by Raelle Logan
“Perhaps you ought to deny her the sin. She’ll be furious. Siren cannot forgive such a travesty.” Grayson mulled. “Are you absolutely convinced, Lock, this is a faithful memory and not fancy? You may have merely witnessed the execution and it somehow fractured, becomin’ a remembrance as though you were the assassin. It could be a falsehood.”
Lochlanaire craved to declare the memory false, but how could he? He saw the scene play in his mind. He’d shot that pistol, delivering the tragic death of a woman whose only failing was that she fell in love with a forbidden monarch and gave birth to his illegitimate daughters. “The memory is pure, Grayson.” Lochlanaire struck off, powerless to search his brother’s disappointed eyes. “My God, Grayson, how could I have affected so villainous an injustice? Was I so evil?”
“Evil? I’d not claim you so, Lochlanaire. Alas, your assassin stature must spawn immorality. You are enchained by a sovereign, sworn to their rule under the vow of death should you not comply, no matter the person hunted. If you were this woman’s executioner, so you claim and witnessed, then you were presented no choice other than to act accordin’ to your sovereign’s demand. You cannot fault yourself,” counseled Grayson.
“Are you certain I can proclaim myself innocent of such heartless wickedness as to execute a woman, even if the threat of death envelope me? Does it not designate me as monstrous?”
“Guilt resolves little, Lochlanaire. This woman…Emerald Rain…she’ll still lie dead. You cannot raise her from Hell’s gates. Fate delivered her a tragic death, but she chose the man she bedded, Lochlanaire. She must have realized there could be grave consequences. She’s not innocent of the affair she had with King James. It was by her submission that she met this sacrilege.”
“Nevertheless, your assurances do not diminish my guilt. Yes, I can never invoke the magic of the gods and breathe life into Emerald. She’s lost. Her daughter, however, is not. How do I trample my guilt in all their fates and discard Siren to death with King William’s wretched mark? I’ll have destroyed an entire family and for what?”
“For life, Lochlanaire. Your life,” Grayson assured.
“Is my life more worthy than Siren’s, than her mother’s? How do I decide who lives and who is sacrificed? What conveys that sovereignty?”
“Under the seizure of a king, you must. You must honor your sovereign above all others. The holy sacrament serves in protection of the king. You promised to arise as his defender, Lochlanaire. To revoke that union, is to submit yourself to death at a felled broad ax. Are you willin’ to die for Siren? Aye, you married her, but it was not with your want, therefore it cannot be upheld by any law, kingly or godly.”
Lochlanaire rubbed his chin. “She sees it otherwise, Grayson. Siren believes we’re genuinely wed.”
“Sincerely or does Siren seduce you to think so, Lochlanaire? You’re her hunter. If she coerces you to accept that you’re utterly wedded to her, she secludes hope that you’ll not forfeit her to death. Siren employs you in order to spare her life. Why not? It’s the only chance she possesses for survival.” Grayson left Lochlanaire to his despair, returning to the tasks laboring aboard the ship.
Perhaps Grayson is correct and he shouldn’t confess to shooting Siren’s mother. What could possibly be righted with his admission? She’d despise him. He’d have to understand and perhaps it was best. Then neither of them would possess feelings for the other. He would be liberated to his accord decreed by King William. What about Siren and her sister? Their deaths would be reaped under his sacrilege. Could he live with the decision to permit Siren to die when she was as innocent as her mother? And what about his promise to Siren? He’d spoken marriage vows. Aye, they were pledged under pain of death and fear, but he’d said them. If he shirked his vow to King William and freed Siren, he’d have to run, for he’d be the cornered prey, another cutthroat hunter surely hired to find and slay him for his temerity, death his only hope for a reprieve of guilt. Oh, what a blackened realm he’d noosed them amongst. Now neither he nor Siren could ever escape.
Harried, Lochlanaire returned to his quarters and found Siren asleep on the bed, her iron-cuffed wrist gilding her forehead. He slouched beside the innocent beauty upon the chair she’d used while keeping vigil when he lay unconscious, and Lochlanaire whispered, “I’ve sewn unspeakable terrors, Siren. How do I, an assassin who’s said to suffer no morality, capture the roguery of the beast and request absolution of my guilt? Can I explain what terrors I’ve committed and expect you to understand, forgiving me of my depravity?” When no answers from her were forthcoming, since she slept peacefully, Lochlanaire blew out the lanterns and sat before his desk. He stared out to sea, lost to the ills a titanic killer commands.
