Pirate Wolf Trilogy

by Canham, Marsha

  “Cowards! Fools! Get back to your posts or I’ll have the skin flayed from your backs!”

  But no one was listening and no one obeyed. And a moment later, Estevan Muertraigo found himself staring down the barrel of a loaded pistol.

  ~~

  From their vantage point on the bluff, Dante and Rowly watched with amazed interest as a scuffle took place on board the San Mateo. They heard a multitude of soft popping sounds as pistols were discharged on deck and minutes later, men—or bodies—were being flung over the side of the ship into the water.

  “What the f—?”

  “Poke my arse an’ call it love,” Rowly muttered. “They’re fixin’ to tuck tail an’ run.”

  Dante knuckled his eyes to clear his vision and peered through the spyglass again. The deck of the galleon was well lit and there was no mistaking the livid features of the pirate captain as he was hustled by force to the gangway and pushed through. He fell into the water, his arms windmilling and legs kicking, sending up a soundless splash.

  “Be double damned. That was Muertraigo his-self, weren’t it?”

  Dante was watching, too fascinated to reply. Some of the ejected men who were, Gabriel supposed, loyal to Muertraigo had climbed into one of the longboats and were now pulling their captain out of the water and helping him on board. The San Mateo was already under way, gliding into the middle of the bight following in the wake of her sister ship, El Gato which was under full sail, the curve of her canvas sheets lit from beneath by the blaze of lights on deck.

  The longboat was rowed toward the Cormorant, followed by a dozen or so strong swimmers who did not care to make for the beach and its ghostly inhabitants.

  William Chandler strode to the top of the bluff, standing bare-skinned in full view. He had stripes of luminous mud painted down the front of his chest and down his arms and legs to resemble the big bones of a skeleton. One hand was holding a glowing skull, the other was planted on his hip as he shook his head and snorted.

  “What do you make of that, my fine friends?”

  “In all honesty, I’m not quite sure,” Dante murmured. “There was obviously a differing opinion on board as to how to proceed next, and by the look of it, Muertraigo lost the debate.”

  “He’ll not find a warmer welcome aboard the Cormorant,” Chandler guessed, more hope than confidence behind his words.

  “I can’t say I am entirely happy to see them put on sail,” Gabriel said grimly. “I would have liked another chance to get my hands around the bastard’s throat.”

  “Rest assured, lad, you’ve done more damage to him today than you realize. His crews have mutinied, he has lost his ships. And when word spreads that he was defeated in a battle against some ghosts flinging coconuts… well…” Chandler paused to guffaw, “he will be the laughingstock of the Indies.”

  Dante pushed himself upright. The last of the swimmers had climbed aboard the Cormorant and she was starting to glide further out into the bight. Dante’s eyes were cold and hard, and he stared as if he could see the Spaniard where he stood on deck.

  “Next time.” He murmured the promise. “I’ll get you next time.”

  “I’d give half my pecker,” Chandler declared, “to be on board right now, privy to the conversation between Muertraigo and Ross. Come to think on it,” he paused and frowned. “Did you happen to see the tall skinny bastard on the beach? Yellowish hair, a nose like an arrowhead long enough he can wipe it with his tongue?”

  “I didn’t notice,” Dante said, his eyes still trained on the Cormorant as he turned his head slightly to address Rowly. “Send a couple of the men after them along the coast to follow and make sure they stay headed out to sea.”

  “Aye,” Rowly said, nodding. “I’ll send Dunn an’ Betts. You’d best go back to camp an’ let Doc Podd have a look at where all that blood is comin’ from.”

  Dante shook his head. “It’s not mine… for once.”

  Chandler clapped him on the shoulder. “Nonetheless, you can’t do anything more here and I warrant I know someone else who is anxious to see that you’ve come through it without any new leaks or holes.”

