by Angel Payne
He turned, calling to even the farthest reaches of the two-hundred-foot brigantine. “Hoist away! Secure the hold; steady man at the helm. Ben, pack those guns well.” He ran a hand through his hair to wick out the remaining water while striding beneath a jungle of ropes. He added over his shoulder, “But I don’t think we’re going to require them.”
“What?” Robert yelled. The Athena’s master gunner, who could be taken for a cannon himself, lumbered across the deck. “Mast, you wanna take another look at that shore? They’re not invitin’ us to a picnic. And damme, ’twould be so easy to drill some new arseholes into those self-righteous prigs. Why, I could aim the main guns high and wide, then take the aft cannon and—”
“Thank you, Robert. That’s enough.”
In the middle of the chaos, Dink popped up. He offered a fresh shirt with the leisure of a London tailor. “Welcome home.” He smirked knowingly. “Where’s the wench?”
“We’re setting sail, Robert.” Mast waved away the shirt. He scooped up a long glass and peered through it for an updated assessment of the force on the beach. “As expediently as possible.” And never coming back. Never.
“M, where’s the wench?”
Robert didn’t give up. “But we can rout them! Easily!”
Mast glared his master gunner into silence. “I heard you the first time, Robert.” He didn’t have to raise his voice, and that was a good thing. His composure danced on a thread at best. “I have my reasons for the call.”
Reasons. Poseidon’s blood, reasons. A thousand of them, all framed in gold.
He finally took the shirt from Dink, punching his arms into the sleeves as she came to life in his mind again. Snarling at him. Cursing him. Staring at him in that unthinking, vulnerable way. Wildness and freedom, ivory and topaz, texture upon texture of that beauty which seemed to well and glow from the inside out…
Goddamnit.
The mission had been insanity from the start. Now it would be one of the worst ghosts of his past.
“Mast! Hellfire, I’m talkin’ at you!” Wood chips flew from the rail Robert punched. “God’s codfish, where’d you chop your head off and leave it?”
“Asked the same thing before he went off with the wench,” Dinky supplied.
“The wench?” Robert scowled. “You had a wench? Why?”
“That’s what I’m tryin’ ta figure.”
Mast abandoned his jerks at his shirt ties to stomp forward. “Mister Peabrooke.” His throat twisted from the pain of forming the words. It didn’t come close to the torture in his mind. “I don’t want to talk about the lady anymore. I don’t want to hear another word about her; I don’t even want her whispered about on the decks of this vessel. She’s gone. Is that understood?”
Dinky’s frown said he didn’t. “Gone?”
It was the push he didn’t need. The flick that snapped his control—and unleashed his fury.
He coiled his hands into Dink’s shirt as sick dizziness surged his gut and Wayland’s grief-stricken face filled his head. “Gone as in dead,” he snarled. “Do you understand now?”
His hands started to shake. He released Dinky then turned. Silence fell like the first heavy raindrops that spattered the deck.
“Blimme,” Robert muttered.
“Christ, M.” Dinky shifted uneasily. “I reckoned somethin’ was askew from the second you got back on, but—”
“Stow it,” he growled.
Only Dink would be stupid enough to sidle over again. Mast felt him hovering at the rail, about three feet away. Close enough to get himself punched, even strangled. Bloody fucking hell.
“We’re in a blarsted war zone, Mast. People die in wars, remember?”
“I said stow it.”
Dink had the wisdom to finally heed him. After letting the rain strengthen into a good muck of a downpour, Mast jerked up his head.
“Let’s get out of this hell hole,” he bellowed. He needed movement now, lots of it, carried out by grunting, swearing sailors who looked nothing like a she-tiger and smelled nothing like lilies. “Tighten the jibs and secure the topsails. I’ve a reckoning this storm will surprise us. And Ramses, Dack”—he addressed his crack gunners before leaping to the quarterdeck— “give those bastards a few good rounds as a going away present.”
The crew let up an approving cheer, Robert’s howl at its crescendo. The Athena was off in a fury of wind and a blaze of gunfire.
