he wondered why he gave a shit what she thought of him, but there was no stopping the words falling from his mouth. “I’m still going to follow through. You’ll have your damned sword.”
“I hope so.” She studied him again, her tone softening slightly. “I made the mistake of trusting someone I shouldn’t have before, and it cost me everything. I won’t make that mistake again.”
And there was the key to his demise. He should walk away—hell, he should run. He shouldn’t want to earn her trust or her… He stifled the thought.
Once they got to Scotland, her assessment of him would be proven correct, because he wasn’t just any pirate.
Piracy was his family legacy.
Chapter Eight
Every inch of her body ached as Aura squinted and opened her eyes the next morning.
Climbing the ratlines had been more of a workout than she’d realized while the adrenaline had been coursing through her veins. At least she’d been too exhausted for more nightmares.
She sat up and put her feet on the floor. Her neck cracked as she rolled her head and stretched her arms out. Her hands were still raw from hanging on to the rough ropes. Last night could’ve been it for her. But a pirate had refused to let her fall.
His eyes haunted her. He’d been a balm to panic that had made her freeze on the lines. He’d been a rock in the storm. But she’d gotten carried away up in the crow’s nest.
Instead of knocking him senseless when he’d kissed her, she’d returned the passion. It would be easy to blame it on the moonlight and her lack of companionship since joining Department 13, but even if that were true, allowing her hormones to call the shots was a rookie mistake. She should’ve set clear boundaries. They were the key to working undercover. When lines started to blur, reality slipped right through your fingers.
And the reality was that she needed that Tyrfing sword and her job. She was nothing without it. Because of the top-secret nature of Department 13, you didn’t just lose your job. They had the technology to remove the memories of the work you’d done. She’d wake up at home with no friends, no family, no identity, and no idea of her purpose.
She shuddered, crossing the tiny cabin to fish clean clothes out of her pack.
Time to complete this mission and return to her job. This boat and this crew were not reality. Not for her.
Music interrupted her thoughts. It wasn’t from a radio. Just an acoustic guitar plucking out a haunting melody that seemed vaguely familiar…maybe a shanty? The few words she could hear were about the sea.
She peered outside her door, but she didn’t see anyone. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and headed for the main deck. She didn’t expect to find Keegan with his guitar, surrounded by a few other crew members. Keegan leaned on a stool in the middle of the deck with the rest of the crew around him, some seated on barrels, others standing.
Char had a tambourine, standing to his right. The way she looked at Keegan, with so much love in her eyes, made Aura’s chest tight. He looked up from his guitar and winked at Char, making her grin as she tapped the tambourine, keeping the beat.
Aura had no reason to be envious. She didn’t have time for relationships, anyway. But seeing the two of them interact made it easy to wonder how good it must feel to be someone’s favorite person in the world.
The ship’s pilot was also a front man for a local rock band in Savannah, the Scallywags.
Keegan had a great voice and swagger to rival Mick Jagger, but being an immortal made it impossible for him to chase the fame and fortune his talent deserved. He couldn’t keep faking his death and coming back with that many people watching.
Maybe he didn’t even want it.
When she reached the edge of the circle on the main deck, the others were clapping along to his shanty tune about mermaids and monsters. She didn’t recognize the song from any of the Scallywags’ albums—she’d admit to having a few—but the others seemed to know it.
John, the ship’s boatswain, according to her files, led Harmony in a fast waltz around the deck. He was tall and slender with dark-brown hair that he kept tied back in a ponytail. The boatswain handled all the bookkeeping for the pirate crew and distributed all the booty to the men. When