He smiled slowly and idly drew the curve of his hook down the length of her throat to her collarbone, then taunting, a curious caress indeed, over the rise of her breast. The hook continued downward, dislodging her blanket, leaving her bare to his assessment. She bit down ever harder upon her lip to keep from panic. A scream rose and bubbled in her throat, but as his eyes returned to hers, she knew that he would not hesitate to slit her open with the weapon he wore upon his severed wrist.
“That’s right, love, quiet!” he whispered, and laughed. Something of regret passed over his eyes. “Milady, how I’d like you now, this very minute, alive and attuned to sensation by the most unique and tender stroke of my adoring … fingers. I’d like your Hawk to enter into his room and find you touched and filled by his dearest enemy. Alas! What a pity that I cannot do so.”
Relief escaped her in a long gasp. His smile, however, was not reassuring.
“Nay, lady, first I must take you to my ship. You are so concerned for your father, eh? Well, now, perhaps we should let the old man watch, too. That’s where we shall capture the Hawk for real, milady. And when we see that he is coming, that is when I shall have you, in bold light, upon the deck. You’ll feel the true kiss of this steel, my love, and he’ll know that I’ll use it against you in truth when I am done.”
“Perhaps he will not come,” Skye said.
“I think that he will.”
“But he won’t. You’ve seen him with me. He demands things because that is his way, but I’m nothing to him, not really. He’s women everywhere, what is one more, or one less?”
Logan sat back on his haunches, his eyes alight with a leering humor. His hook raked around the fullness of her breast as he answered, “Lady, you are worth your weight in gold. That was long ago decided. You are worth even more to me. He will live to rue the day that he caused me to wear this hook. Now, get up!”
He stood, and reached down with his good hand, wrenching her to her feet. His eyes assessed the length of her in the shadows, and she had never felt more violated. From the doorway, she felt his men, staring at her, too.
She jerked her hand free. “I cannot come like this!” she told him. “Let me dress.” She bent down to retrieve the tattered remnants of her dress. Logan’s foot fell upon the material. “We haven’t time,” he said harshly. “Morgan, toss her the cloak.”
A woolen garment fell her way. Skye retrieved it quickly, grating her teeth as she quickly slipped the scratchy wool cape around her shoulders. She drew it close about her and stared at Logan again, waiting.
He bowed deeply to her. “My dear?”
She passed him by. The two men at the doorway stepped aside, opening the door for her. They were all behind her.
Skye quickly stepped out the doorway of the little shanty.
Fires still burned upon the sand, warmth against the night and the sea breezes. There was no music, though, no one danced. Men and women still lay sprawled about, but they lay in sleep, some snoring, some dead to the world in drunken stupors.
Logan, she thought, had no more than the two men with him. They were all behind her.
She hurried down the few steps to the sand, screamed as loudly as she could, and started to run.
“Catch her, you fools!” Logan shouted.
She didn’t know where to go, nor did it matter. She couldn’t possibly have navigated a course in the darkness.
And it was dark. Away from the fires, the night closed in. The sky met the sea, and the wilderness beyond the beach. There were more shanties, more ramshackle and makeshift homes and buildings.
Roc would be within one, she thought. Bargaining with Blackbeard.
But where?
She couldn’t pause to determine that fact, she had to run. “Help me! Help me! Someone, for the love of God, help me!” she shrieked.
There were various stirrings about, but few heeded her cries.
The pirates were accustomed to hearing pleas for mercy—and equally accustomed to ignoring them, Skye thought bleakly.
She whirled around. Logan’s men were almost upon her.
She was losing time, racing around the shanty buildings on the beach. They could trap her that way. They were trying to do so right then, she thought. “Take her! Take her from the left!” one of them cried, and another waved, running around to encircle the building.
Skye screamed again, and turned to flee toward the beach.
Her legs flying, she raced past the platform where Blackbeard had held his pirates’ court that day. She went onward, seeing that a startled Leticia stood upon the steps to the shanty where she had spent the day. “Tell the Hawk!” Skye screamed.
