Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 144411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
So now she’s staying elsewhere on the ship, having found herself a corner there, and the crew avoids her like she has the plague. I don’t blame them, considering Henry’s death and her arrival are probably tied in their minds, but I know there’s no correlation. Naturally, Ramsay has told her she’s free to go but she’s determined to stay on the ship, at least until we reach the Bay of Banderas, which will be our first contact with land.
The thought of that, of reaching New Spain and Acapulco, and being closer to Limonos, has my heart in knots, more so than it already was. How do we even find Edonia? Will Nerissa help us? What if she doesn’t want to be found?
The bigger question is, can the crew go through another battle like that again? The Nightwind took a savage beating from the navy ship, but she’s still standing. In the end, the navy ship was destroyed and nearly all their crew was killed. Thane took a few prisoners alive and put them in the hold as sustenance for later, and Ed Smith was never to be found after Sedge shot him in the face. It’s possible that he’s swimming somewhere in the middle of the ocean, but we would have left him far behind by now.
But while cannons and guns are one thing, the Kraken and magic are another. Unless the Nightwind can physically fight back, the Kraken can take down a ship this big without a care. It can tear apart the Brethren with its tentacles, all at Edonia’s doing. We may have lost Henry with this round against the Royal Navy, but we still won, we still survived. Next time might be the death of us all.
Which is why I’ve decided that I will need to seek Edonia on my own. Maybe Nerissa will help me, maybe she won’t, but I can’t let my need to fix my regrets endanger anyone else. This is between Edonia and I and no one else.
If you’re even going to go through with it, I remind myself as I slowly walk along the deck, staring up at the sky as more stars appear.
I sigh and make my way down the stairs. I should go to my room or perhaps pester Sedge to make me something to eat, but instead I need to check on Ramsay. All he’s been doing is keeping to himself, locked in his head, and I’ve been giving him space, but I know that grief isn’t something that is dealt with in a day.
I knock on his door and wait to hear if I can come in. Lothar welded a new lock for him and I try it with my hand, even though there’s only silence.
It opens and I step inside and see Ramsay rolling over in his bed to face me.
“Maren?” he asks quietly, voice raw.
“It’s just me,” I tell him, closing the door behind me. “I only wanted to check on you and see if you needed anything.”
I walk over to him and stop by his bed. In the dim light of the cabin I see that his eyes are bloodshot, his hair a mess, and my eyes briefly trail down over his bare chest, the rest of him covered by his blanket.
“You,” he says hoarsely, holding out his hand for mine. “I need you.”
I place my hand in his and he pulls me into the bed on top of him. He puts his hands on both sides of my face, fingers into my hair and gazes up at me. “I need to escape this hell, Maren. I don’t want your platitudes.”
“I don’t have any,” I tell him. “I’m just here to be with you, to listen. Nothing I can say will give you comfort, I know this.”
“Then kiss me,” he says.
I lean in and press my lips to his and he immediately envelopes me in his kiss, wet and open and hungry. I’m pulled in, like he’s reaching up from the depths I’ve been too afraid to swim in and I can’t stay afloat any longer. He’s the undertow and I’m powerless against his pull.
“You are delirium personified,” he rasps against my mouth, his hands in my hair, giving my strands a sharp tug. “You’re a fever in my soul, for which there is no cure.”
He releases my hair with a groan and reaches down, trying to undo my stays. “I need to feel your skin against mine,” he says with urgency, his fingers grabbing hold of the ribbons. I quickly reach back and try to help him but in a fit of desperation he rips them in half with a great tearing sound and tosses my stays across the room.
Then my shift is pulled over my head and he’s pushing back the blankets, taking me by the waist with a bruising grip and placing me on top so I’m straddling his muscular thighs, the hard, thick length of his cock sticking up along his stomach.