by Raelle Logan
“You must accept my word.”
“Blood.”
“Blood?”
Lochlanaire grasped her knife from the desk, severed the palm of Aynore’s left hand and laid it, enswathing his shoulder’s bleeding flesh. Their blood mingled in a lawless alliance.
Weakening at the loss of blood, Lochlanaire released her and faltered to her bed. Aynore aided him. He flopped across the furnishing. “The pistol wound. The shot must be drawn,” he muttered.
Aynore gathered a water pitcher, linen cloths and her knife, discarding all beside the bed. She sliced Lochlanaire’s shirt using the knife and began the cruel task of digging out the ball, discounting his grimaces and groans. “What’s occurred, Lochlanaire? All I’m aware of is that Thorn stole that ship and we escaped under his direction, for he cut my anchor.”
“He’s not Thorn. He was born of my mother, but his legitimate name is Wolf Larnon. My father adopted him as a babe. We never knew he was adopted or of his alternate identity ‘til this day. He never felt…ouch, damn it, woman…that he was a Blackheart. When his brother raped a woman, I took vengeance for the wrong and his brother, Elias Larnon, and I brawled. Shamed, Elias insisted on a duel. Prior to it, I found myself deceived and shot dead a man Elias and Wolf cloistered in the forest’s depths. They schemed to slay me before the duel was pursued to its deadly conclusion. With Elias’ mutiny, I stabbed him. Wolf hunted vengeance, testifying to the constabulary that I killed Elias in cold blood. I was jailed for the crime, left to die.”
“Your own brother imprisoned you?” Aynore positioned the knife tip under the pistol ball and it was extracted with a sucking whoosh. Retrieving the ball in her sticky fingers, Aynore pitched the talisman of death to a basin and applied pressure over the blood-surging hole.
Lochlanaire’s fist released. “Aye. Thorn despises us Blackhearts. He says we were awarded privileges where he received little from our father. After he discovered that he was not a Blackheart but a Larnon, he searched out his brother, Elias. When I stabbed Elias, it twisted his mind insanely. He’s chased revenge since, unbeknownst to me, Grayson, or Zore.”
“Where is Siren?”
“The beast imprisoned her prior to shooting me. She’s caged somewhere inside the Royal. I need you to seek where she’s held captive and learn of her condition, Aynore.”
“What of Grayson?”
“I cannot say if he lives or is dead. Thorn shot him and tossed his body overboard. Upon departing the cave with the Royal, Thorn shouted to us. He intends to meet Zore for the purpose of killing him. He challenged Grayson and me to sail after him, aching for us to come to him so he can murder us all at Satan’s Labyrinth.”
“Thorn’s depraved, Lochlanaire, such is why I did not oppose his ghoulishness. As well, I felt ashamed and couldn’t come to you. I believed you would damn me for my treason. I, also, was frightened that Thorn would unveil my attempts to free myself of our tie. Should he have discovered any mutiny I waged, I would assuredly have died and torturously. Thorn’s madness is rampant.” Aynore wrapped Lochlanaire’s shoulder, gently tying cloth strips.
“The tide favors me, Aynore. Thorn’s oblivious to my presence here. You must secret the fact that I’m aboard your ship.”
“I promise, Lochlanaire, Thorn shall not be enlightened by me.”
“Your crewmen? Do they grant Thorn sovereignty?”
“They do whatever I say. Thorn possesses only foes aboard this ship, as my men have witnessed his grotesque treason twirled against your men without foundation,” Aynore authoritatively insisted. “He possesses a meager faction of his own men aboard the Royal, however.”
“Keep Thorn thinking you’re his ally. We’ll employ trickery once we anchor at Satan’s Labyrinth. If Grayson lives, he’ll sail aboard Satan’s Victory to the island upon which Zore holds Shevaun prisoner,” Lochlanaire announced.
“And what of the treasure Legend was said to disguise?”
“The Royal is the treasure. The ship’s laden with gold. Its hull and every object aboard is bejeweled. We found it tethered in a cave, waiting, pretty as you please, for someone to launch the vessel,” declared Lochlanaire.
“A gold-encrusted ship? Astonishin’,” Aynore dreamily replied.
“Aye. Do not glean any whiles of pillaging it, Aynore. The Royal belongs to Shevaun and Siren and could be the vessel which may free them from King William’s insidiousness.” Sitting up, Lochlanaire retrieved the knife Aynore applied to loosen the pistol ball. He struggled to stand.
