Page 57 of The Sea Witch (Salt & Sorcery #1)

“Tanner.” A pirate with thick sideburns gave a wary nod to Alys.

“Blue John,” she answered.

When the other pirates looked to Ben, he said, “Bloody Ben Prowse.”

A few of the pirates eyed the markings on his neck and chest, still vivid after kissing Alys, but no one commented on them.

“That there be Stagfoot Reeder,” Blue John said, gesturing to another buccaneer, who also nodded at Ben. Continuing around

the circle, Blue John went on, “He be Fred Fowler. Esteban Jimenez. Louis Dupont.”

Careful to keep his expression smooth, Ben took a sip of ale. “The same Dupont that sailed with Captain Tarrier?”

“Don’t know Tarrier,” the Frenchman replied.

“Shame, that,” Ben said with regret. “I would’ve congratulated you for raiding the HMS Valiant with Tarrier.”

Speaking the name of his father’s ship in the presence of these pirates tasted acrid, so Ben took another drink of ale.

“Not me, confrère.” Dupont’s gaze remained on the dancer. “Nor Tarrier.”

“They talk nothing but respect in Maricaibo and Cartagena of Tarrier,” Alys said.

“He engaged the Valiant ,” Ben said, doing his best to sound offhand. “Killed her captain.”

Dupont continued to watch the dancer as she kicked and twirled. “Whoever Tarrier is, he didn’t battle the Valiant . No pirate did.”

Coldness crept down Ben’s spine.

“No way to know that for certain,” Alys said.

Dupont snorted. “The captain of the Valiant , Priestley, I think was his name? A name that struck fear into every member of the Brethren of the Coast. If any pirate killed

him, they would’ve spread that tale from one end of the sea to the other. No one’s said a word of it.”

“Perhaps they’re afraid,” Ben suggested. “That the navy will come after them if Priestley’s death was pinned on them.”

“Ami,” Dupont said, his lips curled, “I don’t know about the waters you’ve sailed, but here in the Caribbean, hiding our kills

isn’t how things are done. This was, what, five years ago?”

Ben pretended to consider the matter. “April,” he said after a moment, and then, “1714, or so I’d heard.”

“I was sailing my ship toward the north coast of Jamaica.” Dupont scratched his chin in thought. “The Valiant was heading there, too. But when my crow’s nest spotted the Jupiter sailing to the same heading, we turned tail.”

“No one sails against the Jupiter , and their leviathan,” Blue John said darkly. “Not if they want to live. Poor bloody Fontaine.”

The other pirates muttered in agreement.

“A ship of hell, the Jupiter ,” Fowler chimed in. “Should’ve called it the Pluto .”

“We faced them, after St. Gertrude,” Alys said. “They came to aid the Ajax , and damn if we didn’t barely make it out with bleeding scratches on our souls.”

Fowler’s lip curled. His fair skin had been roasted by years in the sun, and his blond hair was almost colorless. “I’m talkin’

about hell for them that served on it. Once, I was one of ’em.”

Ben had never seen Fowler aboard the Jupiter , not while he’d been aboard. But then, Fowler possessed the stoop shoulders and sagging flesh of one who’d served the navy

for many years.

Alys knocked her tankard against the mug in Fowler’s hands. “A twenty-one-gun salute for surviving.”

“Ain’t no joke, lass.” Fowler grunted. “I was an able sea man on the Jupiter . Was aboard that day, off the north coast of Jamaica.”

Ben forced himself to breathe slowly and he let his gaze roam around the chamber, moving from the chandelier to a plate of

roast goat to a man throwing knives at a vase.

“Tarrier’s going to have to eat his words,” Ben said casually.

“Whoever this Tarrier is,” Fowler said, “he wasn’t nowhere around. It was just the Valiant when the Jupiter came up alongside. This was afore Strickland became admiral. The Royal Navy was looking for someone to head the Caribbean

fleet. Priestley and Strickland, they were both vying for the spot. I was damned surprised that Strickland himself was rowed

over.”

