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The call over my radio came long after the sun had set. I was watching over Yatori’s shoulder, the navigation consoles casting strange patterns over the darkened navigation tower. Santa Elena was on the other end, calling for me and me alone. Telling me to come to the throne room as soon as possible. It didn’t sound urgent, her voice that awful kind sultry she put on when she was planning something. Lemon kept silent as I brushed past, heading for the ladder, but that was hardly new.
The corridors were empty as I made my way to the throne room, no sign of the crew, no sign of the other trainees. I was happy for the solitude, still anxious that Swift might be waiting around any corner, that pained look on her face, that pathetic begging for forgiveness that radiated off her. I wasn’t ready to forgive. I didn’t want to be ready to forgive. The nights were growing colder as we headed south, hoping to hide out in the arctic long enough for Bao to lose our trail, and the SRCese military with him.
I knocked at the door to the throne room, feeling stupid for the manners that didn’t apply here. I hadn’t been invited, I’d been ordered. Standing outside this door a second longer than I needed to was ruder than entering without knocking, and I didn’t owe Santa Elena my best manners regardless.
“Enter,” she commanded from the other side. I didn’t disobey.
The throne room was empty, save for Santa Elena herself, draped across the armrests of her throne, polishing a knife the size of my hand. She was wearing something red, and it took me a moment to realise it was the dress she’d worn my first night on this ship, loot from the Nereid. I hadn’t thought it fit her well enough to keep— apparently, she disagreed.
“Cas, welcome,” she said, sitting up. “I thought you might appreciate the nostalgia,” she gestured to her dress, “given your tattoo placement.” She referred to the minnow on my ankle, my show of loyalty, a reminder that I came to this ship in chains. “You’ve come a long way, longer than I’d imagined when we first met in this room.”
She was ignoring the first time they actually met, Santa Elena’s coat billowing in the rain, a rocket launcher on her shoulder, Durga—
“Come here,” Santa Elena ordered. I didn’t disobey. “You wear your loyalty on your skin. Show it to me.”
I lifted my pant leg, tilting my ankle inwards to flash the minnow tattoo at her.
“Closer,” she ordered. I think she saw my confusion, she reached forward, towards my leg until I lifted it up for her. Her hand closed around my ankle, careful not to touch the ink directly. I was conscious of the knife in her other hand, conscious as well of how the fresh tattoo still stung. I wondered if I was getting used to Santa Elena, that the subtle threat of the knife in her hand didn’t feel any more threating than just being in her presence. Being alone with her, if anything, felt more relieving. Santa Elena was most dangerous with her crew around her, not because she needed them, but because she needed them to believe in the monster she could be for their sake. Alone, she was just the most terrifying woman I had ever met.
Santa Elena stroked a thumb over my tattoo, as gentle as I’d ever seen her, almost reverently tracing the shape of her mark on me. I could feel her callouses, I could feel the burn of her eyes. Rather than releasing my foot she pulled it in closer, I kept my balance as she planted it on the throne between her legs.
“This is what you want, right? A place on this throne.”
I didn’t know how to answer her, standing over her yet somehow feeling smaller. She didn’t release my ankle, didn’t let me pull back from her. Her eyes moved up to mine. It was an intense gaze, but I knew I couldn’t afford to break away. This was a test, as was almost every moment I spent with her. She wanted to see if I had the mettle to meet her on even ground. I wanted to prove her right.
“I want to be the kind of person who can sit where you do.”
I didn’t notice the grin on her face until she shoved my foot off her throne, throwing me off balance, spinning me around and sending me falling, falling directly into her lap.
“Is it everything you dreamed?” She whispered in my ear.
Panic seized me, but her hands were on me too quick to get away, pinning me to her, holding me in place. I tried to struggle, but she cut me off with a hiss.
“Shhh, not just yet. Relax.” The knife passed in front of my vision, slow, making sure I was aware of it. I was reminded, horribly, of the way a signal moves in front of a Reckoner, the ways their eyes track languidly, yet their attention never wavers. The knife dipped below where I could follow it, a hand in my hair tugging my head back up straight as I tried to look down. Santa Elena’s breath was on my neck, so much warmer than the chill of the room around us. So much warmer than the knife, pressed flat against my chest.
“I’m going to ask you some questions now and I want you to answer me honestly. That means the answer can be no and nothing bad will happen. Understand?” I didn’t dare speak, instead I tried to nod my head, feeling the stillness of her hand still holding tight to my hair. “Words, Cas, ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I murmured, but this close she couldn’t not hear me.
“Good girl, first question: do you like it here?” I thought about my answer, and I must have thought for a second too long because the hand in my hair tugged, hard. “I said honest, and that means no overthinking. Do you like it here?”
“No,” I answered, through clenched teeth, preparing already for the pain I expected. Instead, the hand in my hair loosened its grip, though it didn’t move away.
“Next question: do you like my crew?” My thoughts turned immediately, painfully, to Swift, and for a moment I struggled to come up with an answer. Santa Elena’s hand tightening on my scalp made my decision for me.
“Yes, most of them.”
“I’m glad you’re getting along. Have any of them tried to hurt you?”
“No,” I lied without hesitation. There had been threats, but with Chuck there to back me up I’d never felt worried. If Santa Elena noticed the falsehood she didn’t react.
“Have you and Swift fucked?”
I balked, but she didn’t move to hurt me. The knife still held me in place, blocking escape.
“I asked you a question. Did she fuck you?”
