Which meant they didn’t have a lot of time. Isabella nodded and called out more instructions about keeping low. When the door closed, she turned towards the group again.
“Plans are changing,” she said. “We can use that ship to dock on the island.”
“Infiltration sounds good,” Dylan agreed. “What about your men?”
“I’m not going to jeopardize them. They go home as soon as we’re no longer on board. Are you still in if it’s just the four of us?”
Dylan looked at the two teenagers, who nodded their heads. Then he did, too. “We’ve got seventeen minutes left. Have your men take this ship as close as possible without detection, then we can take a small boat from there. We will shift on the pirate ship and Robin will provide the necessary distraction. You will do the same.”
“Don’t order me around,” she shot back. Then she nodded her head reluctantly, a bit frustrated that he made sense.
Dylan raised a brow at her, the movement both elegant and sardonic. The bastard was too handsome for his own good, and he obviously knew it. She’d have glared, but that would just waste time.
Instead, Isabella sighed.
“But yes. Let’s proceed with that plan.”
“Good,” Dylan replied, pleased. He straightened up, the two teenagers mirroring his movement. “Time to go, kids. Let’s raise hell.”
CHAPTER FIVE
It didn’t take them long to row their tiny boat towards the pirate ship, with Robin using a spell to conceal it. Their original ship sailed off as per Isabella’s instructions, one that didn’t sit well with Dylan. If something went wrong, that meant that they had no backup ship at all.
Not that he was banking on anything going wrong. But one could never tell.
He glanced at Isabella, who was wrapped in a dark cloak and even darker clothing, looking at the pirate ship ahead. She was a beautiful one to look at, really—all that dark, luscious hair and olive skin, with pretty blue eyes that could melt you or freeze you with a look. She was also a prickly little thing, riled up too easily even while she hid it well. He could easily tell by the way she would go rigid when he ordered something against her instructions, or when he went ahead and bypassed her orders.
They would have to work on that, then. It wouldn’t do to be at odds with each other at a time like this.
He knew it wouldn’t be easy. Hell, Isaac had barely budged when he told him the situation, opting to solve the problem himself. The only thing that made him consider was Dylan’s insistence that he wasn’t going to oblige the panther clan leader in joining the alliance if he didn’t wish. Still, if this mission was successful, there was always a chance—and as leader, he always needed to think about those chances and weigh them out.
Robin had her eyes closed, and Simon was observing their surroundings. The boy had been quiet the whole time, but Dylan could tell he was listening. As if on cue, he straightened when they were near, positioning himself to make the entrance while they were covered in fog. That was the deal—for him to go first, Isabella second, Robin third, and Dylan last.
They finally hit the side of the boat. Simon leaped into action, his body leaping gracefully up like he was just climbing a tree. Isabella followed suit, her movements more contained, but even more fluid than Simon’s. It was obvious Robin wasn’t a shifter with the way she followed them—awkward, almost stilted movements, though she didn’t make any noise at all. When they were all up the side and had disappeared from his view, Dylan tied the tiny boat beside one of the pirate ship’s metal chains. Then he climbed up as well and hoisted himself to the inside, his eyes taking in the ship’s exterior and assessing the situation before making a move.
There was already a quiet fight going on, and he could hear the grunts of men. He saw the blur of Simon’s paws and the flash of Isabella’s blades, indicating she hadn’t shifted. There were also some sparks coming from Robin, a combination of red and gold.
Any second now, the whole crew would be alerted. While they were still ignorant to the infiltration, Dylan carried on with his task, moving straight to the captain’s cabin.
It was an easy enough feat, especially since the captain seemed to be a drunkard who snored when he slept. Dylan hauled him up and knocked him unconscious, then tied him up and left him in bed. Then he went back out the way he came in, hearing the shouts now as the fog cleared. Some pirates passed his way, and he shifted his hands into claws and swiped at them before they could draw out their guns. He kept it quiet as to not draw unnecessary attention.
