Chapter Text
The ship rocks hard, sending Nesta tumbling into the wall. She holds her hand out to try and brace herself but the force has a jolt of pain shooting from her wrist up her arm. With each dip and rise of the waves, Nesta’s stomach heaves right along with it, and she has to swallow hard around the bile tickling the back of her throat, to breathe through the sickness threatening to overtake her. Another hard list of the ship, and Nesta swears that over the pounding of the rain and the roar of thunder she can hear the dangerous groan of wood.
Nesta stumbles back across the room and plops down onto the bed in her cabin. She squeezes her eyes shut, but that just seems to make things worse. She presses a hand to her head and considers sending up a prayer to the gods that this storm passes quickly. A particularly large wave sends water cascading hard against the small window in the room, and then Nesta can hear shouts coming from up on deck. Nesta hops to her feet again, hand already reaching toward the door before she remembers Captain Kittington’s words from earlier demanding she stay below.
With a soft sigh, Nesta returns to the bed, lying down properly this time. She closes her eyes again and wills her mind to calm, wills sleep to overtake her and offer her some blissful reprieve. The storm continues to lash outside and against the ship, the shouting overhead also continuing, but if Nesta focuses hard enough she can almost imagine she’s back at her family’s manor house. She can imagine the softness of her bed and the silk sheets against her fingertips. She can imagine the quiet that overtakes the house after the sun sets and many of the servants have turned in for the night. She can imagine the sweet smell of summer flowers that drift in from the opened windows.
When Nesta opens her eyes again, the ship is still, rays of sunlight spilling through the small window and into her cabin, leaving patterns of light and shadows dancing across the wood. Nesta sits up and rubs the last remaining remnants of sleep from her face before slipping off the bed. It takes her a moment to find her footing, slightly unsteady as if last night’s storm still haunts the ship.
Nesta quickly freshens up before heading out of her cabin. She follows the steps up onto the deck, blinking against the sudden brightness after being below deck. She presses her hand to forehead to shield her eyes, and when they adjust she takes in the mess that is the deck and the ship. The crew rushes around her, but Nesta’s eyes are glued to the main mast. Or more like, what’s left of the main mast. The top half hangs limply, the wood splintered and blackened as though it were struck by lightning.
“Lady Nesta.”
Nesta turns to find Captain Kittington standing beside her. He looks the least put together she’s ever seen him, the sleeves of his shirt pushed up, hair tousled, and worry lines digging deep into his skin. Despite it all, he still stands with his hands neatly tucked behind his back, his chin raised regally.
“I see that the storm last night was worse than I thought,” Nesta comments, looking again toward the broken mast. “The damage looks quite extensive.”
Captain Kittington sighs softly, dipping his chin in a small nod. “Indeed. I have the crew working to build a fix, but it’s safe to say, your father will have to wait a bit longer for his gold.”
“I’m sure he’ll love that,” Nesta mutters, already imagining her father’s annoyance when they make it back to Adriata. She can already picture him and the way he’d pace back and forth in his office, checking over his books again and again like a dragon counting his gold. Can imagine the way he’ll try and blame her for the delay as if she’s a witch and has any type of power over the weather and oceans. She wishes.
“There’s not much else we can do,” Captain Kittington continues, pulling out a handkerchief to wipe at his brow. “If we can’t find a solution soon, we may have to resort to rowing despite the distance to the nearest port.”
“Perhaps another ship will pass by and can help? Is there any way we can signal?”
“It’s not friendly ships you’ll find in these waters, Lady Nesta,” Captain Kittington tells her, his tone grave. “And we’re sitting ducks out here.”
Captain Kittington turns swiftly on his heel, barking out orders as he walks across the deck. For the rest of the day, Nesta tries to help out where she can. She ties knots in ropes and tears fabric, sewing patches to mend the sails. By the time Nesta makes it back to her cabin after the sun sets, she feels almost dead on her feet. Her hands are red and sore, and she drags herself toward the basin of fresh water set up in her room to gently wash them.
