Page 119 of The Sea Witch
“You owe yourself more than a quick death from a buccaneer’s blade. I should leave you on the ship.”
“I’ll swim to shore.” He stared levelly at her. “There’s no choice in the matter.”
She held his gaze until, at last, she gave a short nod. “Do what you’ve got to, but for the love of the sea, take care. Be cautious.”
“I’m always cautious.” Except when it came to anything related to her.
He strode to the door, but when he reached it, she said, “More swaggering.”
“More what?” He turned back to her.
She waved toward his lower body. “You walk like a naval officer. Like the admiralty’s rammed up your arse. Trying to get from one end of your chart to the other with the most economy. Pirates, well, we’re not so direct. It’s the journey, not the destination. Wreaking havoc along the way.”
“All of that in simply the way I walk.”
“All of that. Where’s the cocksure arrogance?You’re in command of the seas. No one can kill you, and everyone wants to fuck you, even if they hate you.”
“It’s only walking.”
She moved to stand in front of him. Her expression was unexpectedly focused, thoughtful.
“When I first came to the Caribbean,” she said intently, “I was terrified.”
“I can’t imagine you terrified of anything.”
“A year ago, everything here was new to me. Never captained a ship before. To be responsible for a crew of this size...Josephine thought I didn’t like her cooking, I hardly ate a bite of it. Piracy was something we had to learn for ourselves. No one would show us the way.”
She continued, “I hadn’t raided a ship, or knew what it was to be a pirate. I only knew that going back to Norham wasn’t possible. I would’ve been hanged, true, but also, I couldn’t be the person they wanted me to be. Walking behind my husband. Silent until spoken to. Dutiful and useful and obedient totheirwishes.”
Her gaze turned introspective. “Here, in these waters, I could remake myself in the image of whoIwanted to be. But,” she added, “that didn’t mean I knew exactlyhowto do that.”
“That’s why you were afraid.”
“For myself, and the safety and success of the women relying upon me. By the stars, I was so damned frightened when I led my first raid. For all that, nothing scared me more than the first time I walked into a pirate tavern, buccaneers on every side of me. These men, they didn’t honor any law. But even with them, I was an outsider.”
“A female pirate is a rarity.” He held himself still, as if any motion or stray gesture might tear open the cocoon of trust that surrounded them.
“What do you think the odds are of meeting a pirate who’s also a witch?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t take that wager.”
“Every step into that tavern was a risk. If they found out how green I was, how unsure, they would’ve killed me.”
“You’re alive today, speaking with me now,” he observed. “You survived that gauntlet.”
“By telling myself I deserved to be there. That all the things, all the people, I wanted to be was in me. I had let them surface. I told myself that I was Captain Alys Fucking Tanner, and no one could stop me, not my dead husband, not the men of Norham, not the Royal Navy, and not the pirates who sailed these seas. I told myself all that, andthisis how I walked into that tavern.”
She strode from one end of her quarters to the other. There was a loose, rolling motion in her hips, enthralling in its rhythm and movement. It was both dangerous and alluring, utterly confident. She cleaved the world apart.
“There’s a gate in yourself,” she said. “Open it. You once played pirate, but now you canbea pirate. Beyourself. As wild and unruly as you want.”
When he hesitated, she said, more softly, “You’re safe with me.”
He breathed in deeply. With his family, he’d been a dutiful son, following his father to a life in the navy. He’d inhabited his identity as sailing master, putting on armor and a mask every moment that he was on board.
Alys... she saw beneath all of this to the man beneath. And she hadn’t turned away, wasn’t disgusted or horrified.
Brashness and courage and all the things he never let himself feel coursed into his limbs and filled his heart.
