Sea of Ruin

by Pam Godwin

  Turning toward the door, I headed out to look for Madwulf. If he was already off the sand and on his way to the ship, I’d let him go. But I also needed to see who was lingering out there and clear the perimeter for escape.

  Clutching tight to the hilt of the cutlass, I crept on silent feet and picked through the sounds of waves crashing on the shore, seagulls screeching overhead, and in the distance, Madwulf’s crew laughing on the ship.

  I cautiously stepped over the threshold, my senses on high alert. The angle of the doorway faced away from Blitz. I needed to round the corner to view it.

  “Priest…Ashley,” I whisper-hissed over my shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  A muffled feminine cry hit my ears, spiraling tingles across my scalp.

  The sound came from around the side of the cottage, garbled as if a hand was smothering her mouth. Then another wail joined in, higher-pitched, younger, female.

  A child.

  My heart felt the chill of winter in Carolina, my limbs frozen in horror. I hadn’t had time to ponder what might have become of the women on this island, but I was about to see it firsthand.

  With a shake, I pulled myself from the grip of fear and started forward. Until a hand grabbed the back of my shirt.

  Over my shoulder, I found Ashley’s eyes harder than I’d ever seen them, his teeth bared now that the gag was gone. Beside him, Priest’s mean mouth anchored itself in a scowl.

  I didn’t have to tell them to listen. The sounds of crying grew closer, louder. Seconds later, Madwulf emerged from around the corner, dragging a petite blond girl who couldn’t have been older than thirteen.

  With a fist in her hair and a knife against her tiny throat, he jerked his chin at something out of view.

  Footsteps advanced. Pirates rounded the corner, and I found myself staring at the six or so men who had left the cottage only minutes ago. One of them restrained a sobbing woman in her thirties, presumably the child’s mother, with his hand covering her mouth.

  My hopes for escape sank like a burning ship to the bottom of the sea.

  I tightened my grip on the cutlass. Priest and Ashley flanked me, fisting knives in both hands.

  “What do you want?” Ashley shifted closer and slightly in front of me as if preparing to shove me back. “You already have my ship and my soldiers. My career is ruined. I won’t be able to show my face in London again. My life is over.”

  He didn’t cant the words in a whining, pompous voice. He spoke coldly in a tone he reserved for low-ranking servants. Or for fools who made the mistake of inciting the murderous side of his unseemly manners.

  “Your life isn’t over,” Madwulf said, “until your head is separated from your body. Set down your weapons.” He wrenched hard on the girl’s hair, making her sob. “Or this pretty little lass won’t see her next sunrise.”

  The mother shrieked behind the pirate’s hand, her fear trickling sparks of pain through my chest. Madwulf hadn’t made a hollow threat. His eyes burned with vindictive anticipation in cutting the child while we watched.

  With effort, I loosened my grip on the cutlass enough to drop it. But Priest and Ashley didn’t move.

  “Do it,” I said to them. “He’ll kill her.”

  The potent masculine energy on either side of me held still.

  Twisting my neck, I found Priest staring furiously at me with those blade-sharp eyes. Yes, he despised this as much as I did. But he didn’t have to hammer the point home with his withering, belligerent glare.

  I refused to back down and returned his scowl with one of my own.

  At last, with an enraged grunt, he surrendered his weapons.

  Meeting the same resistance with Ashley, I stood my ground until he dropped his blades. Between the two of them, I’d never seen such torment. It was true that, disarmed and defenseless, our chances of survival were slim to none. But I had a plan.

  “Release the girl, Madwulf.” I crossed my arms, shielding the rapid rise and fall of my chest. “We did what you asked.”

  Without warning, a new swarm of pirates spilled out from around both sides of the cottage. All at once, we were overrun with nowhere to go. The hostile mob fell upon us too fast, with too many weapons. Some held us down. Others restrained our arms with rope.

  Outrage and helplessness swept through me. I kept my eyes on the child, knowing that one wrong move would end her life.

