Page 75 of Devil of the High Seas
Vesper tore her eyes away from the lovely scene. It only made her think more about who she wanted to be with right now.
“Where’s Grif—Lord Castleton?” she asked Josephine. “Was he needed on the ship?”
The concern on Josephine’s face now grew to a deep agony. “Griffin is...” Her friend apparently couldn’t bring herself to say the words.
“No...” Griffin couldn’t be dead.He couldn’t.It wasn’t right. He was the one person who had seen therealher. The one person she’d dared to believe truly loved her.
Josephine gripped her shoulders. “Breathe, Vesper.”
Vesper struggled to draw air into her lungs, and her legs became unsteady.
“He’s alive, but he needs you. Please, come with me.” Josephine grasped her hand, and they waded back into the shallows. Lord Camden helped Vesper and Josephine aboard the longboat and then the sailors rowed them back to the ship.
Once the sailors helped Vesper and Josephine on board, they bowed their heads respectfully to Vesper. The pit in her stomach deepened. It was clear they did not expect Griffin to survive.
“He’s this way.” Josephine led her to one of the cabins below.
She found Griffin lying on a bed, his chest bandaged. A man sat beside him, one hand on Griffin’s arm. The man in the chair turned at their approach, and Vesper gasped. He looked so like Griffin that for a moment she nearly ran to him.
Josephine introduced them. “Vesper, this is Gavin. Griffin’s brother.”
“He’s been asking for you,” Gavin said, his voice thick with emotion. He got up and stepped back to allow her to sit next to her love.
“He has?”
“Yes,” Josephine said. “I’d hoped... I know it sounds foolish, but I hoped that if he heard your voice and felt your touch...”
Vesper’s eyes blurred with tears, and she took Griffin’s hand and pressed it to her cheek.
“I’m here, Griffin.I’m here.” Her voice trembled as she spoke. “You promised me that we would be together. Do you remember? You cannot break that promise. I won’t let you.” She pressed her lips into his palm in a kiss and closed her eyes as she focused on him hearing her. “Pleasefight for me.”
“Vesper...” Griffin’s lips shaped her name, and a sliver of hope sprang free in her chest.
“Yes. I’m here. Come back to me.”
* * *
Griffin had never understoodthe sea, or the way it called to some souls and not others. He had always loved the solid earth beneath his feet. But now he was drifting, rocking in an endless dark sea he couldn’t escape. The ocean called for him tolet goand sink beneath the surface into gentle nothingness. Surrendering would be easy.
Yet each time he tried to let go, something kept his head above the water.Green eyes, soft honey-blonde hair, a warm laugh, an even warmer heart...These images and sensations teased him, haunted him, made him unable to relinquish himself to the sea. The siren’s call of the water began to fade as a voice on the wind whispered to him.
“Come back to me, Griffin...”
An island appeared in the distance. The horizon behind it was bathed in a brilliant golden glow. But every stroke in the water hurt, every inch he swam more agonizing than the last. Yet the harder it became, the more he wanted tofeelthat pain instead of escaping it.
“Fight for me...”
He was so bloody tired, but he couldn’t give up. Not with that voice begging him to fight. The shore was closer now. So close. He was almost there…then it all faded away into nothing...
His eyes opened. Muted light filtered into the room where he lay. He blinked and licked his dry lips. A woman sat in a chair beside his bed, her body bent over the bed as she slept with one hand lightly wrapped around his. The visions of the ocean and island faded, and he began to remember the battle on theSiren.
He had taken a bullet to the back to protect Josephine. The evidence of that wound was found in the weight of the bandages wrapped around his chest. The woman beside him was not Josephine, but Vesper.Vesper. The sight of her there at his side filled him with a joy that, for a moment, robbed him of his speech.
Finally, he spoke her name and she stirred. When she lifted her head, her green eyes were wide with hope and love.
“Griffin?”
He smiled wearily. “I came back.” It was all he could say in the moment, but she seemed to understand what he meant. Those three words echoed as strongly as the three words he should have said instead.“I love you.”
