Page 100 of Captive of the Pirate King
“I had to find you, Mordan. I love you.” I disengage myself from the hug and smile brightly at him. “What is all this? Your new home?”
“Yes.” He ruffles the back of his hair, sheepish and proud. “The ships bring me everything I need. This is my place now.”
“And the people on the ships?” I say carefully.
Something dark quivers in his eyes. “I don’t need them. At least—not for long.”
“So they die, or—you kill them.” I shake my head, a gentle rebuke, while my heart sickens and screams inside me. “You know how I feel about killing, Mordan.”
“I know, I know.” He tugs at his own hair. “But it has to be done. They’re a plague, I tell you. A plague. Ruination and damnation.”
“They?”
“People. All people. Except a few people, like you. And like—like Wessa and Gil.”
“Wessa and Gil?”
He sighs. “After I left home, I got a berth on a passenger ship and landed in Sahrfa. I was hired as a mage, a windrunner for a merchant vessel. They thought I’d give them a better chance to outrun pirates, and I did. For nearly eight years, I worked on that ship, and I loved it because of Gil and Wessa. Gil was a mind-mage, you see. Very weak powers, but enough. Enough to keep the voices quiet, like you used to do for me, Veronica. And Wessa, the ship’s captain—she reminded me of you. Red hair. Freckles. Beautiful. Gil and Wessa and I—we loved each other. We loved so hard—gods, we were magic in bed. I could never get enough. Could have lived like that forever.”
“What happened?” I whisper.
“Pirates,” he spits. “And the ship of some rutting king. I took ill after one port of call, and my energy was low—I was feverish, couldn’t move the air like usual. Our vessel ended up too close to a fight between a pirate ship and a military ship. Long-range cannonball blasted straight into Wessa’s cabin. Took off Gil’s head. He was tending to me, you see, while I was sick.”
I swallow. “I’m so sorry.”
“I went out on deck.” Mordan’s voice shakes, a taut cord of grief. “I went out, drenched in his blood. And I tried to help, but I was too weak. The pirates took down the king’s ship, and then they came for us. They threw Wessa into the sea. She was wounded, and the sharks got her before I could do anything.”
“Mordan.” Tears fill my eyes, tears of pain and empathy—but his eyes burn, tearless, bright and keen.
“I surrendered and joined the pirates.” His fingers writhe together, knuckles cracking with nervous energy. “But when Gil’s mind-magic wore off, and my strength returned, I paid them all back. Killed every last one, and sailed here. It’s the perfect spot—the intersection of well-traveled routes. And ever since that illness I’ve been more powerful than ever. I drag them all in, the ships of kings and pirates and Pirate Kings.” He laughs, high and shrill. “And I take the spoils.”
With a wrench of pain, I realize how much his story is like Locke’s—a tale of pain and revenge. Yet they are so very, very different.
“You’re alone here, Mordan,” I say softly. “Don’t you miss having a friend? Family?”
His smile drops. “Family never meant much to me.” He glances down at the ring I’m holding. “You, though—I’m glad to see you again. You can stay here. You can help me. Sometimes it’s all too much, and I just scream, I scream for hours—it feels good because I couldn’t do that back home, but then I can’t stop screaming, and I get so tired. I miss the peace you gave me, Veronica. Peace, and clarity.” His shoulders slump, and he bows over, sinking his forehead against my shoulder.
My heart kicks into a panicked rhythm, and it’s all I can do not to shriek and throw him off, and scuttle as far away as I can get. But I force myself to draw in a slow breath. “We can do a little blood magic now, if you like. I can help you sleep, if you need rest.”
Mordan groans, but he doesn’t let go of me. His arms snake around my torso, winding me closer to him. Nausea sours my throat at the stench of him, the wrongness. “You’ve changed, Veronica,” he mutters. “You feel different now.”
His hand slides down my back—and then stops at the hilt of the knife. Slowly he draws it out, the flat blade skimming my skin.
78
For a second my whole body sings with nervous terror as Mordan inspects the weapon. But then he smiles. “You kept this. The knife I gave you. The knife we used…” His voice trails off, and he sets the blade to his flesh, carving a long line in the top side of his arm. Blood oozes from the slit.
“Drink from me, Veronica,” he says shakily. “Drink, and command me. Soothe me, let me sleep. Help me feel something again, something sweet and pure. You were always so sweet and pure.”
I swallow hard against the bile rising in my throat, my mind clogged with images of men, men in my mouth and between my legs, men pawing at my breasts and fisting my hair. Why does Locke want me, ruined filth that I am?
Meet me in the blood and the grime…
Mordan offers his bleeding arm to me.
He suspects nothing. He doesn’t fear me. In his eyes, I’m still his anxious, loving little sister, holding him back from the edge of moral destruction. He doesn’t know that the woman before him is so much more now—a lonely, pleasure-hungry girl, a runaway, a killer, a fierce survivor, a woman promised to the Pirate King.
Can I do this? Can I murder my own flesh and blood?
