Pirate Wolf Trilogy (5 page)

“Any ship
except the one that found you,” Beau remarked under her breath.
Spit glared at her again, but he was too late.

The startlingly
piercing eyes located the source of the whispered sarcasm and Beau
felt the tiny hairs across the back of her neck ripple to
attention. He walked toward her, pushing past the coughing
McCutcheon, whose attempt to camouflage what she had said went for
naught.

He came right
up and stood in front of her, close enough for the menacing heat
that radiated off the masses of muscle and brawn to have melted any
man’s courage.

“
Did you
say something to me,
my
boy?”

The
gunmetal jaw was level with the top of Beau’s head and she had to
square her shoulders and tilt her chin up to meet him directly in
the eye. It was a gesture her father knew all too well and she
thought she heard him groan but could not be certain; the blood was
suddenly pounding in her ears, too loudly for her to hear anything
but the sound of her own heartbeat.

This
close, she could not help but be awed by the sheer size and
presence of the silvery-eyed sea hawk. His legs were long and thick
with muscle, barely contained by the filthy woolen hose; his waist
was lean, his belly—where it showed through the carelessly open V
of his shirt—was flat and hard as a board. Chest and arms would
have flattered a gladiator, with power flexing through every
sweat-sheened sinew. His neck was a solid pillar, the jaw blunted
somewhat under several weeks’ worth of bearding, but as imposing as
the man himself, with a deep cleft shadowing the center point of
his chin. His lashes were absurdly long for a man, black as ink,
framing eyes that burned with equal measures of contempt and
arrogance. Beau could feel herself tensing, her blood humming as it
did in the hot, still moments before battle. She suspected he was
singling her out for a reason, being the smallest and slightest
among the boarding party, wanting to establish his superiority from
the outset.

“
In the
first place, I am not your boy,” she said evenly. “And what I said
was: your invaluable guns did not appear to be all that effective
against the Spaniards who found you.”

If it was
possible for him to become any angrier, he did, and Beau would have
reason later to remember the chilling fury that turned his eyes
from silvery gray to a clear, crystalline blue. For the moment,
however, all she could see were exploding starbursts.

His hand had
come up with the speed of a striking cobra, grabbing her under the
chin and lifting, squeezing so tightly, the air was instantly and
painfully cut off from her lungs. Only the tips of her toes touched
the decking as he brought his face near enough to hers, she could
feel the heat of his breath scorching her cheeks.

“
For your
information,
boy
, it was six
ships, not one, that found us. We sank four on the spot and sent
the other two limping off to perdition,
more
than
likely
—
”
he gave her
two violent shakes to emphasize his words—“to sink before the night
was out.”

Beau’s hands
clawed at the vise clamped around her throat, but it was like
trying to pry away bars of steel. She could barely see through the
blackness clouding her eyes, could not think for the pain. She
tried reaching for one of the guns at her waist, but the attempt
was knocked aside. She tried kicking and scuffing him with her
bootheels, but he parried her efforts with ridiculous ease.

Some of
the crewmen from the
Egret
saw her
predicament and started to surge forward, but they, too, were
stopped cold when a large black shadow hurled itself over the
forecastle rail and landed with a thunderous roar between Dante and
the advancing threat. The polished steel of the Cimaroon’s two
scimitars flashed in the sunlight, causing Spence to throw up his
hands with a roar.

“
Aye,
that’s enough!” he shouted. “Leave go o’ her, ye blackhearted
bastard.
Leave go o’ her, do ye hear me!”

Geoffrey Pitt
reacted first. He whirled and looked closely at Beau’s red and
swollen face, then at the front of her doublet where the strain of
her frantic efforts to free herself had resulted in the prominent
outline of breasts.

“Simon! Simon,
for Christ’s sakes—it’s a woman!”

Dante’s eyes
screwed down to slits. The veins in his temples and throat were
throbbing, the ones in the back of his hand and forearm stood out
like blue snakes. He blinked to clear the sweat from his eyes and
found himself looking down into a face that was too smooth and
flawless to ever know the need for a barber’s skills, into hot
amber eyes that were blazing with outrage and indignation, but
were, beneath the feathery lashes, a woman’s eyes.

