Page 30 of A Captain So Callous and Cruel

“My love!”

“My woman!”

“My star is singing for me.”

I fight to contain my sanity. I feel it slipping away. Without my bracelet, the magic leaves my being like a time glass running out of sand. Replacing the shield is a desperate yearning. I feel consumed with love. Love for an imaginary being. A trick. An illusion of the senses.

I try to fight back.

I think of James.

James when he was a baby, cooing for a touch. I merely looked at him.

James when he took his first steps to me. I turned my back on him.

James when he said his first word, “Da.” I told him to quiet down.

James when he stared at me, desperate for warmth. I was cold.

The ship rumbles beneath me like an earthquake. I look down, my cock bursting at the seams as I continue to fight back. The men around me jump overboard, mindless and empty, like they are slaves to the sea itself being called back to their master.

“It would have been easy to fall into you.”

I wonder…

I wonder in that instant what might have been.

If it was possible that I could have done things differently. If I had never boarded this ship. If I had never hung her sister’s tail in my office.

If I had been a better king, and if my son had a better chance.

The rumbles beneath my feet continue to grow stronger. Fear chokes me as I slowly look up. My breath is stolen from my lungs as I gape at a wave coming for us. A wave that kisses the sky. Her song continues to grow louder. I blink back the black spots, watching the wave come closer.

I am going to die.

“Goodbye,” I whisper to her. To James. To myself.

I think of my son as the wave slams into the Trident and my world goes black.

Epilogue

KAI

She looks beautiful when she’s murderous. I’ve seen her like this before. Several times, actually. Destroying ships. Ripping the hearts from the men as they fling themselves into the ocean, convinced the love of their life is in the darkened sea, waiting to greet them.

They’re half right. Someone is waiting to greet them, but what they don’t realize is that it’s the love of my life waiting for them. And she’s not waiting to say hello.

Ripping through the flesh of another crewmate, she pulls out his heart and winds her arm back, throwing the unbeating organ as far as she can. It plops into the water several feet away.

She hasn’t realized that she isn’t alone out here, or maybe she can sense me and I’m not giving her enough credit. Nevertheless, we haven’t spoken since our last encounter on the ship and I’m desperate to touch her—to taste her, and the devastation and salt water that’s on her skin.

The Trident is on fire in two places, and if my assumptions are correct, it’s taking in water on the portside. She did a number on the ship but, for some reason I’ve yet to discover, she hasn’t completely obliterated it.

Screams of chaos sound as distant callings from where I float in the sea, and after watching Hali destroy six more men, I can’t wait any longer.

Silently, I swim through the water to her, only stopping once my arms are around her middle and my head breaches the surface as I kiss my way up her spine.

“You’re alive,” she breathes, relief instantly relaxing her into my arms.

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