Page 54 of Saint
“You’re a gem sage, and that’s an advantage no other helmsman in the Narrows will have.”
My throat constricted, making it difficult to swallow. That was the anchor of it. He wanted to use me. And he wasn’t trying to hide it.
“You also don’t have a past here. All pasts are good for is making allegiances and enemies. You have neither in these waters.”
“Except Zola.”
“He’s acommonenemy. Zola won’t be able to touch you once we have a license and he’s bound by the Trade Council. Signing a contract with a crew is the best protection you can get if you’re going to stay in the Narrows.”
I’d already signed one as Eryss, I thought. For the next year, that version of me was contracted to theLuna.But Eryss didn’t exist. Not really. And the contract could only be enforced by the Trade Council if the trader had a crest.
I’d never intended to stay on this ship or any other. When I’d said I wanted to disappear, I’d meant it. I just had one thing I had to do first.
Again, I let my eyes fall to Saint’s unwrapped hand, following the streaks of blood dried dark on his skin.
The more I could feel that thing in the air between us, the more convinced I was that not staying on theRivenwasfor the best. So, why couldn’t I say no to him? Why couldn’t I just say I didn’t want it?
I opened the little drawer of the desk and took a strip of linen from inside. When I held my hand out for his, he didn’t move, eyes following the line of my arm down to my wrist. It took a full five seconds for him to make up his mind and, slowly, he set his hand into mine.
His warm skin filled my palm as I opened his fingers, and I bit down onto my lip when I saw it.
The soft spiderweb of lines that should have covered the center of his hand was gone, hidden by a stack of scars that looked like long, thin needles.
I wrapped the fresh cloth over the new cut, gently pressing it. He didn’t so much as wince, and I wondered if he could even feel it anymore.
His eyelashes just barely moved as he watched my fingers tie the knot. When I was finished, his hand slowly turned over in mine. Before I realized what he was doing, his rough fingertips were moving over my knuckles, like he was tracing the feel of my bones beneath the skin.
He was touching me. On purpose. With a curious kind of intent. As if he hadn’t been sure what would happen if he did.
My heart skipped, beat over beat, tumbling in my chest until I’d stopped breathing. The sinking feeling tugging between my ribs forced me to inhale and I pulled my hand from his before I let myself do something that couldn’t be taken back.
“I have to think about it,” I said hoarsely.
Saint slid his hand into his pocket, as if to cage it there. A moment later, he nodded.
“There’s something I have to do in Ceros. I’ll give you my answer after.”
It was a coward’s move. I knew that. But better to disappear without a word than to look into those eyes and say no to him.
I held his gaze for as long as I could bear to, but there was an intensity there that made me forget to breathe again.
“I have work to do,” he finally said, his voice dragging in his throat.
I stepped around the desk, not looking back until I was through the door, my eyes finding him just before it closed. But he hadn’t moved, his stare pinned to the desk.
I could see that he knew. I’d seen it the moment the lie left my mouth. There wouldn’t be an answer, because when I stepped off theRiventomorrow, I was never coming back.
20SAINT
I never should have touched her. That was a mistake.
Only a day after I watched Isolde wrap the bandage around my palm, theRivenwas drifting into Ceros’s harbor. But the passing hours on the small ship had felt more like weeks, that silence she’d left in my cabin worse than the roar of the storm that had almost killed us.
But it hadn’t been enough to drown out the single thought that had been replaying in my head over and over.
I never should have touched her.
I wasn’t even sure how it had happened. One moment her slim, calloused fingers were waking a fire on my skin, and the next, I was holding her hand in mine. The night and morning since had been spent watching the crack of light beneath my door, half hoping she would come back and also praying she wouldn’t.
