Through Dark Storms (Beneath Black Sails, #4)

by Clare Sager

Duty. Honour. Navy. They didn’t mean much anymore. Not when she was lost. They were just patterns his body knew how to follow. Empty comfort.

Because if she was gone, that was his fault. And he’d borne a lot of things in his life, done more than his share of wrong and carried the guilt of it, but this? Losing Vee because he’d left her at the top of that tower? Unbearable. Unforgivable.

I miss them. I need them. I’m alone.

One with light. The tip of the kraken’s tentacle touched a silvery line that traced across their body. As waves of lighter and darker red flowed through their flesh, that line remained pale. A scar? One this one knows.

“A ship is safe at shore, but that’s not what ships are built for. Your heart is the same.”

Vice fought a smile as fierce, hot pride bloomed in her chest. Good gods, she loved him.

This was home on sea or land. Whatever Sanctuary ended up being, she would always have a place here.

And most of all, the way he consumed her like she was air and he was a man drowning.

“I am gladly your subject in all things, my Pirate Queen, but let me have this.”

“Queen of Pirates, Queen of My Heart, the best bounty I ever chased, the most infuriating woman I’ve ever known”—the corner of his mouth quirked—“the most wonderful, too…” His chest rose and fell under her hands. “I love you.”

“I don’t want to push you away. I don’t want to pretend I don’t feel what I feel. I’m done with all that. I don’t want anyone else, just you. Only you. Always you. I love you, Knigh Blackwood.”

Sometimes duty was a complete bastard.

“On land or the seven seas, there’s no place I’d rather be.”

She was undone in a million ways by him.

It was the same. It had always been the same. The threads of fate had brought them together as pirate and pirate hunter, but their bodies and their hearts had always known those things were just labels painted on the surface by the world of men, not truth etched into their flesh like his tattoos.

“You always deserved more than I was, so here I am trying to be that.”

He bowed his head to hide the flush of pleasure at the truth in her words. The Navy had been such a still, tight space; he’d had nowhere to voice his hurts, no one to share his shame with. A stiff upper lip, the harsh veneer of duty, and a toxic kind of masculine pride that praised violence and scorned tears. How had he ever survived there?

Having him at her side took nothing away, rather it amplified every experience.

He couldn’t get rid of the grin, in fact, so he pulled her in for a hug. “What’s this for?” Her voice came out muffled against his chest. “For learning more quickly than I did.” She pulled her face away from his shirt and peered up at him. There was no hint of sapphire hardness in her blue eyes, only a warmth that might’ve been pride. “I had a good teacher.”

It was wrong, but when did that ever stop someone believing something?

“You know I love you, right?” Now the other cheek. “Hard or soft. Prickly…” He scraped his beard against her skin, making her yelp, but his tight hold stopped her jumping away. “Or squishy.” With a playful smirk, he squeezed her backside. “And everything in between.” He rested his forehead against hers. “In all ways, I’ll still love you.”

“Only the gods know what tomorrow will bring,” he went on, “but this place, this night… I’d do it all over again to be here with you, now. And I might die tomorrow, but I hope not, because if we survive this, I’m hoping you might do the only thing that can make me even happier than I am now and marry me.”

Just power. Relentless, raging power let loose at last. There was an ease to it.

Power had no worries. No responsibility. No fear or hurt. Power was just power.

“Friends come and go, like waves on the shore, but the true ones stick around in your life, like an octopus to the face.”

am more than happy to submit to you in any way you wish. I am yours, whatever you wear, however ladylike you do or do not wish to be, whatever ‘wifely duties’ you wish to perform or to ask of me.” His grip tightened. “When I become your husband, I promise I’ll still be the same man I am now.”

She knew him at best and worst. He knew her just as much. And tomorrow and the next day, they’d still be themselves; they’d still love each other.

the soft, dark hair, the not-too-tight, not-too-loose embrace that only a mother could give because she always knew, knew exactly what you needed at any given moment.