Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
" You're so gorgeous, I can't say anything to your face
'Cause look at your face
And I'm so furious, at you for making me feel this way
But what can I say? "
―IT'S BEEN DAYS since the night in my cabin, and every time I remember that moment, my skin grows warm with the ghost of Sturmhond's touch, his lips on my shoulder, my collarbone, trailing up my neck in a path of butterflies, his eyelashes tickling my jawline. I close my eyes and remember the feeling of my silk shawl sliding from my shoulders, his hands on my waist in such a gentle touch I was afraid I was imagining it. My dreams are plagued and I always wake up with the fleeting feeling of the soaring birds twittering around in my stomach each time I reimagine the moment. Words run through my mind, things I could have done, things I could have said. I'm deathly afraid that I've given off the wrong notion and now Sturmhond might think that I hate him or that I was never interested, but that's far from the truth. I wanted more than anything to feel the contact of his lips against mine, the moment so perfectly sculpted into the lines of a fairytale. But in the back of my mind, I couldn't escape the fact that it would never mean the same to him.
For me, it was everything.
For him, it was an everyday occurrence.
I'm slightly grateful that I pulled away when I did. Because what if I hadn't and the next day I woke up just to discover Sturmhond had lost interest in me after achieving what he's already achieved with so many other ladies.
Since then, it feels as though he's been avoiding me as much as I've been avoiding him.
I release a long exhale as Tamar enters the cabin.
"You're sulking a bit too much for my liking," she says with her Heartrender's grin, her perfect set of teeth gleaming.
She studies my miserable expression, my silks wrapped around me like a blanket as I sit in my hammock like a depressed burrito. Her and I have a friendship in the midst of blooming, although she's always chiding me for being too sweet aboard a ship full of rough-edged men that smell like expired sardines.
"Something happened," she states, less of a question and more of a fact. She narrows her eyes, as if she can see right through me.
"What makes you think that?" I drone, monotone as ever.
Tamar smirks. "Something happen with the captain, Yi?"
I turn my head away to hide the warmth that drowns my cheeks, but she catches it anyways. A lighthearted laugh sounds, accompanied by her smile. "What happened with him? Oh, nevermind. It isn't worth your time, believe me, Yi. He's a child."
