He was standing uncomfortably close, still gripping my arm.
“Oasis is a friend since my boyhood,” he continued, “sailing toward us onTemerity.”
“Oasis,” I repeated, trying to picture Jax as a child and failing. “What happened, couldn’t think of any other synonyms for blue?”
Jax barked a laugh. “It’s a common practice for pirates to use an alias, for obvious reasons. I was hardly Bluebeard at the beginning.”
“So that explains Omar,” I said sarcastically of the boatswain, the only crew member besides the cabin boy not to use a name meaning blue or one of its shades.
“There’s no explaining Omar,” the Lady de Gorm said with an eye roll. “He thinks he’s too famous to take an alias.”
I shot a quizzical look at Jax that was full of exasperation. I’d been on this ship for weeks, and everyone still avoided explaining even the most minor details. It was as if I’d barely earned their trust. The trust ofpirates—the last people on earth whose wordI’dtrust.
“I’m the second pirate lord who’s employed Omar,” Jax said with a shrug, finally releasing my arm. “He once built the firstworking sandship—then was left for dead after his cohorts stole his design. The man who became Whitebeard found him.”
That was Omar?I’d heard of sandships that sailed dunes like they were water. “How did he end up here?”
“He met Safira, obviously,” the Lady de Gorm said, sounding bored as she strode away, her boot heels clunking across the deck. “People with hearts makefascinatingchoices.”
Jax snorted. “Don’t let her fool you, pet. The Lady de Gorm has plenty of heart.”
It took me a moment to realize Jax was talking tome.“Pet?” I asked, frowning up at him.
He shrugged. “It wouldn’t do for someone to sense a division between us while we’re on Starfall. My fellow pirates don’t need anything else to exploit.”
My brows must’ve knit together at that, for Jax was soon laughing at me…
…and reaching out to smooth the furrow between my eyebrows.
I recoiled from his calloused touch.
“That won’t do, either,” Jax said, clucking his tongue. He leaned in, so close I could smell the rum in his sweat from the prior night’s reveries. “The curse has left me unable to die, but it doesn’t mean I’m invulnerable.”
I drew away from his nearness. “That’s not what Mr. Smalt told me.”
“The crew is different,” Jax said, somehow still too close to me. “As you said, I’m the touchpoint for the curse—and the one the Bride enacts her vengeance upon.”
“If that’s true,” I said, “then why is the crew cursed?”
“To make me suffer.” Jax stepped back at last, making me realize how shallowly I’d been breathing. He held out his arms, saying loudly, “It’s all about making the bridegroom suffer.”
I scoffed. “Curses aren’t that simple.”
“This one is.”
“Let me study you, and prove it.”
He laughed. “Some other time, pet. I’ve got to prepare.”
“For what?” I crossed my arms.
“For my triumphant return, of course.”
Goddess of the North, was I ever sorry I’d asked.
“Did anyone ever tell you you’re a narcissist?” I asked, my hands tented on my hips.
“Is it still narcissism if you really are that magnificent?”
