Page 38 of A Pirate's Pleasure

“Ah.” He nodded. “So your… friend was correct when he said you run from commitment?”

The gulp of wine I took was a sizeable one this time, the alcohol starting to do its job of soothing raw nerves. It was a good thing Lucretius was unaware of that “friend” being the reason for my views on commitment. I’d made a commitment to Lief, but our relationship had ended badly, and I’d promised that I would never allow myself to feel that level of heartbreak again because nothing had caused me more pain. “I couldn’t comment.”

He laughed again, this one more natural. I examined the rest of the room. There was a marble statue in the corner that reached almost to the ceiling. It depicted a young woman, a child, and a puppy, its innocence seeming completely at odds with the situation I found myself in. It also gleamed to within an inch of its life, the realization hitting me that Lucretius’ words couldn’t be the whole truth, not when since leaving the cell there’d been nary a cobweb or a speck of dust to be seen. “You must have servants that come here?” Optimism had me sitting up straighter. Servants meant people I could seek help from. It also meant boats—a means of escape. Lucretius might fly everywhere, but most people didn’t have that luxury.

“Must I?” Amusement pulled at the corners of Lucretius’ lips. “How do you work that out?”

“Everything’s so clean, so polished.” I waved a hand at the table, at the feast I hadn’t touched despite the hollow feeling in my gut. “All this food. Someone must have prepared it for you.”

Lucretius reached over to grip a grape between thumb and forefinger. He tugged it gently away from the stem and held it in front of his face to examine it for a few seconds before popping it in his mouth and chewing slowly. He swallowed before answering the question. “I see your reasoning.”

“Do they live here? Or do they come from somewhere nearby?” I prayed for the latter while I waited for the harpy to answer.

“They?” He plucked another grape from the platter.

“The servants.”

“There are no servants.”

“Then, how…?”

He grinned. “Magic, my dear friend, magic.” The second grape went the same way as the first, his eyes sparkling as he chewed on it. “Did you think yourself the only one who possessed it?”

I hadn’t thought about it. It made sense, though. He already had magic in his ability to shift between human and his natural form. It seemed that was just the tip of the iceberg. It took all the willpower I had to remain upright instead of slumping in my chair. Had I done, I would only have had that luxury for a few seconds, anyway, Lucretius pulling on the chain that bound me to him to urge me closer. Far too close, our lips only inches apart. Was he going to kiss me? There was nothing I wanted less. I might already have been intimate with him, but that was before I’d known what he truly was. My plan to make him think I wanted this disintegrated in front of my eyes. There were many things I could do, but fake lust for someone who disgusted me wasn’t on that list.

His gaze roved my face, searching, probing, while I did my best to keep my expression as carefully neutral as I could. One finger brushed along my cheek, and I did well not to shiver. And then a plump grape was pushed between my lips, Lucretius sitting back with a smile. “Eat. You told me you were hungry, yet you haven’t touched a thing. A man cannot live on wine alone. Trust me, I have tried a time or two when my mind has been on other things and it never ends well.”

I bit down on the grape, the taste that exploded across my tongue twice as sweet coupled as it was with relief.

“Eat,” Lucretius said with an extensive wave of his hand. “Fill your stomach. And then I will give you a tour of the island.”

The tour of the island proved short. It couldn’t be anything else when a walk from end to end took less than fifteen minutes. My first impressions from the cell window had been correct: the island was beautiful. All lush green grass and bright flora and fauna. I’d forced myself to say as much, Lucretius preening like he’d been responsible for planting every single flower himself. Perhaps he had. Hundreds of years ago.

Other noticeable things on the short walk included no boats on the beach, just as he’d said. And the birds. There were so many birds that they covered every single rock and every single tree, as if they struggled to find enough places to perch. Lucretius didn’t comment on them and I didn’t ask.

The house was as grand from the outside as it was on the inside as Lucretius led me back toward it. I didn’t have long to admire the many windows and snow-white stonework before Lucretius was tugging me back through the door we’d come out of by the chain. I was already mightily sick of being led around by it. He might as well put a ring through my nose and be done with it. He stopped to pull a key from his pocket and made a show out of locking the door behind us. I got the message loud and clear. There was no leaving the house without his permission. Not unless I could get my hands on the key.

“I’ll show you to your room,” Lucretius said.

“My room?” I asked cautiously.

“I think we should take things slowly. Do you not agree?”

The words were music to my ears, but it was yet another instance of me needing to choose my answer carefully. Coming across as being too eager could prove just as disastrous as being too reticent. “I do. I think we should get to know each other first before anything else develops, but I admit I’m surprised you feel the same. I thought you were a little more seize the moment than that.”

“We have years,” Lucretius said, the simple statement making my stomach lurch. “The rest of your life, so there’s no need to rush anything.”

The rest of your life. I might not have taken the words as so much of a threat if they hadn’t coincided with me walking through the door into the room Lucretius had taken me to. In combination with being met by row upon row of skulls, their empty eye sockets all staring at me from the shelves they sat on, it was hard not to. Lief’s joke of what seemed like a lifetime ago, that we could polish the skulls of Lucretius’ ex-lovers together, no longer seemed remotely funny and more a psychic premonition. “I like what you’ve done with the place,” I said.

Lucretius followed my gaze and let out a laugh. “Consider it a reminder.”

“A reminder?”

“Of what could happen.” He gave a deliberately long pause to let his words sink in before turning to me with a bright smile. “But it will be different this time. I can feel it. We have so much more in common than I ever did with any of them.”

“Like what?” I winced as the words left my mouth. It would have been better to agree, to keep stroking his ego and pretend I felt the connection between us, just as he did.

“Magic,” Lucretius said, tugging me over to the opposite wall with a large iron ring embedded in it, a twin to the one in the basement cell. He pulled out a key from his seemingly never-ending collection, and reversed the earlier process to secure the chain, that until this point had never left his wrist. He stood back to admire his handiwork with a smile. “Where was I? Oh, yes, things we have in common. Mutual attraction. I remember the night we spent together fondly. You were…” Some of the food I’d eaten threatened to force its way back up while I waited for the end of the sentence. “…insatiable. I’ve had many lovers, and you were one of the best.” He tipped his head to the side and thought hard. “Maybe even the best.”

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