

She kept her eyes on the waves and swallowed hard, holding back her silly tears.

“I wish you well with your time in the watch. Please, try not to die.”

“Maggie.” He rasped her name in a way she couldn’t resist. When she turned, he said, “I’ll come back.”

She gave him a sad smile.

If he survived the war, if he made it back to Brinehelm unscathed by goblins and their war-bats, it would be too late.

She’d be married. Scrubbing the floors in Kaspar’s house.

Carrying his child if she was lucky.

Lucky . An odd word for how she was feeling, which was that she’d much rather quicken with Evrard’s winged little offspring than Kaspar’s brats.

No possibility of that, though.

“You needn’t feel obligated to come check on me. There’s no chance your seed took. I have a charm,” she said bluntly, holding out her arm so he could see the tael-infused clay disc that she wore on a string around her wrist. She dropped her arm to her side.

Evrard scoffed at her, grabbing her hand.

With a flick of his claw, he cut through the string.

“Weak magic,” he muttered, pocketing the little clay amulet.

“Means nothing.”

Her heart thumped as he pressed her palm against the center of his chest, holding it there so she could feel the rise and fall of his breath.

She was suddenly conscious of the fact that his seed was still inside her, the proof of it cooling on her inner thighs.

“I will come back,” he repeated slowly, each word its own sentence.

“For you.”

She believed him, and not just with her silly, soft heart.

Even her bones believed him.

All she could manage was a nod.

Like it was permission he’d been waiting for, he leapt straight up, his wings lifting him away.

In mere moments, he had disappeared into the dark.

That was that.

When she woke the next morning, there was a moment when she questioned whether it had happened at all.

Maybe she’d imagined the gorgeous gargoyle who’d carried her into the stars and might very well have put a child in her.

It was the kind of thing that only came true in dreams. It seemed easier to doubt her memory than believe it.

But when she rose, the beautiful, sticky soreness between her legs was proof it had happened.

He had seeded her, made sure it would take, and promised to return.

She would wait for him, as he’d asked.

“I can’t marry Kaspar,” she admitted to her mother, who was already standing over the washtub.

“I told him to propose again, but I can’t accept him.”

Her mother sighed heavily as she bent to stoke the firebox.

She straightened, rubbing the small of her back.

“I’m not surprised.”

How did she know when Maggie had just decided herself?

“You’re not?”

Her father answered from where he was nearly swallowed up by the pillows that propped him.

“Couldn’t in good conscience recommend you as a wife. You think a child of ours would stay at home and be agreeable?” He scoffed, but it was a loving sound.

An understanding one.

“We discussed it last night,” her mother added.

“We’ll sell the Wolfhunter . It’s just a boat, after all.”

“Just a boat,” her father echoed with irony, shaking his head.

But he didn’t contradict his wife.

“If Kaspar wants it, he can pay for it like everyone else.”

A rush of tears stung.

“You would sell it just so I don’t have to marry him?” Her voice splintered away at the end.

“Of course.” Her father seemed angry she would ask even half the question.

“Of course. ”

Her mother, balancing a bundle of wet linens in a basket on her hip, nudged her gently with an elbow.

It was as good as an I love you.

Maggie swiped away the wet tracks on her cheeks and took up the laundry stick, inflicting her maelstrom of emotions on the dirty water and swirling, stubborn fabric.

As she punched and poked the laundry, working out the stains, she tried to rationalize it all.

The Wolfhunter was just a boat.

Just a boat.

But it was the one she’d been born on.

The one that had fed their family for generations.

The one that owned more than half her father’s heart—or she’d thought it did.

It had always seemed to her that, while he might love his daughter and wife, the Wolfhunter was his truest love.

But now he was ready to let it go with only mild reluctance, like his beloved ship was merely the remains of last night’s good dinner and not the jewel in his crown.

How could she be so loved?

The stick splashed noisily, hiding her tears.

“I can’t let her go,” she declared when her mother returned from hanging the linens and took the stick away from her.

Maggie dried her hands on her apron, ignoring her parents’ confused expressions.

“We’re not selling her.”

The laundry stick banged down in surprise.

“You’ll marry Kaspar, then?”

“No. We’re going to run her ourselves.” Out of the corner of her eye, Maggie saw her father brighten and sit up slightly in bed.

Her mother shook her head with a pointed look at him, and he slumped back into the pillows.

“You’ve always been a dreamer, Maggie, but we have to be practical about this. Who’s going to captain?”

“I am.” She knew how a ship ran.

How to keep accounts and ration the provisions.

How to manage the sails in rough weather and how to raise morale in the doldrums. How to flay and salt the fish so it’d keep for the journey home.

How to navigate by the stars.

She didn’t need a husband for any of that, or even her father’s supervision.

She could do it herself.

“If I’d been born a son, I’d be captaining it already. You know it’s true.”

“The old crew won’t be loyal,” her mother protested, her forehead creased with worry.

“They’ll see you as a woman first, captain second.”

Maggie’s heart sped up.

“To hell with men, then. I’ll hire women. Plenty of girls around here grew up in fishing families and know how to sail.”

“It takes more than know-how. It takes a lot of strength to run a ship.” Her mother gnawed at her lower lips as she levered another load of sodden fabric from the tub into the wringer.

Her father had been silent, but now he spoke.

“Look at yourself, Corine. You work harder than any man every day of your life. And you hauled nets alongside my crew when you were fat as a porpoise with that one. Worked right up until the hour Maggie was born. No reason the rest of these women can’t do the same.”

Her mother gave a deep sigh.

“I know it. I don’t mean to be discouraging. Maggie will make be a fine captain. But I’m allowed to worry over the ones I love, Lenn. I married a boneheaded mule of a man who insists on worrying me night and day, didn’t I? And then I gave birth to an even more boneheaded daughter who’d swim across the sea if someone told her she couldn’t do it.”

“She got that ass and brass from you,” her father jabbed back.

As they continued their loving bickering, Maggie’s hand slipped reflexively to her lower belly.

She could be growing a boneheaded child of her own, but the worst she might show for it this season would be some extra seasickness.

By next year’s run, she’d either have Evrard’s babe in her arms or she wouldn’t.

She could captain both seasons without any hindrance.

She could do this.

She would do this.