  ~~

  Eva was not sure what to think about the cool reaction Dante had given her earlier. She had wanted to run out and throw her arms around him but the glance he had cast in her direction had been so cold, she hadn’t dared. When he walked past, he had done exactly that: he had walked past without sparing her even the most miserly of smiles or nods.

  She was under no illusions and had no expectations that he would declare undying love or even admit to any manner of affection. But he had cheered the men and stopped to praise their efforts. He had ruffled Eduardo’s hair and gripped Billy Crab’s arm in passing. Was a special smile or a nod too much to have hoped for?

  She sighed and stirred the huge kettle of boar stew that sat bubbling over the fire. As the men returned from the beach, she filled their cups with rum and handed them wide banana leaves filled with the meaty concoction. Some retreated to the shadows to eat, then to sleep, and those who still wore fresh mud on their skin glowed eerily, making it resemble a camp populated by ghouls.

  Eventually, after most of the stragglers had wandered in, she heard her father’s booming laugh and glanced over, watching the glow approach through the woods. Because he was dressed in his usual black shirt and black breeches, Dante was practically invisible by William’s side until they entered the ring of firelight.

  The two men headed directly for the cask of rum, the contents of which Podd was doling out liberally. Gabriel hesitated a moment as if debating what was more appealing, rum or the scent of food. He saw Eva standing by the fire but no sooner did he catch her eye than she looked away.

  William nudged his arm and thrust a panniken of rum into his hand. “A toast! To the cleverest damn captain on the Ocean-Sea and the bravest damn men I’ve ever had the honor to fight alongside!”

  The men gave a rousing cheer and used the excuse to crowd around the barrel and fill their cups again. Dante hung back, his gaze flicking over to Eva, who seemed determined not to notice. She even went so far as to turn her back in favor of sharing a word and a smile with one of the crewmen.

  He sipped his rum and watched for a while as she continued to lavish the stew and the men with all of her attention. Her hair had come loose from the long braid and strands of it drifted around her shoulders, catching the firelight; her shirt was belted tight at her waist defining the shape of her breasts and hips in a way that was making some of the casual glances from the men become not so casual.

  Gabriel finished his rum and tossed the panniken aside. He strode across the width of the clearing and came up behind her, pausing only long enough for her to sense his presence and turn. Without a word, he leaned over, wrapped an arm around her upper thighs and hoisted her up, slinging her over his shoulder.

  “Excuse us, gentlemen. The Mermaid is needed elsewhere.”

  With the men laughing and Eva spluttering protests, he carried her out of the camp and back along the forest path, taking the fork that led to the pond. He did not stop on the bank or set her down, he walked straight into the water and waded out, dunking them both.

  She came up gasping. “What—? How dare you! What on earth—?” She coughed and spat out a mouthful of water, then gripped his shoulders to keep from going under again.

  “I thought I had better do it before one of the other men you were flirting with took a similar notion into his head.”

  “Flirting? I was not flirting!”

  “It looked that way to me… and to them.”

  He kept hold around her waist as she pushed the water and hair off her face. “Well… I wasn’t. I was being… polite… and friendly.”

  “Friendly? With men who haven’t had a woman in a month or more? That is a dangerous game to play Mistress Chandler.”

  She coughed again and when she looked at him, her expression was so befuddled, he laughed, pulled her close, and kissed her hard enough to take he
r breath away.

  “They would never do such a thing,” she gasped when she was able. “Not when they know that you and I… that we…”

  “Yes? That we—?”

  She saw his grin and wanted to kick him underwater.

  “It might shock you, Mermaid, to know that many a ship’s captain share women with their men, especially when those men have performed admirably in battle. Some even consider it part of the reward.”

  “And does the woman have no say in the matter?”

  “No. If she has agreed to become the captain’s woman, she accepts the shared responsibilities involved in keeping his crew happy.”

  Eva’s defiance faltered slightly. “I can’t believe the captain would not want to keep her to himself.”

  “Well that would depend, of course, on whether or not she became tiresome.”

