Fighting panic, she tried to knee him in the groin, but he was too quick. He caught her legs between his and pulled her hard against him.
Terror threatened to sweep her away. No. Think. She had to think. There had to be a way for her to get off this ship and into the water, or she was going to die.
Sweat pooled between her breasts and trickled down her abdomen, soaking into her T-shirt. Go limp. Make him think she was compliant.
Brenna braced herself, waiting for the right moment. As Cutter’s mouth descended toward her own, she pulled a self-defense move she’d heard about, but thankfully never had a need to try before. She jerked her chin up and caught the man’s nose between her teeth, biting down as hard as she could.
The pirate yelled and reared back, and Brenna pressed her assault before he could recover. She shoved her hand between his legs, reaching past the hard, distended shaft to the soft sac behind. Her hand found what she sought through the thin fabric of his trousers. Grabbing the sac, she ground his testicles together and gave a vicious twist. Cutter howled and released her, then collapsed to his knees to a chorus of hoots and laughter from his companions.
Brenna turned, sucking in air, seeking an escape, but the men had closed in tighter. The odds of one unarmed woman winning against an entire crew of pirates were nil.
Too late she saw the flash of silver coming for her leg. Cutter’s blade sliced through her left pants leg, right through her calf. Her gaze snapped to where the cruel pirate knelt on the deck an arm’s reach away, a vengeful sneer contorting his face.
“No one makes a laughingstock of me,” he hissed. Blood dripped from the knife he gripped in his hand. Her blood, spotting the deck bright red.
For one surreal moment, she felt no pain. Then her leg buckled in a spasm of agony. She collapsed onto the hard sea-slimed deck of the ship.
Cutter stumbled to his feet to the cheers and taunts of his comrades, bent double from the pain she’d inflicted. He towered over her, hatred twisting his ugly face as he aimed his blade at her chest.
Her death shone brightly in his eyes.
Her heart stuttered. She wasn’t ready to die. Not this way.
Frantic, she forced her arms to move, trying to propel herself, crab-style, away from the reach of his blade. But as she moved, burning pain ripped through her leg, nailing her to the deck. Dizzy with terror, she faced him, helpless to prevent her own death.
As the blade began its deadly downward arc, a shrill whistle pierced the din. The blade whipped back. To a man, the pirates jumped away from her as silence rolled over the deck like sound waves shoved into reverse.
Her body shook, sweaty and freezing, as pain spread from her leg into every cell, every nerve.
A familiar flash of red orange caught her attention, pulling her from the suffocating oblivion of pain. The dwarf broke into the circle and raced over to her, pointing. “See what yer crew’s done, Rourke?” He spat on the deck behind her, glaring at the pirates. “No-good, gutter scum.”
It seemed that her small champion had gone for help. But had he brought her a savior, or was he feeding her to the worst of the monsters? Her fingernails dug into the damp decking as the metallic smell of blood filled her nostrils. There would be no escape.
She was going to die without ever knowing what happened to her father. Tears burned her eyes, the pain gnawing at the edges of her sight. What other horrors would these monsters inflict upon her before they killed her?
“To your posts!”
At the booming command of the voice, she struggled to focus her vision. A man she hadn’t seen before strode forward, scattering the other pirates like so much litter in a gale. Like the others, he was dressed in costume, but not the rags of his comrades. This man carried an unmistakable air of command.
The captain. But how much help could she expect from a man who surrounded himself with the dregs of humanity? The small flicker of hope that had flared to life with his appearance sputtered and died.
None. He would give her no help. The best she could hope for was that he’d let Cutter finish her off quickly. And if he didn’t? If he was as bad as the others? Heaven help her.
She blinked back the useless tears and watched him approach. Ironically, he was a feast for the eyes. But then some of the worst monsters were. His light brown hair was tied back from a face that was strongly boned and sharply angled. His was a face made for movies, made for action flicks with larger-than-life heroes. But like a typecast villain, his eyes, when he peered down at her, were so pale a gray they were almost the color of ice, and just as cold.
He turned that icy gaze on the red-haired dwarf. “Ye found her.” A Scottish burr colored his strange choice of words.
