“No. I … don’t know,” she replied breathlessly.
“Can you see land?” he asked.
“I’m swimming towards a shore,” Estelle gasped.
“How did we get here?”
“Will you stop talking, I’m trying to swim.”
“If I didn’t have my hands manacled like a common criminal, I could swim for myself.”
“If you don’t stop complaining, I’ll let you try. The last time I looked you weren’t doing so well at it.”
Gregory had to content himself with being at Estelle’s mercy, which, judging by the softness his head rested on, wasn’t such a bad prospect for the moment. As she kicked, he felt her lithe body strain full length beneath him. Her curves, although toned, were still soft. Her thighs brushed against his buttocks in sure, repetitive strokes. Her movements were strong, calculated. If she were getting tired, she didn’t show it. She breathed in time with her movements, her ribs rising and falling beneath his head.
He’d learnt survival from a young age and being helpless did not sit well with him. He strained against the cuffs, hating the fact that he was bound and she didn’t seem to have a concern about it.
Something unexplained had just happened to them. They had been under attack and he was thrown to all corners of the tiny brig. The ship had tilted alarmingly and he was sure they were going to sink. Then one of the female crew members took him on deck and he was squinting at an army of ships bearing down on them with an otherworldly speed. There was reigning confusion, and now they were struggling for survival in the middle of the night in freezing water.
On board, just before they had fallen into the water, he had felt an unexpected burst of energy, like a lightning bolt had speared though his body. For a split moment he was connected to everything and nothing at the same time. There was an element of extreme terror that seared right through his gut. He was glad when that had ended. But there was another emotion, a strong, defiant, simmering anger, which had touched him the most. It seemed so much a part of him, yet he knew it to come from an outside source. He didn’t know how or why he could have felt it so keenly.
Estelle’s body tilted abruptly and brought his recollections to an end. “Stand,” she gasped.
His feet touched the ground and he stood, chest deep in water. Waves broke against his back, swirling around his body with fingers that wanted to drag him back into the depths of the ocean. There was a stretch of black shore marked by the peaked white caps of crashing sea water. Beyond that a cliff line stretched endlessly. There were no houses, no pinpricks of light, no hope of civilization. They were on their own.
Estelle strode towards the shore. There was no mistaking her svelte form merging from the darker shadows of the waves. She strode purposefully out of the water, and fell to her knees in the sand and fisted her hands in her hair. She seemed like a woman that could go forever but in this moment she looked totally lost.
Gregory strode towards her and sunk onto the sand next to her. His own limbs were numb, exhausted from fighting the surge of freezing waves against cuffed hands. He tipped his head back, opening his lungs to fill them with the sweet, fresh air of the ocean, thankful that he was still able to do it. Eventually his heart pounded some strength back into his limbs, but his mind was still blank, lost in the question of what had just happened to them.
“My crew. My ship!” Estelle cried softly to herself. Her tormented face was lit by the silvery, translucent moonlight.
“Do you have any idea what the hell just happened to us?” Gregory asked.
She kept her eyes trained on the ocean. “The worst just happened to us.” Her voice was a husky flat tone.
The frustration that burst in him was palpable. He needed answers and she was the only one that could provide them. She knew damn well what had happened to them and she was going to tell him. He forced his voice out in a calm tone. “We were being chased by an army of ships. They fired on us. The mast broke and we fell from the ship, and now we are not in the same waters, indeed not in the same part of the world, it seems.” He drew a breath, held it and made his mind work in the logical fashion for which he was renowned. Maybe if they pieced back the moments before, they would discover what had happened.
Estelle softly gasped. Gregory slid a glance at her. She looked like she had been struck by a flash of insight. “Dalia,” Estelle whispered.
“Who is Dalia?” Gregory asked.
“She was frightened. She didn’t want to use her gift. I told her to do it. It was the only way to save everyone. If it wasn’t for those ships attacking us, if I didn’t ask it of her, she wouldn’t have done it.”
A cold lump grew in the pit of his stomach. “What exactly did she do, Estelle?”
“She did something I asked of her, against her better judgment. What if this happened to everyone aboard the Wanderlust? What if all my crew is scattered who knows where, or worse, what if they all perished?” She sunk her face into her hands. She shook her head and her body trembled. “They could be all gone. Claire. Dalia. There’s no way of knowing where they are.” She let out an anguished moan.
A pulse ticked in his temple. “Estelle, you need to tell me more.”
She lifted her head and regarded him silently, assessing him. He held her gaze evenly, measuring up her consideration. The wind picked at her wet hair. Thick, wavy strands tossed about her shoulders. The light from the moon made her skin translucent, her features soft, feminine. She wiped away an errant tear from the corner of her eye, but held his gaze steadily.
