Logan
Captain Louis watches me as I lean against the wall in the cockpit, looking through the manifest I picked up from the port master. I scan the document, memorizing every ship scheduled to leave the port tonight along with this yacht.
The captain chuckles, turning back to the helm where he sits and begins pushing buttons that light up his control station. The second officer, Charlie, arrives, saying, “The crew’s been briefed. We’re just waiting for the green light from the port master.”
“I doubt we’ll be moving anytime soon in this fog. It’ll be a long night.” Louis swivels back to me, arching a brow. “Commander Evander said you have some naval experience.”
I look up from the manifest. “A bit.”
“I was told you served for a few years under the Alpha King of Oasia in Serpentia, captaining a naval cruiser along their coast.”
I run my tongue along my lower lip and tuck the manifest under my arm. “That’s correct.”
Louis smirks, shaking his head as he turns to the controls again. “A man of few words, huh? Doesn’t surprise me that you left the royal navy to become a Ghost.”
Charlie eyes me for a moment before grabbing a few pieces of paper from the printer, scanning them instead of my face.
“I need a list of everyone on board, down to the deckhands and ETOs,” I tell the men.
“Do you want their home addresses, too?” Charlie asks in a sarcastic tone that immediately grates on my nerves.
Louis sighs, punching a few more buttons. “That I can do, Captain,” he says to me over the hum of the printer. “But I can assure you, we’ve been escorting the royal family, including the princess, back and forth from Veiled Valley to Maatua for decades. The princess is perfectly safe here.”
“I have orders to ensure that safety,” I reply sternly, and Charlie hands me the list of crewmembers aboard.
“We’ve got a few new faces this trip,” Charlie says. “Just deckhands. Four of ‘em.”
I scan their names, but nothing feels familiar when checked against my mental list of criminals at large I’ve been hunting as a Ghost. I tuck the paper with the manifest and leave the cockpit, making my way down past the rooms dedicated to the captain and his second officer and into the private, luxurious lodgings now inhabited by Brie.
I pass a stewardess with fiery red hair and a face plastered with makeup. She gives me a sly smile but disappears around a corner.
Brie’s soft voice drifts toward me as I move toward the outer deck. The smell of food and a hint of wine hits me as she comes into view, sitting at a long table while a second stewardess pours her a glass of red wine.
“Just the salad, please,” Brie says. She doesn’t notice I’m walking toward the table until the stewardess leaves. Brie has her wine glass pressed to her full, plush lower lip, and her cheeks go a rosy pink when I close in on her, looking down at the sparse spread of food she hasn’t touched.
I’ve spent the day getting to know her at arm’s length. She’s quiet but not shy. Her brain is constantly whirling, taking in little details most people miss. It’s like a light is always on upstairs, so to speak.
In fact, she would have made a brilliant warrior if she hadn’t been destined to become a princess instead–the kind of soldier that rises up the ranks. The kind that not only commands in the field but strategizes, making moves that determine who lives and who dies.
She’s self-conscious, however. That became startlingly clear as I followed her around the ferry today, watching her stare longingly at the meager food spread and checking her reflection in every mirror or shiny service she passed.
She moves like prey, always scanning her surroundings before getting comfortable. She turns away from conversation and rarely looks anyone in the eyes if she doesn’t know them.
Right now, however, she’s looking right at me.
She lowers her glass, her dark brown eyes wide and concerned as I come to a stop a few feet from where she’s sitting.
“We’re not leaving port for another few hours. There’s a delay because of the fog, and we’re behind several cargo ships with priority on the manifest.”
“Oh,” she says under her breath, reaching for her wine glass again.
“After you finish eating, you need to return to your room immediately for the night. No wandering around.”
She furrows her brows. “Excuse me?”
The stewardess returns, placing a plate of nothing but dark greens in front of her and hurries away again.
“No wandering,” I repeat, but I frown at the plate of what looks like plain spinach. “Is that all you’re eating? Spinach?”
She bristles, rolling her eyes to her plate, and mumbles, “Are you here to criticize what I eat now, too? Or just to boss me around and tell me I can’t use the facilities of my family’s private yacht?”
I grip the top of a chair. “You need to eat more than that.”
“I don’t,” she snaps, her cheeks going from a rosy pink to a crimson red. “In fact, someone left two pastries in my room this afternoon. I’m not particularly hungry this evening.”
I scan her face, unable to tell if she took that as an offront or not. I saw her eyeing the cafe like someone who hadn’t eaten in weeks, and while I picked up the manifest, I made a stop. “That was a snack. You need protein. Carbohydrates–”
“Are you my personal trainer now, too?” She grips her fork until her knuckles turn white.
Brie is the definition of rigid, classical elegance. She looks like she walked out of one of the ancient murals that sweep across the ceilings of the dozens of Firestone castles littered across Eastonia. Beneath that pale blue, satin sundress, I know her figure is full and supple, that her fair skin is soft to the touch. Even when glaring at me, she’s beautiful.
I honestly doubt she realizes it.
Watching her take her hair down today on the ferry had filled me with a momentary sense of regret that we’d rejected each other–but I beat that feeling into submission within seconds. She is, unfortunately, exactly my type. Softly beautiful. Elegant. Her hair and dark brown eyes the color of polished mahogany draw me in and spit me out–and those lips?
I sink into the seat opposite hers, pressing my elbows against the surface of the table.
She stares at me for what feels like an eternity but might have been only a few seconds before the stewardess, who was probably lingering in the hallway nearby, sweeps in with a dinner menu.
