Page 77 of Witches of Dubious Origin
“Care for a cuppa?” Jasper gestured to the small food counter at the back of the lounge.
I nodded. “A coffee would be great.” He placed his hand on my lower back and escorted me through the otherpassengers. I remembered the feel of his mouth on mine the night before and thought about where else I’d like to feel those lips. A warmth unfurled inside me not unlike how it felt when I called my magic.
“Zoe.” Jasper leaned down and whispered in my ear, “Red streaks are appearing in your hair.” He lifted a hank of hair from behind my back and held it over my shoulder for me to see.
Well, that was embarrassing. My hair was outing my fantasies about him as loudly as if I’d sexted him a naked photo. I tried to bluff, pulling my hair out of his fingers, while not meeting his gaze. “Imagine that.”
“Yes, imagine.” His laugh was deep and reverberated from his chest and into my spine and I could practically feel my hair changing color in response.
I quickly queued up behind a couple in matching Red Sox jackets. Baseball season was over, but their fan love lived on. Go Sox! I faced forward and pretended to read the limited menu, knowing full well that I was going to order a packet of Skittles and a Milky Way. Bad breakfast choices are the best breakfast choices.
I could feel Jasper looming behind me. Okay, more accurately, he was just standing, but given the unfinished state of things between us, it felt like looming.
“About last night,” he said.
No, no, no.I didn’t want to talk about this. The potential for more embarrassment was too high. Should I pretend I couldn’t hear him? Interrupt him with some other talking point? Listen to him? Ugh, I was so bad at all this. This was why I was happily single and not dating, excluding short-livedhookups. Anything longer and I would inevitably humiliate myself.
“We should probably discuss it,” he continued.
A motion outside the window in my peripheral vision drew my attention. I turned and felt my heart stop in my throat. It couldn’t be. I squinted. It was!
“Given that my goal was to teach you to access your magic, I hope you don’t feel that I took advantage—”
“Pirate!” I yelped.
“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” Jasper protested.
I whipped around to face him and all thoughts of our previous evening’s activities vanished. I glanced around the nearly empty lounge and pulled him down by the lapels of his freshly laundered coat.
His eyes went wide, his face mere inches from mine. “Zoe, I—”
“Listen, I don’t want to panic the passengers, but, holy shitballs, there is a zombie pirate ship headed right for us.”
Jasper turned his head slowly to the window. His eyebrows shot up and he muttered, “Bloody hell!”
“What do we do?” I asked.
“How strong of a swimmer are you?”
I stared at him. It would take a lot more than a ship of undead pirates to get me to jump into the freezing ocean.
“All right, we can commandeer a lifeboat,” he said, correctly interpreting my expression. “Let’s go.”
“But what about the other passengers?” I asked. “We can’t just leave them here.”
He stared at me for a moment as if weighing his words,then he said, “I don’t think you understand. We’re not abandoning them. We’re saving them.”
“How do you figure?” My voice was tight with panic as my gaze fixed on the battered wooden ship glidingabovethe choppy waves. It would be upon us in a matter of minutes. I could just make out the bodies of the men scattered aboard the ship. They did not look friendly or…alive.
“The pirates are afteryou, Zoe. You’re what’s putting the ship and passengers in jeopardy.”
I whipped around and stared at Jasper in horror. He was right. The Viking and then Moran had come after me. It only made sense that whoever had sent them had also sent the pirates.
“Griffin. Ziakas.” Olive strode across the lounge, her trench coat flapping and her dark glasses covering her eyes, looking a bit like a pirate herself. “Where’s Eloise?”
I glanced around the room. Most of the passengers were staring at the screens of their phones or tablets and didn’t see the horror headed our way. Eloise was exactly where we’d left her by the window.
I hurried across the lounge, not wanting to draw attention by shouting. I reached her side and noticed she was staring at the pirate ship with wide eyes. Her palms were pressed together in front of her chest and her lips were moving in what I suspected was a prayer to save us all.