Golden let out a relieved breath. She couldn’t believe it was the French who’d arrived to save Maya from the Moonstormer, but just before Nirvana turned and she’d lost sight of the shore, that was exactly what the swine seemed to be doing.
She just hoped they didn’t kill the monster themselves. She wanted that delight for herself, when she returned with Papa and the glory of the English Navy. She hoped the French chased him and his long legs into some damp, bug-infested cave, where he’d have to starve for a fortnight or two before she returned to finish him off.
Nirvana’s squeal cut off those unnerving thoughts. Golden patted the dolphin’s side and smiled, feeling free and strong and invincible again. The ocean currents were invigorating as her friend carried her closer to Nevis—and the first step to finally reaching Papa.
Finally, everything was working out. Nirvana was the most magnificent dolphin in the sea, sleek and graceful and swift as he carried her along through the cool water. They were invincible!
As if reading her thought, Nirvana leapt a little to hop a wave. Golden laughed and rubbed her friend in approval. “And just think, Maya kept harping at me about a storm. If only she could see what we’ve done with her ‘storm,’ hmmm?”
The first wave didn’t throw them off. It was the second, third, and fourth that twisted her with more tension. The wind began to froth the water over them, and the swells started coming from every direction at once. Mighty Agwe was stirring an angry stew tonight. After her tenth gulp of water, Golden fearfully realized she was part of the recipe.
“I can’t see a thing!”
Nirvana didn’t answer. She knew he was drawing on dwindling reserves to keep her afloat…and alive.
“My friend, I believe we are lost.”
A deafening roar sounded to their right. Golden looked up—at nothing but water. A wall of it. Surging straight toward them.
She heard somebody screaming. She thought it curious, as blackness engulfed her, that a pair of deep-blue eyes would suddenly appear in her subconscious…and warm her so.
“Ay yi yi, Mother Ocean! You’re so sexy when you’re bitchy!”
Rico bellowed it over the din of the waves as he and Mast struggled at the wheel, guiding the Athena clear of The Narrows, the aptly-named strait separating the islands of Saint Kitts and Nevis.
Mast only grunted. Talk was the last thing on his mind. His thoughts were as chaotic as the waters. Every detail of the ship demanded his attention.
Every detail of her face demanded his remembrance.
“Fasten down those buntlines on the staysail!” He glanced at Dack wrapped around the mainmast and instantly remembered her body wrapped around that fat tree branch as she’d dared the impossible, escaping the way she did. He cursed at himself and directed his attention fore, only to be assaulted by the brave face of the figurehead on his bow, her bold breasts jutting into the tempest, the lithe curves beneath her carved gown guiding them through the broil.
His Athena, he thought. His goddess. He now realized that if he’d ever come close to holding her in flesh-and-blood form, that moment had happened in the mansion of his mentor, in the middle of a goddamn war. Then like smoke in the wind, it had slipped through his fingers.
She was gone. And it was his fault.
Christ, Wayland. She just disappeared. She threw herself into the breakers and then—I’m sorry. So sorry.
“Call Ben up!” he shouted to Rico, stepping from the wheel. His body clamored for motion, for furiously-spent energy; for escape from the sight of that proud wood figure he was certain w
ould rise to flesh any moment now. Or maybe just become a materialized spirit and haunt him from one end of the Indies to the other. Either scenario sounded like heaven compared to this walking hell.
He traded places with his grizzled gunner’s mate. Rico and Ben shared bloodthirsty grins then set to their task, treating the feisty sea as they would an enemy crew of wig fops. Knowing the helm was in capable hands, Mast jumped into the distraction of the vigorous activity on the main deck.
His men nodded in appreciation when he joined them, every face and body now as wet as his. They bent to the spokes of the revolving capstan at his order, racing to bring down the two topsails before the force of the gale did. The Athena bucked and rocked beneath them, pitching the deck nearly vertical at times. Mast bellowed a new order every two minutes, pushing every violent emotion from his gut into each one. The sequence was about as helpful as swigging rum for the pain. It took the edge off for ten seconds, when the next tidal wave of memory hit.
