Chapter 3: The Interrogation
The door to the captain’s cabin clicked shut, sealing them in a world of creaking wood and lamplight. The air, still thick with the day’s heat and the smell of old rum and ink, suddenly felt too close. Vil stood just inside, his back against the weathered oak, as if he could still escape. The blank mask was back.
Leona didn’t give him the chance to speak. He crossed the space in three strides, his movement all lazy predator grace, and pinned Vil there with a hand on either side of his head. He didn’t kiss him. He just looked, his cat-like eyes scanning Vil’s face for cracks.
“Window’s ticking,” Leona murmured, his voice a low rumble.
“I am aware.” Vil’s reply was ice, but his pulse jumped visibly in his throat.
Leona dipped his head, his mouth brushing the shell of Vil’s ear. “Then stop wasting my time with the statue routine.”
He captured Vil’s mouth then, and it was like striking flint. The kiss ignited instantly, a fierce, silent battle for control. Vil’s hands came up, not to push away, but to claw at Leona’s shoulders, dragging him closer. The anger was there, a live wire between them, but it had fused with something else, something hotter and more desperate. Leona walked him backward, their mouths never parting, until Vil’s legs hit the edge of the wide berth. He fell back, and Leona followed him down.
The cabin held the sounds of the sea, the groan of timbers, and now, the rougher music of their grappling. Fabric ripped—Leona’s impatient tug at Vil’s linen shirt. A button pinged against the floorboards. Vil arched off the mattress, a sharp gasp torn from him as Leona’s mouth found his throat, his teeth a deliberate, promising edge against his skin. His hips bucked, seeking friction, and Leona settled his weight between Vil’s thighs, grinding down hard.
“Liar,” Leona growled against the damp column of his throat. He caught Vil’s wrists in one broad hand, pinning them above his head on the rumpled blanket. Vil hissed, his body a tense bow. “I felt how wet you got when you described drowning that merchant captain in his own gold.”
Vil’s breath hitched, caught between a protest and a moan. His body, slick with sweat, betrayed him, rolling up against Leona’s. “It was a job,” he gasped, turning his face away.
Leona’s knee pressed higher, insistent. “Tell me the truth, siren. Did you come when his lungs filled with seawater?”
A full-body shudder wracked Vil. His eyes, when they flicked back to Leona’s, were wide and dark, the amethyst almost black. Shame and fury warred in them. He didn’t answer.
Leona took his mouth again, deep and consuming, swallowing any denial. The heat between them was a tangible thing, smothering. In between heated kisses and exploring each other’s bodies and the rough, hungry sounds of pleasure torn from both their throats, Leona pulled back just enough to speak, his own breathing ragged.
“You asked if you were just a quick fuck,” he panted, his hips rolling in a slow, devastating rhythm that made Vil’s eyes roll back. He continued, the words gritted out, “But how many other men have you fucked and killed for your dinner.”
Vil squirmed under him, a helpless twist. “I– I took no pleasure in that.”
It was a reflex, a clean, moral line drawn in the sand of his own soul. But it was brittle. Leona saw it shatter in the flush spreading down Vil’s chest, in the way his nails dug into Leona’s back, drawing half-moons of bright pain.
That was a lie. A necessary one, maybe, to get through the nights. But a lie all the same. There had been something addictive and pleasurable about it. Not the act of feeding—that was base, grotesque. But the power. The moment a brutish, swaggering pirate captain, who thought the ocean and everything in it was his for the taking, saw the beauty in the water and realized, too late, that it was teeth. The sound of a boastful man’s voice cutting off in a gurgle. The way their lust twisted into terror, and for a second, Vil held all the strings. He had hated them. He hated their crude hands, their greedy eyes, their certainty. And in making them drown, he erased a little of his own powerlessness.
And looking up at Leona now—at his smug, arrogant, unbearably perceptive face—Vil wished, with a fury that heated his blood more than the friction between their bodies, that he could do the same to him. Loop the song around that stubborn will and pull it tight. Watch those bored green eyes widen with the shock of the inevitable. He wanted it so badly his muscles coiled with the fantasy.
Leona saw that too. He laughed, a dark, breathless sound. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
He released Vil’s wrists. Instead of pulling away, Vil’s hands flew to Leona’s hair, fisting in the dark brown strands, dragging him down into another kiss. It was surrender and attack in one. The transaction burned away, for a moment, in the pure, undirected need that followed.
Later, the lamp guttered low. They lay in a tangled, sweaty heap on the berth, the ship’s gentle rock smoothing the sharp edges off the silence. Leona was on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes. Vil was on his side, facing away, the lines of his spine sharp in the dim light. The scent of sex and salt hung in the air.
