Mistress of the Stone (26 page)

He walked backward, keeping father and daughter between him and the werewolf pack. As soon as they were out of their line of sight, they picked up their pace, but Captain Tavares was in no condition to run. Daltry ordered him to mount his back so he could carry him. The old man obeyed without argument. It seemed he’d had enough of werehyena hospitality.

The werehyenas followed for a while, but it was obvious they had no intention of starting a fight. Mila’s laughter could be heard throughout the jungle. “Bring back the rest of him, rogue. The finger was tasty. I’d like more!”

As they reached the edge of Sanctuary, Jovis threw Daltry a smug look. “Apparently, you needed the pack after all, Xander.”

Daltry put Tavares down as gently as he could. Luísa caught the withered old man in her arms as his feet touched the ground. “What happens now, pack leader?”

“An enemy sail was spotted, and Saint-Sauveur has gone to dispatch it. I’m sure he’ll be back at sunrise, and then he’ll want the girl.”

“No,” Tavares croaked. The voice was thin and raspy, but no one could deny its conviction.

Jovis laughed. “You sacrificed yourself for nothing, old man. I told you we’d get her sooner or later.”

“I’m keeping them at Sanctuary, Jovis. The captain needs attention and my sister’s house is well stocked with medicinals.”

Jovis waved them away. “Go. I don’t care. It’s not as if you can get off the island anyway. Saint-Sauveur will come for her when he’s ready.” He gestured to the pack to disperse.

Daltry didn’t want to linger in the open unprotected. They were in the shrouded mists that surrounded Sanctuary, but not yet within the protected sanctum. He hurried Luísa and her father up the steep hill to Sanctuary.

The mist hovered lightly today. That happened when his sister wasn’t around to fortify the spell. She’d been gone a day and a night now, with no word of her whereabouts. Did her disappearance have anything to do with the ruined Oracle? He took comfort that nothing could harm a ghost. Yet he felt something had gone terribly wrong. It was a gnawing ache deep in his bones.

He delivered father and daughter behind Sanctuary’s invisible line of protection when they heard cannon fire. The mist cleared away long enough to see two ships in the harbor.

“Papa! It’s the
Coral
!”

“The fools. She’s outgunned,” Daltry said without emotion.

The mist once again crept over the hilltop, just enough to obscure their vision. Only the sound of cannon fire could be heard in the distance.

Daltry felt sorry for Luísa and her father. Just like him, their fates had been sealed. Prophecy would have its way. He cleared his throat and motioned to the hut. “Come inside, Captain. I’ve got something that will stop the bleeding.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Daltry brought out bandages and salves for Tavares’s wounds. Luísa snatched them from his hands without a word or a glance his way.

Even Captain Tavares disregarded him. Daltry felt he should at least rate well-practiced scorn. Instead, father and daughter ignored him, and that hurt even worse.

“What were you thinking,
niña
? You were not to return until I had sent for you.”

“We’d heard rumors that you’d been murdered. I wasn’t about to let your death go unanswered.”

“No. Instead you sentence yourself and the crew to certain death.” His voice shook as much as his body. “Do my orders count for nothing?” Tavares wrung his hands. “My plans, my sacrifices have been in vain because of your disobedience.”

“Papa, I—”

“You disobeyed me!” He looked up at Daltry and glared at him. “And now we’re at the mercy of these unholy creatures.” He blessed himself with the sign of the cross with what few fingers he had left.

“I saved her from Saint-Sauveur, Captain.”

“Saved her? For this? You’ll curry no favor from me, lycan.”

Daltry didn’t have a rebuttal for him, at least none he would accept.

“Believe what you will, Captain, but I wouldn’t have allowed harm to come to your daughter.”

A shuffling sound outside the door interrupted them. Silas was back.

He entered without invitation, both hands on a basket brimming with meat and vegetables. He bowed his head, groveling like a lowly dog. “For you, mistress, and your father. I knew there would be little here to sustain you. Our pack leader, Jovis, sends this food as a gift.”