Leticia jumped back and Skye realized that the men were almost upon her. She tore on down the beach, her lungs afire, her heart thundering, her calves cramping mercilessly. She could hear the sound of the waves rushing up on the beach, beckoning to her. Their dark invitation called to her.
The sea! she thought.
The night was frightening, the darkness unimaginable, but it might well be her only hope. If she could strike out and shed the cape, she could swim. She didn’t know if her strength would hold out against the currents, but she had no other choice. She had only to pass the shadows of twin palms and plunge into the waves to find freedom.
Suddenly a figure stepped out from the palms. She could not stop running, her momentum was so great.
She collided with Logan. She screamed; his arms came around and they fell hard into the sand together. They rolled and she kicked and fought desperately.
“Logan!”
The thunder of the Hawk’s voice interrupted their wild fight. Logan looked up, and Skye tried to dislodge him again. He was wiry and strong. He had his hook, and he carried a sharp and lethal knife. He caught her about the waist with his arm, dragging her to her feet. He stared back toward the fires of the night.
Skye, sobbing for breath, tossed back her hair. He was there, the Hawk was there, feet wide apart, his hands on his hips, defying Logan. A sword dangled now from his scabbard. There was a lineup of men behind him, Blackbeard among them.
“Let her go!” Roc demanded.
Logan laughed. With his good hand he pulled open her cape, placed the blade squarely against her heart, upon her bared flesh.
“I’ve warned you, Hawk. Back off, or she will die!”
“Let her go!” Roc demanded again. “This fight is between us. It is between men! Don’t drag the girl in!”
“Ah, because she’s a part of you, eh, Hawk? Like my hand was a part of my body? Severed now! Back off, Hawk, and I mean it! My knife shivers with the beat of her heart. I’ll slice it out for you, Hawk, so help me God! You want her back so badly? I’ll slice her heart from her body, and hand to you, sir, still beating.”
“What the bloody hell is this?” Blackbeard demanded.“Now, Logan, you were with me, we were all agreed upon the details! I got the girl, and you took the Hawk.”
“You’re a slimy, scurvy backstabber, Edward Teach, and that’s what you are!” Logan called out.
“Now, sir, I take offense at that!” Blackbeard bellowed.
“Take all the offense that you want. I’m leaving in me boat with the girl. If one of you makes a move, it’s her heart, and that’s a fact. Are we understood?”
No one moved. Least of all Skye. The razor-sharp edge of his blade just scratched her flesh and she felt faint. He meant it. Logan would carve out her heart without a moment’s thought.
“You move now!” he ordered her harshly. He jerked her, dragging her toward the water’s edge. She heard the sound of oars and knew that Logan’s longboats awaited them.
“I’ll be on me deck!” Logan called out to the Hawk. “You want her alive, you row out alone. I’ll be waiting to see you, Hawk. I’ll be waiting right on the deck, and she’ll be with me. She’ll be right in my arms. You come, and she lives!”
Seawater, cold with the night, rose over Skye’s ankles. They backed against Logan’s longboat. His men were in
it, she saw from the corner of her eye. The two who had come after her, and another two, who had probably remained with the boat, ready and awaiting his command. Logan was no fool; neither did he know the slightest thing about mercy.
“Hawk! Don’t come! He’ll kill us both!” Skye cried. Then she gasped, for the steel came hard and cold and deadly against her.
Logan spoke against her ear. “Get in! And not another word, and not a move. I’ll cut you yet, my pretty!”
Stumbling, Skye stepped into the longboat with Logan still behind her. He dragged her down before him with the blade of the knife still tight against her breast.
“Shove off!” Logan commanded, and the longboat shot into the dark.
For several seconds, Skye could still see the Hawk. He stood on shore, tall and formidable, his legs arrogantly apart, his feet firm upon his sand, his fingers knotted upon his sword.
He could not come for her! They would both die. She was certain of it.
