Page 28 of Captive of the Pirate King
When Locke drops his pants, he’s boldly erect, a mute testimony to what he really wants. As far as I know, he hasn’t been with any of the other women on the island, and I don’t understand why he’d preferme, the skinny spotted thing with the scraggly auburn hair. Even my shoulders and chest are liberally sprinkled with freckles in every size and shape.
So many times I’ve longed for smooth brown skin or creamy white skin. I’ll have whole days, weeks, or months when I’m perfectly comfortable with myself, exactly as I am—and then, in a single moment, my mind will dive back into self-loathing, into despairing insecurity.
The sight of Locke’s long-limbed, beautifully proportioned, perfectly tanned body makes me feel so horribly inferior that nausea creeps into my belly. He slides into the water, wincing as the hot liquid contacts his back.
For a moment I’m distracted from my self-consciousness. “What about your wounds?”
“I heal faster than most,” he says. “They’ll be fine.”
“Do you have healing magic?” I ask curiously.
He pulls off his bandana and shakes his hair free. “Not exactly. My whole family heals quicker than the average human though. And I do have one magical ability.”
“Let me guess—something to do with your dick?” I roll my eyes. “I’ve heard that line before.”
“Actually, no.” He smiles. “I’ll tell you, if you tell me a secret of yours.”
“You already know my secret.”
“Oh, no, Nick.” Locke advances toward me, the water flowing past his shoulders in a rippling wake. “You’ve got more secrets. I can practically smell the mystery on you.” He leans close to me, inhaling.
“You’re so strange,” I reply. “Fine—I’m actually twenty, not sixteen.”
“I guessed as much. Tell me about this brother of yours. There’s more to that story, isn’t there?”
For a second I chew my lip, debating. I crave Locke’s secrets, and Mordan’s ability isn’t exactly a secret—at least, not back home. Back in Ivris, his power was a raw, exposed truth that tore my family apart.
“My brother can manipulate the wind,” I say. “He can move the air in certain ways—not with very precise control, but strongly enough to influence weather. People were always suspicious of him, and maybe a little scared, because he—well, he had a terrible temper, and when he was angry he liked to cause pain.”
I pull a bloom from a nearby plant and pluck its velvety white petals, one by one, just to have somewhere to look that isn’t Locke’s eyes. “In spite of that, my parents managed to secure him a betrothal, a marriage to the daughter of a high-born noble. But she didn’t love him, and shortly before the wedding he discovered that she was sleeping with a boy from one of her father’s farms. So my brother sent five huge tornadoes across his future father-in-law’s property. The tornadoes destroyed everything—the manor, the farmhouses, all the barns and the crops—and a dozen people died, including my brother’s fiancée. He was going to be arrested and put to death for what he did. That’s why he ran away to sea.”
My voice hitches, and I grind my lip between my teeth, trying to hold back the tears. The flower I picked is bare now, a naked petal-less center, so I toss it away.
Locke’s voice is gentle. “And now you’re out here looking for him?”
I nod, swirling my fingers through the floating white petals on the surface of the water. They’re already turning brown from the heat. “I’m worried about him. I was always the one who helped him stay calm, you see. If he was getting out of control, there was something I did to keep him quiet until he could manage himself.”
“Something you did?” Locke drifts nearer. But I’m not ready to tell him about my own ability yet, or about how I used to bite Mordan and control him with his own blood to keep him from hurting other people. He let me do it—asked me to do it, in fact. He wanted someone to help him suppress the anger.
I don’t want to imagine what Mordan has been doing without me, how many people he might have hurt by now.
“I used some calming techniques. Nothing special,” I lie. “Anyway, I wondered if he might have taken up with pirates, maybe offered his services as a mage to help with favorable winds and that sort of thing.”
“The Pirate King doesn’t usually allow magic-wielders among his crews,” Locke says. “People with power tend to lose control of it, or to want more, and that’s a dangerous thing at sea. But he might have managed to persuade a captain to hire him.”
“What about rivals of the Pirate King? Could he be working for one of them?” I eye Locke’s face for any sign that he might be a spy for a rival gang of buccaneers, but he only laughs.
“There are no rivals of the Pirate King. His dominion extends across all the Shorn Seas, from the coastal waters to the edge of the map.”
“I thought pirates were all aboutnotswearing allegiance to any king,” I counter.
“The Pirate King doesn’t control everyone like a land ruler would,” Locke says earnestly. “The captains who willingly join his fleet and pay their dues are granted the best ships, supplies, and equipment. They receive intelligence about the most toothsome cargo, and they can call for the help of other vessels flying the Crowned Skull. On top of that, they get special access to certain establishments in ports all over the world, and they receive premier treatment in Ravensbeck. But no one is forced to join. Privateers are welcome in Ravensbeck too, and they can trade their goods for fair prices. But they are independent vessels, not rivals.”
“So the Pirate King’s fleet is like a special club. A men’s club.” I throw him a stern look. “I don’t approve of this prejudice against women on the ships. You may say it’s a protective or preventative measure, but why can’t men simply learn not to be assholes?”
His eyes turn sorrowful and distant, contradicting the faint smile on his face. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”
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