The Pirate's Witch (Blood Prince)

by Jennifer Blackstream

  What threat could she pose to him?

  Chapter Six

  I think he wants the fruit more than he wants me.

  Ingrid studied Tyr as he chewed on the apple slice, his eyes already falling to the rest of the fruit she still held in her hand. Never in her life had she seen a man so taken with a fruit. It was ridiculous, but in a way also sort of sweet. Such a sharp contradiction to the sort of man he continued to prove himself to be.

  Perhaps there are levels of revenge.

  She turned that thought over in her mind as she slid the apple along the irritatingly heavy blade to cut off another slice. When she’d first put foot on land, the idea of a quick and devastating revenge had been all too pleasing a prospect. She could have sent him to the heated core of the earth with a smile and a wave. But then she’d rather enjoyed flirting with him, an activity she’d never permitted herself at home where she might give one of the villagers false hope. She’d started to favor a drawn out revenge, something that would let her play her part of willing damsel while biding her time to tear his heart out.

  There had even been a brief moment after he’d taken the firebird that she’d considered no revenge at all. When she’d watched him run away from the golden cage, bolting toward the apple tree. There was a love for the earth in him that she’d never seen in a man.

  But then he’d forced her back on the ship.

  “I value no one’s life more than my own.”

  Revenge it would be.

  “Captain!”

  Ingrid jerked away from Tyr, fumbling the slice of apple she’d been holding in her hand. She looked to the door where Smalls had appeared, but not before she saw Tyr lick his lips, chasing a bead of apple juice even as he scrambled to catch the piece she’d dropped. Indifferent to the interruption, he finished off the apple slice before addressing his first mate.

  “Smalls, you’re developing a rather bad habit of interrupting me during interesting times. It really must stop.”

  “Captain, there’s a ship approaching, fast and none too friendly. They’re almost on top of us.”

  Tyr stiffened. All traces of humor melted from his face as he took his sword from Ingrid. “None too friendly you say?”

  The creases around Smalls’ eyes deepened, his hand fidgeting at his belt near the hilt of his sword. “It’s a sharp angle they’re taking to our hull.”

  “Avoiding the cannons.” Tyr strode to the windows. “We’ve barely cleared the harbor.”

  “They must have been hiding just behind the cliff.” Smalls clenched his hands into fists. “I’m sorry, captain, I didn’t see them till it was too late. It… It is my fervent belief that at any moment now we will be boarded. We…” He trailed off, glanced at Ingrid.

  There was something in his eyes, something he wasn’t saying. Cold settled at the base of Ingrid’s spine and she crossed her arms over her chest, looking back and forth from Smalls to Tyr. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Tension sang through Tyr’s body as he stepped away from her. “Smalls, chop a leg off one of our tentacled friends and bring it to me. Now.”

  Smalls wouldn’t meet Ingrid’s eyes now. He stared at the floor as if trying to see into the sea below, as if the water might hold some key to salvation that couldn’t be found on the ship. Then he scurried from the room.

  Ingrid’s stomach tightened. “What sort of pirates are these that they attack us where the Dacian authorities can still see them?”

  “If I had to guess, I would say they are the type of pirates who just took on a new crew member or two. Or thirty. Perhaps men just recently off another crew. Men who perhaps told their new captain of a short-staffed ship that would be leaving Dacia with a priceless treasure on board.”

  He looked to the corner as if just remembering the firebird. The avian prisoner was perched on a small rung in a cage that could only dream of being gold while it settled for wrought iron. Its feathers had dulled, offering no light, but rather shimmering in what sunlight hit them.

  “You didn’t even look at me when you came in,” the firebird observed. Its beady black eyes reflected the light and shadows in the room, more like polished glass than eyes. “You cared only for the apples.”

  “Not just the apples.” Tyr looked at Ingrid.

  The bird tilted its head. “Indeed. You also care about the grower of the apples.”

