A Kiss in the Wind

by Jennifer Bray-Weber

  “So you meant to stir up trouble.” No surprise. ’Twas what Monte did best.

  He shrugged. “I saw a chance I couldn’t let pass. I hatched out a plan. Me and a few mates signed on to Windham’s crew. The lads had thought I had windmills in my head. Perhaps I had. But my crazy designs were quite simple. Take the silver.”

  “A fool’s crusade.”

  “Perhaps not. I know a fat cull in San Juan who’d pay generously for Windham’s wealth. While I’m at it, I’d undermine the brethren’s golden prince. Why do the spineless brethren bow to Tyburn and let him monopolize the Caribbean? He’s no king. He’s a crowing mutton-monger.”

  She couldn’t blame him for capitalizing on his circumstances. Marisol would have done the same. But she would think twice about challenging Blade.

  “Tyburn is more dangerous than you perceive him to be. He’s legendary.”

  “Among virgins and whores.”

  Marisol bristled under his evident implication.

  “The rest are dawcocks telling tales over yarn twisting.” He chuckled dismissively. “I’ve confirmed it by outwitting him, taking his silver and keeping it right underneath his nose. If he’s legendary, then I’m immortal for taking him down.”

  “You’ve not defeated him.”

  “Yet.”

  “Your arrogance is staggering. So much like Alain.”

  “Ha! Alain. I’m nothing like that worthless piece of shit.”

  Monte snapped his fingers. Grimshaw reappeared and went to the hatch door. He whistled through the opening and within moments two men emerged, heaving a prisoner between them.

  The man hung at the shoulders, his head down and his boots dragging behind him. Blood matted his hair in long stalks and soaked through his soiled tunic. Dark bruises had formed along his bound wrists. They hustled him across the deck. For a brief instant, he lifted his battered face.

  “Alain!”

  Monte grabbed Marisol before she could reach her father. He was so badly beaten, she hardly recognized him. Swelling sealed his eyes in splotches of blues and greens, and blood caked his crooked nose and split lips. It jarred her to see him that way. The fiendish pirate had been reduced to rubble.

  “You did this? But why?”

  “He needed to learn what it’s like to be on the other side of torture.”

  “Alain never tortured you. You were treated just as any other crewman on the Sablewing.” Though Alain could dole out the punishment, he didn’t treat anyone on board unjustly.

  “Torture can be more than flesh deep, sister.”

  His lips scarcely moved as he snarled out the words.

  “String him up!” Monte said.

  Towing Alain to the main mast, Grimshaw threaded the mast rope through those wrapped around Alain’s bindings. Grimshaw put his entire bulk into hauling the rope down. A gruesome dolor exploded from Alain’s twisted mouth when his arms yanked upward and the rope lifted him off the planks some thirty feet. He thrashed his legs about, screeching under the stretch of his weight, his face distorting with the pain.

  Marisol struggled against Monte’s hold. “Let him down!”

  “No, I don’t think I will. He’ll protect my ship from having her mast blown apart by Tyburn. Then again, Tyburn might decide the bastard’s not worth it. Either way, I’m content with him floundering up there.”

  “Do you harbor that much hate for him?”

  “Is there any other feeling I should have?”

  “Monte, I know this is about Matanzas but you’ve got to understand. Matanzas was a mistake. Alain had no way of knowing soldiers were marching in from the inland when we attacked.”

  Marisol had not been allowed to join in the sacking of Matanzas. She never saw the pillage and plundering of any raid other than what she could witness from the ship’s stern. She only knew that she missed out on the adventure. Or that was what she thought. From an alcove hidden in the back of her mind, a string of words, Blade’s words, paraded out. My mates and I take advantage of opportunity. We’re not greedy, bloodthirsty hellions. Was it possible to be a person of fortune without sacking the innocent? Was it indeed more honorable to rob riches from the pompous gluttons dotting the Caribbean Isles? Intriguing. Her view of piracy had been all wrong.

