Where Loyalties Lie

Chapter 18 - Starry Dawn

Elaina ached. Every muscle in both arms hurt, and her nose was a mess of agony. She tasted blood and wiped at her mouth again. She’d limped all the way back to her ship without help, without a word, and without a tear. Elaina had been raised better than to cry in public, to be stronger than that. Now that she was alone in her cabin, the damned tears welled up and rolled down her cheeks like hot wet streaks of fire.

Pulling out a bottle of rum from her bedside cabinet, Elaina ripped the cork away with her teeth and took three unhealthy-sized swallows of the fiery booze. Being drunk would help to dull the pain.

Her arse hurt. It hurt like it had recently had a cock shoved up it, hard. It hurt to stand, and it hurt to sit. She’d wiped and wiped and wiped as soon as she was alone, but still she was finding evidence of the humiliation.

The worst pain wasn’t how badly her arse hurt, nor the humiliation of the rape, of being helpless in front of all those men. The worst pain was that her father had ordered it, that he was so disappointed in her that he’d ordered one of his crew to rape her. The tears welled up and rolled down her cheeks again.

Elaina had disappointed her father before. With a man as great as Tanner Black as a father, it was impossible not to disappoint him from time to time. Her feelings for Keelin Stillwater had always been a source of contention between the two of them, but he’d never taken things so far before. She must have hurt him this time. It was her own fault; she’d had every opportunity to kill Keelin. Instead Elaina had let him go, and even worse, she knew she’d do it again, given the chance.

There was a knock at her cabin door, and Pavel’s soft voice drifted through the wooden barrier. “Captain. I should look at you. The crew says you’re banged up rather badly.”

Elaina wiped the tears from her face, wincing at the pain, and took another swig from the bottle of rum before making her way to the door. Her quartermaster was on the other side with Pavel. Corin’s face was caught between horror and anger. Pavel’s was worse. Elaina hated being pitied. Even worse was that she deserved the pity.

“Captain…” Corin started.

“Tell the crew I’m fine,” Elaina slurred, her swollen lips sore and the taste of blood suddenly stronger. “They get a few more days’ leave and are not to go anywhere near my father’s crew.”

Corin looked set to argue, but he nodded and turned away. Elaina stood aside to let Pavel into the room. The man swept past her, his red robe billowing as he went, and headed straight for Elaina’s desk, where he deposited a large black leather case. Elaina closed the door and limped after the doctor.

“Your father did that to you?” Pavel said as he rooted through his case.

“Some of it.” Elaina stopped beside the doctor and leaned against her desk, wincing.

Pavel said nothing in reply, giving Elaina a disapproving look. Not that the doctor’s opinion mattered a damn. He stared into her face, gently took hold of her chin, and turned her head first to the left, then to the right. Even Elaina’s neck hurt, and she felt like cursing the names of all the gods to have been born with such poor judgement as to piss off her father so.

“Your nose is broken,” Pavel said eventually.

“I can tell,” Elaina slurred back.

“It will need setting. It will hurt. You should sit.”

“I prefer to stand.”

Pavel looked at her disapprovingly again. “You should sit.”

Elaina attempted to give the man a withering stare, but considering her black eyes and swollen cheeks and lips, she wagered she missed the mark. “Have you ever had a cock up your arse, Doc?”

Pavel looked uncomfortable. “No.”

“I’ll stand.”

Pavel spent a few minutes poking painfully around her nose before placing one hand on either side and…

“Fuck!”

Elaina couldn’t help but shout as the doctor snapped her nose back into position, bringing with it a fresh wave of blood that careened down her face and the metallic taste of more of it at the back of her throat. She pulled away from the doctor just in time to stop him seeing her tears, and banged her fist down hard on her desk. Fat drops of blood dripped down and pooled upon the wood, and Elaina fought the urge to turn and punch Pavel in his nose so he could experience the agony.

Wiping at her eyes, Elaina turned back to face the doctor, who had already riffled through his case and was now brandishing some sort of lotion. “I need to clean the blood away and apply this to your cuts. It will stop them from infecting and should help bring down the swelling.”

Elaina perched on her desk, ignoring the pain, and nodded at the doctor. “Remind me never to disappoint my father again.”

Pavel began to wipe the blood from Elaina’s mouth. “I would prefer to remind your father that Pelsing judges how we should treat our children.”

Elaina snorted out a laugh, complete with a spray of blood and a hearty dose of pain. “I don’t think you’d survive that sermon, Doc. Your golden god don’t hold much sway out here. Our god is wet, cruel, and loves women over all men.”

“If that were true,” Pavel countered in a frustratingly calm voice as he applied lotion to Elaina’s face, “would she allow your father to treat you in such a way?”

“Suffering makes you stronger,” Elaina said, repeating the words her father had drilled into all his children over and over again. “A lesson learned without pain isn’t learned at all. The pain makes you remember. Stops you from repeating.”

“Poor girl.”

Elaina snapped out of her reverie and gave the doctor a hard push, sending him stumbling. “Don’t ever think to pity me, Doc. Don’t you ever. Are we done?”

“Yes,” Pavel said quietly as he packed his lotions and tools back into his case. “You should rest.”

Elaina did feel tired, but there was no time to rest. She needed to plan where she would take the ship next. Needed to figure out how to regain her father’s favour.