More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
which Rogerson still ran much like he had run his ship. Half drunk and stupid.
He needed those who weren’t perturbed by the name of his ship. Men not ruled by superstition and fear. Or men not afraid to die. It wasn’t always one in the same.
his words coming out as more of a purr than a growl. “Don’t beg for action if it’s not what you want.”
Umm, she didn’t..?? She said you’re not what I expected, in a good way, and he goes and does some slimy shit like this..
As the government and all businesses on Cregah were run by women, it fell upon the husbands and fathers to handle everything else, including the education of their children.
He’d never seen his mother again.
Did she get exiled? Or ‘exiled’?
The whole thing had caused shame to burn in her chest, as if it had been her fault he’d acted that way. She hoped no one would ever know the position she’d been in, with his hips digging into hers, his breath in her ear. Though she knew, somehow, she hadn’t done anything to deserve it. But the shame was minuscule compared to the anger that seethed within her.
Declan and Tommy stepped back to allow two men to climb aboard, and she wondered where they’d come from and how they’d gotten here from their ship. Maybe a small rowboat or something. So odd. She’d always imagined them swinging over on ropes.
His words stung more than she wanted them to. Why did she want his approval or his admiration? He was nothing but an awful, heartless pirate who would never care about anyone or anything but his own ridiculous plans to retrieve some dagger.
Barrrrrffffff. Fudge.
I’ve only not finished a book once and I hated that I had to. This might be added to that list, it’s so bad.
She looked down at her smooth hands, untouched by any manual labor, a stark contrast to the weathered wood of the railing they rested on.
“We all want to know we belong, Tommy. Whether it’s in the shadow of our captain”—she paused to smirk at him—“or in a new land of strangers. Or in a council of rulers. We weren’t meant to be alone. We weren’t meant for solitude. But what’s the point of being among people if you can never be comfortable? Be yourself?”
“I don’t even know how to use it.” She dropped her gaze to the deck, unable to look him in the eye, to let him see she wasn’t as strong as she pretended to be. “The pointy end goes in the other person.”
She wondered how many people she passed assumed she was drunk, despite it being just after midday. Among this lot, though, that would earn her less ridicule than the truth—that she simply hadn’t found her land legs yet.
The other, lumbering close behind them, appeared to have stolen some extra rations on his ship.
“Don’t worry,” he said as she slowly weaved her hand under his arm and let it rest on him, “blood can be washed away.”
But she wished it were her captaining that ship, having adventures, feeling the sea breeze on her face, seeing distant lands. Adventure. Excitement. Something beyond the mundane day-to-day activities of the pub, with the same faces and the same voices and the same everything day in and day out.
We each have a role to play. Don’t let yourself ever believe that yours is less important because it’s done in the shadows.”
She wondered if there would always be a tiny piece of herself, tucked somewhere behind her ribs, that ached and yearned to be free of this place, to be free of the pub, to be free of the routine.
Aoife flashed him her best version of his smirk and waited. “You know something I don’t,” he said. “Surprising, I know. I’m trying to relish this moment.”
It hadn’t been until Lani spoke about a future with Adler that Aoife had even considered the possibility and let herself wonder what it might be like,
“Never before had she given any thought to romance o love.” She told you this less than a week ago now..
“They don’t produce wine on Cregah.” She gave a slight shrug as she stared into the amber liquid in her cup. “Well, to be fair, they don’t produce much of anything on Cregah.”
“Are we becoming friends?”
Is success worth losing sight of everything worth living for?”
Something in him had snapped when he took that pirate’s head and freed her, creating a connection, a link between the two of them. Whether it was friendship or not, he didn’t know, but a life without her around? Unacceptable.
But she had a point, didn’t she? Friendship should be easy. Like with Tommy. Why did he want to control it, as if it were a ship to be captained? Maybe it would be better if he let it ride the waves on its own, let it develop naturally, without force or planning.
“Well, that’s a lot to digest. How old were you when you took command?” “Fifteen.”
“But the exiles will happen whether you are present for them or not. Simply ignoring them doesn’t make them go away,
“You know, a pirate once told me that pirates do, in fact, have honor and a heart. I’m apt to believe him, because he seemed pretty sure of that fact.” “I see what you did there.” “But do you believe it or not? Or were those words about honor another well-crafted lie fed to an irritating stowaway?”
His hand reached for her knee, his touch light but still reassuring. “Breathe, Aoife. Slow. Steady.” His voice melted over her, and she did as he suggested, his words not a command but an encouragement.
“It only gets overwhelming if you let it. Yes, you see the big picture in your periphery. You calculate the possible paths that might present themselves along the way, but if you let the overall mission shadow the task at hand, you’ll stumble and fall. Just like you almost did when you forgot how to breathe.”
