She Walks In Starlight

Phobia (Alexios x fem!OC)

“Be strong, saith my heart; I am a soldier; I have seen worse sights than this.” Fate decrees two kindred souls from two different empires will find one another, and the spear shall be made whole again.

Open Water (Alexios x fem!Reader)✻

A Sibling Rivalry (Alexios x fem!Reader x Kassandra)⁂

The Sculptor (Alexios x fem!Reader)⁂

Far From Home (Alexios x fem!Reader)✻

Admiration (Brasidas x fem!Reader x Alexios)⁂

Rest and Relaxation (Alexios x fem!Reader)✻

Persuasion (Alexios x fem!Reader x Eivor)⁂

“You’re insane,” “You love me,” “Not right now I don’t." (Alexios x fem!Reader)✻

Kisses Meant To Distract The Other Person From Whatever They Were Intently Doing +  Kisses Where One Person Is Sitting In The Other’s Lap (Alexios x fem!Reader)✻♛

One is mind controlled and forced to fight the other. The other refusing to harm them and getting seriously injured as a consequence. The person coming to and seeing what they’ve done (Alexios x fem!Reader)♛

Being jealous and teasing Alexios at a symposium (Alexios x fem!Reader)⁂

Don’t get sassy with me!” “Do I regret it? Yes. Would I do it again? Probably.”... (Alexios x fem!Reader)✻

Being best friends with Alexios and drunkenly telling him your feelings toward him. (Alexios x fem!Reader)✻♛

“Your bed head is really cute.” “You are very endearing when you are half-asleep.” (Alexios x fem!Reader)✻

Reader is best friends with Alexios, but easily gets jealous because she loves him (Alexios x fem!Reader)✻♛

You and Alexios bicker a lot, but it’s because you like one another (Alexios x fem!Reader)✻

Alexios admits his feelings for you almost when it’s too late (Alexios x fem!Reader)✻♛

Alexios finds another Tainted One and is no longer alone in the world (Alexios x fem!Reader)✻

SFW Alphabet✻

NSFW Alphabet⁂

Headcanons for how Alexios reacts and acts around pregnant reader.✻

Headcanons for Alexios with a hotheaded partner. ✻

Headcanons for bad pick-up lines with Alexios.✻

Modern Alexios headcanons.♛

Headcanons for how Alexios reacts to being teased all day.⁂

Kryptic (Deimos!Alexios x fem!OC)

But the great leveler, Death: not even the gods can defend a man, not even one they love, that day when fate takes hold and lays him out at last. Death submits to no one, not even Dread and Destruction. They are both weapons of flesh and bone, of warm blood and beating hearts, and they cannot be controlled.

The Way (Deimos x fem!Reader)✻♛

A Siren’s Song (Deimos x fem!Reader)⁂

It Will Come Back (Deimos x fem!Reader)⁂

Dread and Destruction (Deimos x fem!Reader)✻♛

Together (Deimos x fem!Reader)✻♛

Unwritten Prophecies (Deimos x fem!Reader)⁂♛

“Are you flirting with me?” “You finally noticed?” (Deimos x fem!Reader)✻

“Your heart’s beating so fast.” “Do you even still love me?” “You don’t have to do this.” “You’re so much different when we’re alone.” (Deimos x fem!Reader)✻♛

“Why are you awake right now?” “If you don’t hug me right now I think I might fall apart.” (Deimos x fem!Reader)✻♛

One is mind controlled and forced to fight the other. The other refusing to harm them and getting seriously injured as a consequence. The person coming to and seeing what they’ve done (Deimos x fem!Reader)♛

post-Deimos!Alexios trying to fit in in Sparta.✻♛

Taking a bath with Deimos!Alexios (Deimos x fem!Reader)✻

“I don't think I know how to love.” "Don't. I'm not good for you. Don't even think about falling for me." (Deimos x fem!Reader)✻♛

“I know I’m a monster, but you look at me like I’m a man.” “You do have something to live for. You have me.” (Deimos x fem!Reader)✻♛

Jealous!Deimos at a symposium and confessions under the stars (Deimos x fem!Reader)✻

Picking out baby names with Deimos (turns to post-Cult!Deimos) (Deimos x fem!Reader)✻

“Oh gods, what happened to you?" and "Don't ever scare me like that again, do you hear me?" (Deimos x fem!Reader) ✻♛

SFW Alphabet✻

NSFW Alphabet⁂

Headcanons for how Deimos reacts and acts around pregnant reader✻

Headcanons for bad pick-up lines with Deimos✻

Headcanons for how Deimos reacts to being teased all day⁂

Headcanons for how Deimos reacts when you save him from an attacker✻

I Found You (Brasidas x Reader and platonic!Alexios x fem!Reader)✻♛

A Truce (Brasidas x fem!Reader)⁂

Call of Home (Brasidas x fem!Reader)⁂

Admiration (Brasidas x fem!Reader x Alexios)⁂

Brasidas saving you from the Monger's men (Brasidas x fem!Reader)✻

Brasidas comes to see you before he must leave Korinth (Brasidas x fem!Reader)✻

Headcanons for bad pick-up lines with Brasidas.✻

Headcanons for how Brasidas reacts to being teased all day⁂

Oath Bound (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

A Good Day (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

Eivor’s Wingman (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

A Little Farmhand (Eivor x fem!Reader)⁂✻

A Good Distraction (Eivor x fem!Reader)⁂

Promises (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻♛

A Small Price (Eivor x fem!Reader)⁂

Picnics and Flowers (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

Feathered Confessions (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

Most Beloved (Havi x Frigg & Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

Persuasion (Eivor x fem!Reader x Alexios)⁂

Eivor proposing to you by singing a song (inspired by the Dancing and the Dreaming from HTTYD2) (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

Accidentally injuring Eivor and tending to his wounds (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

"Please... Kiss me even if it's just this once" + "No one's kissed me like that in a long time" (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻♛  

Having a picnic with Eivor and braiding his hair (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

Being long time friends with Eivor and him getting jealous and having feelings... (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻♛(very mild)

Being cold natured and cuddling with Eivor because he’s very warm (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

Waking Eivor up by going down on him (Eivor x fem!Reader)⁂

Eivor is a little grumpy, but he’s soft for you. (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

"I can't- I can't breathe" "Breathe with me okay" "Let's calm that heart rate down.” (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻♛

Training with Eivor and things get heated (Eivor x fem!Reader)⁂

“You’re hair is really soft after you wash it.” + “Ssh. Stop fussing. I’m just braiding your hair.” (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

Eivor is a stubborn patient with unspoken feelings (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

Reuniting with Eivor after a raid (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻♛

You don’t know Eivor is planning on proposing, but the village does. (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

Soft, quiet time with Eivor after a battle (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

Sharing body heat with Eivor (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

Matching tattoos with Eivor (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

First kiss with Eivor (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

An arranged marriage with a Saxon princess turns into something more (Eivor x fem!Reader)⁂✻

Stumbling across Eivor while he bathes (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

Being a reincarnation of Frigg and finding Eivor (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

Baking honey cakes for Eivor (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

Meeting Eivor on the battlefield and having flashbacks to a previous life (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

Eivor makes a promise to you and will keep it at all costs (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻♛

The Sigrblót festival brings you and Eivor closer together (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

Eivor teaches his daughter to make cairns when you are sick (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

A love-hate relationship with Eivor where it takes him nearly dying for amends to be made (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

You welcome Eivor home after his journey to Vinland (Eivor x fem!Reader) ⁂✻

Eivor and you find yourselves hiding from Saxon soldiers when an idea comes to mind (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻

You misinterpret a moment between Eivor and Randvi which eventually leads to confessed feelings (Eivor x fem!Reader)✻♛

SFW Alphabet✻

NSFW Alphabet⁂

Headcanons for bad pick-up lines with Eivor✻

Headcanons for Eivor with a hotheaded partner✻

Headcanons for how Eivor reacts and acts around pregnant reader✻

Headcanons for how Eivor reacts to being teased all day⁂

Headcanons for how Eivor reacts when you save him from an attacker✻

Valhalla’s Calling (Ivarr x fem!OC)♛

Green (Ivarr x fem!Reader)⁂

Gentle Sins (Ivarr x fem!Reader)⁂

Ivarr picks flowers for you (Ivarr x fem!Reader)✻

Ivarr chases you through the woods and the game leads to something more (Ivarr x fem!Reader)⁂

Surprising Ivarr as you train together (Ivarr x fem!Reader)⁂

A little bit of mead and you let slip how you really feel about Ivarr (Ivarr x fem!Reader)⁂

Tending to Ivarr after he is returned from a failed raid of the Western Isle (Ivarr x fem!Reader)✻

Ivarr is a terrible patient, but there’s one foolproof way to assure his cooperation (Ivarr x fem!Reader)⁂

Ivarr finds himself going soft for a Saxon princess (Ivarr x fem!Reader)✻

Being Ceolbert’s sister and learning of what happened in Sciropscire (Ivarr x fem!Reader)♛

NSFW Alphabet⁂

Random Ivarr headcanons✻

Aged Rum (Edward x fem!Reader)⁂

Not Just Silver and Gold (Edward x fem!Reader)✻

Three Steps Ahead (Edward x fem!Reader)✻

Midnight Sky (Edward x fem!Reader)⁂

Davy Jones AU

Edward gives you a music box before he must leave. (Edward x fem!Reader)✻♛

Edward talks too much and you know just how to make him shut up (Edward x fem!Reader)✻

Deliverance (Arthur Morgan x fem!OC)

"I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless."     -Jeremiah 15:21 A train heist gone wrong. A pawn stolen. Leviticus Cornwall is not a man to cross. But the Van der Linde Gang presses their luck and tries his patience when the heiress of the Cornwall fortune falls into their grasp. What seems like an easy ticket back West turns into something larger than the Van der Linde Gang can imagine and in the end, the prize might not be worth the cost.

