Dedication

 This novel is dedicated to my late grandmother. It was because of her that I read books far too advanced. It was because of her that I wrote far too much. It was because of her that I dreamed far too big.

Acknowledgements

To My Family: Thank you for all you've done to support me. I know I've tested your nerves far more than I probably should've, but you should know I did it with love. 

To My Friends: You guys are the best. I mean it. Ya'll accepted a weirdo and loved her for it. Thank you. 

To My Naysayers: Suck it. 

They came silently. It wasn’t until half of the small, port town was aglow in flames that people even knew what was happening. They were under attack. A young, noble girl named Arabella Cartridge was awakened by her panicking governess. She was ushered out of her room and into the hallway where soldiers were rushing through, intent on reaching the front gates to go to the rescue of the now screaming townspeople. Suddenly the ground shook as an explosion rocked Arabella’s seaside home. She could hear her father barking out orders and she glanced around looking for her mother’s dark hair. She frowned when her governess pushed her into a hidden room in the far back of the house. 

“You must stay here, Bella,” the woman cooed as if she were talking to a small child. Arabella kept the scathing remark off of her lips. She was fourteen, hardly a child, but it seemed her governess failed to see the difference.

“What of Mother and Damien? Father?” She asked instead as she kept glancing around her governess’ rather large shoulders, hoping to catch a glimpse of one or both of her parents or her younger brother. The governess shook her head.

“They have a different hiding spot, I’m sure. This is the one set aside for you,” the words seemed odd, but her mother had hired the governess and left her daughter in the woman’s care, so Arabella felt the woman could be trusted. Arabella ignored the sickening feeling that suddenly built in her gut.

It would all be alright, she told herself just as another explosion shook the mansion. Her governess glanced over her shoulder warily. She still blocked the doorway with her massive form, but Arabella didn’t care. Her thoughts were filled with worry over her family’s safety. Her small hands shook when she suddenly heard shouting and the sound of metal clanging. It was muffled, but it was closer than it had been.  Arabella had been so distracted by the sounds outside of the room that she didn’t notice her governess balling up a wad of rags in her hands. It wasn’t until a sickly sweet smell entered her nostrils and the wad of rags was shoved against her face that Arabella realized something was wrong. Very wrong. A twisted smirk darkened her governess’ face as Arabella fell into darkness.

When she awoke again, she was blinded by dancing lights; each one was a different color: green, blue, purple, and red.  They surrounded her and only seemed to exist to illuminate her and not the room she was in. Her arms were heavy as she attempted to lift them to block out the lights. She frowned when her fingers grazed the surface was she lying on. It was hard and sharp. Pain exploded up her arms as she attempted to raise herself off of the uncomfortable platform. It took her a few seconds before she realized what had dug into her hands and elbows: coral. She could already feel blood pouring down her arms. 

"Silly, silly girl," a sickly sweet voice trickled out from the darkness that surrounded Arabella. Panic like nothing else gripped her heart.

“You’re only hurting yourself,” the voice cooed in an eerily familiar tone as Arabella searched for its owner. The lights kept blinding her so she couldn’t see past their glow.

“Who are you?” She questioned as she felt the tears prick the corners of her eyes, evidence she was in pain and afraid. A soft cackle filled the air. Arabella struggled again to raise herself off of the coral platform. She felt more shards dig into her flesh, but she ignored it. Something in her soul pleaded with her to escape while she still could. With a sudden push, Arabella rolled off of the platform and onto a cold, wet floor. The lights followed her. Her eyes widened when she saw what the floor was wet with: blood. It covered every inch and turned the grey stone red. Her mouth opened to scream but no sound came out.

“Oh yes. You are perfect,” Arabella felt claws grab her chin as she was forced to face her captor. Her eyes widened. A woman crouched in front of her, barely clothed. Her grey-green skin was covered in barnacles and coral. A gauze-like material covered her legs. Her eyes were black, empty holes and her white hair was tangled into knots Arabella was sure would never come undone.

“How lovely and pure, it is. Untainted by lust and greed. Yes, yes, it will do magnificently,” the woman, if Arabella could call her that, spoke with her eyes pinned on Arabella’s rapidly rising and falling chest.

“Please, just let me go. My parents will give you whatever you want,” Arabella pleaded as the woman snapped her soulless eyes up to Arabella’s frightened green ones.

“Oh. Sweet child, your parents already have. You,” she cooed softly as she used her other hand to stroke Arabella’s short, choppy curls. Her words registered slowly and it crushed her soul. Her parents, who were supposed to love and protect her, had given her to this creature for what?

“Why?” She whispered as the woman smiled, letting Arabella see her fanged teeth.

“For a son, of course,” she answered simply as if it were a perfectly reasonable excuse to give away a child.