  Her mother was right. Desperate men would seek desperate fortunes. She made no excuses for her husband, the roving adventurer. But she made it understood no easy riches, no sparkling jewels, no fine drink, full gullet or bawdy ladybird was reason to prey upon the innocent and lay waste to the lives of good people. Alain was also right. Don’t presume decency would protect the righteous and see to happiness. The world was unjust. Strike first and enjoy the spoils, for the guarantee of tomorrow was a lie. Marisol never imagined there could be a betwixt and between.

  “They weren’t soldiers,” Monte said. “They were mercenaries.”

  She remembered the large company of men rushing out to strike against Sablewing’s marauders. Her gut had clutched into a vicious, burning knot. Men fought, men died. Many were able to retreat before the band of militia flanked around the remaining pirates, trapping them on the wharf. Monte had not escaped. Marisol, on no account, would forget the look of terror that congealed on Monte’s face. Even at her safe distance on shipboard, she could see her brother’s petrified expression. He was being left behind, to die.

  As the Sablewing set sail away from Matanzas, a brawl broke out. Shots were fired, several men went down. Marisol never knew for sure if Monte had been among those who had died that night, but deep inside she knew he survived. Her guilt for not convincing Alain to rescue Monte had been monstrous.

  Just as her guilt was now.

  “If there had been a way to save you, Monte…” She trailed off. In spite of her remorse, the fact remained. “You must know we all would’ve been hung. Turning back had been too dangerous. Even Luc said—”

  “Bah! Luc was no better a man than Alain.” He shoved her away. “It was almost too easy disposing of that prick.”

  The air rushed from her lungs. Quite by surprise, a sinister chill skittered up her spine. “What do you mean?”

  Annoyed, he huffed. “Must I break it down for you?” He rolled his head back in mockery. “Oh, very well. Tyburn is upon us so I’ll be brief.”

  His nonchalant attitude belied just how close Tyburn drew. And though she could almost reach out and touch the Rissa’s gun ports, Monte had her full attention.

  “Once I heard the Sablewing was docked in Puerto Plata, I couldn’t believe my luck. I had the silver, I had Tyburn by the nose with my ruse, and then you, Luc and Alain dropped into my lap like a gift from Neptune.” Monte paced back and forth in front of Marisol, his back to his oncoming enemy. “I staged the raid, made sure to have a few of my men stir up Luc and others from the Sablewing with rumors of the invasion. The men following Luc said they found him in the mercantile shop buying a pair of amber hair sticks.”

  He reached inside his jacket and pulled out the hair sticks for her to see. The entire length of each stick gleamed of glossed wood, tapering down into pointy tips. Filigreed gold encased perfect round amber stones.

  “Luc always did pamper you with ridiculous gifts.”

  Marisol reached for them, so lovely, so feminine.

  “Ah, ah, ah. You can’t have them. They’re much too sharp.” He replaced the hair sticks in his coat.

  “You were supposed to be caught during the riot, too,” he continued. “With that itch of yours to become a bona fide pirate and your unfailing knack for getting into trouble, you should have been up on that gallows tree with Luc. Instead, you got tangled up with Tyburn.”

  Dumbstruck by his loathing, paralyzed by his cold stare, the pain growing inside her grieved her more than believing she had lost him. Her little brother, whom she loved deeply, whom she desperately searched for, wanted her dead. It couldn’t be.

  “Ah, dare and be damned, I got to see Luc hang. Had a good view of that, I did. What a jolly good time that was.”r />
  Alain roared from his suspended crucifixion. “You fucking bastard!”

  Monte pivoted, drawing his flintlock pistol, and fired at Alain. The bullet tore through his father’s arm, missing his head by mere inches. His weight pulled at the rupture and blood poured from the splitting gash.

  Alain’s agonizing howls sparked an inferno of rage in Marisol. Monte wasn’t her brother. He was a monster. Cut from the same cloth as their father, he took his cruelty further by killing and torturing his own family.

  “Shut the hell up, old man!” Monte drew another pistol and shot at Alain again, ripping a hole in his thigh near his knee.

  Little raced through her mind other than to get Alain down and end his awful thrashing. She snatched the knife at the small of her back. With a determination of the knife’s size and a quick eye, she flung the dagger, embedding the blade into the rope just above where it had been tied off at the mast. It sliced through much of the cord and the final hempen threads holding together the rope unraveled and ripped under the pressure. Alain fell the distance. The crack of bones ruptured over the thud of his body crumpling to the wooden planks.