Arthur Morgan:

Silver Moonlight (Arthur Morgan x fem!Reader)⁂

Sweet Caroline (Arthur Morgan x fem!Reader)⁂

Elysian Dreams (Arthur Morgan x fem!Reader)⁂

Ballroom Thieves (Arthur Morgan x fem!Reader)⁂

A Silver Promise (Arthur Morgan x fem!Reader)♛✻

John Marston:

Ghost of Days Gone By (John Marston x fem!Reader)✻⁂

Finding sketches of yourself in Arthur’s sketchbook and him admitting to his feelings about you. (Arthur Morgan x fem!Reader)✻

Cleaning Arthur up after he comes back from a hunt. (Arthur Morgan x fem!Reader)✻

Arthur takes care of you when you’re feeling under the weather (Arthur Morgan x fem!Reader)✻

Healing Waters (Geralt x fem!Reader)⁂

Needed Rest (Geralt x fem!Reader)✻

A Fated Storm (Geralt x fem!Reader)✻

Down by the Water (Fili x fem!Reader)⁂

Golden Lionheart (Fili x fem!Reader)✻

Star of Gondor (Boromir x OFC)✻

Ragnar Lodbrok:

Sweetest Dreams (Ragnar x fem!Reader)⁂

The Best Laid Plans (Ragnar x fem!Reader x Ecbert)⁂

Ice Ice Baby (Ragnar x fem!Reader)✻

Halfdan the Black:

In This Life (Halfdan x fem!Reader)♛

Harald Finehair:

The Queen’s Gambit (Harald x fem!Reader)⁂

Riverside (Harald x fem!Reader + Halfdan)⁂

Saga (Harald x Ragnhild the Might [OC])—WIP

King Ecbert:

Pleasures of Politicking (Ecbert x fem!Reader)⁂

The Best Laid Plans (Ragnar x fem!Reader x Ecbert)⁂

Ragnar Lodbrok:

Ragnar reminds you that you are his wife (Ragnar x fem!Reader)⁂

Things get frisky under the table during a feast with Ragnar (Ragnar x fem!Reader)⁂

Ragnar requests his wife’s company on the throne of Kattegat (Ragnar x fem!Reader)⁂

Ragnar makes a decision his wife is not happy with (Ragnar x fem!Reader)⁂

Halfdan the Black:

Halfdan arrives weary and seeking refuge during a storm (Halfdan x fem!Reader)✻

Halfdan makes amends after pushing you away (Halfdan x fem!Reader)⁂

Halfdan lets you take your revenge for him eating the last honey cake (Halfdan x fem!Reader)⁂

Harald and Halfdan seek to repay you for aiding in their victories (Harald x fem!Reader x Halfdan)⁂

Harald Finehair:

Harald decides it is time to make you his queen (Harald x fem!Reader)⁂

Harald and Halfdan seek to repay you for aiding in their victories (Harald x fem!Reader x Halfdan)⁂

Harald returns to his wife and queen after the defeat in Paris (Harald x fem!Reader)✻

Daemon Targaryen:

Rise by the Birdsong (Daemon Targaryen x fem!Reader)⁂

Dragonknight (Daemon Targaryen x fem!Reader)✻

Ānogar Hūra (Daemon Targaryen x fem!Reader)⁂

Ser Duncan the Tall:

Blue on Black (Ser Duncan the Tall x fem!Reader)✻

(You’re the) Missing Piece (Ser Duncan the Tall x fem!Reader)✻

Others:

White Knight (Erryk Cargyll x fem!Reader)⁂

Iā Zaldrīzes’s Prūmia (Aemond Targaryen x fem!Reader)✻

Cold Hands (Tormund Giantsbane x fem!Reader)⁂

A Dove and a Hound (Sandor Clegane x fem!Reader)✻

The Hands of the Queen (Bárid x fem!Reader)✻ — AC: Valhalla

Daylight (King Arthur x fem!Reader)⁂  — King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

Something in the Orange (John Wick x fem!Reader)⁂  — John Wick

5k Follower Fanfic Celebration

Replies to fic/headcanon ask memes

And you shouldn’t have played along so well when you curled a hand at the nape of his neck, fingers toying with the frayed ends of his hair, lips brushing near his ear as though whispering something to a lover. Guards grumbled about their aimless pursuit as they passed, but more troubling is the longer you and Edward linger—wrapped up in one another—the less it feels like pretending.

It wasn’t until the two of you were in a dinghy, rowing to the Jackdaw, that you finally took in the damage done. Nose and knuckles bloody. A nick on his forearm, bleeding through the sleeve of his tunic, and a split lip. There’s a patch of blue-black discoloration already starting to paint the skin on his jaw where someone landed a decent blow—so much for a quiet evening.

Edward pulls up alongside his brig, climbs the Jacobs ladder, then leans over to finish hauling you aboard. You trail after him as he heads to his quarters, knowing that if you don’t look after his hurts, then he certainly won’t.

He sits half-slouched in the dim light of his cabin—armaments divested, his outer clothes tossed across the table, straw-blond hair falling from its usual leather tie. His tunic sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the unlaced collar hanging low, past one of the tattoos on his breast.

Coming upon such a sight would make you swoon any other day and make your words fumble as you kept playing this tedious game that’s been going on between you and Edward for months. But no, right now, you’re frustrated with his foolhardiness, even if he does look a handsome scoundrel.

Dipping a piece of linen cloth into the washbasin filled with a mix of water and sour wine, you finish cleaning the blood from his split and bruised knuckles. Next is his bloodied mouth. You press the cloth against his bottom lip, harder than you really mean to. He hisses. “God’s teeth, woman.”

“You started that brawl,” you chide. You saw him throw the first strike from the bar. Not a punch per se, but he reached over and slammed some sorry lout’s face into the table by the back of the head, and from there it descended into madness. It never took much to get men’s blood going after toiling under the Caribbean sun all day and having too much rum on an empty stomach.

“A misunderstanding,” Edward says, defending himself under his breath, though it does not sound like the truth. You lean a bit closer, fingers tilting his chin toward the lantern-light—warm skin and stubble scratching against your thumb. Too close, especially now that the drunken levity has faded, but you won't be able to take back those touches in the city, and the moment is already seared into both your minds. Then, without having to pry or accuse him of speaking falsehoods, Edward’s blue eyes flit up. “Defending my bonny lass’s honor,” he tells you.

You pause. His. You can’t deny the effect the words have on you, not when your chest swells, and your stomach tightens. Warmth creeps up your neck to your face, more now than when he had you across his knee with his hand threaded into your hair. Stepping back, you dunk the cloth into the washbasin again and squeeze out the excess water.

“I did not ask you to,” you mutter, having heard far worse in Nassau. If Edward smote every man who ever spake cruelly against you, there’d scarcely be anyone left in the Caribbean. You move back between his knees to clean the blood welling up at the corner of his mouth again, ignoring the way his legs part to make room for you. His hands rest loose against his thighs, though every so often his fingers twitch—resisting the urge to touch you. “You broke a man’s nose because he called me pretty.”

“He called you a whore,” Edward counters, no humor left in him now—like your hurt offends him personally. The muscle in his cheek twitches, his blood running hot with the thought. Should have dragged the sot back for a keelhauling.

It catches you off guard, how quickly the lighthearted and nigh-teasing tone in his voice is sapped away—how he looks up at you from beneath pale lashes with his jaw clenched. He’ll take an insult or two, dish them right back out before it comes to blows, but a single ill word against you and there’s inevitably blood and broken bones. So far as Edward’s is concerned, you’re his to defend and protect. “Different sort of thing entirely.”

His words and look make you think about the dozens of almost touches—when his fingers would drift to yours but never interlock, or the times he wanted to brush your hair back, tuck a few unruly locks behind your ear, only for Adéwalé or another crewmate to interrupt. Him standing too near just to see if you’d notice, and God help you, you always notice. But tonight, sitting in his lap under the moonlight? You don’t think you can ignore whatever this is any longer. The festering emotions in your chest are real, as are your affections for Captain Edward Kenway.  

Edward’s voice drops quieter when he says your name, breaking you from thought and back to the task at hand—dabbing away the bit of blood still welling up on his bottom lip. His fingertips press hard into his thighs, the respectable thing to do when the alternative is gripping your hips to draw you into him or clawing at your frock.

“Suppose,” he says softly, eyes fixed on your mouth, expression different but not unfamiliar, “fight wasn’t entirely that piss-pot’s fault.” You frown, pressing the cloth to his jaw to clean away dried blood and lift a brow—what does that mean? “He was only telling what half the Caribbean already knows.”

“And what is that?” You breathe, almost afeared of the answer and what it might change between you.

Edward goes quiet—weighing the cost of finally saying it aloud and what it’ll mean for whatever this is. He decides he’s past caring. He wants you. Another gentle touch or sweet look from you, and he may finally be driven mad. Callous fingertips brush along your jaw, and you freeze in place, breath catching.

“I want you,” he admits, arm curling around your waist. “Tried being patient.” And Edward Kenway is not a patient man. “Thought perhaps you’d come to your senses eventually.” Before you can form a reply, his arm tightens, and he tugs you forward into his lap. You can’t help the startled little noise that escapes your throat, hands instantly moving to his chest and shoulders—fingers curling into the linen of his tunic—to regain your balance. His lips quirk upward, pleased with himself.

Settling against him, your hand half-slips under the collar of his tunic, across bare flesh, solid and warm. “If I haven’t?” You tease, but the airiness in your voice doesn’t quite make it sound like you are. His gaze darkens, and you’re grateful for the lanternlight hiding the flush rising in your cheeks. You’re so close, it would be so easy for him to lean forward just a bit and…“Edward—” Hearing his name on your tongue is sweet music.

“What would happen,” he asks, speaking before you can muster a clever reply, voice suddenly lower, rougher, “if I kissed you now?”

You should probably answer him properly, but your heart stumbles against your ribs and your eyes drop to his parted lips—still a dark pink-red from where you cleaned the blood away. “You talk too much,” you whisper.

“Aye?” His eyes flick to your mouth again, lips splitting into a grin. “Make me stop then.”

The challenge in his voice snaps the last frayed thread of restraint. Grabbing a fistful of his tunic without thinking, you pull his mouth to yours—months of tension resolved in a heartbeat. Edward makes a startled sound against your lips, melting into a satisfied groan when he kisses you back, hungry. A hand slides into your hair, the other tightening at your waist, pulling you flush against him. He tastes like rum, salt too, and the faintest trace of iron and copper. The kiss, the warmth, him, it forces the breath from your lungs, and he takes greedily.

His thumb rubs circles beneath your ear, and he kisses you once, twice, thrice, now that the line has finally been crossed. You feel the groan he swallows when your fingers slip into his messy hair, and the smile that pulls at his mouth when you tug lightly at the golden strands. Edward, you sigh into his mouth, forcing yourself away for breath, though your forehead rests against his.

Your fingertips brush over the darkening bruise along his jaw. Edward’s eyes flutter half-shut at the gentleness of it. It makes your chest ache, seeing this dangerous, reckless man going soft beneath your hands—like he always has. You kiss him again before you can think better of it, a softer kiss lingering at the corner of his lips as you comb through his close-cropped beard.

There’s a look in his sea-blue eyes, disbelief under the satisfaction, like part of him truly thought this might never happen. That you’d keep slipping through his fingers while the two of you danced around each other aboard the Jackdaw.

“Christ, woman.” Edward catches your wrist—can feel your racing pulse under his fingers—and turns his head, pressing his lips to the heel of your palm. The hands that have always tended him so kindly, even when he did not deserve it. “Have you any mind how long I’ve wanted to do that?”

“Long enough to nearly get arrested, apparently,” you remark. Edward smiles through a huff of laughter and buries his face into the crook of your neck, arms wrapping around your middle, drawing in a slow breath. Your fingers drift back into his hair, just like they had on the garden bench, though this time, there’s no pretending about it—and really, it hadn’t been pretending then either.