“And then what? Think I’ll so gladly give my daughter to you?”

“Captain, I’m only a humble aide. I know nothing of plots or politics, but I know your daughter can free all were-kind of our curse.” He looked over at Daltry. “This rogue wants only to free his sister. A selfish cause. He cares nothing for the pack. He was willing to destroy the moonstone for the soul of one person.” Silas emptied the basket on to the small table. “Your daughter needs only to enter the tomb and join the two stones. You and she will be free to go afterward.” His nasal voice dripped with lies.
How could they believe him?

“You plead a noble case, cripple. But I’ll not sacrifice my daughter for a fight that’s not ours.” He looked over at Luísa.

“I’ll do it, Papa. Anything to get you off this island.”

“No!” Daltry was nearly on top of her. “Don’t you understand? Saint-Sauveur will never let you go. The moonstone is tied to you. The prophecy says so.”

“Since when do you believe in prophecy, rogue?”

Daltry lunged at Silas, knocking him backward. There was at least one canker of which he could rid himself.

“Enough,” Luísa cried. “If it’ll end this madness, I’ll gladly stay.”

“Luísa, no,” Tavares said, his body shaking with palsy.

“Yes, Papa. I’ll stay on one condition. Saint-Sauveur must swear a blood oath that neither he nor anyone he commands will ever harm the
Coral
or her crew, and that this port will forevermore be a safe haven for those of us who know its secret.”

“I’ll take your request to Saint-Sauveur myself, mistress. I’ve no doubt he’ll accept your terms gladly.”

“Then we are done here.”

“Luísa—”

“And I am done with you, Captain Daltry. You’ll leave now.”

“You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

She closed her eyes and turned away. “Perhaps. But I know what I’m getting out of. Go away, Xander. Don’t come back.”

“Time for you to go, rogue. Your tricks didn’t work this time.”

Daltry growled at him. The wolf inside him unmasked itself for only a moment.

Silas edged closer to Luísa before he found the courage to speak again.
The coward.
“Do I bring the pack, Xander, or will you leave in peace? You’ve lost this fight. Leave now with what little dignity you have left.”

Daltry looked to Luísa for one shred of reconsideration, but his silent plea went unheeded. Luísa would have nothing more to do with him. He had lost her for good.

Luísa watched Xander walk out the door, taking with him, her heart. How could she have been so wrong about him? And
was
she wrong? Despite the crippled sycophant’s persuasive argument, Xander was a man compelled. He protected his sister, his blood. And loyalty to blood was something she knew all too well.

“Luísa!”

“Yes, Papa.” She jumped to her father’s side.
How many times had he called her name?
 

Tavares peered over at the crippled werewolf. “We need to rest, lycan. Tell your master we will wait for him here.”

Silas bowed low several times before backing out of the doorway.

Luísa followed him out to make sure he had left. She returned, more melancholy than before. Silas had gone, and there was no trace of Xander.

“We must make plans for escape, Luísa. If the
Coral
still stands, we might yet have a chance.”

Luísa wrapped her fingers over his frail, palsied hands. They shook despite the warm fire and the mild night. “Even if we could make it to the harbor, you could never swim your way to the ship. Not in your condition.”

“I’ve survived this long. Don’t count me among the dead yet.”

She pressed the cool of her cheek against his sunken one. “
Papacito
precioso
. Trust me on this.”

“You’ve grown up,
niña
. You’re not the child I remember.”

She tried not to look at her father, certain that he would know she had given away her virginity.

Her father scraped a callused finger across her cheek. “Ah…I see. You’re not a child at all.” He lifted her chin and kissed her cheek already moist with tears. “Was it Daltry? He has the look of a scoundrel, a dandy who knows the smooth words to sway a woman’s heart.”

“Let’s talk about something else, Papa.” She wiped her eyes.