It felt good to help out, but the ship being at a standstill meant spending the day under the beating rays of the sun. It’s left Nesta feeling especially drained and she’s sure her cheeks and nose are now tinged red. She makes quick work changing into her sleep dress and slipping beneath the cool sheets, her eyes falling shut as soon as her head hits the pillow, a blissful, dreamless sleep awaiting for her with open arms.
When Nesta steps up onto the deck the next morning, she finds almost all of the crew huddled on one side of the ship, leaning against the railing and staring out across the blue expanse of sea and sky. Nesta steps closer and squints toward the horizon, trying to determine what exactly the whole crew seems set on looking at. It’s then that she sees it, the ship.
But not just any ship.
A ship with sails as black as night.
And it’s heading right for them.
The mood on the ship is anxious and frantic for the rest of the morning and into the afternoon. The cannons are loaded and prepared, each member of the crew armed and ready. With every hour that passes, the black sailed ship gets closer and closer. Nesta finds herself glued to the railing, watching, waiting. Her heart rate ticks up faster with every mile the distance shrinks, and yet she can’t look away. Her eyes track the way the black sails shift and wave in the wind, the way the wooden hull slices through the water and rocks on the waves.
“Lady Nesta, I must urge you to go below deck,” Captain Kittington implores when he finds her later, still in that same spot along the railing. “You should go to your cabin, lock the door, and block it if you can. There’s no reason for them to know there’s anything but gold to be taken from this ship.”
“What do you think will happen?” Nesta can’t help but ask, her voice quiet. “When they reach us?”
“Nothing good, I assure you. If we’re lucky, they’ll merely loot us of the gold and leave us alone, but as a Lady…”
Captain Kittington lets the end of that sentence hang in the air between them, but Nesta doesn’t need him to finish that thought to know. She’s heard enough stories of the pirates that roam these seas, what those men are like. What those men are known for doing in ports and to ships. As if on instinct, Nesta’s hand flies up to press at her chest. Her heart still pounds a furious beat just beneath her finger tips, and all she can manage is a nod to Captain Kittington before heading for the stairs that will take her below deck.
Nesta almost trips over her own feet in her haste to make it back to her cabin. She passes a few of the men on her way there, their faces solemn with muskets poised in their hands and swords ready at their belts. The sight makes her stomach lurch, a dark promise of what’s to come.
Once Nesta makes it back to her room, she’s quick to lock the door behind her, setting the key aside. Her eyes dart around the small space, desperate to find something to push in front of the door as Captain Kittington had suggested. Her cabin is quite sparse in terms of options. Both the bed and the wardrobe are built into the walls, so neither can be moved. But the desk…
Nesta rushes forward, moving the chair out of the way. She starts to tug on the desk, but the thing isn’t exactly light, weighed down in hopes of it not sliding too much when the ship is moving. She pulls until the desk is moved enough away that she can step between it and the wall. Then, she throws all her weight into pushing the desk. Luckily, that’s easier going, and soon, she has the desk pressed up against the door.
Her chest is heaving by the time she’s finished, and Nesta sits down atop her bed as she tries to calm herself. It’s quite difficult to do with the threat of pirates looming over her, as dark and as menacing as the storm that wrecked the ship. Nesta has never been one for praying, but she finds herself squeezing her eyes shut and sending up a silent one to the Mother anyways. When she begged her Father to allow her to join the crew of the ship on this journey, she certainly hadn’t imagined this. He had been so reluctant too, going on about proper ways for ladies to behave and none of them involving adventures to the continent on a ship. Perhaps this is her punishment.
Or perhaps the true punishment is the waiting.
Nesta paces back and forth across the small space of her cabin. Her lip is practically a bleeding mess from how much she’s worried it. The ship had been quite close when Nesta was up on the deck, but how long will it take the pirates to reach them? How much longer before—
Shouting echoes down from the deck to her, and Nesta’s heart lurches so hard to a stop that she swears it’s going to shatter right through her ribs. She steps as far away from the door as she can get, pressing a hand to her mouth to stifle a scream and desperately willing her breathing to calm, but her fingers shake against her lips. The shouts turn into agonized cries, and Nesta has to squeeze her eyes shut, sending more prayers, more pleas up to the Mother.