More chaos ensued on the deck, and Dylan joined the fight. He had just managed to swipe at two more pirates when he saw it—Isabella in motion, her cloak gone.
She was wearing all black, and she was a vision as she stood at the center of the deck and kept the pirates at bay. She twirled in motion, her blades swinging in every direction, as they kept coming at her.
Dylan had seen assassins, but he hadn’t seen panther assassins in motion. They were a league all their own when it came to grace, and he quietly took note of that for future reference.
But now, it was time to break it up.
Dylan leapt from his elevated spot down to the deck, holding her gaze when she whirled in his direction, blades at a ready. When she saw it was him, she nodded her head and they stood back to back, facing the pirates that were circling them.
The fight didn’t even last that long. Isabella’s man’s estimate was right—there weren’t more than thirty of them, and most of them too young. But it was obvious in their eyes that they were greedy for the kill and wouldn’t let Dylan and company leave alive or surrender, so there was no choice but to kill them first.
Simon’s furry blur came back from below. Robin trailed after him, out of breath and hair flying in all directions.
“There are no prisoners yet,” she reported. “But there was lots of blood and shifter scents downstairs.”
Which meant the children were already delivered to the island, and they were back in the waters to get more. Isabella’s face turned positively stormy.
“Isaac protects the land area they were headed towards,” she clipped out. “They’d have been dead before they could get any of the children there.”
He detected a hint of doubt in her tone, but it was gone as soon as it came. Dylan nodded. Then he went back to the cabin, where he had left the captain.
He had some major interrogating to do.
*****
Once the captain was up, it wasn’t easy to get past his hysterical screaming of bloody murder and how they were going to regret this. But Dylan rode his insults out and waited until he was rational enough to listen.
When he was, Dylan delivered a cold, calm speech: that of how he was going to cut off the captain’s fingers one by one if he didn’t cooperate, and tear off his skin slowly while he was still alive. Then the other body parts would follow. The captain turned white and sweated, trembling as Dylan approached him.
The blow came without warning, right towards the captain’s chin. Dylan kept at it, remembering the scent of sex he’d found in the cabin when he came back. It was mixed with the scent of shifter, which meant the captain dabbed on the so-called goods he sold.
The blow kept coming. The captain sang like a bird, spilling everything there was that Dylan needed to know about the island. When he was done, he threw the captain in one of the cages and went back on deck, where Isabella and the teenagers were waiting. Simon was already clothed and back in human form, and the ship was clean of pirates now. It stank of staleness and dirt, though.
They made no comment about his treatment to the captain. Instead, Isabella stepped forward and waited for him to meet her gaze. It took him a while, still needing to fight with the beast in him raring to go and destroy the captain completely. When he finally met her gaze, Isabella spoke first.
“Did you get anything from him?” she asked.
Dylan nodded, then turned to Robin. “What have you been practicing with your teacher so far?” he
asked, referring to Henrik’s wife.
Robin began enumerating the spells she knew, and Dylan ran it through his mind. He looked up sharply when Robin mentioned a complicated spell, and held up his hand. Robin’s voice trailed off.
“You know how to alter appearances?”
Robin nodded.
“At sixteen?”
Robin’s chin went up. “I’m very good at it. I’m a fast learner.”
He thought it over again. Then he looked the three of them in the eye and spoke.
“One of us is going to imitate the captain. You kids will pretend to be captured slaves. Let’s discuss.”
They changed the ship’s course back to the island and hashed out the plan, estimating that they still had a couple hours before they would reach it. It was agreed that the ship would appear to be attacked, the captain barely escaping for his life and bringing only two teenage slaves along with him. Isabella was initially supposed to be an invisible scout until they realized how hard that would be to keep up. She also couldn’t be an ordinary pirate, because that meant she wouldn’t be privy to any internal conversation Dylan planned to have with whoever was heading the island—something that obviously didn’t sit well with her.