  Within seconds, Priest, Ashley, and I were shoved to our knees, hands bound behind us, in the horrifying custody of Madwulf MacNally. I ordered my damned tears not to fall, even as they clogged my eyes and turned my captor blurry.

  He shoved the girl into the arms of a nearby pirate and stared at me in a way that could only be defined as evil. “Kill them.”

  In my periphery, a cutlass reared back, aiming for Ashley’s head.

  “Noooo! Wait!” The hysteria in my voice pierced the air. “I have something you want!”

  Madwulf held up a hand, staying the man with the blade. “You have nothing left, Bennett. Nothing to barter. But tell me this. Why would the Feral Priest surrender his life for the woman who killed his father?”

  The truth. I still had that, and it would work in my favor. “Priest Farrell is my husband. And he loathed his father.”

  Madwulf narrowed his eyes, sharp and disbelieving.

  “What are you doing, Bennett?” Priest growled behind me. “Shut up and let me handle—”

  I talked over his fury and told Madwulf how I arrived in this unfortunate position between my lover and my husband. I explained Priest’s infidelity, his two-year hunt for me, how I came into Ashley’s custody, and ultimately fell in love with him.

  The one crucial detail I left out was my ruse on Jade. I led Madwulf to believe that my crew tossed me overboard and fled without looking back. I did not want him to know that my galleon was waiting for me on the opposite end of this island.

  “So you’re married to the libertine.” Madwulf paced in front of me. “You love them both. They both love you, and if I dinna kill them, they’ll probably kill each other?”

  “Probably.”

  Maybe. Maybe not. The question of how they knew each other still clawed in the back of my mind.

  With a disgusted expression, Madwulf stared me up and down. “If the libertine loves you, why would he expose you to syphilis?”

  “I already had it, and truly, Captain, that’s the least of my concerns.” I poured the sincerity of that declaration into my voice and eyes. “I would die for them. Spare their lives, and I will give you more wealth than you would ever acquire with Blitz under your command.”

  “Where is your wealth, lass?” Madwulf looked around, laughing. “You have nothing!”

  “I’m the daughter of Edric Sharp, you ignorant tar. Where do you think all his spoils went?”

  “She’s lying!” Kneeling beside me, Priest bellowed and jerked against the hands that restrained him. “Don’t believe anything she says.”

  Stillness fell over Madwulf as he watched us closely. I had his attention.

  “There’s an invaluable compass attached to Mr. Farrell’s person.” I pulled in a deep breath and released it. “Relieve him of it, if you please. It belonged to my father.”

  “With pleasure.” Madwulf nodded to one of his men.

  Everything inside me stopped as my most cherished possession was wrenched from the body of my seething, snarling husband. My gaze clung to the polished brass casing while it passed from one hand to the next, ending with Madwulf.

  “It’s a puzzle.” I swallowed down the knot in my throat, refusing to let my grief shine. “My father hid all his treasures, locked the map of the location in that compass, and gave it to me the day he hanged. The keyhole will reveal itself with the correct combination of movements. I wear the key around my neck.”

  The sudden glare of a dozen pairs of eyes seared my throat.

  “You can’t open it,” I said hastily. “Not without the secret instructions, which are locked inside my head. If I d
ie, the combination dies with me. If you kill Priest and Ashley, I will die with them, for it would be too painful to live. You can torture me for the instructions, but I swear to God, Madwulf, if you hurt them, there will be nothing left of me to break.”

  “She doesn’t know the combination. It’s a trick.” Priest tried to stand and rush forward, only to be shoved face-first into the sand.

  “She never mentioned a goddamned compass or a secret map.” Ashley gnashed his teeth. “She’s leading you on a wild chase. Same thing she did to me when she sent me after Priest in Nassau.”

  I fisted my hands in the rope. Irritating, overprotective arseholes.

  “Gag the husband and pirate hunter and string them up to a tree,” Madwulf said absently, his gaze locked on the compass in his hand. “This opens with that green stone on your neck?”

  “Yes, the key and a combination of movements.”

  “All right.” He prowled forward and crouched at eye level with my kneeling position. “Open it, and I’ll let your lads live.”

