Well I have another chapter written just not typed, I should have it up sometime this weekend. Sorry about the wait! And thank you for the reviews; It is a wonderful feeling to be able to keep readers for 30+ chapters when it is about a character they never really liked :) I hope I can continue to keep your attention.

"Karma." Vanessa muttered when they were a good distance from the sinking ship.

"What's that, sweetheart?" Stephen said with a little more of an attitude than he meant to.

"You left all those men to drown on the Triton and now your ship is sinking. There is a theory that evil deeds come back to bite you in the ass."

"Aye, well you can say that, sure. Though we will be better off. See there?" Stephen pointed behind her where an island was visible, even though it was so far away it was only barely visible at all. "We are near land, while they were not." He grinned wickedly at her. "Danu was at least kind to offer that little consolation."

"Why Danu? Who's to say God had nothing to do with it?" Vanessa arched a brow at him.

Stewart shifted uneasily beside her. He had come too shortly after getting into the little boat, or skiff. Then again, the rope snapping while they were still about nine feet above the water and the thunk they had made connecting with the water would have risen the dead. Vanessa didn't voice it, but she suspected it was her hips that caused the rope to snap; an all meat and starch diet may not seem bad until the starch builds up. She needed veggies something kind of fierce, and though she hated them, it wouldn't hurt on her teeth either. She really missed her toothbrush.

Stephen blinked as though he thought he may be delirious. "God abandoned me a long time ago, darlin'. It would be best if you were to remember it. I am on a path straight to the lowest depths of Hell, sweetheart, and since I am already goin', why not enjoy the sinful life while I still can, eh?" He smirked at her, sending a chill down her spine.

There was a total of twelve people on the boat, the others were going to drown: Amanda and the others, all those little babies. Stephen may have claimed he'd send the boat back to get the rest, but Vanessa knew it would be too late by the time it made it back. If anyone was still alive they would be thrashing in the water until they became too tired to swim and passed out from the sheer exhaustion before the boat made it back. They only had a few oars and the weight in the boat was enough to slow them down against the current that the storm had placed against them. It also looked like it would rain again soon.

Could she live with it?

Knowing she allowed herself to be saved while all those innocent people drowned? Vanessa swallowed down a lump in her throat as she realized that maybe she was meant to be with Stephen Bonnet after all. She was selfish, and it made her feel like a damned coward. Perhaps her mind still hadn't grasped the reality of the situation yet, because she never thought herself to be so heartless that she could just let it go so easily.

Instead of brooding about her own faults, she decided the best way to spend the next few hours was to ogle her husband who had shed his jacket to make rowing an easier task. He really looked like a pirate at that moment. He was wearing a pair of rather tight, tanleather pants - did pirates wear leather? If not they really should have because damn - and a white shirt that was hanging open at the collar to give Vanessa a nice view of his tan chest. His hair was still unbound and wet. All that was missing was a cutlass and a big gold hoop in his ear.

Vanessa yawned as an hour passed and they seemed to be no closer to shore than before, but she knew that they really had been moving towards it. She was getting hungry too, and she didn't want to guzzle the water in fear of running out before reaching land. The Coleridge poem, "The Rime of the Ancient Marnier," popped into her head.

"Water, Water everywhere, nor any drop to drink. Or something."

Vanessa hadn't realized she'd spoken aloud until she noticed all the men looking at her as though she was mad. "We…uh…have drinkin' water, darlin'" Stephen said, looking slightly amused.

" I know. It is from a poem I read…once."

"Really now? What was it about?" Stephen asked. Vanessa couldn't tell if he was genuinely interested or if he was asking out of sheer boredom.

"Well, it is about a mariner who couldn't see the beauty of the world and took it all for granted. One day at sea an Albatross was flying with the ship and was seen as a sign of good fortune… until the mariner shot it. Soon after the whole crew seemed to drop dead and all kinds of other weird things happened. I don't remember the later parts of the poem, mostly just the beginning. But the mariner was forced to travel constantly to tell his tale to everyone he comes across for the rest of his life."

Everyone was staring at her speculatively. "What?" Vanessa yawned again.

Stephen kicked Stewart who was directly across from him. "Wha?" Stewart said jerking from his relaxed position beside Vanessa.

"Switch places with me. Ye may have been knocked about, but it is your turn to row."

Once he was seated beside Vanessa, he pulled her against his shoulder. "Go to sleep, darlin', when ye wake we should be on land."

Before she could savor the comfort of his arm around her, she was asleep.