  Ingrid opened her mouth to protest, but suddenly Tyr’s earlier words sank in. “Men just off another crew.” Her stomach bottomed out and a lump rose in her throat. “This is my fault then. You’re talking of the men I…the men who left the ship because of me.” She tried to straighten her spine, groping for some sense of control, some rationale that wouldn’t make what was about to happen her fault. “But the Dacian authorities—”

  “The Dacian authorities are likely receiving a fee for looking the other way. Even if they were so inclined to stop the attack, given our limited numbers it will simply not take our attackers long to overpower us.”

  There was anger in his voice, but not as much as there should have been. He looked away from her, tightening his fingers on the hilt of his sword. “We will not fight. We cannot win regardless, and if we surrender quickly, there is a much better chance the crew will be left alive. Or at the very least, not tortured.”

  She stared at the chests of dirt, at the apple tree. What little magic that had lingered from her contact with the land had gone into that tree.“I can’t help,” she said, the tightness in her voice betraying her growing fear. “I’m too far from the land.”

  “I know.”

  The grim tone in his voice did nothing to calm her fear. Rather it turned the emotion to ice, poured it into her blood until it spread through her body in a dull ache. She opened her mouth, but couldn’t force the question past her lips. She didn’t want to know what he was thinking right now.

  Smalls ran back into the room, and his eyes had widened impossibly farther. “Captain, they’re readying the board. They’ll be on the ship in minutes.”

  “They had to sit behind that cliff while they waited for us to fetch the bird. There’s only one man who can move a ship that fast from a dead stop.”

  “Who?” Ingrid demanded, though it came out as more of a whisper.

  Tyr didn’t answer, just nodded his head at a table across the room. Smalls matched his stride as they both rushed to the clear wooden surface and Smalls put something on top of it, held it while Tyr raised his sword. The scent of fish just this side of rotten wafted past Ingrid’s nose and she took a step back in defense of her sense of smell. Tyr used his blade to cut at whatever it was, then handed the weapon to Smalls to clean while he scooped something into his hand. Ingrid covered her nose and mouth as he approached her with his foul-smelling fish.

  “Here. Put this in your pocket.”

  “I will not, it’s rancid.” She tried not to gag. “What on earth would I want that for?”

  Tyr’s face betrayed no emotion, but that in and of itself spoke ill for what was coming. “There’s very little in this world that will put a man off carnal activities more than having the woman in his arms vomit all over him. This captain has no reputation for…”

  He met her eyes and stopped. There was a moment when she saw pain in his eyes, and beyond it, muted anger.

  “It’s just in case,” he finished quietly.

  Ingrid blinked, then swallowed hard as his meaning became clear. Her understanding must have showed in her face because he nodded, just once.

  “If any man comes at you with that intention, eat a piece of the squid and aim for his face if you can.”

  The piece of apple she’d eaten threatened to come back up at the very suggestion, but she winced and put the pieces of squid into her pocket. When she straightened, Tyr was looking at her. Not at the firebird, not out the window, not out the door onto the deck. At her.

  The firebird’s voice broke the sudden silence. “Pirates are coming and still you do not look at me.”

  Tyr
did look at the bird then, but a loud crack of wood against wood made them both jerk to look at the door. Smalls stumbled from where he’d stood frozen and forgotten beside the table and handed Tyr his sword. Tyr took the weapon, then gestured for Smalls to stand beside Ingrid before putting himself between them and the door.

  Booted footsteps pounded the deck, an eruption of chaos that launched her heart into her throat. Smalls drew his own sword, angled his body to put her at his back, but kept her in his peripheral vision. He caught her eye, offered her what she thought he meant to be a reassuring smile. She tried to smile back, but couldn’t.

  She looked over her shoulder at the firebird. The creature was staring at Tyr with a pensive expression in its black eyes. It should have made Ingrid laugh, would have made her laugh under any other circumstances. She doubted the firebird had ever been ignored in its life. If only it had some power of its own, perhaps they would have a chance against…

  The next sound to fall over them was the clattering of weapons against the deck. It was an unmistakable sound, a sound that pushed Ingrid’s stomach to her feet. She was all too aware of the slimy pieces of squid hanging heavy in her pocket as one set of footsteps separated from the others, coming closer and closer to Tyr’s cabin. A confident gait that promised authority.

