POV: Beth
The sea had finally calmed. I hadn’t.
Blood Harbor shrank to a dark smudge behind us, but the humiliation clung like tar. The alley. The hands on me. Kaine’s knife saving my throat. Alaric’s fury on the dock—not because I’d almost died, but because I’d dared to move without his permission.
The memory burned.
I scrubbed the rail harder than necessary, knuckles white, rag tearing under my fingers. The wood was already clean, but anger needed somewhere to go, and the deck couldn’t hit back.
Bootsteps approached behind me—slow, confident, each one a reminder that this was his ship, his sky, his sea.
“Are you trying to scrub through to the other side of the world?” Alaric asked lazily.
I ignored him. Salt wind whipped my hair into my face. I wished it could whip him overboard.
He stepped closer. I could feel his presence, see the shadow stretching long in my peripheral vision. “When I say ‘stay with the crew,’ it doesn’t mean ‘wander into the nearest alley of murderers,’ Beth.”
I gritted my teeth. “I got information about my father.”
“You almost got sold,” he snapped.
“I handled it.”
“Kaine handled it.”
My grip tightened on the rag until the fabric ripped. “I tried.”
“Trying doesn’t stop a blade once it opens your throat.” His tone sharpened. “You’re not some hero out of a tavern song. You’re one wrong move from a shallow grave.”
I whirled around, fury exploding. “And what are you, then? A hero?”
He stared down at me, eyes dark, jaw hard. “No. I’m the monster keeping worse monsters away from this crew.”
“Are you?” I laughed, cold and sharp. “Because all you did was stand on the dock, shout at me, and threaten to tie me to a mast like a disobedient dog.”
His gaze flared. “Because that’s what you understand. You don’t listen unless you’re cornered.”
That stung. My chest tightened. “I’m not your pet. I’m not your property.”
“Then stop acting like dead weight and—”
It happened before I decided to do it.
My hand grabbed the nearest thing—the wet rag—and I threw it at his face with all the force I had. It slapped against his cheek, leaving a smear of dirty water on his skin.
Silence crashed across the deck.
The crew went still. Kaine paused mid-coil of rope. Riva froze near the mast. Every eye turned to us.
Alaric blinked once, very slowly, as the rag slid down his jaw and dropped to the planks.
“So,” he said softly. “We’re throwing things now.”
Heart pounding, I stepped closer, fists clenched. “I’m tired of you talking like you’re some god of the sea when you were rotting in a prince’s dungeon like any other criminal.”
His face changed.
The mask slipped.
Something raw and ugly flashed in his eyes—rage, yes, but beneath it something that looked disturbingly like hurt. Old hurt, scar-deep.
“Careful,” he murmured.
I didn’t stop. Couldn’t.
“You call yourself king,” I spat, the words poisoning themselves as they came out, “but all I see when I look at you is a joke in chains.”
The wind dropped.
The entire ship seemed to stop breathing.
Alaric’s pupils blew wide. His jaw worked once, twice. For the first time since I met him, he didn’t look like he owned every inch of space around him. He looked… struck.
Like I’d found the one place his armor wasn’t iron.
He stepped closer until I had to tilt my head back to keep his gaze. His voice, when it came, was low and deadly calm.
“Say that again.”
My heart screamed at me to shut up. My pride refused.
“You’re no king,” I whispered. “You’re a joke in chains.”
Something in him snapped.
He didn’t touch me. Didn’t shout.
That was somehow worse.
“If you think surviving chains makes a man a joke,” he said quietly, “then you know nothing of this world, Beth.”
“Enlighten me,” I shot back, even though my throat was closing.
His gaze burned. “I rotted so my crew could live. I bargained my freedom for theirs. I bled so they wouldn’t hang on a prince’s walls.”
A murmur rippled across the deck. Kaine looked away. Riva’s knuckles turned white on the rope.
My anger faltered—just for a heartbeat.
Alaric noticed. His mouth curved in something bitter.
