She'd been wrong. Love itself had been the weapon that killed her. The curse fed on devotion, turned it rancid, used it to devour the one who loved.
He would not let that happen to Jeanne.
"Captain."
Luc's voice came from the stairs. Anatole didn't turn around.
"The chains will hold," he said. "They always have."
"That's not what I came to talk about." Luc descended the rest of the stairs, his boots heavy on the worn wood. "It's the omega."
"What about her?"
"She's been asking questions. Wanting to know when we next make port. Whether any of the crew might be sympathetic to helping her leave."
Anatole's hands stilled on the chains. "And what did you tell her?"
"The truth. That we won't make port for another three weeks. That the crew is loyal to you. That even if she managed to escape, a human omega alone on the Crimson Coast wouldn't last a day." Luc paused. "She didn't like hearing it."
"I imagine not."
"She's not giving up, though. I can see it in her eyes." Luc leaned against the hull, arms crossed.
Mate. Ours. She is ours.
"Then perhaps she needs to see how futile escape really is. I'm going to remind her what I am. What she is." Anatole released the chains and moved toward the stairs.
He didn't look back as he climbed out of the hold, but he could feel Luc's eyes on him. Judging. Pitying.
JEANNE
ESCAPE WAS IMPOSSIBLE.
Jeanne had spent the morning after the storm testing every avenue she could think of. She'd asked Gris about the ship's route, trying to sound casual, and learned they were weeks from any port. And there wasn’t anything on board this ship that even came close to the herbs she had taken to dim her heat.
She'd even approached the young beta guard outside her door, Sébastien, hoping to find a crack in his loyalty, but he'd looked at her with such pity that she'd had to turn away.
"Even if you got off the ship," he'd said gently, "where would you go? The Crimson Coast is wolf territory. A human omega alone..." He'd shaken his head. "You're safer here. Even with the curse."
Safer. On a ship full of wolves, with a cursed alpha, and a forbidden door that called to her in her dreams.
She'd laughed at that. It hadn't sounded like laughter.
Now she watched the sun climb toward noon through the salt-streaked windows. Her body ached with pre-heat symptoms that were growing harder to ignore. Her nipples were so sensitive that even the soft fabric of her shift felt like torture. Between her thighs, she was constantly damp, her body preparing for something her mind refused to accept.
And underneath all of it, the pull. The forbidden door calling to her, a constant tug behind her sternum that whisperedyou need to open the door.
Marc,she thought desperately.Tell me what to do. Tell me how to survive this.
But Marc was dead, and the only answer was the sound of the waves against the hull.
The door to the cabin opened without a knock.
The captain stood in the doorway, and Jeanne's traitorous body responded instantly. Her nipples hardened. Slick flooded between her legs. Every nerve ending lit up, screamingalpha, alpha, alpha.
She locked her knees and forced herself to stay seated. She would not go to him. She would not beg.
"Is there something you wanted?" Jeanne forced a calm she didn’t feel.