  Monte’s astonishment at her audacity shifted to infuriation. His lips curled back as his gaze scraped over Grimshaw, then Marisol. Grimshaw patted around his waistband before settling on Marisol in disbelief. She smugly grinned. Monte tossed his spent pistols to his foul subordinate and planted a murderous foot forward.

  “You bitch!” He raised his hand to her.

  Marisol cringed, awaiting the stinging blow. Did he hold as much hate in his heart for her as he did Alain? Would he beat her as he did their father? Would she survive? Aye, she would. And she would fight back. She would fight him until she could fight no more. For Luc.

  “Montenegro Castellan!”

  Blade’s booming voice resonated across the ship in a burst of feral aggression.

  Marisol peeled her eyes open. The Rissa sailed a stone’s throw away alongside the Huntress. Her captain, ferocious and mighty, had a boot anchored in a rung of the mast’s rope tackle. Holding on with one fisted hand, he pointed his cutlass at Monte. Her knees quaked under Blade’s sheer domination, ruling over all and sundry.

  Monte lowered his open palm and wheeled around to face the sea king. Risking Grimshaw’s nasty clutches, Marisol raced over to where Alain lay heaped.

  “Alain.” She cradled his head in her lap. The sharp stench of sweat stole her breath. “Alain,” she said again.

  The pit of her stomach curdled at the sight of his eyes once they fluttered open. No white shone under his swollen lids, only redness blended with animosity and retribution.

  “Papa.”

  “Ma chérie.” His mouth crept into a nefarious smile. “Do you—” He coughed and wetted his dry lips. “Do you want to make your père proud?”

  His words scraped across her soul. Pride interlaced with love, something she yearned for from Alain. She knew what toll she’d have to pay to gain her father’s hollow pride. But…would there be love?

  “Now’s your chance. Kill your brother, ma chérie.”

  Strike down Monte?

  “You must kill him before he kills you,” he continued. “He will kill you.”

  She looked over to where Monte stood. The Castellan men often reveled in the sins of humanity. Greed, gluttony, wrath, vanity and lust—these vices ran deep and without regret in their veins. Even Luc had not been immune to the lure of overindulgence. But as Marisol watched Monte, watched how he casually took his reloaded pistols from Grimshaw, plucking them back into his brace, watched as he disregarded Blade’s demands for surrender, a dawning of disgust, of pity shed new light upon him. Monte surpassed these sins.

  “Don’t be foolish, Monte,” Blade called. “You’ll not survive.”

  “Your bloody threats don’t scare me,” Monte said.

  “They’re not intended to. ’Tis just a courtesy.”

  “Ha! Here’s paltry invention. Save your gentlemanly propriety and let us square away, shall we?”

  “My pleasure.” Blade addressed his men. “Up to the shrouds, swabs! Grapnels, ready!”

  Men on the Rissa swung barbed grappling hooks in deadly circles waiting for the command to board. Others climbed the ropes like spiders bursting from an egg sac. Marisol recognized some of the fellows and they weren’t Rissa lads. Alain chuckled. They were the tars from the Sablewing, men she deemed fine and trusty bawcock friends.

  Monte turned to Grimshaw and gave him a subtle nod. Grimshaw trotted to the hatch and disappeared inside, only to reappear again. He towed a chain over his shoulder, tugging it as he pulled it along. Shackled to the other end were Drake, Valeryn and two other Widow Maker men. They were unmarred but that fact made decidedly little difference by the wrath shining in their eyes. Annihilation roiled off Drake like volcanic ash from a mountainside. Marisol prayed the irons held.

  “Found several longboats floating helplessly in the oggin after the storm,” Monte said. “I figured plucking out the captain and a few of his chaps might come in handy. ’Course, I left the others to the mercy of Mona’s Passage.”

  Marisol bit her lower lip at Blade’s deadpan expression.

  Alain chuckled low in her lap. “Boy learned to strategize,” he wheezed. “This could get interesting.”

  Had Monte gone mad? Challenging Blade, capturing Drake, killing pirates at his discretion…the whole bloody Caribbean brethren would hunt him down and skin him with barnacles. And what about her? Blade must think she had a part in this. They would never make it out alive.

