Page 28 of Traitor Witch (The Deadwood #1)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

NILSA

C annon fire jolts me out of a fae-dust induced slumber.

The whole boat shakes, and Val's maniacal laughter fills the cabin.

Ugh.

Whoever this is just had to pick today to attack us, didn't they? The day when my gut tries to rip itself out of me and leaves me feeling stabby and emotional.

The fae dust might have blunted the worst of the tearing pains in my abdomen, but it hasn't made me any less of a moody bitch. It also hasn't done anything about the wicked hangover banging around my skull from all the wine.

I grab my dagger and head for the door.

"Ahem... new moon?" Opal's sensible and unwelcome reminder blasts through me.

"They woke me up," I argue.

"The horror," she retorts, dryly. "And just how do you plan to sneak aboard a hostile ship and kill people without any of the pirates noticing?"

Ugh, why does my familiar have to be so sensible?

I sink back onto the bed and grab another chocolate from the box Cas and Nos presented to me last night.

I soften slightly as I remember how sweet the shifter twins were. Nos snuggled me, his warm arm around my middle. My own, personal heat pad. After I banished Elsie and her unhelpful 'pain is the price of the blessing of fertility' speech, Cas broke out the wine and fae dust candies to commiserate.

So much for hoping the Solar witch would heal me.

Another round of cannon fire deafens me and I growl in frustration, leaping off the bed.

"Can you keep it down!" I yell at the ceiling.

Val just laughs harder.

That's it.

I rip open the door and stomp down the hallway towards the hatch. My hangover and period-induced-ire is enough to make me stomp out onto the deck, uncaring of the ocean.

Not that I can focus on the sea with all the drama happening up here.

The planks that make up the Deadwood are shining like they're made of metal, not wood. They're covered in inky purple transmutation circles, and their new sheen reflects that light so the whole ship has an eerie glow.

Val is at the wheel, his skin marked with the same geometric patterns. Underneath I can see the deep red of perfectly circular bruises which must be the result of all the cannon fire the Deadwood has taken. The amount of power it takes to protect both man and ship must be insane.

His magic is hardening the entire hull enough to reduce cannonball blasts to mere dents.

I don't think I ever truly understood how powerful a mage Val is until now. Something close to respect forms as the ship rocks under another round of cannon fire and Val just laughs and takes it.

But I shrug off the feeling.

Val might be powerful, but he's still an asshole. Even worse, his glowing makes it impossible to look at him for a long time without sunspots dancing in my eyes. I switch my attention to our attackers' ship to give my retinas a rest.

Only to be confronted by a scene out of a horror movie.

Cas's beast is wrapped around the other ship like a snake. His coils squeeze their hull as the other crew desperately tries to thrust spears through his armoured scales.

How dare they stab him?

Rage boils through me, but I can't see a way across to do anything about it.

What I wouldn't do for a broom right about now.

On the deck, dancing around the leviathan's coils, Rysen and Kier take out the enemy crew with startling efficiency.

They're beautiful to watch. Like predators in their natural habitat.

They're both shirtless. Rysen's muscles are covered in blood, his nipple rings glinting in the sun. He looks…feral. I can't see the gentle vampire who apologised for biting me in those frowning red eyes. Only death.

Kier, in contrast, is still immaculate. He disappears in one place and reappears in another so fast it's difficult to track. His speed makes it seem like he's teleporting. But really, it's just a perfectly controlled use of glamour. He uses the fae gift like it's as simple as breathing.

Maybe, for him, it is.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Val roars, breaking my study of the two men. "Get back below deck."

"Why the fuck are you making such a racket?" I yell back. "Do you even know how hungover I am? "

"We're pirates! Looting ships is kind of in our job description! Sorry if it's too loud for you, Lady Solar ."

I raise a brow.

That's the first time any of them have admitted they're pirates to me. Not that I didn't already know, but his grimace as he realises what he's done makes me want to snort.

The sarcastic way he said my title makes me pause and look away before he can read the panic in my gaze.

But the action leaves my eyes free to catch on someone who shouldn't be on the other ship.

Nos is in the middle of the fray, standing perfectly still. A beacon of peace in the middle of a battle. His leather trousers and baggy white shirt are stained with blood and he doesn't seem to notice as a man comes up beside him, swinging his blade for a killing blow.

"Nos—"

My warning cry cuts off as Nos whirls, slicing a perfect line across the throat of his would-be attacker.

Shock freezes me to spot as he spins again, parrying a blow even I hadn't seen coming.

Nos's fighting style isn't aggressive. It's pre-emptive. Not once does he let an enemy strike first.

I can almost feel his shifter senses working on overdrive.

If I wasn't currently hungover, hating all men for my body's stupid fertility cycle, and in a state of semi-shock, this display would make me seriously horny.

Then the cannons on the Deadwood fire. Miraculously not hitting any of our own people.

The noise batters my still-ringing skull, and I glower at Val.

"Why would you do that?"

His answering grin makes me want to kill him.

But a victory shout from the other boat makes me turn and look .

Cas's enormous head reaches up to the top of the mast and rips the ship's flag down.

They've won.

In less than fifteen minutes.

"They fired first..." Val shrugs as the glow recedes from the ship, making it possible to look at him again.

His loose shirt displays the rapidly darkening bruises to full effect, but my eyes are drawn to the bulge pressing against the fly of his leathers. The bastard clearly got off on the pain.