Good-bye, my love, she thought. And you are my love, in every way.
Suddenly she wished that she could go back, just for a few hours. Just long enough to tell him that she did love him, that she didn’t care about the past, that the future was what needed forging. No matter what he had been, she would hold her silence unto the grave, and she would live with him and love him in his Tidewater paradise forever, for as long as they both should live. He was everything to her, everything in life.
“There she is, the ship!” Logan cried. His arm tightened around Skye. “No diving, my love, no swimming this night! No tricks, no fun, and I am in no mood for games! Climb aboard now, and know that my knife urges you upward.”
Skye grated her teeth and gripped the ladder. Logan’s men had crawled up before her, and Logan himself was behind her. She looked longingly back to the sea.
Logan’s knife prodded her rump. “No swimming, my love. Remember, we’ve been this road before!”
Arms reached down for her and his men dragged her aboard. She landed in a heap upon the deck, the cloak drawn around her. Logan crawled over the railing and looked down at her, smiling.
“Here we are, my love, alone at last. Well, not alone.” He lifted an arm, indicating the many men of his crew, pirates in all manner of dress, some in the rigging, one climbing to the crow’s nest, one at the helm, and gunners as ease, their breeches and shirts blackened by powder.
Logan took a step toward her. “But alone enough. Away from the Hawk.” He reached out his good hand to her. “Come. Come on, milady. Take my hand. You see, love, you and I are going to await the good Hawk. We’re going to await him together.”
XVIII
In the whole of her life, Skye had never been so frightened. No darkness surrounded her now, but rather Logan’s ship was ablaze with lanterns against the darkness of the night, and of the sea. Perhaps it seemed that the very creature of her nightmares had stepped forth from the darkness to meet her in the light, and the face of fear was far uglier in light than it could ever be in shadow. Logan threatened all that mattered in life. He threatened her father, he threatened Roc, and he very definitely threatened her person, and did so at that very moment.
She stared at his hand. She knew that she would never take it.
“Get up!” he bellowed. “Come—to me!”
She hesitated. Then she leaped to her feet with speed and agility, racing past Logan across the deck.
“Stop her!” Logan ordered. “She’ll jump!”
She would have jumped; it was her whole intent. She would rather face a shark or any monster of the blue depths than face Logan.
But his men were quick and agile, too. She had just reached the railing when her cloak was seized from behind, and she was dragged back, spinning into the arms of a black-toothed hearty. He laughed, enjoying her discomfort. Skye faced him, and carefully smiled in return. She was thrust against him. She inhaled the filth of his body and the reek of rum upon his breath, but she endured the horror for the sake of freedom. He did not know just how far she was willing to go to achieve her freedom, and so he was totally unprepared when she drew his sword from the scabbard at his side.
“Damme!” the man swore.
“Fool!” Logan raged. “Seize her, take her! She cannot best you all! By God, I thought I had men on this ship!”
She could not best them all, Skye knew that. But she spun away from the pirate who had stopped her plunge into the sea and backed herself to the railing again. The pirates surged toward her, but they were forced to take care. She parried their steel swiftly and desperately, aided by Logan’s next bellowed order.
“I need her alive! Idiots! What good will she be against the Hawk if she lies dead!”
Two of her attackers backed away. Skye eyed them warily, and they watched her like sharks, waiting for her to blink, to drop her guard for a single second.
“Ahoy, Captain Logan!” someone cried. “A ship approaches!”
Logan’s attention was temporarily distracted. “The Hawk!” he called, savoring the words.
“Nay, sir, I think not. Or perhaps it is! ’Tis Blackbeard, sir, I can see him standing toward the bow!”
“Then the Hawk is with him!” Logan said. “I need the girl! Now!”
Skye was already crawling up atop the railing. She screamed when she was caught by the hair and thrown down hard to the deck. She looked up, gasping for breath. It was Logan himself. She still held her sword. She lifted it in a definite threat.
