Rolling my eyes, I tossed a mirrored jeer in his direction. “Right. I forgot I’m not regal enough to meet your standards. My apologies, my fellow co-captain.”
Before stepping away from me, he merely shrugged off the comment—even though we both knew the truth buried within it. I watched him intently as he moved around my quarters as if they were his own.Opening the cedar chest beside my bed, he sorted through the fresh, folded, and stacked linens. Once satisfied with his selection, he shut its lid with a care I’d never demanded and turned back to me.
“I don’t believe my interests are of the highest importance right now, considering you practically died.” He lifted a brow, the corner of his mouth curling upward. “Which would’ve been an extremely annoying inconvenience, might I add.”
“Oh, by the grace of Ellira,” I groaned, slowly unfolding the fabric to avoid tearing apart his crafted work to my side. “What herbal experiment did you add to your roll this time?”
“Who said I’ve even smoked yet?”
“Yet.”
I moved to reach for the back of my collar to free myself from the destroyed, crimson-stained, and sweat-laden material that still clung to me, but Syoran stopped me, grabbing both of my wrists before I could even lift them over my chest.
“And since Ihaven’tsmoked yet, I would greatly appreciate it if you,for once,allowed someone to aid you after an injury.”
“I don’t?—”
“Yeah, yeah. The typical ‘I don’t need it because I’ve managed on my own before.’” His unwavering stare held mine, a deep exhale escaping him. “This isn’t that, Cas. They do notownyou anymore.”
Cutting him off, my snapped reply came far harsher than I’d intended. “We both know that is the furthest thing from the truth.”
“On the sea,” he snarled, his grip tightening, “there is no such thing as fucking ownership, Caspian Vayne.Especiallyfrom the epitomized definition of corruption. The crown.”
“I am not going to argue with you.” The lump in my throat that never seemed to shrink suddenly became too hard to swallow. “We both know the implications of mycontract.”
“Thatisn’t a fucking contract! That is your fucking life!”
“AND YOU THINK I DON’T KNOW THAT?” I screamed, my voice fracturing under the weight of my past. “Every time he assaulted me, violating my innocence from the very beginning. Every fucking timehe beat me to the point I couldn’t breathe, I wasreminded, fucking warned,of what would happen if I forgot my place inhisworld. This?” Motioning to the space around us, my attention snapped back to him. “This is a privilege that could easily be taken away. If the damnation the gods havegracedme with in this life only includes this ship and the men on it,then I will take it without rebuttal and live with the king’s hand shackled to my throat.”
Unwavering, the words that came from him delivered a blow I wasn’t anticipating. “You cannot gift us a life of freedom if you refuse to fight for it foryourself.”
Silence. Unearthing stillness.
Blanketing us like a noose that threatened to fray the worn strands of our friendship, the tension in the room only seemed to grow the longer neither of us spoke—the longer I clung to every syllable he’d shot my way. And while he wasn’t inherently wrong, or even by definition incorrect, it didn’t make his disappointment any less painful. Just as it didn’t diminish my willingness to put myself in the line of fire for those I loved, for it would always be a trait I would never let go of.
“Caspian, I?—”
Pulling my hands from his grasp, I shook my head. “Just… Don’t worry about it.”
“No.” His fingers snaked into my hair as he forced me to look at him. “You’re not going to do that again. You arenoticing me out.”
My lips parted, but the drum of knuckles against the door prevented me from speaking. It was unclear which deckhand the booming voice belonged to, but the news it delivered sparked something within me. It was instinctual, almost primal in a way, and the direneedto get my ass on the deck overrode everything else.
“Cap, your prisoner has lost her mind. She’s crawled up on the gunwale and is threatening to toss herself overboard.”
Oh, my little siren, you could try to swim the waters responsible for the death of many sailors, but it wouldn’t stop me from exploring every inch of them to ensure you remained by my side.
CHAPTER 18
Loathed Lineage
KAEL
Court politics. Boring, and an utter waste of my fucking time.
Inherently, there wasn’t anything I despised more, though Marion’s half-baked raisin cookies came pretty damn close. But she tried, and that’s ultimately what mattered, because my father never had. All he cared about was ensuring his reign remained untouched, untainted by anyone who wished to oppose him—that, and courting me to a woman he deemed “ripe and fruitful enough to satiate the demands of all it meant to be a Marellan.”
Little did he know, I planned for our bloodline to end with me.