“I judge it wise for you to sleep here, Lochlanaire. Have no despair. Thorn will not come here. Now that he’s conquered his own ship, Thorn demands that I serve him aboard it as if he’s a god and I am his slave.”
Wilting backward, Lochlanaire defied drooping eyes. “If you betray me, Aynore, the consequence is death at a far worse torture than any Thorn could ever conduct.”
“I shall not. I’ll leave you and see if I can gain knowledge of Siren’s whereabouts and condition. Rest. You’ve no fear aboard my ship, Lochlanaire.”
Lochlanaire slid into unconsciousness.
Aynore silently left the cabin, locking the door. Main deck, Aynore gestured for a pirate to come to her, but he admitted to possessing no word regarding Siren’s cloistered jail cell. Boarding the glittery Royal, Aynore smothered desolation and sashayed to Thorn, who adorned the bridge.
Aynore employed the witchery of a seductress and learned where Siren was hidden.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Avenger
Aynore was reluctantly permitted to visit Siren, who sat manacled inside the captain’s quarters. She could not, however, speak to Siren alone. Thorn accompanied, suspicious that she bore illicit intentions in mind. With the viperous beast hovering, Aynore couldn’t explain to Siren what she wanted to, concerning Lochlanaire’s survival of his pistol shot and him disguising himself aboard the Ranger.
Aynore manifested devilishness.
Striding to where Siren sat, chained to a pillar that was anchored alongside the luxurious golden-posted bed, Aynore witnessed the detestation Siren beheld for her. Siren, apparently, had been apprised of her betrayal. “Siren, I’ve come to see to you. Are you harmed?”
Siren rose her iron clad fist and slashed Aynore’s cheek.
Aynore’s head flung sideways and one hand cupped her stinging flesh.
“How could you? At your heartless tyranny, Lochlanaire was shot and could lie dead. You’re a traitor, Captain Lacy,” Siren shouted, defying tears.
Afar, Thorn snickered.
Aynore ignored Thorn. She bore no choice but to understand Siren’s anger, hanging her head in despair. “Your fury and disgust are warranted, Siren. There were, alas, circumstances which forced me to enter a web I could never hope to abandon.”
“That heinous web obviously bore little to do with honor. You lied, Aynore. You deceived Lochlanaire and Grayson, siding with this deviant. You allowed Thorn to seize his blood vengeance.”
“Aye, I’m guilty, Siren.” Studying Thorn, who paced as a famished lion, Aynore whispered, “My allegiance has altered, Siren. The plight entanglin’ us…both, you and I…has twirled amidst another’s protection, a dark avenger’s, one who was dishonorable, but since rejected his terrors.”
Siren did not completely understand her riddle, but she sensed that Aynore coveted for her to comprehend that her quandary was not as disastrous as she thought. “You speak in riddles, Aynore. Be clear,” Siren followed Aynore’s lead and spoke in a muted murmur.
Aynore pretended to address Siren’s raw wrists. Peeking surreptitiously at Thorn, Aynore nodded. “Aye. If I do not speak in riddles, we both will die, grotesquely. Bide your time, Siren. Never provoke Thorn or your life you’ll forfeit.”
Clearing his throat, Thorn reprimanded and paused beside the door, “Time’s up, Aynore. You’ve seen Siren. She’s in fair health. We leave.”
Aynore huffily departed the cabin.
***
Siren was
left to question Aynore’s bizarre words and deceptive actions. Could Grayson or Lochlanaire have boarded this ship? How? Both were shot, violently pitched to the ocean’s drowning waters as the leviathan Royal swept the sea. How could either be strong enough after being so wounded to defy their pain and weakened stature in order to board the Royal with its hasty departure? It appeared impossible. But Aynore said that an avenger is near, one who was once sinister. Lochlanaire? Summoned to hope, Siren prayed for her savior’s life, although she felt encumbered that Lochlanaire lied to her about his alliance with King William. Oh how she wished that Thorn had not interrupted Lochlanaire’s admission regarding his ransom before the shootings. She could have learned if he indeed would be defeated by the sacrifice of his title, landholding, privateer decree and freedom, everything of which depends on him yielding her to a blood-lusty king. Was the love she cosseted for Lochlanaire sufficient enough for him to revoke his warrant tendered to King William? It seemed to be too enormous a sacrifice.
