He was worse.
Tall and broad, built like violence given form, he moved across the deck with the lazy confidence of a predator who had never met anything worth fearing. His black hair was pulled back with a leather cord, revealing a face that might have been handsome if it hadn't been so brutally cold. Ice-blue eyes swept over her, assessing, calculating. His beard was close-cropped and dark, except for a single streak of silver-blue that ran from the corner of his mouth to his jaw.
The curse mark. She'd heard the stories. A witch had branded him, and every omega he'd taken since had died screaming.
He stopped three feet from where she knelt. His scent rolled over her.
Salt wind, black pine and gunpowder, layered over something that made her thighs clench. Her breath caught and slickness flooded between her legs without her being able to stop it. Alpha. Not just any alpha.Apex.The most dominant designation a wolf could carry, and her traitorous omega body was responding to it like a flower turning toward the sun.
She hated it. She hated him. She hated the wetness soaking through her underwear and the way her nipples had tightened. The sudden, desperate ache between her thighs had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with biology.
His nostrils flared. His pupils dilated, black swallowing blue, and a muscle in his throat jumped as he swallowed hard.
"Leave us," he said. His voice was low, commanding, the kind of voice that expected obedience and received it. The crew scattered without a word. Even the debt collectors retreated to the gangplank. In moments, they were alone on the deck, predator and prey.
He crouched in front of her, bringing them eye to eye. This close, she could see the pulse beating fast in his throat. He was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling beneath his black coat.
"Your scent." The words came out rough, scraped raw. "What is your name?"
"Jeanne." She made herself hold his gaze. "Though I suppose you'd prefer to call me property."
His lip curled. Not quite a smile. "Your father sold you to me to clear his debts. What I call you is irrelevant."
"My brother is dead because of you." Her voice cracked. She hated it for cracking. Marc's face swam in her vision, his mouth moving, trying to say her name. "The debt collectors killed him on the road. He was trying to protect me."
The captain’s nostrils flared again. He would be able to smell her grief, she realized. Wolves could smell everything. Hersorrow and her rage and her shameful, unwanted arousal, all of it laid bare for him to read.
"I did not order his death," he said.
"But you ordered mine. You just haven't carried it out yet." She leaned forward, chains rattling. "I know what you are. I know what happens to your brides. If you're going to kill me, at least have the courage to tell me why omegas die for you."
For a long moment, he simply looked at her. The silence stretched between them, filled with the creak of the ship and the distant call of gulls. Then he reached out and caught her chin in his hand, tilting her face toward the light.
His touch burned. Not painfully, not physically, but her omega instincts surged toward him like a wave, craving more contact, more of his scent, more ofhim.She wanted to lean into his palm. She wanted to bare her throat. She wanted to beg.
She did none of those things. But it cost her. God, it cost her.
"You will stay in my quarters," he said. "You will not leave without permission. You will not ask the crew about the omegas who came before you or about the curse. And you will never, under any circumstances, open the door at the end of the lowest corridor." His grip tightened fractionally. "Do you understand?"
"A locked door and forbidden questions." She forced a laugh. It came out broken, jagged with grief. "Let me guess. That's where you keep the bodies."
His pupils blew wide. His eyes flashed gold, his wolf rising to the surface, and a growl rumbled in his chest, low and resonant enough that she could feel it in her bones. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped to something barely human.
"I have buried six brides. I hope you won’t be the seventh." He released her chin and stood in one sharp motion, putting distance between them. He turned away from her and motioned to an older man, dressed like a cook who was standing just out ofearshot. When the man approached, the captain said, “Kill the debt collectors.”
Jeanne gave a choking gasp. He was going to avenge her brother? Why?
"Have one of the maids get her cleaned up and brought her to my quarters. And remove those chains. She's not a prisoner."
"Then what am I?" The question escaped before she could stop it.
When he looked back at her, his eyes were still gold, still wolf. His scent had shifted, grown thicker, darker. The smell of an alpha on the edge of rut.
"Mine," he said. "My bride for now. For however long you survive."
Then he was gone.
Jeanne stayed on her knees, breathing hard, trying to force her body back under her control. Between her thighs, her slick was still flowing, her omega nature betraying her in the most humiliating way possible. She could still smell him, pine, salt and gunpowder, and could still feel the ghost of his fingers on her chin.