Edward Kenway stands in the doorframe, barely able to keep himself upright. Rain soaks his coat and tunic—straw-blond hair hanging in wet clumps and clinging to his forehead. His face is pale, like a man at death’s door. There’s no smile or cheeky remark offered to soften the sight of him like usual, only blood running from beneath the hand he has pressed against his side and a distant, hazy look in his blue eyes.

He sways on his feet. You catch him when he steps forward, stumbling, arm looping around his waist before he can pitch face-first onto the floor. Edward grunts, a deadweight against you when you brace, shoulder digging beneath his arm to haul him the rest of the way inside. “Jaysus.” The door slams shut behind you, muffling the roar of the storm, but then louder than the lashing rain and howling wind is the unsteady drag of his breath against your neck.

Lowering Edward into the nearest chair, you go to fetch oil lanterns and candles, setting them around your personal quarters and lighting them with a taper from the hearth. In truth, you’re afeared of what the light will show given the state of him.

Your hands set to work immediately, unbuckling his sword belt, and unfastening the holsters with his pistols. He tenses when you touch the layers at his side and lifts his hand—a surge of blood follows then as you push the coat from his shoulders. A sharp and involuntary hiss leaves him when you peel the blood-soaked fabric away, easing his tunic up and overhead.

Edward’s head drops forward, chin nearly to his chest, like the breath has been punched out of him. His hair obscures his eyes—half-lidded and clouded but flitting between you and his side. The bleeding hasn’t slowed.

You know by the look of it that he’s been shot. Far from the first person to stumble into your clinic with a musket ball in them. It’s not a clean graze, but it’s far enough from his gut that he notices the smallest bit of relief settles in your expression, enough you finally curse him. “Damn you, Edward Kenway.” You’ve said the same thing ever since he first came into your life like a hurricane.

He manages something akin to a laugh, or it would be in better circumstances, now it’s just pained. “Many have tried.”

You kneel, prodding the flesh around the bloody tear with one hand, the other holding tight to a candlestick. Edward's lips twitch when his gaze traces the curve of your lips—drawn into a frown because of him—and the furrow between your brows. This isn’t how he planned to show up at your door after being away for three moons. He was supposed to bring you a gift, treat you to a sunset stroll on the beach, or take you sailing for a day. Instead, he’s bleeding out in your rocking chair after thinking he could make a quick buck off the King’s Men at the tavern over a game of dice like a proper knave.

Lips pursing, you sigh. There’s no avoiding surgery. But even when you look close to wanting to strangle him, he swears there’s no finer sight. No remote beach, no ship, not even a hoard of golden treasure can compare to you—not all treasure is silver and gold, boy. Edward’s head rolls back, gaze flitting from you to the shiplap ceiling. “Always wanted to go out to such a fair view.”

You look up at him, unamused by his ill-attempt at flattery. “You’re not dying tonight.” You won’t let him. But there’s precious little time to waste—you need to get that lead shot out of him and the bleeding to stop. You incline your head toward the table by the hearth, not the operating table of the downstairs clinic, but it’ll do.

“On your feet, Edward,” you mutter, bracing yourself as you guide—half-carry, half-pull—him across the room. He lies back, skin slick and glistening with rain, sweat, and blood. Then his head lolls, slow and unsteady, eyes finding yours. Dimmer now and more tired than before. You cup his cheek, and he focuses on you, only you. “Stay with me, yeah?” The nod he gives is almost imperceptible, and you set out to gather supplies and tools.

There are other places he could've gone—should’ve gone. Other hands in Kingston willing to patch up a pirate for the right price. But he came here. A place that’s always felt like home.

Edward presses his head against the table, grimacing. He can smell the salt-thick air from memory, hear the creak of rigging overhead in the breeze, and see the long shadows cast over the deck by lantern-light as he emerges from the hold of the brig. Thatch has him by the front of his coat before he can even make it out of the hatchway. Listen well, boy. You sail where you please. Take what you want. Bed who you like. Thatch’s grip tightens, hauling him closer. But you keep your distance from her.

And here he is, knocking on your door again. “Thatch is going to unman me for this,” Edward mutters, barely audible—delirium shining in his bright blue eyes. He takes the folded strip of leather you offer, putting it between his teeth.

With the mention of his name, your father’s voice echoes in your mind, too. Warnings given more than once over the years. You’re meant to stay away from him and his kind. From pirates with silver tongues, bloody hands, and ill intentions. From men like Edward. Your jaw tightens. “He’s a talker,” you reply, dismissing the concern. “Now keep still.”

The flesh at his side is torn, angry, and weeping red, albeit slower now. You angle the lantern closer and frown—you’ll have to make an incision to get the lead shot out. Dousing a blade with oxycrate, you flatten one hand against Edward’s side, pulling the skin around the wound taut. His hand finds the loose fabric of your chemise, fingers curling tight when the knife’s edge bites into flesh. It is a lie to say this is the worst of it, especially with what comes next.

Steel forceps press into the wound, and Edward goes rigid, breath catching. A low, strained sound slips past his teeth, barely bitten back. You ignore it. You have to.

Your mouth presses into a thin line, but your hands don’t falter as you go deeper, searching past blood and torn tissue for something solid. There. A faint scrape of metal on metal. You hold your breath, adjusting your grip on the clamp, and the lead shot comes free with a sickening squelch and with it a piece of linen that matches the hole in his tunic—that alone is a great relief. The bloodied ball drops into a ceramic basin on the floor with a clink, and you press a clean cloth against the wound, hard, head dropping to rest on his bicep—just a moment to regain composure.

Edward’s blue eyes are on you, and the bloodied hand twisted into your chemise slips to curl around your wrist—he can feel your heart racing under the pads of his fingers. Shifting, you look at him, hair frazzled, blood smeared on your cheek. With his head swimming from exhaustion and pain, he can’t think of words to say.

“Hold this,” you instruct, slipping your hand free of his. You need to gather better bandages and some rum, a swig for both of you. A good patient for once, Edward nods, hand covering the fresh bandage on his side.

He’s barely awake, even though he’s sitting up with his arms bowed out to make it easier for you to work. "Knew if I made it here” —he takes a slow breath— “I’d be fine.” A knot rises in your throat, pulse stuttering, so you focus on the roller bandage, winding the long strip of linen around his trunk to bind his wound, then send him off to bed with a kiss to the temple.

He limps over and sinks down onto the edge of the rag-and-straw mattress with a low exhale, shoulders sagging. You think he’s going to collapse backward right then and there, but Edward careens forward, pressing his face into your middle, hands settling on your hips, breath warm and uneven through the thin cotton-linen of your chemise. “I’m a sorry lout,” he murmurs, voice muffled and rough with exhaustion. “I know.” A poor apology.

You card your fingers through his damp hair—the golden locks tangled beneath your touch. The tension in his muscles and bones ebbs as you hold him there. If Edward Kenway had the nous or courage to ask for what he truly wanted, he’d say it plain: Hold me, love, just for tonight. But pride keeps his tongue, and guilt settles into his belly.

Stepping back, just enough to be able to cradle his face, you look upon him with terrifying fondness—thumbs following the sharp line of his cheekbones and jaw and the golden stubble there. He looks up at you. Those blue eyes of his are glassy from pain and exhaustion. “Just once,” you muse with a faint little smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes, “I’d like to be greeted by a sight that isn’t you all mucked up.” He huffs, but then you bend, pressing your lips to his forehead, lingering, then to the corner of his mouth. A kiss he cannot quite claim, but one he’ll gladly accept. “Get some rest, my jolly sailor bold.”

Edward Kenway settles then, into the warmth of your bed—vanilla and jasmine cling to the linens, clashing against salt air and iron blood. You don’t join him just yet, taking to cleaning your instruments, piling together all the bloodied rags and scraps, and scrubbing the blood as best as you can from the table—the floor will have to wait.

And when you finally lie down next to Edward, he is already asleep. His breathing is even, muscles at ease with one arm resting across his middle where the roller-bandage sits. You watch him longer than you should.

Against better judgment, you reach for him, fingers grazing one of the raised scars on his shoulder, along the dark lines of a crown tattoo. One day, the wind will change…you close your eyes briefly, fingertips lingering on his skin…and he’ll be gone all the same. Maybe your father is right. But tonight, Edward is here.

It’s a cowardly thing to do—leaving before the sun has the decency to rise, before you even wake—but it’s easier this way. He’s never been very good at goodbyes that ask a man to stay. His muscles protest when he sits up, jaw tightening with the nagging pain, hand instinctively going to rest over his injured side. Edward presses two fingers to his lips, then rests them gently against your own. The closest thing to a goodbye he’ll allow himself.

Before he goes, though, he sits at the table—stained reddish-brown in places—and dips a quill into an inkwell, scrawling a hastily written letter on a slip of laid paper as though words will ever be a substitute for his presence. Then, gathering his kit, Edward Kenway slips away into the first light of dawn.

The bed next to you is empty and cold. You know it is before you even open your eyes. And still, you reach across the sheets, searching for something—someone—not there anymore. Your chest tightens as you sit upright. If not for fresh memories, the bloody handprints on your chemise, and stubborn stains around your nailbeds, you might think it was only a dream.

Something between sadness and anger stirs in your belly when you find the note left in his place. My Cariad, it reads. You have every right to be angry with me. For the unrest that accompanies me, and for presenting myself at your door as though I have any claim to its warmth. Of all the refuges I might have looked for, I find it was ever destined to be yours. It takes a moment to realize the warmth on your cheeks and the salt on your tongue are tears.

Wiping your eyes, you read on. Thatch will have my hide if I do not return soon. I can near hear him cursing my name across the seas. There is coin. You eye the scarlet pouch of reales and doubloons on the table. Not payment. You know better than that. Call it poor penance from a man who owes you more than he will ever be able to settle.

When the winds shift and see me bound once more for Kingston, I shall return to you. He won’t go back on his word, you know that by now, but it’s the waiting that hurts the most. Until then, keep a place for me, if you can. Signed. Edward. The paper slips from your trembling hands, reminding you of a night on a beach that seems like a lifetime ago.

Flames lick the night sky. Ben and Edward left to retire for the evening some time ago, retreating into the streets of Nassau. Thatch still sits there, next to you, on the beach, looking over a sea shining silver-black in the light of a full moon. A rare thing for him and you to have such a calm moment to share.

He isn’t daft. Kenway has been finding excuses left and right lately to wind up in your company—a scratch he acts like needs more than just water and pressure, a delivery of supplies from the harbormaster, a drink at the Old Avery. And he saw where your attention went for most of the evening. Despite it all, Thatch doesn’t remember the last time your spirits were so high and free. “He won’t stay, lass,” your father says, quiet, gaze not straying from the sea. “Not because he doesn’t care, but because he doesn’t know how.”

You swallow. “I’m not asking him to stay.” You never asked that of anyone. Not Edward. Not Thatch. Only that they return to you on the wind and tide in one piece—alive and well.