“
What the
hell—?”

His fingers
sprang open and he dropped Beau heavily onto the deck. Gasping,
choking for air, she crumpled to her knees and doubled over enough
for De Tourville to see the thick auburn braid that hung halfway
down her back. If he needed more proof, it came in the form of the
shrill, distinctly female voice that began to curse him through
coughs and splutters of air.

“Beau! Beau,
are ye all right, lass?” Spence shoved past the Cimaroon and
crouched awkwardly on one knee. “Slow an’ deep. Breathe slow an’
deep.”

Beau clutched
his arm for support and dragged at gulps of air.

The
curses were getting stronger, the words more decipherable, and
after a minute she glared up and found Simon Dante.

“
You… son
of a
…
bitch,”
she gasped. “You…
sonofabitch!”

“Aye,” Spence
grunted. “Ye’re all right.”

He pushed
to his feet again and glowered at the Frenchman. “It might be she
has a sharp tongue in her head at times an’ ought not have
questioned yer courage so… bluntly. But ye had no call to choke her
either.”

“The captain
isn’t quite himself—” Pitt began.

“
I need
no one to make excuses for me,” Dante snapped, rounding on his own
man. “Nor does the situation warrant one. She spoke out of turn.
Maybe she will think twice before doing so again—to me, anyway. In
the meantime, Mr. Pitt, we don’t have much time. I want as many
guns transferred to the
Egret
as we can manage.”

“Hold up
there,” Spence snarled. “She’s still my ship an’ I’ve not agreed to
take any o’ yer bloody guns on board yet.”

“You don’t have
a choice, Captain Spence. And I don’t have the time to argue.”

“Ye’ll damn
well make time, by God, or ye’ll be arguin’ with this!” Spence
stepped back and drew his cutlass, but quicker than he could curse,
a slash of curved steel sliced across his intentions, the point of
the scimitar hooking the hilt of Spence’s blade, sending it
cartwheeling off into space. The Cimaroon’s blade then slid upward,
shearing off a thick chunk of wiry red beard as it came to rest
across Spence’s jugular. At almost the same time the rest of
Dante’s men drew swords and pistols, effectively halting any move
by Spence’s group to reach for their weapons.

“I had hoped it
would not come to this, Captain,” Dante said grimly. “I had hoped
you would not force me to take command of your ship.”

“
Command
o’ my ship?” A thin red trickle of blood ran down Spence’s throat
and began soaking into his collar, but the sheer audacity of De
Tourville’s statement caused the leathery face to break out in a
wide, disbelieving grin. “There are near a hundred fully armed men
on board the
Egret
Are ye
plannin’ to force them as well?”

“I won’t have
to if they see their captain cooperating.”

“Faugh!” Spence
snorted disdainfully. “That’ll be a cold bloody day in hell! Ye can
slit my throat three ways to Sunday an’ I’ll not give the order to
hoist a single sail.”

While every man
within earshot held his breath and waited, Dante stared at Spence,
at the wide slick of blood that streaked his throat and spread
across his collar. Something in the fierce, burning topaz of the
captain’s eyes made Dante look down to where Beau was still
crouched on the deck. He took a casual step toward her and used the
barrel of his musket to lift her chin, and there was no mistaking
the similarity in the bright, hot sparks of amber that flared up at
him. His own gaze narrowed in speculation as he glanced back at
Spence.

“
Such
rare coloring,” he mused. “Unlikely there should be such an exact
match within a thousand miles… unless the two were related somehow.
She appears to be too young and fresh for a sister. A daughter,
perhaps? One with a long, shapely throat more than suitable for
slitting in order to ease you of some of your
stubbornness.”

Spence
stiffened perceptibly. But instead of bowing to the implied threat,
he allowed a wide, somewhat contemptuous grin to settle across his
face as he folded his arms across his barrel chest.

