by Jaycee Clark
“Who?” Nick asked.
“Emmy.”
“What?”
“She’s here, she’s on the ship.”
* * * * *
Emily jerked the gag from her mouth, hissing as the leather snaked down and sank its fangs across her back. Rolling, she kicked out, grabbed the whip and jerked, pulling him down with her.
His hands grasped her arms, but she twisted, kicked. “Get off of me!”
The attack took him by surprise and in that instant, she was free. She scrambled off the bed and lunged for the pistols.
Theodore grabbed her from behind, but she held on to the edge of the table. His arm slithered over hers, his rough clothing fire on her back. His hand reached one of the pearl-handled guns.
Emily jabbed her elbow back just as he picked it up and grabbed the other pistol.
They rolled apart like the Revelation sky when Judgment calls.
His pistol, calm and steady pointed at her.
Hers jerked with her breaths.
“You’re no more than a whore. You think he really wants you? He only wants to control you and your body,” Theodore hissed.
Emily almost didn’t answer him. “You’re a sick and twisted man. You could have been great, could have saved so many, I think. But some blackness in you grew and all you spread was pain.” Tears filled her eyes, trickled down. “You killed your own child, an innocent child, both children!” she screamed, her gun wavering. “I hate you with all that I am. And I thank God for leading a man like Jason into my life.”
His face twisted. Footsteps pounded overhead. “I warned you. Purging or death. You’ve chosen your punishment.”
Thunder echoed in the hallway. “Emmy!”
Jason. He would not take this from her. She would not allow him to pay this price. It was hers to pay, not his. Never his.
Emily raised her gun, clasped her bloody wrist like Jason had taught her to. Theodore cocked his pistol.
The door crashed open. She never took her eyes off of Theodore.
“Put the guns down,” Jason’s voice, low and deep smoothed over the room.
And still her eyes stayed on those green ones of the devil.
“The demons have stolen you from me. They’ve come,” Theodore said. His finger squeezed the trigger.
“No!”
Click.
Emily smiled. “Looks like the demons stole your ball.”
She pulled the trigger, ready for the recoil and barely flinched when the pistol kicked.
The explosion ripped through the room, deafened all noise.
Her eyes locked with Theodore’s. Time stood still. He wavered, then looked down at the large stain reddening across his middle. His gun clattered to the floor.
Emily blinked. And Jason was suddenly there, his arms tight around her. She heard people talking but couldn’t make out their words.
Then like someone snapped their fingers, noise and clarity returned.
“Get him the hell out of here!” Jason yelled. “Emmy. Emmy, love, talk to me.”
“Evil. All evil. The blackness is coming, coming. It will sweep you all away, straight through to Satan’s domain.”
“I’m sorry, Cap’ain, I didn’t know. Swear I didn’t,” another voice said.
Emily closed her eyes, breathed deep the spice and man that was only Jason’s scent.
He took the gun from her fingers, and rubbed her back. She hissed, bowing up.
At her quick intake of breath, Jason pulled back and looked at her. When his hands came away, he saw they were smeared with blood. She was bleeding. Oh, God.
“Emily?” He turned her around, saw her back and everything in him shattered. Her chemise was split in a dozen places, the tears red and gaping.
He bit down, pain shot up his jaw. “Damn it all. Darling, hang on. Just hang on.”
She looked up at him and he blanched at the side of her face all swollen and already a conglomerated mass of bruises. Dried blood darkened a line under her nose, across her cheek and under her lip.
“Sins of Eve must be avenged,” the man on the floor hissed.
Jason needed to get her home. Her hand came up and he saw the abraded and abused delicate skin of her wrists. He closed his eyes and said, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
She smiled, actually smiled at him. “I’m not. You’re here. I knew you would be.”
Her faith humbled him. “Not soon enough.”
Her grin grew. “Just in time by my count.” Her breath shuddered out and she closed her eyes.
“I need to get you home.”
She shook her head. “Not yet.” She looked around him to the man on the floor, the others in the room, Damon in the doorway. “What’ll happen to him?”
Jason stepped in front of her. The sight of what the bastard did to her snapped his control. He saw her wince as she shifted. God she had enough scars the man had given her, and now there would be more.
“String him up,” Jason said, not turning from his wife. Cataloguing all the damage. “And fetch me the cat ‘o nine tails.”
“Demons are everywhere.” The words made Jason look over his shoulder at Theodore. Blood already soaked the front of the man’s shirt and trickled from the corner of his mouth.