The little man bounced from one foot to the other. “Aye.” He grabbed the tall man’s forearm. “She’s bleeding, Rourke. Get her to yer cabin where I can tend her.”
Tend her? A tiny flicker of hope ignited even as the pain in her leg edged beyond bearing.
“Bloody hell.” The tall man whipped off his shirt and knelt beside her, rolling the shirt into a makeshift tourniquet.
She stared at him. Was the cold-eyed pirate going to play hero after all? With his shirt off, his fine shape glistening in the sun, he looked every bit the part.
Her head fell back, her eyes closing. Too late. Too much blood. Unless they called for a helicopter to airlift her out of there, she was dead. She felt hands on her leg, then a searing agony that made her cry out.
“Och, lassie, he’s helping ye, he is. Binding yer wound.”
She tried to open her eyes and caught a flash of orange. The dwarf.
Dizzy. Too dizzy.
The captain gave a long-suffering sigh and scooped her into his arms. Her world exploded in pain. When the backs of her eyelids began to dance with little sparkly colors, she knew she was passing out. And there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about it.
Except pray she woke up again.
Rourke crossed the deck toward his cabin, the woman in his arms clinging to him, her fingernails digging into his bare forearm. Her slender body was rigid, her breaths shallow, little more than tiny hisses of pain escaping her lips in a nightmarish rhythm.
He frowned at Hegarty. “Ye did it.”
Hegarty bounced at his side, half running to keep up with Rourke’s longer strides. His red hair waved in the breeze. “Aye, and they tried to kill her.”
Aye. Rourke’s scalp prickled. He had to clench his jaw against the urge to shove her into the little troll’s keeping. He didn’t want her here. He wanted naught to do with her.
Yet at the same time he would not have her die. Not like this. He could feel her grip loosening, though whether on consciousness or life itself, he could not tell.
As he descended the short flight of stairs to his cabin, he felt the last of the tension drain from her body. She went slack in his arms.
Nay. Not like this.
He gazed at her as he shouldered open the door. Her head had fallen back, her sleek red brown hair swaying, leaving her slender throat exposed. A throat encircled by a thin, silver chain. A chill slithered down his spine.
“Quick, Pup.” Hegarty hopped around him like an overwrought bird, mimicking the dance of the small carved birds Rourke had hung from the ceiling of his cabin. “Set her down.”
Rourke laid her gingerly on his bunk. As he reached for her pulse Hegarty turned on him, teeth bared.
“Go! Now!” Hegarty pushed him toward the door. “She’ll not die. I’ll not allow it.”
Rourke held up his hands, for heaven knew he wanted naught but to escape. He evaded Hegarty long enough to grab an extra shirt from the peg on his wall, then strode out of the cabin and up the stairs, chased by the sound of Hegarty’s chanting. Magic.
He felt the icy fingers of the prophecy slip around his neck, and he shot into the bright sunshine, seeking to rid himself of the sensation of doom. When last he’d tangled with that foul bit of soothsaying, his life had turned to ashes. He refused to
allow it to destroy him again.
THREE
Pain radiated up her leg like fire driven by a vicious wind. Discordant notes from a haunting, wordless melody swirled around her—bright, razor-sharp lashes, driving her from her body, tearing open her leaden brain. Memories escaped, flying at her like ghouls on Halloween night. Hideous faces. Cruel, leering eyes. A knife through her leg. Pain.
Color swirled around her, through her, spinning faster until she feared she’d be torn apart by the vile kaleidoscope and flung to the rainbows. She cried out, begging the maelstrom to cease.
“Shh, lassie. ’Tis over now. Sleep.”
The dwarf. His wordless song continued, but the spinning slowed. The pain slipped away like a demon cast out of hell. The ghostlike shackles loosed their grip on her mind, if not her body, and she felt once more tethered to the living world, though she still couldn’t move. She could feel herself lying on her back, a rough blanket drawn over her legs.
