Still nothing.
He placed his face next to her mouth, but she wasn’t breathing.
Chapter 19
Catheryn…
Who’s there? Catheryn asked.
Catheryn, the voice whispered again. The world was dark, but it was warm and comforting. She felt like she was floating.
Where am I? Catheryn asked. She wasn’t using her voice, but seemed to be asking in her mind. Logically, she knew she needed to use her voice, but she was unable to, and speaking this way felt strangely natural.
Catheryn, I’m here…
Where? Catheryn asked, looking left and right. Where are you? Who are you?
Catheryn felt a gentle hand lightly touch her shoulder. She turned and saw a familiar face, one she hadn’t seen in so long…
Don’t you recognize me? the woman asked.
Eva! Catheryn said, grabbing her sister and puller her to her chest.
Fifteen years! It had been fifteen years since she had seen her little sister. Since that day she had sold herself into slavery to save her. Eva was a woman now, a beautiful woman with strong cheekbones and bright eyes, but the face of the child she knew was still there staring back at her.
I thought you were dead, Catheryn cried. I hoped you were alive, and prayed you were, but without anyone to protect you, to raise you. Oh God! I feared the worst.
Shhh…Eva cooed as she held her sister and stroked her hair. Do not fear, sister. I am here now. You are safe.
Am I? Catheryn asked. Where am I? Am I…am I dead? Are you dead?
Eva pulled away and stroked Catheryn’s face. No, we are not dead. You still have much work to do.
What work? Catheryn asked. What must I do? I’ve discovered these powers, but I have no idea what to do with them. Are you a hoodoo witch, too? Where are you? How can I find you?
Eva took a step back, then another. Catheryn’s vision started to blur and grow bright. We will see each other again, sister…
Wait! Catheryn screamed. Don’t leave me! Not again! I can’t lose you! Eva! Eva…
“Catheryn!” she heard a deeper voice say.
The light grew brighter. She felt heat and wet. She tried to open her eyes, but the sun was blinding.
“Catheryn! Come back to me!”
Rainier! She tried to speak, but could only cough. Seawater spilled from her mouth, and she gasped for air. Rainier held her tight.
“Thank God,” Rainier said, pulling her into a sitting position and hugging her to his chest. “I thought I’d lost you.”
Catheryn coughed and gasped a few more times. “You very nearly did,” she finally sputtered. “I think I nearly headed for the great beyond.”
“Are you all right?” he asked, running his hands over her arms, looking for injuries.
“I’m okay,” she said with a weak smile. “I think I should be worried about you. Are you all right? You look like you just lost your best friend.”
“Hmph,” he said, pulling away a bit. “Well…if you had died, what would there be for me to eat?”
“Ouch,” Catheryn said as she tried to get to her feet. “Didn’t realize that’s all I was to you.”
“Sorry,” he grumbled as he helped her up. “I just lost my ship, my crew, had to kill my best friend, thought you were dead, and am now stranded God knows where. It’s been a taxing few hours.”
“Well, thank you,” she said, pulling him toward her. “For saving my life. Even if it’s just to protect your next meal.”
He smirked as he put his forehead against hers. “I think you’ve saved me a few times now as well. But who’s keeping track?”
Catheryn pulled away, but she took his hand. She looked out to the sea. It was so calm now, you’d never know that a monster storm had nearly done them in. She looked down the beach one way, then the other. Behind them, there was only jungle.
“Any idea where we might be?” she asked.
“Well, the island where we found the wreckage was between Inagua and Abraham’s Bay. However, I have a feeling that Mathis might have been steering us back to NOLA. If that’s the case, he would have been sending us back to the Gulf. Considering how long we had been sailing, we are probably between Cuba and the Keys.”
“There would be a lot of traffic through this area, then?” Catheryn asked. “Surely someone will sail by and could pick us up.”
“Another vampire pirate ship?” Rainier asked. “You think we could trust another pirate crew after what just happened?”
“Well, we have to get off the island somehow,” she said.
“What we have to do is find water, food, and shelter,” Rainier said. He started stomping up the beach toward the jungle.
“Water and food, yes,” Catheryn said, following him. “But we only need shelter if we plan to stay here.”
“Are you planning on going somewhere?” he asked.
“We are surrounded by trees,” she said. “We can just make another boat.”
Rainier laughed. “What? You think trees just turn into boats? Unless you have some magical woodworking skills, I don’t see that happening. I don’t have any tools. I don’t have any way to saw planks or sew a sail.”
Catheryn wrinkled her nose, realizing he was right.
“What do you want to go back for anyway?” he asked. “The Hoodoo Queen just wants to make you her slave again.”
“What’s the alternative?” she asked.
Rainier shrugged as he started shimmying up a crooked palm tree. The tree was full of plantains. When he got to the top, he pulled out his sword and cut a bunch of the fruit free, which fell at Catheryn’s feet. Rainier slid down the tree and joined her in digging into the delicious fruit.
“We could stay here,” he said.
A bit of plantain caught in her throat, and she coughed. She looked at Rainier and saw sincerity in his eyes.