“He’ll be dead on his own soon,” Emily said.
He met Rayne’s and Nick’s eyes. Both of their fury came nowhere near his.
They hoisted him between them. Nick snapping out, “Damon, do what Raven said.”
“Yes, sir.”
A tremble shook through Emily. He wanted to wrap her in his arms, but was afraid he’d hurt her if he did. Not knowing what to do, he kissed the side of her bruised mouth.
She grabbed his hand. “You don’t have to do this. I shot him.”
Did she think he didn’t know that? “And for that alone I will beg your forgiveness until the day I die. You are mine to protect.” He gently traced the curve of her cheek, wishing his touch could take the swelling, bruise and pain away.
She laid her hand on his chest, and looked into his eyes. “And a certain man I admire and respect taught me that women often have to stand for themselves, even when they know there are others who will stand in front of them.”
His gaze ran over her. “Did he…” He bit off the words, swallowed past an even darker rage than he thought possible. She was in her chemise.
Emily grabbed his face in her hands, standing on tiptoe. “No. I was currently too filthy with wickedness for him to force himself on me. He mentioned it would take long purgings for me to be good enough to do my duty. No. No.”
Relief that she’d been spared that slid through him.
“I’m all right, Jason. I am.”
She was far from all right. “The baby?” he asked. She’d been beaten. He could not get past that fact. He knew the kind of monster she’d been married to, knew better than anyone the horrors she lived through and still the proof slapped in his face this way slammed him into a storm of emotions like none he’d ever known.
Her eyes widened, and she opened her mouth, then closed it. “I feel all right.”
He should get her home, but the need to see to the man who’d hurt her, who had hurt his daughter roared through him.
She leaned up and kissed him. “I’ll wait a bit. I could sit down.”
“I should get you home,” he repeated yet again.
Her head shook slightly. “And then come back here? No, go do what you have to, then come get me and let’s go home. Home.” Those dark chocolate eyes of hers widened. “What about… He had Joy’s locket. That’s why I went with him. He said he had her, that he… Did he… Where is…”
He laid his finger against her lips. “She’s at home. She’s alive and safe.” And that was all he’d tell her for now.
She studied him. “I love you.”
“I love you, more than anything else in this world, Emmy.”
She nodded and sighed, her breath catching. “He’ll be dead in a minute, won’t he?
I killed him.”
Her face paled.
“No, he killed himself.” With that he guided her to the bed.
“I don’t want to stay in here. Can I go somewhere else?”
The rope hanging from the bed flared the fire of rage in him anew.
He picked her up, careful of her back and carried her out the door, down the hallway to the captain’s quarters. Passing one of the crewmen in the hallway, he said, “Bring some water and clothes to the Captain’s quarters.” He put her on the bed and asked again, “Are you all right?”
She closed her eyes and nodded.
Jason straightened, noted every bruise on her, every mark, at least those he could see.
On a breath of fury, he turned and stalked from the room. He met Rayne on the steps. “He’s almost gone. You could just let him die.”
“I could.” Jason strode past him and up onto deck. The night cloaked them in darkness, lanterns lit the circle of men surrounding the one held between Damon and another sailor.
Nick stood holding the cat o’nine tails, the strips of leather, black snakes against the deck.
“I can do this,” Nick said.
Jason ripped the end of the whip out of Nick’s hand and walked to the man. He’d been stripped, a pale smooth chest faced him, a large wound trickling blood down his front. All he saw in his mind was Emmy’s scar, the wide one that snaked around to cradle her breast. He saw Joy’s face, covered in blood, her wide vacant eyes seeing nothing. Franny, a bloody huddle on the floor of the nursery. The guards dead, their families without them. But it was his family, bloody and beaten that pounded against him.
Jason reared back and hit Theodore Smith as hard as he could. The man’s head snapped around and he moaned.
“You know who I am?” Jason asked, nudging Theodore’s chin up with the handle of the whip.
The man’s color was ashen, his eyes wide, and still he smiled. “The whore’s lover.”
Jason hit him again. “I’m your worst nightmare. The man on your dark horse.”
“You should die with her,” he muttered.
“Perhaps, but not by your hand.” He leaned until his face was inches from Theodore’s.
Jason knew he only had minutes left. “Tie him up.”
The two sailors tied his hands around the mast. A white, perfect back faced him. This man who had marked and scarred Emily’s was as flawless as a babe’s.
