Sea of Ruin

by Pam Godwin

  “Depraved bastards,” he mused, casting the comment out as a compliment rather than an insult against anyone’s proclivities.

  It was true. The pirates damn near trembled with anticipation to witness Priest dole out whatever vile, twisted revenge he had planned. They were so eager, in fact, they hadn’t questioned his demand to include Ashley in this sick game. A game that would unquestionably involve Priest’s cock and my unwilling body.

  Madwulf himself didn’t argue when Priest repositioned our restraints to properly administer the torture.

  Ashley lay face-up on the bed. I straddled his hips, with our hands shackled in front rather than at our backs. We weren’t tethered to anything, but it wasn’t necessary. Every brute in the room was armed with pistols and blades. The only way we were getting out of this was if half of them vacated the cottage.

  That wouldn’t happen until everyone had a turn.

  With Ashley still in his breeches and me in his shirt, we remained covered and gagged. Priest had removed his weapons, leaving them in a pile on the floor beside the bed. The compass still hung from his many belts. He hadn’t parted with it or his clothes, thank God.

  Beneath me, Ashley’s eyes blazed with rage, his chest riding on labored breaths. Setting my bound hands against his heart, I absorbed the pounding source of his torment.

  He didn’t deserve this. He’d only been doing his job. If I hadn’t entangled Priest in my rescue, Ashley would still have his ship. Madwulf would still be locked up, and Priest would be safe somewhere else.

  I’m so damned sorry.

  I leaned down, softening my gaze with apologies and choking on a torrent of despair. Ashley’s mouth was so close, if not for our gags, I would’ve felt the velvety warmth of his lips against mine.

  His shackled hands lay trapped between our hips. He shifted them, reached down, and curled his fingers against the apex of my legs, cupping me in a startling show of possessiveness.

  A chill dripped down my spine. I lifted my head, turned my eyes slowly over my shoulder, and found Priest climbing onto the bed behind me. He knelt between my legs, between Ashley’s thighs, forcing us to spread around his muscled lower half.

  My pulse lost its rhythm, and the taste of sour milk washed over my tongue.

  He untied the flap on the front of his breeches.

  This was happening. He was really going to do this with Ashley beneath me. Horrified, I shook with panic and angrily growled my objections behind the rag in my mouth.

  “Leave your hands there, Cutler.” Priest bowed over my back and grabbed Ashley’s throat, pinning him to the mattress. “I want you to feel me when I impale her.”

  Ashley seethed, his body bucking under mine. Until I felt the cold press of metal against my temple.

  Priest’s flintlock pistol…gripped in his free hand… He was holding a gun to my head.

  Enthusiastic voices raved in the audience, but I didn’t hear anything they said. My mouth filled with hot sand, my mind blank with incomprehension.

  Why was he doing this? Was this a private war in which a jealous husband wreaked vengeance on his wife and her lover? Or was it part of his plan to help us escape?

  I had to trust him. No matter what, I had to believe he wasn’t here to hurt me.

  “Hold this, would you?” Priest said to the man-eating giant leaning against the wall.

  The bearded ogre approached and took the flintlock.

  “Careful with the trigger. It’s loaded.” Priest gripped the barrel, pushing the man’s hand farther away from my head. “I just cleaned the flint. It’ll spark with barely a twitch. If you spray my face with powder, I’ll open your throat before I die, no mistake.”

  The ogre chuckled in a deep baritone. “I know how to use a pistol, mate.”

  It wasn’t loaded. I couldn’t tell by looking at it, but Priest would never take such a risk with my life. No one here knew that, though. Including Ashley.

  Priest released Ashley’s throat and gripped my hips with both hands. The gravity of what was about to happen crushed my lungs in a vise grip. If we lived, how would we move past this? What did my future even look like with a husband and a lover and…

  Stop. Not helping.

  I slowly lowered my chest to Ashley’s, tucking my bound hands beneath our chins. Priest followed me down, his weight pressing against my back.

  “You’ve put me through hell, sweetheart.” His hand slid beneath the shirt covering my backside and moved around near his groin, presumably lining himself up with my body. Then he rested his mouth against my cheek and spoke so quietly I barely heard it. “It’s been two years since I’ve fucked you, Mrs. Farrell.”

