Page 33 of The Pirate Queen of Ruin
It’s getting hot again. The days are longer, and the nights are humid. The stench of the city rises as beer gardens and bars spill into the streets. Food trucks crowd the Northbank as drunk young people gather to gorge on tacos and dumplings before venturing home. It makes hunting more accessible, but my clothes do not match the season. I can’t bring myself to wear seasonally appropriate clothes though, too much exposure.
Tying my scarf back around my neck, I think about the last time I fell ill. It had been the dead of winter, and I decided I wanted to play with the cold dew that covered the ground. Mother was sure I would die. That I wouldn’t be able to beat the fever. I swallow hard at the memory and stand up. They have been gone for far too long for me to think of them, but it’s better to think of them happy while alive than how they were slaughtered.
I pull my phone from another pocket and check the time. There are notifications from Nora, but I swipe them away. She would not understand this or see the reasoning behind my choices. Every other year or so, she will wander down for Wild Wood Trust, a bottle of the strongest backwater liquor I have ever had under her arm, and demand we discussthe future. She is convinced her fated is out there, she just has to find them and drag them back to Gwenmore. I’ve tried to tell her it is a fruitless hunt, that no good will come of finding your mate.
Bitterness coats my tongue every time I say the words to her. How long had I spent without mine, hoping for my soulmate only to be denied? Centuries spent watching monsters of all kinds join our mission, do what they must and what they want, constantly stumbling upon their mates along the way. The bonds formed between mates skews perspective. You can’t see straight when your soulmate is at your side.
And now I feel more right than ever.
It will feel good to rub this in her face.
Deg’Doriel has yet again reminded me that as a founding member of the community, I am required at these meetings in some form, or else. I roll my eyes, but send him a text reminding him that I told his little mob boss I’d be there tonight. There’s no reason to get his tail in knots.
My chest heaves as I leave my quarters in search of Delphini. Adrenaline floods my system and makes my stomach roll. These nerves have no place in me, but I can’t get rid of them as I walk towards the end of the hall. I am going to see her up close again, and I am going to be in danger of grabbing hold of her and kissing her like I desperately wanted to on Sunday afternoon.
Our proximity to each other is too close as it is. I have heard the pull of a mate described in many ways, and this pull towards her is the same. As we stood nearly chest to chest in the training room, it seemed we were inevitable and I was ready to fall into her. But I can’t. I won’t. No matter how her soft lips called to me.
The door to her quarters is open, meaning she is still doing dishes after our evening meal. The moans coming from the newly reopened bath wash over me, remind me of all the beings I have given a safe place too, but it doesn’t ease me. I picture her enjoying the crew while I sit and watch, begging for my touch to finally satisfy her.
I walk through the mess hall and into the kitchens to escape the noise. She has the sleeves of her sweat-stained shirt pulled up and her hair tied back still. There is an exhaustion in her body that unsettles me. My body is begging me to comfort her, a pull inside me that is the most challenging fight of my life until I see what she is doing.
Delphini is bent over the sink, scrubbing the heavy cast iron pot.
“What are you doing?” I demand, storming over to her and ripping the large cauldron from her hands. Soap drips down my arm, and my nerves morph into fury. “Are you fucking stupid?”
“No.” She scowls at me.
“Then why are you fucking ruining my pot with soap?”
“It was disgusting, it needed cleaning.”
“Don’t fucking touch this again with soap, or I’ll cook you in it.” I snarl. It’s an empty threat, an overreaction, but this is an heirloom. One of our former cooks, a Dwarven woman with a fierce taste for spicy food, had taken this as retribution after she killed her husband. It is a proud mark of honour on this ship.
“I’m trying to do the job given to me,Captain.”
She calls me that without an ounce of respect behind the title, and yet it sets me ablaze. It makes my blood boil all the more when I think of her moaning it as she begs for release. My scowl deepens as I swing the pot back onto the massive stove. I will have to get Cookie, our resident chef and troll, to preseason this before it rusts.
It takes me a moment to realise Delphini isn’t scared. She isn’t concerned that I will make good on my threat or that I am tossing a sixty-pound cauldron around as if it were a wooden ladle. She looks too relaxed with her hip resting on the counter and the scrub brush still in her hand. Her gaze is fixed on where my forearm had strained, revealing a small strip of my wrist.
She looks tired, too.
Fuck me. Why do I care that she is tired? I learned the hard way that nobody cares for a tired and poor being. Nothing is given away for nothing. We have to work to keep our heads above water.
I sigh heavily. “We are going out.”
“Likeoutout?” she asks, an enthusiasm bubbling in her voice that has me blinking owlishly.
“Sure, whatever the fuck that means.”
Delphini drops the brush she is holding into the sink and bolts out of the kitchen. Her bare feet slap against the shining floor mosaics. Well, she at least knows how to clean something. Before my thoughts can wander, I head for the great hall, thinking she will also be there, but I am, in fact, standing in the room alone.
My eyes are drawn to the floors again. The grout between each of the small tiles is pristine, the whitest it has been since we first installed them. Now my mind really does go through a series of hoops, from thinking about her bent over with her ass in the air, to how sore she must be from the work, to how she hasn’t complained once. For five days, I have made sure this woman has been put through the wringer just to avoid her.
Although she has made her existence known to me any chance she could, Delphini has proven she doesn’t give up. I suppose that can be said for all of us on this ship. We aren’t quitters. Life has tried to beat us down and has killed us all once, though even in death, we have refused to give up. We all earn the power and blessings that Love bestows on us.
Doesn’t matter. She won’t be coming back to the ship after tonight. She is not going to be a problem for us once I hand her over to the others. It will be smooth sailing into the tourist season and I will return to hunting properly to kill Augustine Ravenscroft. Everyone will forget she was ever here.
A few moments later, Delphini returns from her room. She looks fresher– her face is washed of sweat and she has a new dress on instead of the trousers and shirt she has been wearing.
