A Ship of Bones & Teeth: A dark fantasy pirate romance by Karina Halle

Author:Karina Halle [Halle, Karina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Metal Blonde Books
Published: 2023-05-24T16:00:00+00:00

PART THREE

The Crossing

CHAPTER 24

Maren

I remember the day I discovered Aerik’s true nature. Not just suspected that he was capable of cruelty, but actually felt it firsthand. We hadn’t been married yet, but he’d proposed a couple weeks earlier on the long voyage to Denmark. I had said yes and it was the first word I’d been able to speak clearly.

Aerik was surprised. Not that I agreed to marry him but that I was able to speak at all. I remember thinking that his joy didn’t seem genuine, that his smile didn’t reach his eyes. At the time I thought maybe he didn’t actually want me to say yes, but it turns out it was a little more complicated than that: He never wanted me to speak at all.

As we got closer to port, having just gone through the English Channel, I remember I told a joke. We were sitting at dinner with a couple of naval officer friends of Aerik’s that stepped aboard from the south of England. They were coming with us for the final leg home.

Until that moment I had said only a few demure words to these men, since I didn’t feel all that comfortable speaking yet. But one thing I had been good at was listening and reading people and I remembered a joke that Hodges had told Daphne. It was a joke about naval men and all the ports and women they visited.

I recall it had felt very off-color at the time, certainly a joke that men would tell each other, and so for whatever reason, I felt emboldened to repeat it. I thought perhaps these men might find me funny or interesting. I had never been considered funny or interesting before, and while Aerik definitely doted on me more those first few months on the coast of New Spain when I was a strange little creature, he seemed to lose interest in me. I had hoped if others found me interesting that he would too again.

So at dinner I opened my mouth and I told the joke.

The naval men found it hilarious. They were shocked at what came out of my mouth but they laughed nonetheless. Despite their military background they had an ease about them that I felt comfortable with and I thought it was a great success.

But later that night, back in our cabin, Aerik yelled at me until he was red in the face and practically foaming at the mouth. He told me that I made him look bad. That they’d think he had an uncouth wanton woman that would never be fit for the throne. It didn’t matter that Aerik was the third in line for it and would likely never be king and never wanted to be king—he felt I humiliated him in front of his friends.

When I tried to argue and tell him that they liked it because they laughed, he told me that they had to laugh because of who he was, that I wasn’t funny at all, then he struck me across the face so hard that I went flying off the bed, seeing spots.

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