Sometimes I was lucid when Priest delivered his grisly spoils. He brought me an entire arm once, with the bone protruding like mine had, only this limb was missing its hand. He studied my reaction to it, his gaze gloriously dark and rotating with violence. A skirt of bloody knives draped about his waist, his face and chest dappled in sanguine spots of gore.

He exemplified a barbaric warrior. Not just of body. His heart bellowed for revenge.

Revenge in my honor.

I didn’t think I could love him any more than I already had.

Eventually, the gifts stopped coming, and I knew Madwulf had succumbed to infection or blood loss.

To watch one’s body being hacked away bit by bit was a positively grueling way to die. Perhaps I wouldn’t have been able to exact a better punishment myself. Still, I wished I’d been there. I wished it had been me who’d swung the fatal blow.

But alas, I was bedridden, and Priest was indeed a terrifying executioner. I tried to express my gratitude to him in my eyes, but I couldn’t make my face work right. So I settled on a weak, “Thank you.”

With Madwulf dead, Priest didn’t leave my side again. He and Ashley took turns feeding me, bathing me, and holding me on the chamber pot. Not my finest moments as a pirate captain, but I didn’t have the wherewithal to care.

Priest slept here every night. Sometimes in the bed with me. Other times I woke to find him in the chair beside the mattress, his weary frame bent over his knees, with his head hanging in his hands. It hurt my heart to see him so troubled. Worse, I didn’t have the strength to comfort him.

Ashley spent his evenings on Blitz. When he wasn’t here with me, he was trying to take command of what was left of his career. While I’d been shackled to the foremast, Madwulf’s men had boasted about all the soldiers they locked in the hold—all the men who had remained loyal to Ashley.

The pirate hunter still had a crew and a Royal Navy warship depending on him. With the admiral dead and his enemies destroyed, he could return to England, marry his betrothed, and carry on like he’d never met me.

If he did that, I would fight for him. But first, I needed to fight this infection.

Despite my fuzzy head and lack of hearing, I knew Jade was on the move, sailing to some unknown destination. Since I still saw Ashley every day, Blitz must be sailing with us, plotted on the same course.

Where? My questions were met with shaking heads and silent reassurances. They wanted me focused on regaining my health rather than trying to command the ship from my bed.