“The first one cried,” Vil said suddenly, his voice hoarse. He didn’t move. “He was just a boy, really. A ship’s cook’s apprentice who’d fallen overboard in a storm. He was so tired. My song just… let him stop swimming.”
Leona didn’t respond. He just listened to the creak of the ship.
“The merchant captain, the one with the gold,” Vil continued, the words coming now like poison being drawn from a wound. “He tried to bargain. Offered me jewels from his strongbox if I’d let him live. He didn’t understand that the jewels were already mine. Everything on his ship was already sinking to us.”
“You remember them all.”
“I have to.” Vil finally turned his head, resting his cheek on his arm. His profile was etched in shadow. “If I don’t, then Azul wins. He turns them into numbers, into fuel. If I remember their faces, their last stupid words, then they were still people. And what we do is still a sin, and not just… logistics.”
Leona lowered his arm. He stared at the ceiling, at the water stains mapping forgotten leaks. “Sin’s a strong word for a pirate.”
“It’s the right word.” Vil pushed himself up, drawing his knees to his chest. The blanket pooled around his waist. He looked younger like that, stripped of both his ethereal grace and his defiant anger. Just tired. “You choose your crimes. We have ours chosen for us, and then are forced to pretend we chose them. It’s… messier.”
Leona rolled onto his side, propping his head on his hand. He studied Vil—the sweep of his lashes, the stubborn set of his mouth, the faint, silvery scars that laddered his ribs, old injuries from nets or rocks or fights. “How’d you get the scars?”
Vil glanced down, as if he’d forgotten they were there. “A fisherman’s gaff. Years ago. Before Azul. He got a lucky shot. Rook pulled me free.”
“He’s loyal.”
“They’re all I have.” Vil’s voice was soft. “Epel is… fierce. Like a sea urchin. All prickles until you realize he’s just scared. Rook is steadier. He finds a kind of art in it all. It’s how he copes.” He shook his head. “You must find this tedious. The emotional unpacking of monsters.”
To his own surprise, Leona didn’t. The lethargy that usually clung to him after sex was different tonight. It was quieter. He found himself tracing the line of one scar with his gaze, not with pity, but with a calculative curiosity. The more Vil spoke, the less he was just a beautiful weapon or a treacherous guide. He was a system of pressures and cracks, of pride and shame, of a love for his pod that was the only clean thing in the whole filthy business. It was complicated. Annoyingly so.
And Leona, against every instinct that valued simplicity and self-interest, found himself getting more attracted to him. The perfect facade had been interesting. The broken, honest thing beneath it was dangerous.
“You’re not monsters,” Leona said, the words foreign on his tongue. “You’re just stuck.”
Vil let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “How profoundly philosophical of you, Captain.”
“Shut up.” Leona reached out and hooked a finger under Vil’s chin, turning his face back toward him. The lamplight caught in his eyes, turning them liquid violet. “I’m just saying I’ve met monsters. They don’t worry about sin. They just take.”
Vil searched his face, looking for mockery. Finding none, the tension in his shoulders eased a fraction. “And what do you do, Leona Kingscholar? Do you just take?”
“Yeah,” Leona said, his thumb brushing over Vil’s bottom lip. “But I’m honest about it. I see something I want, I take it. Right now…” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to. The want was still there, simmering, but it had changed shape. It wasn’t just for the body under his hands. It was for the sharp mind, the unbreakable loyalty, the terrifying will that had survived years under a witch’s thumb.
He wanted to own that. To unravel it. To see what it looked like when it was finally, truly free.
And the fact that he wanted that, that he was even thinking it, was a problem of magnificent proportions.
Outside, a voice rang out from the night watch. “All’s well!”
The spell broke. Vil glanced toward the window, where the deep blue of night was beginning to soften at the edges. “My time is almost up.”
“Then you should go.” Leona dropped his hand. “Before you turn back into a pumpkin and scare my crew.”
Vil slid from the berth, gathering his torn clothes. He dressed silently, his movements efficient. At the door, he paused, his hand on the latch. He looked back, a silhouette against the dawn light seeping through the window.
“The vortex,” he said. “We’ll sight the glow in five days. Be ready.”
He slipped out, the door closing with a soft, final click. Leona stared at the empty space where he’d been, the ghost of his words and his warmth still clinging to the air. Be ready. He wasn’t sure for what—the vortex, the witch, or the unsettling feeling that the transaction had just gotten deeply, personally complicated.
The next day passed in a haze of salt spray and routine. Leona barked orders from the helm, his eyes constantly scanning the water for the telltale flashes of lilac and gold that meant their guides were still with them. Vil kept to himself, emerging at midday to stand at the bow, his human form silhouetted against the sun. He didn’t look at Leona. Leona, annoyingly, kept looking at him.
