As soon as the door softly clicked behind them, I exhaled. “Come here.”
Kas collapsed onto me with a shaky exhale, his body trembling slightly against mine. I wrapped my arms around him, careful not to press too hard against any hidden injuries.
“I’m going to kill them,” I growled, my voice low and dangerous.
“No, you’re not.” His words were muffled against my chest, but firm.
“Ariella still wants me to mutiny against Viper,” I said, the confession bursting from me.
Kas pulled back, his green eyes searching mine. The bruise around his left eye looked even worse up close, the skin puffy and discolored. “And what did you say?”
“I said no.” My fingers gently traced the edge of his bruise. “I can’t. Maintaining the Reaper persona for so long has nearly killed me. Being captain would…” I shook my head. “Keeping a pirate crew alive, in line… I’d become as bad as Viper.”
“You could never be like him,” Kas whispered, his faith in me both beautiful and terrifying.
“You don’t know what I’m capable of.” I closed my eyes briefly. “I’ve spent years building walls around myself, becoming someone I barely recognize. And…” I inhaled sharply. “I keep thinking of their faces. My mother and grandfather. He was Fleet Admiral for House Eldritch. My love of the sky? That’s from him. The thought of their disappointment in me—that I’d become apirate captainof all things…”
Kas wrapped one arm around my waist, the other burying into my hair, pulling me closer. The gentle pressure of his fingers against my scalp sent warmth cascading through me.
“Listen to me. They’d be so proud of the man you’ve become. Probably not quite what they expected”—he let out a soft chuckle—“but that doesn’t change how kind you are. How brave you are.”
I shook my head, unable to accept his words even as they melted something long-frozen inside me. “You see what you want to see, Kas. I’ve done things—” My voice caught as his fingers traced soothing circles at the nape of my neck. The phantom pain in my missing leg flared suddenly, a cruel reminder of all I’d lost. I shifted my weight, disguising the movement as pulling him closer. “When I close my eyes at night, I see their faces. Everyone I’ve failed. Everyone I’ve hurt. All the blood on my hands.” I pressed my forehead against his, breathing in the scent of cannonball dust from his shirt and Sage’s sweet tea. “But when I look at you… I see something worth fighting for. Something worth being better for.”
Kas’s eyes glistened in the dim light, his freckled face solemn as he ran his thumb along my jawline. “You know what I see when I look at you?” His voice was barely above a whisper, as if sharing a secret the ship itself shouldn’t hear. “I see a man who survived when the world tried to ground him. A man who still has the strength to fly.” His fingers trembled slightly against me. “Back home, my life only felt like surviving. Hiding my secret. Hiding myself.” He swallowed hard. “But here, with you… it’s like I’m not just surviving anymore.” A small, tentative smile flickered across his face. “Maybe we’re both worth fighting for.”
The way he looked at me then, as if I truly was someone worth something, had a lump forming in my throat. Cupping the back of his neck, I brought my lips to his forehead, pressing a kiss there. “I was just surviving too,” I murmured against his temple. “But these past few weeks… they’ve felt like living.”
Kas made a soft noise before wrapping both arms around my waist, burying his face into my neck.
“I enjoyed waking up with you this morning,” I said, thinking back to how his hair had tickled my nose. “Ever so much.”
“Me too,” he admitted, his breath warm against my neck.
“You’re staying in my bed from now on.”
When Kas pulled back, there was surprise evident on his face. “But—”
“No buts. You can sneak out as soon as most of them have nodded off.” I cupped his face. “Ariella will help watch you during the day. If I’m not able to be nearby, you’re never to be apart from her. I’ll swap everyone’s shifts if I have to. And then you’ll spend your nights with me.”
A small smile curved his lips. “I’m not going to argue with that if it means sleeping in your bed forever.”
We both froze, eyes locking as the weight of that impossible word hung between us.Forever.
The simple syllables crashed through me like a storm.Forever. A word that belonged to fairy tales and promises made by people with futures, not to men like me who lived moment to moment, who counted success in days survived rather than years planned.
Yet hearing it from Kas’s lips made my heart stutter with longing so fierce it frightened me. Images flashed unbidden—waking beside him not just tomorrow but in weeks, months, years to come. Watching those freckles shift with seasons, memorizing every expression, every laugh line as they formed.
It was a fantasy so beautiful ithurt—a glimpse of paradise when I’d long ago accepted my sentence to purgatory. I wanted to grab that word with both hands, to believe in it with the desperate faith of a drowning man sighting shore. But I’d been adrift too long to trust such visions.
How many times had I watched hope destroy people? And yet… the warmth in Kas’s eyes made me want to be reckless, to gamble everything on this one impossible chance.
“Deal,” I said, swallowing down the lump in my throat before it could steal this precious moment from me. Because soon, all I’d have was memories.
22
Kaspar
My heart ached.
