The Wildest Woods

by S. K Munt

  I hugged myself, not exactly thrilled to learn that he’d been drawn to me because of the colour of my eyes, for that was surface appeal that spoke less about his feelings for me, and more about the fact that he hadn’t gotten over her. Besides, my eyes still changed colour all the time, and I could count on one hand the amount of times that I’d seen them look truly ‘violet’.

  On top of that, I was more than a little bit jealous. His description of Iana’s nature had called to mind memories of Ora Camden, who I dearly missed but had always envied. I’d have given anything to be thought of as a fun and mischievous free spirit, but I was the exact opposite of those kinds of girls, which made me wonder if Cairo really did love me, or if he’d just talked himself into believing that he did. But: ‘Go on,’ was all I said, scratching at my jaw again, wondering if it was the beard that had irritated me, or the fact that he’d handled the gold before handling me.

  ‘Anyway…’ Cairo sighed heavily, and most of that light that had been radiating from inside him became muted. ‘Time passed and my life changed. I was taken onto my father’s ship, told the complete truth, and then orphaned before I’d had the chance to come to terms with any of it. I was already acting as the captain but only his crew knew it, and when I was sixteen, I returned to Janiel again. Everything was the same at first, but Iana saw that something inside me had changed and asked me to bear my soul to her- so I confessed it all.’

  I cringed. ‘And she told her family?’

  But Cairo shook his head, and his sentimental smile returned along with the faraway look in his eyes. ‘She was excited, Larkin. She’d always dreamed of travelling the world, and couldn’t imagine a more thrilling existence then as a pirate’s wife.’ He reddened then. ‘Her passionate response- her complete acceptance of me- knocked me off my feet, and as though I hadn’t already been feeling seven feet tall-’

  ‘Aren’t you seven feet tall?’ I interrupted, and he snorted gently.

  ‘Six-seven, actually… but I was only five-nine then, and her devotion robbed me of my senses. Evidently she felt the same because we, well…that night...’ he looked uncomfortable, and I held up my hand.

  ‘It’s fine, Cairo, I understand what happened next.’

  ‘Um, okay…’ he shot me an embarrassed look, and I knew that he was now feeling as uncomfortable with the subject matter as I was. ‘We thought we were careful, but we weren’t careful enough. I had to leave the next day and all was well, but when I returned three months later…well, she’d gotten plumper, mostly around the waist.’

  ‘Oh.’ I pressed my hands to my face and squinted at him through my fingers. ‘Oh no…’

  He nodded, and shadows had come to his eyes now. ‘I was panicked, but thrilled. I took it as a sign that we were to commence our new lives together that night, and made plans to take her along with me so that we could be married by a Shep in Asiana at once.’

  ‘If she wanted to be married by a Shep, then she worshipped God, yes?’ I asked, confused.

  Cairo nodded. ‘As did I. Our thoughts about him differed a little, but both of us were certain that being married and raising children together was exactly what God wanted from us, so we were determined to do it right. We behaved normally that first day, and her family treated me as they always had… but when I went off to make her travel arrangements, her older brother followed me without my knowing it.’ Cairo’s eyes narrowed. ‘He was always the funny one, and I don’t mean to say that he had a good sense of humour- he was two years older than me, and the bigger and stronger and more educated I became, the more resentful he got. His parents had always doted on me like I was one of their own and he was jealous of that too, and I don’t suppose he looked forward to the idea of always living his life under the shadow of mine. Or his sister’s actually- because she was such a lovely singer that King Bronx had already had her perform for the court three times in an official capacity.

  Benjamin was quite handsome, but all he could do was wrestle and he didn’t excel at it. He desperately wanted to qualify for the Athletic caste, but he only just made it into an apprenticeship when he was seventeen, and the harder he trained, the more apparent it became that he was never going to do better than fourth place… so as his hopes began to decay, so did his character.’

  My gut flipped again. So Iana had been as beautiful and as talented as Kelia, but with Ora’s carefree nature? Jesus Christ, I hadn’t even locked in one major talent yet, unless you included knife throwing… what the hell did he see in me? I definitely felt like a ‘Benjamin’ in comparison to Iana!