The waves in his mind weren’t the only squalls making this night a shitfest. The storm had turned into a full beast, making it necessary for them to shovel buckets of brine back over the rails. He was doing just that when a gleaming fleck of gold appeared on the waves below.
His stomach smashed into his throat in the space of a breath.
You’ve gone half baked, Stafford. There’s no way this is real. Not in this godforsaken storm.
He was overtired. Letting his exhaustion play tricks on him. His misery and guilt, talented fucknits that they were, had conjured the blazing gold vision out on the waves. He wouldn’t look that way again.
The lad Dack staggered up with a heavy tub of bilge. Mast helped him toss it over.
“Good God.”
“Excuse me, Captain?”
“It got closer.”
“Captain?”
“It got closer.”
“M?” Dink had arrived. “What is it? Blarmy, what’s pulled yer eyes outta yer skull like that?”
He didn’t reply. He was too busy bending over the rail and squinting into the rain. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He yearned to believe his eyes.
“Mast, what the hell is it?”
He pushed back onto the deck. With all the air in his lungs, he called, “Rico!”
Heads shot up across the deck. Many jacked eyebrows followed his stride back up to the poop deck.
“Two degrees port, Mister Sanchez.”
“What?” The South American’s voice cracked with shock.
“Mast!” Robert seconded the protest, “We’re in the middle of Mother Nature’s temper tantrum!”
“I’m aware of that, Master Gunner. Two degrees port, Rico.”
“Captain!”
“Now!”
His crew traded wondering glances as he pushed back through them to get to the rail. “’God’s blood,” someone mumbled. “Somethin’s lit Mast’s fire.”
“Lit it but good,” another replied.
“Something over that rail,” said another.
The curiosity climaxed to torment. They surged up behind him to the rail.
They choked as one when they saw it. Mast nearly joined them.
The mass of hair was the first thing that still captured his sights. It gleamed even against the ink of the water, a flash of light framing a delicate but otherwise indiscernible face. Closer study revealed the slender arms, stretched out over the waves like a bird’s against the sky. It was a beautiful sight for its grace alone.
But then, the true breath stealer came into view.
The fins.
They were sleek, just like the creature’s arms, yet they weren’t limp in the water. There was a dorsal at first and then a tail, shiny and strong as they raised for a terrible second of recognition before slipping back beneath the waves.
From the corners of his vision, Mast witnessed his men trade glances of question and terror. He knew what they’d all begin to charge the next second, keeping their voices to whispers as if that would render their conclusions untrue.
“La Sirene.”
Mast shook his head and raced to the longboat. With their stares now riveted to him, he started tossing rope into the vessel.
Rico, the unofficial leader of the group due to his size, walked forward and placed a foot on the opposite edge of the sloop.
“Captain Stafford.”
Mast looked up. Rico’s expression didn’t surprise him. The boatswain’s normally robust and round face looked pinched and agitated. The men behind him looked no better, again making their thoughts excruciatingly clear. He’d become possessed or worse. Mast battled the wild musing that he quite possibly agreed with them.
“Rico,” he said. “Good. I’ll need your help to pull her in.”
“Nay, Captain.”
He turned, still in a crouch over the oar box. The wind slapped his hair into his face. “What?”
His crew moved around the big man to signify their support. Rico folded his arms. “I’m not goin’ out there, Captain, and neither are you.”
“Blast it,” he growled. “There’s more at stake here than all of you think.”
“Captain, do you not see?” Dack rushed forward, impassioned enough to fight the restraints of the others. “By the blood of the saints, you must. It’s La Sirene!”
“The bitch’ll eat ya alive,” someone else followed.
Mast did a double take at all of them. He laughed with incredulity. “For God’s sake. You all really believe this, don’t you?”
