POV: Beth
The storm didn’t arrive politely. It slammed into the ship like a fist.
One moment the sea was rough but manageable; the next, the sky tore open and hurled the whole world sideways. Wind screamed through the rigging, ripping at the sails. Waves rose like walls, black and towering, crashing over the deck with such force I nearly went with them.
“Come on, come on, come on—” I muttered through chattering teeth, clinging to the wheel.
The merchant crew had started the day grumbling about weather and coin. By midday, three had been knocked senseless by flying crates, one had broken his leg, and another had slipped and vanished silently over the side. The captain lay below deck, head bloodied from where a mast-snap had thrown him against a beam. I’d gone from hidden stowaway to the only pair of hands still standing at the helm.
Lucky me.
The wheel bucked like a living thing, trying to rip itself from my grip. My arms burned. My fingers cramped. Saltwater streamed down my face, blurring my vision, but I couldn’t let go.
“Starboard!” someone screamed. “Rock ahead!”
I squinted through the rain. A jagged shadow loomed where there should have been nothing but waves. My heart lurched.
Hidden reefs. Death, sharp and fast.
I yanked the wheel, muscles screaming. The ship groaned, protesting, then obeyed, swinging just enough that the wave carried us along the edge instead of shoving us straight into it. Wood creaked dangerously. Somewhere below, something cracked.
“Hold her steady!” a sailor shouted from the rigging.
“Then help me!” I shouted back.
No one came. They were all fighting their own battles—ropes whipping loose, sails threatening to tear, cargo shifting dangerously.
A wave smashed us from the other side, cold water punching into my chest and almost knocking me off my feet. I slipped, lost grip, then grabbed the wheel again, nails splitting against the wet wood. Pain flared. I dug in harder.
The sea wanted me. I could feel it, an enormous pull in my bones that had nothing to do with gravity. But it was different now. Less like a monster trying to drown me, more like… something ancient watching, waiting.
“Not today,” I hissed between clenched teeth. “You had your chance.”
Lightning tore the sky in half. For one heartbeat, the world froze—white, stark, terrifyingly clear. In that flash, I saw it.
A narrow gap between two cliffs ahead. A cove, half-hidden by jagged rock and foaming water. There was no safe way through. Only a possible way.
“Shelter!” a sailor yelled, following my gaze. “There! The cove!”
“We’ll be dashed to pieces,” another screamed.
“We’ll be dead either way if we stay out here!” I shouted back. “Pull the sails! Now!”
I didn’t know if I was giving the right orders. I just knew we needed off this open water and into something that broke the wind. My instincts screamed for that cove. The mark on my wrist burned, as if agreeing.
The crew moved, swearing and scrambling. Sails shifted, catching wind differently. The ship lurched toward the jagged mouth of the cove.
“Come on,” I whispered to the sea. “Just this once… don’t kill me.”
The waves rose again, high enough to swallow us if they chose. But as we approached the gap, something changed. The water pulled in strange ways—currents twisting, eddies tugging. It felt… purposeful.
I leaned my weight into the wheel, following a rhythm I didn’t understand but somehow recognized. Left, right, a hair more, a hair less. The ship slid between the rocks, close enough that I could have reached out and touched the wet stone rushing past.
We didn’t crash.
We slipped through.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the worst of the storm fell away.
Wind still howled overhead, but the cliffs around the cove broke its teeth. Waves still moved, but no longer tried to rip the ship in half. We glided into a protected inlet, lanterns flickering against the walls of rock like tired fireflies.
For a breathless moment, no one spoke.
Then someone laughed—hysterical, relieved. Another sobbed. Another fell to his knees and kissed the soaked deck.
I let the wheel spin out of my hands, arms limp, shoulders throbbing. Every part of me ached. My heart hammered against my ribs like it was trying to escape.
We were alive.
I staggered forward, gripping the railing for balance. The cove was wider than I’d expected, ringed by jagged stone and narrow ledges. The storm raged past overhead, but here in its shadow, the water merely heaved and sighed.
And in the middle of the cove floated another ship.
My breath caught.
Sleeker. Darker. Familiar.
Black-painted hull scarred by battle. Tattered but stubborn sails, patched with mismatched cloth. A figurehead at the prow—a snarling sea wolf, teeth bared, eyes carved with fury.
The Black Tide.
My heart dropped into my stomach.
No. It couldn’t be. Of all the coves, all the storms, all the cursed pieces of sea…
Figures moved on its deck, silhouettes against lantern glow. Rough voices barked orders. Ropes were tossed, anchors dropped. The ship settled like a beast curling to rest.
