Zane sunk back into the chair. He had grown pale at the news. If Shears captured her, she was as good as dead. Her death would come after Shears had his way with her, which would make her dead inside. As angry as he remained with her, he still ached for her. He sensed her pain, miles away.
“There is more, he delivered a message for you. We can’t solve the code but was hoping you can,” Thorn told him.
“Tell me the message.”
“That after he tasted this jewel, he will enjoy your other jewel.”
“What did he mean by that Maxwell?” Mallory asked.
“It is of no concern of yours.”
“Well considering we rescued your ass and you are now aboard my ship. And we are on the way to rescue your damsel in distress. I think it most definitely is my concern,” Thorn growled
“She is not my damsel.”
“I beg to differ, drugging you aside. She needs our help, which I will admit we should have assisted her. Then she wouldn’t have landed in this predicament.”
“Why didn’t you? Why did you think she could handle Shears on her own?”
“We thought her plan would work, Maxwell. Plus, we were only sent here to bring you back home.”
“For what, the hang man?”
“No, the King has given you a full pardon, much to everyone’s surprise. Care to enlighten us on why?”
Maxwell shrugged his shoulders. In time he would tell them part of his story. Each one of them held onto their secrets and he wouldn’t tell them his; until he had to. Maybe he wouldn’t have to divulge his secret. Even though Thorn’s wife knew part of his story, he hoped she wouldn’t betray him. He could work alongside them to free Skye and rescue the missing jewel then he would retire to his estate away from this mess. He had given enough of his life to his country.
“So, it all comes back to your jewels. What is Skye MacKinnon to you?” Mallory asked.
“She means nothing to me and from where I sit, it must have been the same on her part too.”
“Did you bed her Maxwell?” Thorn questioned.
“That is none of your concern.”
“Damn it, you did man.”
“Who I sleep with or kiss is of no business of yours.”
“You seem to make a habit of kissing and bedding women, who you shouldn’t even touch,” Thorn growled.
“Mmm, yes I remember. She is the most delicious kisser I have ever had the chance to kiss in a closet,” Maxwell taunted.
Thorn dragged him from the chair, pulling back his arm, he sent a punch into Maxwell’s gut and dropped him to the floor. He picked him up to repeat the action when Mallory pulled him away. Maxwell came to his knees laughing a dark laugh filled with no sense of shame.
“Calm down Thorn, Maxwell is baiting you into anger. You know the kiss meant nothing to Ivy.”
“Are you a crazy man? Why are you isolating the only friends on this earth who care for you and want to help you?” Thorn asked.
“Do you care for her?” Mallory questioned.
Maxwell went to the bar and poured himself another whiskey. As he nursed the drink, he pondered the question. Did one care for a woman who betrayed him at all costs? Who drugged him? Who owned a part of his soul throughout this ordeal?
“Yes.”
It was only one word, but it held the impact of a thousand. Both men understood the effect of that one word on him. They had been in his place throughout the last year. They realized how he suffered and what he still had to endure. While he might have betrayed them over the last few months, it was only out of his sense of duty.
“So, what is the plan?” Maxwell asked his friends.
“We are following on his tailwind, our contact on his ship sent word before they departed. The fool is sailing back to England. I have sent a messenger by horse, this will end in London.”
“Did he even carry the weapons for her on his ship?”
“There were no weapons Maxwell,” Mallory replied.
“She was insistent on getting them.”
“That was how she disguised herself, as a weapons dealer. She convinced Shears she could organize clans who would attack England. Over the course of the year, she purchased weapons and then destroyed them. After a few purchases, she persuaded Shears to release her brother. She was to make the exchange the morning she saw you on the ship. When she discovered who you were, she made a quick decision to rescue you. But to do that, she couldn’t get her brother. Shears backed out of the deal on returning her brother, so she took you as ransom. Shears wanted your head and was angry at being thwarted by her. Shears concocted his own plan upon her return,” Thorn explained.
“It was a trap.”
“Yes, but he was furious when she didn't return with you. So, he took her to entice you to chase him.”
“Where is her brother?”
“We have no information on his whereabouts. Nobody has ever seen Shears with Logan MacKinnon. He disappeared a few months ago while on a mission for the King and nobody has seen him since. We don’t even know if Shears even has him. We think it is a lure to capture her. Our belief is Shears discovered her identity and used Logan as bait. From my contacts, her brother has disappeared off the face of the earth,” Mallory continued the explanation.
Maxwell thought this through. Skye would be devastated if her brother was dead. Also, Isobel and young Lachlan, the pain would be unbearable for them. He felt their loss deeply. He couldn’t bring Logan back to them, but he would make sure Skye survived Shears.
“Shears will disappear when he hits London. There will be no way to find him if he goes underground,” Maxwell told them.
“Well there my friend is where you are wrong. The last few weeks the last of Shears’s contributors have been taken into custody and await trial. Nobody remains for him to take refuge with. Shears’s demise ends when he arrives in port,” Mallory explained.
“What is our plan?”
