Chapter 38

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

V iktor didn’t let me down on my feet until we were back on the sandy shore of the beach where I had seen him last, but even then, he didn’t let me out of his arms. They were wrapped tightly around me as he held me, and I welcomed his touch. It felt like Heaven compared to the three different pairs of hands on me before–all of whom were now dead.

Viktor’s touch was the only one I ever wanted, and it served those men right for what they tried to do to me.

Regardless, I wondered if I would ever forget the faces of the three men whom I had killed. I guess two, since technically, Viktor had been the one to intervene and murder the last one, but that didn’t help the guilty thoughts racing through my mind right now.

“I know what you’re thinking, my siren,” Viktor whispered, squeezing me tighter. “It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault, so please, stop blaming yourself.”

“It’s not your fault either, Viktor,” I denied with a sniffle, lifting my head from his chest to look at him. I clasped my hands on either side of his face and brought it down until his forehead rested against mine, forcing him to look at me. “I can’t believe what I’ve done, but I had to do it to survive. It’ll take me a while to process it all, but it’s not either of our fault, okay?”

“Okay,” he whispered and nodded, laughing softly when his nose bumped against mine. “We’ll talk about this later, but right now, I need to get back to the others before the pirates realise I’m missing.”

“Get back? Where?” I guess I was still shaken up by everything because I sounded panicked. Fearing that he would disappear, I clung desperately to my husband.

“I snuck away to look for you. I needed to make sure you were okay,” he murmured. “If I’m gone too long, the other pirates will notice. I prefer to avoid that and keep the element of surprise.”

“We need to free everyone.”

Viktor nodded in agreement. “They’ve got us digging all over the place. We’ve found two spots where some gold has been buried, but it’s not much. The pirates are adamant about much more, but I’m not sure.”

“Even if you find all the King’s treasure, they’re not going to let us go,” I told him. “They’re going to be even more determined to kill us when they realise that we’ve killed three of their own.”

“I know,” he sighed and squeezed me tighter. By this point, he was squeezing me a little hard, but I couldn’t bring myself to complain. Not when I needed the comfort just as much as he did. “We need to come up with a plan. There are fourteen of us, and only five of them left. I know they’ve taken all our weapons and supplies, but if we can get our hands on something, we can try to overthrow them and set ourselves free.”

“There might be weapons on their ship,” I murmured, remembering Frode’s dagger I had used to kill him and Sven. “There were no weapons on the bottom deck, only some food, but if Frode had a dagger hidden in his room…”

“There’s a possibility that the others might also have weapons hidden in their rooms.” Viktor snapped his fingers as he finished off my sentence.

Our hands tightly clasped together, Viktor and I wasted no time rushing back onto the pirate ship. We started in the first room, and without much effort, we were able to locate two daggers. One was hidden under the bed, and the other among his personal belongings. We found five more in the following five rooms and two more in the room opposite Frode’s–the third pirate Viktor had saved me from.

It appeared that even though they were a band of pirates that sailed the Seven Seas together, wreaking havoc wherever they went, they didn’t trust each other.

Viktor had been missing for quite some time now. If they hadn’t already, one of the pirates would come looking for him soon enough, and that was not a risk we were willing to take. The daggers were sharp but small, so the element of surprise was still the best weapon we had.

Once we were back on the sandy beach, Viktor turned to face me. “You need to stay here and hide, my siren.”

“What? No!”

“Hear me out,” he said, his lips twitching slightly at the corners in a barely-there smile. “As soon as they see you, they will know something is wrong.”

“But–” I tried to protest, but my husband cut me off.

“You’ve already been through so much, done so much. I can’t bear the thought of you having to go through anything else, my siren,” he whispered, bowing his head to nuzzle the tip of his nose against mine. If the moment wasn’t so dire, I would have melted in his arms and ordered him to take me right then and there. “I’m so sorry that you had to go through that alone. I should have been there to stop it from happening, to protect you, but I’m so proud of you for being able to protect yourself, my siren. My strong, brave wife.” He held me to him, his hands delicately cupping my face and tilting it up so he could pepper kisses all over it. “But you need to let me do this. Let me protect you, my siren. Get onto The Serpent, where I know you’ll be safe. Wait for us.”

I pursed my lips, though, after a few moments, I couldn’t stop them from curling down. “I’m not happy about this, Viktor. I want to come with you. I want to fight by your side.”

“I know, but I can’t risk putting you in any more danger, my siren,” he sighed and brushed his lips against my forehead. “Stay safe for me. I’ll be back with everyone before you know it, and then we’ll leave this Hell hole.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to try and sneak back without them noticing. I’ll hand out the daggers to the crew, and we’ll strike when they least expect it.”

“And if they do notice you sneaking back?”

He shrugged. “We’ll make it work, my siren. We outnumber them.”

I knew there was nothing I could do to stop him, that this needed to be done, that this was something that he needed to do, so even though I wasn’t happy about it, I sighed and gave in.

“Come back to me, pirate,” I whispered and rose on my tiptoes for a kiss.

“Always, my siren,” he promised.

Viktor slid one of the daggers into my hand and gave me a lingering kiss before he turned around and ran toward the treeline, disappearing behind it.

Soon, we would all be free, but I could only wait for now.