  “Tiresome?”

  “Aye. As in always disobeying direct orders, or vowing to do one thing then foolishly doing another.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes. Oh.”

  “Thank goodness I am not a captain’s woman then,” she said softly.

  His hand came out of the water and cupped her chin firmly, tipping it up so she was forced to look him in the eye. “And have you no wish to be?”

  His mouth was so temptingly close she could feel their breaths mingling. It was the subtle promise in the amber eyes, however, that sent shivers down her spine.

  “That would depend, sir,” she whispered.

  “On what?”

  “On what responsibilities he would expect her to accept.”

  “He… I… would expect her to understand that she belonged to me and me alone. That if I caught her flirting or attempting to make me jealous by doing so… I would put her over my knee and turn her arse red.”

  “That seems… reasonable,” she agreed softly.

  “I am a reasonable man.”

  Eva ran the tip of her tongue across her lips. “And how would a simple, modest woman go about gaining this vaunted position?”

  “By not being the least bit simple,” he said, bringing her even closer. “And by knowing when to be modest, and when… not to be.”

  She nodded as if seriously considering his words. One of her hands slipped off his shoulder and sank under the water. “And… how would one know when not to be?”

  Gabriel maintained the hold around her waist as he treaded water, difficult enough to do in sodden clothes and boots. When he felt her fingers slide down to cup the hard bulge in his breeches, he briefly lost his concentration and water lapped over his chin and into his mouth.

  “That would be one way,” he sputtered through a laugh.

  She tipped her head with an ingenuousness that belied the way her hand loosened his breeches and curled around his flesh. “Are there others?”

  “I can think of one or two,” he murmured, capturing her lips again. Locked together, he took them back to the edge of the pond where it was shallow enough for him to stand on the sandy bottom. Once there he scooped her into his arms and lifted her onto the mossy bank where he peeled her clothing away then shed his own.

  As the last garment was discarded, he lowered himself between her flared thighs and hooked each slender leg over his shoulders. Disregarding her squirms, he kissed his way down from her breasts, to her belly, to the glistening thatch of soft yellow curls. There, he ran his tongue down and up the silky folds then looked at her as she gasped in shock and clutched at his arms.

  “This is definitely one of those times when modesty should be cast aside, Mermaid. Unless you have an objection to being mine, and mine alone.”

  Eva felt another shivery thrill. It was not a declaration or even an admission of affection, but it was enough to send a stunningly sharp streak of pleasure through her body. She shifted her knees slightly opening herself to him. She clutched his upper arms to keep from flying out of her skin, then pressed her head back into the moss.

  “No objections, Captain,” she whispered raggedly. “None at all.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” he said and lowered his mouth again.

  As his tongue worked its magic, Eva’s fingers clawed desperately into his arms. Her heels dug into his back giving her leverage to lift her hips, to rock them this way and that as he probed and licked and suckled. She arched high, and his hands held her there, pressed against his mouth as the waves of pleasure rippled from her toes to the roots of her hair. Her groans and whispers and shivered cries kept him there, kept him teasing and tormenting until she could withhold what he sought no longer and the orgasm exploded in a series of hot, sweet spasms.

  She had barely recovered from the first assault when she felt his body slide up. He did not let her lower her legs, but kept them over his shoulders as his flesh found the still-quivering mouth of her sex and plunged deep and hard to her core.

  Eva dragged in a long, ragged breath as she felt the uncompromising possession of his thrusts. He laid powerful claim to what was his, stroking and plunging and filling her so completely that when he arched up and clenched his teeth through a hoarse, triumphant groan, she felt every pulse, every burst of liquid heat, every shudder as her own.

