And I don’t have my mother’s letter.
I’m supposed to stay in his quarters. I snap back the curtains covering the big windows and see nothing but empty ocean. There are no visible enemy ships. No sounds of battle. No guns, no explosives. Just pounding footsteps. It’s the sound of a busy ship.
I abandon the window and go out into the hall. Buddy seems happier out here, more confident. He likes it better when we have somewhere to go.
Up. Poseidon will be up on deck. I usually found him there on the Trident. It makes sense here, too. The stairs leading to the deck give me such intense deja vu it makes me dizzy. The first morning I woke up on the Trident, I put on Poseidon’s clothes and climbed the stairs on legs that could barely support me. I don’t have that trouble now. I don’t have to stop halfway up. This time, I know who I’m looking for. I know who I need.
Golden light bathes the top steps through the propped-open door. We’re well into the afternoon. Hours out from Haven Island. Too far away to run back for the safe-deposit box—not that I’d ask. I know the consequences for putting Poseidon’s crew at risk. I know how much it weighs on him that he’s done it himself this time.
And I understand, though I wish I didn’t, why he’s the only one who’s allowed to make those calls. He won’t let anyone else carry that burden.
Stepping out onto the deck, fully into the sun, gives me another wash of deja vu so strong that I grip the doorframe to keep myself from falling backward down the stairs. It’s just like it was, down to the cargo crates stacked on either side of the ship. Jason isn’t sitting on them, though, and my heart sinks. He was on the island, staying mostly in town and coming to the shipyard to work. If he didn’t make it out—
“Come here often?”
I find Jason standing there with the most intense tool belt I’ve ever seen. More of a tool vest. No shadows in his green eyes. I open my mouth to joke with him, but the rock in my throat is a boulder now. All I can do is nod. Raise my hand in an awkward wave. Then hug him.
We’re separated by a vest full of tools, but he laughs. “I see you made it on board. Wasn’t sure if you would come along this time.”
“Not a fucking chance,” I tell him. “No chance I’m staying behind. Ever.”
Jason releases me with a pat on the back, gives me a jaunty salute, and hurries away. The tension in my throat rushes back. My mother’s letter. My mother’s letter. The tears stinging my eyes make the sun seem brighter, and I put a hand up to my forehead. It’s a pathetic amount of shade, but then it’s eclipsed by a much taller, darker shadow.
This is like that first day. Poseidon in the sunlight, all muscle and height and power. His face set like this. Serious. But colder than before. Colder than I’ve ever seen. Cold and calculating and impenetrable.
I’m looking at another man right now. A different man. A member of the crew steps to his side and says something to him, the words a rapid string of sentences that make no sense to me. Poseidon’s reply is clipped, businesslike, not him at all.
No—that’s not right. This is like peering into the past. This was Poseidon before I came into his life. Years before. When he was building a fortune. Before he had a reputation, this was who his enemies faced. This was the person who jumped onto their ship and changed lives. Ended lives.
This is the man who kept his crew alive and safe until they happened to be in the right place at the right time to pull me out of the water.
“I told you to stay below.” His voice has a harsher edge to it. An echo of an order.
I can hardly speak for how much my heart aches. “I left the box at the house.” It’s not an answer to his question, and definitely not an agreement to go below. If he wants to keep me there, he can carry me there himself. My breath struggles to squeeze past the grief blocking my windpipe. “I don’t have the letter from my mother.”
His expression doesn’t soften.
Not at first.
And then I see it around his eyes. It’s a slow process. He’s put on his armor, shrugged on the defenses he has to have when his crew is in danger. He’s worn them for a long time. Years and years. Aside from ribbing Nicholas and screwing with some of the men on his crew when the stakes were low, I think I might be the first person in a long time to have glimpsed the playful side of him.
Please, let this be over soon so I can see that side of him again.
Poseidon finally reaches for me, and I sag into his touch. Maybe he only meant to pat my shoulder, out here in front of his crew, but then—why? He’s done more in front of them. He’s kissed me. He’s taken me in his arms and jumped over the side of the ship. Whatever he was doing when I came up here, whoever he was being—that person dissolves, and Poseidon folds me into his arms, against his warm, sturdy chest. His heart beats in a steady rhythm. Everyone around him might be running, but he’s never out of breath.
I don’t want to sob here. I don’t want to fall apart here, in front of all the men who did the real fighting and the real work to get us away from Haven Island.
He must feel that I want to. Must sense it, because he always senses those things. Buddy leans against my shins as Poseidon’s large palm rubs a slow circle over my back. He breathes in, and I know what he’ll say. He’ll say that we escaped with our lives, and that’s what matters. He’ll say sometimes you have to abandon ship, princess. He’ll kiss me through my tears. He’ll do it gently, and that gentleness will be a promise that Poseidon will be himself later. He’ll be rough with me later. The way I like. The way that clears my head.
“I have it,” he says.
I must have misheard, because what he’s saying is impossible. It was a trick of the breeze, or the waves rolling against the hull. I lift my head away from his chest so I can see his face. “What?”
“I have the safe-deposit box.”
Tears fall from my eyes without permission. “You do?”
“I put it in the backpack with my pearls.”
“Where is it?”
“The drawer under the bed in my quarters.”
I don’t care who’s watching. I pull him down into the first kiss we’ve had since the ship left the dock. Poseidon’s body curls into mine, and yes, this is what’s right. Him. The feel of his solid strength. His lips on mine. The salt and sun taste of him.
His hands splay out on my back, and I’m ready to sink to my knees and beg, beg, for him to come to his quarters with me and make me forget that tattooed man’s hands on my skin and the terror I felt at being so far from Poseidon in that moment.
I open my mouth to do it when there’s a sound.
A loud, beating noise thumps out of the sky. Out of nowhere. I twist my head around to look, my heart racing. It’s affecting the wind and the breeze, more intense by the second. My hands have become fists in Poseidon’s shirt. “What’s going on? Are we under attack?”
Are these our last moments together?
His head is up, eyes on the sky.
The sound shifts, resolving into something recognizable. The rhythmic thwomp-thwomp-thwomp of a helicopter coming in fast. It pops into view above the bridge, a huge, black thing with sunlight gleaming in the windows.
I’ve flown in helicopters a few times with my dad. This one is bigger than any of the ones I’ve seen.