“But you’re right about one thing,” he went on. “I was in chains. And men like your precious prince laugh at that. So by all means—” he swept an arm broad, sarcastic “—stand on my stolen deck, wield my stolen knives, breathe the air I kept free for this crew, and mock the man who bled for it.”
The guilt hit like sudden cold. But pride is a stubborn creature. I lifted my chin.
“You chose that life,” I said. “No one chose it for you.”
“So did you,” he replied without missing a beat. “The moment you stepped on my ship, you chose the sea.”
His eyes hardened, turning to stone.
“From now on,” he said, voice flat, final, “you answer to Kaine for training. You don’t come to me for anything. Not orders. Not questions. Not help. You wanted distance from the ‘joke in chains’? You’ve got it.”
My stomach dropped. “What?”
“You’re part of the crew, not part of my concern.” He turned away, already done with me. “You wanted to prove you can survive alone. Try it.”
It hurt more than I expected.
More than any blade.
He walked past. The crew parted for him; no one met my eyes. Shame burned hot under my skin. I stood there, shaking, stubborn tears stabbing behind my eyelids.
I refused to let them fall in front of him.
Later, when dusk spread purple over the water, I found myself sitting behind a pile of tied barrels near the stern, hugging my knees to my chest. The hum of voices on deck felt far away. The waves whispered against the hull, soft and cruel.
Tears finally slipped free. I dragged my sleeve across my face, angry at myself for every one.
“Waste of water,” a voice said.
I stiffened. “Go away, Kaine.”
He rounded the barrels and looked down at me. “You pick odd places to fall apart.”
“I’m not falling apart.”
His gaze flicked to my wet cheeks. “Your face disagrees.”
I scowled. “I thought pirates didn’t care about crying.”
“We don’t,” he said. “It just makes you look like bait.”
I waited for a joke. An insult. Something biting.
Instead he sighed and sat down beside me, back against the barrels, legs stretched out. We stared at the darkening sea together.
“Stop crying,” he said eventually. “Be a man.”
I let out a wet, humorless laugh. “I’m not a man.”
“Exactly,” he replied. “Use it.”
I blinked at him. “That makes no sense.”
“It makes all the sense.” He tilted his head my way. “Men on these waters are loud. Predictable. Drunk on their own legends. You? They underestimate you. That’s leverage. You can slip a knife under pride easier than under armor.”
His words sank slowly, like stones dropping through water.
“I don’t feel like an advantage,” I muttered.
“Good,” he said. “Feeling lies. What you do is what matters.”
I hugged my knees tighter. “He hates me now.”
Kaine huffed. “If he hated you, you’d be in a rowboat with no oars.”
I stared at the planks. “He said I’m not his concern.”
“Then stop wanting to be,” Kaine replied. “Want to be his problem instead.”
That pulled a startled little sound from me—half laugh, half sob.
He nudged my shoulder with his. “You cut him where it hurts. Kingship. Chains. All that ego. He’ll lick his wounds and come back twice as sharp. That’s what he does.”
“I shouldn’t have said it,” I whispered.
“Probably not,” Kaine agreed. “But you did. So now you live through it. And get stronger. Or die. Those are your choices.”
Strangely, the bluntness comforted me more than any gentle words could have.
I took a shaky breath. The tears slowed. My chest still hurt, but there was anger there again, not just ache.
“You really think being a woman is advantage?” I asked quietly.
Kaine grinned without looking at me. “The smartest killer I ever knew wore perfume and a silk dress. Men laughed at her right until she slit their throats in bed.”
“Comforting image,” I said dryly.
“Point is,” he said, pushing himself to his feet, “you don’t need to be a man. You just need to be dangerous. Figure out how your way.”
He started to walk off, then paused.
“Oh, and Beth?”
“Yes?”
“Next time you throw something at Captain, aim for his head. It’ll annoy him more.”
A reluctant snort escaped me.
When he left, the sea didn’t feel as loud. My eyes didn’t burn as much. My heart still hurt—but it beat steadier.
Fine.
Alaric wanted distance?
I’d give him distance.
And I’d use it to become something he’d regret dismissing.