“Another ship?” a merchant sailor whispered behind me. “We’re not alone?”
“I don’t like this,” another muttered. “That looks like—”
He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to.
Because he wasn’t the only one looking. On the Black Tide, shadows turned. Heads lifted. Shapes leaned over rails, peering through mist and rain toward the intruder that had just burst into their cove like a drunk stumbling into a knife den.
My fingers curled around the railing until my knuckles blanched.
Please let it be anyone else. Let it be some other captain. Some other storm-tossed sinner.
A figure stepped forward to the edge of the Black Tide’s deck. Shirt open at the throat despite rain. Tattoos curling up his arms like inked waves. Hair darker from storm, wild around his face. Stance loose, confident, infuriatingly at home on the rocking boards.
He peered through the rain toward us, head cocked. Even from this distance, I could sense the smirk beginning.
Alaric.
My chest clenched so hard it hurt.
“Captain?” someone beside him called.
He didn’t answer. His gaze slid along our deck, skipping over terrified merchants, ropes, mast, until it landed on me.
We locked eyes across the distance.
The world shrank to a thin, electric line between our bodies.
His smirk faltered for half a heartbeat, shock flickering in his expression—raw, unguarded. Then, like a shutter slamming closed, it was gone, replaced by something far more familiar.
Smug. Dangerous. Irritated amusement.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he called across the water, voice carrying easily despite the wind. “The runaway bride learned how to steer.”
My spine snapped straight.
Of all the things he could have said—Are you alive? Are you hurt? Why did you leave?—of course he chose mockery.
The merchant captain, newly conscious and limping, squinted up at the Black Tide. Color drained from his face. “Black Tide,” he whispered. “Pirates.”
“Relax,” I muttered. “If they wanted you dead, you’d already be floating.”
My heart was racing so fast it made my hands tremble, but I refused to let it show. Not now. Not in front of him.
He leaned on his ship’s railing like he was enjoying a show. “You picked a bad day to play sailor, princess.”
“You picked a worse one to still be breathing,” I shouted back before I could stop myself.
A hush fell over both decks. The merchant crew stared at me like I’d just slapped the ocean. On the Black Tide, I could see shapes shifting—Kaine’s broad shoulders, Finn’s wiry frame, Tammers’ restless movement. Familiar silhouettes I’d walked away from. Laughs I’d left behind.
They were all staring now. At me. At us.
Alaric’s smirk sharpened. “You’re welcome for the cove, by the way. It doesn’t like just anyone.”
Heat flared in my cheeks. “The sea listened to me,” I snapped. “Not you.”
“Is that so?” His eyes flicked over me, lingering on my soaked shirt, my bruised knuckles, the way my hands still shook. “Looks like it chewed you up first.”
My heart ached and burned and wanted to leap out of my chest and hit him. I forced my fingers to loosen on the railing. I would not crumble. Not in front of him. Not in front of his crew.
“Captain,” Kaine’s voice rumbled from behind him, though I couldn’t see his face clearly. “Storm’s got teeth. We should dock proper and wait it out.”
Alaric didn’t look away from me. “Already docking,” he said. “Can’t waste an audience.”
“You going to raid us?” one of the merchants whispered in horror.
“Probably not,” I muttered. “He likes his prey conscious enough to complain.”
The Black Tide dropped anchor closer, maneuvers precise, almost arrogant. Their rowboat hit the water with a splash, ropes swinging as a small party descended—Alaric at the front, because of course he’d put himself at the point of impact.
I swallowed hard as they rowed toward us. Past and present collided in my chest—the dungeon, the island, the deck where I’d yelled I’d rather be dead than owned. The bloody training, the almost-kiss neither of us would admit happened. His laughter. His cruelty. The way he’d looked at me when I walked away.
He hadn’t followed.
Now he was rowing back into my life like the storm itself had carried him.
No soft reunion. No running. No relief.
Just two storms in human skin colliding in a too-small cove.
I straightened, lifted my chin, and waited at the edge of the merchant ship’s deck as the rowboat bumped its side. Alaric climbed up first, water darkening his boots, hair plastered to his temples. He stepped onto the boards like he owned them.
His eyes met mine again. Closer now. Blue and bright and infuriating.
“Hello again, princess,” he murmured.
I smiled without warmth.
“Hello, pirate,” I said.
We stood there, rain dripping, fury coiled, history between us like a drawn blade.
Enemies reunited.