A Pirate's Revenge (Legends of the Soaring Phoenix) (4 page)

Mariah slowly put the arrow onto the ground. “My
Grand-mère
said you would come.”

Kane frowned and gripped his sword. “Explain how you know this. Your life depends upon it.”

The vampires pulled out their weapons. Mariah shook, and her heart threatened to burst. She refused to cry or beg for mercy. She was a witch and would not let these vampires stop her from fulfilling her destiny to convince William to help her save her brother.

William growled, but he faced them, not her. Was he trying to protect her?

Squaring her shoulders, she met Kane’s piercing gaze. “
Je suis
Mariah Fey.”

“Mariah?”
A black-haired vampire slid his sword back into its sheath. He grabbed Kane’s arm. “Capt’n, ’tis her. Lark’s sister. We found her.”

Uneasiness skimmed over her. Not good. “You have been looking for me,
oui
?”

“Aye,” he said. “I’m Ronan Macmillan.” He held up his hand. “We’re na gonna hurt you, I promise. Your brother and I were kidnapped and taken aboard the
Fiery Damsel
. Lark told us to look for you. Swore you were the only one who could break the spell.” Ronan rushed to her. “You must help us.”

She edged backward, away from the vampire, and tripped. Ronan clasped her hand and pulled her to his broad chest. Strength emitted from him. She was inches from his face and inhaled his warm breath. He was a handsome man with a strong square chin and high cheekbones. Desire burned inside her. She could not tear her gaze from his lips, and an urge to kiss him brushed over her. Had he cast a spell on her?

Her breath caught, and she needed distance before she gave into the compulsion. “
Monsieur
, what is wrong with you? Please let go of me.”

He released her. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice sad and lonely. Redness stained his cheeks.

She immediately missed the warmth of his touch.

“Your brother,” Ronan said, “told me stories about you, your power and your beauty.” He pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. “Those stories kept me alive in the bowels of the
Fiery Damsel
. You’re even more of bonnie lass than I imagined.”

Heat warmed Mariah’s cheeks. “
Merci, monsieur
. You are too kind.” She must get a hold of her wits. These were vampire pirates and she was alone. She shook off her fear and ignored Ronan’s woodsy scent, a scent that reminded her of the forest after a fallen rain.

She swallowed back her temptation to hold his hand again. “You have seen Lark,
oui
? Is he well?”

Ronan lowered his head. “Not since he was fitted with an accursed choker around his neck. Straight from hell.” His eyes darkened. “He…” His voice cracked. “He sacrificed himself to save us.”

She blinked back tears. Lark. Like their proud father, his honor would demand that he’d save others, even if at his own risk. “He did? Who else did he save?”

“Myself, Capt’n Knight and Knight’s daughter Hannah.” He braced his shoulders. “I dinna want to leave him. I’d have died tryin’ to free him.”

“Where is he?”

Ronan avoided her gaze. “Aboard the
Fiery Damsel.
He is Palmer’s slave.”

Fear welled inside Mariah. “Do they…” She swallowed hard. “Torture…him?” Her voice faltered as if she said torture too loud, it would be true. 

He nodded. “Aye.” His eyes darkened. “He always tried to anger Palmer to get him not to hurt me.”

No, she didn’t want it to be true, but she read their grim faces. Brows knotted, mouths tight and eyes hard. Lark was trapped aboard a ship of horrors. Ronan had left him there, his supposed friend. Her desire for Ronan withered. Mariah wiped a single tear. “You claimed to be his friend and left him there to save yourself, no?”

Ronan hung his head. “I dinna want to leave him.”

“I do not believe you,
monsieur
. My brother is imprisoned on a pirate ship while you are all free,
oui
? How could you all leave him there?”

Mariah wanted to beat her fists on Ronan’s chest and cast a spell that threw him and the others off the cliff onto the jagged rocks below. But if she tried to utter an incantation, the vampires would attack. She would never finish the words in time. Bitterness burned her in stomach. Lark had been left behind while the vampire pirates were all free. And now they wanted her help.

William turned to look at her, and sorrow glistened in his eyes.

“You donna understand, lass,” Ronan said. “He’s forced to do the capt’n’s biddin’.”

She remembered how her parents had been murdered in France. Some witches had been forced to do the bidding of unscrupulous men, such as casting spells to make them powerful. If they disobeyed, they’d been burnt or compelled to watch a loved one be tortured. What they’d done to the women—rape, brutality, disfigurement—gave her nightmares. What had Lark endured? She dreaded to ask. “Forced?”

William edged closer to her. He wrapped his tail behind her lower back. Was he trying to comfort her?

Kane approached. “You don’t want to know.” He nodded toward William. “What happened to him?”

A black-skinned vampire hurried past Kane. Concern filled his red eyes.

William hissed.

“Hush, William,” the black vampire said. “I’m not goin’ to hurt da lass.” He bowed slightly at Mariah. “I’m Doc, da ship’s surgeon.” He knelt next to William. “We done got to stitch da wound. Sean?”

“Aye?” A blond pirate came forward. He was tall, a beautiful man with long locks and a perfectly sculpted face. An angel of darkness.

“Go back to da ship an’ retrieve my bag.”

The angel folded his arms across his wide chest. “You want me to carry the bloody bag as a bat?”

“Sean.” Kane glanced over his shoulder.

“Aye, Capt’n,” he grumbled.

“No, wait.” Mariah held up her palm. “I have a thread and needle in my satchel.
Grand-mère
said the dragon would be wounded.”

Kane’s eyes burned darker. “Sean, we’ve met this
grand-mère
before, in Tortuga.”

Sean shook his head. “The old crone?”

“Aye.”

