Chapter 4: Plundered Treasure
The key turned with a sound like a bone breaking. Isolde sat on the edge of the bed, dressed in the stolen linen, and listened to Rhys’s footsteps fade down the passageway. The silence that followed was a cage. Her father’s betrayal was a cold stone in her gut. Rhys’s refusal to walk into the trap was, somehow, worse. It tangled everything. He was keeping her to save his own neck, but in doing so, he was also preserving hers from a naval broadside. The morality of it was a knot she couldn’t unpick.
Days blurred. The cabin door unlocked only for food, for the chamber pot to be emptied, for a basin of wash water. Rhys brought these things himself, his presence a brief, charged storm. He would set a tray down, his eyes scanning her, noting the dress she’d chosen, the way she’d tied her hair back with a ribbon from the trunk. He said little. Sometimes he’d linger, leaning against the doorframe, watching her eat with an intensity that made the food taste like ash.
“You’re quiet,” he said one evening, as she pushed salted fish around a tin plate.
“What is there to say?” she replied, not looking up. “You’ve said it all. I’m a hostage against an ambush. A political pawn. A witness. My conversation seems irrelevant.”
He was silent for a moment. “You could ask where we’re going.”
“Would you tell me?”
“No.”
She finally met his gaze. “Then we have nothing to discuss.”
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “Suit yourself.”
He left. The lock clicked. She hated the sound, but part of her dreaded the moments it didn’t come, the moments he stayed. That was the true prison—the treacherous leap in her pulse when he entered the room.
The storm broke on the third night. The ship began to pitch violently, timbers groaning like wounded beasts. Isolde was thrown from the bed, landing hard on the floor. A lantern shattered, plunging the cabin into darkness split by the frantic blue-white flash of lightning through the windows. The world tilted, wall became floor, and she scrambled for a handhold, terror a pure, animal thing in her throat.
The door crashed open. Rhys stood outlined in the chaotic gloom of the passageway, soaked to the skin, his hair plastered to his forehead. Rain and seawater swirled around his boots.
“Up!” he barked, striding in. He grabbed her arm, hauling her to her feet as the ship rolled again. She slammed into his chest, her hands fisting in his wet shirt. “Can’t leave you in here to be brained by flying furniture. To the deck.”
“The deck?” she shrieked over the roar of wind and wave.
“Safer than being trapped down here if we founder!”
He half-dragged, half-carried her out into the maelstrom. The world was a nightmare of shrieking wind, stinging salt spray, and black, heaving water. Men scrambled in the shadows, shouting, ropes whipping like serpents. A wall of water crashed over the railing, knocking her legs out from under her. Rhys’s arm locked around her waist, anchoring her against him.
“Hold the rigging!” he yelled into her ear, pressing her hands around a thick, wet rope. “Don’t let go!”
She clung, blind and gasping. Lightning illuminated the scene in stark, terrifying relief: men fighting for control, the sails whipping themselves to tatters, Rhys’s face set in a grim mask of concentration as he bellowed orders. He wasn’t a captor in that moment; he was the only solid thing in a universe bent on chaos. She pressed her face against the rope, her body shaking with cold and fear.
The storm passed as abruptly as it had come. The winds eased to a gale, then a stiff breeze. The clouds tore apart, revealing a sliver of moon. The ship, battered but afloat, settled into a heavy, exhausted roll.
Isolde’s muscles were locked. She couldn’t unclench her hands from the rope. Rhys pried them loose. Her fingers were numb, striped with angry red marks.
“Come on,” he said, his voice hoarse. He led her, stumbling, back to his cabin. It was a wreck—a chair on its side, papers and books scattered, the bedding soaked from a leak in the ceiling. He righted the chair and guided her into it. He fetched a blanket from a sea-chest, relatively dry, and wrapped it around her shoulders. His hands rubbed her arms through the wool, a rough, practical motion.
“You’re safe,” he muttered, more to himself than to her.