“You’ll tell yourself that. You’ll tell yourself you’re stronger than it. That you can take what he gives and not want more.” He leans closer, fingers closing around the neck of the bottle of rum. “But you will,” he finishes. “And every time the sea takes him, he’ll take a part of you, daughter, until your heart’s broken beyond mending.”

And maybe Edward does take pieces of your heart with him every time he leaves, but it seems like a fair exchange, in truth, when he leaves pieces of himself behind in your safekeeping too.

“THERE YOU ARE, miss.” Emmanuel sets the crate of medicinal vials, bundled herbs, and other things that make up your trade on the counter. It took him some time to find and gather everything on the order, especially after a battered frigate of the King’s Men came to port needing more skills beyond the ship’s physician. You nod your thanks, handing over a pouch of silver coin in exchange for the supplies. The last matter of business for the day.

“Oh” —the clerk shuffles through a small box of plainly wrapped parcels and letters before you leave, remembering one of them came in a day prior, addressed to the apothecary— “correspondences.” Your name is scrawled across the front in a hand you know well enough. Father. It never bodes well to have a letter from Blackbeard. He’d sooner have set a course to Kingston under cover of a merchant and see you in the flesh than take the time to write. You tuck the folded paper into the crate, thank Emmanuel, and set off for home three streets over.

He sees you when you go into the general store from down the lane—unmistakable to his eye and the way his heart seizes. You hadn’t seen him, leaning against one of the posts on the porch, when you left out the shop door. His lips twitch, a good surprise then. He pushes himself upright and takes a step after you. “Need assistance, lass?”

That voice. You nearly drop the crate. “Edward!” It’s been a year. A full turn of the seasons. Countless days spent convincing yourself that if he meant to come back, he would have by now. That Thatch had been right all along.

He’s not bloodied, dying, nor asking if he can lie low for a time to avoid the gallows. This time, there’s a rough-picked bunch of roses and hibiscus with uneven stems clutched in his hand—looks like he tore them from wherever he found them, with little thought beyond giving them to you.

Edward holds the flowers out. “Thought I’d try something different,” he says, glancing down at them briefly ‘fore looking at you, the corners of his lips curving. “Arriving in one piece.” You set the supply crate down and reach for the small bouquet, fingers brushing his. “I know,” he adds, softer now, as he sees the smile creep up on your lips. “Took me long enough.”

The backs of his fingers brush against your jaw when he reaches for you. You lean into his touch, just for a heartbeat before stepping closer, arms twining around his neck—head tucked under his chin.

It’s easier to be honest while in your arms. “Have you any mind how much I’ve missed you?” He whispers, stroking your back with the full width of his hand. Up and down the curve of your spine, keeping you pressed close to his chest. And by Neptune, it feels like he’s home.

“May I stay a while?” It’s not a question you expect. A while. He’s never been one for a while. Three days. A week if fortune, or misfortune, keeps him longer. Then gone again, always chasing something just beyond reach.

You should be angry with him. For the past year. For a year without receiving a single word to assure you he was still alive and hadn’t met his end at the gallows or found his way to Davy Jones’s Locker. For the way he keeps returning just when you’ve nearly convinced yourself to stop hoping he will. You should tell him no—make him feel the same ache that took weeks to fade from your heart when he left. But he’s holding you so tightly—desperately—and having him back in the flesh unmakes whatever walls you sought to build in his absence. And God help you, you smile. “’Course you can.”

Edward wonders, fleetingly, if he ought to warn you. Tell you what a dangerous thing it is to make a man like him feel wanted. Instead, he laughs into the crown of your head. “That’s fortunate,” he murmurs, drawing back just enough to look down his nose at you—his sea-blue eyes bright and clear. “Already decided I was staying, regardless.” Arrogant as ever. You wouldn’t want him any other way.

He stoops down to pick up the crate and walks close enough that his arm brushes yours every few steps. Excuses to steal glimpses when he thinks you aren’t looking. Once, twice, then again at the turn near the bakery that puts you on the street with your home and clinic. You catch him at it but pretend like you don’t—until you do the same and catch his eye. “What?” You ask, fighting back a smile.

“Nothing,” Edward muses, voice tinged with mirth.

He sets the crate on the table, and the familiar scent of dried herbs, jasmine, and oxycrate tickles his nose. You cross the room to the mantle, arranging the rough-picked roses and hibiscus into a small vase. You adjust them, lingering on a crimson rose before stepping back to admire them. Edward’s chest aches as he watches, and his mind wanders—to what it would be like if he stayed, truly stayed. 

Waking beside you each morning and going to bed every night with your legs tangled through his and your head upon his chest. He could run errands for you through Kingston. Help make tinctures and salves. Grind herbs whilst you scold him for crushing them too coarsely or tracking mud into the house. Hold down the unlucky souls who found themselves beneath a bone saw or cauterizing iron. A strange little life—not so different from Swansea—but God help him, he wants it fiercely enough it frightens him.

His eyes dip briefly to your lips before meeting your gaze—it’s terrifying, the way you look at him. Because some part of him feared he wasn’t meant to be looked at so gently again. Not after all he’s done. But you are, and you do. And despite the warmth and comfort of the surrounding four walls and roof, you look at him as though he’s what makes this place home.  

“Spent the whole voyage wondering if you’d still look at me like that once I returned,” he admits, catching your waist as you turn to finish unpacking the supplies.

“Edward James–” The rest of his name softens as he draws you back around to him, bending down just a bit. Your eyes catch his, wide with surprise, and then his nose brushes yours, and the warmth of his breath fans against your cheek. “–Kenway,” you finish, quieter—a warning he has no intention of heeding.

He kisses you softly. Different, somehow, from all the times before, and yet the same. It’s only a chaste press of lips. Testing. Asking the questions he’s not brave enough to speak aloud: Am I still welcome? After all this time? After all I am?

You sigh into his mouth, fingers grazing the open neck of his tunic. Of course, you are. He has his answer.

Breaking away, you stare at him, a curse on your lips, but it fades when his fingers flex softly at your hips. You reach for him, more forceful than he expects, a quiet, desperate sound escaping you as your hands tangle in the lapels of his overcoat and shirt, pulling him back down, chasing his kiss. Edward lets out a rough breath against your lips like the sound’s dragged from his chest.

There’s nothing cautious about the way he tilts your head just a little—hungry for something he hasn't had in more than a year. His mouth parts against yours, and one hand slips from your waist to cradle the back of your neck, thumb brushing beneath your ear. And you’re drowning in him. The scrape of blond stubble against your skin. The clinging must of salt and cedar. The callous drag of his fingertips.

A half-step back and your hip knocks against the edge of the table—bottles and vials clink, but you pay them no mind. Edward breaks the kiss to draw breath, forehead resting against yours. “Kiss me again like that, and I’ll forget every good intention I had coming here,” he nigh whispers, voice hoarse and heady.

Good intentions. It’s nigh enough to make you laugh, but it catches in your throat when he kisses the corner of your mouth, tender in such a way that undoes you far more than his lust and hunger ever have. Your hands slide beneath the open edges of his coat, palms flatting against the planes of his chest as you slip the garment from his shoulders, letting it fall over a nearby chair.

It serves as an invitation. Edward kisses you again—he cannot get enough—hands straying to the line of buttons on the back of your blue frock. The fabric loosens little by little beneath his hands, though not quickly enough for his liking. He grumbles under his breath about the number of buttons, pins, and impossible layers women are made to wear. A breath of laughter leaves you.

His hands slide to your shoulders, pushing the blue wool down your arms, letting the dress and stays fall to a heap on the floor, fingertips lingering on newly bared skin. In only your chemise and stockings, you almost feel barer under his heated gaze than you would have naked, because under the wanting is something worse, like longing and love.

God forgive you, but you cannot keep yourself from it—from him. “Edward.” He hums against your mouth, barely pulling away, even after your hands press against his chest, “I want you.”  

There’s a jest on the tip of his tongue—well, that’s obvious. But you continue before he can say anything. “In a way that is wholly selfish,” you admit, hands sliding along the strong line of his neck until you’re cradling his face between your palms. “I’ve always wanted you.” Your voice softens, becomes fragile, as you hold his gaze. “Only you.” I love you. You don’t say it aloud—you don’t have to, because the look in Edward’s eyes changes all the same. And when he whispers your name, it sounds less like desire and more like devotion.

Loosening the tie at the neck of your chemise, you let the thin piece of linen slide down your body to join your frock. Edward sucks in a sharp breath, his eyes roam over you slowly, openly, as though he cannot decide where to look first. His knuckles trace the curve of your breasts, reverent. Then he bends, stubble scraping against your skin as he presses an open-mouth kiss near your collarbone, and another lower still.

The backs of your knees hit the rag-and-straw stuffed mattress, and you settle back onto the bed, leaving Edward standing at the edge of it, blinking down at you.

It’s a dream to see you lying there, unclothed in the last light of the sun streaming through half-open shutters and the glow of firelight, skin warm and soft—beckoning to be touched—and shifting with a familiar ache that makes his pulse rise to his throat. Your eyes are half-lidded but fixed on him, following every movement with quiet need. In that moment, he craves you more than anything—he wants your acquiescence, wants you so consumed with desire that you’ll whimper and sigh beneath him—atop him. And by God, he’d let you drown him if it meant having you for eternity.

Edward’s hand slides along your calves from your ankles, fingers hooking into the wool of your stockings, pulling them off to join the rest of your clothes on the floor. Calloused palms are warm against your skin. His thumb strokes a circle, absentmindedly at the bend of your knee, before he shakes his head once. “Christ,” he murmurs, more to himself than you. Then he leans over you—the mattress dipping beneath the weight as he braces into his hands on either side of you.

Your arms wind around his middle, drawing him closer. His hips roll into yours before he even thinks about it, answering the motion of your body instinctively—it’s been far too long since he last knew you like this.

His mouth hovers above your own, ready to kiss, but the soft grind between your thighs coaxes a shaky breath from you. Lips parting, your head tips back. Edward watches. Entranced. The flutter of your lashes. The faint crease between your brows. The little noise you make when he presses closer. Beautiful, Edward mutters, though for a moment he doesn’t know if he’s spoken it aloud.

He lets his weight sink to his forearms, body pressing into yours, and his lips press a light kiss to one of your breasts, just near a taut nipple. You gasp, arching into him, and a sweet moan carries against his temple. Edward sighs against you, nose pressing into your tit, and he groans into your flesh when your fingers work their way into his golden locks, catching on tangles, nails grazing his scalp.

Restraint frays each time your hands wander over him. You feel it in the tightening of his jaw, in the cadence of his breathing. Your palms drag over hard muscle beneath stained linen, tugging impatiently at his shirt until Edward finally breaks away from you with a low groan of surrender.

You lie there and watch, unabashedly, face flushed, and lips swollen from his kisses, as he draws his tunic overhead. There’s a new tattoo, one of a ship on his breast, and new scars too. But the one on his side catches your attention—it seems to have healed well. He notices where your eyes settle, and his hand drifts there, fingertips brushing against the silver-pale raised mark. “Did damn fine work,” Edward says, knowing he might not have survived without you.

