I found a sinking ship and offered to save it.

What I received in return was the obsession of the Pirate King – the emperor’s bastard who rules these waves.

A wretch like me should have stayed hidden until their ship sailed away. But…

“That’s a pirate’s nature for you. Seeing retreat only makes me want to drag you back and make you weep.”

The man’s hands, which were supporting my back and calves, felt like they were branding me, leaving dark, deep marks that wouldn’t fade.

My entire body pulsed as though transformed into one giant heart. The mingling scents of his cigar and the sea left me dizzy.

After sharing countless dawns together, when I finally opened my heart –

“I’ve never strayed from my course for personal whims. And I never will.”

He abandoned Laila.

So she made her choice:

If the world beyond this shell won’t claim me, then I’ll make sure the man who sails its merciless tides can’t bear to be without me.

***

That ghost of a woman is trying to save him again.

With her fragile handful of a body, her silk-thread hair, those breakable wrists, the frantic rise and fall of her chest – how dare she, with all that fragility, think she can—

Just watching her stirs something uncanny within him. The pirate covers his face with a calloused hand.

“Very well, sea. If this is my punishment for straying from my course, I accept your judgment.”

Even knowing he’ll tear out his own heart with regret, he’d make the same choice a hundred times over.

Renok Verche laughs bitterly.

“Damn it all. That woman didn’t just consume my dawns – she devoured my very soul.”

Latest Release