With night’s lapse toward breaking dawn, Siren awoke, finding Lochlanaire peering upon the sea. Sitting up, she noted the chain’s rattle did not budge him of his vigil. She wondered why. Standing, she shifted as far as the chain permitted, observing him with each step. “Lochlanaire?”
He stared ahead, unflinching.
Siren spoke louder, “Lochlanaire, what’s wounded you?”
He murmured, “Have you ever done something so villainous that you entrenched it deep in your soul because you couldn’t endure the revulsion?”
“What occurred at the masquerade, Lochlanaire? A memory clearly surfaced. Is this why you rushed us to the ship?”
He huffed. “Aye, a memory rose…black as pitch.”
“What kindles your madness?”
Lochlanaire chuckled. “They do say I’m crazy, Siren. Were you aware? I’m haunted by relentless darkness. Too many evils bloody my fingers, my heart…what there is of it…my blackguard soul.” He turned toward her. “My name is Blackheart, ironic, do you not agree? It is perfectly degrading for an unconscionable monster. My past is sullied by brutalities. Is it any wonder that I cannot confront those remembrances? What sane person would seek to unravel the barbarism of the libertine I have become?”
“Release me from this chain,” Siren coaxed.
Lochlanaire stepped to her. One finger swiping under his shirt, he withdrew the key to her shackle. In a moment, he pierced the lock and the manacle opened. Retreating to the window, Lochlanaire was again forsaken amongst brightening water.
“What was the memory?”
“It is too deviant to speak of, Siren.”
Siren mulled on what he said. “Did it have something to do with a masquerade?”
“Aye. Years ago, I slaughtered someone, right in the midst of a thousand people. No one witnessed my pistol shot’s blaring. Cannon fire from outside the palace muddled the blast. How faultless. It was an effortless kill. The precise scene I played in my mind long ere I strode into the ballroom. I would merely invade the masquerade, shoot and vanish.”
“Do you seclude the person’s name?”
“Of the hunted? I did once. The name defies me.” Lochlanaire just couldn’t say those words which would devastate her. “The hunted was innocent of any crime, any true crime, that is.”
“Then why were they marked for death by the king’s assassin?”
Lochlanaire shook his head. “I’m not always privy to what offense my prey committed, Siren. I can only say it was a traitorous kill. Not one I relished.”
“As the king’s huntsman what would happen if you did not slay the hunted? Could you refuse the king’s request?” She moved closer to him.
“I would forfeit my life.”
Siren was seduced by his haunted eyes. “My death guarantees your survival?”
Lochlanaire dragged her to lie against his chest and said, “How do I sacrifice you to death, Siren, when all I thirst for is to drown in your bewitching arms?” His lips snared hers. Lochlanaire’s arms wound around Siren’s body, her fingers cradling the muscles of his back. Voracious, she kissed him, moaning, for his tongue stabbed her mouth and scorched to her wildly wicked soul. Lochlanaire’s arm dove under her legs. He carried her to the bed. Lochlanaire shoved the chain aside; his body draped
the bed beside hers. He broke the lusty kiss and explored her ebony eyes. Ruinously, the treasonous vision of her slain mother immersed. Lochlanaire tore away, escaping to the middle of the cabin. He warred against the memory of Emerald’s assassination.
A knock prompted Lochlanaire to the entry. He swung open the door. A crewman waited amidst the passage. “The ship, Captain, is primed to sail. Grayson asked me to apprise.”
Lochlanaire shut the door but only stood there, his forehead pressed against its wood, silencing his craving for the temptress who peered upon his back.
“Why do you reject me, Lochlanaire?” Siren sat up, glaring upon his rigid form.
“It’s nothing.” Lochlanaire stomped to the bed and gathered the chain, locking the manacle around her wrist, ignoring Siren’s objections. “I’ll unlock it once we’re sea-bound.” Refusing the rapture her eyes enticed, Lochlanaire left Siren alone.