She looked up at him. Water dripped from his hair onto her face. He was looking down at her, his eyes dark in the gloom. The adrenaline was fading, leaving a raw, exposed nerve-end of feeling. He had saved her. Not for ransom, but from the sea.
His gaze dropped to her mouth. The air between them, thick with salt and damp and fear, suddenly changed texture. It became something you could choke on.
He leaned down, one hand braced on the back of her chair. “Isolde.” Her name was a rasp.
She should recoil. She should slap him. She did nothing. She was a void waiting to be filled.
His kiss wasn’t gentle. It was a claiming, a release of tension, a taste of salt and storm and him. It burned. Her mind screamed a protest that got lost somewhere between her brain and her body. A small, weak sound escaped her throat, and her hands came up, not to push him away, but to clutch the sodden front of his shirt.
He made a low noise and deepened the kiss, his tongue sweeping into her mouth. It was shocking, intimate, overwhelmingly carnal. She had never been kissed, not like this. It felt less like a kiss and more like being consumed. And God help her, she wanted to be consumed.
He pulled back, breathing heavily. His eyes searched hers, looking for disgust, for fury. She knew he saw only confusion and a dawning, terrified hunger.
His hands moved from her arms, sliding over the blanket, mapping the curves of her body through the wet linen of her dress. He palmed her breast, his thumb scraping over the peak. A jolt of pure, undiluted sensation shot through her, and she arched into his touch, a traitor to her own blood.
“Tell me something, Baroness,” he whispered against her lips, his voice thick. His other hand slipped from her shoulder, down her side, to her hip, pulling her tighter against him. “All that privilege. All those fine manners. Did they keep a man’s hands off you?” He kissed her neck, just below her ear, and she shuddered. “Are you still a virgin?”
The question was a bucket of icy seawater. It shouldn’t have been. It was the obvious question. But hearing it in his ragged pirate’s voice, feeling it vibrate against her skin while his calloused hand squeezed her thigh, shattered the fever-dream.
Shame crashed back in. She shoved against his chest, a genuine, panicked strength behind it. “Stop it.”
He didn’t stop. He laughed, a dark, breathless sound. He caught her wrists easily, pinning them against the chair. “That’s answer enough.” He leaned in again, his mouth hovering over hers. “You fight, but you don’t mean it. Not really. I can feel it.”
She twisted her face away. “I hate you.”
“I know.” He nuzzled the line of her jaw. “Doesn’t seem to matter right now, does it?”
It didn’t. That was the horrifying truth. Her body was alight, every place he touched humming with a need she’d never named. She was pushing against him, but her arms lacked conviction. She was whispering “no,” but it sounded like a plea for something else.
He seemed to understand the dissonance perfectly. He released one of her wrists, and his hand came up to cradle her throat. Not squeezing, just holding. A possessive cage of fingers and thumb. The pressure was absolute, a terrifying demonstration of control. She went perfectly still, her breath caught.
He looked into her wide, frightened eyes, his own blazing with a victory that had nothing to do with ransom.
“I’m not going to take it,” he said, his voice low and deadly serious. “Not like this. Not while you’re half in shock and lying to yourself.” His thumb stroked the frantic pulse under her jaw. “I’m many things, but I’m not that.”
The relief was so profound it felt like a new kind of weakness. A tear spilled over and tracked through the salt on her cheek.
He saw it. His expression softened, just a fraction. The hand on her throat slid up to cup her face, his thumb wiping the tear away. The contrast was disorienting.
“I’ll make you a promise, Isolde,” he said, his lips brushing her forehead. “I won’t have you. Not until you’re screaming for it. Not until you beg me.” He pulled back, his eyes holding hers, ensuring she understood every word. “And you will.”
He let her go. He stood up, leaving her huddled in the blanket, her body throbbing with unmet need and searing humiliation.
He walked to the door, stepping over the debris. He looked back at her, a pirate captain in a ravaged cabin, a man who had just drawn a line in the sand only he could see.
“Get some sleep,” he said. “The lock will be off tonight. In case we take on water.”