  A few yards away, Priest and Ashley roared and snarled behind their gags, uselessly fighting the men who trussed them to a palm-tree.

  I blocked their torment out of my mind and focused on Madwulf’s offer.

  Firstly, he couldn’t be trusted. Even if I could unlock the compass straight away, he would take the map, kill all three of us, and claim my father’s treasure. Secondly, I’d spent the last seven years trying to unlock the instrument without any luck.

  But that was before my last conversation with Priest. Before he’d shared what he’d learned from the compass maker’s son.

  Every instrument was built with a key and a list of verbal instructions. Something to hide on your body and something to hide in your mind.

  The answer was buried in my head. I was certain my father had given the instructions to me. But how? In a riddle? A song? Christ, he’d taught me so many things over the fourteen years I’d known him, so much of it through lyrics and storytelling. I couldn’t remember half of it.

  Right now, all that mattered was getting Madwulf and his band of outlaws off this island without killing the two men I loved.

  “I don’t trust you, you scurvy dog.” I glared at the brass instrument held out in his hand. “You want that open? Here are my conditions. No one else dies here. Not that little girl or her mother. Not Priest or Ashley. Take me with you. When we weigh anchor, I want visual proof that Priest and Ashley are still alive. Then I’ll need some time to unlock the puzzle. Once I do, you can take the map without showing it to me and put me ashore on any island you please.”

  The last part wouldn’t come to fruition. Madwulf would kill me to ensure I never tried to reclaim my father’s spoils.

  “How long will it take to open?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I have a lot of combinations in my head.” I quickly explained to him how I’d only just learned the details about the use of a key and a list of instructions.

  “You’re certain you can unlock it?”

  “I swear it.” I set my forehead upon his thigh and held it there, knowing the submissive gesture would move him.

  He rose, pulling me to stand with him. “Let’s weigh, laddies!”

  With his hand on my arm, I stumbled after him, trying to keep up with his gait. The beach lay barren around us, all the farmers and fishermen either hiding in their dwellings or dead.

  As we passed the palm-tree, the vibrations of gagged, wrathful shouting from Priest and Ashley tightened my insides. I sucked in a breath and bolted, erasing the distance between us in three long strides.

  Footsteps gave chase, but I made it to the tree and crashed onto Priest’s lap, landing ungracefully with my arms bound.

  “The bird island,” I whispered in a panic. “Find me there.”

  Arms wrenched me away, and a hand grabbed my throat, choking me.

  “What did you say to him?” Madwulf put his face in mine, seething.

  “I forgive you.” I twisted my neck, locking onto Priest’s blazing silver eyes. “All my resentment and scorn… Honest to God, Priest, it’s gone. I love you.” I turned my gaze to Ashley, shivering at the cold, hard anger icing his expression. “I love you both.”

  “That’s enough.” Madwulf laughed and shook his head. “Let’s go before I shed a tear.”

  The force of rage and unholy violence wafting from Priest and Ashley caught my chest on fire. My gaze didn’t stray from them as Madwulf hauled me away. I would see them again. I had to believe that.

  If they traveled by horseback, they would reach Harbour Island within two or three days.

  If Jade was still anchored there after a month of waiting, they would have a ship to hunt me down.

  If I could trick Madwulf into plotting a course to the tiny uninhabited island north of Anguilla—the home of more nesting birds than I’d ever seen in my life—Priest and Ashley would find me.

  Maybe.

  Hopefully.

  That was a lot of ifs. Too many.

  My heart constricted so painfully I felt a sickening crunch as it collapsed in on itself.

  I’d conceived many wild plans in my lifetime. Some worked. Some failed magnificently. This might be my flimsiest, most hole-ridden scheme yet.

  As Madwulf dragged me toward the longboat, I cursed my lack of clothing. Once again, I would be boarding Blitz wearing only a man’s shirt and the jade stone. Ashley’s shirt this time. And it was much worse for wear, hanging in tatters around my thighs.