  My heart stopped, and my gaze flew to Ashley.

  His eyes widened. His chiseled nostrils pulsed, and his entire body flexed beneath me. Then he slid his hands away from my cunt.

  “Scream,” Priest whispered and thrust his hips.

  Every muscle between my legs clenched, bracing for the burning, stretching agony of a dry invasion. His pelvis rammed into my backside. He groaned with wicked pleasure, and I felt… Nothing.

  No intrusion.

  No forceful stabbing.

  No penetration.

  Was he even hard?

  Realization punched me in the gut, and I screamed, cursing my delayed reaction. The sound muffled through the gag and shattered the air. He thrust again, and I drew out my cries, sobbing and stiffening as if I were dying of trauma.

  He never intended to rape me. Of course, he didn’t. The shadowed corner, the positioning of our bodies, the placement of Ashley’s hands—all of it had a purpose. To what end, I didn’t know. Perhaps he was buying time.

  Ashley furiously growled his misery, his eyes wild with madness. But he knew it was all a ruse. His hands fisted between my legs, awkwardly and undeniably, in contact with Priest’s cock.

  Priest proved to be a remarkable actor. He groaned lewd promises of torture for the room to hear and worked his hips like a savage in the throes of rapturous violence. With his fingers curled around my hips, he kept his groin tight against my backside and roughened the sounds of his breaths.

  My shirt covered my thighs, and he still wore his breeches. No one was the wiser from any angle they viewed us.

  And view us, they did. The revelry of whistles and stomping grew louder, every man in the cottage saluting Priest’s conquest with shouts of encouragement. The ogre wasn’t even training the gun on me anymore, his attention absorbed by his friends as they bantered back and forth.

  Amid the noise, Priest leaned down against my back and gripped Ashley’s hair.

  “She didn’t tell you, did she?” He pressed closer, making sure Ashley could read his lips. “She’s mine, Cutler.” He thrust, jarring me against Ashley. “My wife.”

  I sobbed harder, forcing the sounds and faking the tears. But the pain was real. I knew what it felt like to be betrayed and didn’t wish that on Ashley. I never wanted him to learn about my marriage like this.

  It could’ve been avoided. I should have told him when I woke on the beach or in the lagoon or while we were still on his ship. There’d been hundreds of opportunities, and I’d put it off like a coward. I was wretched.

  His eyes shifted to mine, and what I saw there wasn’t resentment or hatred. His gaze moved over my face, warm with understanding. He looked at my shirt, the jade stone at my throat, and returned to my eyes.

  I knew in my gut that he was thinking about the conversation we’d had when I was clad in another man’s shirt.

  “Do you still love him?”

  “Who?”

  “The man who wore this shirt.”

  “Yes. I still love him, but I’m working on rectifying that.”

  “He betrayed you…He bedded another.”

  “Bedded and loved.”

  I gave him a discreet nod, silently telling him that Priest was indeed the man who’d betrayed me, the one I still loved.

  He turned his attention to Priest, and they exchange
d a look I couldn’t read at this angle. Maybe not at any angle.

  Where was the animosity? The possessive, primitive chest pounding? This was certainly not the time for that, but what passed between them was something akin to an alliance.

  Ashley’s hands jerked beneath me, the motion of his wrists confusing. One arm slid upward. The other remained stretched toward our legs. Did he…?

  Good God, he’d removed his restraints. My heart panted. Not only that, he held something in the hand that fisted between my breasts. The weight of Priest’s body kept us pressed together, and flattened along the center of my torso lay the broad, curved shape of steel.

  Thunder drove through my veins and crashed in my ears. Priest had given Ashley a blade. It must have happened when he’d untied his breeches. He kept knives beneath his loose shirt and all those belts. It would’ve been feasible to slip one out and pass it between my legs.

  That was why he wanted Ashley’s hands there.

  Priest continued the pretense of violating my body, stirring a crescendo of huzzahs and applause amongst the unruly onlookers.

  With his voice smothered by the noise, he met Ashley’s alert gaze. “Just like our ruse with Arabella.”

  I stopped breathing. Arabella? Ashley’s sister?