Shifting, you reach for him, fingers replacing his on the scar. A gentle touch. “You scared me, Edward,” you admit. “I thought–” It’s not a thought you wish to entertain again. He’s come with his fair share of cuts and bruises; you even stitched up the gnarly gash on his cheek, but that.

Edward’s forehead brushes your stomach, body shifting downwards between your spread legs, a foot planting on the floor. One hand smooths up your thigh; the other braces beside your hip, rough fingertips brushing your skin. Another kiss. This one pressed low against your stomach, just beneath your navel. You shiver beneath him. “I know,” he says after a moment, apologetic.

Rolling to the side, he eases himself back up, fingertips trailing from the inside of your knee to the crease of your thigh, and presses his face into your neck. But it’s you fighting to regain your breath when he parts the seam of your cunt—warm and wet and all for him. Edward slips one finger, then two, in, and you cry and sigh and keep whispering his name like a prayer. He slides them deep enough to stretch you good, to let his palm grind against your clit—then he moves them, slow and gentle at first, then quicker when you start to sing like a siren come to drag him to the depths.

Edward swallows every sound—a parched man. The low whine in your throat. The hitch of breath when his fingers curl just right. Your whispered Edward, Edward—soft and desperate. “Listen to you,” he mutters against your skin. His mouth drags along your throat, teeth grazing the flesh there before soothing the sting with a kiss. The hand between your thighs keeps its rhythm, slick fingers working you open while his thumb brushes slow circles that make your hips twitch helplessly beneath him.

You clutch his shoulder, nails digging into warm skin and hard muscle. “Edward–” 

He bites his lower lip, curling and scissoring his fingers deeper inside you. Then repeats the same motion, this time achingly slowly, ensuring you feel the torturous drag of his scarred knuckles stroking that spot. Your hips jerk softly along with his movements, and there’s unspoken interest in his gaze as he stares down at you, relentless in his efforts to see you come undone. “Let go for me, love.” And you do.

He watches your expression, beguiled—the flush across your cheeks, the shine in your eyes, your lips parted around broken little gasps. It’s impossible for him to fathom how anyone could witness this and still believe in heaven elsewhere.

Edward pulls his hand away, palm giving one last squeeze to your hip—leaving a slick dampness behind—before fumbling with the laces of his breeches, hurriedly shoving them down his legs and to the side before wedging himself back between your spread thighs. The blunt tip of his cock head glides between your folds, his hips rocking back and forth as he coats himself in your slick. Heart racing, your body cries out at his teasing. You could almost cry at how badly you need him, but it comes out as a hoarse whimper: “Please. Take me.”

Unable to deny you, Edward eases himself down upon you, half-mad with need, beads of perspiration dotting his brow. One hand slips between the bed and your shoulder, moving further to cradle the back of your head as he guides himself with his free hand into your warmth—he curses behind clenched teeth at the heat and tightness.

Breath leaves him the moment he’s fully seated inside you, forehead dropping to yours; eyes squeezed shut. “Fucking Hell,” he mutters, voice strained thin with restraint as he starts working himself into a gentle rhythm. “Missed you something fierce, cariad.”

His thrusts are deep and slow, and you find your eyes already stinging with a wetness from the way he feels buried inside you. Too long. You roll your hips into his. It’s been too long. “Missed you too,” you breathe, lips curving into a lazy smile, “stubborn as you are.”

Edward's breathing shifts, a half-laugh, lips finding yours. He needs your kiss; all of you—has gone too long without—and he swallows the little gasps and whimpers you make. The pace, the angle, the heat of his skin pressed against yours—you feel everything. Every ridge and vein, the weight of his cock reaching a place within that undoes you.

Arms straining with the effort of holding himself above you, Edward grunts, and groans behind gritted teeth. With every deep and desperate thrust of his cock inside of you, he fucks you like he’s trying to stop time itself. Struggling to keep you his for as long as he can, his fight to prolong the times when he’s buried inside of you is written in the flush of his cheeks and the look in his half-lidded eyes.

You push your fingers into his hair, tugging lightly, and he shudders into his next thrust, an elbow giving out to press his body down into yours again. Then the other, curling near your head. The sound he makes at your ear is jagged, wrenched deep from his chest.

Your hands find purchase on his back, feeling the muscles contract under your palms—nails digging into flesh. He responds with a low growl. One of Edward’s hands shackles your ankle, running up the length of your calf, up and over your thigh. Your belly knots as his fingers drift back down, hooking his hand behind your knee and drawing your leg around his waist—tilting your hips upward. The shift in your breathing and how your thighs squeeze him tell him you’re close.

His hand slides down between your breasts, across your stomach, and still further until he reaches where you’re joined—his thumb pressing against your clit, starting to rub slow, uneven circles. You tense at the jolt of euphoria, clenching around his cock. Greedy. He doesn’t want it to end. God, he’s not ready for it to end, but you’re falling apart under him, holding tight to his backside and breathing his name like a prayer, and it’s been too long.

It takes all his strength to pull out from the warmth of your snug cunt when his cock starts to twitch, muscles tightening. Edward presses himself against you, wholly, chest to chest, lips brushing over yours when his brows knit together, but never closing the small gap—a fresh sticky warmth on your bellies. His gaze flits over your contented expression, and his heart starts to ache. Forehead dropping to rest on your shoulder, he exhales, steadying himself, and you cradle the back of his head with one hand, the other stroking his freckled and tattooed shoulders.

“Were the world kinder, I’d have you like this, always,” you murmur, fingertips drifting through his straw-blond locks, working a tangle free at the nape of his neck. But were the world kinder, Edward fears your paths would never have crossed at all. His lips brush against your collarbone before he lifts his head to look at you, thumb stroking lazily along your waist where he still holds you close beneath him.

After a long while, Edward shifts, reaching for his discarded tunic. He doesn’t say anything as he cleans his seed from your stomach and thighs, but it looks like he wants to—you make me want things I’ve no right wanting. Settling back down, his arms fold around your waist, drawing you into his side—legs tangled together. Smiling, you trail your fingers over the scar on his cheek and the one cutting across his brow, humming a tavern shanty. Here's a health to the company.

Edward brushes his nose against yours, affectionate and terribly tender for a man so often mistaken as a devil in disguise. His fingers half-thread into your hair, thumb tracing over your cheek. A shaky breath leaves him, and a heavy weight settles in his gut when his lips brush yours.

There was a night not so long ago on Queen Anne’s Revenge—merriment for a good haul. Ale and rum tankards slammed against the rails and deck whilst the crew sang themselves hoarse. Edward had been laughing too, rum warm in his blood, though his thoughts wandered elsewhere more times than he cared to admit—always to you, especially when his gaze drifted to his Jackdaw, moored next to Blackbeard’s galleon.

Thatch saw the look in his eyes. Heading to Kingston instead of Nassau again, are you? It was too late for both of you. And maybe Thatch’s attempts to thwart this only made it inevitable. Seen men chase after gold with less hunger. That should frighten you, Kenway. Edward remembers saying nothing. For once, there had been nothing to say. Should any hurt ever befall her by your doing, swear to the Almighty Himself I’ll come back from Hell just to drag you there with me. The pad of his thumb traces over your bottom lip. “Thatch said he’d haunt me if I ever broke your heart.” He doesn’t know why he says it.

“You already have,” you whisper with an ephemeral smile. “Many times.” Every time he was gone before dawn without a word. Every time you were able to kiss him farewell. He left, and it broke your heart a hundred times over.

Pain and guilt flash across his face, clouding his blue eyes. He’s not come away unscathed either. Edward Kenway took a little piece of you every time he went and unknowingly left part of himself behind—with you. Think we stopped belonging to ourselves a long while ago. “But,” you start, fingertips following the outline of one of his tattoos. “I think I may have broken yours, too.”

His breath catches, just for a heartbeat, and then he’s kissing you again—a rough sound caught in his throat, a half-sob, in truth, now that he understands what you’ve given him despite having every reason not to. You press yourself closer, and his arms tighten.

Edward Kenway takes your hand and presses it against his chest—the stubborn beat of his heart thrums under your palm. “Keep it,” he breathes against your lips, voice nigh trembling. “God knows it’s yours already.” You kiss him, softly, sweetly, and nuzzle your face into his chest, surrendering yourself to his warmth and embrace, not worried this time that he’ll be gone come the morning.

You wake in the middle of the night, Edward’s arm still draped over your waist, but the letter from your father catches your eye sitting there on the table. Breaking the dark red seal, you hold it near the candlelight. Daughter, it reads in a heavy slant. If this reaches you, then I trust Kingston still stands and you have not worked yourself into the grave tending fools too stubborn to die proper.

There’s another matter besides. Kenway. You glimpse him over your shoulder, still asleep—lying on his stomach, arm tucked under a pillow, the sheets low around his hips with the candle glow making the tattoos on his back look like wet ink. A man may counterfeit charm easily enough, but not devotion. Edward Kenway loves you. Your heart tightens in your chest, a ghost of a smile creeping to your lips. God help him for it. Loving you has made him better.

You have my blessing, if a blessing from a pirate is worth anything. It means more than you dare admit. You read on. He’ll still leave. The sea owns part of him same as it owns part of me. Now, though, he intends to return, an unspoken vow to himself and to you. Truth be told, I suspect the boy’s heart has been yours for longer than he realized.

Do not tell him I wrote any of this. I’ve a reputation to maintain, after all. You smile. Your loving father, the letter is signed, Thatch.

A quiet breath leaves you as you fold the paper and place it back on the table, flattening the seal again. And maybe you do look at the man in your bed a little differently after reading your father’s words. Not because his blessing changes anything—no, you loved Edward long before anyone permitted you to—but because Thatch saw it before either of you dared to name it truly. Edward Kenway loves you and you love him, it need not be more complicated than that.

His arm tightens around your middle as soon as you lie down, drawing you back against the warmth of his chest. You settle next to him, and he presses a lazy kiss against your bare shoulder before burying his face near your neck, breathing the scent of you in. “What’d he say?” Edward asks, sleep clouding his voice. He saw the letter mixed in with the supplies and faintly heard the rustling of paper.

Your fingers drift idly over a scar along his forearm. Don’t tell him I wrote any of this. The thought brings a smile to your lips. “He said you love me,” you tell him.

Edward falls still behind you, his breathing catching for a heartbeat. Then his arms tighten around you. His lips brush your shoulder again—once, twice. Lingering. “Aye,” he says at last, not denying it, “suppose the old devil’s right.”

The candlelight shifts and shadows dance across the walls. Edward’s hand moves softly—thumb tracing a small arc under the swell of your breast where he holds you, like he’s not quite even aware he’s doing it anymore. “Edward?” You murmur softly into the dark. He hums—the sound nigh lost against your skin. “I love you, too.” It’s a whisper. A truth you’ve not spake aloud before. “Always have.” Always will.

