Page 66 of The Sky Pirate's Stowaway
“How did you even do it, anyway?” he asked, gesturing to my injured temple.
“My leg gave way midway down the stairs, and my face got overly acquainted with the deck.” I grimaced as a phantom pain rippled through my missing limb, as if it could hear me complaining about it. A soft grunt escaped my lips before I clamped them together.
Kaspar’s eyes darted to my prosthetic, then back to my face. His expression softened with understanding, not pity—a distinction few people managed. Then something else crossed his face, and he nibbled at his lip for a moment before clearing his throat.
“You know, if you wanted to, you could… take it off. Your leg, I mean. Right here.” His voice had dropped to a whisper, so low I barely caught the words. “I could rub it for you. I’ll… make it feel better.”
I froze, my heart suddenly pounding against my ribs like a caged animal. Two warring impulses battled within me—a desperate yearning for his touch, for the relief his gentle fingers might bring to my aching stump, and a visceral terror at thethought of exposing my mutilation to him. Very few had ever seen it, let alone touched it. The thought of Kaspar seeing me so vulnerable, so incomplete…
I’ll make it feel better.I had no doubt about that. Better and more. The idea of his hands rubbing all over my thigh excited every part of me. Some parts a little too much.
Kaspar rested his hand on the metal of my prosthetic between my boot and pant leg. The sight of his palm against the metal sent conflicting signals through my body—comfort and panic in equal measure.
But what if he’s repulsed by what he sees?My self-protective defenses screamed at me.
But… what if he’s not?
“I—” The words died in my throat, and I sat there frozen. Before I could form a coherent response, a tremendous crash thundered through the entire ship. Shouts and curses filtered down from the deck above, followed by the unmistakable sound of splintering wood.
“What the hell?” I muttered, instinctively reaching for Kaspar’s arm. The cacophony intensified—men shouting, something metal clashing, the captain’s distinctive bellow cutting through it all.
I brought my hand to Kaspar’s cheek to stroke it with my thumb. “I need to go. It’s absolute carnage up there.”
His eyebrows shot up, a teasing smile playing at his lips. “Oh, okay. I see how it is. Just when things get interesting, duty calls.”
Another crash rattled through the crate, this one louder than before. Greybeard’s booming voice carried down to us, hurling abuse at someone. “You lily-livered sack of donkey shit! I’ll feed your eyeballs to the fucking gulls!”
“Look, we were just celebrating how nobody died today,” I said, reluctantly pulling my hand away. “We need to keep it thatway. Besides, you can’t just hide away in this crate again. You’re not a stowaway anymore, pirate.”
Kaspar laughed, starting to move the makeshift door. Then he paused, looking back at me strangely. Just when I was going to ask him what the matter was, he lurched forward, pressing a firm kiss to my forehead, right beside the fresh stitches. Before I could react, he was already scrambling out of the crate, lithe body slipping through the opening.
I sat there, stunned, my fingertips reaching up to touch the spot where his lips had been. The warmth of the kiss lingered on my skin, more effective than any medicine Stitches could have prescribed.
“Kaspar,” I whispered to the empty crate.
My stowaway.Who would have imagined when I first found him here, I’d be sitting in this same crate weeks later, heart racing from a stolen kiss? There was no denying it. Kaspar had now stowed away in the most heavily guarded compartment I possessed: my heart. And unlike when I’d discovered him hiding, I had no intention of forcing him out.
13
Maximus
Icrept across the lower deck toward Kaspar’s hammock, placing each step with deliberate care. The metal joint of my prosthetic threatened to betray me with every movement. I’d wrapped a strip of cloth around the knee mechanism to help muffle any telltale clicks over the familiar symphony of the soft chorus of snoring aeronauts—a sound I couldn’t afford to disrupt.
I had to be quick. In another hour, they would all rise with the dawn.
The last day and a half had been nothing short of hellish. After the battle with the Sunada fleet, we’d limped away with a fractured mizzenmast, a shredded sail, and enough hull damage to keep half the crew working through the night. Sparrow’s rigging team had been aloft for nearly twenty hours straight, recalibrating the sails to compensate for our wounded state. Meanwhile, I’d been playing peacekeeper between exhausted crew members ready to gut each other over trivial matters.
As for Ariella, Stitches had practically barricaded her in the medical cupboard, refusing to let Viper work her to death. “I’llfight the captain myself if he comes looking for her,” she’d declared, brandishing a bone saw that made even me step back.
And so my interactions with Kaspar had been reduced to stolen moments—a smile exchanged over Sage’s morning gruel that somehow made the tasteless slop bearable; the electric brush of his fingertips against mine when he’d passed me wood measurements; and last night, a lingering look before I’d retreated to my cabin, too exhausted to even remove my boots before collapsing onto my bunk.
Now, navigating between rows of hammocks, I finally spotted him—curled slightly on his side, one arm dangling over the edge of the canvas. His copper hair was tousled across his forehead, and in sleep, the lines of worry on his face these past few days were smoothed away.
I paused beside his hammock, suddenly uncertain. How to wake him without startling him into alerting the entire crew? I couldn’t risk a hand over his mouth—he might strike out before recognizing me. A shake of the shoulder might send him tumbling to the floor.
Then the miracle occurred—his arm that was lolling out twitched, almost like it was reaching toward me. I held my breath as Kaspar’s eyelashes fluttered, then suddenly those dazzling green eyes widened in surprise, catching the dim light from a distant lantern.
“Max?” Kaspar shot up to sitting, the hammock swaying violently beneath him.
