Page 21 of Queen of Whispers and Mist

She passed a few other sailors on her way to the bow, but no one tried to stop her. Other than a few polite nods, no one acknowledged her at all. It wasn’t until she heard the murmur of voices that she slowed and finally located her quarry.

It didn’t take more than a second to realize why her earlier error had been so amusing. Captain No Beard wasn’t a man. She was a woman. A beautiful one. She leaned against the railing, her elbows resting on the smooth wood and one booted foot propped up behind her. The position showcased her lithe body and ripe curves. As did the wide V of her shirt and the embroidered black vest that pushed her breasts up and out of it. She was clearly enjoying herself, her head tipped back, rose gold hair flying behind her on the breeze. The series of beaded twists and braids were both elaborate and functional. Not even the velvet eyepatch over her left eye diminished her striking beauty. This was a woman born for the sea. One who reveled in adventure and the freedom of living a life solely for herself.

Envy burned a hole in Shadow’s gut. This was a woman who possessed everythingshewanted.

Eyes trailing to the redheaded man she was speaking with, Shadow froze.

Ronan.

Whispered bits of conversation floated through her mind.

‘Don’t cry, kitten.’

‘My heart, my life, they’re yours. They’ve always been yours...’

‘Did you miss me?’

She didn’t quite remember him saying any of those things to her, but there was a familiarity about the words she couldn’t deny. She’d experienced this odd duality before—foundationless memories that simultaneously did and did not belong to her—so it didn’t faze her as much as annoy her. Especially as she watched him with the captain. The strawberry-blonde leaned forward and rested her hand on the swell of Ronan’s arm, playfully squeezing the muscle before smiling up at him.

He didn’t stop her. Didn’t pull away. Just laughed before continuing their conversation.

How dare you offer such words to me and then gift your smiles so freely to another?

Jealousy was a foreign sensation. It didn’t sit well. It crawled up her neck like shame, burned through her veins like anger, slid down into her belly where it curdled like illness, only to finally come to rest between her ribs, where it smothered her beneath its weight like grief.

If you were just going to abandon me at the first sign of another, why bring me with you...

She was well aware the thought was hardly fair, but something in the question niggled in the back of her brain. Swirling around and around until she confronted it.

Bring me with you.

With. You.

He was the reason she was on this ship. Why her body ached and her memory was lost. Hands balling into fists, Shadow realized what she was feeling wasn’t jealousy.

It was betrayal.

CHAPTER8

RONAN

There was no shift in the breeze or heavy footsteps to alert him to her presence behind him. None was required. The very air grew charged with her proximity, beckoning him on a cellular level he couldn’t ignore if he wanted to. There was no way to fully quantify what her presence did to him. It was as if his skin grew tighter, his breathing both labored and measured, senses sharpened to the point he’d notice the barest change in her position from the twitch of an eyelash to the flick of a finger.

Everything in him was primed to react. To her whims. Her needs. Just... her.

Which made their current predicament a special form of torture.

It took little more than her sharp inhalation and subsequently terse, “Captain,” for Ronan to get his answer to the question that had plagued him from the moment he knocked her out.

Would she still view him as her enemy when she woke?

As he turned to face her fully, the blank, almost bored expression on her face confirmed that yes, she did. It took everything in him not to let the weight of defeat send him crashing to his knees.

He could practically hear Effie’s voice trying to comfort him.Cheer up, Ro. It could be worse. She could have tried to kill you straight away. The lack of a dagger embedded in your chest has to be a good sign...

Aye, because when it comes to Shadow, anything less than outright murder must be a declaration of love,he thought with a mental eye roll.

The only thing her inaction meant was what little she recalled of the other night was foggy at best.

---