Their third option—that of making her the captain’s newly acquired concubine—was the only choice, considering he was the type of person who would never get a girlfriend or a wife. Isabella didn’t protest this, and soon they polished the plan enough to be satisfied nothing would go wrong.
When they were done, Dylan advised them all to get a few hours sleep to recharge. He and Isabella took turns in their nap, with Isabella taking the first shift. Dylan took the second and crashed inside the captain’s cabin, already wearing the captain’s clothes and immersing himself in the captain’s scent.
When he woke up, they were twenty minutes away from the dock. It was also already past midnight. He took a moment to think of his brother, who he’d shared a mother with but nothing else. Lance Porter had been a loner from the very beginning, rejecting the pack the moment he could be independent.
Now he was in trouble, and Dylan needed to save him. He re-thought the plan over in his mind, finally realizing that there was nothing more to polish and they could only hope for the best.
It was time to get things in motion.
CHAPTER SIX
The island was even foggier than the last time she’d been here, and Isabella took advantage of it as she walked behind the bloodied Dylan. He was Captain Sanders now, and she had to remind herself that the man standing in front of her was not the slimy pirate that she wanted to kill, but someone who was an ally.
Everyone obviously knew Sanders, and most shouted some curses when they saw his state. Dylan threw them all what seemed to be a cross between a grimace and a grin, limping for effect. He threw the teenagers towards the nearest guard, and Robin pretended to fall and cry out, while Simon pretended to fight. But they were overpowered by the guards real quickly, and Isabella only had a moment to watch Simon being blunted on the head and knocked unconscious before Dylan was forcefully taking her by the shoulder like he owned her.
Isabella took to her role well, a brilliant actress. She’d found an old outfit in the ship and was wearing it now—a tight black skirt that barely covered her ass and a top that was simply too tight. It was a good thing there was a long coat to cover it all, though she made sure to keep it open in the front and act confidently.
The boots that reached her knees made walking difficult, but she allowed her hips to sway and fluttered her lashes at the men that glanced her way. Robin had altered her appearance before docking, but it didn’t feel like it at all. The only indication that she was now blonde with too much makeup on her face was the reflection she afforded on the path’s muddy puddles of water. The guard walked them over the muddy pathways, down to the center of the island that Isabella hadn’t passed before.
There was a market situated here, with traders bartering goods. Isabella doubted they were legal goods, which confirmed that this was a black market in hiding and not just a slavery business. A compound with wooden fences loomed on the horizon, and they all headed there, with the guard engaging Dylan in conversation and Dylan’s Sander character answering in a foul manner. He’d enlisted Robin’s assistance to access flashes of the captain’s memories for that—enough so he could adapt to said captain’s mannerisms.
They finally arrived in the compound, where different wooden rooms were housed. They went right to the middle room, where the guard knocked before hearing enter from the other side. Dylan pushed at the door, his limp now more pronounced as he aggressively strode in. Isabella followed.
The room was filled with figurines and vases—mostly expensive-looking and not at all matching. It was like they were all crowded together just to be shown off, barely giving room for the oak table in the middle. At the table sat a middle-aged man with dark hair tied at the nape and a brown complexion. He was overweight, and it showed when he stood up at Dylan’s entrance, his stomach protruding. A gold hoop winked at his right earlobe, and his eyes strayed towards Isabella in passing interest before settling back on Dylan.
This was Henley, the man in charge of this island’s show—at least, according to Sanders when he was interrogated in the ship.
“What the hell happened to you?” he asked incredulously.
Dylan cursed and spat blood on the floor, making Henley’s nose wrinkle. Then he proceeded to tell a tale of ambush and treachery, not necessarily giving the full details but sprinkling enough of an idea to make Henley think that it was a wolf shifter gang who took up arms and tried to sink Sanders’ ship and kill his men. But he’d captured the wolf shifter’s son as revenge and had fled as soon as he could.
“Did you at least kill the ones responsible?” Henley asked.