It was as if the sea and this life gave me a distraction, perhaps. Not a remedy for what hurt, I suppose, but more like a curtain being drawn so I could no longer focus on what had plagued me prior.”
Looking into her eyes felt like returning to the home he desperately missed. And the shock of that realization threatened to suffocate him, ripping the breath from his lungs.
And now here, this girl, who had dared to stow away on his ship, seemed to be calling him to stay, without her knowing or realizing it. He was getting lost in those eyes that so perfectly mirrored the beauty of their shared home of Cregah. The rich greens. The gold of the sun. Even the black of her pupils reminded him of the black sands of its shores. Home.
“A deformity would imply that it’s something innately wrong with you, and that is far from the case. These attacks are not you. They do not define you. And while they can seem insurmountable, they are not.”
With Aoife relaxing in the bedroom, working to calm her mind before they left for the council hall, he was left to his own thoughts. And they plagued him, like a swarm of flies that wouldn’t leave no matter how often he shooed them away.
She kept her eyes lowered as she reached a timid hand toward his chest. He froze, his breath trapped in his lungs as Cait’s words echoed in his mind for the millionth time. Be careful with her. She knew where he kept the fae’s letter. Would she be so brazen as to take it from him now, when he had his guard down? Had she been playing him this whole time? He couldn’t risk haste, so he waited and watched her hand slide into his jacket. It wasn’t the letter she pulled out but his pocket watch. The chain it was attached to pulled taut as she held it in her hands and flipped it open. “It’s nearly
...more
Her hand twitched, and a tingle went up her arm as it brushed against his fingers. All of time stood still and yet rushed by too quickly. The stormy grays of his eyes held her. She found herself drowning in them, even as she realized she’d never truly breathed until now. Was this what love felt like? A confusing yet thrilling, tangled web of emotions and sensations? To be both wholly vulnerable and yet firmly secure, to feel weightless and yet grounded, to want time to both cease and yet hurry up, to savor the moment and yet to yearn for everything the future held?
Light and gentle, his lips moved on hers, and she melted ever deeper into them. Tingling pinpricks danced over her skin, uncomfortable and delightful at once. Like his kiss had finally woken her from a deep slumber. Like all the tales she’d read about in books. Now she understood why kisses held so much power—the power to break spells and conquer curses.
“Not altogether unexpected. I’ve been wanting to do that for a few days now.”
Y’all have only been around each other for about a week… you can’t know something like that in that in that short of a time. And to go from ‘hating’ each other to ‘love’..?
Creeping ivy obscured the gray stone walls, covering the windows and stretching out like spindly fingers eager to squeeze the life out of anyone who entered.
He spoke first. “Do you think Tommy and Gav used the same tactic to distract her?” “That would certainly give her something to gossip about with the other staff.”
Their pursuer was ambling toward them. Slow. Steady. Like the metronome Aoife had used when learning to play the piano as a child.
She merely stood there and took it, let her mother’s words of disappointment coat her like the grime on her skin. This woman’s favor was far from what she craved, and yet the insults still stung.
He had meant to tell her about Lani, about how he’d been forced to take her life, about how her sister’s face and her pleas for mercy had been haunting him more than all the nightmares he’d carried since childhood.
Well that’s fucking depressing. I knew he’d been the one to ‘exile’ Lani. But I really thought he’d have faked her death or something heroic.
“No. You stop right there.” The harshness of the woman’s tone caught Aoife off guard, and her feet skidded to a stop. “Well, I didn’t mean literally stop.”
“I said I love you, Aoife.” He paused, but she only stared at him, her expression blank as her eyes searched his. “I didn’t expect this. Didn’t want it. But here I am, a wreck of a man, drowning in uncharted waters.” He took a step toward her, and then another until they were inches apart. “You wrecked me, Aoife, and I’d have it no other way.”
Seriously? 272 other people found this was something worth highlighting but not all of the other great metaphors that had nothing to do with sappy silly love?
Love required trust. How could trust exist without honesty? But you love each other.
He killed your freaking sister!!
She’d let herself fall, let herself hope. Perhaps this was to be her life. A vicious cycle of trust, hope, and betrayal. Would she ever be happy? Would she ever find peace? Or was this her punishment for what she’d done to Lani? Was this the debt she owed for her own betrayal?
Girl it’s been maybe two weeks since you ‘found yourself’. What you mean ‘would I ever be happy and find peace’..
Silly how they expected him to dispatch their exiles while forbidding the use of weapons on the island.
But then he couldn’t quiet the part of him that insisted everyone had a right to be remembered. Even if only by their executioner.
Declan nodded to the nearly invisible path that twisted through the trees beyond the boulder, noticeable only to those who knew it existed. “That trail doesn’t lead to any ship, but it is a different sort of freedom perhaps.”
