Chapter 19, Sarah

  The heat creeping up my neck, burning across my face is not shameful. I’m not embarrassed by her performance. It’s that I couldn’t handle how maddeningly attractive it was. So devastatingly irresistible in its crudeness. I want to scoff, let myself be above it. But I’m not. I’m choking on the way it makes my stomach flip, my pulse hammer.

  This isn’t new. It’s been like this with Darlene since we were kids. Her raw, unapologetic taking of space and pleasure always had a very specific effect on me.

  As badly as I want to know what it’s like, I’m too afraid to let go, afraid of where it might take me if I let it sweep me away. So instead, I shrink inward and run from it.

  I grasp at the frayed edges of my frustration, desperate to hold onto something solid. My humiliation. The way she made a game of my ignorance. And now, the vote. I needed her assistance when I was stranded on that beach, sure. But the nerve she has to assume that I want to stay, be a part of this crew, is completely off the mark.

  “Something on your mind, love?” she says, her eyes narrowing, that wicked grin daring me to speak.

  I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth, knowing full well that anything I say will confirm I’m rattled. That I can’t scrub the image of her grinding against the mast from the inside of my skull.

  I refuse to give her that satisfaction so I keep my face still, and let the silence stretch between us like a taut wire. Roberts watches me for a moment longer, exhaling slow and easy, like she has all the time in the world.

  Then she says, “Follow me.”

  I could stand my ground, say that I am not hers to order around. But my body betrays me. And before I can decide, I’m already moving.

  The door clicks shut behind me. Roberts leans against the edge of the desk, arms crossed, watching me like she’s still trying to decide what to do with me.

  "So," she drawls, stretching the word out. "That little episode on deck. You want to tell me what that was about?"

  I force my expression to stay flat. "I don’t know what you’re talking about."

  "Yesterday," she says, "you knew we were off course before any of us did."

  “I already told you, I don’t think it was anything." I say.

  “It was one hell of a premonition.”

  “I don’t have premonitions,” I dismiss.

  She pauses, then says, “You don’t. Of course you don’t,” as if working through it aloud. “The dragon does.”

  “What do you know about dragons”

  “More than you, it would appear.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What it means is that I have questions,” she says smoothly. “Starting with how you got your hands on the damn thing. Did you steal it?”

  “I didn’t steal it,” I snap.

  “Mm. Borrowed, then?”

  “No.” I insist.

  “People are looking for you, though.” She says. It’s a statement more than a question.

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  I keep my lips pressed into a thin line.

  “What’s your plan, Sarah? What’s the endgame?”

  I let out a humorless laugh. “Do you think I’d just tell a pirate my plans? Let you use me for a payday?”

  “Fuck me,” she mutters under her breath. “You think I’d sell you out?”

  “I think you’re an opportunist.” I say.

  “You don’t know a damn thing about me.”

  “Oh, sure. You’re special.”

  “I am,” she says without hesitation.

  “Right. Tell yourself whatever you need to, but at the end of the day, you’re still a pirate, Roberts.”

  “Captain,” she corrects.

  “Enlighten me then, Captain, what makes you different?” I say.

  “You can ask anyone on this ship, they’ll tell you that I pay out the highest shares. That I make sure my people’s families are fed, I don’t take more than I need, and I don’t spill blood unless I have to.”

  I raise a brow. “A virtuous pirate. How novel.”

  “I have bigger goals than plundering around,” she says.

  “Big goals, huh? Is that why you ran away in the middle of the night, chasing your dream of being a virtuous pirate? Funny. I don’t remember you having aspirations at all, Darlene. "

  She lets the silence stretch. Long enough that I start to believe I’ve got her. Then she laughs and steps forward until she’s so close I can feel the heat radiating from her body. I should take a step back, but gods help me, I want to lean in. Instead, I lower my eyes.

  “Hello, Sarah.”

  Her voice is low, almost reverent. One thumb hangs loosely from her belt. The other hand grips the hilt of her weapon. I’ll take it from her the first chance I get, if I need to.

  But then, that lazy thumb leaves the belt and finds its way to my cheek. Her index finger tucks beneath my chin. A touch so gentle, yet it awakens my every nerve.

  She tilts my face upward, and I surrender, sinking into the dark depths of her gaze.

  “It’s been a while.” She murmurs, pupils blown wide under heavy eyelids.

  A single tear wells up before I can stop it.

  “How could you—” I whisper. How could you do this to me? How could you pretend we don’t know each other?

  The tear slips free, heavier than a hundred, until it reaches the place where her thumb rests against my jaw.

  She inhales sharply, then lets her hand fall away, leaving a cold trace in its absence. She steps back, pacing toward her desk. Her fingers trailing absently across the wood, before finally replying.

  “At least I remembered you.”

  It only takes me a moment to recover. "Well Captain Roberts,” I scoff, “you aren’t anything like the Darlene I knew, and I won’t be a part of this. I’m not a pirate. I should have never boarded this ship. You have to take me back."

  My fingers dig into my arms, locking them in place.

  "Fine, you don’t have to be a pirate. But we’ve already agreed I’m not making any special trips for you. You want off this ship? You’re free to go whenever you choose. Swim if you want." She says.

  "Tell me, if you haven’t been sent to capture me. If you’re not going to sell me out, and you’re not forcing me to join your pirate crew, then what do you want from me?” I say.

  "I want to know if I can trust you, Sarah. And, more importantly, if you trust yourself." She says.

  A slow chill trickles down my spine.

  "You knew we were headed for danger, and it wasn’t luck or instinct. Despite what you say, it was a premonition, just like in the legends of the reckoning and the history of the Dragon Queens. And I believe that you, Sarah, are the Dragon Queen.

  I flinch. It’s the first time anyone has called me that.

  "I’ve known something’s coming for a while now. Something bigger than the power struggle between the wealthy and the poor, masters and slaves, pirates and merchants. Things can’t keep going the way they are. A reckoning is coming, and I think you’re at the helm.

  And if I can be part of making this world less broken, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do."

  And suddenly, I see her. The person who has looked at the world and come to the same conclusion that I have.

  The person who, like me, has never been able to look away from the rot, refusing to accept the way things are.

  "If the Dragon is here to reset the balance, then I want to be on the winning side of that war."

  Relief at the thought of an ally in this fight floods through me. But before I can open my mouth to reply, BANG. A fist slams into the door, the sudden noise splitting through the air like a gunshot.

  "Captain, come quick.”