  A man filled the open doorway. He was tall, sharply dressed in a dark indigo coat over a white shirt that made his sun-soaked skin look all the darker. His pants matched the coat and were tucked into well-kept black leather boots. Silver rings decorated his fingers, announcing to the room that he was a man of means. Far from looking like an unlawful rogue, he could have easily stepped from the deck of the ship into a function of high society and blended seamlessly in. Blended in, that is, except for the rather eye-catching quality of the thin beard that dusted his jaw

  It’s…blue.

  “Captain Bluebeard, I presume?”

  Ingrid couldn’t keep her eyebrows from rising at Tyr’s announcement, though she expected that hadn’t been the wisest reaction if she wanted to stay on the stranger’s good side. The other pirate’s eyes narrowed and his lips thinned as he pressed them into a tight line.

  “Captain Singlehand,” he responded, his voice cold. “You’ve shown some sense surrendering. Don’t throw away the goodwill you’ve earned.”

  His tone was smooth, calm despite the obvious anger in his eyes. With one sweep of his gaze, he took in the two swords in the room, held each of his opponent’s eyes for just a moment. He paused when he looked at Ingrid and for a split second, she thought he’d fought the urge to take a step back. Then his gaze returned to Tyr. At no point did he make a move to touch, much less draw his sword.

  Tyr’s hand had tightened on his weapon when Bluebeard’s attention lingered on Ingrid, but he made no move to attack. “I won’t risk lives to fight a battle I can’t win. I have treasure enough on board. Take it, but let me keep my ship and my crew.”

  “The ship and crew are mine, as is everything else. You and the rest of your men will be given a choice to join me or be left in the lifeboats to wait for the Dacians to pick you up at their leisure.”

  Bluebeard’s eyes flicked to Ingrid and once again they lingered as if drawn to her. Something changed in his eyes and Ingrid leaned forward without meaning to, chasing the shadows that hinted at something deeper…

  Tyr shifted to block her line of sight, breaking the strange spell building between them. Ingrid pressed the pads of her fingers to her skirt, resisting the urge to rub her hands over her eyes to rid herself of the memory of shifting shadows. Twin bottomless pits.

  “At least let me return the woman to shore,” Tyr continued, his voice louder than it needed to be. “She’s only joined me recently, but she’s been terribly seasick these past two days. Trust me when I say you don’t want her on board.” He gestured behind him, drawing Bluebeard’s eye to the firebird still sitting in its iron cage. “The firebird is the true prize. Surely whatever seadog told you of my adventure must have told you the witch was only needed to attain the bird. There’s no reason not to let her go.”

  The other pirate arched an eyebrow. “You want me to return to land with an angry earth witch? Mon ami, do I look that foolish to you?”

  The twitch to his mouth suggested he fought it, but Tyr could not hide who he was. At the word “foolish,” his eyes immediately fell to the other man’s beard. A muscle twitched in Bluebeard’s jaw and his fingers closed into a tight fist before opening again.

  “I think perhaps there’s no room on my crew for a handicapped pirate,” Bluebeard said, his voice tightly controlled. “How well do you swim with only the one hand?”

  “Like a fish with a bad fin, I expect.”

  Tyr smiled and Ingrid recognized it as the same smile he’d used on her just before the kidnapping. The memory should have made her angry, but aimed at someone else, she found it…amusing.

  “In any case, my former crewman must have told you that Ingrid is here against her will. If you take her and return her to land immediately, you will not be a man upon whom she wishes vengeance—you will be her rescuer.”

  Bluebeard tilted his head, studied Ingrid with an expression she couldn’t quite read. This time she didn’t meet his eyes. Even with Tyr standing between them, there was something about the pull she felt when she looked into those eyes that was a little too tempting to risk. Her bare feet itched, and she felt a sudden surge in the need to feel the earth beneath her. Never in her life had she been so far from the soil, so far from the source of her power. So helpless.

