Abruptly, she went soft in my arms, falling into my chest, her fists curled against it. Her head was bowed between them, hiding her face.
“I should’ve done more.”
“If you could have, you would have.”
She didn’t say anything after that. She didn’t need to. For once, I’d won an argument with her, and she actually acknowledgedit—and it was the one argument I would’ve gladly been wrong about.
Blackbeard had gotten the best of us. My crew had paid the price. I thought everything would be better once the curse was broken and I had the Queen of the Sea. But we would be a target. Things would get exponentially worse and more dangerous for my crew.
And as I held Sofie in my arms, warming her cold body until the last of the shock passed, I knew only two things: I wanted no more deaths, and I wanted to protect her above all else.
Ifshe would let me.
In the morning, Sofie rose and went out onto the deck without saying a word. I hurried after her, full of concern, until sudden, sharp pressure behind one of my eyes pulled me up short.
By the time I stepped onto the deck, an unnatural, whirling storm was forming in the sky to the north of us.
I gaped at Sofie, her arms stretched skyward, looking like a storm goddess with a pennant of red hair streaming behind her.
She was beautiful. Beautiful and powerful enough to stop a man’s heart.
Belatedly, I noticed Violet standing expectantly at my side. “Captain,” she prompted, clearing her throat.
“Raise the sails,” I called out.
“Raise the sails!” Violet echoed.
“Aye aye, captain!” calledTemerity‘s crew.
There was no chance Blackbeard would catch us now. I left Sofie standing there, magnificently commanding her storm, and returned to my cabin to see to the megrim it brought me.
When first I’d met her, I hadn’t been sure of how she’d fare on this journey. Now I was. There was sea salt in her blood, and iron, too.
She was the perfect bride for a pirate. The question was, could I keep her alive long enough to become a worthy bridegroom?
Chapter eighteen
Sofie
Mydreamswerestrangethat night. So peculiar, I understood they weren’t natural dreams at all just from the sharp nature of it, contrasted with the darkness misting the edges.
It was her again. The Bride.
“Poor dear,” she said. “You still think he’ll choose you over the treasure, don’t you? He won’t. They never do.Henever does.”
She said this as though we were in mid-conversation, an exchange that began while I was still lost in actual dreams.
“He’ll pick me,” I found myself saying, sure despite not quite knowing what we were discussing. And then, suddenly, I did. “Jax loves me. He loves me more than an enchanted bit of treasure.”
My own words took me by surprise. I was so certain of them—and moments later, so awash in doubt.Jax loves me.He did, didn’t he? We hadn’t known each other long, but the gods knewwe’d spent more time together than most courting couples. Love matches were formed on less.
He loves me.Aestas help me, but I loved him, too.
What I did not know was whether I could trust him. In this not-quite-a-dream, I sounded awfully certain that I could.
“But she is the Queen of the Sea,” the Bride said, her face wreathed in shadows. Still, I could see the sadness in her eyes. “She is freedom, and pride, and power, and wealth beyond imagining. They will always choose her over us.”
“Hedidn’t choose you, did he? Your bridegroom. Is that why you set that curse?“ I hesitated. “You must’ve been a fearsome sorceress in your day.”