Siren withered on the cold floor, yanking on the chain imprisoning her to the pillar. The shackles never budged. Tears trickled down her face. Somehow she must gain courage, trusting Aynore and that an avenger would spare her of Thorn’s lethal violations.
Is Lochlanaire alive?
***
Unconscious, Lochlanaire dwarfed Aynore’s bed, his breathing strained, a fever heating his body. Nightmares besieged, but in waking of those dreams, he found that the nightmares were not false. He indeed was shot by Thorn, a brother of whom he did not even remember, the blackguard who imprisoned him for Elias Larnon’s death. Thorn is the wretch who constantly sang the death chant that echoed in his shattered consciousness, urging him to madness.
The nightmares repressed, Lochlanaire studied the lantern lit cabin. Aynore was nowhere in attendance. He grappled with his body, struggling to sit. Lochlanaire sheathed Aynore’s knife within his boot and he was about to attempt to stand when she burst inside her cabin.
“Lochlanaire, you ought to lie abed.” Aynore rushed to him, helping him sit on the chair she’d earlier pulled close to the bed, having kept vigil as he slept.
“Did you discover Siren’s whereabouts?”
“Aye. She’s shackled in the locked captain’s cabin. Thorn’s chained her to a pillar.”
“Did you speak to her?” Lochlanaire was heartsick in hearing Siren’s miserable fate.
“Thorn would not allow me to see her without him in attendance. She was outraged because of my betrayal, understandably. I ignored that and told her that an avenger hovers nearby.”
“Siren understood your riddle?”
“I think so. Alas, because I couldn’t say that you’re alive and you are her avengin’ angel, I cannot be certain,” stated Aynore, troubled.
Lochlanaire roamed to the desk, fingering its ornate carved edge. “I cannot dally abed, and do nothing while a scoundrel enchains Siren.”
“You’re in love with her,” Aynore declared.
“What?” Lochlanaire pitched his bewildered eyes to Aynore.
“You are. You love Siren.”
Aynore’s declaration bruised. Lochlanaire wondered how she could uncloak his feelings when he had not untwisted them. “Love is the heart’s ill affliction. It muddles the mind to craziness.”
“Those are Grayson’s caustic words,” chastised Aynore.
Lochlanaire admonished, “Aye, they are. It is foolish, Aynore. An assassin dares not love, a pirate cannot love. You’re aware of the failings if we permit that tragedy to overpower us. Death slithers the darkness, prepared to strike as a devil serpent against anyone innocently lovin’ us scallywags.”
“Oh, I’m aware. Grayson, quite obviously, apprised you ‘bout the devastation love executes. Such, however, does nothin’ to assuage the emotion, Lochlanaire. You cannot deny what you feel simply because of the catastrophic consequences you may or may not confront.”
Plagued, Lochlanaire wilted against the desk, his left leg crossed over the other’s ankle. “If I confess my feelings to Siren, she’ll only reject me owing to all the falsehoods I’ve devastatingly uttered,” he muttered to himself more than to Aynore.
“What falsehoods?”
“Aboard the Royal, before he shot me and Grayson, Thorn revealed to Siren that my freedom, the pardon of Elias’ murder, the privateer decree, the manor and the ships I was to gain, the title Marquis of Braighton, all depend on my forfeiting her to King William. If I rebel against the decree I signed, I’ll commit treason.”
“The king threatens your life?”
“I’ll be beheaded. I agreed to the insidiousness. I signed the declaration. It rests, this moment, within the captain’s quarters inside Satan’s Victory’s hull. That is, undoubtedly, where Thorn read the parchment and unmasked my offensive lies.”
“Siren believes you’ll abandon her to King William?”
“She dares not presume otherwise. I’ve always said our marriage is a farce and my mark appropriated by King William must be fulfilled under the yoke of knightly honor. I told her I would never submit to anyone other than the monarch whose hangman’s noose strangles my throat.” Lochlanaire was desperate to spin backward through time and revoke his words spoken to Siren in sedition.
“But the child?” Aynore reminded.
Feeling knifed to his ragged soul, Lochlanaire clutched the wine decanter behind him and poured a drink, offering a filled goblet to Aynore. “The child, Siren trusts, never defied my injustices. How could she think differently? I am her mother’s executioner. That crime alone boils her to revulsion of me. There are too many travesties, which may never be forgiven.”
