Thorn passed a stern, harsh look to Kalder. “I’m going to bet, Mr. Dupree, that she will require you to make a choice on who to send back to her. Miss Jack or your brother.”
6
Kalder glared at Thorn as fury filled him. “I can’t make that choice!”
How could he send either his brother or Cameron to suffer at the hands of Vine?
Thorn sighed. “I know, lad. She’s the worst sort of bitching-troll to ever lay a trap, and you fell right into her snare. For that, I am sorry. Misery most foul is what she peddles as her stock-in-trade. And you are her primary fare.”
Paden cursed under his breath. “This is all my fault. She’d have never known about Cameron had I not fallen into her hands.”
Thorn laughed. “Evil comes for us all. Sooner rather than later. Doesn’t matter how or what we do. None are immune. So get off the cross, brother. Someone needs the wood.”
“He’s right about that.” Devyl let out a fierce sigh. “The gates are going down. The Malachai is rising. Vine is menstruating—”
“Du!” Mara snapped fiercely at her husband. “I can’t believe you just said that!”
“She’s your sister. Are you going to deny it?”
“Wintering isn’t the same as that.”
“So say you. Having been married to the witch, I beg to differ. Never could I tell the difference between them. Both conditions lead to the same degree of bitchiness and infestation. Besides, she’s the opposite to most women. She’s only kind five days of the month … if that.”
Rolling her eyes, Mara cleared her throat and turned back toward Paden. “At any rate, what my husband is attempting to say poorly is that you don’t shoulder any of the blame. My sister’s moods are her own, and there’s none to blame for them, except Vine. Same for the Malachai. The world’s been topsy-turvy since the gates fractured. It’s why we’ve all been brought together in this quest.”
Thorn nodded in agreement. “I’ve been chasing the devil since before your ancestors were born. And before that, I led my army for him. The one thing I can tell you is that sooner or later, when you dance with darkness, you will succumb to it.”
“So it’s all me own fault?” Kalder’s tone was icy and lethal.
“Not saying that, either. This isn’t about blame. It’s about survival. I didn’t risk what I’ve risked or suffer what I have to see any of you go down without a fight. You want to keep them both and I want to ruin Vine’s day. I say it’s time we win one. Who’s with me?”
Rather than rally, the crew began to grumble.
Thorn glanced about as if surprised by their reaction. “Really? No one’s going to rise to my challenge?”
Devyl scoffed. “You never were much to rally your forces. Only threaten them, as I recall. Step back and let those of us with experience do the leading before you cause a mutiny, mate.”
“I beg your pardon. You did far more threatening than I ever did.… And killing, too, as I recall. Not to mention, you drank the blood of your troops who didn’t follow your orders.”
His gaze unrepentant, Devyl grinned. “Kept them in line, you mean.”
Thorn rolled his eyes.
Ignoring him, Devyl turned toward the Deadmen. “The bitch wants our blood. More than that, she wants the blood kin of our brother now that he’s earned his freedom. We let her have him and what he cares about, and she’ll be after the lot of us, twice as hard. Time we show her and the Cimmerian forces they can’t take what we love. Not on our watch. And not without a fight so brutal the bards will be writing tales of it for centuries to come. We set them back hard on their heels with a lesson that rings not just in their ears, but so deep in their bones that their ancestors feel it. You with me, lads?”
This time, the crew shouted in agreement.
Thorn glanced at Cameron with a stern scowl. “How does he do that?”
It was Will who answered. “Captain speaks Deadman. You speak Stupidity, my lord. Big difference.”
And still Cameron remained in her Seraph’s body while Paden stayed human. That alone raised chills on her skin. What evil was afoot to cause such? It made no sense and defied everything they knew. Everything they’d been told.
“Why am I like this?” she asked Thorn.
“I don’t know. Truly, I don’t. Even if she fed you the blood, this makes no sense.”
Cameron didn’t miss the concern that Thorn attempted to hide behind that steeled expression. Which made her even more nervous. What had they done to her?
“I’ll keep you safe, Cammy.”
Kalder scoffed at Paden’s offer. “Seems to me, you were the one what got her into this, mate. Perhaps you should step aside before you get her killed.”
“And you need to mind your own business. She’s me kin, not yours.”
“Nor is she some poppet for the two of you to be fighting over.” Sancha elbowed them apart and lifted Cameron to her feet. “Woman’s got a mind of her own. Don’t you two be forgetting that, with yer male cocks hanging out. Therefore, we’ll be the ones what protect her from harm.”
Before Cameron could comment, Valynda coiled her arm through Cameron’s right elbow while Belle took her left bicep, and the two of them whisked her away from the men, and escorted her from the deck to their quarters, where Janice waited with a knowing smirk.
The Trini Dark-Huntress tsked as soon as she saw them. “I heard the whole of it through the planks. Woke me from me sleep, it did. Damn shame, all of it.”
Sancha shut the door behind them, then pulled her dark wig from her hair to free her snow-white tresses. Something she wore only because she hated the hair that had faded with the death of her daughter and served as a reminder of her lost child. “Can you believe the nerve of them, telling you what to think?”
“Aye,” they said in unison.
