Page 129 of The Sea Witch
“There were tables,” Alys said. “At the Redthorns’ monastery. With straps to hold men down.”
“Jesus Fucking Christ.”
The world would collapse. The floor would open and swallow him whole. Any of these things were possible. And yet none of them happened. The feasting and dancing continued around them, oblivious to the fact that Ben’s entire existence had crumbled.
He shook his head. As if that tiny gesture could somehow restore everything to rights.
Alys guided Ben to the massive staircase leading to the floor with the bedchambers. Shouts and catcalls followed them as they climbed the stairs, and he threw everyone a grin to keep up the pretense of two pirate revelers about to unleash their carnal impulses in one of the bedchambers. More hoots and yells of encouragement came from the buccaneers still carousing in the main room. He barely heard them.
He placed one foot in front of the other, step after step, holding tightly to Alys’s hand. He could not let go. He would not. Once he did... there was no telling what would become of him.
They reached the top of the stairs, and were met by a door-lined catwalk running the length of the floor. Where the catwalk reached the farthest wall, it was met by another walkway. Windows above this section revealed the darkness outside.
She turned and guided him past room after room. From behind the closed doors came grunts and cries and the banging of headboards against walls. They peered into an open door. Twopeople inside the room were energetically fucking. They didn’t even notice Ben and Alys.
Alys moved on, and headed to an open door at the farthest end of the walkway. The room was mercifully empty and surprisingly clean and tidy. It held a large bed with four posters and a canopy, a chaise upholstered in wine-colored moiré, as well as a few other pieces of furniture. A square of deep indigo night shone through the window. Golden braid trimmed the canopy. A statue of a faun had lost one arm, and it cast a stubby dancing shadow against the wall. There was a painting showing an English country scene, and someone had drawn a shepherd fucking a dairymaid from behind, clearly not the original artist.
She pulled him into the bedchamber and closed the door, shutting out the sounds of revelry and sex.
Ben threw open the window to let in fresh air, but all that met him was a heavy hot breeze. Alys flicked her fingers, and a weighty chest slid in front of the door to ensure no one came inside. The relative quiet of the room left too much space inside his head for clamorous, agonizing thoughts.
“I’m going to find Strickland. And Warne.” He clenched and unclenched his fists. “And kill them both.”
She nodded. “My blade will join yours.”
“It’s not your fight.”
“Of course, it’s my fight.” She stood in front of him. “Someone needs to guard your back.”
With rough hands, he scrubbed at his face. “Everything I’ve known about myself, they’re all lies. Fabrications that shored up illusions.”
She reached beneath his shirt to press her palm against his bare skin. The feel of her flesh on his dimmed the chaos closing in on him.
“It’s a curse, and a gift,” she murmured. “The chance to remake ourselves well away from anyone’s beliefs of who they want us to be, and what the world demands.”
He stared at her, his only anchor in the midst of a maelstrom.
“When we set sail, it’sourcourse to set,” she went on softly, intently. “Where we go, it’s up to us.”
“Not so simple,” he said hoarsely.
“I never said it was simple,” she answered. “It’s risky as hell. That’s why few try. But the reward,” she added, her mouth curving, “it’s bigger than any treasure, any prize we claim.”
Pressing his forehead to hers, he breathed in deeply. She carried the scent of night-blooming flowers and the summery, salty fragrance of a life lived upon the sea.
“I want to believe you,” he rasped.
“Ibelieve me.” She pressed her lips lightly to his. “It can hold us both, but there’s going to come a time when you won’t have need of my belief. You’ll know it enough on your own.”
“I’ll always have need of you,” he said urgently.
Something panicked and restless flashed within the hazel of her eyes. He almost took the words back—but they were true, and he couldn’t lie. Not to her. She deserved complete honesty and he would give it to her.
“Before now,” he said, “no one ever gave me permission to be myself.”
“You don’t need permission. Not from me or from anyone.”
“Yetyou’rethe only person who told me I didn’t require it.Youlet me exist as who I’m meant to be.”