  Ashley’s eyes glittered with comprehension. Good for him because I didn’t understand any of this. God’s teeth, Priest knew Arabella?

  My mind spun. He and Ashley shared a history and a plan I wasn’t privy to.

  “Give him your hands,” Priest breathed at my ear and pushed off my body with a pained roar.

  My heart beat in rapid-fire as I shoved my wrists toward the knife Ashley held between us. No one noticed, for all eyes tracked Priest’s strange grunting and stumbling beside the bed.

  He tucked himself into his breeches, groaning as if the action pelted him with agony.

  The pirates fell quiet.

  “You dinna finish.” Madwulf’s skeptical voice broke from the crowd. “What’s wrong with you, lad?”

  “Nothing,” Priest snapped, fumbling with the laces at his groin.

  I realized that the grinding friction against my backside hadn’t made his body respond at all. Hard to orgasm without an erection. I didn’t believe for a minute that he couldn’t perform in front of an audience. Something else was going on. Was it related to the burn scars that covered one side of his body?

  “Captain…” The ogre stepped forward, staring at Priest’s lower regions. “It’s his pisser.”

  The rope around my wrists frayed and fell away. Hallelujah. Now that I was free, it would only take a second to go for Priest’s blades on the floor.

  “Show us.” Madwulf stood and prowled toward Priest. “Let’s see your cock.”

  “I’m not showing you a tarnal thing.” Turning away, Priest continued to clumsily lace his breeches, deliberately drawing out his efforts.

  Madwulf motioned to the ogre, who trained the flintlock at Priest’s head. Priest’s flintlock, which wasn’t loaded.

  Priest had planned for this.

  “Open your breeches.” Madwulf glared, his face turning crimson.

  Beneath me, Ashley’s empty hand moved between our hips. He inched it out and to the side near the wall. Wait, no, it wasn’t empty. His fingers opened, and the smashed wedge of an orange rolled off the mattress and into the shadowed corner behind the bed.

  The plate of oranges on the table, Ashley’s hands between my legs… My senses heightened with comprehension. Priest had given Ashley the fruit while opening his breeches behind me, and somehow Ashley had known what to do with it.

  Priest grinned, an impish curve of sensual lips. “I didn’t realize you fancied me that way, Madwulf.”

  “If I dinna see your cock in the next two seconds, there won’t be any of it left to hold onto.”

  I held my breath as Priest dropped the smile and exposed himself beneath the barrel of an unloaded gun.

  “Syphilis.” The ogre made the sign of the cross with three fingers and backed away.

  Not syphilis. The same red blisters that I’d inflicted on Priest’s hands a month ago now covered his groin. Christ, it looked excruciating. No wonder he hadn’t gotten an erection. He must have been in horrible agony, burning and inconsolably itchy.

  Ashley’s features gave no reaction. Except for the glint in his eyes. He definitely knew about Priest’s affliction from oranges.

  “What have you done?” Madwulf gripped his brow and retreated, too. “You’re infected. You… You contaminated her!”

  Everyone knew about the infinite numbers of syphilis patients clogging hospitals and infirmaries throughout the West Indies. Without a cure, the plague tortured its victims with pestilential rashes and sores, facial disfigurement, blindness, madness, and hair loss.

  Fear of baldness swept the high seas, and that was precisely the concern among every sea robber here.

  Faces glistened with nervous sweat. Eyes widened. Hands flew to beards and long braids of cherished hair. No pirate wanted to be bald. It was a fate worse than losing a limb.

  Priest fastened his breeches, his expression strained with pain. That part wasn’t fake. He’d hurt himself to protect me. None of Madwulf’s men would touch me now.

  Every pirate in the room was standing, looking at the exit as if ready to bolt.

  “Captain.” An older man burst into the cottage, oblivious to what was unfolding inside. “Cargo’s loaded. She’s ready to weigh anchor, and we got a perfect wind to let her sheets fly and push us straight past the island.”

  Madwulf’s glare swung coldly to Priest as he spoke to his crew. “Tell everyone to return to the ship and prepare to weigh. Four of you will stay with me until I finish this.”

  No one argued. Most of them looked relieved to not have to handle the diseased prisoners.