Valynda let out a deep sigh. “Well I, for one, won’t see her pushed about by them. Not after what such male fighting cost me.” She held her straw hands up in hopeless despair. The anguish in her glassy eyes was tangible and brought a lump to Cameron’s throat as she felt for the poor woman and her plight. “Why do they treat us so?”
“Fear.” Belle crossed her arms over her chest as she jerked her chin toward the porthole. “They know the harshness of this world and what waits to devour us all. Like a child with a cherished toy, they seek to hang on to what comforts them, never realizing how much it harms us to be clutched and shoved into the darkness of their protection. As mothers, we know that sometimes, even though it pains us to do so, we have to watch what we love be harmed in order to learn harsh lessons so that they can grow—like a child that has to skin its knee when learning to run. Part of loving someone is letting go so that they can be happy. We are trained for it. They’re not.”
Belle stepped closer to Cameron. “When first the captain freed Kalder from his damnation to join our crew, I thought him mad for the choice.”
That shocked her. “Why?”
“There’s a burning hatred inside that boy so intense, it’s like a living, breathing creature waiting to rise up and devour everything in its path. When first I encountered it, I thought it directed at the world. Only after getting to know him, I realized it’s not the world he hates. Rather, ’tis himself.”
Pouring herself a drink, Sancha nodded. “Like many of us, he’s on a path of self-obliteration.”
Cameron knew Sancha spoke from her heart, because she blamed herself for her young daughter’s death at the hands of her callous husband while she’d been out carousing with her friends. To this day, the woman had no peace from the guilt and sought to drown it all in as much rum as she could manage. Especially since she’d murdered her husband over the fact that he’d shaken her child to death simply for crying over her absentee mother.
No one knew the source of Belle’s darkness. They could only sense it. That sadness that hovered behind her eyes as a constant companion.
The same with Janice. They kept their pain secluded and private as if to
o afraid to let it out, for fear that the mere mention of it could undo them. It pained Cameron that they wouldn’t share with them. For they knew better than to judge. There wasn’t a soul on this ship who hadn’t been through it. Phantom wretches all.
Besides, such wasn’t in her heart. She’d seen the truth of these women and she loved them regardless of their pasts. Regardless of whatever crimes had caused their damnation. Or perhaps she loved them because those pasts had made them who they are, and what they had become because of it.
Cameron …
She went ramrod stiff at the strange voice in her ear. A husky deep tone unlike anything she’d ever heard before. Neither male nor female, it was a summons that was almost impossible to resist.
Blinking, she glanced to the others to see that none of them had heard it. Or if they had, they gave no clue. Rather, they continued chatting amongst each other, oblivious to the call that came for her ears only.
Unnerved and spooked, Cameron tried to ignore it.
That was easier said than done. The intensity of the voice picked up volume. It grew in intensity. Louder and louder. A thumping heartbeat that resonated through her entire being.
Belle turned to face her, then gaped. “Child…”
“What?”
“Holy mother of God!” Janice crossed herself.
As did Sancha and Valynda, who stared on wordlessly.
Taking their panic as her own, Cameron turned about, trying to understand what had them so concerned. “What is it?”
Belle dragged her toward the small looking glass in the corner that they used to dress their hair. There, in the dim light, Cameron saw what had them all pale and trembling.
Her hair was no longer white.
It was now silvery and it shimmered in the shadows.
Holy of mother of God, indeed!
7
Kalder left Muerig to rest on the bunk and returned the soiled dishes to the galley. Yet even so, he couldn’t shake the peculiar feeling he had deep in his gullet that something wasn’t quite right. It didn’t matter that the moon appeared perfect in the sky above, or that the crew acted as normal as they could while they went about their business. Or that nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
His unsettled feeling was undeniable.
You’re being ridiculous.
He was free. His brother was alive again and Cameron was back where she belonged. What more could he ask for?
And all the while Thorn’s warning about him having to choose between them stayed on his mind like some drunken bloke who could only remember a single stanza of one song—and even then it was with the incorrect words. Driving him to madness because he knew the truth of what the demon had warned. It was just the sort of treachery the fey bitch would play on him as punishment.
Nothing in his life had ever come easy or without the harshest price imaginable. It was why he’d settled for being a rake and a scoundrel, and nothing more.
Hard to trip and fall from grace when you lived your entire life on your belly, in the gutter. He’d learned to keep his head down and stay out of the line of fire of his ever-feuding family. Especially after his father’s death. No need to declare a side when his brothers shifted their alliances faster than the ocean tide reversed direction. One moment, he’d been protecting Darcel’s back, only to find himself Darcel’s enemy when Darcel aligned himself to Varice, and they both turned against him because he’d gone against Varice on Darcel’s behalf. All this when just hours before the two of them had been mortal enemies, vowing to see each other in their graves. ’Twas enough to make his head ache and stomach heave.
Ever the hated asshole—that was his one true role in his family. No matter what he did—even if he stayed out of their never-ending drama—he came up the short for it.
Only Muerig had been immune from their brothers’ feral and mutinous wraths, and that only because their mother protected him. As the youngest, he’d held a special place in her heart that the rest of them had never quite managed.
