Page 8 of A Pirate's Pleasure

I laughed. “Trust me, I know that better than anyone, but I’ve made my mind up. If it’s any consolation, I’ll probably murder him myself within a day or two.” I’d been backing up while I’d been talking, calculating the distance the ship would have sailed without turning to look.

“Chase?”

But I was already turning to execute a perfect swan dive off the side of the dock. As soon as I surfaced it became obvious my mental calculations had been off, The Navarino having traveled much farther than I’d expected in such a short time. All this for Lief, a man I didn’t even like. His gratitude had better know no bounds, or my comment about murdering him was likely to come true within a matter of hours rather than days.

My heavy frock coat and my boots did nothing to make the swim easier as I put my head down and concentrated on long, powerful strokes that would carry me closer to my target. At least with the cessation of my magic, the ship had slowed. It still took time and an immense amount of effort to catch up with it, though. And when I reached it, there was still the small matter of the rope ladder to climb. This was not how I’d envisioned my day starting, and I cursed Dax and his early morning enquiry of whether Lief’s arrest was something I’d want to know about. If only I’d told him no, turned over and gone back to sleep.

I reached the last rung of the rope ladder, hands reaching down and pulling me onto the deck. Rolling onto my back, I lay there for a minute to get my breath back. Salt crystallized on my skin as the early morning sunlight beat down on me to warm limbs turned to ice by the cold embrace of the ocean.

At least until a shadow blocked it out, and I opened my eyes to find Lief standing over me, his expression unreadable. “I believed what you said last night,” he said.

“Good. Because I meant it.”

His brow furrowed. “But you did help me.”

I heaved myself up to sitting. “Everyone’s entitled to an occasional lapse in judgment. Even me.” I stood, water dripping off me as I turned to look back at the dock, the row of men lining it unmistakable even as they got smaller and smaller. I turned back to face Lief. “And just so we’re clear, I mean the part where I helped you. Not the part where I said I wouldn’t. You’re lucky Dax came knocking when I was half asleep. Had I been fully conscious, I would have told him you were on your own.”

Lief shook his head. “Don’t do this.”

I stripped off my sopping wet coat and let it drop to the deck, one of the cabin boys immediately running over to retrieve it. In return for his diligence, I ruffled his hair before turning my attention back to Lief. “Don’t do what?”

“Don’t pretend like you don’t care.”

“I don’t.”

“Zeph…” At my glare, he corrected himself. “Zephyr. Sorry. Old habits die hard. I’ll make more of an effort to remember.” He smiled. “After all, we’re going to be spending plenty of time together.”

Something solidified in my chest, the ramifications of a moment of weakness making themselves known. I ran a hand through my hair, something wet and squidgy that turned out to be seaweed, lodging itself between my fingers. I shook it off my hand, and it lay there looking slimy on the deck, like some horrific metaphor for my life. “We’re lucky then that this ship is big enough for us to give each other a wide berth until we find a deserted island to drop you on.”

Lief’s smile wavered. “That’s a joke, right? You wouldn’t really do that?”

I met his gaze, refusing to be swayed by the beseeching look on his face, or by the blue eyes ringed by dark lashes that only seemed to have gotten prettier over the years. “I can hand you into the authorities if you’d rather?”

“That would confuse them. First, you bombard them with hail and lightning bolts to stop them from taking me and then you say, sorry, my mistake, you can have him after all.”

“I told them I’ll probably murder you myself.”

Lief laughed, but it was short-lived when I didn’t so much as crack a smile. “You don’t mean that?”

I pushed past him. “I do. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need clothes that are less wet, less salt-encrusted, and less…” I looked down, my transparent white shirt leaving nothing to the imagination as it clung to me. Lief followed my gaze, heat building in his eyes that I didn’t like the look of, and that brought far too many reminders from the past with it. “Yeah,” I said. “A change of clothes is definitely in order.”

I’d only gotten halfway across the deck before Lief called my name. I tamped down on the temptation to keep walking and turned instead. “What?” The word came out sharp, and I didn’t regret it. There was a vast difference between not wanting someone to be executed for a crime I knew deep down he hadn’t committed, and wanting to spend any more time than I had to in his presence.

He turned his back to me to showcase his still bound wrists, waggling his fingers for greater emphasis around the handle of the knife he still held. “Would you mind?”

“I would mind. You’ve got a knife. Use it.” I turned before he could see the smile threatening to make itself known and continued walking.

I pretended not to notice as Whitby Brent, my quartermaster and good friend, came to stand next to me at the railing. The wind had picked up, the ship sailing just fine without any magical intervention on my part. “You’ll need to talk to the crew,” he said.

I kept my gaze fixed on the coastline we’d left behind, the view of it having shrunk to barely a speck on the horizon. Another hour and we wouldn’t be able to see it at all. “About what?”

Whitby’s snort said he wasn’t buying my ignorance even for a second. He jerked his head to where Lief had propped himself against the central mast, his face contorted with concentration as he endeavored to do what I’d told him, and use the knife to cut his own bonds. I didn’t doubt he’d tried to get someone else to do it while I’d been changing into dry clothes. Apparently, they’d followed my lead and given him short shrift. “About our little fugitive friend, and him being the reason for us already being at sea again.” Whitby crossed his arms over his chest. “Two weeks you promised them on shore. And they barely got a day. You can’t expect them to be happy about it.”

“We’re wanted men,” I pointed out.

Whitby pulled a face. “Hardly the same thing. The authorities have left us alone for years. Do you think they’re still going to do that now you’ve thrown lightning bolts at their heads?”

“I didn’t hit any of them, did I? And they should be grateful for that fact.”