POV: Beth
Salt clung to my lips, bitter and metallic, as I gripped the rail of the ship—our ship—and stared into the horizon where the sea turned black. It wasn’t night. It was something else. Something alive. The clouds churned like bruises in the sky, rumbling with distant thunder; waves slapped the hull like angry hands. Kaine, usually loud and sharp with laughter, stood frozen beside me. No jokes now. No bravado.
Everyone was facing the same direction.
Toward the horror unfolding ahead.
A British merchant ship—big, proud, banners of the crown stitched in gold—wasn’t sailing anymore. It was screaming. Wood splintered like bones. Men clung to rails, to broken masts, to each other. Their cries carried across the water, raw and terrified.
Then it rose.
A shadow beneath the surface first—too large, too wide, swallowing the sunlight. Then tentacles broke through the waves, each thicker than a ship’s mast, glistening with scales and barnacles like the armor of some ancient god. One wrapped around the merchant’s bow. Another coiled around its stern. Screams sharpened. Someone prayed. Someone else jumped into the sea, only to be snatched mid-fall like a fish caught in a fist.
The Kraken.
I’d heard whispers. I thought them stories to scare children.
But this was real.
Horrifyingly real.
“Mother of tides…” Kaine breathed, voice barely a rasp. “Silas commands that.”
My stomach turned to ice. Not from the monster.
From the silent awe on Alaric’s face.
Not fear.
Recognition.
Something personal, jagged, burning behind his eyes.
The Kraken yanked the ship downward. Not slowly. Violently—half of it vanished in a single pull, torn apart like wet parchment. Men disappeared under churning black water. A mast snapped like a twig. Barrels, crates, bodies floated, then sank in red swirls.
I tasted bile.
The crew didn't speak. No one moved. We were statues carved from dread.
“If that beast comes for us—” someone began.
“It won’t.” Alaric finally spoke. His voice wasn’t smug this time. It was sharp steel. Cold certainty. “Silas has no reason to waste the Kraken on small fish.”
My pulse hammered at the name.
Silas.
The man who stole Alaric’s throne the moment he vanished from the seas. The pirate king who ruled now. With a monster as a crown.
I swallowed hard. “Then we should turn the ship. Escape before—”
Alaric cut me off, stepping closer, sea wind whipping his dark hair across his forehead, tattoos glistening with salt. “Escape?” He nodded to the sinking wreck. “And let him rule? Let that bastard keep what’s mine?”
Kaine’s jaw clenched. “You want a war with Silas?”
A spark—dangerous, hungry—lit in Alaric’s eyes. “War? Oh, I intend more than war.”
My throat tightened, remembering why I was here. Why I couldn’t run either. My father. Rowan. Still rotting in a dungeon. Execution day creeping closer like a blade.
I found myself speaking without thinking. “I’m not leaving either. I’ll save my father. And I’ll make Prince Adrian kneel before I kill him.”
Silence.
Not fear. Not shock.
Recognition.
Two vows spoken into a storm-colored sea.
Alaric leaned in, so close the scent of rum and cold salt wrapped around me. His voice low, mocking, yet something electric under the words.
“Look at you,” he murmured. “Little bride of the crown. Now dreaming of slit throats.”
Heat rushed through me—anger, shame, something tangled I refused to name. “If I must become a monster to save my father, then I’ll become worse than you pirates ever imagined.”
He smiled—a wolfish curve full of danger.
“That,” he said softly, “is power talking.”
The Kraken roared—a sound I felt in my bones, not ears. The merchant ship disappeared beneath waves, swallowed whole. Not even wreckage remained. Just silence. Open sea. A grave where sunlight died.
My breath shook.
Alaric turned to the crew, voice rising like thunder. “We hunt Silas. We take back what’s mine. Anyone who fears death may leave now.”
No one moved.
Even the sea held its breath.
Kaine spat into the water. “I’ll follow you, Black Tide. To hell and back if it means Silas bleeds.”
Murmurs of agreement rippled.
Alaric’s gaze found me again—sharp enough to cut.
“And you, princess? Still dreaming of roses and wedding bells?”
I lifted my chin. The girl who cried in the dungeon—still inside me—shrank. But another voice rose, cold and new.
“No,” I said. “I dream of vengeance.”
Our eyes locked.
In that moment, we weren’t prisoner and pirate. Not noble and criminal. We were two storms on collision path. The hunt began.