Nothing. No land, no earth. The strong, steady pulse that was as familiar to her as her own heartbeat was gone. Panic sent her power shooting down like a comet, desperate to reach soil only to be teased by the tiniest of echoes. Something that wasn’t truly earth, but rather the remnants of hard-shelled creatures.
Sand.
Every nerve tensed into sharp pinpricks of pain and Ingrid’s eyes flew open as she sat up. The headache that had seemed so consuming moments ago was a mere annoyance now—nothing compared to her sudden, acute disorientation.
Where am I?
An ornate mahogany dresser with a towering gilded mirror mocked her with its unfamiliarity from across the room. A wrought iron chandelier hung from the ceiling, glinting dully in the sunlight that poured through the slanted windows surrounding the bed she lay on. A blue expanse greeted her as she peered out the windows, and suddenly the silks and furs tangled around her body may as well have been iron shackles.
I’m on a ship. Her eyes widened and her lips parted in shock. I’m. On. A. Ship.
Before her brain could move past that one mind-numbing realization, the door to her room swung open. A man swept inside and kicked it closed behind him. Grey eyes sparkled at her, paired with a charming set of dimples, his face framed by a wild mane of pale golden hair. Streaks of silver marked his age nearly as well as the laugh lines around his eyes, but age had done nothing to detract from the rugged handsomeness the gods had blessed him with.
Battered ice-grey trousers were visible under the long linen shirt hanging to mid-thigh and belted at the waist with a section of rough leather. Despite the fear and disorientation pulling her skin taut, Ingrid couldn’t help but appreciate the fit male form. A pulse of energy inside him throbbed with steady intensity—a signal to her magical senses that he was a virile, unmated male.
She ground out the answering spark of interest that flicked to life inside her. This was no time for such nonsense. Not when the virile man had a sword strapped to his hip and was striding toward her with a familiarity that sharply contradicted her disorientation with her surroundings. Ingrid shrank back, suddenly painfully aware of her magic’s absence, the utter helplessness that claimed her whenever she was this far from land.
“I have a proposition for you,” the man announced.
He said it for all the world as though he were going to try and sell her a pretty bauble. As if he were a trader who’d just happened upon her while she was standing in her yard, perfectly natural. Not like a man addressing a captive. A woman who’d been in her home moments ago only to wake up in a strange room. On a boat. There was no threat in his voice, nothing sinister on his face.
“I’m on a ship,” she said carefully.
The man jabbed a finger at her as if she’d said something important. “That’s part of my proposition.”
“I can’t be on a ship.” She frowned, her fear dissipating as it seemed clear the man had no intention of using the weapon at his side. She scooted to the edge of the bed and kicked off the furs. Her skirt twisted at the tops of her thighs and the stranger’s gaze lingered on the bare skin of her legs before returning to her face. Answering warmth blossomed in her body, and she lifted her chin, determined to ignore it. What a hideous time to be without magic enough for her suitor-discouraging glamour.
“Did you hear me? I can’t be on a ship.”
“Rest assured that you will have full—and exclusive—access to my cabin for the duration of your journey,” the man rushed to add.
Like a bolt of lightning, recognition finally dawned. Ingrid surged to her feet. “You’re the man who came to see me—the one who wanted me to go on a sea voyage. Tyr… Tyr Singlehand!”
The man’s ragged blond eyebrows rose. “Oh, I…” He frowned. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were so far behind. Yes, I’m Captain Tyr Singlehand. We met earlier today in your home.”
“You kidnapped me.”
The pirate winced, holding up his hand in a placating gesture. “I don’t like to start off my relationships on such an ugly note. Let’s not say kidnapped, let’s say ‘spirited away.’ It has a much more dashing, romantic feel to it, don’t you think?”
“Dashing…” Ingrid stomped her bare foot in exasperation and pain lanced through her leg. She cried out, not so much at the physical pain, but at the agony of being so far above the earth. The power that should have risen up to meet her was silent, blocked from her senses by the rolling tides swelling up and down beneath the cursed ship.