“Because it’s true.” Dack all but climbed into the longboat with the force of his impassioned hand motions. Mast was damn sure he’d never seen the whelp get more fired about anything else before. “Please listen! I didn’t believe it myself, you know the good book tells us not to; but it’s her. Legs on land, fins at sea, so the legend says. You can see her fins out there, can’t you? And beautiful, they say. Like a carved madonna. Traps poor sailors with her face and then eats them. Eats them alive, Captain. Arms and legs and all.”
“Dack, stop it.”
“But it’s legend, Captain. The legend says—”
Mast muzzled him by slamming a hand across the boy’s mouth. Eyebrows leapt again as he climbed out of the longboat and stalked out onto the deck. Even Rico moved back now.
“Legend.” He gritted the word out, raking a glare through them all that burned with fury. “I suppose you all believe in the snow fairy and the Sherwood Forest phantoms, too. And I’ve no doubt you lose sleep worrying about the Moonstormer!”
He might as well have recited the Magna Carta. The glares of these lag-wits, and the intractable mindsets behind them, would remain the same.
With a grunt of frustration, he shoved past them and stalked to one of the Athena’s cannons. Without a word, he swung atop the thick steel barrel.
“Here’s what you can do with your fucking legend,” he called.
Before any of them could stop him, he dove off the cannon’s end, headlong into the tempest.
Chapter Five
“A dolphin!”
He hoped repeating it would dim his amazement. It didn’t.
Mast shook his head to reconfirm the rain hadn’t slashed a hallucination into him. But there in the frothing tempest was a soaked, unconscious Golden Gaverly—draped over the back of a goddamn dolphin.
Had he really settled for five thousand pounds to do this?
Despite his exasperation and the turbulence of the waves, he swam to the animal as gently as he could. The dolphin was depleted. The alarmed glare in its eye gave him the sole display of any resistance it could muster. Cursing himself for a crazy cod, Mast nevertheless smiled at the creature.
“Easy.” He gently stroked the slippery gray flesh. “She’s going to be safe. You’ve done the lady well.”
The dolphin clickered a weak reply as Mast inspected Golden. He fought a bitter burn to his throat as he pushed back her hair. He saw her face, her features, but that was where the similarity ended to the blazing savage h
e’d known on the island. Her hair was now strings of matted yarn, plastered to shoulders that barely supported her clothes. And her skin…he tried not to think about the gray pallor to her skin. He’d forced that color out of his mind a long time ago, burying the memories of that distant Irish morning until they no longer ripped his chest in two.
Ye pissing brat! I told ye to move away from her, di’ I not? Ye mum’s dead. Why don’t ye get that in yer thick skull? Aye, she’s gone, well enough…
“No!”
It was a moment before he recognized the snarl erupting from his own throat. Another will took over his body, too. With a ferocious yell, he hauled Golden off the dolphin and locked her against his chest. He didn’t think about how far away the Athena now seemed. He refused to acknowledge the savage pain in his arms, his lungs, his legs. He only thought about getting through the next wave, the next stroke, the next kick.
There seemed to be a million of them before the nebulous hulk of his ship took on the definition of masts, and stays again. Even then, wall after wall of water threatened to conquer him, the sea unleashing its vengeance to the point that he nearly lost Golden in the tumult. He managed to jerk her back up by the only thing he could grab: her hair. As he pressed her chilled cheek next to his, he actually muttered an apology.
Holy Christ, he’d lost it. Whatever the hell it was.
Almost there. Almost…there.
Finally, his hand flung against wood. Wood strung with rope.
His arms quivered as he pulled himself, Golden and all three hundred pounds of the water they’d soaked up onto the first rung of the rope ladder. He stopped, just hanging there, gasping in the dank smell of the tar and the wood. His whole body shook with the joyous thunder of his heartbeat.
“All right, sweeting,” he grated into the clammy skin next to him, “now it’s your turn.”
Golden did nothing.
“Breathe, damn it.”
She was still pale and motionless.
“Golden Gaverly, I ordered you to breathe!”
The sigh against his neck was faint but warm.