Dylan spat again. “I killed the boy’s father. Threw that bastard’s head overboard where it could rot.”
It was amazing how much he imitated Sanders—uncanny and creepy, even. The man was handsome, blond like Dylan but with blue eyes, but there had been something slimy about him that made Isabella shudder, especially knowing he was likely a pedophile, too. Looking at Dylan now, she had to remind herself again that this was her ally and not the pirate.
Henley didn’t react much, making Isabella nervous. But finally, he sighed and grumbled along with Sanders, his tone disapproving. It was obvious that while Sanders was well-liked by the guards, Henley was neutral with him. He ordered Sanders to get himself cleaned up and get to work again tomorrow, because a delivery of a dozen slaves under ten years of age was expected two days from now.
Dylan was about to limp out of the room when the door opened again. Isabella looked up.
Dylan visibly froze.
There was a lanky man standing there, tall and fair with scars crisscrossing his face. He had slick blond hair that looked almost dirty, but that wasn’t the shocking part.
It was the familiar brown eyes that looked eerily similar to Dylan’s that had Isabella blinking.
So this was the brother—not a prisoner like Dylan initially thought, but a member of this community, based on the ease in which he entered the room. He eyed Dylan’s form in almost malicious amusement, and Isabella could tell right away that this man had no love lost for Sanders.
Then those eyes shifted towards her, and a soft chill crawled up her spine. Interest flared as he eyed her from head to foot, but it wasn’t the kind of interest that was well-meant. He undressed her with his eyes, showing her exactly what he’d do to her if he had her alone.
Forcing the bile from rising out of her throat, she smirked and turned to support Dylan, more to shake him out of his trance. The man didn’t notice, his eyes still fixed on her.
“I heard you ran into some trouble back there, Sanders,” he said tauntingly.
“Heard right…Porter,” Dylan responded. Then he ignored the man altogether and limped towards the door. Porter stepped aside.
“You didn’t introduc
e your friend,” Porter said silkily.
“Mine,” Dylan said.
“At least have dinner with us so we can…look at your lovely goods,” Porter said, clearly indicating her.
“No, thanks,” Dylan shot back.
When they were near the door, Porter spoke again.
“Why so odd today, Sanders? You’re usually willing to share.”
Dylan stopped, forcing Isabella to stop beside him. His body tensed, but he didn’t turn back around to face the man.
“Not in the mood,” Dylan bit out. “I lost money today. I’ll be in my ship, fucking Blossom and sleeping this stupid fucking day away.”
Then he was walking again, startling Isabella when he slammed the door shut.
They kept walking and stayed silent as they limped out of the compound, and Isabella worried at the invisible storm gathering behind Dylan’s demeanor. They passed the market with barely a glance at their surroundings, stopping only when they reached their ship, which was still docked. Once they entered the deck, Dylan dropped his limp and walked straight towards the cabin, where Isabella followed him.
He went straight for the liquor cabinet, which they had rummaged earlier but didn’t touch. Now, he took out a bottle of brandy and placed two glasses on the table, pouring the rich liquid on each. He handed one to her.
After a moment’s hesitation, she took it and took a sip. She’d never been a brandy drinker, preferring wine, and it tasted too strong on her tongue.
Dylan took his in one gulp.
“I’m going to pretend the limp gets worse tomorrow,” he said, his tone just as calm as it had been before. “And we’re gonna be docking a few more days here so I can scout the area.”
“How?” she asked. “Henley ordered you to handle a shipment.”
“I’ll pretend to get mighty drunk,” he replied. “Then fall and twist my ankle. Let’s see how well Sanders is tolerated around here.”
He knocked back another glass, making her doubt the pretend part of his plan. A hundred questions ran through her mind about his brother—but the way he looked now, with his expression closed off and the reckless charm gone, she doubted if he would be very giving with an answer.
Mate Hunt: An Alpha Werewolf Romance Page 3