Page 22 of Astrid at Sea

“I’ll have you know that I’m not a whore,” I spat at him, punching him just as hard as I had done to his friend.

“She’s part of the crew,” Laurence piped up, a proud look on his face. “Now apologise before we set her husband on you both.”

“Husband?” They both asked, their eyes slowly widening as understanding dawned on them. It was scarce for a woman to be aboard a mission, especially one as long as this one. It was even rarer for this woman to be married to a crew member, but if she was, then there was only one person she would be married to.

The Captain.

“Let’s go and find out what her husband has to say about this,” Garth announced, moving around the men to lead the way off The Serpent. “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to hear how you two have been talking to one of our crew.”

“We might as well share this story with your Chief, as well,” Dagfinn chuckled as he forced his dark-haired captive to his feet, and Roscoe did the same to the other one.

“That’ll teach you to call me a whore,” I huffed, eagerly following everyone.

Watching these two imbeciles get ashamed in front of their people was not a show I was willing to miss.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Can we please talk about this?” The dark-haired man begged as Dagfinn pushed him down the shore and away from The Serpent in search of Viktor. Or even better yet, the Chief of Mann. “I’m sure if we talk about this, we can agree that this was all a big misunderstanding.”

“A big misunderstanding?” Garth snorted. “The only misunderstanding here is thinking you can get on our ship and run your mouth.”

“It was a mistake,” the light-haired man pleaded.

Roscoe merely tightened his grasp on him and snorted, “That’s for us to decide.”

Roscoe and Dagfinn dragged the two down the shore and off the beach. The rest of us were hot on their heels.

When asked, the two men were stupid enough to lead us to the island centre, where everyone usually gathered.

“Let go of them!” An islander rushed over to us, but Caspian and Laurence stepped in the way.

“What is wrong with you all?” Another asked. “You’re on our island for five minutes, and this is how you treat our people? What gives you the right?”

“These men acting sleazy and parading around our ship, acting like they own it, makes them worthy of this behaviour,” I retorted, but it didn’t go down as well as I had hoped. “They have no respect for women. They need to be taught a lesson. They can’t get away with speaking to a woman like this.”

“No one asked you, whore!”

“Step aside and let us men deal with this. Afemalehas no business here.” They sneered at the word‘female’as if it was an insult.

“Don’t you dare talk to her that way,” Garth snapped with a fierce scowl. “She is one of the crew, and you will treat her with as much respect as you do the rest of us.”

“Who says we have respect for any of you?” Another man yelled.

The large group of Mann islanders who had gathered laughed as if he had just said the funniest thing ever.

“Leave our men and go back to your ship!” Another man demanded.

“We’re here to do business with your Chief, and this is how you treat us? What’s wrong with you?” Caspian scoffed and stepped forward menacingly. “We are the ones doing you a favour by stopping here. We could have saved both our time and efforts and continued sailing, but you need our inventions, so I’d think twice before speaking to one of our crew in such a way.”

“She’s a woman. She can’t be part of the crew,” one of the women snorted as if everything I had just said had gone in one ear and come out the other.

It was bad enough coming from a man but much worse from a woman.

“It shows how little you know,” Roscoe snorted.

“Shut up, child and let the adults deal with this.”

“A child and a whore. What an interesting crew you have.”

---