Okay. So. Sometimes, you read a handful of an author's books and you think "WOW, this person seems awesome, and I want to be their friend," but because you're an adult and you can't exactly participate in the kindergarten ritual of walking up to that person and gifting them a cool rock you found on the playground, you have to improvise.
And then one day, you find yourself bantering with that author on social media while she's promoting her new book, At First Spite.
Well, after this, I had to blindly charge into one of the more chaotic ideas I've had without wondering how strange it might be for an author to receive such a thing. Also, she basically challenged me to do it. (Right? Right??)
Listen. Adult friendships are bizarre. I have no idea how they start or how they progress, and as far as I can tell, they are kept alive by the abrupt and context-less transfer of memes. Sometimes you have to take a chance and approach life (and others) with a sense of openness and optimism.
In any case, thanks for playing with me, Olivia. Here is a cool rock.
Arr First Spite, AKA the Pirate AU No One Asked For
Captain Matthew Vine was in a glowering sort of mood. Understandably so. The day had been going quite well up until this point—a few ships privateered here, several trunks of gleaming doubloons pilfered there—yet everything changed at teatime.
He struggled against the dual grip of the iron manacles around his wrists and the heavy despair at having been the one whose ship was captured. He was never captured! He was the capturer! He was the Scourge of the Seven Seas, the Dark Spot on the Map, the Reason Why You Never Go Too Far From Land Without A Solid Plan. For decades, legends had been told on the high seas of his ruthlessness. When his boots landed on an enemy’s deck, the sailors trembled in such fear that the wood planking practically vibrated.
Captain Matthew shook his thick mane of salt-and-pepper hair out of his eyes, then cursed as the gesture managed to land a few locks in his mouth.
Beside him, Johnny the Quartermaster clanked around in his own manacles.
“Here sir,” Johnny said, reaching dirt-encrusted fingers toward Matthew’s mouth. “I’ll help with yer hair—”
Captain Matthew shoved him away. Or, at least, he tried to. Shoving was not one of the movements allowed whilst manacled in a line to thirteen of your smelliest crewmates. His attempted shove pulled on the chain between Johnny’s legs, which sent a knee straight into Matthew’s stomach, and from somewhere a few feet away, another man started to whimper in pain.
That was how the raiding captain found him: bent over and wheezing, his hair filling his mouth as if he’d been attempting to eat it for lunch. Which—oh bilge-sucking son of a mermaid—he’d not been able to have at all, since the raid had occurred in the middle of tea and biscuits. Captain Matthew made a valiant attempt not to think of the salted pork and room-temperature grog going to waste.
When the captain appeared, he not only forgot about the lost lunch, but almost forgot his own name.
It was her. Captain Athena Greydon. Scourge of the Seven— Oh, no, wait, that was him. But if he was the Scourge, she was the . . . Scourgier. Scourgiest. She was The Darker Spot on the Map. She was The Reason Why You Don’t Leave Land At All, Ever, What Are You Nuts, Do You Have A Death Wish??
She had a voluptuous figure and a mouth right out of his sauciest dreams. Her flaxen hair reached down to her waist and billowed about her like a sail, drifting over the epaulets of her open brass-buttoned jacket. Her bosom rose in twin swells that would have rivaled the waves during a fearsome storm. When she unsheathed the scimitar at her hip, she lifted it into the air with grace and strength, and when she bellowed a victory cry—
Heavens, Captain Matthew’s loins hadn’t been this stirred since that time he accidentally caught himself in the anchor winch. A different type of stirring; at least this one was much less painful.
As he watched her stalk closer, his jaw hung open. A sudden breeze blew another lock of hair into his mouth.
“Well,” Captain Athena said. “If I knew that I’d be capturing the mighty Matthew Vine’s ship today, I might have worn a nicer hat.”
A wave of chuckles traveled through her crew. Matthew scowled. He had an excellent hat. It had a broad, sweeping brim and a voluminous feather and was currently sitting beside his uneaten biscuits.
Captain Athena let her gaze drift lazily from Matthew’s fine boots to the shining mane caught between his teeth. She didn’t try for any sort of subtlety when that gaze lingered on his tight trousers and the mass of chest hair revealed by his shirt’s wide neck.
He had never felt so exposed. And aroused. Mostly aroused.
Her full lips quirked into a mischievous smile that made Matthew sweat. She settled her hands on the wide leather belt that wrapped around her hips, then leaned in close.
“Whatever am I going to do with you?”
FIN
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