  ‘Anyway, I went down to the dock to organise passage for Iana on one of the finer ships, and Benjamin overheard me referred to as ‘Captain Kingslater’, which he went back and reported to his family at once. As soon as I’d finished making the arrangements, I returned to Iana’s family’s home and prepared myself to wow them with a lie to say that I’d gotten her a singing apprenticeship in Queen Selafiel’s court… but I was only a few words into it when Iana’s father Lauren told me to stop lying because they knew everything,’ he paused to wet his lips. ‘I knew that we were in deep trouble, but I didn’t realise how bad it was until Benjamin got up and started screaming at me- saying that as soon as people found out that she was carrying a Kingslater bastard, she’d been tried and branded for promiscuity, and the entire family would be ruined by association anyway. He said that he wasn’t going to lose his only chance at attaining an athletic scholarship because his sister was about to be regarded as a pirate’s whore, and threatened to slit both of our throats on the spot if their father didn’t immediately make arrangements to have the pregnancy aborted. I saw red and stepped forward to knock his lights out, but Iana being Iana… she raced forward to wallop him first.’ Cairo’s voice broke. ‘He grabbed her and threw her Larkin- clear across the room.’

  ‘Oh my god!’ I wanted to rush forward to comfort Cairo, but I stopped immediately when I saw him throw up his hands in a defensive gesture, and that was when I saw that they were trembling with rage. ‘Cairo-’

  ‘That would have hurt her enough as it was, and possibly would have killed our child because of the force that he hurtled her at the wall with...’ he went on quietly, ‘but she missed the wall and went right into the fireplace, which was both sizeable and alight.’

  A moan escaped me and I clutched my stomach, feeling every drop of my own fiery power freeze into ice in my veins. ‘No.’

  ‘She was wearing a beautiful gown,’ Cairo whispered, ‘one that she’d put on to look her prettiest for me, and it and her hair went up in an instant, making her scream and…’ he dropped his face into his hands. ‘I ran towards her to help, but Benjamin yelled out to everyone to grab me, and I guess they were too panicked and at a loss for anything else to do, because they decided to go along with his plan. Her uncle and her two male cousins, Arlo and Jacque, ran at me, along with Iana’s father, and Benjamin…’ his fingers curled into claws around his kneecaps. ‘He went over and hit Iana across the back of her head with the fire poker- knocking her out just to silence her screams. Then, he came after me with it.’

  Tears were pooling in my eyes- I’d never heard such a dreadful story, not in my whole life! ‘So you’re telling me that four male relatives of hers opted to wrestle you into submission instead of helping their own kin?’

  Cairo traced the pad of his thumb along the edge of his lower lashes, flicking away a tear. ‘Exactly. Her mother and aunt could have come to her assistance while I was fighting off the men, but her mother fainted from fright, and her aunt ran after her youngest son, Teddy, chasing him from the room to spare him the sight of his beautiful cousin being burned alive, and to safeguard him from me, which was laughable because I’d yet to cause anyone any harm.’ His voice was low and raspy now: ‘I tried to get to her Larkin, I swear it- but there were too many of them, and I was only sixteen years old!’ he shuddered. ‘I won’t go into detail about what happened next, but the men holding me were too soft and disorganised to hold
me for long, as most nobles are, and as soon as I got my hand on the handle of my sword, every one of them was done for. I was lost to myself, and I behaved rather brutally, but my true love had just died a ghastly death because of them and my unborn child had perished with her- a child that would have been loved unlike any other.’ He shielded his eyes with his hand, like he didn’t want to feel my gaze on him as he concluded his tale: ‘When the women worked out that I’d overpowered the others, they tried to run for it, screaming for help and threatening to tell the world who I was, and I couldn’t allow them to expose my father’s death like that, so I ended them too. I didn’t hit them very hard though, and later on I found out that they’d died from smoke inhalation rather than blunt force trauma.’

  I winced. ‘Teddy too?’

