My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon

Not Salvius, though. He stood and faced her as she came toward him.

Liam grabbed Cecilia and hustled her across the plank, yelling over his shoulder, "Ned! Damn you, don't dally!"

But Captain Low wasn't hurrying. He was watching the goddess Larentina as she reached out to tap her cool white fingers on Salvius's forehead.

He fell to his knees, swayed, and went down hard. Face down.

"Ned!" Liam yelled again. "She'll take you too!"

"Yes," he said calmly. "I'm considering it."

Larentina advanced on him. Low raised his eyebrows.

"Reconsidering, actually." Low backed away, leapt onto the plank, and ran lightly across it to drop onto the rotting, filthy deck of his ship next to where Cecilia stood with Liam's arms around her. Low pulled the plank away from the Aquila and let it splash into the water—it was already rotting from the touch of his hands. He leaned on the filthy railing and watched Larentina stalk the decks of the Aquila, relentless and beautiful, sending the crew to their long-delayed and no doubt well-earned deaths.

Larentina paused in her killing to look sharply across at them, and Cecilia felt a chill as if death were passing its shroud over her face.

But in its wake, she felt oddly restored. Her crippling thirst was gone. So were her aches, pains, sunburns, and when she licked her lips, she found them damp and supple.

"I think I'm in love," Ned Low sighed, and then shook his head. "Too clever by half, our friend Salvius. Not to mention careless. But I suppose he had to keep her close, or he'd have lost control."

The Aquila was sinking, rolling drunkenly in a sea that was suddenly churning with waves. And sharks. Cecilia turned away from the sight and buried her face in Liam's chest, and he wrapped her tightly in his arms.

She felt the wind snap the threadbare sails of the Withered Rose taut, and the gruesome ornamental skeletons dangling from the yardarms clinked their macabre music. Ned Low was watching her and Liam, not the wreck of the Aquila.

"I'll take you back to your ship," Low said. "As we agreed. Then we're squared, Lockhart. The next time I catch you in my grip, you'll rot like the rest. You and the witch." He hesitated, then said, "Unless she really can break curses, that is." It was half a question.

"No," Cecilia said. "I'm not a witch. Sorry."

"Ah," he said, and shrugged. His lovely young face smiled, but the dead man in his eyes didn't. "Pity."

Low made a languid gesture. Up on the deserted quarterdeck, the wheel turned, and the Withered Rose heeled over in a course change, making for the distant speck of sail that was the Sweet Mourning.

A fresh sea breeze blew over the deck, temporarily washing away the filthy stench, and tattering Liam's clinging shadows. Cecilia looked down at herself; she was wreathed in the stuff too, like a damp fog. She tried fa

"Then why did he help you?"

Liam took in a deep breath. "I struck a bargain. It was the only way to get to you. Salvius's ship was too fast. Ned Low was the closest rescue I could find."

Oh no. "What did you promise?"

"Nothing I can't afford to lose."

Oh, Cecilia doubted that.

THE WITHERED ROSE GLIDED UP TO A BECALMED Sweet Mourning just as true darkness fell over the sea. The Mourning had lamps burning on board, giving the whole ship a party-barge atmosphere that left Cecilia with a sense of tremendous, knee-weakening relief.

She couldn't wait to be off this filthy, diseased scow.

Mr. Argyle was at the railing, holding a lantern, his narrow, clever face tense and anxious. "The Aquila?" he asked.

"Historical," Liam called back. "Coming aboard!"

Low sat at his ease and watched indifferently as Liam escorted Cecilia across the boarding plank and safely onto the deck of their own vessel. The crew closed around them protectively—amazing, considering a day ago they'd been willing to toss her over the side.

Maybe they just hated Edward Low that much.

She reached back for Liam, but he wasn't there. He was still standing on the boarding plank, looking at her, and while her dark shadows had blown free the moment she'd stepped on board the Sweet Mourning, his still writhed around him like toxic smoke.

"I'm sorry," he said, and his voice sounded choked and odd. "I'm so sorry, Cecilia. I love you."

And he turned and went back to the Withered Rose.

"No!" she screamed, and lunged for the boarding plank. Liam grabbed it from the far end and shoved; it was still fastened on the Sweet Mourning, so it banged loudly against the wooden hull as it fell. "Liam, come back!"

Argyle was holding her still. "Lass," he said somberly, "he can't. Ned Low's price. One had to stay, and he's made the choice. He wouldn't let anyone else do it for him. I tried. God's witness, I tried."

On board the other ship, Edward Low uncoiled himself from his perch and slipped down to walk to where Liam stood at the railing. He leaned casually against it, staring at Cecilia, and his moonstone eyes looked like twin moons reflecting the firelight.

"Do you believe in salvation?" he asked her.

She wasn't in the mood for his banter. "Let Liam go! Please!"

"All that binds him here is his honor," Low said. "But that's as strong as chain, for him. I ask you again, little witch, do you believe in salvation?"

"Yes!" She choked on the word, and a frantic sense of terror. "Please. I'd help you if I could. I really would."

He studied her gravely. "I believe you would," he said. "Although I'd never deserve it."

"I'm not your judge. Please."

Low glanced sideways at Liam. "Your witch bargains hard," he said. "I'll hold you to your word, Lockhart. One year of service on the Rose."

One year? Cecilia's heart turned to ice in her chest. She'd barely been able to stand an hour. What that would be like…

"I'll stand by my word."

"I know you will. You're a man of honor." Low put a mocking stress on the last word. "I never said when your service would commence, Captain."

Liam didn't move.

Edward Low rolled his eyes. "Leave, fool. I'm giving you parole. I'll decide when to collect my debt."

Liam's wrapping of shadow blew away, and Cecilia caught her breath and squeezed Argyle's hands in hers. Liam looked startled, and grim. "I suppose I should thank you."

"Don't," Low said soberly. "I expect to see full service from you. Just not today."

He made another of those eerie underwater gestures, and the fallen boarding plank rose up of its own accord and fastened back between the two ships. The ocean went as smooth and dark as painted glass.

Liam crossed over, dropped over on the deck of the Sweet Mourning, and Low reached out to put his hand on the plank stretched between them. It warped, molded, rotted, and fell away into dust and fragments into the waiting sea.

A devil's wind filled the sails of the Withered Rose, and the dark ship glided away into the night, silhouetted against the stars, and then gone without a sound. Low might have raised a hand in farewell, but it was just a shadowy impression, quickly vanished.

Liam let out a slow breath and closed his eyes. "You're an idiot," Cecilia said.

He nodded. "I know."

"I love you."

"And so you should," he said. "At great length."