Page 37 of The Pirate Queen of Ruin
My discussion with Love has taken me to my stop. The station is desolate, the overnight guard locked in their booth and reading something on a tablet. A salty breeze picks up when I step towards the dock. I don’t see Delphini, and I don’t want to search all the Docklands for her before going home to sleep off this horrible evening. There is a tug underneath my skin, which I know is Love guiding me to her. I follow the soft pull to a dive bar.
The Salty Dog is a locals’ bar, one run by a human scumbag. It doesn’t make good hunting grounds for the simple fact that everyone here knows everyone. And they know me as well. The local crazy woman obsessed with the legend of a pirate queen. If only they knew.
However, Delphini will be drawing all their attention to herself dressed as she is.
Ignoring the men smoking outside, I head in. Humid and rank, this place smells of unwashed bodies and fish rot. Some of the fishermen come here after shifts and drink away what money they do have before going right back to their boats. It’s like they’ve never heard of bathing.
The pink dress stands out in this crowd. Delphini leans up against the bar and watches closely as a lady pours her two shots. How has she paid for these? The answer to my question sits next to her. They knock glasses together, and she downs her shot with ease, not even a flinch as the undoubtedly cheap liquor burns her senses. She makes eye contact with me the moment she swallows.
When she licks her lips, my eyes follow the peak of pink that traces the plush shape. The man next to her doesn’t see it, but for a brief moment, her dark eyes turn a milky shade of white that I have seen reflected back at me before. His hand goes to her wrist and she doesn’t push him away, or bristle at his touch. I step forward, intent to rip the skin from it for touching her and to drag her back to the ship and…
And I don’t know what. Have a discussion like we are a couple who had a misunderstanding? As if it isn’t fucked up enough, the higher power we have both pledged our second chance at life to hasn’t played matchmaker? It’s all so fucking ridiculous to me when I have had one mission in all this time. They said we were to bring about a new age, but why does this human factor into any of this?
Fishermen step in my way carelessly and I lose sight of Delphini. Once I have shoved past them, making sure they see the icy rage on my face for standing in my way, she is gone. I scan the bar, but there isn’t a single inkling of pink left. The neon signs are shades of blue that offer no comfort.
She’s not left the bar and the guy who bought her the drink isn’t at the table any more either.
I’m going to kill him.
I am going to kill him for this fucking inconvenience and make Delphini watch my knife carve out his heart. She will see what I am capable of and what I will do just because I can. The pleasure of feeling his last heart beat will purely be for myself. That will prove to her that she is no match for me because I don’t have any humanity left. Centuries of taking lives have warped the being I am, incapable of real love. I have been since my rebirth. The only thing inside me is a festering anger that keeps me going, keeps everything going.
And I won’t give that up.
There are only so many places they could have gone. I weave through the crowd and down the small hall that has the gents and permanently closed ladies. Both are as disgusting as I imagined they would be, but empty. The third door leads to a supply closet that is so small I’m not sure even one person could stand in the small space.
The fire door outside leads to an alley that I know better than I know this bar. It’s a good waypoint between the city andThe Despairwhen I have fresh meat in tow. During Love’s heat, as it has come to be known by the crew, it helps to keep some men alive long enough to kill them with an audience. It feels like more of a ritual, something all of us can indulge in from the safety of the ship rather than another task to complete. But there is only one reason Delphini could want to bring a man out here.
Is fucking a stranger in an alley her act of revenge after my rejection?
As I step outside and breathe in the scent of piss, it’s easy to find Delphini and the man. The full moon is high in the sky and the distant street lights are enough to illuminate them. I flick my pocket knife out of my overalls and let the weight of it settle in my shaking hand. This will be done quickly. I’ll leave the scum for someone else to deal with, but she needs to be taken back to the ship.
Our closeness is easing the ache, but anger races to replace it. Already, I can feel her. Even with a few feet of distance between us, her presence brings a stop to the shaking in my bones. Goosebumps spread across my arms and prickle at the back of my neck.
There is a masculine grunt and my gut recoils. Love’s weight isn’t wrapped around me. They can’t offer me their comfort around this vile man. I am alone in this act. My breath stalls.
A clap of skin against skin echoes down the alley, followed quickly by a high-pitched gasp that has me moving closer.
Pink bleeds red under the light of the moon. Delphini’s body jerks as she moves against the man. It’s rained recently, but the day was dry. The puddle forming at her feet isn’t water. The man slumps, and she shoves him into the trash piled up next to them. Her dress is splattered with blood and a cheap fishing knife slips from her fingers as she locks eyes with me.
“Is this what you wanted? Have I proven myself to you yet?” Her chest heaves.
My thoughts soar as my vision tunnels into the sight before me. Every part of me vibrates with an urgency I haven’t ever felt for anyone but Love. Her clenched fists tremble. Her anger is palpable, like it’s trying to wrap itself around me. I know that she isn’t a nymph. She isn’t a siren. To even think that she could be something so simple is stupid. This creature is coated in rage and blood and beauty.
Delphini is a goddess.
Every part of me wants to drop to my knees before her. Such a simple act to take a man’s life, and yet so hard for most. They can’t picture themselves harbouring such violence, they can’t stomach the beastly pleasure of taking until their prey is dead. But she has done it as an act of devotion to me.
“Don’t you see how good I can be?” she demands. “I can be as good as you. Let me prove it to you.”
These feelings don’t make sense and I’m frozen in this rank alley. She stumbles over to me, exhausted, causing her frame to move without her usual grace. My knife is fisted in my hand. The short blade is exposed and waiting to be soaked in blood, too.
“Who will you choose?”Love’s voices thunder through me, powerful and blessedly hungry.
“Speak to me,” Delphini looks down at me, casting her shadow over me like a dark promise. I want nothing more than to sink into this feeling. To forget the world outside of my Love, and now my human. This woman before me is chaos and violence and so much obsession. Her soul, her mind, her body. I want all of it.
I can see all of it now. The vision Love showed me all those centuries ago is a hazy memory, but I see her. Where she fits in our mission is clear to me. I am a ship in Love’s vast ocean, but she is my centre mark. An obelisk that rises from the dark depths to keep me from straying. She is myomphalos.
My knife slips from my fingers.