And yes, I'm not too hungover to appreciate the size of the boner the asshole is packing.

For just a second, I get the feeling that there's something I'm forgetting. Something important. But I don't have the chance to examine it because Val starts talking again.

"Probably pirate-hunters. Fancy showing your appreciation by healing me up?"

The words are a challenge, but I'm saved from answering by Cas's bellow. The tail of the leviathan snaps the mainmast of the other ship in two, letting it collapse into the ocean.

Kier flies over with a barrel, barely looks at me, then returns to the other ship.

Rysen is much the same, leaping between the two with his vampiric strength, tossing crates onto the deck which sink downwards through the wood, probably into the mysterious hold I've heard so much about.

What is going on with them?

"That's it?" I ask.

"What did you expect?" Nos slides off Cas's tail and onto the deck then, with a grin, he presents me with a jewellery box. "We're good at what we do."

Cas doesn't shift back. Instead, he carefully takes a mouthful of the cargo on the deck of the ship and shifts it across. It takes maybe two or three mouthfuls until everything is aboard and the Deadwood starts to move off. Heading for Idos once more.

I flick open the box. My face goes blank as I take in the hairpins inside. They're silver, needle sharp and covered in glittering diamonds.

But the tips are shaped like tiny crescent moons.

Nos knows.

I suspected he might, but seeing it confirmed like this hammers the point home.

Only Valorean and Rysen still believe I'm a Solar.

The mage who hates liars and the vampire who could crush me like a bug.

When they find out—and they will find out, because my acting skills are terrible—it will only be a matter of time until my job is revealed as well.

"Thank you," I whisper, mouth on autopilot.

Should I say something? Should I just confess everything?

My eyes flick past Nos, towards the ship that, without Cas's support, is slowly sinking down into the blackness of the ocean. Taking those who dared to cross my pirates to a watery grave.

Would I meet that same fate?

My stomach seizes.

My breath catches.

I flee towards the safety of the hatch.

But Rysen meets me halfway.

"Forgive us, Lady Solar. They attacked first and sometimes, death is the only way. It's just how things are..."

His nostrils flare. His whole body stiffens.

"Rysen?" I whisper.

"Go." He chokes out.

"What's—?"

"Unless you're advertising a buffet meal, you might want to get below deck." Val's words are dry, but the concern in his tone is real.

But I'm frozen.

Caught between the memory of his bite, fear of the ocean, and my own hormone-induced-horniness.

"You need to feed." Goddess, why do I crave his fangs in me again? Have I lost my mind?

Probably.

It wasn't a question, but he shakes his head anyway.

"Go. Please."

I finally unfreeze my legs and head toward the hatch, clutching the little box Nos gave me like a lifeline.

I barely make it below deck before Rysen's roar shakes the ship.

RYSEN

Ever since the smell of her blood started saturating the ship yesterday, it's all I can think of. Boarding the pirate-hunter ship was almost a relief. A way to work out the frustration of that perfect scent on the unsuspecting humans who thought they could best us.

But once it was done, their bodies drained and their treasures taken, Nilsa had been there, on the deck. Waiting for us.

Seeing what we can do.

What we love doing.

We must have scared the living daylights out of her. The death and pillaging we made our living with was the opposite of everything a Solar like herself stood for.

The shock on her face confirms it. So I can barely meet her eyes as we finish tossing our newly acquired cargo on board.

Then, when Noster gave her his loot, she looked at him like he'd struck her. Like being given a dead person's jewellery was something so anathema that she couldn't process it.

I wanted to rip his head off.

And when I tried to explain... and caught her scent.

Shit.

I'm left with my head in my hands as she, once again, flees from me.

Every predatory instinct in me wants to give chase.

She's not a vampire queen. Nilsa isn't spreading her scent around the nest to lure in her males.

A hand touches my back silently. Kier's solid presence behind me giving me comfort.

"I need her."

I know the confession is broken. Jagged.

But that's what needing her has done to me.

I need Nilsa.

I need her blood. Her affection. Her smiles.

Worse.

I'm starting to lose control.

I woke up last night, in front of her door with no memory of getting there and my fangs extended. My sleeping mind still trying to drag me to her.

I'm reverting back to who I was before Kier dragged me back to myself.

My own memories of the madness of the Blood Pits scare me. It was so easy, back then, to lose myself to the animal nature of my life. Fight, kill, feed. Nilsa has the power to send me back to that state in a heartbeat.

The power to make me or break me. And that terrifies me.

The lingering scent of her isn't helping, and I briefly consider diving back into the ocean.

"You can hold out for longer than you think," Nos whispers .

It's a measure of how lost I am that I didn't notice his approach.

"Will she ever...?"

His smile gives me hope but his words are grim. "Sometimes, to love someone, you have to let them go and hope they come back."

My head falls.

But I'm not sure I'm ready to hear if Nilsa will return to us.

What can a crew of broken pirates offer a Solar witch?

"She's ours." Cas's voice is a guttural growl that's more beast than man. "She belongs on this ship, with us."

"Mate," Kier agrees, squeezing my shoulder lightly before letting go.

As one, we all look at Val.

He rolls his eyes. "At least she's not as annoying as the other witch."

Coming from him, that's a huge compliment.

"When we get to Idos, make the offer," I say. "She has to know that we want her to stay... We have to tell her everything."

She has to know who she is to us. I can't watch her leave and not know that I did everything to try and convince her to give us a chance.

I expect Nos to object but he nods. "It's time she knew."