“Why surprised?” Alys asked.

“Strickland and Priestley were as friendly as two eels in a bag. Hated each other. But when the Jupiter and the Valiant met, Strickland and Warne went aboard. And when they came back, Strickland, he...” Fowler took a drink, but it didn’t

wash away the disgust twisting his features. “Had blood on ’im.”

“Then he sounded an alarm,” Alys prompted.

“Did no such thing,” Fowler retorted. “He went down to his quarters and the Jupiter sailed away.”

Ben pushed out a laugh. “An admiral killing a captain.”

“Strickland was a commodore then,” Fowler threw back.

“But you didn’t see it,” Alys insisted.

“Didn’t need to see it to know what happened.” Fowler glanced warily around before saying lowly, “?’Specially after I heard

it was reported the captain of the Valiant was killed by pirates.”

Blue John, who’d been silent through this, let out a low whistle. “Hell. Navy killing navy.”

“Where’s the sense in it?” Dupont exclaimed.

“There’s sense in it,” Fowler insisted. “Strickland, every six months, he used to sail us into a strait between these cliffs. There was a building, big and gloomy, on one of the cliffs. He’d send a cutter out with a dozen seamen on it. Two weeks later, the Jupiter ’d come back, and collect them.”

“Those seamen... they must have said what happened,” Ben said.

“Silent as the bottom of the sea.” Fowler shuddered. “Whatever Strickland was doing, sending those seamen off, the admiralty

wouldn’t like it. And I’m guessing Priestley, he got wind of it, somehow.”

“Priestley was going to tell the admiralty,” Alys deduced.

“I knew one day,” Fowler continued, “it’d be me on a cutter, sailing to that pile of bricks on the cliff. And when I heard

that Strickland said pirates killed Priestley...” He scowled. “My next shore leave, I hared off. Signed articles with Flores,

and stayed well away from His Majesty’s Navy.”

Ben barely remembered how to breathe as he dazedly moved away from the group of pirates. The world blurred around him. There

was a roaring in his head that had nothing to do with music or human voices. His whole body was stiff and awkward, lumbering

around like an automaton that had lost its key, and his shattered thoughts littered the tile floor. Everything was in chaos

and nothing made sense.

“Ben. Ben!”

Alys materialized before him. She took one look into his face before grabbing hold of his hand and leading him into a corner.

The feel of her skin against his was his only anchor.

When they were in the relative privacy and calm of the corner, she cupped his face with her hands and stared into his eyes.

“I’m here.”

“Strickland took me aboard his ship,” Ben choked out. “Encouraged me to go to London to test for becoming his sailing master.

He knew I wanted to find my father’s killer. He knew . The whole time. And he... The fucking bastard commiserated with me. Told me he wanted to bring the murderer to justice. But it was him. And Warne.”

“We don’t know if we can believe Fowler.”

“There’s no reason for him to lie.” Ben dragged his hands through his hair. “What a goddamn jest that must have been for Strickland and Warne. How they surely laughed as I tracked buccaneers across the Caribbean, certain

one of the pirates was the murderer. But it was Strickland... with some kind of pact with the Redthorns. Sending them men for... God knows.”

“There were tables,” Alys said. “At the Redthorns’ monastery. With straps to hold men down.”

“Jesus Fucking Christ.”

The world would collapse. The floor would open and swallow him whole. Any of these things were possible. And yet none of them

happened. The feasting and dancing continued around them, oblivious to the fact that Ben’s entire existence had crumbled.

He shook his head. As if that tiny gesture could somehow restore everything to rights.

Alys guided Ben to the massive staircase leading to the floor with the bedchambers. Shouts and catcalls followed them as they

climbed the stairs, and he threw everyone a grin to keep up the pretense of two pirate revelers about to unleash their carnal

impulses in one of the bedchambers. More hoots and yells of encouragement came from the buccaneers still carousing in the

main room. He barely heard them.

