part0005

Kelia ripped her hand away from Drew and pulled her knees, still draped with covers, up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “I’m sorry, Drew. You’ll have to repeat that. It sounded as if you said you transformed me into a Sea Shadow. But, certainly, you wouldn’t have done that. You would have waited until I was conscious to get my consent. Please tell me you really didn’t turn me without asking.”

“There was no time,” he said, a lilt of regret in tone.

“You said it would have taken weeks for me to die!" Kelia said, throwing her arms out but keeping her knees up. "You knew I’d just arrived at that island days ago. Why not wait? Why not make certain living life as a Sea Shadow was something I wanted?”

“We didn’t know if anything else was done to you,” Drew said.

“That’s shit, and you know it.” She balled her fingers into fists. Her head started pounding once more, and something moved in her mouth. At first, she thought it was painful, but, if anything, it was just a surprise. When she moved her tongue to feel what had happened, she cut it on something sharp.

Tears sprang to her eyes. Not because of the pain, but because what Drew said was actually true.

“Why did you do this to me?” she asked, her voice breaking. A tear streamed down her face, and then another. “Why didn’t you talk to me about it first?”

“No lies,” Kelia snapped. “You’ve kept things from me before, things I understood and forgave you for, but do not lie to me, Drew. You owe me more than that. The Queen wanted to watch you suffer. I am almost certain she did not expect you to arrive so quickly to retrieve me, and she most certainly did not expect fire to rain from the sky and you to get me yourself. You had time. You could have waited before turning me, but you chose not to.”

“I did what I thought I had to do to stop your suffering,” Drew said. His voice was cold, resigned. “You were unresponsive. The Queen is a vile, twisted thing. I did not want you to endure any more pain. I turned you because I thought that was our only option.”

“Our only option?” Kelia struggled to sit straighter in her bed but shifted as best as she could. “There was no our in this plan, Drew. I never got a chance to make a decision. No, this was a choice you made. You were selfish. You just wanted to keep me all to yourself!”

“What?” His voice was small but sharp. His brown eyes narrowed, and his own fangs elongated.

Kelia trusted he had no intention of trying to scare her. Even if he was angry or hurt, he would not do something like that.

You thought he was not the sort of person to transform you into a monster, but he did that the first chance he got , a voice pointed out.

“I won’t repeat myself,” Kelia snapped, staring out the window as best as she could. Emma’s concoction masked the day or the night, but she preferred blackness to Drew at the moment. “Why else would you make a decision you cannot undo?”

“Would you have preferred vomiting until you had nothing left?” Drew demanded, all but sitting back up in his chair and narrowing his eyes. “Nothing left except blood? Did you enjoy the taste of your own blood as it came up? I saw you, the blood crusted on your lip. I saw the speckled red blood on your tunic. I saw you, and I thought the worst. I thought the Queen—” His voice hitched, and Kelia could swear she picked up the sight of tears accumulating in his eyes. But she blinked, and they were gone. Perhaps they had never been there. “You do not know the position I was in.”

“And what position was that?” Kelia snapped her gaze toward Drew, flexing her fingers to keep from playing with her nails. She needed something to do, anything to get this energy out of her body, or else it would come out of her mouth in words she probably should not say. She reached up and tugged at her hair. It felt odd, her hair coating the back of her neck when she typically had it braided back. She might not be the same person she was, but that did not mean everything else had to change.

“Have you forgotten how much I love you?” he asked, a heartbreaking sound of despair in his voice.

The words hung between them, sharp enough neither one of them wanted to risk dancing around them.

Kelia stilled her braiding but did not drop her hands. It was as though everything inside of Drew collapsed. His shoulders hunched forward, his gaze dropped to the floor, and he all but plopped onto the corner of the bed by Kelia’s foot. His head was in his palms, his hair hanging in front of him.

Kelia had a desire to go to him, to comfort him, to tell him that she still loved him. But the desire never actualized. Her fingers turned to fists, and her nails dug into her skin, reminding her that she’d been turned into a monster who would live forever. How could he claim to love her after choosing that fate for her?

“If you loved me,” Kelia said, surprised by her own coldness, “you would have let me suffer.”

There was more silence; a dagger to her heart and to his. This was not the way they should be talking to each other after so recently being reunited. They should be embracing, wrapped up in each other’s arms. They should be making love, remembering how their bodies felt, how they tasted, what it meant when they were connected. Not shouting. Not saying wicked things they could not take back.

Drew lifted his head. “I will never let you suffer again. I would rather you hate me. When you got lashings because of me, when you were sent to the breeding program because of me, you do not know the toll it took. You still do not understand how utterly difficult it was to keep from immediately going to you.”

“Why didn’t you?” Kelia pushed. “You’re a Sea Shadow. You just told me you ran on water to get to me. Why didn’t you get me from the prison in Port George? Why didn’t you get me from the breeding program?"

“If you recall,” Drew said, his voice nearly a growl, “I did .” He stood, turning his body to her. “You told me you didn’t want to leave.”

“And you respected that decision but not this one?”

“Look where that got you!” he said. “I vowed I would never let you go so easily again. How was I to know you did not want to be changed?" Drew threw out his arms at his side. “How could I know that? We never discussed what we should do if we were confronted with the situation. I made a decision in the heat of the moment. Perhaps you think it was the wrong one, but it ended your pain and kept you alive, and that will always be the right decision to me.”

“You know how I feel about Sea Shadows,” Kelia insisted.

Drew arched an eyebrow at her before shaking his head and beginning to pace. Each time he turned on the balls of his feet, the floor squeaked beneath his weight. “I know what you were taught to feel about Shadows, yes, but after everything we’ve been through together…I didn’t realize you still felt that way.”

