Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 144411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
That said, I do feel more filthy than I ever have before and I find myself gravitating toward the clean gown. I sit back, being careful not to put any pressure on where he branded me.
I can scarcely believe he did that. Or I can, it’s just that his method of cruelty took me by surprise. I’m so used to being beaten and battered and called names, that to be branded with a hot iron was something that took me off-guard. Frankly, I was expecting something worse, especially when he humiliated me by taking up my dress and baring my bottom and legs to him. And yet, even though I felt his lust for me once again, he didn’t act on it. I suppose my current state of uncleanliness deterred him and saved me from that type of savagery.
Though he seems to think that by branding me and keeping me in a cage, he’s the one saving me. I don’t understand it. He’s the captain and it’s clear that everyone on the ship, save that Sterling beast, respects and listens to him. Surely Sterling would know to keep his hands off me if the captain told him to. And yet it seemed like branding me was the only way to “claim” me.
It doesn’t really matter though. The way that pirates do things are different than anyone civilized might do. They act according to their own code and there seems to be cultural differences within their own Brethren. Perhaps by the time this voyage is over I’ll have learned a thing or two.
The thought depresses me. I pull my blue dress toward me and hold it up to my face, feeling the clean fabric, pressed by the servants right before we left on our travels. The dress smells like Ferdinand’s palace, like linen and florals and the incense the locals would light.
Daphne.
The smell brings forth the image of Daphne as she was, always pleasant and smiling and terribly funny at times.
Then the horror of seeing her dead hits me like bricks and I blink back the tears this time, determined not to cry. The salt from my tears reminds me too much of home and all I’ve lost since then.
I breathe in deeply, keeping the dress pressed to my face, wishing I could be somewhere else.
But where would I even go? What is there for me?
Home. Keep your head on Limonos. Keep your focus on getting across the Pacific alive. Let Limonos be your compass.
“Mew?”
I bring the dress off my face to see the cat staring at me.
“You think so?” I say, giving the cat a bit of a smile. Once upon a time I could communicate with all the creatures that lived under the sea.
Which does make me pause.
What if I still could?
“Mew,” the cat says and seems to nod.
I am most definitely imagining that.
“Can you understand me?” I ask it, my voice barely a whisper. Even though I’m alone in the captain’s quarters, I still feel a tad silly for talking out loud to a cat.
The cat raises its paw.
I still don’t believe it.
“Could you go and…” I look around the room for something. “Knock that crystal off the bookshelf.”
The cat cranes its head and looks at the bookshelf where the captain has a row of crystals displayed like some fortune teller’s shop. Then it looks back to me with an unimpressed look on its face.
I hold my breath and wait. Even if the cat could understand me, it is still a cat and they don’t listen to anyone. The queen had a pair of Siamese cats that ruled the palace and terrorized everyone. I didn’t see them often and I never got the impression they understood me. Then again, I never tried to talk to them. Humans would deem that crazy.
“Meow,” the cat says lazily, then turns around and pads over to the shelf and jumps up on it. It goes right over to first crystal it sees, a black tourmaline tower, and with a tap-tap-tap of its paw, it pushes it off.
The crystal clatters to the deck but doesn’t break on the wood planks.
The cat does understand me!
I look over to the row of weapons the captain has. The cat follows my gaze. It couldn’t bring me a pistol or a sword but maybe it could take a small dagger in its mouth and—
The sound of the door unlocking interrupts my thought and the cat jumps down from the shelf and scampers away to the corner, hiding behind a chair just as the door swings open and the captain steps in.
I want to ignore him. I want to look away. But he has this strangely compelling and commanding presence about him that I find it hard to keep my gaze away, even when I’m filled with hatred for him.