“You probably can.”
“What does that mean?”
“That I would never trust him. For anything. Not even to clean spit from my boots. But you shouldn’t have any problems, as he doesn’t virulently hate you.”
Jerking her head back, she scowled up at him. “I thought he was your friend?”
Thorn let out a hysterical laugh. “Devyl has no friends. He doesn’t believe in them.”
She gaped. “Truly?”
Devyl snorted at the innocent question and stepped back toward Death’s location. “William? Tell our innocent guest here what friendship gets you in this life.”
Will didn’t hesitate or pause over his standard motto. “A conviction and a noose.”
Devyl lifted a smug, taunting brow at Cameron, who gaped at them both, especially given how flat and dry William’s tone had been.
“You can’t really believe that?” she asked them.
“Believe it?” William challenged as he drew near her. “Know it as truth.” He pulled his cravat down to show her the obvious imprint of where he’d been hung. There was no mistaking or denying the mark of where the rope had torn through his flesh and left him with a bitter, awful scar.
Gasping, she reached for it, then caught herself, as she must have realized how inappropriate it would be to touch him so intimately. “I-I-I-I’m sorry.”
“So was I when the executioner dropped the floor from beneath me feet, then waited an eternity before he yanked me legs to finish the job. Bloody plague-ridden bastard.” William straightened his collar. “Sorry I ever made the mistake of calling anyone me friend. Sorriest of all that I put such a rotten piece of dung at me back.” He cut a seething glare toward Thorn. “Swore to meself when Thorn brought me back that it was the one mistake I’d not make again. Put no one and nothing to your shadow unless you’re prepared for a blade to be sliding between your shoulders when you least expect it.”
The captain moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with Will. “And that’s why we get along so well. Mutual understanding.”
William smirked. “And mutual mistrust.”
“Exactly.”
“That just makes me sad for the both of you.” She stepped forward to hug William and then the captain.
Devyl froze at the sensation of her arms around his waist. Of her body pressed so intimately against his. For a full minute, he couldn’t breathe as a wave of fire erupted through his veins and awoke a peculiar feeling inside him he would have never believed possible.
No one had touched him like this since the day he’d buried his Elf. Not a sexual embrace, or one intended to lead to such. This was an innocent hug meant to give comfort. One offered out of kindness and true compassion for another.
It was true caring and innocence.
And it awakened something. He couldn’t even name this feeling because it’d been far too long since he’d last felt even an inkling of …
Words failed him utterly.
What the hell, man?
She gently rubbed her hand against his arm, offering him a compassionate smile before she turned to face Thorn. “I’m trusting you, Mr. Thorn. Please return me brother’s trinket to me as soon as you can.”
As she walked away, Devyl realized he was gaping now, too. Snapping his mouth shut, he cleared his throat. Then saw red as it dawned on him that she was heading back to her quarters, where he’d stashed the Deruvian bitchington.
“Fetch the lass, Will!” He shoved at his quartermaster. “See her to my quarters!”
“Aye, Captain.” He ran to obey.
Turning, he caught the look on Thorn’s face. “Don’t start with me, demon. In the mood I’m in, I’m likely to stock up on my favored beverage supply, and your blood would be a most special and welcomed vintage.”
Thorn held his hands up in surrender. “All I’m thinking is that it’s her Seraph’s blood you’re reacting to. Nothing more.”
“How so?”
“That unnatural attraction you feel inside you has nothing to do with any real feelings you have. You know it as well as I do. When you’re born in darkness, you seek the light. We crave it. It’s how they destroy us in the end. We’re so helpless against its lure that we dive into it even when we know we’re headed for our ultimate doom.”
He scoffed at the older demon’s wisdom. “What do you know of it?”
Sadness darkened Thorn’s green eyes. “More than you can fathom. And I loved mine in a way I wouldn’t have believed possible. She alone tamed the angry fury inside my heart. She’s the only reason I’m human now.”
Those words shocked Devyl most of all. “You’re confiding in me?”
“Nay, brother. I’m warning you. The moment she learned what I really was … saw the truth? My lady never believed another word from my lips. How could she, given what I’ve done and who my parents are? She never once thought me capable of any kind of love. To this day, I can’t blame her for that. Some days, I’m just as sure as she is that I’m incapable of it, too.” He glanced away. “That’s our curse. To seek the light and to always be banished back to the darkness that birthed us. We are the damned and hopeless. Maybe that’s all bastards like us deserve.”
And with that, Thorn vanished.
Devyl stood there, ruminating on what Thorn had said. While he recognized the truth the demon spoke, there was one vast difference.
Cameron had seen the beast in him. She knew what he really was.
Still she’d hugged him.
Hugged. Him.
It defied all reason.
“Captain!”
Blinking to clear his thoughts, he walked toward the prow, where Sallie was rushing back and forth between the muscled mountain that was their striker, Simon Dewing, and Katashi, who barely cleared five feet in height. Wiry and lean, Kat had black hair and deep hazel-brown eyes. Because of his proclivity for pranks and harassing any sailor not doing their part, half of Bane’s crew was convinced the Japanese sailor was part namahage. A fear Kat played into by the way he dressed and wore his hair in feathered knots around his head.
But Devyl suspected a lot of it came from the fact that Kat had been the youngest of five boys. Something that tended to make him rambunctious and forever into things he should leave alone.
Like a hungry rat ferreting.
Hence his nickname. It was both a play on the fact that Kat was mouselike, and therefore they called him by a rodent’s mortal enemy. And he was curious to a level that Devyl didn’t doubt for an instant Kat would sacrifice nine lives to uncover one truth.
Likewise, Simon, as a former priest of Exú—like the African spirit he served—was an innate trickster capable of being a fierce protector or a vengeful enemy.