God knew she’d never spared Kalder a single moment of her hatred or blistering tongue. For whatever reason, she’d borne a special grudge against him from the moment he’d drawn his first breath and had held it against him the whole of his life.
Don’t think about it.
There was nothing to be done for it. All that was long ago. Centuries past. This was a different time and place. He was a different man now.
Different creature entirely.
One who knew his place, and was comfortable with the fact that he was alone in this world and wanted nothing from anyone. Ever. Not even Cameron. He meant it. In spite of what his other regions might be thinking and wanting.
Determined to stay in control of his mutinous body, he made his way topside, where he found Sallie repairing a sail that had frayed a bit.
Kalder paused to watch the expert way the older man’s hands worked with the rough material. Like his own treacherous body that cared not a whit what his brain told it to think, they appeared to have a life of their own. And their graceful movement was a stark contrast to the gruff sailor’s appearance.
But then Absalon Lucas, or Sallie as they called him, was one of the few members of the crew who’d actually been a sailor before Devyl and Thorn had recruited him for this madness. And his expertise was more than evident, even as he scratched at his scraggly, graying beard.
“How did you get crossed up with a sorcerer, anyway?” The question was out before Kalder could stop it. Oddly enough, he’d never thought to ask it before this.
Sallie paused to look up at him. “Interesting way to open up a conversation there, Mr. Dupree. No finessing at all. Just jump right to it, do you?”
Kalder shrugged. “Never been one to mince words.”
He tugged at the ropes to test them. “Makes two of us.” Sallie pulled his rum bottle from the waistband of his breeches and held it out to Kalder.
He took it, thinking it was the one that held the man’s soul. Until he realized it was a much smaller bottle, and that Sal was offering him a drink. Laughing, he obliged himself, then returned it to the strange middle-aged man.
Sallie pulled a kerchief from his pocket to wipe at his lips before he took a drink himself.
With a sigh, he savored the fiery liquid then put a keen squint to Kalder’s form. Not censuring, just measuring. Comparing. “You know, Mr. Dupree, I’m a fine, handsome man in me real body, I am. Give even a dandy like you a run for the folderol skirts, I would. And like you and Will and Bart and the captain, I had even posh birds aplenty who turned their heads any time I entered a room and watched me every move with wanton eyes, they did. Thought nothing of it, I did … until it was gone. Damn shame, that. The things you take for granted that leave your company far too soon, mind you. We should all take a minute to appreciate our moments in the sun before they fade bitterly to night.”
Kalder didn’t comment, as he knew just how right the man was. Life had a nasty habit of turning from kind to vicious on the breath of a breeze. Honestly, he was sick with the unpredictable treachery of the bitch.
She’d bitten him personally one time too many.
“Anyways, so there I was with this comely dainty vixen, just minding a bit of me business with her as most men would. Drinking me fill of her lips and taking a bit too much freedom with her ample charms, when all of a sudden her father shows up, a bit vexed and chafing over me dalliance with his daughter, as any good father would be. He hit me and I hit him. Some harsh words we exchanged. And an insult I never should have said about his daughter. Next thing I knows, I was turned into this short, hideous thing you see before you now, and me soul was handed to me with a warning about attacking any man e’er again.” Sallie shook his head as he fidgeted with the bottle that did hold his soul.
“That how you died, then?”
Sallie’s eyes turned dark and grim. “Nay, lad. What soft, for that, I killed meself to escape the nightmare what was me life thereafter. Couldn’t stand the pain of it
all. But you see, before the final act that damned me eternally, I’d been a mercenary bastard. That was the deed what cost me the soul dearest. For I’d wandered for years, murdering for gold, without conscience. Thought to battle meself into Valhalla, I did. Forgot that me mother was just Christian and vindictive enough to hex me to both me parents’ hells for me wanton and vicious ways. Aye, she got the last word on that, she did. What with bitter, bitter clarity.”
No one could miss the pain in that aged voice. It branded Sallie’s soul as deep as the scars that marred Kalder’s, and he hated that he’d dug into the man’s past wounds.
“Sorry, Sallie. I didn’t mean to pry.”
He shrugged with a nonchalance Kalder was sure was for his benefit only. “’Tis what it is, lad. When you go a-viking, you know the consequences of your actions. Especially when you’re raised by Jutes.”
Perhaps … But then Kalder hadn’t known many Jutes in his day.
Sallie paused to give him a gimlet stare. “So what’s really on your mind, son?”
“How do you mean?”
“We’ve been on this ship for months. Never once have you shown so much interest in me, or any other. Been keeping to yourself, you have. Saying little as possible to anyone—not that that’s a bad thing, mind you. Especially what with this misbegotten crew, and all the secrets what’s kept here. But now you have your brother with you and instead of passing time with him who you’ve missed so dearly, you’re out here wasting the night with me? Mite peculiar it is, if you ask me. Can’t help but wonder why this sudden and critical interest in me past that has a burning hole in your patience, laddie.”
Kalder snorted. Sallie was far too astute, and there was no need in keeping another secret when it was clear the older man already knew the answer. “A peculiar feeling in me gut, Mr. Lucas. That is all, and nothing more.”
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