"Must you leave?"

Tryst brushed aside the thick black hair and pressed his lips on her neck as she leaned over to grab her shoes.

"I believe the agreement was dusk to dawn," Echa said flatly and Tryst turned until his bare feet hit the cabin floor.

Echa ran her fingers through her hair, working out a few tangles. Tryst watched her with a rakish smile to which she was wholly unaffected.

"Come on, she's probably still sleeping. What would it take for me to convince you to stay for breakfast?"

Tryst began putting his pants on to be clear he really did mean just for breakfast. There was brief hesitation that Tryst neatly filed away before Echa shook her head.

"I like to be there when Anwen wakes up."

"She's not going anywhere, you know," Tryst said it off-hand, but the words hit their target head on. Echa's eyes narrowed and she scanned his carefully crafted innocent face.

"I know that." She held up a hand. "I swear if you say ‘then what's the hurry' I'm walking out of that door right now."

He let his shit-eating grin show. "So you aren't leaving right now?"

She scowled and he grabbed his shirt, pulling the loose fabric over his head as he added, "What do you have against us chatting?"

As his head poked through, she shifted her weight, one hand on her hip. "We could have talked last night."

"You overestimate my self-control."

"You overestimate my patience."

"Have I been making you wait?" Tryst stood up and he saw the briefest flash of amusement in Echa's dark eyes.

"No, but you've held me up from my daughter. If you'll excuse me."

As she left, Tryst gave her a small salute with his fingers. When the door shut he leaned back onto the bed, it was still warm.

There'd been a lot of pleasant changes when Fenrin the Wolf had taken control of the ship, but Echa was truly something else. Their contract certainly was a highlight of his life, but besides that she was a fascinating woman. She had a steady way about her, but Tryst could see a fire burning wild inside and he couldn't help but want to let it out to see what would happen.

He may be pushing his luck, but that was his modus operandi. He had an incurable need to find out how people ticked. Sometimes it was easy, for example the captain's female friend. At a glance he understood her from the top of her black-and-white view of the world to the bottom of her frightened toes.

The captain himself, well, he was a bit more complex than he claimed but still fairly straight forward. Put the two together though...Tryst shook his head. That was one place he'd keep his nose out of for the time being.

Anwen, Echa's little daughter was also an interesting one, although also not complicated. She had the deep eyes of someone who grew up too fast and that was something Tryst was familiar with. Being a slave, on the other hand, was something he had no hope of understanding completely. Sure, he'd nearly become one himself a few times, but he never fell quite that far.

Echa'd killed her owner—or at least the last one she's had on land. Something about that story stirred Tryst's blood. It meant she was dangerous and that was exciting enough. Gods knows his whole life had been dangerous. It was a pleasant constant.

He stood up, shoving his feet into his boots before tying on his sash and throwing some chains and beads around his neck. Moving to the mirror, he combed through his hair, brushing it just so before rolling his shoulder and preparing for work.