Then he was gone, leaving her alone with the echo of his promise and the devastating, empty ache he had carved inside her.
She sat for a long time. The cold seeped in. The ache didn’t fade; it deepened, settling into a hollow, persistent throb. She finally stood, her legs unsteady, and shuffled to the ruined bed. She curled up on the damp mattress, pulling the blanket over her head.
She could still feel the rough press of his lips. The heat of his hand on her thigh. The terrifying, gentle pressure of his fingers around her throat.
You will.
The words were a curse and a prophecy. In the dark, with the memory of the storm’s violence and the violence of her own response, she was terrified he was right.
Sleep wouldn’t come. The damp linen clung to her skin, and every creak of the ship’s timbers was a footstep. The emptiness of the cabin pressed in, vast and chilling. Her own breathing sounded too loud. The memory of his hands was a brand she couldn’t cool.
The storm had stolen all the warmth from the world. A deep, bone-aching chill had set in, making her joints stiff and her teeth want to chatter. The blanket was a soggy pretence. It was the cold that finally moved her. That, and the utter silence from the passageway.
She stood on legs that felt like glass. The door was unlatched, just as he’d said. She pushed it open, the movement silent. The corridor was dark, only a faint, swaying beam of moonlight from a deck grate above providing any shape. His door, further down, was slightly ajar.
Logic had left her. Instinct drove her forward, the instinct of a creature seeking warmth, seeking shelter from the terrifying vastness. She pushed his door open. He was a darker mound in the shadows of his large bed, his back to her, the rhythm of his breathing even.
She didn’t think. She simply crossed the room, the floorboards cold under her bare feet. She lifted the edge of the heavy wool blanket and slid in. The warmth was immediate, shocking. It carried his scent—salt, leather, and the faint, clean smell of him.
He went utterly still. Not asleep, then.
“I’m cold,” she whispered, the words swallowed by the dark.
He rolled over. She could barely see his face, just the glint of his eyes. He didn’t touch her. “Your bed was wet.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re scared.”
She swallowed. “Yes.”
He was silent for a long moment. She could feel the heat radiating from his body, a foot away. A canyon. “This is a bad idea, Baroness.”
“Probably.”
A rough sigh escaped him. He shifted, and for a heart-stopping second she thought he would throw her out. Instead, he lifted his arm. “Come here, then. Get properly warm. Just… don’t stab me this time.”
The weak joke undid her. She moved into the space he offered, her back tentatively pressing against his chest. His arm came down over her, heavy and solid. The warmth was enveloping, absolute. A shudder ran through her, a final release of the storm’s tension.
His body was hard planes and coiled strength. She felt incredibly small. Safe. The thought was a betrayal, but she was too tired to fight it.
“Rhys.” His name was a murmur against the pillow.
“Hmm?”
“You have to promise me something.” Her voice was steadier now, insulated by the dark and the warmth.
“I’m not in the habit of making promises.”
“Make this one.” She took a shaky breath. “Promise you won’t… take advantage of me first. Not while I’m like this. Not in the night.” The words hung there, a fragile treaty.
He was quiet. His thumb absently stroked the fabric of the linen shift over her arm. “You’re in my bed, Isolde. You’re asking a pirate for chivalry.”
“I’m asking the man who didn’t take what he wanted in the chair.” She felt him go still again. “Promise me.”
A long exhale warmed the back of her neck. “Fine. I promise. I won’t be the first to cross that line tonight.” He paused, and his voice dropped, a low rumble she felt in his chest. “But you should know, the line’s getting blurry just having you here.”
She closed her eyes. The promise was enough. It was a thin shield, but it was all she had. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. Just go to sleep.”
She did, eventually. Her body, exhausted and finally warm, surrendered. His breathing deepened behind her, his arm a constant, weighted anchor. In the last moment before sleep took her, she felt his lips, barely a touch, press against the crown of her hair.
The gesture was so quiet, so unguarded, she could almost believe she’d dreamed it.