“No,” you say flatly, “what you told me yesterday was that the shipment was delayed.” That happens from time to time—the seas can be unpredictable at this time of year. “Today you are telling me rats ate three crates of sugarcane in open water.” The supplier flushes. You tend to have the patience of a saint, but right now, that’s being tested. “Unless these are exceptionally large rats, I suggest you try again.” Sharp tongue. The man sputters, not having a response. There’s no excuse he can muster, either; you’ve seen Vega’s manifest.

Edward sidles closer, reaching for an orange. You catch the movement from the corner of your eyes, but don’t look up. “If you’re going to steal,” you remark, dipping the quill into the inkwell to make another mark, “least choose something worth the trouble.” Gaze flitting over, you eye the stacked and arranged fruit—none of it will last much longer than another day or two before you’ll have to sell it as fodder. But even livestock feed brings in a handful of reales. “Those are half-rotten.”

The hand pauses. “To think I was being subtle,” the stranger remarks—a Welshman to your ear—tossing up the orange and catching it with a shrug. You put your quill aside and finally look up at the would-be thief. He’s tall and broad-shouldered, with a strong jaw, crooked nose and mouth, and eyes the color of the sea before a storm: bright and blue.

And now he’s standing in your father’s market stall with a stolen orange in his hand and the audacity to grin when you catch him. He’s the kind of man your mother once warned you about. The kind you’ve seen passing by and have grown accustomed to dealing with over the years—the kind you always promised your father you’d stay away from outside of business dealings.

He rolls the orange in his palm to inspect it—a little bruised but not spoiled. “So, you admit they’re poor quality?” Edward challenges. “I’m doing you a service then.”

You snap the ledger shut, setting the bound book aside next to a pouch of coin, annoyed. First, the missing deliveries, and now this pirate has come to pester you and all before the sun has reached midday, too. “And I’d argue you still owe me a real.”

His smile widens. There’s no doubt in his mind now; this is who Calico Jack intended for him to meet. “Ah,” Edward tuts, “but then this becomes business, and I was hoping it would just be a bit of fun.”

Fun, you think, odd way to describe petty theft. “You opened by robbing me?” You ask, folding your arms across your chest, clearly unimpressed.

“Bold strategy,” he admits, then a bit more cocksure, “memorable, though.”

“Mostly criminal,” you counter.

He steps closer. “Edward Kenway,” the pirate says, an introduction. You’ve heard the name in passing before. One of Thatch’s boys. A real troublemaker from the whispers that get passed around the town and isles.

You look at the orange still in his hand and raise a brow. “Thief,” you refute.

That gets a laugh out of him—charming for a man you’ve already decided you don’t trust. “Well,” he says, leaning one elbow against the stall, “you seem to have the advantage of me.”

“Tends to happen when men introduce themselves after committing a crime.” You cock your head to the side, exasperated.

The corner of Edward’s mouth lifts, amused, as he sets the orange back with the others—as though it absolves him of the crime. He studies you a moment, amused. “And your name?”

You could give him your name. You could even shout and have one of the King’s Men come running—you’ve done it to Vane and Jennings in the past when they didn’t want to pay and grew to be more trouble than their coin was worth. You narrow your eyes. If Edward Kenway wants to play this game, you’ll happily be his opponent. “No.”

Edward blinks. “No?”

“No,” you repeat, not swayed by his attempts at charm. “If I tell you my name, you’ll think we’re acquainted.” Edward raises his brow. “If you think we’re acquainted, you’ll start appearing here uninvited.” Behind you, your father mutters something with a half-chuckle and continues counting the coins earned from the day before. He’s taught you well about how to survive in a place like the West Indies.  

“If I intend to do that anyway?” Edward asks.

Persistent, you’ll grant him that at least. Rackham and Thatch don’t stick around for long when you give them this much grief. “Then I’ll start charging you for conversation,” you tell him. Edward huffs, threatening to smile again—all teeth and amusement. “Insults are free, though,” you add. “A public service.”

His gaze turns to something more like a glare. You seem to already know every trick he intends to use and are bored by them all. Frankly, he finds it infuriating—and irresistible. Edward Kenway has always enjoyed a challenge, and though unspoken, he’s decided to accept yours. He lowers his voice. “I hear you deal in more than sullied fruits.”

You straighten a pile of linen and lean toward him, crooking a finger to motion him a bit closer. The tinge of rum is still on his breath. “And I hear pirates ask piss poor questions.”

“Only when they’re hoping for better answers,” he quips.

“And are you hoping for something more than fruit?” You inquire. “Or just trying your luck by flirting?” There’s something sharp in his blue gaze now, devilish even. He’s after gold and glory, and one of the pathways to those goals runs through your family’s simple little market stall. “Careful,” you say softly. “Information tends to cost more than coin.”

Edward leans in just a little more, so it almost feels like conspiracy. “Lucky for me,” he starts, lips splitting into a smile—and just maybe you do find him charming in a way, “I’ve always been fond of expensive things.”

You hold his gaze a moment longer, then step back, dismissing him already. “Then you need to bring coin,” you tell him. Finally, you look at him again, and the sunlight catches the sea-worn gold of his hair. Handsome scoundrel. “I’ve nothing to tell you today. Best be on your way, thief.”

“Well,” he starts, determined, “I’ll have to return and improve your opinion of me.”

You open your ledger back up if only to have something to do with your hands. “Bring coin next time,” you tell him.

“And if I bring flowers?” Edward asks in turn.

Your eyes flit up the page, sharp. “I’ll charge you for those too,” you tell him, giving no ground.

He laughs again, stepping backward into the crowd. “Until next time, then.”

You don’t look up, but Edward watches you and sees the curve of a smile you’re pretending he did not earn. “There won’t be one,” you bite back.

But of course, there is.

THREE CRATES OF sugar. Two each of wool and roughspun cotton. A barrel of salt pork. A single box packed with spices. You flip through the loose pieces of laid paper, mentally checking the written list against the goods stacked on a pallet. What’s not on the list is a bothersome pirate who has a penchant for always knowing where to find you.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Edward Kenway laments, leaning a shoulder against one of the piles on the docks.

You don’t look up from the manifest. He’s become a nuisance in the last year, though you suppose you don’t mind in truth. Some days, you think you’ve grown rather fond of him. Besides, there’s worse company to keep on Nassau. He’ll be even more unbearable to hear you say that—akin to admitting defeat. “No, Edward,” you start with a sigh. “I’ve been enjoying the peace that follows your absence.”

“Ouch.” His face scrunches, but there’s a beginning of a crooked smile on his lips. “And here I thought you missed me.” He’s been away for nigh on two months with Thatch aboard the Sea Dog’s Bite doing God knows what. Some of the shipmen with loose lips said they’d taken one hundred barrels of Madeira wine from a sloop out of Bermuda and scuttled another with her remaining cargo somewhere near Windermere.  

“I did,” you admit, almost reluctant to say it. Edward raises a brow. “Briefly,” you’re quick to add—not letting him have the satisfaction of a simple truth, “then I realized silence was preferable.”

He laughs, crossing his arms over his chest. “You wound me, lass.”

“Should hope so.” You’ve learned how to handle a pistol and musket, but words have always been your choice weapon. “Been aiming carefully.” You give him a long and proper glance, then. The morning sun catches the amusement on his face—lips kinked and bright blue eyes shining. There’s a new cut on his cheek, though, curving from nose to ear almost, that is jagged and half-scabbed over. It’ll leave a scar.

Edward gestures toward Nassau’s harbor behind him. “Tell me, any interesting ships arrived of late?” There aren’t many anchored right now, only a few gunboats and sloops and Thatch’s growing fleet, but there are always people of all ranks coming and going between the British Isles and Kingston.

“Several,” you note—vaguely and on purpose—going back to checking the manifest and schedule, but your gaze cuts over to Edward again. “Though your definition of interesting usually involves cannons and poor decisions.”

“Sometimes treasure,” he supplements. You roll your eyes. Poor decisions, then. He hums, unfazed. “Perhaps one was carrying a certain French merchant with very expensive taste?” He heard mention that Guillaume Moreau had come to treat with the Governor of Nassau—something about Saint-Domingue.

As a purveyor of information, you knew exactly when Guillaume was set to arrive, where he was staying during his visit to New Providence, the names of every man in his entourage, his preferred wine, and what ship he would be departing on in six days' time, and its next destination. The little birds were busy.

And of course, Edward Kenway thinks he can get some tidbit out of you without paying. You turn on heel, hands settling on your hips. “Edward” —he perks up at his name— “if you intend to interrogate me, at least buy something first. I’ll be offended otherwise.”

“I bought you rum last time I was here,” he reminds you. It was a nice bottle, too. From the Connecticut Colony. Not like the usual grog served up at the Old Avery and aboard pirate ships. A celebratory drink for your family’s market stall becoming a proper shop with a storefront on the main avenue.

You remember the night, more so than Edward did when he woke up the next morning alone on the rooftop, properly sodden with his head feeling like it was about to split open—the bottle next to him empty. “You drank half of it yourself,” you counter.

Edward shrugs without a trace of shame. “Ensuring it wasn’t poisoned.”

“How noble of you,” you grumble, sifting through one of the crates, pleased to see the vials of saffron threads are there—the governor’s manse always paid a pretty shilling for those.

Pushing off the pile, Edward steps to you, his voice lowering. “If I told you, I ask only because I was concerned for your well-being?” His words are warm against the nape of your neck.

A shiver creeps down your spine, and you mutter a silent curse before straightening, offering a little smile over your shoulder. “Then I’d say your concern tends to appear only when gold is involved.”

“That’s unfair.” You know it is. Edward does care, in his own stubborn way, and he’s not very good at hiding it either.

“No,” you say, stepping around him, “unfair is charging double for silk because a man thinks I can’t count.” Folding the pieces of paper, you tuck them into the lining of your coat and take to sitting atop one of the crates with sacks of grain and flour.

He follows easily enough. “You do know the merchant,” Edward surmises.

“I know many merchants,” you tell him. “Most less irritating than you.”

Edward braces his hands on the crate on either side of your thighs and leans down, face level with yours, while boxing you in between the sea and the solid wall of his form. He looks at you from under his brow. “Yet you keep speaking to me,” he muses.  

“Not by choice,” you retort. “You keep appearing like a persistent rash.” It didn’t matter if you were in the docks, at the shop, delivering a parcel to the fort, or in the market for your own gain; Edward always managed to find you. It works to your benefit on occasion, having a big, hard man at your back when you mouth off at other merchants and swindlers, other times it’s irritating, and sometimes you’re just glad to see him—like today.

He places a hand over his heart, lips kinking upward. “Persistent.” You hate that you smile and the way it makes your heart beat a little quicker. “I’ll take that as affection.”

“You shouldn’t,” you chide, “I’d sooner prefer a shark with table manners.” You press a hand against the center of his chest, intent upon pushing him away, but one of his hands covers yours—warm and rough—fingers curling around your own.