Lunacy haunted her husband. Siren tore apart the conversation she’d had with Lochlanaire, anxious to understand why he’d rebuffed her when he’d rarely denied his lust. A ghost hovered aboard this ship, one that Lochlanaire for whatever reason could not defy. Why? Who was the person he’d hunted at the masquerade he’d described. Did he execute her mother? A constable told Siren her mother’s death was an accident, tendered by a man who thought his pistol emptied of its shot. Is such a fable derived by those royally empowered? Lochlanaire said his prey was innocent of any crime…the only crime her mother could be guilty of was that she fell in love with an adulterous king who could never claim her other than as his mistress. What honestly occurred on the night of her mother’s death? Is she simply stirring carnage where no malevolence boils?
***
Lochlanaire regained the ship’s tiller, watching the men raise the anchor the sea swallowed. The capstan circled methodically.
Grayson’s attention wafted to his rigid brother. “Did you tell her?”
“I said that I’d suffered the vision of an assassination of someone while attending a masquerade, the kill unjust and at my villainy. I couldn’t say the hunted was her mother. I fear, however, with my rejection of the enchantress’ seduction, I may have ignited Siren’s curiosity.”
“Curiosity impels suspicion?”
“Aye. She questioned me, asking after the name of the hunted that I slew at the dance. I admitted to remembering no name. Siren, however, must know something about how her mother died, though I’m only surmising.”
“She’ll keep askin’ ‘til she unburies the truth, Lochlanaire,” Grayson gravely apprised.
“Not if I surrender to her seduction as though nothing wounds me other than the destructive apparitions my past fires.”
“Can you…can you ravish Siren knowin’ you are her mother’s slayer?”
Lochlanaire couldn’t say if he could or not. He quelled Grayson’s inquiry, throwing himself amidst the captaincy of the ship. Nevertheless, the question haunted until he thought he’d run raving mad.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Between Cutthroat and Assassin
Long out to sea, Lochlanaire strode to his quarters and released Siren of the iron imprisoning her wrist. Siren changed from the ball gown she wore to the masquerade, slipping on one of Lochlanaire’s oversized shirts and hugging sable breeches, noticing her husband’s severe stance. He stilled in front the window, denying the yearning to look upon her naked flesh.
Siren sauntered across the cabin, her fingers feathered across Lochlanaire’s back. “What disturbs you, Lochlanaire?”
He sucked in a ragged breath. “Secrets are fissures of an assassin’s existence, Siren.”
“You hide something from me?”
Lochlanaire confronted her. “I secret a thousand nightmares, a thousand degradations.” His gaze caressed her chest, for Siren’s billowy shirt laces lay untied, seducing his attention to her breasts that were nearly fully bared. Lochlanaire groaned, aching to touch her.
Slyly, Siren proclaimed, “You hunger for me.”
“To the depths of my roguish soul,” he declared. “The ship, regrettably, requires its captain. I return to command, obliged to leave us both unsatisfied.”
Siren sashayed alongside him amidst the corridor and stepped onto deck, eventually pausing near the helm deck’s rail. Lochlanaire regained the captaincy, his glacial eyes perched upon the ship’s stem, hands strangling the vessel’s tiller.
Grayson approached Siren and draped his arms across the ship’s edge, his unrestrained black hair drifted under the whisper of the cool breeze.
Siren looked toward the sea. “Lochlanaire says he cossets secrets from me.”
Grayson smugly grinned. “Such an affirmation is not astonishin’.”
“Did Lochlanaire tell you about the memory that battered him at the masquerade on Pirate Quay?” Siren studied her husband’s brother, wary of any reaction broached by her questions.
Grayson attested, “Aye.”
“Who did he remember shooting?”
Cautious, Grayson replied, “Lochlanaire does not always possess the names of those he hunts.”
“Perhaps his tattered memory declines to permit him to summon the names, or he disguises the names in protection of himself owing to disgrace.” Siren shifted the conversation to another subject. “How long has he been an assassin?”
“Long enough to govern himself to see the kills as a task commanded as chivalry dictates.”
“I see. Lochlanaire’s chained to the nefariousness?”
“Under pain of death allotted by treason should he not surrender himself,” Grayson replied.
Siren nodded. “Then Lochlanaire must forsake me at King William’s demand even with our marriage?”
“An assassin must reject whatever feelings he may endure…for anyone.”
“He cannot consider those he promised to love for eternity, Grayson?” Siren’s saddened eyes searched his.
“Your marriage was a sacrilegious vow arranged by gypsies. It is an outlaw accord.”
