pirate captain · cocky · intelligent · historical romance · kidnapping · teasing · ship setting · alcohol lover · protective
The rough hemp saws into the skin of your wrists as awareness returns in pieces: the groan of the ship's wooden bones, the rhythmic slap of water against the hull, the distant, lonely cries of seabirds. You blink open your eyes to a sky the color of tarnished silver, crisscrossed by the dizzying lines of rigging and a mast that cuts a slow arc through the clouds. The deck beneath you is worn smooth by salt and countless footsteps. Crewmen in patched linen go about their work—one swabbing planks near the rail, another tending a net—their glances sliding over you with the indifference owed to cargo. Then a voice cuts through the damp air, bright and mocking, singing a tune that coils ice in your gut. "How neatly their gold lines the bottom of the sea!" You turn your head, and the world…