CHAPTER 76: [76] WHAT YOU ARE WORTH

Night fell like a curtain across the Dawn Sea, bringing with it a sky full of brilliant, cold stars. Pierre had managed to stay upright through most of the afternoon, but as darkness settled over the Crimson Sparrow, his body finally began to rebel against the punishment he’d put it through.

He was sitting on a coil of rope near the mainmast, ostensibly keeping watch while Raven adjusted their heading for the night. In reality, he was fighting to stay conscious as waves of heat and cold rolled through him in nauseating cycles.

"You look terrible."

Pierre opened eyes he didn’t remember closing. Alyssa stood in front of him, arms crossed, her pale green eyes dark with concern. Her platinum blonde hair caught the starlight, making her look ethereal and worried in equal measure.

"Thanks. Always nice to hear."

"I’m serious, Pierre." She crouched down in front of him, bringing her face level with his. "You’re burning up. When’s the last time you actually looked at those wounds?"

Pierre tried to remember. The caves felt like a lifetime ago, but it had only been this a day or two ago. He’d been so focused on getting them out of Orellia, on putting distance between them and Moreau’s reach, that he’d ignored the growing fire in his ribs and the way his vision kept going gray around the edges.

"I’m fine."

"No, you’re not." Alyssa’s voice carried that same firm tone she’d used with the soup—the voice of someone who’d made a decision and wouldn’t be argued out of it. "You’re going to let me check those wounds, and then you’re going to rest. That’s not a request."

Pierre wanted to argue, but another wave of fever hit him, strong enough to make his teeth chatter. Hardy’s stolen endurance was still there, but it felt thin and unreliable, like ice beginning to crack under weight.

"Fine," he said, because arguing would take energy he didn’t have. "But I can walk."

He pushed himself to his feet, swayed dangerously, and felt Alyssa’s hand immediately steady his elbow.

"Of course you can."

Together, they made their way across the deck to the captain’s cabin. Pierre’s cabin now, though it still felt like wearing someone else’s clothes. The door opened onto the same luxurious space where he’d first confronted Alyssa about her father, where she’d stood in nothing but her undergarments and demanded answers he couldn’t give.

The memory hung between them as Alyssa guided him to sit on the edge of the silk-sheeted bed. The cabin felt smaller now, more intimate, filled with the weight of everything that had happened since that first confrontation.

"Shirt off," Alyssa said, already moving toward the washbasin in the corner.

"Excuse me?"

"Your shirt. Off. I need to see how bad the damage is." She turned back to him, a bowl of water in her hands and something that might have been medical supplies balanced on top. "Don’t be shy. It’s not like I haven’t seen you without it before."

Pierre’s face heated in a way that had nothing to do with fever. She was right—she’d seen him shirtless in this very cabin, when Hardy’s trap had forced him to hide in her room. But that had been different. That had been survival. This felt... personal.

He pulled his shirt over his head, wincing as the movement sent fresh fire through his ribs. The fabric came away damp with sweat and something darker that might have been blood.

Alyssa’s sharp intake of breath told him everything he needed to know about how bad he looked.

"Pierre..." Her voice was very small. "Why didn’t you say something?"

He looked down at himself, seeing his torso through her eyes. The bandages Raven had applied in the caves were soaked through with blood and something that looked suspiciously like infection. His ribs were a patchwork of purple and black bruises, and there was a gash along his left side that was definitely deeper than he’d thought.

"It’s not that bad."

"Not that—" Alyssa set the bowl down harder than necessary, water sloshing over the sides. "Pierre, you’re bleeding internally. Look at this."

She picked up a discarded rag from beside the bed—one he’d used to wipe his mouth after coughing earlier. It was stained with bright red blood, more than should have come from a simple cough.

Alyssa stared at the rag, and Pierre watched the color drain from her face.

"I don’t know what I’m doing," she whispered, and her voice cracked on the words. "I don’t know how to fix this. I can’t fix anything."

It was the first time since leaving her father’s base that Pierre had seen her look truly helpless. Not angry or determined or carefully controlled, but lost. Like a child who’d been handed a problem too big for her to solve.

"Alyssa—"

"No." She shook her head, platinum hair falling across her face. "No, don’t. Don’t tell me it’s fine or that I’m doing my best or any of that. I’m not. I’m useless. I couldn’t fight Saxe properly, I can’t sail this ship, I can’t even clean a wound without my hands shaking."

