Everywhere hurt. There was no part of me that wouldn’t protest the press of hands. Even his. But I wanted off this ship, even if it killed me.

“Do it.” My throat burned, dry and sandy. “I won’t bite.”

A rabid pirate ran up behind him, poised to thrust a rapier into Ashley’s back.

“Behind you,” I tried to shout.

But Priest was already there, cleaving the man across the face. Then he used the pirate’s own rapier and plunged it into the belly, jerking upward on the blade until it opened the stomach and part of the chest. The man dropped.

Pivoting aft, Priest screamed something at someone, raging, spitting, his face contorting with feral madness. I’d seen his temper at its most dangerous peak, but never this. His wild eyes, demonic expression, and mercurial bearing embodied a violent storm. A savage war. A roaring, consuming fire of wrath.

He was terrifying.

Returning to my side, he yelled at Ashley, who calmly answered, seemingly unruffled by Priest’s rage. I tried to read their lips, but my focus was ebbing, the darkness pressing in at the edges.

Priest slid a knife beneath the rope around my midsection and paused. His hand shook. His chest rose and fell. He desperately needed an outlet for the fury that snarled inside him.

Ashley touched my waist, fingers featherlight, and his mouth moved through a string of words, of which only a few were discernible at the end. “…I’ll hurt you.”

“Already hurt.”

I could no longer see the blue of his eyes, for the dangerous shadows that lowered over them were too dark and stricken.

“Can’t hear. No…sound.” I wasn’t sure how well I could talk. My face was swollen, and my voice didn’t reach my ears. “Find Madwulf. Below deck. He took… Opened compass. Tiny map. My stone…”

My father’s letter.

A tear leaked from the corner of my eye.

Priest set his jaw, nodded, and cut the rope.

The fetters unfurled, and I fell into Ashley’s arms. He caught me as delicately as he could, but everything inside me moved at once. Bones shifted. Muscles engaged. Weight displaced. The shocking, wracking pain was too much.

Nausea invaded. My stomach heaved. I drifted in and out of awareness.

I tried to stay alert as Ashley carried me across the planks to Jade. Over his shoulder, I spotted Priest at the bow of Blitz. He glowered with a shivering lust for death, his expression boiling, creased, cemented in an unblinking grimace. Once he saw me safely aboard my ship, he would go after Madwulf, no mistake.

A new pair of arms slid beneath me, along with a new level of hell as I was hauled over the gunwale. The pain came in constant waves, piercing and gnawing so deeply I couldn’t stop crying.