Mariah jerked open her satchel. “She’s not an old crone.” She produced her needle and thread. “
Oui
, she’s a witch. We are not evil. We do not practice the dark arts.”

They smirked and flashed each other a sideways glance. She knew that look—half turned up smiles and twinkling eyes that friends gave each other when they both realized they’d caught someone in a lie. Her. But she was telling the truth. She’d lecture them on the difference between the white and dark arts if she thought it would do any good. But one thing she’d learned back in France was that people clung to their ideas, wrong or right, and nothing could change their suspicious minds. 

Doc examined William’s wound. “’Tis deep. We need to stop da bleedin’. I need somethun to clean da wound.”

Kane took off his white shirt and handed it to Doc. “Here.”

Doc grabbed the shirt and ripped it into strips. “Ronan, da ground is damp. Go into da cave an’ see if there’s water.”

Ronan took a strip of the shirt and disappeared into the darkness.

Mariah stroked William’s scales, bloodying her hands again, but she did not care. The poor winged devil was in pain. “You are going to heal.
Grand-mère
has foreseen it.”

Kane and Sean exchanged wary glances as if
Grand-mère
was a charlatan, and Mariah wanted to scream.

“He’ll be well,” Doc said. “He’s done had worse injuries than this.”

William snorted.

Ronan reappeared with a wet calico. “There’s a small stream just around the corner.”

“Good,” Doc said. He took the cloth and patted William’s wound. Blood drenched the fabric. “Thread da needle,” Doc said.

Mariah nodded and followed his order, then wrapped her arms around William’s thick neck and leaned her head against his cheek. “They are going to help you.”

William sighed and nuzzled against her throat.

“Go ahead, Doc,” she said.

“I’m not sure this needle can pierce his hide,” Doc said.

“It will, Doc,” Mariah said. “’Tis enchanted.”

Doc pushed the needle into the beast’s tough hide. William jerked, and Mariah hung onto him tight. He trembled beneath her as Doc stitched his wound. “I have you, William,” she whispered.

“There, all done,” Doc said.

Mariah slowly released William. He laid his head in her lap, and she stroked the ridges of his brow bone. His eyes closed.

Kane clasped Doc’s shoulder. “He’ll heal?”

“Aye, he should. I done never worked on a giant lizard before. Mornin’ will tell.”

Ronan frowned. “Lass, you’re a bloody mess. Go yonder to the stream where you can have some privacy.”

She glanced at her white dress, now soaked in blood with splatters of red drenching her sleeves. She was a walking corpse.

Doc nodded. “He’s asleep. Go ahead and wash up, lass. I’ll stay with him an’ see that nothin’ happens.”

She shook her head. “
Je vais bien, merci
. I do not want to wake him.”

Kane stared at her. “He trusts you.”

“
Quoi?
How do you know this?”

“I’m his brother, and he wouldn’t let me near him, but you…He even allowed you to rip out the arrow.” His eyes glowed, casting a red glare onto his features. “Did you put a spell on him before we got here?” he asked, his voice harsh.

She stopped petting William and stiffened. “No, I did not,
Capitaine
.”

“Ah,” he said. But his doubtful expression sent shivers down the back of her neck.

“Believe what you want.” She lowered her head, her hair blocking Kane’s pinched face. She returned to stroking William. He nuzzled into her lap, and she was surprised that he no longer terrified her. ’Twas like petting her dog, Solstice, a spaniel. Except William was ten times the size of her dog. What was it about petting him that soothed her? She liked the feel of his smooth scales, his breath on her lap and his charred scent. She yawned and leaned back against the cave wall.

“Lass,” Doc said.

“
Oui
?”

“We’ve got to feed,” he said.

The memory of the prostitute collapsed in the
capitaine’s
arm, blood running down her white neck, sent Mariah’s heart galloping in fear. She sat upright and covered her throat. “
Quoi?
”

“Not on you,” Kane said. He nodded to his crewmen. “You three go.”

Sean frowned. “But Capt’n…”

“I shan’t leave my brother alone.”

Mariah glared. He did not have to say it. He would not leave his brother alone with a witch. The other three nodded, changed into bats, and flew out of the cave. How could she rest with a sleeping dragon’s head in her lap and an angry, hungry vampire ready to kill her if she made one false move against his brother.

Coaybay’s volcanoes erupted and a constant black fog swirled into the sky. The flowing lava river twisted in the canyon below and made it hotter than an inferno. Nothing ever changed in Maketabori’s Coaybay. The God of Coaybay didn’t understand beauty and love. Just destruction, fear, and hate.

Zuto’s eyes burned, and he tasted smoke on his lips. Vapor, heat, and death permeated  down to his very core. He loathed it here. Sweat trickled down his body, and he wished he was back on his island. He wanted to jump into the ocean and wash off the filth from this place.

Angry black clouds masked the sun. Maketabori’s mountain temple was empty. His lord didn’t like to have walls imprisoning him.

The only movement inside was the gray smoke swirling from a smothered fire pit. Dying red coals revealed bits of bone and wood. No doubt, the remains of Maketabori’s latest victims. Zuto hoped he wasn’t next. His lord didn’t tolerate failure and allowing the crew of the
Soaring Phoenix
to escape with Knight and his daughter fell into that category. 

Lightning cracked and hit a solid gold chair nestled between two obelisks of ebony marble. Maketabori materialized.  He drummed his fingers on the arms of his chair and glared at Zuto. His ruby eyes darkened to glowing embers. “You failed me yet again, slave.”

Zuto remained stoic and hid his growing fear. “I’m sorry, my lord.”

“Sorry?” Maketabori flicked long black hair behind his shoulder. “Is that all you have to say?”

“I have the witch. He’s slowly turning into a warlock.”

“And the
Soaring Phoenix
?”