  As the room scattered, my muscles and joints locked up, bracing for battle. Five of them against the three of us? We could overpower them, especially with the element of surprise. If we killed them quietly, without gunfire, we had a real chance of escape.

  “Do you ken what she did the day I met her? When I grabbed her filthy cunt?” Madwulf yanked the neck of his shirt to the side, revealing the fading pinkish imprint of my teeth marks. “I was looking forward to collecting my retribution.” He spat a wet clump of phlegm on the floorboards at Priest’s feet. “You tricked me, libertine.”

  Priest stepped over the spittle and bent to collect his weapons. “Perhaps you should learn how to negotiate.”

  Ashley had said those exact words to me once.

  Careful with the knife, I gripped Ashley’s hands between us and soaked in the calmness on his face. Whatever Priest was up to, Ashley showed no signs of concern.

  Warmth filled my chest as I pressed my gagged mouth against his neck in a gesture of oneness. We would live together or die together. The three of us. Their happiness would be the most important thing I ever fought for.

  “We had an agreement.” Securing his daggers to his baldric and belts, Priest met Madwulf’s stare. “Fuck her or leave. Either way, the prisoners stay with me. I’m nowhere near finished with them.”

  “Cutler is mine. He was never part of the agreement.” Madwulf turned and strolled toward the door, addressing his men. “Kill the pirate hunter.”

  “Without a vote, Captain?” the ogre asked.

  “Vote if you want. I’m leaving this bloody island.”

  My fingers twitched to curl around that bastard’s neck until he soiled his breeches with the stink of fear. I tracked his gait through the cottage, hoping he would stick around long enough to fight me.

  The ogre turned toward us and raised the flintlock. “Better move, Miss, or you’ll be eating powder, too.”

  He didn’t wait. His fat finger squeezed the trigger. The flint struck the hammer, and nothing sparked. Just as I thought. Not loaded.

  Confusion gave the giant pause, and that was our cue.

  Ashley and I bounded off the bed.
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br />   Pulse booming, I yanked off my gag and scanned the floor for a weapon. Gone. All of them. With a savage curse, I whirled, stumbled, and came face to face with Priest. He tossed me his cutlass and slammed a second blade into the giant’s eye socket.

  The clang of steel against steel rang out behind me. Ashley was already engaged in battle.

  Raising the heavy cutlass, I searched the cottage for my target, didn’t spot Madwulf, but a nasty-looking fellow was scowling right at me. He would do.

  We charged at the same time. As he reached me, I ducked, spun, and sliced the blade across his throat, just like my father had taught me. A second spin, however, had me staring down the barrel of a musket.

  This pirate laughed like a rabid dog. I would stab him low, right beneath the ribs. But before my arms were in motion, blood sprayed across my chest.

  Priest slid his dagger from the man’s throat, leaned over the falling body, and smacked a hard kiss on my lips. “Missed you terribly, my love.”

  “Missed you—”

  He was already gone, leaping over another corpse and racing toward the last two men standing.

  It was Ashley, still wearing his gag and fighting for his life with a honed intensity that stole my breath. He battled a lean, agile blackguard, who refused to go down. They flew at each other with lethal arcs, hacking, chopping, and wielding their blades with savage purpose.

  This wasn’t a nobleman’s sport. It was life and death. Sweat beaded Ashley’s brow. Tendons flexed in his forearms. He was fighting the strongest, fastest pirate I’d seen in years and holding his own impressively.

  Priest rushed in behind Ashley, who punched out a bare foot and collided with the enemy’s groin. The kick sent the man stumbling, but he remained on his feet. Ashley renewed his attack with Priest at his side.

  It was a beautiful thing to watch—the two of them together, thrusting, grunting, and putting those mouthwatering muscles to practical use. Their physiques were so much more than just an indulgence for the female eye. Strong as oxen and skilled with weaponry, together, they were a mighty force to reckon with.

  How did they know each other? Had they met through Ashley’s sister, Arabella?

  I desperately just wanted to take a moment and appreciate the view, soak them in, and commit every gorgeous detail to memory. But as Ashley’s blade came up and knocked the blackguard’s dagger from his hand, I knew they had it under control.