The bed rocked. Colors swirled. A hand brushed her throat and a thin line of pressure cut into the back of her neck. The wild-haired dwarf had hold of her necklace. The necklace had no clasp. She’d worn it since she was a little girl and the chain wasn’t long enough to fit over her head. There was no taking it off without breaking it, which seemed to be what the dwarf had in mind. The song ended abruptly with a yank brutal enough to cause the metal to tear into her tender flesh. She gasped mentally, but no sound formed in her throat.
No. You can’t have it. It’s all I have.
But her body would not respond to her mind’s demand to fight.
A string of unknown words, ripe with anger, filled her ears. The thief had not succeeded. The angry mutterings moved away, then subsided with the closing of a door, leaving her swaying in a colorful sea.
Sleep tugged at her, pulling her down into a pit of dark nightmares—dreams of pale-eyed demons, fire-breathing steel. And pirates.
“An English frigate, Captain. Heading straight toward us.”
Rourke strode across his storm-damaged deck, his strides long and agitated as he reached his bosun. Joshua Cutter looked at him with an I-told-you-so expression on his pitted face. With annoyance, Rourke grabbed the spyglass out of the bosun’s hand and pressed the sun-warmed metal to his eye.
Damnation. An English patrol indeed. If the winds continued, that ship would pass them in little more than an hour. He couldn’t outrun them. The Lady Marie had been badly damaged in the night’s storm and even now barely held her own against the tides coaxing her toward the rocky shore of the Scottish coast. But neither could he allow them to board. In his hold he carried illegal arms. And in his cabin . . . a dying woman.
A dull pain throbbed behind his left temple as he lowered the spyglass and tossed it back to his crewman. Hegarty had found her. The bloody little troll had found Brenna Cameron.
The pounding of the carpenters’ hammers echoed across the deck, doing little to ease the ache in his head. He moved to the port rail and scanned the cliffs in the too near distance. If the wind turned against the ship, it’d be dashed on the rocks for certain. They were too close.
And anywhere within a three days’ sail of his native land was too close. At the first port he would put Hegarty and the woman ashore. Then he’d sail directly for the Isle of St. Christopher and buy the Goodhope Plantation. He needed it, he realized. He needed solid ground under his feet. Some place to call his own. Some place far, far from Scotland.
‘Twas a good plan, if fate would but smile upon him for once.
As if in answer, a scuffle broke out amongst the miscreants he called a crew, his bosun in the thick of it.
“She bested ye, mate!” Gordy cackled as he and Cutter circled, hands at their sides. “No sense pretendin’ it didn’t ’appen. We all saw the way she near ripped off yer ballocks.”
Cutter’s face grew more contorted by the second. The words might be true—the lass was no lady and had fought like a guttersnipe—but Cutter was not one to lose . . . at anything. He’d expected to be made first mate upon the death of the former mate three months ago, but Rourke had never fully trusted the man. In truth, he’d never sought the loyalty of any of his crew. Their respect, yes. And most especially their trepidation, for his was a crew that knew no master but greed, lust, and that most powerful of emotions—fear.
But his former mate had given him loyalty nonetheless, as had Mr. Baker. Rourke had assigned Baker the job, though he was ill-prepared to be first mate. The man was as afraid of the crew as the crew was of their captain. Still, it was better to have a loyal hand at his back.
Rourke sighed, weary of the ever-present fighting. It was like captaining a pack of ill-mannered dogs.
“I’ll kill you,” Cutter spat.
“Now, Mr. Cutter.” Jules stood well out of the reach of the fight. “ ’ Tis no shame in it. She bested us in the hold when we found her. Near broke my nose, she did. And Gordy won’t be standin’ any straighter’n you for another sennight, I vow.”
Cutter whipped out his knife and slashed at Jules, missing his chest by a hair’s breadth. Jules pulled his own blade.
The time had come to end this. Rourke needed every able hand to mend his ship. He could not afford to lose a man to a brawl.
The clash of steel upon steel rang over the deck as Rourke put two fingers between his lips and gave a shrill whistle. The onlookers jumped and dispersed, but the combatants were locked in battle. Jules glanced up and blanched as his gaze met his captain’s cold glare.