Unable to procure an answer to his plight, Aynore drank her wine. “What are we to do now?”
Lochlanaire sneered. “I am going to twirl my villain brother farther into the bowels of madness. Aynore, slaughter a chicken. Bring its drained blood to me.”
“Why?”
“Never mind why. Do what I suggest. The remainder is for me to procure.”
Troubled, Aynore went in search of the cook.
At Aynore’s return, she surrendered to Lochlanaire a blood-filled urn, noting that he’d buckled a scabbard around his waist, a sword sheathed within it. Accepting the urn, and another knife, Lochlanaire threw open the cabin door. He snaked along the ship, scarcely stirring a breeze.
***
Upon his return to the captain’s quarters that night, Thorn walked the corridor, which leads there. Distracted, he unlocked his cabin door. Smelling a horrid stench surrounding him, he walked to the closest unlit lantern. Thorn availed of a flint and lit the swaying lamp.
What Thorn saw infuriated…
Blood soiled the passage walls in trickling ruby streaks. Amidst the carnage, Thorn found, tarnishing one wall a message spiked in its heart, beholding an ominous knife and scribed with drippy blood.
Triumphant you’ll not be, Thorn
You die
Thorn stomped aboard the deck, wildly searching for anyone who might feign to be his shot brother. He uncovered only distraught crewmen, who gawked at him, disconcerted by his deviant behavior, for he asked if they’d seen Lochlanaire aboard the ship.
***
Entrenched in the darkness within which Thorn couldn’t see, Lochlanaire sneered, witnessing his brother’s turmoil. Lochlanaire roamed to the captain’s quarters, eased the door a sliver and peeked at Siren. She sat asleep, wilted on the floor, irons ringing her wrists, chained to the farthest pillar. Seeing for himself that she’s unharmed, he silently shut the door, assured that Thorn would return ere he could free his wife.
Lochlanaire sheltered himself amongst blackness. Buried within a crewman’s quarters, he found a foot length black satin cloak, it possessed a billowy hood, just his size. Grinning at his acquisition, Lochlanaire whipped the cloak across his shoulders. The satin flapping under his broad footfalls, he cut across the ship’s entrails, unseen, a bloodthirsty vampire perched to bite.
Lucifer had risen from Hell’
s fiery dungeons.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Satan’s Labyrinth
In the days en route to Satan’s Labyrinth, Lochlanaire cornered Thorn aboard the Royal, and ghostly whispered to him from lantern-doused corridors, throwing knives and swords whenever he caught him alone. Thorn was always haloed by darkness. All he ever saw with chasing the phantom was an ominous black cloak and never did he seize the ghoul. But what besieged Thorn poisonously was the death chant that he’d sung to Lochlanaire when he had been incarcerated. The song echoed wickedly. Thorn suspected that the crewmen aided Lochlanaire in his quest for vengeance. Lochlanaire must have boarded the ship. Thorn, nevertheless, discovered no proof of his scoundrel brother’s existence. He ate little and slept even less.
The strain began to take its toll.
Once finished with his torture of Thorn for the night, Lochlanaire retreated to Aynore’s cabin, where he took sanctuary. He and Aynore discussed what could occur at Satan’s Labyrinth and how they might switch the tide to their triumphant victory.
***
This night, while lying upon Aynore’s bed, secluded in the cabin, Lochlanaire slept but not peacefully. He was violated by nightmares in which Siren damned him for his atrocities. Lochlanaire, then, found himself fighting for his life on Execution Dock, drowning within the River Thames as it surged over his body, a hangman’s noose crushing his throat. Jumping awake, Lochlanaire lurched for the pistol he’d secluded beneath his pillow.
Aynore whooshed open the door, running to him, and she spouted, “Thorn’s dragged Siren aboard the Royal’s main deck, a knife held against her throat. He demands that you reveal your presence, Lochlanaire, or he’ll cut her throat.”
Lochlanaire vaulted to his feet and discarded the cabin. He boarded the Royal and observed the crewmen who somberly surrounded their captain. Thorn stepped in a lazy circle, holding Siren cradled against her executioner’s chest. Thorn’s broad bladed knife he’d poised across her pulse. “Show yourself, assassin, or I’ll slit her throat.”