He placed one foot in front of the other, step after step, holding tightly to Alys’s hand. He could not let go. He would not.

Once he did... there was no telling what would become of him.

They reached the top of the stairs, and were met by a door-lined catwalk running the length of the floor. Where the catwalk

reached the farthest wall, it was met by another walkway. Windows above this section revealed the darkness outside.

She turned and guided him past room after room. From behind the closed doors came grunts and cries and the banging of headboards against walls. They peered into an open door. Two people inside the room were energetically fucking. They didn’t even notice Ben and Alys.

Alys moved on, and headed to an open door at the farthest end of the walkway. The room was mercifully empty and surprisingly

clean and tidy. It held a large bed with four posters and a canopy, a chaise upholstered in wine-colored moiré, as well as

a few other pieces of furniture. A square of deep indigo night shone through the window. Golden braid trimmed the canopy.

A statue of a faun had lost one arm, and it cast a stubby dancing shadow against the wall. There was a painting showing an

English country scene, and someone had drawn a shepherd fucking a dairymaid from behind, clearly not the original artist.

She pulled him into the bedchamber and closed the door, shutting out the sounds of revelry and sex.

Ben threw open the window to let in fresh air, but all that met him was a heavy hot breeze. Alys flicked her fingers, and

a weighty chest slid in front of the door to ensure no one came inside. The relative quiet of the room left too much space

inside his head for clamorous, agonizing thoughts.

“I’m going to find Strickland. And Warne.” He clenched and unclenched his fists. “And kill them both.”

She nodded. “My blade will join yours.”

“It’s not your fight.”

“Of course, it’s my fight.” She stood in front of him. “Someone needs to guard your back.”

With rough hands, he scrubbed at his face. “Everything I’ve known about myself, they’re all lies. Fabrications that shored

up illusions.”

She reached beneath his shirt to press her palm against his bare skin. The feel of her flesh on his dimmed the chaos closing

in on him.

“It’s a curse, and a gift,” she murmured. “The chance to remake ourselves well away from anyone’s beliefs of who they want

us to be, and what the world demands.”

He stared at her, his only anchor in the midst of a maelstrom.

“When we set sail, it’s our course to set,” she went on softly, intently. “Where we go, it’s up to us.”

“Not so simple,” he said hoarsely.

“I never said it was simple,” she answered. “It’s risky as hell. That’s why few try. But the reward,” she added, her mouth

curving, “it’s bigger than any treasure, any prize we claim.”

Pressing his forehead to hers, he breathed in deeply. She carried the scent of night-blooming flowers and the summery, salty

fragrance of a life lived upon the sea.

“I want to believe you,” he rasped.

“ I believe me.” She pressed her lips lightly to his. “It can hold us both, but there’s going to come a time when you won’t have

need of my belief. You’ll know it enough on your own.”

“I’ll always have need of you,” he said urgently.

Something panicked and restless flashed within the hazel of her eyes. He almost took the words back—but they were true, and

he couldn’t lie. Not to her. She deserved complete honesty and he would give it to her.

“Before now,” he said, “no one ever gave me permission to be myself.”

“You don’t need permission. Not from me or from anyone.”

“Yet you’re the only person who told me I didn’t require it. You let me exist as who I’m meant to be.”

The fear in her eyes faded.

He curved one of his hands around the back of her head. Their gazes held. She didn’t look away or back down. She never did.

Even when she was afraid, she met her fear.

“Impossible, extraordinary woman,” he growled. “I’ve wanted to throttle you and bed you in equal measure. For so long, I’ve

wanted you. At night, when you’re on the other side of your quarters, I lay awake in my hammock, just... just aching. For

you. You’ve laid claim to each part of me, and have ever since I tried to rescue you at the tavern in St. Gertrude.”

“No one owns anyone,” she breathed, “and I don’t need rescuing.”

“And if I need you ?”

“For tonight,” she said, bringing her mouth to his, “you have me.”