Page 17 of Captive of the Pirate King
“Glad to oblige.” I hold out the flask, ointment, and bandages. “I’m here to fix you up.”
His mouth tightens. “Don’t need fixing.”
“Of course not, because you’re a big strong pirate,” I say dryly. “Everyone needs fixing sometimes. You took the beating for me—let me do this for you. I know you’re in pain.”
His tall figure, cloaked in darkness, looms over me. “In pain,” he says quietly. “Ah, Nick. You have no idea.”
Something about the way he’s looking at me makes my stomach flip. There’s heat in his eyes, mingled with the suffering. He’s got to be in his early twenties, mid-twenties—he shouldn’t be looking at a boy of sixteen with that kind of molten intensity.
Or maybe it’s my imagination, and it’s only pain in his gaze. Lust and agony can look similar, feel similar. I should know, because Iwantthe beautiful bleeding man in front of me, and ithurts.
My voice sharpens. “Lie down and let me help you.”
Locke sighs and pulls off his bloodstained shirt. “So busy and businesslike, always, aren’t you, Nick? Is that what you were like at home, wherever you came from?” He lies on his stomach, his long frame draping off the side of the bunk. How can a man as tall and broad as him possibly sleep comfortably in a place like this?
I can barely see his back. “It’s too dark to do this.”
“Get the lantern by the door and bring it over here. But you’d best be quick. I don’t want anyone seeing my—”
“Your special secret tattoo, yes, I know.” I pass Locke the flask, and he gulps from it while I fetch the lantern and hang it on a hook near the row of bunks. It’s not a perfect solution, but the light is a little better now.
“Give me that for a moment.” I tug the flask from his reluctant fingers and pour some of the alcohol onto a bit of bandage. As I daub the soaked cloth across his back, Locke hisses a curse through his teeth. I try not to be too distracted by the magnificent slopes of muscle under my fingers. There’s something brutally enticing about the scarlet lacerations cutting through his tanned, tattooed skin.
A few stray bits of dark hair have escaped from his headwrap, and they lie against his nape in feathery swirls. I desperately want to touch those silky ends, to let a bit of his hair curl soft around my fingers.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Locke says. “Were you this intense at home?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re always working on something, or running off to the next task.”
“Oh.” My mind drifts to painfully slow days sitting upright on divans, holding cups of tepid tea, smiling stiffly while pretending to heed the drone of conversation around me. I remember slow, stately walks through gardens I would have liked to explore more thoroughly, and darkly alluring books that were snatched from my hands and replaced with bland, approved fare.
After handing the flask back to Locke, I open the tin and dip two fingers into the ointment. “No, I wasn’t this busy at home. I wasn’t allowed to do much useful work. Nothing that appealed to me, anyway.”
“And this work appeals to you? The galley, the cooking and cleaning?”
“Not exactly.” I smooth ointment onto Locke’s back, noting how his flesh quivers at my touch. “But the work keeps me alive, and I like being alive.”
He chuckles, and the vibration travels through my fingers. I smile to myself and stroke more ointment onto the cuts. “And I think I like being at sea,” I continue. “Or I would like it, if I were aboard a different ship.”
“We’re not so terrible, some of us,” he murmurs.
“Pirates are dreadful people. It’s their nature.”
“We’re naught but sailors who decided to take our due and serve no kingdom,” he replies. “Surely you, a runaway, must understand the appeal of that freedom.”
“I do, I suppose. It’s the attacking and killing and stealing I don’t understand. I hope my brother hasn’t fallen into such devilish ways.”
“Your brother?” Locke lifts his head slightly to look at me. “I thought you had a sister. You said your sister also ran away with you, that she was on board the merchant ship.”
“Oh—um, yes.” I had almost forgotten about my fake sister. “Well, she and I ran away from home to look for our older brother, Mordan. He ran away first, you see.”
Cheeks flaming, I risk a glance at Locke’s face.
His expression is bland, revealing neither suspicion nor belief. “Must have been a terrible home life, for all of you to abandon it so readily.”
I squirm, conscious of the privilege and wealth that was mine as a member of a noble family. Many would call me foolish and ungrateful for abandoning it all, when so many unfortunate people would have loved to be in my place.
