POV: Beth
The tavern was too loud for the sentence that shattered my world.
Laughter cracked against tankards. Rum sloshed across sticky floors. Pirates shouted over dice, over women, over old sea songs about storms that ate whole fleets. Firelight flickered through smoke-thick air, illuminating the swarm of celebration around us—survivors of war, victors of the Maelstrom, drunk on victory and blood. The first true night of rest in what felt like centuries.
But all I heard was one trembling whisper from a toothless old sailor leaning over the table beside ours:
“Execution scheduled at King’s Court dock… two weeks from now. Rowan—the traitor.”
Everything inside me stopped.
My heart. My thoughts. My breath.
Rowan.
Two weeks.
Alaric didn’t hear it at first. He was mid-conversation with Karn and Clove, arguing who cheated who in cards. His laugh was sharp and arrogant, shoulders loose in rare ease. But my fingers froze around my mug. Rum sloshed over, dripping onto my knuckles, and I stared—unblinking—at the splintering wood between my hands.
Rowan. Execution. Two weeks.
The words looped like a noose tightening.
I pushed away from the table so abruptly my chair screeched. At once eyes turned toward me—some curious, some annoyed. Alaric’s head snapped up, smile dropping as soon as he saw my face.
“Beth?” he said, tone sharpening. “What—”
“He’s alive,” I whispered hoarsely, not recognizing my own voice. “He’s alive and they’re killing him.”
Karn blinked. Clove set his card down slowly. A hush rippled outward, not across the room—only across our crew. The rest of the tavern roared on, unaware that my ribs had caved around my lungs.
Alaric’s jaw tightened. “Who?”
The old sailor snorted, ignorant to emotional earthquakes or simply too drunk to notice. “Rowan Hadley, noble fool who stole from the Crown. King wants a spectacle. Hanging at sunrise, in a fortnight.”
My knees nearly gave.
Alaric rose instantly, pushing through benches with presence that parted men like waves. He stood before me, breath near mine, voice low enough the crew leaned in to hear.
“You’re shaking.”
“Rowan,” I breathed. “I left him. I left him with that… monster prince—”
Alaric’s eyes darkened, storm gathering fast. “You didn’t leave him. You were stolen. There’s a difference.”
The tavern clamor blurred. Heat flushes, cold snaps, memory knives—Rowan’s laugh, Rowan’s scolding, Rowan shielding me from my mother’s disappointment. The man who raised me. Loved me. Stood by me even when I chased foolish fantasy crowns.
Now he’d die.
Unless I stopped it.
I clenched my fists until nails cut my palms. The rum trembled on the table.
“I’m going back,” I said, voice steady and lethal. “I’ll cut through the whole damn kingdom if I have to.”
Alaric inhaled sharply—not mocking, not amused, but something rarer. Respect. Fear. Something else I couldn’t name.
“Beth.” His voice dropped to a growl edged with worry. “England isn’t a port you sneak into like a tavern. It’s the Lion’s den. You go alone, you die.”
“I don’t care,” I snapped. “Rowan is all I had before the sea.”
“You have more now.” His gaze held mine so intensely the tavern melted away. “Look around. You have us.”
Us. The word punched.
I looked—crew drinking, laughing, bruised but alive. Kaine watching with folded arms. Clove humming under breath. Karn nodding slowly. Family of blood and blade.
But Rowan was still chained somewhere, counting down breaths.
The weight of it cracked something inside me—not weakness, no, something else. Fire. Fury. Spine forged from storm.
No more scared girl. No more trembling noble daughter.
I straightened. “I’m going anyway.”
Silence. Then Alaric’s mouth curved—not a smile, but a dangerous tilt of hunger and defiance.
“Good,” he murmured. “Because I’m coming with you.”
I stared, stunned.
He held my gaze like he was claiming something. No joke. No smirk. Just truth burning between us like gunpowder waiting for a spark.
“The Prince will gut you,” I whispered.
Alaric’s eyes glinted with lethal promise. “Then I’ll gut him first.”
My breath caught.
Emotion twisted in my throat—grief, hope, longing, rage—a hurricane of everything I tried to bury. He stepped closer, so close the noise of tavern fell away. Rum. Smoke. Blood. Sweat. His scent hit me like storm wind.
“Beth,” he murmured, voice dropping to a warning and prayer at once. “Don’t you dare break alone.”
My pulse thundered.
And before my mind could catch up, his hand slid across the table, fingers grazing mine—then closing, firm, heated, unhidden. He didn’t hide the gesture. Didn’t care who saw. Every pirate within three tables glanced then quickly looked away—this moment was sacred, dangerous.
My heart didn’t flutter—it ignited.
His thumb brushed my knuckles slow, intimate, as if he’d waited months for permission. My breath shuddered, not from fear—from how badly I wanted to lean into him. But this wasn’t softness. This was two storms recognizing each other.
“You and I,” he said with a low vow, “we tear kingdoms down.”
Across the tavern someone cheered drunkenly. A chair broke. The world continued as if my universe hadn’t changed shape.
I swallowed. “I’m not a princess.”
Alaric leaned closer, voice brushing my lips like heat. “Not anymore. Something stronger.”
Lightning ran through my veins.
I laced my fingers with his—tighter, claiming back. His eyes widened a fraction, breath stuttering barely enough for me to notice.
Fire. Longing. Grit. Our hands tangled like oath-braided rope.
Rowan’s countdown hung like a blade above us, but for one stolen minute we stood together—two broken people forged sharp by war.
Then Alaric exhaled softly and forced himself to step back, releasing my hand only when he had to.
“Rest,” he said, rough. “Tomorrow, plans. We get Rowan. We tear the Crown apart.”
I nodded once.
He began to turn, then hesitated—looked back, eyes softer than a pirate captain’s should ever be.
“I… meant it, Beth.” His voice cracked low. “All of it.”
And he left me there—heart burning, hands trembling, future roaring with blood and promise.
Rowan’s time was sand slipping fast. We would not waste another grain.