by ML Guida
“What the hell are you doing to my brother, lass?”
Mariah glanced up. A red-eyed vampire peeled back his lips and flashed his fangs. She was dead.
She was sure he could hear her quickening heart and tried not to faint again. She remembered him all too well, remembered blood dripping down his chin and soaking his shirt, remembered the unconscious lass at his feet. The moon had glittered off his red stained teeth, then all went dark. She had awakened in her own bed, but his face still burned in her memory.
The same face glared at her now.
Three bats appeared behind the vampire and transformed into men. She bit the inside of her cheek and winced. A wounded dragon and four vampires blocked her escape.
Merde. Merde. Merde.
The first vampire stormed into the cave. “If you hurt him again, I’ll kill you.”
The dragon roared; fire shot out of his mouth, cave walls blackened. Mariah grimaced. The heat from his breath singed her sweaty skin.
“William?” the vampire asked.
She glanced at the beast. “His name is William?”
“Aye.” The vampire folded his arms across his chest. “William O’Brien. I’m Kane O’Brien, captain of the Soaring Phoenix.”
Mariah slowly put the arrow onto the ground. “My Grand-mère said you would come.”
Kane frowned and gripped his sword. “Explain how you know this. Your life depends upon it.”
The vampires pulled out their weapons. Mariah shook, and her heart threatened to burst. She refused to cry or beg for mercy. She was a witch and would not let these vampires stop her from fulfilling her destiny to convince William to help her save her brother.
William growled, but he faced them, not her. Was he trying to protect her?
Squaring her shoulders, she met Kane’s piercing gaze. “Je suis Mariah Fey.”
“Mariah?” A black-haired vampire slid his sword back into its sheath. He grabbed Kane’s arm. “Capt’n, ’tis her. Lark’s sister. We found her.”
Uneasiness skimmed over her. Not good. “You have been looking for me, oui?”
“Aye,” he said. “I’m Ronan Macmillan.” He held up his hand. “We’re na gonna hurt you, I promise. Your brother and I were kidnapped and taken aboard the Fiery Damsel. Lark told us to look for you. Swore you were the only one who could break the spell.” Ronan rushed to her. “You must help us.”
She edged backward, away from the vampire, and tripped. Ronan clasped her hand and pulled her to his broad chest. Strength emitted from him. She was inches from his face and inhaled his warm breath. He was a handsome man with a strong square chin and high cheekbones. Desire burned inside her. She could not tear her gaze from his lips, and an urge to kiss him brushed over her. Had he cast a spell on her?
Her breath caught, and she needed distance before she gave into the compulsion. “Monsieur, what is wrong with you? Please let go of me.”
He released her. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice sad and lonely. Redness stained his cheeks.
She immediately missed the warmth of his touch.
“Your brother,” Ronan said, “told me stories about you, your power and your beauty.” He pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. “Those stories kept me alive in the bowels of the Fiery Damsel. You’re even more of bonnie lass than I imagined.”
Heat warmed Mariah’s cheeks. “Merci, monsieur. You are too kind.” She must get a hold of her wits. These were vampire pirates and she was alone. She shook off her fear and ignored Ronan’s woodsy scent, a scent that reminded her of the forest after a fallen rain.
She swallowed back her temptation to hold his hand again. “You have seen Lark, oui? Is he well?”
Ronan lowered his head. “Not since he was fitted with an accursed choker around his neck. Straight from hell.” His eyes darkened. “He…” His voice cracked. “He sacrificed himself to save us.”
She blinked back tears. Lark. Like their proud father, his honor would demand that he’d save others, even if at his own risk. “He did? Who else did he save?”
“Myself, Capt’n Knight and Knight’s daughter Hannah.” He braced his shoulders. “I dinna want to leave him. I’d have died tryin’ to free him.”
“Where is he?”
Ronan avoided her gaze. “Aboard the Fiery Damsel. He is Palmer’s slave.”
Fear welled inside Mariah. “Do they…” She swallowed hard. “Torture…him?” Her voice faltered as if she said torture too loud, it would be true.
He nodded. “Aye.” His eyes darkened. “He always tried to anger Palmer to get him not to hurt me.”