“It was a trade. Your heart for a son. I simply had to wait for it to mature, is all,” her words danced around Arabella just as lightly as the lights did. The woman, creature was giddy, excited. Arabella felt her world crash around her. Her parents had a son. A son they had been blessed with when Arabella had been three.  Is that when they traded her to this creature? When she was nothing but a toddler? Her heart shattered. She should’ve known. They treated Damien as if he were a gift, while she had been a mistake.She had always thought it was because she was a girl, but now she knew the truth. Tears bubbled down her cheeks as she stared at this creature in front of her and felt her parents’ betrayal to the very depths of her soul.

“Oh, no. Your heart is waning. No, no, no!” Arabella barely heard the creature's screeches above her own wail of despair. Suddenly, fire exploded from her chest and when she glanced down, her eyes widened. The woman had shoved her hand through Arabella's chest and gripped something tightly. Arabella felt pain like nothing else take hold when the woman yanked out her arm and in her hand rested a glowing, beating heart. Arabella’s eyes widened as she stared down at the pulsating organ and realized something else flowed through her veins now. Something that was stronger than her heart. The despair, pain and anger at her predicament flared suddenly as she pinned her eyes on the creature that now held her heart.

“Give it back,” she hissed in a voice she had never heard herself use before.

“No. No. It’s perfect. I knew the others were wastes.” The woman growled as she eyed the heart hungrily. A hollow emptiness rang through Arabella as she realized she was supposed to feel fear. Only she couldn’t.  In fact, all she felt was anger. She tried to find something else, but all that there was was anger and emptiness.

“What did you do to me?”

“I took your heart. Your emotions are mine now.” The strange cackle was back as the creature turned from Arabella and rose to her feet.

    Maera eyed the heart in her hand reverently. It was as she had hoped: perfect. The countless other children she had stolen had nothing on this young girl. However, when Maera was out of her dungeon, the heart’s glow waned and Maera frowned. Why?

WHY?

NO! She turned back to the young girl’s cell and her eyes widened. The girl, in all of her helplessness, had taken a shard of coral and sliced her wrists. Her life was draining away. Maera screamed in anger as she threw the cell door open and gripped the girl’s hair in her claws.

“No! You will not take it away from me! No!” Just before the life left the girl’s emerald eyes, Maera sliced her palm and pressed it against her almost motionless chest. A whispered incantation left Maera’s lips and she watched as the girl’s wounds healed and her body hummed with the magic that was now embedded in her body.  

“You, impudent child, have tried to thwart my plans and for that you will be punished. You can never die. Not as long as your heart is mine. From this day forward, you will not know my face or how to find me. You will wander this Earth searching for me, but will never find me,”  Maera hissed as she watched the girl’s green eyes widen in horror. She grinned wickedly before the girl disappeared in a cloud of fog.

 Arabella fell unceremoniously onto the deck of ship and she was surprised when no pain came from her fall. She glanced around and her eyes landed on the stunned faces of the ship’s tenants. Their raggedy cloths and sharp weapons told her all she needed to know about them. 

Pirates.

Shock reverberated through Arabella at her predicament and she did what any sensible fourteen-year-old girl would do; she passed out. 

9 Years Later:

“I wonder, Bella,” a calm, collected voice drifted from behind Arabella as she pushed her waterlogged sleeves up her thin arms. Rain pelted everyone and everything until every article of clothing and every strand of hair was plastered against their owners. The rain didn't bother her but she frowned at the nickname only the voice's owner and one other person seemed to use. 

“What do you wonder, Lockes?” Arabella’s voice was sharp and impatient. She had no time to dilly-dally with the Captain. The storm they were currently caught in rocked and lurched the ship in almost every conceivable direction. Arabella was watching two of the men hang, precariously from the rigging in an attempt to capture the flailing sails to keep them from ripping apart.

“How did you know about this storm?” the man’s voice brought Arabella’s attention back from the struggling sailors. She sighed and ignored the urge to turn and punch the man in the nose. He had always picked peculiar times to question her.

“I could smell it, Lockes. Couldn’t you? You wouldn’t be a very good sailor if you couldn’t,” Arabella answered in a bored tone as she ignored the rocking of the ship beneath their feet. She had learned years ago how to stay steady aboard the deck.

“I smelled it, but you judged the time…” Kaden Lockes was interrupted before he could add ‘with perfect accuracy’.

“And if you had listened to me, captain,”  Arabella spat out the word in annoyance before continuing, “we wouldn’t be trying to wrangle in three sails in a damn hurricane, now would we?”

Arabella had long since abandoned her filter that kept her from unleashing cruel and scathing words on whoever happened to earn her dislike. She had also abandoned her noble upbringing that demanded she wear dresses and curtsy to every man she met. Arabella stomped away from her captain and jumped up onto the rigging, ignoring a nearby protest from one of the men. Protests against her always fell on deaf ears.  Kaden Lockes watched her as she climbed the mast and used a nearby rope to propel herself around the largest sail. With a grace that very few possessed, Arabella managed to lock up the main sail and slip back onto the deck before the men had finished with the other two smaller sails. She stomped past her silent leader and disappeared below deck to change and sleep.