As the sun began to bleed into the ocean on that second evening, a different energy took hold of the Savanaclaw. Ruggie, with a trader’s eye for morale, had broken into the good rum. A cask was hauled up onto the main deck. Someone produced a dented concertina, another a well-worn drum. The music was rough and joyful, a rhythm born of cracked hands and calloused feet stamping on sun-bleached wood.
“Land-legs!” Ruggie called out, leaning over the port rail where two heads bobbed in the swell. “The party’s up here! Unless you’d rather just watch.”
Epel’s head popped up, water streaming. “We ain’t got legs right now, you daft weasel!”
Ruggie just grinned, wider and sharper. “So get ‘em. Captain says it’s a cultural exchange. No drowning, just dancing.”
There was a whispered consultation below. Then, with a shimmering disturbance in the water, two figures hauled themselves over the rail. Epel stood first, shaking out a mop of damp purple hair, his human form clad in simple, borrowed trousers. Rook followed, his ascent effortlessly graceful, wringing seawater from his own blonde braid. He spotted a crewman’s forgotten wooden flute on a barrel and picked it up with delicate curiosity.
“Ah, an instrument of the air!” Rook proclaimed, his green eyes alight. He put it to his lips and blew. What came out was a shrill, chaotic squeak that made everyone wince. He tried again, producing a warble that sounded like a drowning gull.
Ruggie doubled over, clutching his sides. “By the depths, that’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard! You’re supposed to charm us, not kill us!”
“Every art requires practice, Monsieur,” Rook said, utterly undeterred, and blew another puckered, off-key note. He began to sway to the drumbeat anyway, turning the awful sounds into part of his dance, a spectacle of terrible music and beautiful movement. Ruggie watched him, his laughter softening into something fond and amused, shaking his head as he took a long swig of rum.
Jack stood frozen near the mast, a tin cup clenched in his hand. He’d been staring at Epel since the siren had arrived. Epel was frowning at the dancing crowd, looking adorably out of place, his arms crossed over his chest. Jack took a fortifying gulp of his drink, coughed, and marched over.
“Do you… I mean, would you… want to?” Jack blurted out, his face flaming.
Epel squinted at him. “Want to what? You ain’t finished a sentence.”
“Dance,” Jack forced the word out. “With me. If you want.”
Epel looked from Jack’s earnest, terrified eyes to the stomping, spinning pirates. A slow, sly smile spread across his face. “Your people dance like drunks fallin’ down a hill. I can do better.” He grabbed Jack’s wrist. “C’mon. Show me what you got, land-pup.”
He pulled a stunned Jack into the fray, and they stumbled into a rhythm that was less dancing and more a clumsy, laughing struggle for coordination. Jack’s initial terror melted into a beaming, hopeless smile.
Leona observed from the shadow of the quarterdeck steps, a bottle in his hand. He saw Vil then, leaning against the mainmast, partly hidden. Vil’s gaze was fixed on the celebration, a haunting wistfulness on his face. His fingers tapped a silent rhythm against his thigh. His lips moved, almost imperceptibly, forming the ghost of words to the shanty the crew was now roaring. He wanted to sing. Leona could see the desire thrumming through him, as physical as a heartbeat.
He remembered his own warning, growled in the tavern and on the jetty. No singing. But that was about luring, about weapons. This was different. This was just… sound. Vil glanced up, as if feeling the weight of Leona’s stare. Their eyes locked across the noisy deck. The music swelled.
Leona gave a single, slow nod. Then he jerked his head, a clear come here.
Vil pushed off the mast and wound his way through the dancers, coming to stand beside him in the relative quiet of the steps. The noise was still overwhelming—the drum, the concertina, Rook’s disastrous flute, the shouting.
“I didn’t…” Vil started, his voice barely audible.
“Just keep it to the tune,” Leona said, his voice low beside Vil’s ear. “And no magic. No luring. Just… noise.”
A look of pure, unguarded surprise flashed across Vil’s face. Then it settled into something warmer. He nodded, turning back to face the crew. He took a breath, and when he opened his mouth, it wasn’t the weaponized silver that cracked rigging and willpower. It was just a voice. Clean, high, and breathtakingly beautiful, it wove through the raucous shanty, not leading it but elevating it. He sang the words of the sea-chanty about lost gold and stormy wives, and the sound was like light cutting through murky water.
The crew didn’t stop. They roared louder, pounding the deck in time, their rough voices trying to rise to meet his. It became a competition of joy, not of control.
Leona didn’t watch the crew. He watched Vil. He watched the tension drain from the siren’s shoulders, the way his eyes closed briefly as he lost himself in the simple act of making music without consequence. A faint, real smile touched Vil’s lips as he sang a particularly ribald verse. He was, for this moment, just a man at a party. The lamplight caught the gold in his hair, the elegant line of his throat as the notes poured out.