Fury roared through him. Jason shucked off his coat, and pulled his hand back. The leather thongs hissed through the air, snapping on that back. The man jerked and with satisfaction, Jason saw red welts spring up and cry blood.
Again he pulled his arm back, brought the whip down harder this time.
“Evil…” Theodore mumbled.
Again and again, Jason welded the whip.
Theodore shuddered as the next blow fell, then went utterly still.
Dozens of red welts marked the man’s back.
Jason shook his head. Rage still pounded through him. He walked up, stared into the man’s unseeing eyes. Theodore Smith was no longer breathing. “Damn you for denying me justice, you sorry bastard.”
He moved back, dropped the whip and strode across the deck, to the stairs.
“Jason—” Rayne started.
He ignored him and kept going, through the circle of men. At the edge of the group, he halted. Emily stood in the doorway that led to the stairs.
Well, hell, he hadn’t wanted her to see that.
Jason took a deep breath and then a step toward her. When he reached her, she wrapped her arms around him and said, “Take me home.”
The tightness within him unfurled.
He tucked her under his arm and helped her along, afraid to pick her up, afraid he’d hurt her.
Rayne met him with his Garrick. Jason took the greatcoat and gently draped it over her shoulders. “Does it pain you?”
She gave him a small smile and said, “I’m cold, thank you.”
The woman hadn’t answered him.
To hell with it. He put his arm under her knees and the other along the small of her back. “We’ll be home soon. Hold onto me.”
“I always will,” she whispered against his neck.
As he passed the circle of men, he heard Nick saying, “Another interesting night, isn’t it men?”
Sheldon came up and asked, “What are you going to do with him?”
Jason didn’t look back over his shoulder as Damon said, “Why feed the bloke to the sharks o’ course.”
* * * * *
Jason sat up all night beside his wife and child. Helpless that he couldn’t immediately heal them. Angry with himself for not protecting his own family.
He turned and looked out the window. Dawn was breaking over London. Pale and purple. Nick, he knew, had sailed with the morning tide. Upon their return, Jason had looked at the still present Taber and informed him that if Napoleon invaded tomorrow, he did not want to hear of it. Rayne was left to explain things to their boss. Emily’s grandparents and his aunt were sleeping in guest rooms. And none of it mattered.
The only thing that beat relentlessly at him was that he had failed to protect what was his.
“Stop it,” she whispered.
He whirled, afraid Emily was dreaming.
“Emmy?” he hurried to the bed.
“Stop blaming yourself,” she whispered, her hand reaching across the spread to clasp Joy’s little hand. They were both in the same room. He was glad, if they hadn’t been, he’d have put them in one.
“You should rest,” she told him, shifting to move over.
Jason put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m not tired. Stay still.”
“Jason, I’m fine.”
He sat on the edge of the bed, keeping his voice low. “I’m not.” He picked up her hand, the bandaged wrist a testament to what she’d been through, as if her molted face didn’t scream it. “When I knew he had you… When I found Joy and thought… I couldn’t…”
He took a deep breath.
“I know,” she whispered, her hand turning over in his to lace their fingers.
“You don’t know. I’ve never told you.”
“And I said there’s no need.” Her eyes looked up at him, so full of love it made his breath catch.
“There bloody well is, madam. I’m the one teaching you about love, if you’ll recall, so kindly be polite and shut your mouth. It’s rude to interrupt.” He leaned over and kissed her lips. “I love you, Emmaline Claymere.”
She grinned, blinked heavily. “The vicar’s not here yet.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he whispered kissing her again. “You’re mine, Lady Ravensworth.”
She pulled back. “And don’t you ever forget it.”
About the Author
Once upon a time, I decided to listen to the voices in my head. What was I thinking? They now demand attention and I try to comply, writing one story after another lest a character or my muse get their feelings hurt. Oh the agony! Had someone once told me I’d be a writer, I probably wouldn’t have believed them, but such are the surprises of life. Now, I can’t imagine not writing. Thankfully, my husband understands dreams and determination. Our family lives in Texas with a matriarch of a cat and the dog she thinks is far beneath her. When not writing, I’m usually found trying to catch up on housework or running late with the family.
Jaycee welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.cerridwenpress.com.
Cerridwen, the Celtic goddess of wisdom, was the muse who brought inspiration to storytellers and those in the creative arts. Cerridwen Press encompasses the best and most innovative stories in all genres of today’s fiction. Visit our site and discover the newest titles by talented authors who still get inspired—much like the ancient storytellers did, once upon a time.
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