“Shall we speak of your disobedience instead?”

“Oh, bilge water!” She blew out a breath. She expected their reunion to be less hostile. “I thought you dead. I thought I’d lost you.”

“There, there,
niña
. I’m not so easy to kill. Your mother tried plenty of times.”

She laughed between her sniffles. “In Ndakarou, I’d gotten word you’d been taken. And in Arabia, a French trader swore he’d seen you hung on the gallows. Finally, someone gifted me with your severed finger. I could scarcely believe it. I didn’t want to believe it.”

“So you came back.”

“I had to. I had to know for sure and avenge your death.”

He patted her cheek then pinched it. “I didn’t want this for you, Luísa. I didn’t want any of this. When I learned of the curse, I moved your mother to Spain, far away from the ghouls and creatures of the night. And when you were born, I felt safe knowing the curse would never touch you. But your mother died so suddenly, I didn’t know what else to do to keep you safe. I feared Saint-Sauveur would pluck you out of the country despite the guards I left behind.”

“That’s why you brought me aboard the
Coral
?”

He nodded. “
Sí
. I thought between me and fifty other men, no unholy harm could come to you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, Papa?”

Tavares shrugged, his bones jutting out at the shoulders, a man spent. “It was always my intent,” he said slowly. “For someday. Strange, how I pushed that day farther and farther into the future.” He looked up at her. “And then it was too late. When I learned Saint-Sauveur had plotted to take you, I spread a rumor that only a male heir could open the tomb. In his zeal, he swallowed the lie whole. I had that scallywag chasing me all over the Caribbean and the New World, giving you time to get away.”

“But Xander Daltry captured you.”

“Aye. I didn’t see that one coming. I was so busy evading that impotent Frenchman, I never expected the
Inglés
.” He laughed softly to himself. “A cunning one, that Daltry. He made me believe you were in danger and trapped me before I could make good my escape.”

“And then he turned you over to Saint-Sauveur.”

Her father shook his head. “No. He didn’t. He warned me the Frenchman was at the dock waiting for me.”

Luísa’s heart pressed against the walls of her chest.
Daltry tried to save her father?
“But if he warned you, how did you get caught?”

The old man dug inside his mouth and pulled out a loose molar. He had wasted away to so little, his mouth didn’t even bleed. “I didn’t believe him, even when he helped me seal the wound from the first finger taken.”

Luísa wrapped her hands around his bony arm. “Oh, Papa!”

Her father patted her hand. “It doesn’t pay to be too clever. I was so sure of treachery, I couldn’t believe him. I was a fool.”

“He made fools of us both.”

Tavares pushed a long strand of hair behind her ear. “We do foolish things for love, Luísa. That’s what makes us human.”

“I don’t know if it makes us human, Papa. But I know it makes us vulnerable. And I’ll never make that mistake again.”

“Never say never, child. Believe me. You’ll fall in love many more times before your life is done.”

Luísa doubted that very much. Her heart had already been promised to a man who wasn’t coming back to her.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Luísa cooked the meat Silas had brought them and let it simmer over a mash of casaba and wild onions. Her father had eaten well, barely waiting for the meat to fall on his plate before he bolted it down.

She didn’t ask if they had starved him. His sunken cheeks and baggy clothes told her the truth of it. How he had suffered. And for her. If only he had told her. If only she had known the truth from the beginning. Then perhaps they could have beaten Saint-Sauveur together.

Fatigue and a skin of wine put him fast asleep long before the moon rose. Luísa lost track of time watching him snore softly. He had suffered much at her expense, and for nothing. In the end, the wolves had gotten what they came for.

She smoothed his thinning gray hair and kissed his cheek. The past year had aged him before his time. Only his spirit remained.

Papa had protected her all her life. It was her turn now. She would get him off this island and away from these wretched demons even if it meant becoming Saint-Sauveur’s mate.