Captain Kaden Lockes’s eyes always followed the only female aboard his ship. She hardly acted like her sex. She wasn’t soft and fragile; she wasn’t full of sweetness. In fact, Kaden was sure the woman was filled with nothing but venom and gunpowder. She had easily made a place for herself amongst his crew no matter how new or experienced the members were. And it was unnerving how simple she made her actions seem. He had watched her scale the rigging to tie the sail down with an ease that only she possessed. Half of his men wouldn’t have dared to attempt the move, not during a storm. Years of being raised by pirates had taught the woman exactly how to survive. He wondered briefly if she had lived another life before this one. Pirate women were rare and far in between. Most of them had been raised on ships by wayward fathers, but Kaden knew Arabella’s father was dead. She had told him so. So how had she come into piracy? Every time Kaden thought to ask her, she would dodge the question and spit venom in his direction.  He almost quit asking her, but sometimes she looked so thoughtful that he had to know what had filled her green eyes with such immeasurable pain.

“The girl has no sense of self-preservation,” a nearby crewman mumbled as Arabella stormed past him. And it was true. Kaden had seen it. Either her sense of danger was warped or she cared very little if she survived the day. He scowled at the thought.  While being a pirate was a dangerous existence, it was one that rife with preservation. Kaden swore to himself that he would get to the bottom of Arabella Cartridge and her mystery. 

The next morning, Arabella ignored the breakfast Cook had set out for the crew. When he shot her a pointed look, she ignored him. The crew had gotten used to Arabella’s cold demeanor. Cook stowed away some of the food for later; he knew Arabella would come in and eat when no one else could see her. The storm that had pitched the ship fiercely the night before was gone and a light breeze filled the air. The deck was empty save for the Captain and Seamus, the lookout. The rest of the crew were either enjoying breakfast or sleeping.

“We’re getting low on provisions so we should make port soon,” Arabella’s voice seemed to startle the thoughtful captain as Kaden turned to face her. He noticed that she wore her long dark hair in a plaited braid. It was the one feature Arabella seemed to keep as feminine as possible. While he had seen many girls cut their hair short while at sea, Arabella never touched hers except to brush it and braid it.

“Jarrus said the same thing to me last night,” Kaden responded, annoyed the pair seemed to think him incapable. Arabella smirked.

“He’s a smart man. Don’t know why he gave you the ropes,” She easily quipped before turning to head toward the helm, nodding her head at a limping older man with a giant scar across his eye. The man smiled at her as he headed toward Kaden on the deck. Once on the helm, Arabella gripped the ship’s wheel and directed the ship toward the nearest pirate’s port. She watched the sea for only a moment before her eyes dipped down and studied the men conversing on the deck. Kaden Lockes was a large man wrapped in sinewy muscles and blonde hair. She could understand why the crew feared and respected him as their captain. She had seen him in battle and he was magnificent. But he was nosy and asked too many questions about her past and her abilities. She knew the moment she let any sailor know about her curse, they’d throw her overboard. And while it may not kill her, it would be extremely inconvenient.

While she was lost in her thoughts, Kaden watch Arabella at the ship’s wheel, content to maneuver the massive vessel whichever way she wanted. It was another quirk of hers that Kaden hated. She, in all of her mystery, always seemed to know which direction in which to head. He sometimes wondered if she snuck into his quarters and studied the maps; he almost laughed aloud at the thought. Arabella didn’t sneak anywhere, especially not aboard the ship.

“Lettin’ Bells get the best of ya again, Lockes?” Kaden turned to Jarrus, the ex-captain of Calypso’s Fall. The pirate was still every bit as intimidating and ruthless as he had been, but he had taken to just being the ship’s medic and had passed on the ship to his protégé.

“I don’t let her do anything,” Kaden responded and they both knew it was the truth. Arabella was almost more of the captain than he was. Kaden knew that if Arabella had been a man Jarrus would have handed over Calypso to her.  The thought vexed him immensely.

“She’s a good lass,” Jarrus excused as he glanced up at the dark haired woman manning the wheel. It had been during his captaincy that Arabella had made a permanent place for herself. It was quite a feat considering most of his original crew thought she was a curse. It did not help that her inability to connect kept her from making any friends or allies amongst the crew. The only people aboard the ship who cared whether she lived or died seemed to be Jarrus, Kaden and Cook. 

“How does she do that?” Kaden growled as he watched Arabella shift the ship’s wheel and change their direction.  Jarrus shrugged himself of his thought as he smirked. It was a question he had asked himself hundreds of times, but he never asked her. She had never steered them wrong.

“I’ve neva’ quite learned. But it’d do ya a bit of good not to pry,” Jarrus warned as he patted Kaden on the shoulder before climbing to stand on the helm with the dark haired pirate.