“No,” I answered, though it hurt to say it. I couldn’t not hurt to think about her. The hatred I felt over Durga’s death, over the way she suffered, it poisoned every last thought of Swift. Even the ones I couldn’t avoid, the thoughts of her curled around me at night, her with a girl on her lap after a raid, her fighting shirtless in the belly of the ship for the pure spectacle of it. I couldn’t stop being attracted to her and that would always hurt.
“Did you want her to?” Santa Elena didn’t make it any easier.
“Yes.”
Her laughter tickled my hair, still a mess, still growing out. Thoughts of Swift had made me more aware of how warm she was against me. I was still in her lap, like some trophy she’d seduced out of a crowd, stolen treasure hauled off a cruise ship. I had resolved to never be her prize, yet the facts stood, she was the most notorious pirate in the NeoPacific and it was all thanks to me. I squirmed at the thought.
“I’m going to ask you one last question. On my honour as a pirate you can say yes or you can say no, there will be no consequences for either. But after that question is answered you will be crew and I will be the captain. I will order and you will follow. Is that clear?”
Her wording was suspect, but I’d known before I came down here she was planning something and regardless of her words she wouldn’t let me go until I’d answered her final question.
“Yes,” I said.
She said nothing for a moment, shifting in her throne to get comfortable, rocking me side to side on her lap as she did so. The knife, still flat on my chest, held me against her. I could feel her heartbeat through my chest, or maybe it was that my own was so loud it felt like it had to be hers. I steeled myself for whatever her question would be.
“Would you like me to fuck you, Cas?”
My world tilted. I felt my breath stop in my chest but hers continued, a hot wind against my ear. Her words hammered back and forth in my head. I knew I hadn’t misheard her, I was too close, I’d been listening too intently. She was so warm against me, I was so warm, I felt like I was burning up. She didn’t repeat herself, and I knew she wouldn’t. I believed her when she said I could say no, regardless of the knife at my chest, but this left the question did I want to say no? Her phrasing was unambiguous. She didn’t want to know if her new recruit had the hots for her captain, she wasn’t fanning her own ego. She was offering.
I thought of her, monstrous Santa Elena. The woman who’d finished off my dying Reckoner. The woman who’d fed Code to Bao for disobeying her. The woman who’d dragged me in chains from the life I knew and made me into something no one could have expected. Santa Elena who I hated. Santa Elena who I looked up to. Santa Elena, warm and present and offering.
“Yes.”
The pressure of the knife on my chest disappeared, though I didn’t move. Santa Elena’s teeth closed around my ear and in spite of myself I moaned for her. Her free hand slid under my shirt and groped me from underneath, through my bra. My hips canted back against hers all on their own, thought disappearing too quickly to do anything on purpose.
“Turn around,” Santa Elena ordered. I didn’t disobey.
Facing her was strange, kneeling on her throne, straddling her, I felt like I should have had some command of the situation, but even below me she towered. My eyes dipped down from hers, meeting her lips instead, trailing down further to her cleavage, displayed through the plunging neckline of her dress.
“You wear your loyalty on your skin, you’ve shown me. Now let me show you mine.” Abandoning her knife off the side of the throne, she tore the dress open, baring her breasts and the minnow tattooed over her heart. If I wasn’t aroused before I was now, seeing her like this, seeing the raw charisma of her. This wasn’t the monster that could take a ship single-handed. This was the monster that filled a ship with people who would die for her. She grabbed me by the back of the neck and pulled until my mouth met her breast, closing around a nipple as I struggled to remember even the most basic foreplay. One of her hands snaked around behind me and groped my ass encouragingly, I did my best to be worthy of her praise.
“Strip,” she commanded, and for a moment I shivered at the thought of being bare in the large empty room. I worried that every time I stood here in the future I’d see myself, naked and straddling her on this throne. Then I stood up and obeyed.
Her eyes pierced me worse than the knife ever could have as I shed clothes in front of her. She looked powerful beyond belief, regal despite the torn dress showing off her impressive bust. She beckoned and I came, straddling her again, closer this time as her lips closed on my neck, her arms wrapping around me, feeding me into her warmth. I could feel how ready I was for her, even as her fingers trailed down my sides, her teeth pricking me as her languid kisses turned to bites. I wasn’t sure it was her I wanted, no, I knew it wasn’t her, but I wanted all the same.
I moaned for her as her mouth moved down to my breasts, my eyes fluttered shut as her tongue flicked across my nipple, struggling to keep what little composure I had left. In the moment, head thrown back, back arched, I could pretend there was a different captain seated underneath me. One with sun-bronzed skin rather than dusky brown and scruffy blonde hair rather than black curls. In the moment, that fantasy didn’t seem that bad. Santa Elena’s teeth brought me back to reality, pulling me into her, making me cry out. I worried for a moment that someone might hear, that someone would know what was happening here. As at last I felt Santa Elena’s hand brush through the hair at the top of my legs, that worry disappeared. This crew had seen me ride monsters before, what’s one more?
She was gentle when she entered me, one finger moving slowly up and curling forwards. Her thumb folded forward to rest on my clit, beginning to rotate around in small, slow circles. I moaned consent, trying to shift lower onto her hand without breaking away from the mouth still at my breast. I bucked against her, torn from a thousand wants pulling me in every direction. I felt like I was back to my first days on the ship again, not knowing what to do, how to cope. All that was left was instinct. Instinct telling me to trust in the pleasure of the moment. I forgot myself, forgot where I’d come from and what I was doing. Forgot vengeance, and pirates and monsters. I forgot hate. I didn’t forget Swift. When Santa Elena’s hand made me come, it wasn’t her name that passed through my lips. As I came back to myself and saw her staring at me, she still seemed satisfied.
“Welcome to the Minnow, Cas.”