Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 163328 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 817(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163328 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 817(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
I must have passed out before Jobah reached our destination. The next thing I remembered was bolting upward in sharp, wrenching pain. It felt as though something was digging around in my broken arm.
My spine bowed as soundless howls spluttered past my lips. Numerous hands pinned me to a flat surface. I recognized the rafters overhead. The wall of windows. The Caribbee chart tapestry on the wall. I was in my private cabin, lying face-up on top of my desk.
Priest and Ashley stood on either side of me. Reynolds held my feet. Lieutenant Flemming was here, looking on as Ipswich tortured my arm. Something hard and metal scraped against the raw bone, sending me into another thrashing fit.
They were helping me. Knowing that, I tried so hard not to cry or move. But the pain… God’s blood, I couldn’t take much more. I trembled with it. Shook. I’d been shaking since Madwulf had taken me.
Huge blue eyes appeared above my face. Compelling eyes, chiseled jaw, muscular shoulders, and so many other gorgeous body parts that I hoped to admire again someday.
Ashley watched me as I watched him, unwavering, locked. In my periphery, Priest spoke to the doctors, his words heated and firing with threatening fury.
I focused on Ashley, on his carefully controlled reserve. It bothered me how close he was staring. Oh, how my appearance must sicken him.
“I look…” I pinned my lips and silently whimpered through a fresh twist of pain. “Dreadful.”
His gaze didn’t leave mine as he gave a hard swallow. A dip of his head. A slow blink. Then he mouthed, Strong. Fierce. His brow furrowed. Too beautiful, Goldilocks.
“Liar,” I said.
But his words reminded me to give myself some merit. I’d suffered an unimaginable amount of torture over the past few weeks. I was still alive. Still fighting. My father would’ve been proud of me.
“Madwulf?” I gulped through an insufferable sweep of spasms as something was tied around my arm.
Ashley’s mouth shaped the word, Contained.
His gaze flicked to Priest, who shifted out of my view and returned a second later, opening a leather pouch. From within, he removed my compass, the jade stone, and the tiny scroll that presumably held the location of my father’s treasure.
“Thank you.” I tried to make my lips smile, but I couldn’t breathe without crying.
His features turned stony as he pulled out a rag stained with blood. Unfolding the cloth, he tilted it downward so I could see what it held.
A severed hand.
Pale, freckled skin. Jagged fingernails.
Madwulf.
I closed my eyes and nodded, knowing that was the first of what would be many gifts. In my present condition, I couldn’t partake in Madwulf’s torture. But I could count on Priest to bring me all the bits and pieces.
Perhaps that made him an animal. I was accustomed to his feral behavior. In fact, it endeared me to him. Maybe that made me an animal, too.
Ashley showed no revulsion to it. Not that I was surprised after witnessing the brutality he’d inflicted on the admiral.
Over the next few hours, Ipswich and Flemming worked feverishly on my injuries. I blacked out through most of it, my awareness coming and going in fits of seething pain.
When I could talk, I answered their mimed questions on how each injury had been inflicted. Amidst my delirium, I might have fixated too much on the loss of my father’s letter, but Priest and Ashley understood my grief. Every word fueled the rage radiating off them.
I had so many questions for them. How did they know each other? What were their plans for tomorrow? And the next day? And next year? What did they discuss together over the past week? Did they share everything they knew about me? About my history with each of them? Did Ashley tell Priest that I’d started our relationship as a ruse to escape? That I hadn’t set out to fall in love again? Did they fight? Work things out?
They seemed tolerant of each other at the moment. I didn’t know what that meant and didn’t have the mental capacity—or the hearing—to interrogate them.
Exhaustion pulled at me, dragging down my limbs. I just needed sleep, and it heard my plea. It reached up from the depths and took me.
When I woke, the cabin was dark and empty, save for the glow of a single lantern. And Priest and Ashley.
I lay on the desk in a vacuum of unnatural silence. Ashley sat on the edge beside my head, washing my face and hair. Priest leaned over my lower half, running a warm, wet towel over my nude body.
The pain had ebbed into dull clenching convulsions, concentrating in my arm, my ribs, and the side of my head. I didn’t move, didn’t try to speak. The caresses of their hands felt too precious, each touch a heavenly balm on my battered spirit.