Page 67 of Saint
“My father had sent me early to start on the nets because we were fishing a remote reef Clove and I had never been to before. I got to the boat and I saw it right away. A lark. Lying dead on deck. It was right in front of the helm, a sign that we weren’t to go out on the water.” His voice deepened. “If anyone else on the ship had seen it that morning, we would have never raised anchor. But they didn’t.”
I suddenly knew what he was going to say before he said it, and a sick feeling twisted in my gut.
“I thought the superstition was just that—a superstition. That it meant nothing. I wanted to go out, so before anyone saw it, I picked it up and threw it into the water. I didn’t think twice. And a few hours later, this storm… it came out of nowhere. Like it had just risen up from the water instead of falling from the sky. And I knew. I knew exactly what was about to happen.” Another pause. “Clove’s father locked us in the cargo hold and it went on for hours. We could hear them screaming. Running across the deck. Eventually, the ship rolled. I don’t know many times. But when it was finally over, we came up onto the deck and they were gone. All of them.”
A tear rolled down my cheek, but I didn’t blink. His eyes were still locked on mine, and I didn’t want to take that anchor from him. I couldn’t tell what he was feeling. He could have told the story a million times, but I had a feeling maybe it had never been spoken aloud. Not like that.
“It took me a few days, but I told Clove the truth. The families of the crew too. The village never forgave me. They turned me out, cut me off. Everyone except for Clove.”
It explained a lot. Why Saint and Clove weren’t like other crews. Why it was so important to Saint to get that license.
“And now you follow the rules,” I said. “That’s why you sail in the storms.”
He nodded. “I’ve given my life to the sea. She will never betray me.”
He believed it. Completely. I could see that.
“We had a plan: Come to Ceros. Find a ship. Get a trade license.” He fell silent, making the emptiness of the room grow heavy.
I knew what he was getting at—me.I wasn’t a part of that plan.
“If you don’t want to take me on, I understand. I can find another crew.”
“I do,” he answered, more quickly than I’d expected. “Wedo.”
I wasn’t sure if he amended the statement out of respect for Clove or out of his own survival instinct. There was no denying there was a pull in the air between us, and he wasn’t particularly good at hiding it.
I took a step closer to him, studying his face, and his eyes ran over me, wide and open.
“I’m used to being used, Saint.” My voice was frailer than I meant it to be. “But I haven’t figured out what exactly you want from me.”
“Neither have I,” he said lowly.
The words caught me so off guard that I almost felt unsteady on my feet, wishing I hadn’t closed the space he’d put between us. I felt suddenly like I might cry. From the words or from exhaustion, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t care. It just felt so good to be told the truth. It felt like the sun after an eternity of night.
He was still looking right at me. Like he was waiting to see what I’d do. “What is this feeling I have?” He spoke again before I could make up my mind. “This thing that makes me not want you to leave?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
It was an honest answer. I had no idea why he felt like a breath I’d forgotten to take. Like a weight on my chest I couldn’t move.
“Just… don’t,” he said.
“Don’t what?”
“Leave.”
I didn’t know what to make of this version of Saint. The one who was asking me not to go instead of dancing around it like he wasn’t sure what he wanted. The one who didn’t seem to care if he was showing me every crack in his armor.
His hand lifted from his arm, moving toward me in the dark, and I willed myself to stay still. My heart raced as I waited for his touch to find my face, his thumb tracing over my bottom lip before he tipped my chin up toward him. His fingertips pressed into the soft skin below my jaw where my pulse was racing, and the silence in the room was broken by the sound of my breath.
But Saint looked calm, at ease in the shadows, and not the least bit unnerved by the fact that he was touching me. Again. That at any moment, he was going to kiss me. Like he’d just made up his mind and that was it. That was all there was.
It was so dark that I almost couldn’t tell how close he was until his lips touched mine, and the flood of waiting for it filled every inch of me with a buzzing heat. He opened his mouth, his breath featherlight on my skin, and his hand slid to the back of my neck, leaving a searing burn on my cheek.
He kissed me carefully, like he was being sure to rememberthe way it felt. And when I deepened the kiss, he followed, pressing his body against mine.
Something shifted into place inside of me. Some off-kilter piece of my soul that had fractured that day in Bastian. I didn’t know what we were doing. Where it could possibly lead. But this—he and I—we fit, somehow.
