“I just wanted to say I’m sorry! I really didn’t mean to get you tangled up in my mess. I was already at rock bottom, and the only way I could see out was to keep digging down.”
“But you dragged me into the hole with you,” I said. “And you’re still too caught up in your own mess to hear me. I told you I didn’t want excuses and apologies,andnot to bother me right now, and yet here you are, still trying to apologize.”
He opened his mouth, then shut it again. As he opened it again, Corra rounded the edge of the mast, heading toward us.
“There you are,” she said. “Quick, come with me before he sees you.”
I was too hungover for this. “Before who sees me?”
She grabbed my upper arm, tugging me up without waiting for me. “Instructor Tyrell.”
My headache violently throbbed from the jerking movement. “Easy with me, I’m unwell.”
She let out an undignified snort. “After last night, I’m surprised you were able to get outta bed on your own.”
I put a hand up to my head to try to stop the radiating pain that was chewing its way between my eyebrows. “What happened last night anyway?”
“Before the singing, or after the dancing?”
I groaned again. I was a terrible singer, and an even worse dancer. “Why don’t you just tell me everything, so I can die from humiliation before I have to endure anymore of this hangover.”
She steered us around the main mast, heading for a door to the lower quarters. “Well, we all went to O’Malley’s Brewing together and started drinking. Benji and I started playing Point Throw while you, Izaiah and Instructor Tyrell kept drinking. When we finished our game, you were standing on the table, crooning some love song.” A dull memory of this remained, Izaiah had looked like he was being tortured. “Then you started singing some shanty about how you knew how to raise sails.” I knew the one, it was graphic and lewd. “And telling everyone, quite loudly, how you were back on the market and priced to move fast.”
I slid my hand from cradling my head to covering my face.
“Then you started gyrating. I think you were trying to dance, honestly it was hard to tell.”
Devourer, kill me.
I wouldn’t live this down anytime soon, especially since my new crew mates had witnessed it.
“Instructor Tyrell pulled you off the table, and you two started fighting.”
“Like our usual verbal spats?” I asked, hopefulness plain in my voice.
“More like it was time to party and you were bringing the punch. And the knuckle sandwiches.” I buried my face in both hands.
At least the headache was dimmer inside the Arc than it had been under the direct sun outside. The interior of the Shadowtide was shockingly spacious. “He pinned your arms pretty quickly, and then you told him to take you.”
Devourer, please. I’ll pay you. Just make it quick.
I choked the words out. “To take me? Like somewhere else?”
“Maybe somewhere private,” a smooth low drawl cut in from one of the nearby cabin’s doors.
Corra yanked me behind her, putting herself between me and Zevrial. “Don’t come any closer.”
He leaned against the cabin door, completely at ease despite the threatening stare Corra had levelled at him, dark hair as wild as his sparkling eyes. Somehow, being near him always made me keenly aware of how I was female, and he was male. It was disconcerting. “Afraid I might decide to take her now?”
Corra pointed an accusatory finger at his chest. “Lisia’s not going anywhere near you.”
His tone was amused. “Everything Lisia and I did together last night was entirely consensual. Not that it’s any of your fucking business.”
What fresh hell was this? What had we done last night?
“Lisia’s cabin will be next to mine,” Corra insisted, squeezing my upper arm where she still held onto me. “Where she’ll be far away from you.”
Dark eyebrows pulled together on Zevrial’s face. “Her cabin will be beside mine, where I can keep her out of trouble.”