It’s silence that follows.
Somehow, the silence is worse. It’s deafening and presses in against Nesta until her skin feels too tight, until she wants to claw at her own lungs. She listens for any hint of a sound, any sign of what might be happening above deck. She wonders how long she should wait until she leaves the safety of her cabin, but before she can even consider that, she hears voices. She can’t make out what they’re saying, but they sound close.
They seem to get closer still and then the handle to the door rattles. Nesta’s gaze snaps to the piece of metal, watches with wide, fearful eyes as it shakes but the lock holds. She presses both her hands to her mouth now, hopes that whomever is outside her cabin can’t hear her shuttered breathing.
“What?” an unfamiliar voice comes from right outside the door, and Nesta finds herself swallowing hard.
“This door appears to be locked,” a second voice adds. “Bet the best loot’s hiding in there.”
“So bust it down then,” the first voice demands.
A loud thump follows the voice’s request, the wood of the door shaking with the impact. The desk wobbles and scapes back an inch, but it holds firm.
“There must be something blocking the door,” that first voice comments.
“Must be mighty precious cargo they’re hiding,” the second voice comments, the sneer to his voice causing the hairs on the back of Nesta’s neck to prickle. “I’ll go get the Captain.”
Nesta can hear the sounds of retreating footsteps, but she’s not stupid. She knows they’ll be back. She uses what little time she does have to desperately search her room for something to defend herself with. With a start, she remembers the dagger Feyre had gifted her before she set sail. Nesta practically throws herself at the trunk nestled near her bed, digging around until she finds it. The hilt is intricately designed in gold, ruby jewels embedded in it to create an eight point star.
Nesta pulls the dagger free from the scabbard just as another loud thump sounds from the door. A grunt follows and then the desk is pushed away, scraping against the wood floor of the cabin, as the door is forcibly shoved open. Nesta’s whole body freezes up as a man steps inside, his large frame taking up almost the entire doorway. Dark curls hang down to his shoulders, a scar cutting across the tanned skin of his cheekbone. And when his hazel eyes hone in on Nesta, she can feel fear clawing up her throat, bile coming right along with it, but she swallows both down.
Instead, Nesta Archeron looks this pirate straight in the eye and holds up her dagger between them.
“Now, what exactly are you planning on doing with that, sweetheart?”
“Kill you.”
The pirate laughs at that, the sound loud and booming in the small room. It’s clearly mocking, and it grates against Nesta’s skin until she’s scowling at him. Her eyes narrow even more when he seems unperturbed by her, by her obvious threat. She watches infuriated as a slow smirk tugs its way across his face, as he spreads his arms out wide.
“Go on then,” he tells her, his tone practically oozing smugness. “I’d like to see you try.”
Nesta sizes up the pirate before her. He has about a head on her, and his shoulders and chest are wide, pushing against the fabric of the shirt and jacket he’s wearing. A dagger requires close contact, the safety offered from a sword or gun not possible. And Nesta has a feeling this pirate could crush her if he wanted to, if she got close enough. From the glint in his eyes, he knows it too.
“So, what’s your name?” the pirate continues, taking slow, deliberate steps as he circles around Nesta, a shark in bloodied waters.
Nesta bites her tongue against an answer as she turns in time with the pirate’s movements, always holding that dagger between them. She’s not stupid enough to give the pirate the leverage of knowing her name, or to give him any ideas. She knows the Archeron name has traveled far and wide. Her Father is called the Prince of Merchants after all, his fleets in almost every waters. Who knows what this pirate will do if he knows she’s one of the Archeron daughters, if he thinks she’s some sort of precious daughter.
“It’s quite uncommon to find a woman on a ship. Some would even say it’s unlucky,” the pirate comments, swiping up one of Nesta’s books and flipping through the pages aimlessly. “Warming the Captain’s bed?”
“I am a lady,” Nesta seethes.
“So you are,” the pirate agrees, closing the book in his hands with a soft clap. It makes Nesta’s skin prickle, the fear that she’s playing right into his hands. That she’s somehow giving him exactly what he wants.