“The pledge afforded a king abolishes everything promised a wife.”
“I’m aggrieved to confess it so, lass,” Grayson affirmed.
“Do you think I’ll be beheaded or hanged?”
Grayson confirmed, “The king ultimately decides your destiny.”
“Then perhaps a nunnery, enslaved by chains is fitting for an innocently condemned woman, or poison spooned within my food will serve, therefore I shall not even learn of my end,” snappily Siren replied.
“Your fate is tragic, but perhaps King William shall see your innocence and not sentence you at all,” Grayson apprised.
Siren rolled her eyes. “William did not order Lochlanaire to chase me across the length of this vast ocean for the purpose of freeing me from my immoral birth, Grayson. You surely see the truth. My fate is death.”
Forlorn, Grayson perceived it such himself.
“Did Lochlanaire shoot my mother?”
Grayson was stunned by Siren’s question. “I cannot say.”
“But you possess the knowledge.” Exploring his eyes, which reflected her husband’s in glacial intensity if not in menacing color, Siren could see that he’d divulge nothing. “You’re loyal to your brother, no matter his assassin stature, just or depraved.”
“Blood demands my enslavement,” Grayson acknowledged.
“But not to Zore?” wheedled Siren.
Grayson flinched with her mentioning his infamous sibling. “Zore’s massacres are pursued by the behest of the lust for malice invoked at the offerin’ of his soul to Lucifer for no purpose other than bloodshed.”
“An impressive description. I wonder how you so effortlessly dismiss Lochlanaire of the same blood quest. Are his evils not reminiscent to Zore’s?” Siren reprimanded.
“The difference is Lochlanaire’s allegiance belongs to a king by knightly oath, he’s held to the alliance in protection of the monarch. Zore submits to the ruin of bloodlust, hungry to slaughter those whose mere flaw is that they fell into his sinis
ter sights. Lochlanaire’s quick in the kill, covetous for no pain to envelope those hunted.”
“Ah, I see. You presume that lack of inducing pain upon his victims sanctifies the maliciousness inflicting a murder decrees?”
Grayson understood. There is a delicate line carved between lawlessness and cutthroat ghoulishness. “It is difficult to understand.”
“You are correct. I cannot understand. I’m innocent. My only failing is I’m born of a monarch’s seed. I exist, therefore I’m traitorous to a man. Yes, William is king, but he’s still…only….a…man and one who claims himself higher in stature than I. He christens himself godly enough to decide if I may live or die. Would I not have been a princess, Grayson? Does my blood, delivered by King James II, not affect the depravity of a madman?”
“King William rules, sadly, rulin’ your fate,” Grayson confessed.
“No, Lochlanaire rules my fate. He’s my husband. He’ll decide if I’ll live or die.” Siren leered.
“Meanin’ Lochlanaire will decide if your flair for seduction is majestic enough to absolve him of the king’s dominance over him,” Grayson further elaborated.
Obviously, she’d not fooled Grayson regarding why she seduced his brother.
“Possibly if Lochlanaire falls in love with you, then his feelin’s will stay him from yieldin’ you. Is this what you’re thinkin’? It is quite the ruse, Siren.”
“Grayson, I admit it has occurred to me that Lochlanaire will never relinquish my hand if he stumbles under my spell.”
“You’re justly a witch, temptress. You might succeed. If you do, beware, Siren -- Lochlanaire’s heartbeat shall not pulse long after your escape of King William’s snare.” Grayson drifted in the distance.
Is one person’s life worth the sacrificing of another’s? Could Siren position herself higher in stature than Lochlanaire? If she did and she shuns the noose of death smothering her throat, would Lochlanaire die owing to his failure to fulfill King William’s mark? Lochlanaire’s spilt blood would then stain her fingers. Could she live with this guilt? Siren couldn’t answer these questions. As she stood there, she turned toward her distracted husband, enraptured by his glory while he steered the ship. Godly handsome, he’s the most exquisite man she’d ever seen. That day, Lochlanaire dressed in a ruby silk shirt that he’d left slit, chest to waist, his body tapering to muscled legs, hugged by sable breeches. High boots cuffed just below his knees, and his hair he’d clasped in a length of leather at his back. He was the portrait of a rakish pirate. Why could he not simply be that outlaw and not a lethal assassin?