Page 81 of A Match Made in Error

The only thing that stops me mid-swing is another gasp from Poppy’s lips.

I turn, time standing nearly still as I see the smirking captain with his knife to Poppy’s neck.

I swallow my fear, smiling like a predator mocking its prey. “You must not like living very much.”

He laughs in the face of death. “She belongs to me now,” he hisses.

But my demented smile only deepens. “You’ve just made the last mistake you ever will.”

My shadows flood from me, cocooning Poppy and dissolving the knife in his hand. I didn’t know I could do that. Add it to the list of things my power can do when the one I love is in danger. The shadows carry her until she is behind me. Pressed between the wall of the bungalow and my heaving body.

My stance changes, shoulders squaring, body angled to shield her. I reach my hand behind me, finding hers without looking. I would find her in total darkness. Know her and protect her even if I could no longer remember my own name or from where I came.

My voice drops an octave, a sound both gentle and laced with lethality.

“Stay behind me.” This is the only circumstance in which I’d give her an order.

“But Riven, I—” I know what she wants to say. That she has magic that could help. That she could transport us out of here. That she could save herself.

But she doesn’t need to. Not while there is still breath in my lungs. “No arguing. Let me protect you.”

I whisper in the Midnight Tongue until my shadows begin to do my bidding. In a blink, they seize him. He freezes in place, eyes wide and unfocused, like he’s already forgotten how to blink unless my shadows within him will it.

They’re inside him now, curling into his ears, brushing his temples, and then slipping past his lips like smoke until his mind is consumed by them.

I tilt my head, mock curiosity filling my features. “Tell me,” I say softly, twisting my hand in an order for my shadows to caress his face. “Who does she belong to?”

The man’s mouth moves, miming the words I will him to, his voice no longer his own. He will say anything I want him to. “She is yours.”

“Fucking right she is.” I twist my hand, his neck snapping and light leaving his eyes. Shadows engulf him, and wooden boards creak as his remaining men move.

I step closer to Poppy, my hand defensively on her thigh, body coiled like a sprung trap. “Haven’t you men seen enough?” I laugh sadistically. “I will kill each and every one of you for even thinking about touching what’s mine.” Poppy shivers under my hold. I have to get her out of here. Soon.

“We have orders,” a blond peg-legged pirate shouts.

“No one orders you anymore.” I point to their corpse of a captain, and I eye the only exit off the deck. They move toward us again, ignoring me. “Try it. I dare you. Touch her, and you won’t touch anything again.”

“Why do you care about some bitch?” he spits back, the crew laughing. The words are on my lips before I even think. Because I love her. But I can’t say it, not without looking into her eyes and begging her to forgive my years of stupidity and ignorance immediately after. Not in a moment of panic. So I ignore the question of the deranged pirate.

“Custodire,” Poppy whispers the command I taught her years ago, and my shadows press in around me. “Gratias tibi.” Her thanks sounds like a prayer and something in me stirs to hear her use the Midnight Tongue with both ease and reverence. She knew they would protect her. I whisper to my shadows once more, pushing the limits of my power to engulf everything in sight in my darkness. Poppy gasps, clinging to me as her lifeline.

“Where did they go? I can’t see anything,” she whispers against my skin, sending a shiver down my spine.

“Don’t worry, love.” My answer is just as breathless as her question was. “I can see. Just hold on.” Much like how they held her during the first trial, my shadows pick us up from the ground, carrying us over the cursing pirates that are attacking my shadows like blades could harm the wispy, undying beings I will be paired with until my final breath. The shadows that chose me. The shadows that answer to Poppy’s emotions as well as mine.

Slowly, we’re lowered to the ground, tucked behind a pergola covered in wisteria in full bloom. Exhausted, my powers wane, shadows dispersing except for those that cling to Poppy’s side now like a second skin. I peel back a vine, watching from about a hundred yards away as our intruders stomp around on the deck where my entire life changed. Where I finally allowed my heart’s truest desire to become known.

“Where did they go?” a pirate shouts, frustration clear in his voice.

“It doesn’t matter,” another bites. “Raid the room and move on to the next bungalow. We have our orders.”

I turn to her, breathing hard, and encase her cheeks in my hands, looking so deeply into her eyes I swear I can see her soul sparkle. In the distance, screams and cannons go off. It seems we aren’t the only ones who are under attack.

Poppy’s choking down air like a woman drowned. “Breathe, Poppy. You’re safe. I swear it.”

“Where did they come from?” she manages to get out, eyes wild with fear. “Why did the kraken not stop them?” Poppy is spiraling, her eyes darting around chaotically in search of danger.

“You’re shaking.” My fingers slide into her hair at the base of her neck, which is slick with sweat now. “Come here.”