  But Cairo looked up at me then, his eyes clear and earnest as he shook his head, and I loosed the breath I’d been holding. ‘No. No, he was only a child of ten, and the teeniest little wisp of a boy you’d ever see! I heard him crying in the pantry, and I told him that I was going through the open kitchen window and that if he wanted to live, he better follow me through it.’ He rubbed his hands down his face, looking chagrined. ‘I also might have mentioned that if he ever told anybody ANYTHING that he’d heard that night, I’d send every ship in my fleet back to hunt him down and kill him- even if it was twenty years from then. It was a horrible thing to do, I know, because he was so young and soft in nature… but I didn’t want the world to find out that there was a new Captain Kingslater or that Iana had been pregnant, so I scared the life out of him and from what I can tell, it paid off. Iana has been remembered as a sweet, pure virgin that was kidnapped from her family home, and no one knows why the Selimpor’s were massacred after- only that Cairo Fischer must have done it because he and his family vanished without a trace that night and haven’t been seen since.’

  ‘You took them all with you?’

  He nodded. ‘I wrapped Iana in a blanket to smother the last of the flames, and then carried her out into the night. Our street was very close to the harbour, and my fake parents had been prepared to make an emergency exit with Iana and I that night anyway, so by the time the fire was out and the bodies were found, we were on my ship and headed into open waters.’ He sat up and punched one fist into the palm of his other hands. ‘And we haven’t been back since. I buried Iana at sea that first night, and I was a shell of a man for the next two years- until I tried to take my life, and Satan intervened, promising me that I would know true happiness and a love that would eclipse what I’d had with Iana, if only I would find a way to forge an expedition north.’ His face twitched in a sad smile. ‘The next day I turned eighteen, was gifted The Iana, and declared to be the true Pirate Captain of my father’s entire Armada. I remained miserable, but I clung to Satan’s promise like a light at the end of the tunnel, and just when I thought that I’d been well and truly exploited…’ his grey eyes lifted to mine, softer now- dreamily framed by his beautiful, gold-tipped lashes, ‘there you were… my true love, burning with life as brightly as my Iana had burned in death. How could I have seen anything but a new beginning?’

  My brows drew together. ‘Cairo…’ I couldn’t think of the right thing to say, so I tried again. ‘You-’

  ‘Oh God…’ Cairo rested his elbows on his knees and tented his finger over his mouth and knows, staring up at me with fear. ‘I’ve repulsed you, haven’t I?’

  I shook my head hard enough to snap it off my neck. ‘N-no!’ I curled my fingers into the wall behind me, feeling heavy and disjointed. ‘I care for you, very deeply, and that story… it has not changed how I feel for you, not even a little.’

  He cringed. ‘Yes well, I left out the parts about how I killed them, and of what I did in the next two years with a heart of steel that convinced three hundred men that they were safer under my flag then on the other side of it… but I can swear to you that I haven’t taken another life since, except in self defence.’

  ‘I don’t care about that stuff, I swear it,’ I insisted, before biting my lip. ‘But the depth of your devotion to your Iana troubles me, and I cannot deny that.’ I let go of the wall and took a step towards him as he rose, looking bewildered. ‘How can I believe that anything that you claim to feel for me is real, or that you’re not just transferring what you felt for her to me… when it’s clear that you are still in love with her?’

  Cairo frowned, and it made him look even handsomer because his eyebrows and cheeks slanted at the same sharp angle, displaying the perfect symmetry of his facial features. He caught my chin with his fist and lifted my eyes to his.

  ‘This isn’t about how much I love you, Larkin… this is about how undeserving you feel of love, and how little faith you have in it now. If you knew yourself- if you saw yourself the way the rest of us do- you would see that it is impossible not to adore you.’ He brought me closer and gently kissed the tip of my nose. ‘You have not replaced her in my heart and I would not expect you to believe me if I claimed otherwise. My heart has simply grown bigger since we met, so there’s room inside it for the way I feel for you and the cherished memories that I have of her. She will always be with me here-’ he gently placed his other hand against his heart. ‘But it is you that I know that I want at my side now. I was turned to ashes when she caught on fire, but when I saw you blazing with those violet eyes, I was cleansed by it.’