No, she didn’t want it to be true, but she read their grim faces. Brows knotted, mouths tight and eyes hard. Lark was trapped aboard a ship of horrors. Ronan had left him there, his supposed friend. Her desire for Ronan withered. Mariah wiped a single tear. “You claimed to be his friend and left him there to save yourself, no?”
Ronan hung his head. “I dinna want to leave him.”
“I do not believe you, monsieur. My brother is imprisoned on a pirate ship while you are all free, oui? How could you all leave him there?”
Mariah wanted to beat her fists on Ronan’s chest and cast a spell that threw him and the others off the cliff onto the jagged rocks below. But if she tried to utter an incantation, the vampires would attack. She would never finish the words in time. Bitterness burned her in stomach. Lark had been left behind while the vampire pirates were all free. And now they wanted her help.
William turned to look at her, and sorrow glistened in his eyes.
“You donna understand, lass,” Ronan said. “He’s forced to do the capt’n’s biddin’.”
She remembered how her parents had been murdered in France. Some witches had been forced to do the bidding of unscrupulous men, such as casting spells to make them powerful. If they disobeyed, they’d been burnt or compelled to watch a loved one be tortured. What they’d done to the women—rape, brutality, disfigurement—gave her nightmares. What had Lark endured? She dreaded to ask. “Forced?”
William edged closer to her. He wrapped his tail behind her lower back. Was he trying to comfort her?
Kane approached. “You don’t want to know.” He nodded toward William. “What happened to him?”
A black-skinned vampire hurried past Kane. Concern filled his red eyes.
William hissed.
“Hush, William,” the black vampire said. “I’m not goin’ to hurt da lass.” He bowed slightly at Mariah. “I’m Doc, da ship’s surgeon.” He knelt next to William. “We done got to stitch da wound. Sean?”
“Aye?” A blond pirate came forward. He was tall, a beautiful man with long locks and a perfectly sculpted face. An angel of darkness.
“Go back to da ship an’ retrieve my bag.”
The angel folded his arms across his wide chest. “You want me to carry the bloody bag as a bat?”
“Sean.” Kane glanced over his shoulder.
“Aye, Capt’n,” he grumbled.
“No, wait.” Mariah held up her palm. “I have a thread and needle in my satchel. Grand-mère said the dragon would be wounded.”
Kane’s eyes burned darker. “Sean, we’ve met this grand-mère before, in Tortuga.”
Sean shook his head. “The old crone?”
“Aye.”
Mariah jerked open her satchel. “She’s not an old crone.” She produced her needle and thread. “Oui, she’s a witch. We are not evil. We do not practice the dark arts.”
They smirked and flashed each other a sideways glance. She knew that look—half turned up smiles and twinkling eyes that friends gave each other when they both realized they’d caught someone in a lie. Her. But she was telling the truth. She’d lecture them on the difference between the white and dark arts if she thought it would do any good. But one thing she’d learned back in France was that people clung to their ideas, wrong or right, and nothing could change their suspicious minds.
Doc examined William’s wound. “’Tis deep. We need
to stop da bleedin’. I need somethun to clean da wound.”
Kane took off his white shirt and handed it to Doc. “Here.”
Doc grabbed the shirt and ripped it into strips. “Ronan, da ground is damp. Go into da cave an’ see if there’s water.”
Ronan took a strip of the shirt and disappeared into the darkness.
Mariah stroked William’s scales, bloodying her hands again, but she did not care. The poor winged devil was in pain. “You are going to heal. Grand-mère has foreseen it.”
Kane and Sean exchanged wary glances as if Grand-mère was a charlatan, and Mariah wanted to scream.
“He’ll be well,” Doc said. “He’s done had worse injuries than this.”
William snorted.
Ronan reappeared with a wet calico. “There’s a small stream just around the corner.”
“Good,” Doc said. He took the cloth and patted William’s wound. Blood drenched the fabric. “Thread da needle,” Doc said.
Mariah nodded and followed his order, then wrapped her arms around William’s thick neck and leaned her head against his cheek. “They are going to help you.”
William sighed and nuzzled against her throat.