  If I’m going to stay on this ship, I’m going to need a sword, she thought bitterly.

  “It isn’t me he wants,” the firebird spoke up from its cage.

  Everyone turned to look at it and it raised its head, resettling its feathers as it locked its gaze on Bluebeard.

  “I know who you are, Julian Marcon,” the bird continued calmly. “I am not your quest.” It tilted its head again. “Your quest still waits—”

  “I am here for the bird,” Bluebeard interrupted, his voice thick with barely restrained anger. “That is all.”

  “Then let Ingrid go,” Tyr pressed.

  Bluebeard whirled around, and the air in the cabin crackled with the electric taste of lightning. “The witch stays with me until I sell the bird.” He glared at the firebird. “Only until I sell the bird.”

  Tyr spoke again, this time with an unmistakable snideness in his voice. “It seems to me that the last thing you would want on your ship is a witch.” He gestured to the vibrant blue of the other captain’s facial hair. “Are you telling me you still haven’t learned your lesson?”

  Ingrid never saw Bluebeard move. One minute he was standing there, his face darkening a little more with every word out of Tyr’s mouth. Then he was standing in front of him, sword in hand. The hilt connected hard with Tyr’s head and he crumpled to the floor of the cabin before he had a chance to so much as raise his sword.

  Ingrid bit back a scream, only Smalls’ arm keeping her from going to his aid. The first mate held her back, waited until she stopped struggling forward, then calmly lowered his own weapon to the floor. Keeping his eyes on the ground, and moving as carefully as a mouse through a room full of sleeping cats, he crept to his captain’s side and knelt down. Bluebeard watched him, muscles coiled, seething with the potential for further violence, but made no move to stop him from checking Tyr’s pulse. He looked away from the pirate and his first mate to meet Ingrid’s gaze.

  “If you would be so kind as to accompany me, chere?” His voice was smooth despite a lingering tension. The look in his eyes told her it wasn’t a request.

  Again the shadows in his eyes beckoned to her, luring her closer. It was harder to look away this time, and Ingrid tore her gaze to the chests of earth. She could draw from that soil, could manage some magic. But would it be enough?

  “Think very carefully before you act,” Bluebeard said softly. “We are neither of us what we seem.”

  The
re was something different in his voice now. A rumbling echo of distant thunder. Ingrid couldn’t stop herself from looking at him, and this time she gasped. His eyes had gone silver. Not the silver that turned Tyr’s eyes bright with passion, or the silver of a coin, but the mercury bright silver of lightning. The scent of ozone filled the air, the crackling energy that rides the wind before a storm.

  “What are you?” she whispered.

  “I’m a man who only makes a request once.” Bluebeard looked hard at her eyes, then down at Smalls, an unspoken warning that he didn’t want his heritage discussed in front of the human.

  He sheathed his sword and held out his arm in a silent command. Ingrid bit her lip, looked at Tyr’s unconscious form. Smalls was bandaging his head with scraps torn from his own shirt, but there was so much blood.

  “Head wounds bleed something awful, chere. Don’t let it distress you too much. He will live.”

  He stepped closer to her, his arm still waiting for her hand. This close, the sensation of growing power was worse, a prickling on her skin that raised the hairs on her arms. She swallowed her trepidation, slowly put her hand in the crook of his arm. He put his other hand over hers and led her out of the cabin and across the sprawling main deck. A plank set against one of the rails led to another ship, larger than Tyr’s, but with sails that wanted replacing. She studied the loose threads around the sails and the worn spots near the seams, wondering why a successful pirate wouldn’t be more vigilant about replacing them.

  Bluebeard helped her up onto the plank and she froze, staring down at the churning water between the two boats. Every muscle turned to ice, rendered her a statue. She wanted to drop down to her knees, cling to this piece of wood as she’d clung to the plank of Tyr’s ship, to hold on lest she tumble down into the water and sink. But she couldn’t move.

  Strong arms wrapped around her, pulled her against a warm, solid chest.

  “I’ve got you, chere. It’s all right.”