The creature’s gaze fixed on my quartermaster and friend, on the way he fought the wheel with gritted teeth, on the way he refused to let the Wraith be dragged sideways into its waiting jaws. He was everything he was never born to be. A relentless fighter and a damn good pirate.
I knew the moment I met him that he was meant for more than London society, and I couldn’t bring myself to regret asking him to join me on the Wraith.
But now, now as the Leviathan surged for him, I regretted nothing more in my life.
And then it struck.
The massive head lunged toward the quarterdeck, teeth gaping.
“Oscar!” Rose screamed.
I moved before I thought, shoving Rose toward Inu and sprinting across the slick deck. The world narrowed to a man who was more my brother, to the impossibly huge shadow racing for him.
A blur of motion cut across my path. Morwenna flung her arms wide, chanting something vicious and sharp. Water rose up in a sudden wall between Oscar and the oncoming maw—notenough to stop it, but enough to make it hesitate, to slow it by a fraction.
In battles like this, a fraction is everything.
Inu was faster.
She wrenched Rose away from the rail, shoving her back toward me so hard that Rose stumbled into my chest. Then she ran—not for safety, not for cover, but straight for the Leviathan’s head as it crashed through Morwenna’s barrier.
“Inu!” Oscar shouted, horror cracking his voice.
She leapt onto the remnants of the quarterdeck rail, using the momentum of the ship’s tilt to launch herself forward. For a heartbeat, she was suspended in the air, dark hair streaming behind her, eyes fixed on the Leviathan with a focus sharp enough to cut.
Her sword flashed as she swung it down, carving a deep line across the glowing scar beneath its jaw. The creature howled, jerking to the side.
It wasn’t enough to kill it.
But it was enough to enrage it.
The Leviathan snapped its head sideways. Its massive jaw clipped the rail. Wood exploded into splinters. Inu lost her footing.
Her body was flung backward toward the open mouth. For one suspended moment, she and Oscar locked eyes. So much passed between them in that heartbeat that I felt like an intruder just witnessing it—love, apology, defiance.
Then the Leviathan’s jaws closed around her.
“No!” Oscar’s scream ripped through the storm, raw and broken.
The creature didn’t swallow her whole; she was too small a thing for it to bother with, just a shard of pain lodged in its tooth. Blood—hers, its, the world’s—spilled into the sea.
The scar under its jaw burned brighter.
Rose made a sound I’d never heard from her before, some terrible mix of grief and fury.
I’d thought losing Billy was the worst blow I would ever endure, but as Oscar crashed to his knees onto the ruined ship deck, I knew that such losses could not be measured or compared.
Inu. Brave, relentless, and stronger than most people would ever appreciate. I’d found her broken and tired, but the moment I offered her a position on my ship, she patched up her scars and became exactly what we needed.
There was no one who would ever fill the space she’d occupied.
“Someone take the helm!” I ordered because whatever happened next, Oscar was lost to this battle.
“Inu,” Rose whispered.
The shell pulsed. Sebastian Jr. clung tighter, as if bracing.
Sniffling and wiping at tears and salty sea, Rose brought it to her ear.