“You’re serious,” she said.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Catheryn wasn’t sure what to think about this. She stood and headed back to the beach. Stay on an island in the middle of the ocean with a vampire? It was crazy. She had to get back to civilization.
Didn’t she?
“Catheryn,” Rainier called after her. He followed her back to the beach, carrying a bunch of plantains. “Catheryn, what are you doing?”
“I…I don’t know,” she said. “I just can’t imagine staying here…with you…”
“Why not?” he asked. “I’m not so awful, am I?”
“I never imagined a future with you in it before,” she said. “You captured me. You fed from me. You’re a vampire, a pirate. The idea that I would do anything but escape from you at some point never crossed my mind.”
“Really?” Rainier asked, incredulously. He reached over and gently touched her face. “You never even fantasized about it?”
She felt a quivering in her belly as she recalled the night in his chambers when she almost gave herself to him. “Just because I wanted to sleep with you doesn’t mean I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you.”
Rainier smirked. “So you did want to sleep with me,” he said. “And now? Do you still want to?”
She opened her mouth to say yes, but stopped herself. “We…we can’t,” she said. “I’m a witch. You’re a vampire. And we sort of have bigger problems to worry about, being stranded on an island, in case you forgot!”
Rainier opened his arms. “Who is there here to judge us? Here, we are free to do as we please.”
“And then what?” she asked. “After we give in, then what?”
“Then we…live happily ever after all alone on our secret island,” he said.
“You need blood to live,” she said. “You’ll have to eat me eventually.”
He nodded. “I have been feeling cravings,” he said. “But I can control myself. I told you that as long as I don’t kill you, you can build your blood back up. You can both live a long and healthy life and give me the sustenance I need.”
“But what abo
ut…” Catheryn took a dep breath and shook her head.
“What about what?” he asked.
“Love,” Catheryn said. “We don’t love each other. Can we really live here, just the two of us for the rest of our lives? Wouldn’t it be best if we get off this island and find our places in the world?”
Rainier walked up to Catheryn and took her face in his hands. He kissed her, more deeply and softly than she could have imagined. She leaned in and kissed him back.
“If you don’t love me already,” he whispered, “I’ll make sure that one day you do.”
Catheryn melted into him. She felt her knees go weak. Although she hadn’t imagined a future with him in it, when she thought about it, she also couldn’t imagine a future without him in it.
She pulled him down onto the sand, and he undid his sword belt, tossing it aside. When water from the rising tide tickled her toes, she realized for the first time that she wasn’t wearing shoes. She must have lost them in the sea. But she didn’t care. She was going to make love to her vampire and then stay with him here, forever.
Perhaps they’d both lost their minds at sea, but in this moment, she didn’t care.
“Don’t bite me,” she said. “Every time you bite me, you pass out. I want you to take me.”
He kissed her cheek, her throat. Then he licked her neck. “Every part of you tastes so good,” he said, but he didn’t bite her. He kissed down her chest and pulled open her shirt.
She gasped as the air ran across her breasts, followed by Rainier’s mouth and tongue. The seawater splashed over them, but they didn’t move from their spot.
Catheryn hiked up her skirt and removed her underwear. Rainier undid the buttons to his pants. Catheryn leaned back, ready for him.
Rainier paused. “You are sure?” he asked. “There’s no going back after this.”
Catheryn wasn’t sure exactly what he meant—go back to NOLA? Go back to the way things were?—but she didn’t care. She knew that this moment would change her for the rest of her life, but she just didn’t care anymore. She wanted to have one good thing in her life—one pleasure.
“Yes,” Catheryn said. “Please.”
Rainier gripped her thigh and pulled her toward him. He kissed her as he slid inside, and she moaned, wet with anticipation. As he thrust into her, he hooked his arm under one of her legs and lifted it, allowing him to enter her more deeply than any man before.
She arched her back as the waves of pleasure and of the sea washed over her and moaned her satisfaction as she held him tightly, her fingernails digging into his back. It was as if she couldn’t hold him close enough as she reached the peak of delight.
His knees dug into the sand as he drove into her over and over again. “Catheryn!” he gasped as his climax came.
“Yes…yes…” she whispered as he pulsed within her.
When they were done, they both laid together in the sand, side by side, as waves rolling in from the sea washed them clean.
They finally managed to untangle themselves from each other, rinse the sand off themselves in the sea, and then continue exploring the island. Catheryn couldn’t help but laugh to herself as Rainier went into provider and protector mode. They hadn’t yet found fresh water, but he did find some coconuts and hacked one open for her so she could drink the fresh coconut milk.
“I’ve never been a fan of coconut,” Catheryn said after her first swig, “but this is the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted.”
As they walked through the jungle, Rainier searched for a good place to build a shelter. With his sword, he hacked some large palm fronds free so they could use them as cover from the elements, but he was having issues finding anything to build a skeletal structure from.
“Is it part of being a pirate to have these sorts of survival skills?” Catheryn asked as she picked some berries.
“Certainly,” Rainier said. “It’s usually only a matter of time before you get marooned on an island. Either because of a storm or a mutiny or a sea battle. It’s not usually a permanent situation, so you just have to make sure you survive long enough to get back to your ship or get picked up by another one.”
