“I’ll kill you once, bring you back, and kill you again.”
“Are you going to introduce us, you uncultured fuck?” Caspian’s eyes twinkle, though his jaw stays tight. “It’s rude to let the lady stand there for so long.”
I don’t know what it says about me that I spent years avoiding my brothers only to replace them with a guy who reminds me of them. “Ashley.” Friends or not, I keep myself between him and the sundress. “This is Ashley. Ashley, this is Caspian.”
“Hi.” She gives him a quick, pretty smile and stays close to my side. Ashley takes my hand. It calms the part of me that wants to start swinging until the shipyard is empty. I hate that it does. And I hate that she’s doing it because I snapped at her, because I’m still a surly bastard who hasn’t slept and she’s the one who’s trying to make this less hellish.
Though it could be worse. She could be sticking close because she wants to be close, in which case I’m still a surly bastard who hasn’t slept and she deserves better.
And she definitely deserves better.
Caspian walks us through the middle of the shipyard. He already knows where my new ship is being constructed. Everyone does. It’s a massive shipyard, but that doesn’t matter when we’re all competing for space and time. We’re all racing to get back to the sea, except for the crews who work here full-time.
He stops outside a workshop that looks relatively empty and the three of us step off to the side, out of the way of four guys carrying a steel beam. “I heard about the Trident,” Caspian says.
Ashley’s hand tenses in mine. Why? I twist to scan the crowd, but nothing’s wrong—nothing’s out of place. It’s just a bunch of assholes trying to build or repair ships.
Fuck. It’s not the bustle of the shipyard that made her worry. It’s me.
I’ve got my free hand pressed to my side as if there’s an actual wound and Caspian aimed a kick at it. I drop my hand and look him in the eye. He saw what he saw. There’s no pity in his gaze. No sympathy. We’ve known each other long enough that he won’t bother.
He knows I wouldn’t want it.
“You’re not the only one,” I say.
“I’ve heard other rumors.” He sticks his hands in his pockets and keeps his body relaxed. We could be talking about anything. “Talk of mutiny.”
The hairs on the back of my neck pull up. “Not on my crew.”
They wouldn’t. Not at sea, and not here. Anyone who sets foot on Haven Island is part of a gentlemen’s agreement. We don’t interfere with other ships or other crews. We don’t beat the shit out of each other. And we don’t reveal the location of the island to anyone who’s not a seafarer. This is neutral territory, and that’s what I need right now.
Even pirates need sanctuary occasionally.
If what Caspian says is true, then someone is screwing with that sanctuary. So who the hell is it? Nobody I’ve hired is running his mouth about mutiny.
“Well, I’ll have your back.” Caspian’s eyes roam behind me. “But watch it. Something’s not right. I can feel it in the air, like a goddamn storm is brewing.”
I reposition us so that we’re all looking out. Caspian asks me a few more questions about the new ship. I hardly hear him. The familiar prickling sensation runs in circles over my skin.
An unsettled pit opens in my gut, the way it does before a storm, or a fight. I want to batten down the hatches and sail to safety. A ghost memory of running up to the bridge on the Trident tightens my muscles.
I can still feel the doorframe under my palm as I swung inside to shout orders at Louis.
We part ways without any more of the conversation sinking into my brain.
Ashley doesn’t say a word until we get to the new ship.
The skeleton of a new ship. The bones. And at the base of those bones—
“Nicholas!” she shouts, her voice filled with simple joy.
My first mate’s face lights up when he sees her, and he waves. Nicholas stands with the shipbuilder, a guy with dark hair and a reputation for getting things done right.
I want to kill him for all the delays.
Ashley hurries over to Nicholas and throws her arms around his neck in a brief embrace. I wrestle a burst of violence into some kind of submission, but seeing her touch someone else makes my palms itch.
I don’t. I don’t hate Nicholas. My head is killing me.
Being on land is killing me.
I have no idea how Hades lives like this. He has more self-control than I’ve ever given him credit for, surviving in that rock of a mountain day after day. I don’t know how he survived the constant pain in the first place.
“We’ve made good progress since the rain let up,” Nicholas says as I come even with them and tip my head back to look at the hull. The shape is all wrong. For one thing, it’s on land, and ships aren’t meant to be seen like this. For another, it’s not the Trident. It’s similar. I couldn’t give up all of her. I couldn’t. I’m a sentimental bastard with too many emotions, and I couldn’t approve a design that wasn’t a sister ship. It’s just not close enough.
“We’ll have to do better than this.” Especially if there’s trouble brewing on the island. Especially if we can’t trust the agreement to hold. “There’s no time to fuck around.”
“I can have construction back on schedule by the end of the week.” The shipbuilder, a guy named Mark, is too chipper. Too optimistic.
“Don’t give bullshit guesses.”
“By Saturday,” he counters.
“I agree.” Nicholas should be on my side, damn it. “Everybody’s putting in the hours.”
Everyone who’s here. We don’t have the full crew back yet. It makes me as unsettled as the news from Caspian. It’s impossible to protect a crew that’s scattered, and it’s impossible to get us together again without a ship.
“We need more people. What the fuck do we have to do to get them?”
“We’ve hired every free man on the island.” Nicholas keeps his eyes on mine, and I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to talk me down before I jump off the side of the ship.
“Fine,” I snap, and I feel it—I feel another storm approaching. Only I don’t know if it’s from within or without. I get myself in check with irritating difficulty. “Show me the plans for the week.”
6
Ashley
Poseidon goes back and forth with Nicholas and the shipbuilder, the conversation descending into the deeper world of ship terminology and technology until I can’t follow it. I can’t follow anything except Poseidon’s face, which is just as tense as it was when he came looking for me in the forest.
I want to touch him. Pull him down into a kiss. It might not take the edge off, but it would be something. I could at least get him to take a deep breath.
But doing that here would be a mistake. Doing it now would be a mistake. I clasp my hands together to keep from doing it anyway.
The three of them step away. Their circle closes. I’m not supposed to wander off at the shipyard, but it feels ridiculous to be standing apart from them like this. It would also feel ridiculous to elbow my way back in.