“Now, now, min skatt, don’t hurt yourself.”
His bold use of the term of endearment grated on her last nerve. A hiss of rage escaped Ingrid’s throat as the condescending wretch put his hand on her shoulder in a mockery of comfort. She dug her nails into his arm, wishing she had talons so she could cause him the agony he so desperately deserved. Her chest rose and fell with labored breaths. She would see him bleed for this. For taking her from her land.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” she snarled. “Any idea who I am? I will end you, pirate.”
“You will do nothing while there is no land beneath you to feed your strength.” Tyr’s face remained smooth, his voice calm. “And there will be no such land to speak of until we reach an accord.”
If her nails burrowing into his skin caused him any pain, his face betrayed no sign of it. He met her eyes with a steady gaze, soft with compassion but not a trace of regret. Ingrid clenched her teeth and gathered what little magic she could feel lingering at her core. The feeble throb of energy had tears burning behind her eyes, the shimmer of magic more a reminder of how weak she was than any real defense. Despite her rage, she couldn’t quite bring herself to use it against her pirate captor. She couldn’t make herself let go of what little power she had left.
“You want to strike out at me, and I don’t blame you.” His grey gaze bored into hers, his hand a heavy weight on her shoulder. “But perhaps you should hear me out first instead of wasting your precious energy on the only man in a position to return you home in one piece?”
I could stone him to death. Or bury him alive. Ingrid took a deep breath and released his arm, calming herself with graphic images portraying all the ways she could make the pirate pay once they got back to land. Even a pirate had to land eventually, surely? He couldn’t float about on this death trap indefinitely.
“Speak quickly,” she forced out through clenched teeth.
“Always,” Tyr assured her, dropping his hand from her arm. “Now then, a little backstory to set the scene.” He swept across the room, holding out his hand as if plucking something from the air. “The other day I had the fortune to come across a lovely golden feather. It winked at me from a clump of sea foam, a plume that shone as though a piece of the blazing sun itself had peeled off and drifted to earth.”
Ingrid stared at him as he strutted about like a performer on stage, every movement and gesture exaggerated. Her lips tingled with the urge to insult him, to tell him how infuriatingly inappropriate his demeanor was, but her brain couldn’t settle on a single scathing comment. So she stumbled back until she sat on the bed, and just stared.
Oblivious to her mute outrage, Tyr dropped his hand, spun and used the same hand to gesture at himself with a slight bow. “Being an enterprising man, I realized that though there was very little use I could get out of such a prize, there was a great deal of use I could get out of the money that someone would likely pay for it.” He nodded and turned again, throwing himself into a long-strided pace. “I sold said feather to a rather testy, but very rich, ogre king. Unfortunately—”
“Now he wants you to bring him the entire bird.” Evil satisfaction warmed Ingrid’s heart, an easy smile spreading across her lips. She crossed her arms over her chest in smug satisfaction and eyed the soon to be dead pirate. “You’ll never catch a firebird. Those golden feathers are there to tempt the weak-minded. No one who’s ever found a feather has successfully located the bird that shed it without otherworldly help. I trust
the ogre has threatened to kill you if you don’t bring him the creature?”
“He has.” Tyr drummed his fingers against the hilt of his sword. “And I’m sorry to say, this is not an ogre who makes idle threats.” He sighed. “Make no mistake, this is a fast ship, and I’m not short of wits, but I don’t plan to spend the rest of my life watching for an ogre at my back. Memories like elephants they’ve got.”
“Then die,” Ingrid spat viciously. She stood from the bed, jutting her chin out so she could look down her nose at him. “I’m not going to help you.”
The stillness that fell over the pirate wouldn’t have been quite as jarring if he hadn’t been so gesticulative a moment before. It was unsettling, that stillness, even more so than the sudden deepening of his eyes from silver to slate grey.
