“Are you done with your tour? Forgive me if not, it just seemed like you had moved on.” His voice was dry, filled with a joke just for him, leaving Hel with the strangest sense of being left out...and caring about it.
Hel’s eyes narrowed, but she was determined to meet him head-on, even if she was barely clothed. “It’s all right, some nice stuff in here, but it’s just one room.” She paused and looked around again, exaggerating the whole thing, then added with a disappointed frown, “And it’s kind of small.”
He let out a bark of laughter and she started, the sound entrancing her momentarily, a real-life version of the Pied Piper’s flute. “Size doesn’t matter, it’s the motion of the ocean.” His eyes laughed as he delivered the line with no shame, his open palm gesturing at the open sea around them through the porticos.
Hel forced herself to look away, following the path of his hand to stare hard at the water and grumbled, “That’s not the ocean.”
She didn’t know what was wrong with her, but it was certainly not helping her regain her accustomed advantage. It was hard to maintain discomfiting nonchalance, the strategy that seemed to most put her opponents off balance, when her breath kept catching every time her eyes snagged on this man’s form, carrying her away with reactions and...staring, rather than cool observation.
Thinking while she could, while the strange distraction of him was out of sight, she reviewed what else she knew. Based on the level of luxury of the cabin, the obvious wealth it required to create such a space, let alone what might lie behind the two doors in the room, indicated this was the cabin’s quarters. She could be wrong, of course, but she doubted it. She didn’t know many people with the kind of wealth that could outfit a passenger or crew cabin so well. Very few werethatrich, and she knew most of them.
Pirates were a rare thing in this day and age—in the Mediterranean or elsewhere, for that matter.
Incredibly wealthy pirates even less so.
In fact, there was only one who fit the bill that she knew of, and it was, fortunately to the present context, her job to know things, but he wasn’t a pirate. He was a privateer, and his name wasn’t whispered with fear, but called out for in desperation.
Hel’s stomach fluttered and it dawned on her that this is what people meant when they said they had butterflies, but she turned back to face him. Caught all over again by his arresting beauty, it took her a moment to speak, but when she did, despite the strength and steadiness of her voice, the strange absurdity of her words was enough to almost turn them into a question. Because in no scenario in all of the world did it make sense for a man famous through the entire Mediterranean for fighting human trafficking to be kidnapping her, she thought, as she said, “You’re the Sea Wolf.”
CHAPTER TWO
EYEINGHISCAPTIVE, with her long, deadly limbs, her mop of silver-blond hair, her flashing gemstone eyes and skin that gave off a faint radiance—as if moonglow emanated from her very core, or she was a pearl come to life—Drake Andros, retired admiral, occasional investor, eternal sailor, licensed privateer and Sidran duke, held back a laugh.
“Caught me,” he said with a smile instead.
That she’d put the pieces of his high-seas identity together was as irrelevant as it was charming, but he hadn’t expected it of her. Not that he had been operating under the impression that she was stupid. Certainly not. A stupid woman didn’t graduate at the top of her class from a military academy and rise through the ranks of the royal guard while successfully managing multiple complex estates. He was simply surprised that she’d maintained such an incredible level of coolheaded composure through the process of being accidentally kidnapped and literally dragged out to sea.
A phenomenal bout, superb high dive and hundred-meter swim, all wrapped it up with her being carried off, and she still had the wherewithal to come to an accurate conclusion with very little input—it was impressive. He could recognize that being impressed was sexist—he wouldn’t be of a man in her position—but his inner demons were as irrelevant to the situation as was her lovely mind.
That he was the Sea Wolf was business. What sat between them was entirely personal.
Thirty years ago her father had tried to murder his family.
Today he’d achieved his vengeance.
But his plan hinged on her cooperation.
“So why did the Sea Wolf capture the Cyranese captain of the queen’s guard?” she asked, adorably nonchalant about the whole thing.
“The Sea Wolf,” he said, “doesn’t have anything to do with you. Drake Andros, son of Ibrahim and Amira Andros, rightful heir to the Andros Duchy of Cyrano, however, has a few things he’d like to discuss.”
She froze, her face losing its pretty glow, replaced by a more deathly pallor.
Her reaction was...interesting. He had expected to have to feed her a few more tidbits before she began to realize the more sinister nature to their connection. Perhaps she wasn’t unaware of what her father had done to him?
If that was true, it would change things. His gut tightened. He worked hard to account for contingencies, but by their nature, not every one could be anticipated. The tightness tilted toward a slow burn as his mind played out the ways his plan would be impacted if she wasn’t as innocent as he’d assumed. Her original involvement would have been impossible—she’d been a small child—but had she a part in keeping the event covered up?
After all the years, all the loss...could he let it crumble if touching her was unconscionable? He hadn’t had a problem touching her to this point. If she was guilty in the whole thing, as well, what did that say about the trust he could place in his own instincts where she was concerned?
As seconds passed, her reaction only seemed to deepen, actual horror dawning on her face just before she began to shake her head.
The suspicion that had started sick and slick and warm in his gut turned hot and dangerous as it unfurled.
She might not have been involved in the original plot, but her reaction suggested she wasn’t innocent of it.
Emotion made him impatient, edgy. Life had consistently proved to him that the only thing he could rely on was himself, but what if even that wasn’t true? What if he’d misread such a critical piece in her presumed innocence? If he’d been wrong he’d wasted years on a plot with a critical flaw. He’d done what his mother had warned him of and drilled so deep into the dark that he’d lost the light of clarity.
“Ibrahim Andros, your father’s dearest friend and oldest childhood playmate, and his companion well into adulthood. They were two peas in one pod—right up until Ibrahim, his wife, Amira, their son, Drake, and their daughter, Nya, all of them at once, were killed when their boat tragically capsized at sea.”