She held up her hands as if to prove the point, and Pierre could see the tremor in her fingers. Not from fear, but from the bone-deep exhaustion of someone who’d been running on adrenaline and stubbornness for too long.

"I was supposed to be perfect." Her voice was getting smaller, thinner. "Daddy’s little weapon. But I’m not. I’m useless. I can’t fight, I can’t sail... I can’t even clean a wound." She held up her trembling hands again. "And now you’re hurt. Because of me. And I don’t know how to—"

Pierre reached out and caught her hands in his, stilling their trembling. Her skin was warm and soft, but he could feel the calluses that had formed over the past few days—proof that she’d been working harder than anyone to pull her weight on this ship.

"Hey." His voice came out rougher than he’d intended, scraped raw by pain and fever. "Look at me."

Alyssa’s pale green eyes met his, and Pierre saw everything she’d been hiding behind her careful composure. Fear and shame and a desperate need to be useful, to matter, to be more than just the privileged daughter of a tyrant.

"You’re not broken," he said. "You’re learning. There’s a difference."

"But I can’t—"

"You threw a belaying pin thirty feet and took out a pirate with a headshot," Pierre interrupted. "You stood between me and Saxe’s sabers when you had no training and no weapon except a riding crop. You’re here, in this cabin, trying to take care of someone who’s too stubborn to take care of himself."

His hands tightened around hers, anchoring them both.

"That’s not broken, Alyssa. That’s brave."

Something shifted in her expression—surprise, maybe, or the beginning of something that looked like hope. She was close enough that he could see the flecks of silver in her green eyes, could smell the sea spray in her hair mixed with something that was purely her.

"Pierre..." Her voice was barely a whisper.

And then, without either of them quite deciding it, the space between them disappeared.

It started as comfort—Alyssa leaning forward, Pierre’s arms coming up to catch her as she collapsed against his chest. A hug between two people who’d been through hell together and somehow made it out alive.

But comfort shifted into something else when Alyssa’s hands fisted in his hair and her breath hitched against his throat. When Pierre’s arms tightened around her waist, pulling her closer despite the fire in his ribs. When she lifted her head and their faces were inches apart, and the air between them crackled with something that had nothing to do with the fever burning through his veins.

Her lips parted, and Pierre could see his own desperate hunger reflected in her eyes. The need to feel something other than pain, to prove they were still alive, still capable of wanting something beyond mere survival.

When she kissed him, it was like a dam breaking.

All the fear and adrenaline and desperate relief of the past few days poured out in the press of her mouth against his. She tasted like salt and determination and something uniquely Alyssa, and Pierre kissed her back like she was the only thing keeping him anchored to the world.

Her hands roamed across his shoulders, careful of his injuries but hungry in a way that made his blood sing. She was warm and soft and alive, and when she made a small sound against his mouth, Pierre felt something inside him catch fire.

This was madness. This was dangerous. This was—

Pierre pulled back, his hands on her shoulders, putting distance between them even though every instinct screamed at him to pull her closer.

"Not like this, Alyssa."

She blinked at him, her lips swollen from his kisses, confusion and hurt warring in her green eyes. "What?"

"Not like this."

Shame flooded her face, and she tried to pull away, but Pierre held her gently in place.

"When it happens," he said, his voice raspy with effort, forcing her to meet his gaze. "It will be a choice. A real one. Not this." He shook his head, the movement costing him. "You’re worth more than a moment of forgetting, Alyssa. You’re worth more than just trying to feel better."

She stared at him for a long moment, and Pierre watched a dozen emotions flicker across her face. Hurt and confusion gave way to something deeper—understanding, maybe, or the beginning of it.

"I..." She touched her lips with trembling fingers. "I don’t understand."

"You will." Pierre’s strength was fading fast, the fever and pain and sheer effort of stopping himself catching up all at once. "When you’re ready, you’ll understand."

He collapsed back onto the bed, his vision graying at the edges. The last thing he saw before unconsciousness took him was Alyssa standing beside the bed, wrapped in his discarded blanket, staring down at him with an expression he couldn’t quite read.

And in the doorway, visible for just a split second before melting back into the shadows, Raven’s silhouette watched with eyes that reflected the starlight like a cat’s.