POV: Beth
The deck is silent tonight. No dice clattering, no Kaine barking orders, no laughter echoing like it always does when rum loosens tongues. Just the sea—dark, endless, breathing like a beast. The waves slam the hull, slow and heavy, as if the ocean itself is thinking. And there she stands in it—Beth—alone at the railing, hair whip-tangled in the wind, shirt torn and crusted with dried blood from yesterday’s storm.
I should be below with charts and maps, pretending I don’t care. But I do. Damn me for it.
She’s staring at the water like she’s asking it questions. As if it might answer her. After the way it bent for her last night, after it calmed under her whisper, part of me wonders if it might.
Salt-blood. Witch-blood. Pirate-blood.
I drag a hand through my hair, eyes fixed on her. She hasn’t noticed me watching. Good. I don’t want her caught in my stare like some victory. She tends to spit when she catches me soft—or worse—she gets quiet, and I hate the feeling that gives me. Makes me feel like I owe her something. Makes me want —
No. Not going there.
I step closer, slow. The wood creaks beneath me, but she doesn’t turn. Moonlight glass-paints her skin silver, makes her look carved out of sea-foam—fragile, breakable… except she’s not, is she? She’s survived things that would’ve crushed most men. She left me. Walked away, lived, came back stronger. That bothers me more than I care to admit.
My voice comes low without thinking. “Couldn’t sleep either, princess?”
She startles, glancing over shoulder. Her eyes are dark tonight—deeper than ocean beneath a storm. “I’m not your princess.”
I smirk, but it feels weaker than usual. “You keep saying that like you expect me to believe you.”
Silence. Violent wind through sails.
She returns her gaze to water. “It listens to me, Alaric.”
Her voice trembles—not fear. Something else. Realization.
She isn’t lying. She isn’t bragging. She’s confessing.
I step beside her, arms resting on rail. My sleeve brushes hers—tiny contact—and I feel it like a blade pressed to skin. I keep my tone casual, light, because if I let truth slip through, I’ll drown in it.
“You calmed a storm. Saved the crew. Not bad for someone who could barely hold a knife months ago.”
She flinches.
So I soften more. Painful, unwelcome. “You did good.”
Wind steals her breath, or maybe it’s my words. She doesn’t look at me, but she stands a little taller. The moon catches the pirate mark on her wrist—faint, hidden under fabric—but I see it. I always see it.
Her mother’s secret. My rival’s blood. Kraken dreams. Prophecies. Beth becoming something I can’t control.
A shiver crawls up my spine. I’m Alaric Blackwater—men fear me, women curse me, oceans know my name—but tonight, watching her command waves in her sleep, I felt something I’ve never felt:
Fear.
Not of her.
Of what she means.
Power. Destiny. Storm Bride.
What if she is meant to rise higher than I ever did? What if she takes the sea itself from me?
I swallow. “Do you ever think about going back?”
She laughs, hollow and bitter. “To what? A wedding I was dragged from? A father waiting for execution? A prince who called me spawn?”
I don’t answer. She’s right. She can never return as she once was. And I— I don’t know what the hell we are now. Rivals? Partners? Something worse?
The moon shifts behind clouds. Shadows devour her face until only her eyes remain bright. She turns fully this time—closer than I expected—and the space between us tightens like a rope. She smells like salt and storm. Wild. Untamed.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she whispers.
Because I crave you. Because you terrify me. Because every time you stand tall, it reminds me of the man I was before chains and loss.
I choose a safer answer. A lie that tastes too much like truth.
“Because you’re trouble,” I say.
She steps back, uncertainty flickering in her eyes. She thinks I mean danger, madness, curse. She has no idea I meant temptation.
She looks down, voice thin. “Go below, Alaric. If you stare any longer, the crew will think something is wrong.”
I don’t move.
Not until she walks away from railing and disappears below deck.
When she’s gone, I let breath escape me like something torn loose from ribs.
Beth Hadley—the girl who ruined my peace, my command, my damn sense.
I lean my forehead to cold rail.
Half in worship.
Half in surrender.
“She’ll be the death of me,” I murmur to the waves.
And for the first time, they murmur back.