You’re dead, Red. Dead Red. He won’t let you live, even if you let him have his way with you.
I sucked in as deep a breath as I could manage as he maneuvered his body and struggled to enter me.
I held my breath.
It’s now or never. You’re dead either way.
“Help me,” I shrieked. “Somebody—”
“Now you done it.” My attacker grabbed my hair and positioned the blade under my chin. “You don’t know how stupid you are. Nobody in The Black Otter fleet gonna believe your word over mine.” He jammed the blade against my neck. “And adultery?” he seethed. “On the high seas, it’s punishable by death.”
The door to my room slammed open with such force that it banged into the wall with a sickening crack. Somebody roared an angry roar before the dagger fell away from my neck. A body thumped on the wooden floor of the captain’s cabin I called home. When the clouds wisped away from the moon and a silvery light lit our room, I found myself staring into the dark, staring eyes of Red Legs Roberts.
He sheathed his sword and offered me a nod. “Ma’am.”
We looked in tandem at the unconscious man on the floor. “It was the one-eyed man,” I squeaked. Tears moistened my eyes, but I willed them not to fall.
Red Legs Roberts’ voice was more scratchy than I figured. “Might want to put something on that neck.”
Sure enough, blood dripped down my chest and arm in a steady, sticky stream. “Oh.”
A lantern lit the doorway. “What in God’s Blood?”
“Jack, thank heav—” The words squelched on my tongue when I saw Russian Jack’s lantern-lit face. Those piercing green eyes were fiery black, while the gentle, boyish features I’d admired just this morning were contorted in angry, stormy planes. If not for his tell-tale fur hat, he would have been near unrecognizable, even to me.
“Solo,” he growled, “bring these three up on deck.”
Jack whirled and the light he carried faded as he disappeared up the steps. The one-eyed pirate’s words buzzed in my ears.
Adultery is a killing offense. He won’t take your word over mine.
“You’re already dead, Red,” I whispered.
Solo didn’t look at me as he grabbed the one-eyed pirate by his collar. His britches were still around his ankles. “Up you,” he commanded.
“He’s called Piranha, Solo,” Red Legs said. “Used to sail with Captain Kidd.”
Solo ignored him. “Both of you who can walk. Best get up to the deck like Cap ordered.”
No more sea shanties sounded from the deck as I trudged up the stairs behind Red Legs, the man who had saved my honor. And my life. Though that fact might not matter as much as I hoped it would as soon as we reached the deck.
When we reached the deck, there was no sound apart from the creak and groan of the ship as it sat lightly atop the waves. The gentle rocking was reminiscent of a cradle rocking in a nursery.
I was rocked as a baby when I came into this world. I suppose the ship will rock me as I leave it.
Russian Jack stood in the middle of the deck, a deep frown on his angry face. Moonlight bathed the haphazard and hangdog crews of The Spanish Rose and The Black Otter as they draped themselves around the railing.
This is what it must have felt like for the gladiators in Rome when they were pitted against wild animals, and certain death, in the coliseum.
My filmy nightgown, the one I hoped Jack would have relieved me of by now, was half soaked in blood. It did nothing to keep out the nighttime chill on deck. I hugged my arm across my chest. At least the bleeding seems to have stopped.
“Piranha!” Jack’s voice was steely sharp.
Solo still gripped Piranha by his collar. With a fling, he tossed the one-eyed pirate at Jack’s feet. The crumpled man groaned. Whatever Red Legs hit him with had split the back of his head open like a melon, though I hadn’t noticed until now.
“Stand up when you are before your captain,” Solo barked.
My back straightened at his tone. I thought about glancing to see how Red Legs was standing, but looking around at such a time seemed a criminal idea. I wasn’t in line at boarding school, waiting for dismissal. No, this was a matter of live and death. Though who would be left alive and who would be dead was anyone’s guess at this point.
Jack didn’t look at any of us. The lantern glowed at his feet and gave him an otherworldly, almost divine, look.
This must be what Adonis looked like.
Something deep in my core longed for a kind glance from him. But it didn’t come.
Piranha managed to get to his feet, but his pants stayed down around his ankles. His head hung at an odd angle and blood flowed from his split skull, soaking the back of his grimy shirt. A blind man could see that something necessary was irreparably broken inside the insidious pirate.
“Loyalty.” Even the sea itself seemed to quiet when Jack spoke. “Loyalty is our creed, no matter the name of the ship we sail aboard The Black Otter fleet.” Jack’s jeweled cutlass hung hungrily at his side.
“Loyalty,” he boomed again. “Loyalty to God Almighty. And, more importantly, loyalty to our code.” Jack turned his back on us and strode in front of his men, to the furthest reaches of the lanternlight. “Did each of you not swear this when each of ye first came aboard? Your hand upon God’s own Word?”
“Aye,” they grumbled.
“I said,” Jack thundered, “did ye not swear?!”
“Aye!” The word resonated from the band of rum-drunken pirates and seemed to fill the whole of the sea itself.
With his hands clutched behind his back, Jack strode easily before his men. From where I stood, it seemed as though he made lingering eye contact with each one.