“
A clever
deduction, Cap’n Dante. And, aye, Beau’s my daughter. The sweet
fruit o’ my loins. Mayhap that’s why
she
doesn’t take any kinder to threats than I do.”

Dante felt a
sudden, sharp intrusion of steel next to his skin and his body
froze even as his gaze was drawn slowly downward again. Beau’s
golden eyes were still staring up at him, but it was her hand that
won his full attention, and more specifically, the stiletto
clutched in her fist. The point had already pierced through his
hose and was resting like a cold sliver of ice across the
impressive bulge of his manhood. A flick of a slender wrist would
reduce that impression considerably.

“We seem to
have reached an impasse, Cap’n Dante.” Spence chuckled wryly.
“Unless, o’ course, ye’ve no objection to pissin’ out a hole in yer
belly. She’s a fair hand at carvin’, an’ blow me dry, but look at
them eyes ye were so admirin’ of a minute ago—I’d say she were in a
ripe fair mood to prove it, would ye not agree?”

Dante saw no
reason to disagree. Her eyes were large and wide with an eagerness
that sent the point of the blade nudging deeper into the soft sacs
of his flesh.

Geoffrey Pitt
held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Captains—I’m sure we can
arrive at some amicable arrangement here, can we not?”

“Not with a
blade at my throat,” Spence declared flatly. “Does this ugly black
bastard understand English?”

“He does,” Pitt
replied with a nervous glance at Lucifer. “Rather well, too, I
should warn you.”

“
Well,
then, ye’d best warn
him
if he does
not lower his steel, I’ll be breakin’ off both his hands an’
stuffin’ them down his throat.”

The Cimaroon’s
agate eyes stared at Spence without blinking. His nostrils flared
so wide, the tension produced a thin purple line around the rims.
In the bright sunlight it could be seen that his face and torso
were tattooed with patterns of lines and dots. The lobes of both
ears had holes in them and the flesh had been stretched to form
long, hanging loops. He was the same height as Spence, roughly the
same weight, though proportioned differently, and probably could
have snapped the one-legged captain in half without raising a bead
of sweat.

The only thing
he raised now was his lip, curling it back in a bright pink snarl
that revealed an enormous rack of shockingly large teeth, all of
which had been filed and sharpened into glistening points.

“Lucifer,” Pitt
urged. “Not now.” He glanced worriedly at the stone-faced Dante de
Tourville. “Simon—?”

Dante
was still
staring down at Beau Spence. Her arm had remained as steady as her
gaze and both were causing a visible tightness throughout his
body.

“Quite the
ferocious little corsair, aren’t you, mam’selle?” he asked
quietly.

“I have had no
cause for complaint.”

“You will,” he
promised softly, and turned to the Cimaroon. “Lucifer, put the
blade down.”

The Cimaroon
obeyed, but not without a final, terse flexing of the huge muscles
in his arm. It caused the edge of his scimitar to widen the split
in Spence’s skin—not enough to threaten the jugular, but
sufficiently bloody to leave a warning.

Spence clapped
a hand to his neck and glared at the wetness that came away on his
glove. “Do ye always treat the men this way who rescue ye, Cap’n
Dante?”

“Only if they
stand in my way.”

Spence frowned
uneasily over the flecks of cobalt-blue that had turned the
Frenchman’s gaze as brittle as glass. “Beau, give the captain some
breathin’ space.”

“Must I,
Father?” she murmured.

“Aye, ye must
show a little faith sometimes, girl. Sheath yer knife like a good
lass. A man can’t think clear when he’s standin’ on his toes.”

“Or when he’s
holding a musket,” she added pointedly.

Dante met
the long-lashed amber eyes again and almost smiled with the rush of
promissory menace that flowed through his veins. Carefully, he set
the arquebus aside, and carefully, he curled his hands into fists
by his sides.

Beau, having
seen what the Cimaroon did to leave her father a reminder, dragged
the point of the knife across tender flesh as she removed it and
was gratified to see a thin ribbon of blood color the Frenchman’s
hose. She tucked the knife back into the cuff of her boot and
stood, her eyes still fastened on Dante as she massaged the
tenderness in her throat.