Page 19 of Crossbones
I plaster as much of a condescending smile as I can manage on my face. “Come on, Captain. Even your big Viking brute asked more clever questions than that. What’s his name by the way? I doubt he wants me to keep calling him the nickname I invented—”
Two steps and he’s looming over me. He sinks to one knee and his hand flashes out, gripping my chin hard. His presence overwhelms me—wrapping me in the spiced scent of rum and the metallic tang of blood and steel.
“You already know I think you’re a De’Vero so let me just add this bit of info,” he snarls. “I’m going to kill every single person in that House—I’vebeen working my way up. So if you don’t want to get caught up in all of that—Which. Fucking. House…”
My expression hardens and I hold his gaze for what feels like five minutes but probably is more like thirty seconds. There’s something dark there that captivates me and keeps dragging me under anytime he gets close. It’s why I wanted to lure him down here—because there’s something there, lurking beneath the surface that intrigues me. I want to rip into it—the same way he wants to unravel me—I want to discover why, in just the short amount of time I’ve been a guest on this God-forsaken ship, all I can think about ishim.
His thumb is slightly in the way but I manage to pull my lip up in a smirk. “Fuck you.”
And then, because I’m an asshole, and because he’s tantalizingly close, I headbutt him.Hard.
To his credit, he doesn’t budge much except to jerk backwards from the impact. Blackwell twists his neck from side to side and the look he gives me when our eyes clash is downright deadly. He shoves me harder into the wall.
“If you aren’t De’Vero, why won’t you tell me what House?” He snarls.
“Your obsession with this is growing tiresome, Captain,” I say. “And entirely irrelevant for a ransom transaction. The fact that I’m a noble will more than suffice to get you paid.”
“It matters if you’re Draevorn.”
“Well, you think I’m De’Vero so, that’s irrelevant.”
“If it’s irrelevant, why not just tell me?”
A laugh whispers out of me. “You don’t deserve all my secrets, Blackwell.”
His nose is lightly bleeding, the line of blood runs down to his lips and I can’t take my eyes off of it. I’m so distracted by it, I don’t notice he’s pulled his dagger out until it presses against my mouth. A shiver races through me—I tell myself it’s from the chill of the blade. His fingers are surprisingly warm as they wrap under my jaw.
“If you won’t tell me, I should just cut out your tongue,” he breathes. “I’ve certainly killed men for less than the insolence you’re displaying now.”
He’s so close I can see his eyes aren’t in fact black pits of nothingness but a deep, deep blue—like the sea where light hardly reaches. He has a faint scar beginning under his eye that travels down his cheek like a delicate lightning bolt, faded but there if you look closely. I’m sinking into the raging sea in the eye of a storm, helpless to stop the pull.
I don’t know what possesses me but I lean in closer, daring to dive deeper into the darkness of him. I hear his breath lurch once but his composure holds, irritatingly so. His eyes don’t waver from mine and I don’t think eitherof us blinks as I draw closer. His fingers tighten on my jaw but he’s not restraining me, too wrapped up in trying to figure me out.
I slowly part my lips and touch my tongue to the steel before inch by slow inch, I drag it down the smooth flat of the blade. The biting cold of iron floods my senses and Blackwell goes deathly still, the barest flicker of surprise crossing his face before his lips twitch in irritation. I lean in another inch.
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” I caution, reveling in the act of never being what someone expects me to be. “My handwriting is atrocious. Not to mention—” I slowly bring my hands up, the chainlinks whispering secrets between us. “The only sign I know is this one—”
And I flip him the middle finger
JAMES
I wake up to screaming and the smell of smoke. My mother is shaking me frantically.
“Wake up!” Her eyes are wide with fear, her grip unrelenting with barely contained panic as she drags me out of bed. May is standing next to her, groggily rubbing sleep from her eyes.
“What’s happening?”
My mother doesn’t answer, instead she shoves me towards the footboard of my bed.
“Help me, James,” she demands.
The bed scrapes across the floor as together we pull it aside, revealing a trap door leading into a dug out space my sister and I used to play in as children. A boom of a cannon causes us all to jump and dust rains down from the ceiling as the concussion rocks the foundation.
My mother rips open the trap door. “Hurry!”
I hear shouts from outside our front door and the crash of wood—someone’s trying to get in. The panic overruns my mother and she all but shoves May into the hole. May squeaks out a protest but it’s drowned out by the shattering of timber. My mother rushes out of the room. I hesitate, one hand on the trap door, but my attention is on the sounds coming from the front room.
“James! Don’t leave me—” May chokes out, wringing her nightdress in her hands. She looks up at me from the darkness with tears dripping from her lashes.