  “You want me, Tyburn? You want your silver? Then come on over and take it.” He threw up his arm in invitation. “But I give you fair warning.” Monte snapped his fingers and five men bearing long arms filed in front of Drake and the manacled men. “Board my ship and these men die.”

  “Warning received.” Blade acknowledged him with a crooked smile. His dimples nicked deep and Marisol winced. That grin sent wayward desire sparking through her that quickly fizzled. Double-edged, that smile meant he had become the predator. A predator out for blood.

  “Hey, princock,” Drake called out to Monte. “Don’t you know when a boy plays a man’s game, he gets hurt?”

  “Big words from a lout who’s a pig in the slaughterhouse.”

  “Ah, so we agree that you are a swine farmer.” Drake and his men laughed.

  If it weren’t for the seriousness of the situation, Marisol would gag on the male conceit wafting through the air.

  “Shut your yap, cur.” Monte’s face flushed red and his jaw tightened.

  Drake’s pleasant demeanor vanished. “Why don’t ya make me, ya little upstart?”

  “Gladly.” Monte raised a finger for his gunmen to take aim.

  “No!” Marisol dropped Alain’s head onto the floorboards. The thunk and groan didn’t slow her from scrambling to her feet.

  Too late. The wheels were already set into motion. Drake and his men spread out and rushed forward. With the chain threaded tight between them, they knocked down the armed buccaneers.

  In the same instant, Blade made the call to his own fighters. “Grapnels on!”

  Grappling hooks flurried through the air, snagging anything solid. Pirates poured over onto the Sugar Lady. Monte’s men met their attackers head-on.

  Battle cries rang in Marisol’s ears. So loud, so thrilling. Iron clashed with iron and the metallic strikes melded with curses and barbaric yelling. Her fingers twitched and stretched much like the pianist she had once seen exercising his fingers before a performance. She wanted badly to join in the melee, to pick up a weapon and to fight. But she had no idea which side to take up the scrap with, Blade or Monte. She loved them both. Both wanted her dead.

  Above it all, a gloriously energetic tune coasted over the chaos, whipping the men into a zealous frenzy. Marisol pinpointed the source of the music through the pockets of battling pirates. Henri stood on the poop deck of the Rissa playing his broken flute. Too old to fight, piping out
ditties of confidence made him seem taller.

  A blur of dark flesh streaked before her. Sam barreled across the deck to the chained prisoners. While the other men held down and scuffled with the Huntress crew who would have shot them, Drake held out his manacles over a crate. Sam’s mighty swing of his boarding axe shattered the pin, releasing Drake’s iron cuffs. The chain slipped through the rest of the cuffs and soon Valeryn and the other men were free. They used the shackles as impromptu flails, whirling them overhead and pummeling their enemies.

  The space all around Marisol strangled with the putrid odor of sweat and blood. Early morning rays of sun warmed the decks and further heated the stench. Combat waged and rivals fell as both sides engaged their foe. She itched to join in the havoc bursting in swarms on every inch of the ship. A pirate, one of Monte’s she believed, stumbled away from a fray and tripped at her feet. He jumped up facing her and her instinct flared. She delivered a single pop to his snout. The blow mashed him around and he fell flat. A giddy pulsation of excitement snapped through her. She must fight, someone, anyone.

  “Well done, ma chérie.” Alain had managed to pull his lame lower body to the main mast and prop himself against it. “Now keep your eye on your biggest threat.”

  Which one?

  Marisol turned in time to see Blade swing the gulf between the ships. He landed on the deck with the same grace he showed while dancing with her in the island cave. He planted himself majestically before Monte. One hand held his cutlass out, and the other beckoned Monte to join him in battle.

  Monte raised his sword to the challenge. A haughty smirk crossed his face and he nodded to Blade.

  Their first strike resounded in a deafening hellish crash. Together, Blade and Monte thrust and parried. The sword fight waged in a ballet of precise movements and flashes of shiny steel blades. Marisol’s skin crawled with each sharp clink of the razor edges. One missed block or parry could lead to a fatal blow for either her brother or her lover.