Before I could answer or even lean to kiss him, someone banged the door in sharp succession. Tommy’s voice chimed from the other side. “A fog be comin’, it is.”

“A fog, or ships Tommy?”

“Aye, Cap.”

Jack covered his face with his hands in exasperation. “Tommy, have you seen ships?”

“Of course me has, Cap. Ole Tommy wouldn’t have come down otherwise, me wouldn’t.”

I stifled a giggle.

“We’re due to meet up with the rest of The Black Otter fleet in the next day or so, are you certain it isn’t our own men’s ships you see?”

“You know me, Cap. Ole Tommy can smell the gold, he can.” Tommy paused. “And I smell it, Cap.”

Jack was out from under me and on his feet in a moment. My aching muscles would just have to wait. “We’ll be right up, Tommy.”

I sucked in my lower lip and tried not to pout.

“If you’re going to run this ship as my equal, it’s high time I teach you how.” He wrenched his britches into place and plucked up his fur hat from his desk. “You’ll learn by doing, Red. Watch and do as I do. Me and the other men.”

I squirmed on the mattress and tried to name the odd emotion that soured in the back of my throat. “Watch Charles Swan and Dark Water William?”

“They’re cunning. You will learn much from them.”

I shifted my weight on the bed. I wanted to tell Jack that I wasn’t comfortable around those two, but I had no reason to back up my feelings.

“You’ll do fine, Red.” Jack winked. “I have a gift for you.”

I arched an eyebrow and slid my legs over the side of the bed. “Better than the one you were about to give me before Tommy interrupted?”

“Far better.”

I pulled on one of Jack’s black blouses and stepped into the billowy skirt I’d constructed from a torn sail.

Jack pointed to the far wall where two swords hung crossed above the door. He strode over and plucked one down as though he was plucking a peach from a tree. “Be a dear and slide my cutlass from under the pillow.”

Confused, I did as I was told. “Why do you need your cutlass when you have a sword in your hand?”

“This little beauty was my first fencing sword,” Jack explained as he accepted his cutlass and jabbed it into his belt. “This blade here has shed the lifeblood of many men in its day. Taken many lives.”

I hugged my arms to my chest and shivered.

“But for every life it has taken, it has saved mine doubly. It’s priceless.”

My hands twisted in my lap. “What does it feel like. To—” My words trailed off as the fog clouded the porthole window. “To take someone’s life for the first time?”

Jack let the silence that filled the room be for only a moment before he eased himself onto our bed. “There are no words to describe emotions that you feel in battle, regardless of which way the battle goes.” He twisted the blade in the dim light. “You become someone else and you will never be the same.”

I sucked in a breath and let it out slow. “Never the same?”

“You become the self that God intended you to be.” Jack stood. “Or you die.”

A thunderous charge of feet down the stairs interrupted Jack’s reverie. “We’ve come to a ship!” Tommy’s voice was sharp. “Come on, Cap!”

Jack ignored him. “This blade made me into Commodore of The Black Otter fleet, affectionately called Captain Russian Jack Rackham. No longer Mikhail Nemirovsky, worthless pick-pocket son of a consumptive English whore. Today,” he continued in his even tone, “this blade is yours. And you shall use it.”

My heart panged as I accepted it. “Who was your first kill?”

“A pirate who aimed to kill me first.” Jack opened the door and paused but didn’t look back. “My father.”

The Black Otter was already alongside the unsuspecting ship when I crept onto the foggy deck. It has only taken me a moment to find the scabbard for my new sword, but it was in that moment that I lost sight of my husband.

“Jack,” I whispered into the silence. “Jack? Where are you?”

I stood there, ignorant of how to proceed and feeling strangely lost. From the fog came a sudden sense terror turned my blood to ice. My breath hitched in my throat.

Something was happening. But what? Where? And to whom? I shook off the cloak of chilly fear and opened my mouth to call out to my husband.

An ironlike hand fell onto my shoulder and my words died on my tongue.

Jack.

I closed my eyes and exhaled in a huff as I reached to grasp the hand that had found me. “Thank G—” My eyes flew open, hard and fast. This skin was much too rough. I swiveled my head slightly and squinted into the fog.

The Poison Lightning’s face appeared before mine like an apparition. His grip tightened on my shoulder as he placed a finger over his lips. Eyes, black like boiled coffee, stared into mine as his tell-tale finger melted away from his taut lips and disappeared into the fog that surrounded us.

I started to nod, to show him that I understood his message of utter silence. Before I could, the hand that disappeared exploded forth and met my stomach. Palm open, The Poison Lightning’s sinewy hand patted and grabbed across my stomach in awkward pats until it reached my hip. The fingers that gripped my shoulder tightened.

Oh God. Words swirled in my mind and crashed together like gulls in a gale. This man is going to have his way with me.

My fingers tightened around the grip of Jack’s sword as I prepared for my first kill.

The Poison Lightning’s experienced hand brushed my fingers aside as easily as one would brush flies from a pie. Quicker than I could comprehend, he yanked my new sword free of its scabbard and pushed me down. Hard.

My knees met the boat deck with a crack and The Poison Lightning let go of my throbbing shoulder.

My sword glinted in the dim light. I made a dive for it, but The Poison Lightning lifted it high.

“Arggh,” a voice shouted from above.

The metallic clang of swords tolled above me.

“Umph,” someone grunted. A gush of warm rain wet my face as a lifeless body fell to the deck beside me.

I swiped at my cheek. Blood.

Curls of fog wisped away from the dead man. With wide eyes, I searched his face. A long black beard elongated his golden-brown face, and the white turban that curled around his head was dotted with red. I glanced up.