“Go ahead, Doc,” she said.
“I’m not sure this needle can pierce his hide,” Doc said.
“It will, Doc,” Mariah said. “’Tis enchanted.”
Doc pushed the needle into the beast’s tough hide. William jerked, and Mariah hung onto him tight. He trembled beneath her as Doc stitched his wound. “I have you, William,” she whispered.
“There, all done,” Doc said.
Mariah slowly released William. He laid his head in her lap, and she stroked the ridges of his brow bone. His eyes closed.
Kane clasped Doc’s shoulder. “He’ll heal?”
“Aye, he should. I done never worked on a giant lizard before. Mornin’ will tell.”
Ronan frowned. “Lass, you’re a bloody mess. Go yonder to the stream where you can have some privacy.”
She glanced at her white dress, now soaked in blood with splatters of red drenching her sleeves. She was a walking corpse.
Doc nodded. “He’s asleep. Go ahead and wash up, lass. I’ll stay with him an’ see that nothin’ happens.”
She shook her head. “Je vais bien, merci. I do not want to wake him.”
Kane stared at her. “He trusts you.”
“Quoi? How do you know this?”
“I’m his brother, and he wouldn’t let me near him, but you…He even allowed you to rip out the arrow.” His eyes glowed, casting a red glare onto his features. “Did you put a spell on him before we got here?” he asked, his voice harsh.
She stopped petting William and stiffened. “No, I did not, Capitaine.”
“Ah,” he said. But his doubtful expression sent shivers down the back of her neck.
“Believe what you want.” She lowered her head, her hair blocking Kane’s pinched face. She returned to stroking William. He nuzzled into her lap, and she was surprised that he no longer terrified her. ’Twas like petting her dog, Solstice, a spaniel. Except William was ten times the size of her dog. What was it about petting him that soothed her? She liked the feel of his smooth scales, his breath on her lap and his charred scent. She yawned and leaned back against the cave wall.
“Lass,” Doc said.
“Oui?”
“We’ve got to feed,” he said.
The memory of the prostitute collapsed in the capitaine’s arm, blood running down her white neck, sent Mariah’s heart galloping in fear. She sat upright and covered her throat. “Quoi?”
“Not on you,” Kane said. He nodded to his crewmen. “You three go.”
Sean frowned. “But Capt’n…”
“I shan’t leave my brother alone.”
Mariah glared. He did not have to say it. He would not leave his brother alone with a witch. The other three nodded, changed into bats, and flew out of the cave. How could she rest with a sleeping dragon’s head in her lap and an angry, hungry vampire ready to kill her if she made one false move against his brother.
Chapter Three
Coaybay’s volcanoes erupted and a constant black fog swirled into the sky. The flowing lava river twisted in the canyon below and made it hotter than an inferno. Nothing ever changed in Maketabori’s Coaybay. The God of Coaybay didn’t understand beauty and love. Just destruction, fear, and hate.
Zuto’s eyes burned, and he tasted smoke on his lips. Vapor, heat, and death permeated down to his very core. He loathed it here. Sweat trickled down his body, and he wished he was back on his island. He wanted to jump into the ocean and wash off the filth from this place.
Angry black clouds masked the sun. Maketabori’s mountain temple was empty. His lord didn’t like to have walls imprisoning him.
The only movement inside was the gray smoke swirling from a smothered fire pit. Dying red coals revealed bits of bone and wood. No doubt, the remains of Maketabori’s latest victims. Zuto hoped he wasn’t next. His lord didn’t tolerate failure and allowing the crew of the Soaring Phoenix to escape with Knight and his daughter fell into that category.
Lightning cracked and hit a solid gold chair nestled between two obelisks of ebony marble. Maketabori materialized. He drummed his fingers on the arms of his chair and glared at Zuto. His ruby eyes darkened to glowing embers. “You failed me yet again, slave.”
Zuto remained stoic and hid his growing fear. “I’m sorry, my lord.”
“Sorry?” Maketabori flicked long black hair behind his shoulder. “Is that all you have to say?”
“I have the witch. He’s slowly turning into a warlock.”
“And the Soaring Phoenix?”