Catheryn thought about this as they made their way to another section of beach. If was only a matter of time before another ship came by, what would they do? Would they hide? Would they go back? Would one of them stay and one of them go? What was there really waiting for them back in NOLA?
We will see each other again, sister…
Catheryn paused as the words of her dream came back to her. Surely it had just been a dream, right? She wouldn’t really ever see Eva again, would she? It must have just been the desperate thoughts of a brain on the verge of death. If she was going to die, she would want to know that Eva was safe. That she had lived a long and healthy life. It was just her mind trying to comfort her as she nearly drowned.
Right?
She thought about the possibility of staying on the island forever with Rainier. After all, they had made love and the world hadn’t ended. She wondered about the Rift that had shattered the world and created the Divisions. Most people said that it had been caused when a vampire and a witch had formed a forbidden pact. Many people assumed that part of the pact included the two making love. But now she wasn’t so sure. Maybe her book…
Her book! It had been on the ship, and now it was probably lost forever. Damn. There was so much information in it. So much it could have still taught her.
Catheryn…
Catheryn thought she heard her name on the wind, but when she turned, she saw nothing.
“A boat!” Rainier called out, breaking Catheryn from her thoughts.
She looked up and saw Rainier running from down the beach. Sure enough, there was a small boat floating near a rocky outcropping. Catheryn walked down after him.
“It must have gotten caught in the rocks at low tide,” Rainier said. He grabbed a rope and pulled the boat farther up into the sand. “Look at this,” he said, reaching inside. “There are some tools here. The sail is a bit ratty, but that can probably be repaired. The oars look to be in surprisingly good condition…”
“So that’s it then?” Catheryn asked, crossing her arms. “We were going to stay here forever but the first sign of a lifeboat and you’re ready to go?”
Rainier walked over to her and put his arms around her. “I guess I just got excited,” he said. “It’s my natural inclination, to get back out on the sea. I’m a pirate, remember?”
“I remember,” she said glumly.
“What do you want to do?” he asked. “I thought you didn’t want to stay?”
Her gut was telling her they needed to leave the island, but she wasn’t sure why. Was it just because people are taught to believe that they need to be around others? That they have to live in cities, or villages at least? Or was it because something was drawing her back? Eva? The Hoodoo Queen? Did she really want to go back? Or was she being manipulated somehow?
“I want to stay here with you,” she said.
“But…?” Rainier asked, as though knowing there was more.
Catheryn…
Catheryn closed her eyes and tried to shake the voice of her sister away, but she couldn’t. You still have much work to do…
“But I feel like we need to go back. I don’t know what it is. Should I ignore it? Should I answer it? You are right, we don’t have anything to go back to. And I think we could be happy here, at least for a while. I don’t know what to do.”
Rainier frowned. “That’s not a very clear response. But, if nothing else, we could use to boat for fishing, until you do decide what you want to do. We can get better fish if we get away from the coast.”
“I wish we’d never found this boat,” Catheryn mumbled.
Rainier folded his arms across his chest. “Why?”
“I was just imagining that we would stay here, happy together alone. But now that we have a means to leave, I feel like I need to return to NOLA.”
“Return to NO
LA?” he asked. “Just because you want to leave the island doesn’t mean you have to return to NOLA. The Hoodoo Queen will find you right away. We can go anywhere. Why do you want to go back to NOLA?”
“I don’t know,” Catheryn said. She didn’t want to tell him about her vision of Eva. He would tell her she was crazy to be putting so much stock into the images of a delirious brain on the brink of death. And he would be right. “But something—someone—is calling me, telling me I need to go back.”
Chapter 20
Rainier slaved away in the hot sun as he worked on the boat. He couldn’t believe that Catheryn was even considering going back to NOLA. For the first time since he met Catheryn, he felt a sense of freedom. He didn’t have to worry about his vampire powers fading, his growing unrest with the crew, the rising tides sending the humans inland, their seemingly foolish quest to find a way to access another Division…
He sighed. He loved being a pirate, sailing the seas. Feeling the gentle rock of the ship beneath his feet. Watching the stars at night. But lately, the stress of it all had been wearing him down, even before he met Catheryn. Catheryn…well, she just complicated matters further.
He didn’t want to give her up. He had chosen her over his crew. Could he ever hope to build up another crew after he had betrayed his previous one and killed his first mate? If any of his mates survived, they would tell everyone what happened. His reputation would be ruined. No one would sail with him again. If the crew all drowned, that would be even worse. The lone survivor of the shipwreck was the captain? He’d never live down the shame of it.
No, he had to stay here. There was nothing for him any longer out there in the wide world. This island was the only future he had. At least here, he could live in peace.
He could live with Catheryn. If she’d stay. He would have to convince her.
He watched as Catheryn sat on the beach, staring out at the sea. She was so beautiful. Surely she didn’t really want to go back. She felt obligated to help others; it was just her nature because she was a good person. But he had to help her see that she didn’t owe those people anything. She could stay here, too. She had a right to peace and happiness as well. She could find it here, with him.
Pirate's Curse: Division 1: The Berkano Vampire Collection Page 13