“Steak, rare, with the potatoes,” I tell her, keeping my eyes locked on Brie’s face as she goes even more red in the cheeks. I lean back in the chair, adding, “A basket of bread, as well. With butter.”
“Do you want anything to drink?”
“Scotch.”
“Dinner salad?”
“I’ll be finishing hers.” I motion to the plate of spinach.
The stewardess leaves again, and all around us the yacht rocks gently against the dock, the entire skyline alive with lights blinking through the mist.
“What do you want from me?” she asks testily, setting her fork down and reaching for her wine, sipping deeply. “I didn’t invite you to dine with me.”
“I didn’t need an invitation.”
“You’re a prick.”
“I’ve been called much, much worse.”
The tension between us crackles.
She takes another drink of wine without breaking her gaze. “Just because we were mates–keyword were–doesn’t mean you need to follow me around or feel obligated to give me any kind of attention.”
“I’m not following you around.”
“You’re here, aren’t you? Interrupting my dinner?”
“I wouldn’t consider a plate of greens dinner unless you’re some type of forest dwelling rodent.”
She scoffs. I smirk.
“I do not want you here, Logan. I have no use for your bodyguard services at the present. Go. Away. Go… lift weights or stare at yourself in the mirror, whatever men like you do in your free time.”
“I’ll leave once I’ve eaten dinner.”
She picks up her plate and wine and moves to the far end of the table, sitting down with a huff.
I expect that to be the end of the conversation and consider it a win, but she says, “I’m going to be on the upper deck using the hottub tonight whether you like it or not.”
I turn toward her as the stewardess practically tosses my glass of scotch on the table and hurries out, likely sensing the tension. I murmur my thanks while Brie stabs at her spinach.
“You’re not going to be using the hottub,” I counter, sipping deeply. “You’re going to be in your room with the door locked until we’re in open water.”
She mumbles a rather colorful curse under her breath, shaking her head. “I could have you fired, you know. I could have you strung up on the gates outside the castle in Moonrise if I really felt like it.”
“I have a feeling your father and grandfather are familiar with your games, Princess.”
She shoots daggers with her eyes as she glares at me. “My games?”
“You're insistentance to bend everyone to your will,” I amend.
“I’m not bending you to my will. I’m telling you how it’s going to be. You might have been tasked by my father to keep me safe, but controlling what I do and where I go–”
“There’s a ring of criminals operating in Eastonia,” I cut in, swirling my drink. “Thieves. Gamblers. Murderers.” She pales, but I continue, “Men who’ve only known hard times but refused to dig themselves out of the debts they owe to a man named Hannibal Arachnis, otherwise known as the Spider, for obvious reasons.”
She drains her wine. The name apparently rings a bell.
“You’ve likely heard about the murders across the packlands, both in Eastonia and Crescent Falls. Even a few Alphas have fallen to his assassin.”
“Who is his assassin?”
“We have no idea,” I answer honestly, smoothing my finger over the rim of my glass. “But the Ghosts have been tasked by the Allied Kings to track these men down and deal with them, hoping one of them leads us back to Hannibal himself.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
I lean forward, watching her from across the table. “You are a princess. A granddaughter of the Queen of Eastonia and the Alpha King of the Roguelands. What makes you think, if those criminals were desperate enough, they wouldn't see this journey as an opportunity to take you and hurt you in some way? Perhaps using you as ransom to pay their debts? It’s happened before. Recently, too.”
Her eyes lock on mine, heavy with sudden emotion. “No one wants me, Captain Logan. I think you forget which princess you’re referring to. I’m… nobody in their eyes.” She rises, abandoning her salad, and tries to hurry away.
I catch her wrist, pulling her to a stop. “I don’t like this either, Princess Brie.” I don’t mean the thought of criminals trying to take her and ruin her vacation. I mean the cruel twist of fate that thrust us together as unwilling mates now trapped in close quarters for a week straight.
She exhales deeply, looking down at me but not making any moves to run off. “I understand why you were tasked with escorting me to Maatua. I know that you couldn’t say no. I also understand quite clearly that you didn’t want a mate, and honestly, it was a relief, because neither did I.”
I let go of her wrist. She remains standing by the table but crosses her arms over her midsection like she’s trying to hide herself.
I hate that.
“But I don’t expect you to be at my beck and call. I am safe. If thieves wanted something from my father, they could easily go after Maeve. She’d probably go with them willingly just for the sake of an adventure. In fact, I’m shocked she hasn’t been hired by the Ghosts to be willingly used as bait. It would be a great training exercise for her powers, I’m sure.”
I blink up at her, watching a myriad of emotions wash over her face like a rogue wave.
My food is delivered and laid out on the table by both stewardesses, and the red-haired one makes a point of throwing me another sly smile that Brie definitely notices. She frowns at the woman as the duo disappears around the corner again but doesn’t make any moves to leave the table yet.
“Will you sit down and eat something?” I ask.
“Why does it matter?”
“Because you had four cups of coffee and half a bagel today. That’s not enough.”
“I had the pastries you bought,” she argues, meeting my eyes.
I hold her gaze while I kick the chair opposite mine out from under the table, tilting my head in that direction. She sits down in surrender. I rise, reaching toward the far end of the table for her useless salad and drag it toward us, then begin divvying up the steak.
“Are you really from an island somewhere?” she asks after several minutes of silence.
I hesitate. It’s been so incredibly long since I’ve talked to anyone about Emberfyll. I’m not even sure how to begin.
“Yes,” I tell her, pushing a plate in her direction piled with meat, bread, and potatoes. “And it’s a very long story.”