“You hate the Queen for what she did to you, and yet, you did the same thing to me.”

“Don’t you dare compare me to that horrible monster,” Drew said through gritted teeth. “That bitch changed me so I could be little more than a plaything; something she could reach for on her own time. I changed you to save your life . I am not keeping you with me if you want to leave. Everything I have done, I have done for you.”

“But you hate yourself, too” Kelia said. “You tell me so all the time. Why would you want to make me into something even you, yourself, hate?”

Drew froze, his attention settling on her face as his expression drooped. “Is that what you think?” he asked. “That I hate myself because I am a Shadow?”

“Is that not why?”

Drew’s lips pressed together and he shook his head. “I don’t hate myself because of what I am , but because who I was . I hate myself for the mistakes I have made, mistakes that I will never make again, because of you. I’m sorry if you are unhappy with the choice I made, but, for once, I am not ashamed of a decision I made. Saving you…it is the most right thing I have ever done.”

Kelia’s eyes pinched with tears, and she hated herself for doing something as weak as getting teary-eyed in front of the man who probably ruined her entire life. She looked away from him, the sheets bunched into her hands again. She couldn’t control herself any longer, and, before she knew what she was doing, his silk sheets—sheets that had been draped over her naked body after a passionate night of love-making—were red ribbons in her hands. She had torn through them like they were nothing but paper.

Kelia blinked at the mess she had made. How could she do something like that with simply her hands? It made no sense. She didn’t have the strength—

If this wasn’t proof that she was a Sea Shadow, she didn’t know what else could convince her.

She pushed herself to a standing position. The action was too quick, and her knees nearly gave out from beneath her. Drew stepped forward, his arms extended, ready to catch her. But she thrust out her arm with her palm facing him, stopping him from doing so.

“No,” she said, her voice shaking as she used her other hand to hold herself up. “Don’t touch me.”

“You’ve been unconscious for three days,” he said. “It’s going to take time to get comfortable walking again. Let me help you.”

“You’ve ‘helped’ quite enough already, thank you,” she said, biting out the words.

The tone of her voice seemed to be the only thing she really had control over. She couldn’t even stand just yet. Dropping her hand to the bed in order to give herself more support, Kelia righted her feet and pushed up. If she was supposed to be a goddamn Sea Shadow, then at the very least, she should be able to walk across a room, open the door, and tell Drew Knight to get out. Even if this was his room.

She took a step and then another. She did not need to look at Drew in order to know his expression was one of pity, and that was the last thing she wanted from the man who reduced her to this.

Before she knew what she was doing, she launched herself at him. Kelia had never been this angry before, and she had never expected to feel such burning anger toward Drew, out of anyone in the world. She managed to crack his jaw with her fist, her new strength sending him backward. With shaking legs, she chased after him, hitting him again and again.

He didn’t fight back. He blocked the blows but didn’t stop her. Just stumbled back until his back hit the wall behind him and he could not go any farther. At this point, Kelia did not have the strength to continue to pummel him with her fists.

“Come on, damn you,” she said, lifting her fist and pushing Drew. “Fight back. Fight back!”

“No.” His voice was quiet, soft. It sounded wise and completely unlike Drew. Patient. Perhaps even understanding.

“Please.” Tears stung her eyes. “Don’t just stand there!”

“I will not fight you, Kelia Starling.”

Before Kelia knew what was happening, the tears began to fall more freely, and her legs gave out. Drew was quicker than she anticipated, and instead of landing on the hard, wooden floor, she landed in his lap, his strong arms circling her waist. Immediately, Kelia buried her face into his chest and continued to cry. She was certain his tunic was ruined—at least, more ruined than a vampire pirate’s tunic could be ruined by usual means—now accumulating wet, sticky tears on top of the dried blood, sweat, and grime.

Instead of saying anything to her, Drew let her cry. She still remembered the last time she cried in front of him. His entire body was tense, as though he was not quite sure how to handle her emotions. She wasn’t sure how to handle her emotions. But he stayed with her and let her cry until she was finished, even with his body still and firm, like the wood that built this ship.

While Drew was still tense underneath her, he did not tell her how uncomfortable he was. He did not tell her he did not know what to do to make her feel better. He did nothing except hold her tight and let her cry. And that silence, the comfort she felt simply being in his arms, was enough to help Kelia calm down and slowly get over the initial shock of discovering what she now was.

“I’m sorry, princess,” he murmured into her hair, clutching tightly to her. “I’m so sorry. If there was any other way…”

She could hear the pain in Drew’s voice. If Drew was anything, he was strong and resilient. He did not show his emotions freely. Although she wanted to argue, to tell him there were plenty of other ways, somewhere deep inside, she knew he would have done that if it’d been possible.

She hiccupped, placing her head comfortably on his chest, and closed her eyes to relax. If Drew said he was sorry, then he meant it when he said he could not think of another way.

So Kelia closed her mouth and let Drew hold her, rocking her back and forth. His heart echoed in her ear, and tears still fell from her eyes, slowly now. Resolute. She could not change what she was, and it would be a while before she could forgive Drew, but she could not hate him. Not when she still loved him more than anything else in the world.

She could not focus on that now. Not when the Queen was still a looming threat on them.

At that moment, someone pounded on the door. It was strange, hearing someone approach before they announced themselves.

Drew stood, keeping his arms still around Kelia and slowly pulling her up before he opened the door. Emma stood on the other side of the threshold, her dark brown eyes wide and a worried glint flaring in the irises.