  The crew wouldn’t rape me, for fear of contracting syphilis.

  But there were endless other ways to hurt a woman.

  Standing at the bow of Blitz, I held a spyglass to my eye and sank into the overwhelming relief in my chest. The distant palm-tree, with two savagely determined men tied to it, filled the spherical field.

  They were still alive, and in a few minutes, the greatest threat against them would sail far away from this cay.

  Behind me, seamen strained at the capstan. Others hauled lines and howled with excited laughter. The anchor heaved from the water. Yards swung. Sheets hissed, and the mainsail turned hard, thrilling with the power of the trade wind. A mist of warm spray slashed my cheeks as the warship luffed away from the sand and cast a wide arc toward the blue swells of the open sea.

  A tingle raced up my spine, and the glass was yanked from my grip. An iron shackle went about my ankle, connected to a short chain that secured me to the foremast on the upper deck. There, I sat, awaiting my fate amid a menagerie of live chickens, goats, and pigs.

  Ashley would have a fit if he saw his ship in such filthy disarray. To think that only yesterday, most of these men had reported to him with the utmost discipline and respect. I supposed the promise of riches and merriment could buy just about any soul.

  I depended on that as Madwulf prowled toward me.

  He crouched within arm’s reach, joined by two beastly pirates standing at his back. I emptied my expression, squared my shoulders, and met his hard stare with one of my own.

  For endless seconds, he held me in deliberate discomfiting eye contact. A tactic meant to intimidate. I sat taller, unmoving, and waited.

  “We can be friends, Miss Sharp.” He held out the compass, daring me to grab it. “Just give me the combination.”

  “I’ll give you something, darling.” My mouth twisted. “How about an oozing rash? Or a bald head? Just come a little closer.”

  He hissed past his teeth and reached for the red beard that no longer hung from his chin.

  “Oh, for the love of God.” I leaned back against the mast behind me, reclining. “The big brave Highlander can’t take a joke?”

  “Not about that.” His gaze dipped to my throat, narrowing on the jade stone. It was useless to him without a keyhole. Perhaps that was why he hadn’t taken it from me yet. “Tell me everything you ken about the puzzle.”

  “Well… When my father gave it to me,” I said without emotion, hoping he wouldn’t smell the lie, “he talked a
bout an island of birds.”

  “Where?”

  “Near Anguilla, I think.” I blew out a sigh. “I don’t really know. I was young.”

  “What else?”

  “Truly, Captain, I need time to sift through my memories and figure out the combination. But I will. I’ll unlock the damned thing if you get out of my face and leave me alone.”

  I needed to give Priest and Ashley time to race to Harbour Island and sail Jade down the coast of Eleuthera to my current location. If they didn’t encounter any delays, they would only be three days behind Blitz.

  “You need an incentive.” Madwulf stood and clasped his hands behind his back.

  Incentive? I tensed, every muscle on high alert. His two rogues rushed forward and towered over either side of me. I didn’t flinch, didn’t look away from the Scotsman.

  He flicked his gaze at the men, and a second later, they had me on my feet and held between them.

  My pulse accelerated. My legs felt like water, but I refused to avert my gaze from Madwulf.

  A third man from Madwulf’s crew appeared at my side. In his fists, he held a broad, flat wooden plank like a sword.

  I swallowed, unable to feel my tongue or my face or the deck beneath my feet.

  In a blur of movement, the pirates manhandled my arms, jerking me this way and that. The iron on my ankle galled my skin as I tried to kick and twist away. But they overpowered me by sheer strength and numbers.

  As they held me where they wanted me, I had no choice but to tuck my elbows in tight and protect vital organs.

  The plank swung, colliding with the front of my thigh. My teeth slammed into my tongue. I cried out, and my entire body jolted with inconsolable agony.

  My head dropped forward as I sagged and grunted with excruciating breaths, moaning, pleading with the pain, begging it to stop. It felt as though my leg had been ripped from my body.

  The tars tossed me onto the deck, sending another wave of anguish through my thigh. I lay there, gasping through the splintering torment.