The vessel slammed hard to starboard, and Gia caught herself against the lounge where she had been knitting. The ball of yarn slipped from her lap and rolled across the wet wood floor, trailing a line behind it. This was no ordinary storm. She reached to steady both herself and the burning oil lamp beside her before it could topple. Across the cabin, Drake sat at his desk, pen still in hand, journal open before him. He looked up slowly, a realization settling in—he had sailed for years and had never seen a storm like this.
A bolt of lightning struck the mast, splintering it in a burst of white. Drake snapped to attention and lunged for the door, his boots sliding on the slick wood as the ship lurched again. He caught himself on the frame just as his first mate burst through, wind and rain tearing in behind him. “Captain, we’re going to wreck! We need the boats—now!” The man’s coat whipped violently around him, and beyond his shoulder the rain fell so hard the deck was nearly lost to view.
“Stay here, Gia. I will be right back.” His expression was grave, steady in a way that almost frightened her more than panic would have. He never made it to the door. The deck heaved upward with a violent groan, throwing him back toward her. They crashed against the lounge, pinned there as the timbers shrieked around them. Gia looked at him—not with fear, but with quiet sadness. She did not want to die today. Drake reached for her, his hand trembling as it found the curve of her cheek, meaning to tell her without words that they would survive this. His fingers had barely touched her when the world split apart. The ship cracked with a sound like thunder beneath their feet. Gia was ripped from him, flung into the black water. Drake was hurled the opposite way into chaos and foam.
He surfaced to screams—his men fighting the sea, calling out in terror. But he could not hear her.
The water was ice against his skin, stealing the breath from his lungs as he broke the surface. The rain did nothing but drive the cold deeper. When Drake wiped the salt from his eyes, he saw only darkness—the sun above had turned black in the sky, swallowed whole. Rain fell in relentless sheets, sharp as knives against his face. He struck out toward a splintered piece of debris, one hand clinging to it as he turned in the water, scanning the waves for any sign of her. But there was nothing. No voice. No movement. Only the dark.
Gia knew she had hit the water the moment it swallowed her. The shock stole her breath, but her mind clung to only one thing—Drake’s green eyes, the warmth of his touch, the fear in them as they were torn apart. A wave crashed over her, driving her under again, spinning her in the dark. She could not tell which way was up. The sea roared in her ears, then muted to a heavy silence. So, she went still. If Death wanted her, then this was how he would take her.
Drake drifted for what felt like days, though it could not have been more than hours. No men surfaced. No wreckage. No sign of Gia. The ship was gone as if it had never existed at all. There was only water and the thin, endless line of the horizon. He let his head fall back against the debris and closed his eyes. “Maybe I am dead,” he whispered to the empty sea.
The sea carried him long after he stopped fighting it. His fingers loosened from the wreckage, and the current shifted beneath him—steady, deliberate. Something moved in the dark water below, vast and unseen, circling once before vanishing into the deep. The rain softened. The black sun faded behind his closed eyes. And then there was only darkness.
Chapter 2 Coming Soon
The Velasco Saga 