“You want to fight, little girl?” he demanded. “All right, then, we will fight! Toss me my sword, gents! Someone toss me my sword.”
A blade swirled through the air and landed at his feet. Skye feinted toward him as he reached for the weapon, but he was quick, and he was good. He lunged toward her, and it was all that she could do to evade the heavy thrust.
“Milady, have to!” Logan cried. He attacked and she parried, and he attacked again, and she parried once again. His men backed away now as they fought, and she thought that she knew why. Logan didn’t believe that she could really kill him. She was good, very good. But she didn’t have his strength or stamina, and if he kept a fair distance, he would eventually wear her down.
She could not let him do so.
He smiled at her as they fought. “Milady! Your cleavage is showing!”
She smiled in turn, aware that the cloak gaped open, then it spun and flew as she fought. She could not seek modesty now. Logan hoped to unnerve her with that ruse.
“Does it, sir?” she inquired, undaunted. Their swords clashed hard and the momentum brought them together, face-to-face. He reached out as if to touch her with his hook and she cried out, flinging herself away. She leaped toward the mainmast, and kept it to her back. When Logan charged, she quickly sliced the air.
She caught him in the cheek. A thin stream of blood appeared against his flesh. He paused, wiping it away with the back of his sleeve, then staring at the blood that stained his sleeve. His eyes shot back to Skye’s with undimmed hatred.
“Little girl, you play rough. But I will play however you want, and lady, you will wish that you were dead!” He thrust toward her hard and she screamed, ducking. His sword sliced into the masthead, dropping rigging, and Skye screamed again, rushing over to the side of the boat. Blackbeard was coming. He would be there any second.
She could not believe that she was waiting for the infamous Blackbeard to save her, but she was. If he would just arrive while she still held her own, the pirates could all engage in battle, and she would be free.
But her father would not. Where was he? Somewhere aboard the ship? She prayed that she could help him, but she could hardly help herself.
“Hold her, seize her, take her!” Logan ordered, and suddenly they were all coming after her again.
She held her own. She fought valiantly, and she fought well, and she was certain that no lad could have lasted longer. But the sailors were already upon her. While she parried the one, the next was striking. She was forced further and further along t
he deck to the stern, and then she parried and turned to leap but found that her way was blocked. Logan was there, and his sword was ready this time. He cast the point hard against her throat.
“Drop the sword,” he ordered her.
“I’d—I’d rather die!” she managed to cry, even though she shivered and quaked with the fear of it. She wanted so desperately to live!
“Fine. Drop the sword, or I will slice you from head to toe. And when I am done, I will drag the old man up here on deck, and while you bleed slowly to death, I will hack him into little pieces before you.”
“And you will never have the Hawk.”
“One day I will have him. It is inevitable.”
“You will never have the treasure.”
“Is there a treasure, my dear?”
“Of course!”
“I think not.”
“There is—”
“Drop the sword.”
“Logan! Captain Logan!”
The call came from the longboats, far below the railing. It was Blackbeard’s voice. The pirate had arrived at last. Too late.
“Drop it!”
Skye did not respond, and Logan surged forward with a fury. He caught her blade with his, and it fell flat to the deck. He wrenched her to him by her hands, hurrying over the fallen rigging to reach the portside of his ship and the new arrivals. “Blackbeard, you common traitor! Get away!” Logan roared.
“Now, Captain Logan, that’s not atall nice, sir, not atall nice! Now I’ve come in good faith—”
“You’ve come for more treasure, you greedy viper, and that’s that. You’d kill me, you’d kill the Hawk, you’d kill your own mother’s every living son or daughter for more treasure!”
“Yer hurtin’ me, Logan, yer hurtin’ me deep!” Blackbeard called out sarcastically.
Slammed against the railing with Logan behind her, Skye could see that longboats were arriving with men by the dozen. Her heart caught in her throat, then suddenly soared. Against the lantern glare and the darkness, she could see Robert Arrowsmith. The Hawk’s own men had arrived. There would be a mighty battle here, indeed.
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