His blue eyes flit down to your entwined hands at his chest, then make a slow trail back to your face, lingering for a moment too long on the swell of your bosom and curve of your mouth. “Ah, but I like where this is going.”

Your cheeks burn at the implication. “Let me save you time, Kenway. Whatever it is you’re looking for, you won’t get it by smiling at me like that.” If anything, you’re inclined to charge him triple for the audacity of his presumptions.

Edward slips his hand free of yours and reaches up, tugging lightly on an unruly lock of hair, voice warm with amusement. “Have you considered that I enjoy your company?” A pretty lie—and a truth. He tucks the strand behind your ear.

You tilt your head, considering him like one might a very handsome scam. “And I’ve been invited to the Governor’s Ball as the guest of honor,” you reply.

“Truly, a woman who knows the way to my heart.” At this point, the empty insults and squabbles are just an elaborate form of courtship and a game neither of you are willing to lose. Edward does enjoy your company, and just maybe you’ve already found a way into his hardened heart—that’s what Anne tells him anyway.

You smile sweetly. “Careful, Edward. Keep talking like that and people might think I like you.”

His blue eyes drop briefly to your mouth before lifting to meet yours again. You’ve never wanted to slap him more—for that charming smile he’s wearing and the way he makes you wonder what it’d be like to have his lips on yours. One day, you’re determined to find out, but not today. “And do you?” The new flush on your cheeks answers his question.

You slip away from him. “If I did,” you call over your shoulder, walking toward town, “I certainly wouldn’t admit it to a pirate.”

Edward watches you go, smug. “Didn’t say no, though,” he murmurs to himself, and he’ll take that as a small victory.

STORMS HAVE KEPT the Nassau market shuttered the last few days, but the clouds have finally split to reveal blue sky. The wind and waves have blown their fair share of strangers ashore, too. To be so early, the market is unusually loud—vendors shouting over one another. The air smells of salt and sugar, and too many people pressed too close together.

You block out the noise, haggling over the price of silk, fingers worrying the edge of the blue fabric. It’s finer than anything you’d usually allow yourself—too fine for Nassau, really—but the color catches the light just so. You feel him before you see him, before he speaks, too.

“Careful,” Edward Kenway says, his hand brushes yours as he reaches for the same bolt, calloused fingers grazing your knuckles for half a second too long. “He tried to charge me double for that last week. Claimed it was rare.”

You don’t look at him. You refuse to give him that satisfaction so quickly. Instead, you smooth the silk between your fingers, feeling the weight of it. “That’s because he dislikes you.”

There’s a faint pause. “Unkind. I’m beloved here.” You can hear the smile in his voice and know it means trouble.

The merchant lets out a snort, and you take your time folding your arms, finally glancing sideways at Edward. “Tolerated at best, Kenway.”

Edward places a hand to his chest like he’s been wounded. “And here I thought I was making progress.” He should be anywhere else. On his ship. In a tavern. Causing problems that don’t have your name tangled up in them.

He smells of the sea and rum, like he’s only just come ashore. “With whom?” you ask, tilting your head, finally meeting his eyes—maybe that’s why you’d been so drawn to the blue silk. “The merchant or me?”

“Yes,” he answers. You huff.

“What do you want, Captain?” He likes to hear that title on your lips. Captain. It’s still one he’s getting used to himself after being a deckhand on Sea Dog’s Bite and Jacobite. But now he has his own brig to command.

“To brighten your morning.” It rolls easy and smooth off his tongue. Flirting with you is second nature. He can’t let himself think too hard about why he keeps seeking you out, otherwise he’s bound to admit an inconvenient truth.

“It was brighter before you arrived.” Sharp as ever. Your insults are their own welcome. Edward would be concerned if you ever greeted him kindly.

He grins. “Liar.”

You look up at him from under your lashes. “Do something for me, Edward?” He gives a low, interested hum and shifts his weight, angling himself toward you. Edward Kenway will do just about anything for you. And that’s the problem. “Turn left,” you say sweetly, gesturing vaguely down the lane, “keep walking, and throw yourself into the harbor.”

The merchant barks out a laugh before catching himself, muttering something under his breath about pirates and fools as he slips away to wisely tend another customer. Edward doesn’t budge. Instead, he leans in just far enough that his shoulder brushes yours, voice dropping. “I heard a rumor this morning.”

You’ll need more to go on than that. “Narrows it down to all of Nassau.”

“A Portuguese brig came in late last night.” He repeats what Tobias told him over a game of liar’s dice. “Heavy guard. No manifest.”

You reach for a ream of dark red wool and flip the fabric over, inspect the stitching along the edge, and tilt it toward the light like you haven’t heard him at all. The fabric and print would make for a nice dress or pair of britches—and you’ve been saving up here and there. “And?”

He steps behind you. Too close. Your back straightens as his chest settles behind you—solid and warm—then relaxes. He leans over your shoulder, breath ghosting across your neck as he follows your gaze down to the fabric in your hands. “And I thought a clever lass with excellent taste and better sources might know why.” His voice is softer, meant only for you. Flattery. A poor man’s trick and distraction, but effective, nonetheless.

You hum thoughtfully, flipping through the pile of fabric to a green wool. “Perhaps she does.”

His hand settles at your waist—testing what you’ll allow. “And?” It’s a whisper against the shell of your ear. God curse him, he knows you aren’t immune to his looks and touch, try as you might.

You don’t answer at first, but your pulse does. Letting the fabric fall back into place, you turn your head just enough that your words brush past his cheek instead of the open air. “And perhaps she remembers the last time she shared valuable information with a certain pirate who disappeared for a month and returned with nothing but excuses.” He took the information about a Spanish convoy and left on the next tide with nary a farewell.

He shifts slightly, his thumb tracing once, absentmindedly, against your side before stilling. “I had excellent reasons,” Edward refutes. “And I brought you a gift.”

You turn in his hold then—not stepping away, just enough to face him. “You stole oranges.” Since first meeting, those bloody oranges have become something of an esoteric in-joke. He still pretends to steal one when they’re in stock at the shop, and you still pretend to care.

His mouth quirks despite himself. “Very good oranges,” he counters.

You bite back a smile. “Overripe.”

He rolls his eyes—always a complaint. “You ate them,” Edward says, like it proves something.

“Out of spite.” You’re quick to note.

Edward laughs softly, then his arm tightens, just slightly, around your middle again—half the town will be talking now, more so than they usually do. “Tell me about the brig.”

You’ll tell him, eventually, just not here, not now. “Tell me where you went for all that time with no warning?” Thatch warned you not to meddle in Edward’s private affairs; some things were better left to mystery, he told you.

If he tells you, it’ll ruin the surprise—a compound on Grand Inagua. And when the time’s right, he’s going to ask you to go there with him. You’ll have your own shop and a manor house, if you agree and want to stay with him. His smile falters. “That hardly seems a fair trade, darling.”

Darling, now, is it? You think you could get used to him calling you that. “No,” you say, “it’s interest on an old debt.”

Then Edward sighs, letting you go and rubbing his neck as he takes a step back. “You are the most difficult woman I’ve ever met.” There’s no heat in it. If anything, he sounds resigned. But when Edward Kenway truly wants something, he usually finds a way to get it.

You press your hand to his chest, fingers curling loosely into the open neck of his stained off-white tunic. One finger tracing the outline of a dark ink octopus tentacle, a newer tattoo of his. He goes still under your touch. “And yet” —you smile as you start to step past him, but not before boldly rising onto your toes, letting your lips brush against his cheek, near his ear— “you keep coming back.”

He watches you go, shaking his head. “That,” he calls after you, recovering just enough to raise his voice over the din, “is because you are hiding things from me.” You lift a hand without turning, waving him off, and by God, he’s absolutely besotted.

NASSAU BECOMES A different city after sundown. The streets are louder, with drunken laughter and conversations spilling from taverns and houses of ill repute. There’s arguing too, over loaded-die and with the King’s Men, always on the precipice of becoming a brawl. Lantern light flickers yellow-orange against wet stone and muddy earth, and the shadows stretch long and dark enough to hide all manner of trouble.

Edward Kenway is halfway through deciding he ought to leave the Old Avery and head to the Jackdaw when he sees you. You’re at the far end of the main stretch of road near the docks, walking quickly, one hand tight around the shawl at your shoulders, and two men trailing behind you. Not close enough to be obvious, but close enough that Edward feels the tingle in his spine before his thoughts catch up. He knows that walk, though. Fearful, even if you refuse to show it. You know you’re being followed.

His jaw tightens. By the time one of the men reaches for your arm, Edward is already moving along the rooftops. The bastard barely gets another word out before Edward pries him off you by the collar, driving him into a stacked-stone wall hard enough to rattle teeth and knock the air from his lungs. The other swings towards Edward’s head—a near strike—and he answers with fists, though his marks do not miss.

You stumble back, hitting the ground, and watch with wide eyes as Edward sends one of the men sprawling into the mud on the main street, unmoving, and the other running with blood in his mouth, two fewer teeth, and enough sense to know better than try anything else.

For a heartbeat, there’s only the sound of your ragged breaths. Edward turns to you, chest still heaving, and kneels. “Are you hurt?” He asks.

There’s a sharp reply on the tip of your tongue when you open your mouth—he can see it, knows it by now—but then you lift your hand to your lips and see blood glistening on your fingertips, and the fight in your expression falters. “Only my pride,” you reply, voice quieter than usual, rougher too.

Edward helps you up, hands lingering on your elbows, gentler now. “Let me see,” he entreats.  

You try to wave off his concern. “It’s nothing.”

He frowns. “You’re bleeding.”

“I noticed,” you deadpan, having tasted the metallic twinge of blood. Normally, he might laugh at that. But not tonight. He reaches for you, rough hands cradling your face and thumb brushing over your chin as he tilts your face toward the lantern light. Your lip is split, swelling already, and there’s the beginning of a bruise on your cheek and around your neck.

Edward’s mouth presses into a thin line, cold anger settling in his gut. God above only knows what they would have done had he not been here to stop them. “Who were they?” He asks.

You look away, shaking your head. Their faces were those of strangers. The red cross signet rings they wore were unfamiliar. “Are there more?” Your silence is answer enough. You don’t know, in truth, but they didn’t seem the type to leave things to chance. Edward quells whatever violence is rising in him when he sees the glint of unshed tears in your eyes. “I’m taking you home.”

“I can walk myself.” It’s a weak protest.

“I know.” You should argue. You always argue. Instead, you just nod. The walk is quieter than any you’ve shared before—so quiet you can make out the sound of the sea beyond the buildings. You shoulder brushes, but then Edward’s hand finds yours, fingers loosely tangling together.

At the door, you fumble with the key. Edward takes it gently from your hands and opens it himself. Inside, he lights a single oil lamp and gestures toward a chair. “Sit.” He disappears for a trice, then returns with a clean bowl of water and a cloth and kneels in front of you. You watch him in silence as he presses the damp cloth to your lip. It stings, and you hiss softly. “M’sorry,” Edward breathes. His hands are rough from working on farms and handling ships’ rigging, unfit for such a gentle task, but they’re the only hands you’d ever want to tend your hurts.

