TWENTY-EIGHT

It has been two days since I shamefully fled Captain Thorne's quarters. I have not seen the piratess since, though I have admittedly been very much trying not to see her.

I cannot seem to clear my mind on the matter where she is concerned.

Surely, what transpired between us was not bliss, as I might have thought in the moment, but Hellfire.

I cannot deny that my body wants her still. But the flesh is weak, and I am of a mind to forget the whole affair. For the sake of my sanity, I shall forget the way our bodies fit together with perfect unity.

If Jasper notices my distracted state, he does not comment on it as we work in silence, scrubbing the deck.

I should think I'd be perfectly content hunched over the floorboards for the rest of the journey when a shadow falls across my path.

I look up into the bright sun, squinting at the outline above me.

"Captain Thorne has summoned you," Mr. Davenport says, crossing her arms across her chest.

I let out a tight breath, tossing my brush into a bucket and climbing to my feet. Beside me, Jasper rises and Mr. Davenport's eyes cut to him. "The summons was for one," she says curtly.

I glance at Jasper, giving him a small nod to stand down. He reaches up, brushing sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his tunic before nodding back.

"Now, sir. The captain doesn't have all day."

I look at Mr. Davenport, who has managed to deliver a great measure of venom to the word sir. She has never once called me Captain. That is a title she reserves for only one person.

I move past her, ignoring her cold glare as I make my way across the deck toward the Captain's quarters. My mind races, trying to imagine what it is I'm walking into. Does she know what has transpired between the piratess and myself? I recall that fraternization was punishable by death under the Captain's orders.

My fingers brush my thigh when the thought crosses my mind. It seems foolish to die for integrity now when my morals have been thoroughly abandoned already.

I brush my fingers once more against my trousers as if I might wash the thoughts from my mind by dusting them off me, like dirt into the wind.

By the time I approach the Captain's door, I've made up my mind. If I am to face death, I shall do so with dignity, in an attempt to recover any honor I might be able to salvage in this wretched life.

I lift my hand, my knuckles rapping against the rough wood.

"Enter!"

I take a breath, settling my nerves before I push through the door.

The Captain's quarters are dark, and it takes blinking a few times before my eyes adjust.

My stomach tightens when the first face my gaze lands on is the piratess.

Her dark eyes are utterly unreadable, stoic in a way I've not yet seen her be. She is cold, impossible to discern, and part of me sags in relief. I half expected the villainess to gloat her conquest to all, damning us both in the process.

My eyes slide around the room, alighting on Alice before finally finding the Captain.

Her long body is stretched out, leaning back against her stately desk, a measure of rum poured but untouched beside her.

"Captain," she says, motioning me in further. "Come, we have much to discuss."

Captain Thorne is a fortress, well versed it would seem at keeping her thoughts from her face. I cannot tell what to expect from her carefully neutral face. I turn to young Alice, but she looks just as confused and curious as myself.

Begrudgingly, my gaze shifts back to the piratess. Her hypnotic eyes are on me, pinning me with a look that makes me both burning hot and frigidly cold.

Frustratingly, I cannot glean anything from her either.

Sending a silent prayer to the Almighty, I step deeper into the Captain's quarters, ready to face my fate.