No sense denying his failure. His lord would know, and lies were dealt with swiftly. “O’Brien escaped.”
Maketabori strolled over to him and Zuto stood still. He refused to move even a finger and give Maketabori the satisfaction of the fear percolating inside him. His master towered over him, a sneer spread across his lips. He yanked Zuto’s hair, forcing Zuto to stare up at him. “You shall be punished.”
Zuto waited for the unbearable pain of bones broken, torn muscles, torched skin.
Maketabori released him and sauntered back to his chair. Zuto held his breath. Why hadn’t Maketabori beaten him? Something wasn’t right.
“I believe you need help,” his master said.
“Help?”
“Yes.” Maketabori grinned, a condemning smile that curled Zuto’s toes.
His lord snapped his fingers. “She’ll know how to insure the job is done.”
Zuto groaned. Not again.
Long, red-tipped fingernails gripped the back of Maketabori’s golden throne, followed by a movement of rustled skirts. Zuto’s heart pounded, and every muscle tensed. He’d rather be beaten and burned.
“Hello, Zuto.” A tall, curvaceous redhead sashayed out from behind Maketabori. Her red bodice pushed up her large breasts. Red slippers peered out from beneath a long, velvet gown of crimson. “I’ve missed you.”
He hadn’t missed her. If he didn’t see her or hear her overly sweet voice for another millennium, it would be one day too soon. “Natasa.”
Natasa pouted. “Ah, why the long face, handsome?”
Maketabori tilted his head. “He’s disappointed me. See that he does not do so again.”
Natasa smiled. Zuto’s gut twisted. He couldn’t get stuck with her at his side. Not again. She’d spoil everything, and he’d never get free from his perverted master.
“My Lord, I’ve cursed O’Brien’s brother,” Zuto said. “The spirit of Drakon will possess him during every full moon.”
“I do not recall giving you permission to resurrect the dragon. He’s not to be trusted.”
“He will do what is asked, my lord,” Zuto said. “I’ve told him that if he brings Hannah and her father to me then I’ll give him back his life.”
Maketabori raised an eyebrow. “You’ll give him back his life? You’ve
not the power to do this.”
Zuto bowed his head. “Yes, my lord, but you do.”
“You made a bargain without consulting me? I’ll decide if a bargain will be made. I don’t trust you, Zuto, and believe you need to be under closer scrutiny.”
“That’s where I come in,” Natasa purred. She rolled her tongue over her upper lip as if to tantalize him.
Zuto’s skin crawled. Once that small gesture had made his cock rock hard, but now it only filled him with revulsion.
She’d said she loved him, but he soon discovered she was seducing every demon in Maketabori’s court to improve her status. It worked and now, she was one of Maketabori’s most trusted spies.
“What good is a dragon…lover?” She strolled over to him and caressed his bicep with her nails.
He forced himself not to recoil.
“The dragon shall do my bidding and bring Knight and his daughter here.”
Maketabori scoffed. “You thought Captain O’Brien would do your bidding. Why do you think you’d fare any better with his brother or Drakon?”
“If I could leave the island…”
“Silence!” Maketabori sliced his hand across the air. “You tried to escape one too many times, Zuto. And now you are making promises without me. All you had to do was hand over Captain Knight and his daughter. They need to pay with their lives for the death of my worshipers. If you’d had done as you were told, you’d be free from me forever. Such a small task—I thought even you could do it.”
The venom in his voice spurred Zuto’s curiosity. His master was desperate for their deaths, something he rarely showed over the demise of humans. What secret was he hiding? Did Natasa know? If he could discover why the god wanted Hannah and her father dead so bad, maybe he could use and exploit it to bargain for his escape.
Maketabori raised his eyebrow as if he knew what Zuto was thinking. He patted one of the cobra-shaped torques on his bicep. “My snakes have not fed in awhile. You would more than satisfy their growing hunger.”
Each of the slender gold torques slid around Maketabori’s arm, the smooth bands turning into glistening scales. A silver tongue flickered out of a diamond-shaped head. Red eyes stared at Zuto. He fought the urge to flee and stilled his shaking legs. No demon could out run those evil serpents. “I’ll work with Natasa.”