He tilted his head, the hair that had escaped the strap of leather at his neck threatening to block his sight in one eye. “You know, you were much nicer before.”
She closed her fingers into fists, irritated at the slight tremble. “Yes, when I was on land. You’ve dragged me out to the middle of the sea! And you did it knowing what that would mean for me.” The pain of the separation from her land washed over her again, and she clung to it, used it to turn her unease into righteous anger. “I will not help you.”
The infuriating man didn’t even blink. “Baba Yaga says you will. She is the Great Earth Mother, is she not?”
Ingrid clenched her teeth. “That is one of her names. However, she has misled you if she gave you reason to believe that she has any authority over me. If she wants to spend her days helping fools too stupid to avoid getting themselves into trouble, then that is her business. It is not mine. So you can go back and tell Baba Yaga that I have no intention of going bird hunting, and she’ll just have to send you to someone else.”
A spark of something dangerous lit the depths of Tyr’s grey eyes. Slowly he straightened his spine, drawing himself up to his full height. “You will give me your word that you will help me capture the firebird. When the creature has been safely delivered to the ogre, I will return you to your land—far richer than you were when I took you. Refuse, and I will drop you in a dingy anchored to a slab of raw meat and leave you alone in the middle of the sea. You can take your argument up with the sharks when they come to visit you.”
An image erupted in her mind on the tail of Tyr’s cold promise, an image of being alone in a tiny craft, hopelessly scanning the horizon for a glimpse of a boat not manned by morally-flexible pirates. She stared at Tyr, wishing with every fiber of her being that she had enough magic to make taking over the ship feasible. If only she had her magic, she would teach him a lesson he would never forget. She’d see who left whom abandoned in the middle of this foul ocean.
Unfortunately, without the warm weight of land under her feet, she was limited to only the faintest magic. She didn’t have nearly the amount of power she would need for a one-woman mutiny, nor did she have the power to escape the rest of the crew if she used what little energy she possessed to kill their arrogant captain. Tempting, but ill-advised.
Her shoulders slumped in defeat even as her temper flared white-hot. “I will help you capture the bird.”
The pirate took a step closer, his booted foot landing on the wooden floorboard with an ominous thud. “And swear that you will not try to escape before the bird has been delivered to the ogre.”
She bit her tongue to hold back a venomous response. “I swear.”
In the next breath, the tension in the air dissipated and once again she was looking at the mischievous captain she’d first been introduced to.
“I’m pleased we could come to an understanding.” He paused, surveying her for a moment as if turning something over. “There is one more thing I feel I should mention. Although I will strive in every way to be a gentleman in your presence, you must understand that in front of my men, I am the captain of this ship.”
He took a sudden step toward her, making her start slightly. His superior height forced her to tilt her head back to keep looking at his face. There was no threat in his eyes, but there was also no mistaking that he was deadly serious.
“I will not tolerate disobedience. Not from my men and not from you. If you do anything to undermine my authority in the eyes of my crew, I will punish you just as surely as I would punish any of them.”
Fear chilled her skin, but she pushed it away, jutted her chin out. “Well then, I’d best get it out of my system.”
Putting all her strength into a sudden swing, Ingrid sent her right fist sailing toward the pirate’s arrogant face. He snatched her wrist in a bruising grip, wrenching it down a fraction of a second before impact. She sucked in a surprised breath as he jerked, pulling her forward and off balance. As she fell toward him, he raised his left arm, slamming it into her chest just below her neck. The thud knocked the wind from her lungs and she couldn’t even manage a gasp as he shoved, forcing her backward with her right hand still held in an unforgiving vice and the solid weight of his left arm against her chest guiding her. She grunted as her thighs hit the padded edge of the bed and they toppled over to land in a heap.
