Page 42 of A Pirate's Pleasure

“I might not have known you for long,” Whitby said, his expression turning serious, “but I’ve known Zephyr Chase for a lot longer, and he would never have been with anyone who wasn’t worth their weight in gold when it came down to it. I trust his opinion of you. He thought you were worth saving. Now, you just need to show the rest of the ship what he saw in you.”

“I can’t sleep with all of them,” I deadpanned.

Whitby laughed, the sound all the richer for coming from deep within his chest. He pointed to where the ship had now grown close enough that I could see it with the naked eye. “Reckon you’ve got an hour to make yourself look the part.”

“Make myself…” I dropped my gaze to the trousers I wore. I’d rolled them up to the knee because it was cooler that way when the sun was directly overhead. I’d considered cutting the legs off below the knees entirely, but they were my only pair. My feet were bare. On my top half, I wore my shirt, the buttons unfastened to mid chest, because again… cooler. I looked like an island castaway, but I didn’t look like a pirate. And I definitely didn’t look like a pirate captain, which was the role I was supposed to be playing. I had a lot of work to do before we reached the ship.

Chapter Seventeen

Zephyr

“Perhaps you could take the manacles off today?” I accompanied my request with a rattle of the chain and a blinding smile. The former for emphasis, the latter in the hope it might sweeten the pot.

Lucretius leaned over the table, where the usual sumptuous feast had been laid out for breakfast. He took hold of my chin, his brown eyes boring into mine. Would he do it? My heart beat faster in anticipation. Free of the manacles, I’d have magic. I was yet to work out how I could use it to my advantage, but at least the option would be there. And after seven straight days of wearing them, I was mightily sick of how much more difficult they made even the simplest thing, whether that was eating, taking a piss, or just trying to sleep in a comfortable position.

He pressed the palm of his hand to my chest, the look on his face turning to one of concern. “Your heart is racing, my darling. I can hear it.”

I swallowed. “You can hear it?”

He smiled. “Of course. I have far better hearing than a human.”

Well, that was disconcerting. And something I would have been better already knowing. It meant I’d have to do a much better job of hiding my true feelings around him in future.

“What’s wrong?” Lucretius asked, his fingers tapping out a perfectly matched rhythm on my chest to the beat of my heart.

“Wrong?”

“Something’s getting you worked up. I might start thinking you don’t want to be here with me.” Despite the light-hearted way he delivered the words, I knew Lucretius and his rapidly changeable moods well enough to pick up on the underlying threat.

I laughed. “Of course not. It’s…”

“It’s?” Lucretius arched one dark eyebrow.

I was in danger of undoing all my work from the past week if I didn’t think of a good lie and deliver it convincingly. “Your proximity,” I said, the words sticking in my throat. “You have your hands on me. How can you expect me not to react to that? I am but a man, after all.”

The pleased smile that trembled on Lucretius’ lips told me he’d fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. “I can understand that. I feel it too.” And then he kissed me.

I forced myself to stay still, to not recoil from it like I wanted to do. And when the kiss had gone on for too long for that not to be enough, I forced myself to kiss him back. While I went through the motions and made all the right noises, my brain raced. What if he took me to bed? Could I go through with it? If I didn’t, though, the game would be up.

Just as panic had set in, the kiss growing too passionate—on Lucretius’ part, anyway—for it not to lead to more, he drew back with a disappointed look on his face. “Any other day, my darling, and I would take advantage of that willingness of yours. Today, though, I’m afraid I can’t.”

“No?” I impressed myself with the note of disappointment I’d injected into my question.

“No.” Lucretius sat back in his chair and studied me. “I have to go somewhere, and I won’t be back till nightfall.”

“Off the island?” He nodded. “Can you take me with you?” If he took me, there would be people, civilization, more chance of escape. Something more than grass and flowers and a huge empty house.

His lips quirked up at one corner. “Alas, my sweet, I’m afraid I cannot. It’s private business.” What sort of business did a harpy have to attend to? “Better that you stay here and await my return. I know you’ll be lonely, but perhaps have a sleep and then by the time you wake, I’ll be back. And then tonight…” He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t need to. The unspoken promise was clear enough.

He got up from the table and blew me a kiss, as was his habit. And then he changed right there in front of me, the process no less horrific for this being the third time I’d witnessed it. I kept my expression carefully blank, searching for a compliment I might throw his way. “You have a very impressive wing span,” I eventually said. It wasn’t the best, but it was better than saying nothing.

“Thank you, my darling.”

I followed him to the door, where he paused on the threshold. “I’ll leave this door unlocked in case you want to go for a walk around the island. Think of it as a sign of my growing trust in you. Be careful, though. Don’t fall in the sea”—he dropped his gaze to my manacled hands—“because swimming might be difficult, and I’d hate to get back to discover you’d done something stupid and drowned.” He smiled, flashing the mouthful of teeth that had become a regular feature in my nightmares. “Bodies are so hard to find in the sea. You blink, and the current has already carried them miles away, and it takes weeks to find them.”

Something told me he was speaking from experience. Which of the skulls that watched me every night from the shelf had ignored his warning and taken their chances with the waves? Had he really thought he could escape? Or had he just decided that death was preferable?

Lucretius bent forward and pressed a lingering kiss to my forehead and then he was gone, those powerful wings of his carrying him up into the sky. I watched him until he was nothing more than a tiny speck, wanting to be sure he was really gone and that this wasn’t some sort of test of loyalty.