Nesta swallows hard, steeling her spine and her voice. “And as a lady, I demand that you do not harm the crew and release us. You can take the gold and go.”
The pirate chuckles lowly, the sound completely devoid of any humor. “That’s not going to happen.”
Nesta starts to take a step forward, the dagger still brandished in her hand. “I said you’re going to—”
Before Nesta can blink, the pirate’s fingers wrap around her wrist, squeezing until a pained gasp tears free from her throat and her fingers open reflexively. The dagger falls but the pirate’s free hand is there to catch it, sliding it easily onto his belt. Nesta expects him to let go now that the threat is gone, but instead he uses his grip to tug Nesta closer, until they’re barely a breath away from one another. This close, Nesta can see all the colors that make up his hazel eyes, all the greens and browns and golds. She can see the way they seem to flare as his gaze sweeps over her face.
“You certainly have fire in your blood, princess,” the pirate taunts, his chest brushing against Nesta’s arm with every inhale.
“Don’t call me that,” Nesta snaps, trying to pull away but his grip is too firm.
“What else am I meant to call you when you won’t tell me your name? Would it help if I told you mine?” the pirate asks, reaching his other hand up to toy with a strand of hair that’s fallen free from Nesta’s braid. “It’s Cassian.”
“I didn’t ask,” Nesta sneers, jerking her head back before she can think twice.
But a second too late the name registers, and she wishes she had thought twice. In an instant, her blood runs cold, her breath stuttering in her lungs. Nesta had been scared before, when she’d first spotted the ship on the horizon, when she’d heard the pirate above on the deck, but this… this is true fear, and it sinks like icy claws into her spine.
Cassian.
Everyone knows that name. The Lord of Bloodshed, they call him. The man who leaves a sea of red wherever he sails.
“Time to go, princess.”
Nesta’s still reeling from the gravity of who she’s dealing with that she doesn’t even register when Cassian moves his hand to circle her bicep. It’s in a numb, dazed state that she lets him lead her out of her cabin and toward the main deck. She practically trips over her own feet as they take the steps up, and once again, Nesta is left blinking against the brightness of the afternoon sun.
Except this time when Nesta’s eyes adjust, it’s to the sight of bodies strewn about the deck, their unblinking gazes glued to the blue sky overhead, bright red blood mixing with sea water and staining the wood of the deck. Nesta is sure she’s going to be sick at the sight, a tremble wracking its way down her spine. She never knew every man on the crew’s name, but now she wishes she had, wishes she had taken a moment to speak to them all.
A tug on her arm has Nesta moving again, guided toward the other end of the ship. With every step that she takes, she can feel eyes boring into her and under her skin. She turns her head and finds Captain Kittington on his knees, a blade pressed firmly to his throat. Despite the threat to his life, he keeps watching her, tracking her as she’s all but dragged away.
A large, wide plank of wood has been set between the two ships, creating a walkway, and Cassian walks gingerly across it even as Nesta warily eyes the churning sea below. Once her feet touch down on the deck of the pirate ship, it all hits her, a wave of awareness crashing over her and jolting her back to her senses. She’s on a pirate ship. She’s being kidnapped by pirates.
No.
Nesta Archeron refuses to be a damsel in distress. She may be a lady, but she’s always had claws. She wrenches her arm free from Cassian’s grip and whirls on him, letting her anger blaze bright in her eyes as she settles him with a scowl.
“Get your hands off me,” Nesta seethes.
She straightens her spine and raises her chin, looking down upon Cassian despite their height difference. She expects the flash of shock that skitters across his face at her reaction, at her boldness. But perhaps she should get used to the smirk his expression morphs into, the golden flecks of his hazel eyes glinting with amusement under the afternoon sun.
“There’s that fire again,” Cassian mutters.
He takes a step closer, leaning forward until he’s practically in Nesta’s face, but she refuses to back down or be afraid. Instead, she continues to hold her ground, continues to glower at him.
“You’re on my ship now, sweetheart,” he tells her, breath skating over her skin as he says it. “That means you belong to me.”
“I don’t belong to anyone, least of all a dirty bastard of a pirate.”
“We’ll see about that.”