“For now, my friend, you need to rest and eat. We shall discuss this in the morning.”
“No, we must discuss this now,” Maxwell demanded.
“There is nothing to accomplish tonight. You are of no help to her in your state. Rest and we will make plans on the morrow,” said Thorn.
“We will rescue her,” Mallory promised.
Zane leaned back in the chair and nodded his head in acceptance. He knew they were right, but he was enraged because he didn’t keep her safe. He let her double cross him into believing she needed his help. Obviously, she thought she didn’t, but she did. He only hoped she would keep herself safe from Shears’s advances.
Zane looked up to find Thorn standing over him. His hand held out, Zane shook it. He needed to offer no words of apologies. The hand shake spoke it all.
Chapter Ten
SKYE FOUGHT AT THE constraints which held her captive in the pit of Shears's cabin. Trash was scattered and a stench worse than anything she ever smelled before surrounded the room. It reeked as if somebody died in the room, which she wondered if it were not true. In the corner she spotted discarded rags covered in blood. Rats scurried across the floor, searching for scraps to eat. They had yet to notice her, which remained in her favor. It wouldn’t be long before they searched her body to appease their appetites.
She closed her eyes at her predicament. How did she not recognize she was walking into a trap? The signs were presented before her to catch. But her thoughts were consumed by the man being carted away by his friends. She didn't detect the covert glances some of her men passed back and forth. They were not her clansmen, were they? She had been double-crossed. They worked for Shears and had conveyed to him her plans. Plans to ruin him and bring Logan home. Now he held her captive, and many of her clansmen met death on that dock.
Only she was a fool. Logan wasn't on board and Shears never captured him. Shears lied to her, and he didn’t even know Logan’s whereabouts. He told her he even tried to search for him, but to no avail, Logan was nowhere to be found. Skye didn’t believe Logan
to be dead, she would feel his death in her soul.
Skye understands what Shears has planned for her. He means to rape her before he tortures her to death. She was to be his ultimate revenge towards Maxwell. Maxwell would not rescue her. She betrayed him, and he owed her nothing. They may have spent time under the bedsheets, but neither one of them confessed their undying love for one another. They burned out their passion between the sheets, nothing more. But it was more, Skye realized that now. Now that it was too late. She fell in love with the Earl. Every time she thought he portrayed somebody else he proved to her he wasn’t that man. He was a man of strong character who cared for others before himself. In some small way, Skye believed he cared for her. She thought her need to rescue Logan and destroy Shears was stronger than her feelings for Zane. She was wrong.
Skye shut her eyes at her disappointment in herself. She hoped one day he would forgive her for what she did; she only wanted him safe from Shears. Skye thought her men would protect her enough to finish the mission. She laid her trust with the wrong men. Her trust needed to be in one man’s hand, but she refused to give him her faith.
Skye heard the commotion outside the cabin door before it was flung open. Shears himself limped into the room, holding his side which bled profusely. The same wound Maxwell inflicted a month ago. The wound had opened, upon fighting Gregor. That explained how the rags in the corner of the cabin came into play. He was losing a lot of blood, more than a man needed to lose. If he didn’t seek medical attention, he could bleed out. A fitting death for an evil man. Skye smiled to herself at his own demise.
“What are you smiling at wench?”
“I am enjoying myself, watching your death.”
He snarled at her, “I am not dead yet.”
“Well it won’t be long.”
“Long enough for my plans for you,” he threatened.
“And what does that entail Shears?” Skye’s arrogance empowered her.
Shears limped to her side, grabbed her hair, and yanked her head back twisting her neck. He ran his hand along the slope, his fingers stopping at the pulse beating in her neck. The touch of his fingers on her flesh made her skin crawl, she felt her body break out in goosebumps from his eerie touch. She finally felt fear, fear of what he could be capable of. Fear that this time she had no one to rescue her from the danger she landed herself in. He yanked harder on her hair, her head aching from the roots being pulled out of her head at his hands. Shears leaned over and breathed his harsh breath on her neck blowing heavily, then his face was in hers. He smirked as he observed the fear take over her eyes and laughed.
“I think your pretty head realizes what I can do to you. The only thing is when. When am I going to break your spirit? Will it be now?” he asked as he ripped apart the front of her shirt.
He looked and caught her shirt hugging her breasts. It was ripped open enough for him to view the globes begging for his touch. He noted how she watched the lust come into his eyes and how her body shook, then he laughed.
“Or will he wait?”
A knock banged upon the door, saving her from his assault. Shears shook his head in disgust at being interrupted.
“Well lucky for you MacKinnon, you are being offered a reprieve. Let me promise you, it won't be long before you are mine. When I return to this cabin, it will be to break you and make you pay for what you have caused me to lose. In case you are unclear madam that is a promise not a threat.”
He let go of her hair abruptly and left the cabin.
Skye stood shaking from the revolt of his hands on her person. She realized she had a limited amount of time before he came back. She needed to bring her mind to a place where he couldn’t destroy her. What he did to her body would not reach her mind. She knew he meant to rape and beat her upon his return. Her eyes searched the cabin looking for something to aid her in her escape or torture of Shears. She roamed as far as the chain wrapped around her ankle allowed her to wander.
