Falling For The First Mate

Chapter 10

The first thing Evanora became aware of, as her eyes swam into focus, was that Kade Skyler had his hands around her neck.

Kade Skyler- her last memory of him was how he had taken a life without stopping for breath. He was a merciless killer. And now he was going to kill her too.

Instinctively, she slapped him hard across the face, watching how his head snapped back in surprise, his cheek instantly bruised and swollen. As soon as his grip loosened, she slapped him again and ran to the other side of the room to struggle desperately with the door.

Locked.

Why, in the moments when you least desire your life to resemble a work of fiction, does it always tend to do so?

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Red faced and angry as a raging sea-beast, Kade stalked over to her, grabbing her roughly by the wrists. Evanora broke away, desperate to prove that she did not want to be within a hundred mile radius of him. He only grasped her hands again and pressed her up against the wall, this time holding her with strength that she had no hope of rivalling.

“What was that for?” he growled.

“What do you think?” Evanora spat back.

“Why don’t you just tell me, Treasure? Because I seem to remember that I just saved your life and all the thanks I'm getting is a slap in the face and this bloody tantrum!”

The truth in his words stopped her short for a second. She had conveniently forgotten, amidst the horror of the violent murder scene, how Kade had actually been protecting her. He had wounds chasing across his arms to prove it, not to mention the bandage that still covered his left hand. However, to take a life without batting an eyelid- even if it was to save another- was just so…so…

So much like a pirate.

“Fine.” she said, her voice venomous. “It was for shooting that pirate just as he was about to tell me what I needed to know, and then for trying to kill me too as soon as I woke up!”

Satisfied, she watched Kade’s expression change to one of confusion. He raised an eyebrow.

“When did I try to kill you?” he asked, a hint of a smirk crossing his lips. The smirk fuelled the fire of Evanora’s anger and she narrowed her eyes into slits.

“When you had both hands wrapped around my neck, trying to suffocate me, you filthy, wretched son of a-”

Kade slapped a hand firmly over her mouth, silencing her thoughtless ranting. She reacted impulsively and clamped her teeth down on his hand, making him hiss in pain, but he still didn’t draw back. Instead, he moved forwards so that he was standing against her, anger burning in his eyes and breath coming fast.

For a split second, even through the fog of fear and fury, Evanora shivered at their close proximity. However much of a bloodthirsty, ruthless pirate this young man was, he was an incredibly attractive one. Evanora really wished that her captor would have had the facial features of a warthog so that she could be fully mad at him, but since he had looks that literally made her catch her breath, it was more than impossible. The places where their skin touched were on fire.

“I wasn’t trying to kill you, Evanora.” he assured her firmly, voice low. “One of those bastards cut your neck.”

With that, she realised that she could indeed feel a pulsing throb around her neckline. Glancing down she saw a line of bleeding wounds from the nails of her attacker, ruining her once pure skin in a deadly necklace. She gasped in shock and sudden realisation of pain.