Humiliation

She followed him onto the deck.

"Why do you not care about me at all?!" she screamed at Daniel, who turned around with a blank look on his face.

"Why, do I have to promise to marry you?" he asked.

"No! I mean - yes! I mean - there is no sense in anything anymore! You are so cold and then you say something nice and then you are cold again - I can't take it!"

He tried to push her away, but she did not give up.

"Not here, not on the deck," Daniel whispered. "Let us go to the cabin again."

She closed her eyes. She felt him wrap his arms around her.

She opened her eyes again.

No! This couldn't be the way things were about to stay for the end of days! It was like he was ashamed of her, and that wasn't what she wanted, to only kiss him in secret, to - no, she had to resist! She could not play the fool any longer. This situation was horrible!

She tried to tear herself away from him, but he was too strong. He practically carried her all the way to the cabin while she kicked and screamed.

Soon, though, the hyperventilation she had got too bad for her to break her agitated breathing with screams. She sat there for a moment, panicking.

When she had calmed down, he poured them both some wine and sighed.

"You don't like to have things the easy way, do you, Mariana? Well…it isn't like I have been a perfect suitor for you, either."

She hiccuped.

"Are - are you my suitor?" she asked.

He stared into her eyes with such intensity that she feared she would start crying again.

"I don't know," he said. "What am I to you? A partner? Some man you have perhaps wanted to kill in the past? Some man you still want to kill?"

"I don't want to kill you," Mariana whispered.

"So, it must be something else you desire from me, not my blood. What is it?" And his voice got all low and rumbly, it was almost like all the demons in hell had spoken at once through his mouth. "What is it, Mariana?"

"I -"

"Start. Talking."

She noticed that the table, or rather, the part of it that he was touching, started to smolder and emit smoke that arose in feverish spirals, agitated by their breaths.

"Don't light the ship on fire," she said, scared in a way that she had never experienced before. She had a feeling that he could do just about anything to get what he wanted.

"I will light this cursed ship on fire if I so desire," he said, his eyes starting to glow with a ghastly red light. "What am I to you, Mariana?"

She felt like a mouse watching a hawk swoop downwards.

She knew she had to speak her mind.

"A lover," she whispered.

He bent over the table - which was almost in flames by now - and grabbed her chin.

"Do you want me?" he asked, his hot breath burning her skin with the sweetest imaginable sting. "Do you want your demon pirate lover?"

"Yes," Mariana breathed.

"Then let us be lovers," he said and kissed her, deeper than ever before, hotter than ever before.

It was an event of earth-shattering passion. Mariana saw stars before she realized that it was better to do this with her eyes closed, she lost herself in him and forgot where the borderline between them even was. In this kiss, they circled each other, with hungry, desiring lips and tongues, exploring each other.

Mariana felt a strange heat from the world outside. She opened her eyes.

Gods, the table was on fire, but the flames did not seem to affect Daniel at all.

"We should put that out," he said casually and dunked a whole bucket of water onto the table.

"Well, I am glad it wasn't…well, anyway," she said, grinning. "I feel a lot better now."

"And you only had to open your mouth."

She touched her lips. "Aye. Do you think we should…"

"Tell the crew that I own you now? Absolutely."

"I -"

This was so brutish, so sudden, and to be frank, so pleasurable that this time, she could not resist in any way.

She simply followed Daniel to the deck.

He had a magical way of always gathering large crowds of people around him.

"Listen, gentlemen!" he roared. "We will soon reach an island, and we will do it as a unified whole. What I am about to tell you will change that, though. It has been like that since the beginning of time…"

A poignant pause left many men wondering just what was about to happen.

"...Pirates have left those they have loved ashore, both to protect them and also to protect their own hearts from jealousy. Since I am known for being fair, I will not be the only one to break that rule."

The men looked at each other, baffled.

"I am officially partnered to Captain Mariana Adams," the pirate king declared with clear pride in his voice. "She is mine. And who should lay a hand on her or try to steal ANY man's wife from another…will die. By my hand. It will be slow."

He fondled her chest in one licentious motion that was too fast for her to stop. He grabbed her chin right after that and licked her cheek.

Then he jumped back down from the gunwale and left his crew wondering what on earth had just happened.

Daniel was now in his cabin, and Mariana really didn't know whether she was supposed to follow him or not.

"Mother of worms," Marrow cursed, obviously trying hard to keep his laughter to himself. "I didn't know that Captain Adams was such a vixen."

Still puzzled, Mariana let out a nervous burst of giggles. She felt so humiliated, but it was a good feeling. Kind of. Very much. She didn't even know anything any longer.