Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“ C an we please talk about this?” The dark-haired man begged as Dagfinn pushed him down the shore and away from The Serpent in search of Viktor. Or even better yet, the Chief of Mann. “I’m sure if we talk about this, we can agree that this was all a big misunderstanding.”

“A big misunderstanding?” Garth snorted. “The only misunderstanding here is thinking you can get on our ship and run your mouth.”

“It was a mistake,” the light-haired man pleaded.

Roscoe merely tightened his grasp on him and snorted, “That’s for us to decide.”

Roscoe and Dagfinn dragged the two down the shore and off the beach. The rest of us were hot on their heels.

When asked, the two men were stupid enough to lead us to the island centre, where everyone usually gathered.

“Let go of them!” An islander rushed over to us, but Caspian and Laurence stepped in the way.

“What is wrong with you all?” Another asked. “You’re on our island for five minutes, and this is how you treat our people? What gives you the right?”

“These men acting sleazy and parading around our ship, acting like they own it, makes them worthy of this behaviour,” I retorted, but it didn’t go down as well as I had hoped. “They have no respect for women. They need to be taught a lesson. They can’t get away with speaking to a woman like this.”

“No one asked you, whore!”

“Step aside and let us men deal with this. A female has no business here.” They sneered at the word ‘female’ as if it was an insult.

“Don’t you dare talk to her that way,” Garth snapped with a fierce scowl. “She is one of the crew, and you will treat her with as much respect as you do the rest of us.”

“Who says we have respect for any of you?” Another man yelled.

The large group of Mann islanders who had gathered laughed as if he had just said the funniest thing ever.

“Leave our men and go back to your ship!” Another man demanded.

“We’re here to do business with your Chief, and this is how you treat us? What’s wrong with you?” Caspian scoffed and stepped forward menacingly. “We are the ones doing you a favour by stopping here. We could have saved both our time and efforts and continued sailing, but you need our inventions, so I’d think twice before speaking to one of our crew in such a way.”

“She’s a woman. She can’t be part of the crew,” one of the women snorted as if everything I had just said had gone in one ear and come out the other.

It was bad enough coming from a man but much worse from a woman.

“It shows how little you know,” Roscoe snorted.

“Shut up, child and let the adults deal with this.”

“A child and a whore. What an interesting crew you have.”

“Quiet!” Garth demanded, his voice travelling through the entire square, and for a moment, he was granted the silence he had so unceremoniously requested.

One man stepped forward, having the nerve to sneer at us. “We do not need you and your silly inventions! Leave our men and get off our land!”

Before any of us could reply, a voice of authority beat us to it.

“What’s going on here?” A loud, booming voice asked. At the sound, we all turned our heads in his direction.

Although the man was small in stature, his manner of walking down the steps, with his head held high and a pompous expression, told me he was the Chief of Mann.

When Viktor and the rest of the crew followed after the Chief, I exhaled in relief. Hopefully, they would be able to talk some sense into these people. With how strong-willed and stuck in their misogynistic ways they were, it would undoubtedly be a difficult task.

Viktor’s dark eyes fell on me, brimming with concern. “Astrid?” He called out, his eyebrows furrowing together as he weaved through the crowd to get to me. Hammond, Odin, Manny, and Gustav were quick to follow after him, looking just as concerned as Viktor.

I couldn’t blame them. We must be quite a sight, all worked up like this, with these two men still held captive by Roscoe and Dagfinn.

“What happened?” Viktor asked, his eyes lingering on me for a few seconds before he turned to assess the rest of the crew. His eyes narrowed, demanding an explanation.

Garth was the first to speak up. “These two men had the nerve to get onto the ship and insult us all.” He pointed at the two offenders. “Before you react, wait for me to finish, okay?” There was a hint of warning to his tone, and he sent Viktor a pointed look. “They repeatedly called Astrid a whore and had the nerve to try and buy an hour of her time. You’re already mad, Viktor, so I won’t tell you how lewd and insistent they both were.”

“Astrid? A whore?” Viktor questioned in a low, gravelly tone, making me worry about all the dangerous thoughts running through his mind. Before I could reach out to him in hopes of calming down what could very well possibly turn into a horrible situation, he turned his attention to the two men we were still holding as prisoners. “Please let go of these men,” he addressed Roscoe and Dagfinn in a scarily calm tone. “I’d like to have a word with them.”

“Sure thing, Captain,” Dagfinn grinned and turned to Roscoe, indicating to watch him. Roscoe nodded, and we all watched as Dagfinn kicked the dark-haired man forward, laughing when he fell face-first into the ground.