The deeper in the room her search permitted only brought her deeper into despair. Dark circles of grime and blood covered the bed in filth. The stench overtook her, she brought her hand up to cover her nose. It was then she recalled her state of undress. Her mind scattering in pieces from her thoughts, she couldn’t bring the ordeal into focus, she felt her mind and body panic. She kept turning around in circles, her eyes growing wider the more she witnessed signs of Shears in the room, and the higher her panic escalated. Her breath came in short gasps. Skye sunk to the ground and cried.
Never one to succumb to this wasted emotion, Skye was unprepared for where her mind and emotions took her. They returned her to a place she hadn’t been to since she was a small child. A child who lost her mother and thrust into a world which wasn’t normal. Her brother tried to help ease her way into the harsh life, a life in which no little girl should have endured. But one none the less she did. Her father died the same day as her mother. Not physically, but mentally. She reminded him too much of her mother. So, to make her look less like her mother, he forced her to be more like him. Her mother’s fragility got her killed. Therefore, there was to be nothing fragile about Skye. She must hunt and kill right along with her brother Logan. And she did.
Skye did it so well, she became an undercover spy for the Crown with her own agency, her own headquarters, and her own men. Now her empire was destroyed. She became her mother. Fragile. She let her emotions to a man make her vulnerable. Vulnerable to love. Vulnerable to losing her life.
When she lifted her head, Skye gathered her emotions under control. She set them in their special compartments she had trained herself to over the years. Now wasn't the time to dwell on her feelings, it was time to figure a plan. She wouldn’t allow Shears to break her. Before he returned, she must be ready for him. Ready to destroy him for everything he took from her. She smiled, Skye felt like her old self. When Captain Shears returned to his cabin, he wouldn’t find a damsel in distress. He would face a warrior.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The next morning, Maxwell found himself on the bow of the ship looking into the horizon for any sign of Shears. He waited at this spot since daybreak. Unable to sleep, he came topside to search for any sight of Shears’s ship. Sammy spotted a dot and called out for him to look. Zane took the spyglass, adjusting the lens to scan the distance, he located a ship. Unable to tell if it was the enemy, he motioned for Sammy to steer them closer. He knew Thorn’s seaman would keep them far enough in the distance not to be discovered, but close enough for Maxwell to see if it was his quarry.
After a while, Sammy didn’t disappoint. It was Shears. He recognized the swine’s vessel anywhere. He searched the deck and didn’t notice any sign of Skye. Shears kept her below. Oh, not below, where they held him but in a worst hold. Below in his private cabin where he held every woman against their will. Maxwell understood how Shears tortured women in there. He heard the horror stories from some of those women. Only one woman escaped those horrors. The only way she escaped was because Shears thought he killed her. She didn’t die luckily for her sake.
He prayed Shears hadn’t broken Skye’s spirit. For she would need her spirit to help get herself out of this mess. Maxwell observed Shears limping across his deck, holding his blood-soaked side. He was injured. Not a small injury at that, but one they could use to their advantage.
Maxwell called out for Thornhill and Mallory to take a look. They both observed Shears arguing with his men and came to the same conclusion as him. They could overtake his ship. Thornhill had more crew on board his ship than Shears did on his.
“Get me within distance, I will swim and board his ship.”
“That is suicide,” Thorn argued.
“It’s the only way for me to rescue Skye. He is hurt, which means he won’t drag this out. He will destroy her at the first chance he can get. If he hasn’t already.”
“Let us overtake him. Then my men can board the ship with you.”
“We don’t have time, if it was one of your women aboard his ship, you wo
uld do the same thing. You know I am right. This is the only plan for success. After I am aboard I will send you a signal and you can overtake him.”
Thorn understood what Maxwell felt. His Ivy had been in the same plight over a year ago. He didn’t know it at the time, but after he rescued her, he learned of her ordeal. He only hoped Skye MacKinnon was as lucky as Ivy had been. Ivy escaped from Shears’s clutches before any harm came upon her. He didn’t imagine Skye had been as lucky. She had been held in captivity too long for Shears not to have violated her. He also realized Maxwell cared more deeply towards the lady than he showed them. He recognized the signs himself, he had fought them for years.
“You have to be prepared for what she might have endured,” Mallory told him.
“What are you implying?”
“He may have already…” Mallory began.
Maxwell became wild at the thought even being spoken. To realize it might have happened was one thing, but to listen to the words spoken was something he didn't know how to handle. If it happened, he would deal with it later, hearing the unknown made him come unhinge. He wanted to inflict the possible pain Skye suffered on anyone near. Charles stepped to the side of his punch before he could lift his arm to throw another. Thorn grabbed him from behind and pinned his arms behind his back. Maxwell tried to shake him off, but Thorn’s grasp on him was solid steel. He tightened his hold even more to bring home the point, he pushed their friendship to the brink, and he remained here by a thin thread.
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