The captain stepped closer, and as much as Adara wanted to shrink away from his bulky frame pressing toward her, she let his large fingers skate along the sheaths at her ribs, settling below the subtle curve of her breast. His rough, graying beard scratched her cheek as he leaned in, bringing his neck closer toher. His lips caressed the shell of her ear as he whispered, “I’m going to put you on your knees until you are begging me to—”
Adara’s teeth morphed into fangs as she sank them into the captain’s exposed neck and ripped out his throat. The tang of copper filled her mouth. Blood sprayed across her face, gushing onto the deck and bubbling from his lips. Gurgled sounds came from the captain as he collapsed onto the crimson-stained wood, his mouth working for words that would not come.
Fire flooded her veins, pleading—noclawing—to be released as the light left his dull eyes.
The pirate behind her tensed, unable to move. Heat radiated from his body, still holding her tight. The crew gasped, horrified eyes locked onto Adara, onto the smoke that rose from the pirate behind her. He tried to scream but all that came out was a choked gasp. Blood leaked from his mouth and eyes. As he released Adara, she smiled and turned to him, spitting out a chunk of the captain’s flesh and wiping blood from her lips.
“I warned you,” she said, flashing him a bloodied grin.
Flesh sloughed off his bones, blistered and charred to a burned crisp. He, too, collapsed into a pile of carnage on the decks, melted alive from the inside out.
Let me out, the voice inside her head demanded as she stooped to retrieve her sword.Let them burn.
No,Adara thought to herself.Not yet.She could not risk releasing more of her power now. Infinova was forged to withstand the flames, to help control them when her hands could not. Adara feared that if she unleashed them now, they might burn and burn until nothing was left. The Andreilians needed to be off the ship before she could do anything. She could not let them perish under her power.
“Demon!” someone shouted.
Metal split the air, and Adara whirled, bringing Infinova up to defend against the attack. But it was too late. Someone already fired an arrow through his throat.
“You’re welcome!” Asher shouted fromThe Lykren, nocking another arrow in his bow and firing at a pirate charging across the gangplank. The ship plunged into chaos, a blur of bodies and steel and blood.
A pirate lunged for Adara, with a cutlass aimed for her gut. With Infinova, she quickly deflected, drew the dagger from her vambrace, pivoted around him, and plunged the knife into his side. She yanked the blade free, leaving him to bleed out. Another swiped for her head. She ducked, extending a leg and sweeping the pirate’s feet out from under him and going for the throat. Blood leaked from his slit neck.
Adara searched the ship for Dominic, blade arcing gracefully as she defended herself from the masses. Pain lanced through her scalp as someone yanked her back by her braid. An arm wrapped around her throat. Her vision went blurry, and her lungs constricted as he squeezed and squeezed.
Dominic retrieved a sword from a fallen pirate, raised both his blades, and slashed his way through the fray, emerald eyes fixed on her. Gods,the way he moved—it was like hewasthe magic coursing through him. He didn’t need to command it when it was intertwined within him. He struck and blocked, swift as lightning. Ducked and rolled, the boat rocking along the waves with him. He whirled and struck, hard and lethal as a strong gale. His blade met the enemy’s, ringing out across the deck, wind whipping the sails with the motion. No, he wasn’t commanding his power at all. It was simply built into him and followed without thought. Like one’s lungs would breathe or one’s heart would beat. A heart he didn’t have, replaced by magic cascading through him like a living, writhing being that kept him alive after he’d tossed his heart into the sea.
He grew closer and closer, determined to save her, but Adara didn’t need his help. Power surged within her, and she focused it all on the surface of her skin, heating it to the temperature of scorching flames. The pirate behind her screamed, burning where he held onto her. She elbowed him in the gut, and he staggered away, his sticky, blistered skin peeling off her. Adara pivoted, sword flying horizontally through the air, decapitating her assailant. Blood gushed from his stump of a neck. His head rolled away with a trail of scarlet in its wake as the body thunked to the ground.
Footsteps approached behind her, and she whirled to face them, sword swinging. Steel clashed between them. Adara gasped as she met a pair of emerald eyes across her blade. Shoulders slumping with relief, she lowered her sword.
Dominic reached out a bloodied hand to cup her cheek, his eyes scanning her for injury. “Are you all right?” he asked breathlessly.
She leaned into the solace that was him, giving him a gentle smile as everything seemed to fade away. The sound of steel ringing and arrows whooshing through the air and bodies thudding to the ground fell away until the cacophony was a dull drone in the back of her mind. Adara traced the sharp line of his jaw, the soft curve of his lips. Pressing her forehead to his, she slid her hand around to the nape of his neck, his presence slowing her rapid heartbeat. All that mattered was him. It was Dominic’s calloused palm softly brushing her cheek, not the filthy pirate’s that had been on her moments ago.
“I’m fine,” she reassured him.
Dominic’s hand abruptly dropped from her face, drawing a knife from his belt and flinging it to the side. It sank deep into someone’s chest. The body that dropped dead at their feet brought everything crashing back. Sounds of battle rushed through her ears, and she was acutely aware of the bloodspattered against her clothes, her skin, the lingering taste of it in her mouth, the smell of charred skin. She was destruction in the flesh. She was death incarnate.
Gods, she’d almost struck Dominic. Guilt hollowed her stomach, sending her pulse into a frenzy once more. “I could have killed you!” she scolded, hand falling away from him to tightly grip Infinova as more pirates charged their way.
Dominic dropped to a knee, slashing out with both swords in a whirlwind of steel, sending two pirates toppling to the ground, unable to walk with slit ankles. When he rose to meet her eyes, he swung one sword up to rest on a shoulder.
“No, love, you couldn’t have,” he retorted with a cocky smirk.
Before she could come up with a snarky response, he was already diving back into the maelstrom, bodies dropping in his wake.
“Nice performance!” Asher said as he approached. Blood dripped from the sword in his hand.
A flash of white hair and a lanky figure ran by, Vesper and Sawyer joining the fight as well. It was strange to see the archer wielding any weapon other than his bow—which hung across his back along with a quiver of arrows—yet his skill didn’t balk. Neither did hers as she pressed her back to Asher’s, their movements one with each other as they fought the pirates surrounding them.
Asher lashed out, his blade slicing cleanly through a pirate’s arm. The man screamed, his severed limb dropping to the deck in a puddle of blood. Adara swung her sword, only to be parried by a burly pirate three times her size. Her muscles strained to shove against him with their blades crossed between them, but Asher’s back against her provided leverage to hold him off. She drove her knee into his groin. The man doubled over, and Adara didn’t hesitate to shove her sword through his skull.
“I got your back!” someone shouted over the sound of weapons clanging and the groans of dying pirates as Asher delivered a series of swift cuts that split a man’s stomach over and over.
Caleb carried a hefty mace in one hand and a large sack of what she assumed were coins and other stolen treasures in the other. Cords of muscle shone through his tunic as he tossed the sack over the small gap between their ships, then swung the mace with ease. The metal spikes on its end came crashing down on a man’s skull. Brain matter splayed on the deck with a sickening splat.
Knives glinted through the darkening sky as they soared across the deck, each finding its mark. Adara smiled, pride surging through her to see Silas’s training put to use.
