The storm had passed.

Not in some poetic, sun-drenched flourish with rainbows spilt across the sea, but with the slow, bone-deep silence that follows true chaos. The kind of hush that blankets the air like a shroud—where even the creaking of the wood seems reluctant, uncertain, too exhausted to groan. The crew of *The Red Wind* had stumbled back into its hold, soaked to the marrow, every bruise a badge, every blister a hymn to survival. And yet, as always, they endured. With rum.

Someone dragged crates into a ring. Someone else lit a lantern that flickered like it too had weathered the storm. Boots scraped. Mugs clinked. The belly of the ship swelled with laughter that bordered on manic, the kind of joy that comes from narrowly dodging death and deciding to toast to it anyway.

Cassian lingered at the fringe, legs stretched languidly in front of him, back resting against a salt-stained beam. He didn’t try to wedge himself in. He didn’t have to. They tolerated him now. No longer the outsider, not yet one of them. Suspicion had thinned into reluctant acknowledgment. A cold peace—like two blades set aside, but not sheathed.

“Truth or Dare,” Nina announced, her grin crooked as she spun an ancient, chipped bottle between her hands. It caught the firelight, gleaming like a relic. “Rules are simple. No cowards. No blades. No backsies.”

Miro groaned into his cup. “Last time we played this, Dren ended up sobbing in the bilge and three people had to kiss Thorne.”

“That was a good night,” Nina said dreamily.

Thorne was at the edge of the gathering, shadow-wrapped, leaning against a bulkhead like he’d grown from it. He hadn’t sat. He didn’t intend to. Arms folded, jaw set, he looked every inch the figurehead—meant to intimidate, not to join.

The bottle spun once, lazily, and pointed at him.

He didn’t so much as twitch. “I don’t play games,” he said.

Cassian, sipping slow and deliberate from his mug, offered a soft snort. “You command one.”

The look Thorne gave him was brief but slicing—amber eyes catching, holding, then dismissing as though Cassian were a question he’d already answered. “Not the same,” he murmured, and turned his gaze elsewhere.

The first spins were harmless. Featherlight dares. Half-truths strung with laughter.

Miro warbled a siren song in a voice that sounded like a drowning goat, much to everyone’s delight. Nox knelt before the rum barrel and proposed eternal union. Nina mimicked Thorne with cutting accuracy, complete with the taut jaw and a scowl so fearsome it earned a chorus of applause.

Then the bottle turned toward Cassian.

“Truth,” he said, his tone honeyed, one brow lifted in that infuriatingly poised way of his. He looked like he belonged on a balcony with wine, not in a damp hull playing games with pirates.

Nina leaned in. “Have you ever slept with someone just to get something you wanted?”

The room stilled. Just a fraction.

Cassian didn’t blink. “Of course,” he said, voice like silk draped over a blade. “Haven’t you?”

A pause, then laughter—some of it real, some of it deflective. But Thorne didn’t laugh. He watched. And Cassian didn’t look away.

The tide began to turn.

“Truth,” someone said when the bottle pointed at Thorne again. “Have you ever loved someone aboard this ship?”

There was a heartbeat of silence.

“No,” came the reply.

It was a lie so deliberate, so dry, it sucked the warmth from the room for a moment.

Everyone knew. But no one said it.

The bottle spun again. This time, it pointed at Cassian.

“Dare,” Nina said, tilting her head. “Whisper a secret into someone’s ear.”

Cassian stood slowly, with the grace of a cat that knew exactly how mesmerising it looked. He circled the ring, languid, deliberate, until he reached Thorne.

He leaned in close, lips barely brushing the shell of the captain’s ear.

A whisper. Soft. Intimate. Dangerous.

Thorne didn’t flinch. Didn’t breathe. His body had gone statue-still, like a man locked in the moment before a blade strikes.

Cassian returned to his seat, mug in hand, that same ghost of a smile playing at his lips.

“Truth,” Cassian said again when the bottle spun his way. He was lounging now, long limbs sprawled, the picture of composure.

Nina didn’t smile this time. “What do you dream of when you wake up panicked?”

The silence that followed felt thick, tangible.

Cassian’s voice dropped. “A boy in the sea. Reaching for me.”

“Did you let him drown?” Thorne asked. Quiet. Lethal.

Cassian didn’t answer.

He didn’t have to.

More spins. Fewer jests. The laughter now was sharper, brittle at the edges.

Nina refused her dare. Nox downed his drink instead of answering his truth. The bottle began to feel like a noose, tightening with every turn.

Then it pointed at Cassian. Again.

“Dare,” he said, not so much a challenge as an inevitability.

Nox grinned, all teeth. “Kiss the person you trust the least.”

It might’ve been a joke. It didn’t land like one.

Cassian stood.

Walked slowly, deliberately, across the space.

He stopped in front of Thorne.

There was a hush so absolute it felt unnatural, like the ship itself was holding its breath.

Their eyes met. Something ancient crackled between them. Not just tension—history. Hunger. Hatred, maybe. Or something worse.

Cassian leaned in—close enough to kiss, to strike, to surrender.

He hovered there.

And then whispered, “Wouldn’t want to start another storm.”

He turned away.

Laughter spilled out, sudden and awkward. No one knew what else to do. Even the lantern flame seemed to flicker with relief.

The game ended not with a bang, but with a shuffle. The circle broke apart. Excuses floated in the air—shifts, tiredness, needing air. No one looked directly at Thorne. Or at Cassian.

They remained.

The lantern guttered low. Shadows claimed more than they revealed.

“You didn’t answer,” Cassian said quietly, voice low and liquid.

“Didn’t need to,” Thorne replied.

Cassian tilted his head, studying him. “I could’ve done it. Kissed you.”

“You didn’t.”

“Not tonight.”

Thorne’s eyes flicked up, firelight catching in the amber. “If you had…”

“Yes?”

“We wouldn’t be playing anymore.”

Cassian smiled. Slow. Dangerous. “That a threat?”

“A truth.”

He laughed, soft and genuine. “Maybe I’ll dare you next time.”

Thorne’s lips quirked—not a smile, but the idea of one. “We’ll see if you survive that long.”