The crew laughed, but the angry shouts from the island people made it apparent they didn’t enjoy it as much as we did.

A man stepped forward from the Mann islanders. “Now, that was unnecessary, don’t you think, Captain Viktor?”

“No, I don’t think it was unnecessary at all, Njal,” Viktor scoffed and shook his head before turning his attention to Roscoe. When he received the signal, Roscoe kicked his leg forward, and the light-haired man fell to the same fate as his dear friend. It was the least of what they deserved for their disrespect.

The two offenders were quick to scramble to their feet, but surrounded by us, they couldn’t escape.

“This is Astrid.” Viktor stepped forward and aside, giving everyone an unrestricted view of me. “Not only is she part of the crew, but she is also my wife. She is not the ship whore. Even if she was a regular crew member, that does not give anyone the right to come onto the ship, my ship, and speak to one of us that way.”

The Chief, Njal, clapped his hands together. “Great. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s head back to the hut and finalise the deal.”

“I’m not finished here,” Viktor scoffed, not budging. “These men disrespected not only my wife but my entire crew. They must be punished.”

The crew voiced their agreement, and the two offending men glanced around, their eyes wide, desperate for someone to step in and save them.

I was never one to encourage violence, but these two men deserved it.

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Njal denied, a cocky smirk on his face as he turned to glance over at me. “I mean, it was a simple mistake. An easy mistake.”

“An easy mistake?” Odin snorted.

“Women never travel on ships.” Njal shrugged nonchalantly. “And on the rare occasions that they do, it’s because they’re the ship whore. My men made a mistake, and they’ve apologised. Let’s drop this here and return to work.”

“This is not something you can just dismiss,” Viktor growled, a dark look on his face. “They have disrespected my wife. They deserve to be punished for their disgusting behaviour.”

“Just let this go, Viktor,” Njal groaned. “Let’s go back to my hut. The sooner we finish, the sooner you can leave and get back on the sea.”

“I don’t think so,” Viktor frowned and turned to face his crew. “Let’s all get back on The Serpent. We have a lot of sailing ahead of us.”

None of us questioned Viktor as we turned around to leave the island called Mann. Stopping here was a waste of time as we had to go out of our way to get here in the first place, but alas, we would never make this mistake again.

“Where are you going?” Njal called after us. He and a few of his men were hot on our tails as we headed back to the shore where The Serpent was docked. “What about the trade?”

“It won’t be happening,” Viktor scoffed, not sparing a single glance over his shoulder. Instead, he squeezed my hand gently and subtly pulled me closer to him. “My crew and I refuse to do business with men who treat women, namely my wife, so horribly.”

“Your Chief isn’t going to be happy about this,” Njal spat behind us, fuming, but Viktor merely snorted in response.

“My Chief will commend me for standing my ground and demanding respect.” He squeezed my hand again and pressed his lips to my forehead. “I’m sorry you’ve had to put up with this, my siren,” he whispered the apology, a sorrowful expression on his face. “I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

“You have nothing to make up for, pirate. It’s not your fault,” I whispered back, tilting my head to press my lips to the underside of his chin. “Thank you for standing up for me.”

“Be assured I will always stand up for you, Astrid.”

“Captain Viktor, you are out of order!” Njal growled. By this time, we had arrived at the shore, and half of us were already back on The Serpent.

“You and the rest of Mann are out of order!” Laurence yelled over his shoulder, seemingly offended. I didn’t blame him.

Njal began to panic as we pulled back the ramp, getting ready to push off from the shore. “We still need those swords we had you weld for us!”

“You should have thought about that before,” Viktor grinned as he leaned over the rail, aggravating the situation by waving the people of Mann goodbye as we began sailing away.

“What about the honey?” Njal screamed loud enough to be heard.

“There’s no more honey for you!”

I was surprised to hear we sold our honey. We mostly used it for medicinal concoctions, but we must be in an influx this year if we were selling it.

“But we need that honey!”

Roscoe rushed to the rail to scream, “You should have thought of that before you decided to brush off the disrespect like it wasn’t a big deal.”

“I will call for the men to be punished however you want!”

“Too late!” Viktor grinned, and whatever Njal said next, we couldn’t hear as we had sailed too far away.

Hammond congratulated Viktor by patting him on the back. “We did a good job, Captain!”

“Serves them right for treating one of us with such disrespect,” Garth laughed, and the rest of the crew agreed.

The people of Mann truly did deserve what they got, but all I could think about was the crew standing up for me. They were in my corner even before Viktor found out what had happened.

A warm, tingly sensation filled my heart. It truly felt like the crew had accepted me as one of their own.

Like I was one of them.

Like I belonged here.