  I dropped my eyes again. ‘I know that you believe that and I’m sorry for letting us down by being so pessimistic about it all... but it was hard enough for me to think of myself as a person deserving of such a man’s love before I heard you explain what Iana was like- and how different she was from me.’ I sniffled, lifting my eyes to his again. ‘I want to see where this goes between us, I do! But I’m terrified because every man I’ve ever heard declare his love for me has turned against me, eventually! And the sweetest ones turned the sharpest. I can’t get hurt like that again, Cairo. I just…’ I sobbed and leaned against him, shaking. ‘I fear that once you work out that I can’t replace her, you’ll turn on me too. So I’m hesitant to begin a romance with you, because so long as it has not started, it cannot end. Does that make sense?’

  Cairo pulled me into him, clasping my hands in one of his as he cupped the back of my head with the other. ‘I do, Larkin, and if that’s what you need to feel secure until you have dealt with your own past, then this is how we shall stay: as two friends that are falling towards one another, instead of as two lovers that might soon be ripped apart.’

  I felt my being flood with relief. ‘Really? But we just… that kiss was-’

  ‘That kiss is going to happen a lot, you’re right about that. You’re going to get kissed so often and so passionately that your lips are going to be bruised. However,’ he held up a finger, eyes sparkling. ‘I won’t expect anything from you beyond that, Lark. I said I was willing to wait for years if that was what it took for you to heal, and that will not change. It’s going to be harder for me though, so because I am willing to grant you a stay of execution from matters of the heart… I hope that there is something you are willing to do for me, in order to keep my own insecurities at bay?’

  ‘Anything,’ I assured him, and he smiled.

  ‘Anything including letting me build a harbour here for my entire fleet, now that I can apparently afford it?’

  I sucked in a breath. ‘You’d all move here… permanently?’

  ‘The ocean will still call to me, but after I answer it, this will be the home I return to, yes. Not just for me, but for all of my men and their families.’ He traced the rash on my face with his fingertips, and I shivered. ‘It’s something I’ve thought about every day since we sailed away the first time, because your harbour is not only massive, but it is even better concealed than my current one is. I thought it would take me a decade to save up the money it would cost me to instigate such a migration, but if you really plan on giving me half, then I can’t think of a better way to invest it, can you?’ His eyes shone as he ran his
fingers down the side of my neck. ‘We’d have a haven that no other ship in the world has come close to discovering, an actual city to call home and you, Queen Aztaroth, would have an actual navy at your disposal.’ He licked his lips again. ‘So… what do you say?’

  My heart was racing with excitement and fear, but my dread hadn’t yet left me. Cairo had spilled all of his secrets to me, but I was still holding a few of my own close to my heart, and one of them was awful enough to deny him access to my heart, and I couldn’t allow it to stay between us another second longer.

  ‘I…’ I clasped my hands to my chest. ‘I… I wasn’t just traumatised in Eden, Cairo, and you need to know that. I’m afraid to be held by a man for long, that’s true, but that fear was instilled in me by Kohl Barachiel, not Kohén.’ My eyes burned hotly. ‘I loved Kohén, very deeply, right to the last moment of his last life. He was my master yes, and my captor- but he was also my best friend, and I’m afraid that he broke my heart so badly that I’ll never recover from it enough to love you the way that you deserve to be loved.’ Tears slipped down my cheeks as Cairo’s eyes flashed, wounded. ‘That’s why I swore off matters of the heart… I simply could not imagine ever feeling as strongly for anyone as I did for him.’

  ‘Is that still how you feel?’ Cairo asked gruffly, clasping my wrists and pulling me closer to him, and he was flushed red with arousal. ‘Are you looking into my eyes, and wishing I were him?’

  ‘No,’ I whispered, shaking my head as my appetency for him caused my mind to start spinning again. I opened my hands and curled my fingers up in the soft fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer. ‘No you’re the better man, and there’s nothing in the world that I want more than to fall desperately in love with you!’ I leaned up and nuzzled my nose against his, gently dragging my lips against his. ‘And nothing more that I want right now than to feel you inside me. I just don’t know how to ask for what I want after so many years of convincing myself that it’s the last thing that I need.’