The corner of his mouth twitched. "You've been drinking with my crew."
"Your crew cheats at cards. I still won." She bumped her shoulder against his arm, the easy contact that had become habit between them. "Thank you. For tonight. For all of it."
"Don't thank me. You earned your place here. I just made it official."
She studied his face in the lantern light. "I'm going to beat it," she said. "The curse. The door. The mirror. Whatever Morvenna built, I am going to outlast it."
"Jeanne..."
The rum was making her reckless, but the conviction underneath the recklessness was real. Bone-deep and steady. "I love you, Anatole. Not because my biology compels it. Not because I have no choice. Because I've seen the worst of what you are and the best of what you are, and I am not afraid of what I’ll see in the mirror."
"The curse hears you," he said. "It knows when an omega declares herself. The pull will get worse after tonight."
"Let it."
"It may come for you sooner than we're ready for."
"Then we'd better be ready." She took his hand and placed it over her heart. "I am telling you, here, in front of your pack and your stars and your cursed, beautiful ship, that I am going to survive this."
He pulled her in. Wrapped his arms around her and held her against his chest, his chin resting on top of her head. Behind them, the crew sang. Old sailor songs, rough and out of tune, the sound of a pack that had been living under a shadow and was remembering what light looked like. The lanterns swayed in the rigging. The stars turned overhead. The Crimson Sea held them in its dark palm and, for once, seemed gentle.
For one night, the forbidden door was silent.
And Jeanne decided she wasn't done being bold.
She took his hand and pulled. Not toward the rail, not toward the crew, but toward the stairs that led below. Toward the cabin.
He let her lead. The great apex alpha, the most feared captain on the Crimson Sea, followed a human omega through the corridors of his own ship without a word of protest. She could hear the crew still singing behind them, voices fading as theydescended, and by the time she pushed open the cabin door, there was only the creak of the hull and the rush of blood in her ears.
She turned to face him. He filled the doorway, lantern light from the corridor catching the planes of his face, and his scent rolled over her, pine and salt layered with something deeper tonight, something that smelled like the smoke from the lanterns and the rum on his breath and the warmth of a man who'd let himself hope.
"Jeanne." His voice was low. Careful. "You've been drinking."
"Not that much. The crew cheats at drinking games too, so I learned to fake most of it." She stepped backward into the cabin, pulling him with her by the front of his shirt. "I know what I'm doing."
"And what are you doing?"
"Claiming my mate."
She watched the words land. Watched his pupils blow wide, watched his nostrils flare as her scent shifted, honeysuckle thickening to something richer as her arousal built. She wasn't in heat. This wasn't biology dictating terms.
"Sit down," she said.
His eyebrows rose. "Are you giving me an order, omega?"
"I'm giving you an order, Captain." She put her hand flat on his chest and pushed. Not hard. She couldn't have moved him if he hadn't chosen to go. But he went, backing up until the edge of the bed caught his knees and he sat, looking up at her with an expression she'd never seen on him before. Not hunger, though that was there. Not amusement, though the corner of his mouth was doing that almost-smile thing she loved. Something closer to awe.
She pulled her dress over her head in one motion and dropped it on the floor.
His breath changed. She could hear it catch, and she could smell the answering shift in his scent. The pine deepened, took on the smoked-oak undertone that meant his body was responding. His hands came up to reach for her, and she caught his wrists.
"Not yet." She guided his hands to the bed at his sides. "You've been in control every time. During the heat, after the heat, every time we've been together, you've been the one setting the pace. Tonight it's my turn."
"Jeanne." Her name came out strained. She could see the tension in his forearms, the effort it was costing him to keep his hands where she'd put them. His wolf would be snarling behind his ribs. An apex alpha didn't yield control. It went against every instinct in his body.
Good. She wanted him fighting his instincts. She wanted him to know what it was like to surrender because the person asking was worth surrendering for.
She stepped out of her underclothes. Stood before him in nothing but the moonlight coming through the cabin windows, and let him look. Not the way he'd looked at her during the heat, when need had blurred everything. She let him see her as she was. Small. Human. Scarred on the collarbone and freckled on the shoulders and wet between her thighs because she wanted him, because her body had learned the shape of his and craved it even without biology's whip at her back.