The men asked after your father’s ledgers, your deliveries, and whether you’d come across old charts brought in from passing ships. “They were looking for something,” you admit. A map—a piece of one. Where’s the other half? They hadn’t been able to break your father’s wit and resolve, so they’d sought you out instead. “A map. Or part of one.”

Edward stills, his eyes lifting to yours, unreadable in the dim light. “What sort of map?” He asks.

“Didn’t say. Must have been worth strangling me over, though.” You force a humorless smile. Edward doesn’t smile back. The shift is subtle, but you’ve been around him long enough to notice it. And the thought that he may be a part of this—the map, the assailants—frightens you. “You know something.”

He leans back on his haunches and drags a hand over his jaw. “I know men kill for many a foolish thing.” I’m one of them, he thinks. Frustration sparks in your chest at his lack of answer. Edward finishes cleaning the blood from your mouth, his thumb brushing your jaw—not by accident either. Your breath catches. “In this case, the less you know,” Edward tells you, “the safer you’ll be.” Then his hand falls from your face.

It’s not often you see Edward Kenway stripped of charm and swagger—he’s just a man tonight, afeared his own follies might cost him one of the few good things left in life. You cannot help but look at him the same way as the time he first brought you flowers—that kind of hopeful, nigh innocent look when you forgot, for a moment, that he was a pirate and you were meant to know better than to get entangled with men of his kind. But you see the restless guilt he wears and the stubborn goodness he pretends not to possess.

You’ve seen all the worst bits and have let him stay anyway. Right now, you look like you’re not afraid of loving him. And that’s what ruins him. When he speaks, his voice is quieter than you’ve ever heard. “You ought not look at me like that, love.” Love. The words hang between you. Your throat tightens, pulse stuttering.

Edward sets the cloth aside, then rises to his feet. He turns away just enough to breathe, curse his foolhardiness, and gather himself. He turns, though, when you touch his wrist, then he reaches for your hand, fingers curling around yours, warm, calloused, and careful. You swallow against the ache in your chest. “Stay,” you whisper into the night, stepping to him.

He can do that. By God, he’s wanted to do that for what must’ve been years now. The backs of his fingers brush over your cheek and farther back into your salt-damp hair before settling at the nape of your neck. You can feel the restraint in his touch, the way he’s holding himself back for your sake—perhaps his own, too.

Edward leans down, hesitating, waiting to see if you’ll stop him and send him back to the sea where men like him belong. You don’t.

There’s still a moment when he can pull away, but then your fingers tighten in his shirt, and it’s the only permission he needs. Edward's thumb brushes beneath your ear, enough to make your eyes flutter shut, and then his mouth is pressed against yours.

The kiss is soft—softer than anything about him has a right to be—and it steals the air from your lungs. Then Edward kisses you like he means it. The way you always knew he would. His hand slips, thumb caressing a line against your jaw, tilting your head back the way he wants. The sound you make is small and helpless, and he swallows it like a drunkard. It’s every want, stolen glance, and silly insult—warm and sweet.

When he finally pulls back, it is only to breathe. His lips brush yours again, once, twice, like he cannot help himself. “Stay,” you repeat, hands going to cup his scarred face. The lantern’s flame shines like gold flecks in his eyes. “Stay.” Again, quieter, voice quivering. Edward answers the only way he thinks will make you believe that he will—by kissing you again.

EDWARD KENWAY STAYS in Nassau longer than he normally would after that night. Thatch and Vane set off, but Edward and his Jackdaw remain anchored. He lingers. Paranoia and quiet guilt sit heavily on him, knowing you’ve been dragged into this mess by nothing more than bad luck and his own pursuit of it. More Templars might return looking for the map. He’s told you what it is now and that it leads to something valuable. A piece of it found its way into your possession by chance alone. You offered it freely to him after that, but it changed something all the same.

He walks with you to the docks to check shipments and inventories at a newly funded warehouse. And in the new routine, he walks you home in the evenings without asking. Part of you wishes he would leave—staying will only make things harder when the inevitable comes.

Today is no different. He’s carrying a sack of flour you hadn’t asked for his help with. “You do realize,” you start, spinning to face him in the middle of the street, leveling him with a look, “that if you continue like this, people are going to think we’re married.”

Edward shifts the flour sack higher against his shoulder and raises one sun-lightened brow, looking oddly pleased with himself. “Would that be so terrible?”

You answer too quickly. “Yes.” No. Even your father—who distrusts nearly everyone and pirates, most of all—has taken a keen liking to Edward. Traitorous behavior, really.

His mouth curves into that crooked, nigh boyish, grin. “You wound me.”

You narrow your eyes. “Lord knows I have tried.” He laughs, and it makes your chest tighten. It was never supposed to turn into something like this. This—walking home with him, bickering in the street, pretending this is ordinary—feels dangerously like domesticity. Like you can get used to having him around so often and used to the comfort of waking next to him every morning.

Holding the door open for him, Edward lets the sack of flour drop gently to the counter and dusts his hands off before rubbing one along his jaw. His gaze lingers on you longer than it should, the humor fading into something you dread dwelling on for more than a trice.

You clear your throat first. “Thank you, Edward.” But then you gesture toward the door as if shooing away a problem that you’re entirely too used to. Worse, a problem you might even dare say you’ve grown to love. “Now begone with you.” There’s doting affection in the way you say it, though.  

Edward hesitates in the doorway long enough that it seems like he might be arguing with himself. Then, deciding it’s safer not to say what’s sitting behind his teeth, he tips his head and steps out into the midday heat of Nassau. “You damn fool, Kenway,” he mutters, starting off towards the Old Avery.

That evening, when you close the books at your father’s office and step outside the shop, you find him waiting. But this time Edward Kenway is not leaning against a wall looking smug or keeping to the shadows as he often does of late. He’s standing oddly still at the base of the steps with his hands behind his back and an expression that immediately makes you suspicious.

“Oh no,” you breathe, thinking he’s about to tell you about a scuffle with the King’s Men or that one of his mates has gone and got themselves locked up and bound for the gallows. “What’s happened?”

Edward exhales uneasily. “Must you greet me like I’m a storm on the horizon?”

You descend one step, then another, taking him in properly. He’s tense, and it’s an unfamiliar look on him. “You oft are.”

His mouth twitches. “That’s fair,” Edward concedes.

You narrow your eyes. “What’ve you done?”

“Nothing.” But that doesn’t reassure you.

He hesitates, then puts one hand forward. In his open palm is a small seashell pendant, smooth and pale, with two pink-hued pearls on either side, strung on a simple cord of dyed black leather. It is not gold or bejeweled, or stolen from some aristocrat’s wife or daughter. Just something simple, made by the sea and the hands of men.

You blink.

Edward clears his throat, suddenly looking like he would rather face cannon fire than this. “When I was a boy,” he says, quieter now, stepping onto the porch, “my mother used to collect shells like this along the shore in Swansea. Said the sea gave them up for people who needed reminding that even storms end.” You look at him, speechless. He shifts, uncomfortable under the silence.

“I saw it at the market in Kingston and thought of you,” he pauses, lips twisting upward, “which was unfortunate for us both.” He’s had the necklace for months now, just waiting for the moment to feel right.

Your fingers close around the shell when he offers it again. “Edward–” you start.

“I know it’s not much,” he continues. He’s treated you to far finer gifts in the past, but just maybe this one is your favorite.

“No.” It’s a soft breath. “It’s not.” His face falls just enough to make you almost laugh. Then you step closer to him. “It’s worse,” you say, settling a hand on his cheek, thumb brushing along the rough line of his beard. “It’s thoughtful.” His breath catches—barely, but you feel it. “I was beginning to think you incapable of that.”

Relief flashes across his face, followed by that crooked grin you know and love all too well. “There she is.” The sharp-tongued woman who softens his heart and lifts his mood. He moves behind you, brushing your hair aside, tenderly, and ties a little knot in the leather thong, hands lingering on your shoulders—reluctant to let go.

You look down at the pendant again, thumb tracing its edges where it sits at your sternum. “Don’t think anyone’s ever given me something like this for no reason.”

Edward’s voice is low when he answers. “There is a reason.” You look up at him. “Walk with me?” He asks, quiet. You nod and still feel warmth creep up your neck to your cheeks when Edward reaches for your hand, fingers lacing together.

The sunset paints the Caribbean sky gold and violet as the high tide rolls in—soft waves breaking along the shore. You both walk barefoot in the surf, away from the harbor and town. “You’ve been awfully quiet,” he says after a while, glancing at you sidelong.

You keep your eyes on the horizon, where the sun is slipping lower into the water. “I’m considering whether this is a trick.”

That earns a soft huff of laughter from him. “And?”

You stop. The water swirls around your ankles, pulling at the sand beneath your feet. Edward stops too. “I think,” you say carefully, “if it is…it’s a very cruel one.” And if you have mistaken kindness for love, you are not certain your pride—or your heart—would survive it.

Edward Kenway isn’t capable of cruelty—at least not toward you. The amused look fades from his face. “It isn’t.” The honesty in his response steals your breath. For once, there is no teasing or careful dancing around the truth. He’s a different man than the one who first came to your stall to steal an orange, and unknowingly your heart. And even so, he’s still just Edward Kenway, unguarded and at your mercy.  

“You are still very arrogant,” you tell him, because you need to say something before the silence swallows you.

The corner of his mouth lifts, falling into the age-old rhythm. “A terrible flaw, I’m told.”

“Reckless,” you add.

“Frequently,” he agrees, arm slipping around your waist to draw you flush against him.

You reach up—fingertips tracing one of the scars on his cheek before your hand slides lower, combing through the close-cropped blond beard at his jaw, and he leans into it ever so slightly. You still owe old Jack Rackham thanks for sending Edward Kenway your way. “And you are,” you murmur, thumb brushing the corner of his mouth, “without question, the most infuriating man I have ever met.”

Edward catches your hand and presses a kiss to your palm—unexpectedly tender. His mouth curves slightly. “This feels promising.” You laugh softly, and before he can ruin the moment by saying something else haughty, you rise onto your toes and kiss him. He goes still and silent—as though even he did not expect this.

It gives you a heartbeat to savor the tiny, stunned moment before his hand slides up your spine, cradling the back of your head, and he kisses you back. And God. There is nothing tentative about it. You smile against his lips, and he feels it, a soft sound escaping him—half laugh, half surrender—and he pulls you even closer.

Edward rests his forehead against yours, breath mingling, both of you just shy of laughter when your noses brush. His thumb strokes lazily at your waist. The two of you stand there in the surf like lovesick fools. “Well–” he murmurs, but you press two fingers against his lips to shush him, smiling. “If you say something smug, I will take it back.”

He considers that for a moment, blue eyes flickering with mischief. “Was going to say I knew you liked me all along.” You laugh, shaking your head, and kiss him again anyway, because damn him, he’s right.