“Gods, you look like death. You need to sleep now.” Slowly, he releases me and slips outside. “I will check on you tomorrow.”
The door closes, and I lock it.
When I turn out the lights, the monsters stay in their corners. At least for tonight.
PartTwo
The Unthinkable
ERIK
My head feels like hammers are being thrown around in my skull, and a chill has settled in my bones. I crack open an eye and fling my hand around, grabbing my FaePhone and holding it a few inches from my face. Fumbling with the button on the side, I stare at the screen.
10:09 am.
Who wakes up at 10:09 am? It’s so unorderly. The date tells me I’ve slept straight through the night, which is unlike me. The near-incessant urge to check on the ship is at odds with my human desire to sleep for eight hours at a time.
The brightness of the phone is overwhelming. It causes my head to ache even more. Squeezing my eyes shut against the onslaught of bright light coming from the window, I instinctively wrap my arms around myself, only to make two discoveries at once.
First, I’m naked. That wouldn’t be a huge concern, except that I have no memory of shedding my clothes.
Second, I’m not on the couch in my office. I stretch out my bare legs, the fluffy down comforter laying over me, covering me fully. This feels like...mycomforter.
Inmyroom.
Which I haven’t been staying in because ofher. Because of the guilt.
All of a sudden, everything comes flooding back. Jolting upright, I press my hand to my forehead as I groan. Visions of the day before flash in front of my eyes, one after the other.
The storm. A giant green wave came over the side of the ship. A strike of lightning snapped the cables holding crates in place. Cold. Water so cold, it was paralyzing.
Even now, from the warmth of my bed, a shiver runs down my spine as I recall the water’s frigid embrace. It had been sweetly lulling me to my death.
My crew has strict instructions. During a storm, the priority is the safety of the majority of the crew. While this might not be the case on all ships in Aranthium, it is on mine. The moment I became captain, I made it clear that onmyship, if something were to ever happen to me, they wouldn’t put themselves at risk for me.
After all, who is there to mourn me? On good days, I'm an ass. On bad ones, I'm a murderer.
Not even my work is unique to me. If I were gone, someone else would take up pirating in my absence. No one will miss me when I’m gone.
It’s much better to lose one person than an entire crew. Many of my sailors have families. Parents. Wives. Children. People who would mourn their passing. People who will remember them when they’re gone.
I have none of these.
So when the wave washed me off the ship, I knew that it would only be a matter of time until the gods of the sea claimed me for their own. It was fitting, I thought. I lived by the sea, and so I should die by it as well.
Then Helena did the unthinkable.
This female, whom I have sworn to kill, risked her life for me. Clinging desperately to the shipping crate, I watched, wide-eyed, as she flung her body over the railing.
The echoes of the ship’s intercom had been faint in my ears, but the splash her body made as it hit the water seemed to reverberate through my soul.
I had tried to remain alert, but the frigid waters of the Northern Sea had seeped into my very human bones so quickly I could barely breathe. The last thing I remember before passing out was glimpsing her lithe gray body as it bobbed towards me.
Then I fell into the darkness. Obviously, she must have made it to me and brought both of us back to the boat. She saved me.
Shit.
How could I kill someone who saved my life?