Tyr didn’t give her time to gather her wits. He settled his muscled form firmly between her splayed thighs, the rough material of his pants scratchy against her bare skin where her dress had been hiked up in the struggle. Their bodies flared with combined heat where they touched, and her nerves buzzed with intense awareness of that still-thrumming sense of virility that pressed against her magical senses. The flare of unwanted attraction was quickly snuffed out as he used his elbow to pin her left arm and kept her right firmly ensnared in his unrelenting grasp.
Dull pain shot through her arms as he held her, helpless as a pinned butterfly. The desire to kick him was as maddening as it was futile. She could do little more than visualize his bloody death as he put his mouth next to her ear. The motion squeezed what little air she’d had left from her lungs and sent a cold shiver of panic down her spine, a sharp contradiction to the heat engulfing the front of her body.
“I do what I do to save my life. I’ve no wish to hurt you. I’ve taken you from your home against your will, and I regret that that was necessary. But what’s done is done, and you do neither of us any favors by being contrary. I’ll make your journey as pleasant as I can. Do not push me to make it otherwise.”
His soft lips tickled the shell of her ear as he spoke, but of more immediate concern was the sword pressed against her thigh. For a wild moment she wondered if that was some sort of silent promise meant to underline his threat. He looked down on her, and the sudden shift of his body against hers created a friction that rolled through her body like a shiver. Tyr inhaled deeply, his hips jerking against her in response to her unintentional squirming, but he froze as soon as he realized he’d done it. Indignation flared hot in Ingrid’s cheeks, fed as much by her reaction to his body as the spark of desire in his eyes. His left arm moved just enough for her to draw the breath she needed to speak.
“Rape is hardly befitting of the gentlemanly behavior you’ve promised me.” She fought to keep her voice calm and even despite the pounding of her heart. “I warn you, try to take advantage of me, and I will renege on our deal, consequences be damned. I may not be on land, but I am not helpless.” She held his gaze as best she could, despite the uncomfortable angle. “I will make you suffer for any transgressions.”
“A night with you in my bed would be a glimpse of Valhalla, to be sure.” He dragged his gaze down her body then up again to meet her eyes. “However, I have no intention of taking by force that which should only ever be freely given.” He inhaled again, more deeply this time.
“Quit sniffing me,” she ground out. “Why do you keep sniffing me?”
“Why do you smell like an orchard?” He buried his nose in her neck, ignoring her growl of warning. “Even here on my ship, far from the fruits of your labor, being in your presence is like pressing my face into a barrel of freshly picked apples.”
; His chin bumped the ticklish spot where her neck met her shoulder and gooseflesh flowed down her arms. It was getting harder to think with him pressed against her like that, especially with the intimate feel of his warm breath on the delicate skin of her throat.
She gritted her teeth. “I am a distant descendant of the goddess Idun. Get off of me.”
He leaned back and sighed, looking down at her with something akin to reproach in his eyes. “I’m telling you that you smell good. Most women would take that as a compliment.”
Righteous fury exploded inside her, giving her a burst of renewed strength. She jerked her left arm free, ready to claw his twinkling eyes out of their sockets, if only so she didn’t have to see them anymore. Tyr growled and the left arm that had been digging into her chest slid up to press against her throat, viciously cutting off her air supply. She choked, heat infusing her cheeks as the pressure built inside her, and scrabbled at his arm.
He was an immovable force, unless she wanted to expend the last of her magic to move him—which might be precisely what he was counting on. The thought pushed her beyond fury, and Ingrid opened her mouth, ready to use the last breath before darkness took her to tell him exactly what she thought of him.
Something caught the corner of her eye, and the words died on her tongue.
His hand was missing. The gnarled nub of his left wrist was pockmarked and white with scar tissue, glossy skin stretched tight over bone. Close to her face as it was, she couldn’t look away, mesmerized by the sight.
He followed her gaze. “I hope I don’t offend those lovely eyes of yours.”
He eased his arm back just enough to allow her a breath.
The Pirate's Witch (Blood Prince) Page 2