But Cutter seemed unaware of his arrival. He fought like a rabid dog, his lip curled back, his eyes wild. His chant of “I’ll kill you” slowly changed to “I’ll kill her.”
Rourke’s blood went cold. He pulled his sword and entered the fray. With a single upward swipe, he parted the men’s swords. Jules leaped back, allowing Rourke to take on Cutter unchallenged. The man lunged for Rourke, seemingly oblivious to the change in opponents. He wanted blood and cared not whose.
Rourke knocked Cutter’s sword out of his hand, then sheathed his own and rammed his fist into the man’s jaw. The blow sent Cutter sprawling.
Rourke stood over him, his eyes cold. “If the lass lives, she has my protection, aye? You willna go near her again.”
Cutter sneered as he rose slowly to his feet. “I know why she’s here.”
Rourke stared at him, dread pooling in his gut. Cutter couldn’t know. Could he?
But now was not the time. He’d pursue the comment later, when his ship was no longer in danger. “Mr. Baker!”
His first mate scurried to him, looking more mouse than man. “Aye . . . my lord?”
My lord. Rourke clenched his fists against the violent urge to choke the man. “I am not a lord.”
“But . . .” His voice wobbled with terror.
“Hoist the plague flag. If they query us, we’ve two sick with the scourge belowdecks.”
“But . . .”
“ ’ Tis a bluff, Mr. Baker. Be gone with ye.” He turned his hard gaze on Cutter and the rest of his crew. “To your posts, the lot of you!”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Hegarty emerge at last. The little man moved toward him looking weary but satisfied, his mane of wild hair bobbing in the sea breeze.
Hegarty wiped his brow with his sleeve. “She lives.”
The news brought both relief and dread. “For how long?”
The dwarf’s eyes shone with a mischievous glint. “Now, Pup, you know I’m a fine healer.”
“I want her away, Heg.” He heard a thread of desperation in his voice and cleared his throat to cover it. “Do what e’er you must, but do it off my ship. I will set you ashore at the first port.”
“Ah, lad, she may not be well enough to travel that soon.”
Rourke saw the gleam in the little man’s eyes. “Nay. You’ll not involve me in this.”
“You have always been involved, Pup.”
“ ’ Twas accident, nothing more. ’Tis about her and her alone. The prophecy has naught
to do with me.”
Hegarty met his gaze with sharp devilment. “She’ll need a champion if naught else.”
Rourke’s gut tightened. “You’ll not foist her on me. You are her champion. ’Tis you who’ve been waiting for her, not I.”
Hegarty looked at him with eyes that were unusually serious and far too wise. “The prophecy affects us all. Naught will be right again until its words become truth. Now I’m off for a wee bit o’ sleep.” He looked at Rourke sharply. “Leave her be. You can see her when she’s full recovered.”
Hegarty left and Rourke turned back to the work at hand, clearing the deck of storm debris alongside his men. But though he worked on deck, his thoughts remained firmly in his cabin. Hegarty’s voice had made it clear he didn’t want Rourke going near her. The question was, why?
His curiosity got the better of him, and he crossed to his cabin and slipped inside. He found it silent and still except for the wooden birds swaying at the ceiling. His gaze went to his bunk and the lass lying still as death. A strange blue glow emanated from the hollow at her throat. He narrowed his eyes and moved closer.
The glow came from the stone that hung from the chain about her neck. His scalp tingled, the hair rising on his arms. He took a step back, chilled to the marrow of his bones.
Hegarty’s doing.
He’d avoided the prophecy for a score of years. Now it stalked him again, the evil mist washing over his ship ready to choke the life out of him.
She had to go. As soon as they reached port, he was putting her ashore.
He needed air. But as he turned toward the door, the lass began to thrash in her sleep, her head tossing one way, then the other. Rourke hesitated, then moved toward her, drawn against his will.
She appeared fragile, ethereal. How could this be the wildcat who had taken down three of his crew? Yet she was. He’d seen her attack Cutter himself. His admiration grew, thick and unwelcome, as his gaze drank of her strange beauty.
Sapphire Dream (Berkley Sensation) Page 3