Leona felt a tight, unfamiliar clench in his chest. It wasn’t lust this time, or even mere attraction. It was something more inconvenient. It was the urge to preserve this. To keep this version of Vil safe—the one that could smile while singing a stupid song, the one who carried his sins so heavily but could still find this sliver of light. The strategic part of his mind, the part that had coldly calculated this as a transaction, went utterly silent. It just watched, and it wanted.
Vil finished the verse with the crew, laughing as they all collapsed into cheers and more drinking. He turned to Leona, the smile still lingering, his amethyst eyes bright. “See?” he said, breathing a little heavily. “Just noise.”
Leona said nothing. He just took another drink from his bottle, his eyes never leaving Vil’s face. The party spun on around them, a whirl of light and sound, but for Leona, the world had narrowed to the space between them, charged with a new and dangerous understanding. The week stretched ahead, full of such moments, and the path to the vortex suddenly felt far shorter than four days.
The week stretched ahead, full of such moments, and the path to the vortex suddenly felt far shorter than four days. Vil’s laughter from the song still hung in the air between them, a tangible, fragile thing. Then, without warning, Vil reached out and grabbed Leona’s wrist.
His fingers were warm, insistent. “Your turn,” Vil said, and there was a challenge in his eyes, but it was bright, not sharp.
“Absolutely not,” Leona grunted, trying to pull back. The bottle in his other hand sloshed.
Vil didn’t let go. He tugged, a firm, undeniable pressure. “You observe everything from the shadows. It’s tedious. For one minute, stop being a captain and just be a body on a deck.”
The concertina wheezed into a faster, looping reel. The drumbeat quickened, a pulse thumping through the wood. Leona dug his heels in, a stubborn anchor. “I don’t dance.”
“Everyone dances,” Vil countered, leaning closer so his words cut through the music just for Leona. “Even if they’re terrible at it. It’s not a performance. It’s just momentum.”
He pulled again, and this time Leona stumbled forward a step, into the lantern light. A cheer went up from the crew nearby, Ruggie’s voice the loudest. “Go on, Captain! Show us your sea legs!”
Trapped. Annoyed. Intrigued. Vil didn’t lead him into the center of the chaos. He simply started moving, there on the spot, a simple shift of weight from foot to foot in time with the drum. His eyes stayed locked on Leona’s, a dare and an invitation.
It was ridiculous. Leona stood there, stiff, feeling every eye on him. He took a final swig from the bottle and shoved it into the hands of a passing deckhand. Then, with a growl of pure exasperation, he moved.
It wasn’t dancing. It was an awkward, heavy-footed imitation of Vil’s rhythm. He felt like a loaded cargo net swinging in a gale. But Vil’s smile widened, genuine and unreserved, and he mirrored Leona’s movements, making the clunkiness seem intentional, a shared joke.
The music soaked into Leona’s bones, melting the resistance. Vil spun in a quick, tight circle, his borrowed shirt flaring. When he came back, he clasped Leona’s hand again, their palms pressing together. The world narrowed to that point of contact, to the solid deck under his boots, to the infectious, pounding rhythm.
He stopped thinking. His body took over, finding the beat. It was unrefined, just motion and response. He stepped forward, Vil stepped back. They turned, a clumsy parody of a courtly dance, surrounded by stomping pirates and Rook’s gloriously awful flute solo.
Leona wasn’t observing anymore. He was in it. The weight of the vortex, the specter of Azul, the tangled knot of their transaction—it all receded, blurred by lamplight and sweat and the sheer, stupid joy on Vil’s face. Vil threw his head back and laughed, and the sound was cleaner than his singing, a pure release.
For a moment, Leona wasn’t falling for a siren or a weapon or a map. He was just a man, hopelessly captivated by another man’s unguarded happiness, and the feeling was terrifying in its simplicity. It slipped past his defenses, a warm, quiet wave, and he didn’t even know he was drowning in it.
The song ended with a final, shouted chorus and a crash of the drum. They stood facing each other, breathing hard, hands still connected. The crew erupted into applause and catcalls, already calling for another tune. Leona blinked, the noise rushing back in. He dropped Vil’s hand like it had burned him.
“See?” Vil said, his breath coming quick. “Momentum.”
He turned back to the crew, raising a hand to decline another song. His six hours were nearly up. The brief, brilliant light in his eyes was already banked, replaced by the familiar guarded calm. But the ghost of his smile remained, and Leona knew, with a lurch in his stomach, that he wanted to see it again. He wanted to be the one who put it there, without a shanty or a crowd as an excuse.
That wanting was a problem bigger than any sea witch.