  So intense was the pleasure that long after they had collapsed, panting and gasping in each other’s arms, little shudders and twitches continued to echo through their bodies making them reluctant to draw apart. They drifted to sleep with their bodies joined, their mouths no more than an inch apart, arms and legs entwined so it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Rowly approached the glade with caution and whistled a tune that was more breath than sound. In the five days and nights following the ambush, it had become a well-known secret that the captain and his lady had staked out the privacy of the glade for their own purposes and few were reckless enough to intrude upon them without giving fair warning first.

  Eduardo, who was more than half in love with captain’s beautiful mermaid, had made them a soft bed of palm fronds and blankets on the embankment. They were lying there now, Rowly noted, identifying a pair of pale, slender legs tangled with a pair of tanned muscular ones.

  He moistened his lips and whistled again.

  This time Gabriel lifted his head.

  Rowly opened his mouth to speak but used a gnarled finger instead to point at the reddish-orange tint spreading across the dark sky above.

  Gabriel nodded and rested his head back down on the blankets. Dawn was almost upon them. Dunn and Betts had returned the previous day and reported the three ships had made haste through the bight, showing no sign of slowing or turning around. The two Spanish galleons had turned south, toward Cubana. The Cormorant had turned north, moving too fast for the men to follow.

  Gabriel stretched just enough to work a kink out of his leg, then wiggled his nose and blew out a puff of air to dislodge a strand of blonde hair that had settled across his mouth. Eva was using his arm as a pillow, something he was beginning to find more and more pleasing. He enjoyed waking up to find her curled up alongside him. He enjoyed having her hair spread across his chest and shoulders like a silken blanket. For the most part his past relationships had all been brief and intense, gratifying physically, but lacking in any desire to prolong them past the initial blaze of lust. His mother said it would strike him like a thunderbolt one day that he was missing out on the best part of love. He hadn’t quite understood what she meant until the night he had slept beside Eva in the cavern, content to hold her and to feel her breathing softly against his neck.

  “I can hear you thinking,” she murmured.

  Dante smiled and turned to find those lovely big green eyes watching him. “Really. And can you also hear what I am thinking?”

  She grinned until a dimple appeared in each cheek. “I can’t hear your thoughts, no, but I can see them.”

  He followed her glance to his groin and chuckled. “Unfortunately, they’ll have to keep.”

  “It isn’t even light yet
.”

  “It will be, soon. I can smell the cooking fires already and suspect your father is hard at work making his biscuits and boar fat.”

  “Biscuits and boar fat,” she mused. “I wonder if the king’s court has ever broken their fast on such delicious fare.”

  Gabriel laughed and slid his arm out from under her head. “Up, Mermaid. We have a long march ahead and I want to reach the coast before dark.”

  Dante had informed Rowly of his intent to leave camp at first light. He had already dispatched a party of crewmen to retrace the route along the coastline and collect the men who had been posted along the bight as lookouts. Chandler had returned much of their unused stores of powder and shot to the cave where he kept his supplies squirreled away. He had also insisted, for the sake of their own souls, that the bodies on the beach have a decent burial. The men had not objected, hoping that had their fates been reversed, their remains would not have been left in the hot sun for the carrion and flies to feast upon.

  Eva yawned and rolled onto her back, watching Dante gather up their clothing and shake the bits of moss and grass out of the folds. As always she was struck by the combination of power and beauty as his muscles rippled and bunched across his chest and shoulders. His back was almost completely healed and she reached out a hand, tenderly tracing a fingertip down one of the raised pink scars. She felt his skin shiver and relished the knowledge that it was her touch that caused the reaction.

  “The first time I saw you,” she said softly, “I thought you were the ugliest man I had ever seen. Your face was bloated and purple. Your eye was swollen shut with scabs. I could scarcely bear to look at you, nevermind that I had to spend days locked away with you in your cabin.”

  Dante turned his head and gazed at her over his shoulder. “Whereas I thought you a skinny, frail waif with big green eyes, half-drowned and wholly incapable of speaking more than a word or two at a time without tripping over your tongue. Now, however—“ he leaned over and kissed her—“I find that same tongue quite sweet and enchanting.”