“Dalia is a dear friend of mine. I have known her for years. She was treated miserably at the hands of her slave master and was often beaten up. Have I shocked you?”
Gregory shook his head and was careful to hold her gaze. “Go on.”
“After one such session she discovered she had a special ability: she was able to hide things. If she concentrated, she could hide objects around her and remain out of sight of her master, even if she was right in front of him. After a while she got very good at it, and often was able to help other slaves hide from that master. But she could not hide from every beating, or keep other slaves safe all the time. I found her on board one of the worst slave ships I have ever laid eyes on. I helped her to health and she has been my good friend since.”
“How does she … hide … things?” Gregory asked.
“She told me once she weaves pathways around the object and mirrors back the surroundings, so that although it is there, no one can see it,” Estelle said.
“And she hid the ship?”
Estelle nodded. “And everyone on board. I asked her to do it. It was the only way I could think of to protect everyone from … the advancing ships.”
Gregory could see her motivation for asking her friend. If they looked like they weren’t there, the ships would have nothing to fire on. “Then how could this have happened?”
“She never hides people. Only objects. She said once she had a premonition that if she used her ability on people, it would ask too much from the gods. She trusted me so much that against her better judgment, she did it. She was right. I did incur the wrath of her gods and now my crew and my ship are gone.”
She stood abruptly and walked away from him through the frothy ankle deep waves. He cursed under his breath, clambered to his feet and dashed to catch up with her.
“We need to work out where we are. We don’t know if this happened to the rest of the crew. There’s still no knowing what happened to my ship. It may have been blasted apart by those approaching warships.” Estelle slowed, in thought. “They came at us so fast,” she said.
“They were not the Navy,” Gregory said.
Estelle faced him. “No, it was not Navy. It was Jack Cutlass. Are you in league with him?”
“I abhor the man,” Gregory said.
“I’m sure ther
e is more about this matter than you are telling me.”
“I’m telling you everything I know.”
“That is something I will find out for myself.” She straightened her shoulders and hitched her chin upwards. “But now there is nothing I can do in the middle of the night. We need to find shelter and wait for the cool reason of daylight.”
She strode towards the heavy, dark cliffs. He could escape, now was definitely the time to try. But he couldn’t chance it with his wrists manacled together, and not knowing where he was. He would have limited chance of survival. He tested the manacles and suppressed a surge of helpless anger when the iron bit into his wrists. An angry hiss left his mouth before he followed her.
He could draw no logical conclusion about what had happened, and her story of her friend’s ability was surely imagination. To think that a woman could hide a ship and her crew with the power of her mind was preposterous. Yet, she seemed to believe it as though it were the truth. It made him question the state of her mind. He hoped he was not dealing with a madwoman bent of a path of revenge, as well as dealing with the mystery of where in the world he was.
However, now they were stranded together and she was right about one thing. They needed to find shelter. Even a wolf would have trouble negotiating this area on a bleak, dark night such as this, and he had to get these manacles off. Without his hands free, he was at her mercy which was not a state that sat easily on his shoulders. He was used to being the man in charge, having his own ship under his command, not to be at the whim of a female who had an obvious distrust of men and the world around her, and who also had the audacity to kidnap him on a hair-brained, illogical whim.
He watched her seductive hips sway as she walked in the silken moonlight, and felt his involuntary internal response stir. She was the sexiest guard he ever had the misfortune to be kidnapped by, and when he had sorted out this mess she had gotten him in, he would make her pay dearly for her bad choices.
Chapter Five
Her clothes were stitched on with the chilled fingers of the sea breeze. This was an arctic night. And she had no idea in the world where they might be. There was definitely no sign of the Wanderlust.
She had been sailing towards the warm winds that would push them to Paradise. Her home. Her haven. It was as much to the hundreds of women that lived there and worked its lands. Women from all walks of life resided there, personally invited by Estelle, Claire, or Dalia, and Estelle had finally felt the full benefits of what a community should be.
Women there did the things the rest of the female population of the world only dreamt they could do. There was profitable trade, schools for the children and education for the women who had never had the chance to learn to read and write, a fair governing system, food and water. Women there lived without the threat of a man’s world where they could own no property, have no education to better themselves, where they could not provide for themselves, where they and their children lived at the whim of men.
On Paradise there were no bad husbands, no slack relatives, no governing rules made by men for the sole betterment of men, and where women were considered no more than pieces of furniture. It was a sanctuary, a shelter away from the rest of the world. It had taken years to build and it needed to stay a secret if it was to remain so.
Estelle stole a look at Gregory who stalked beside her, dark and brooding. He hadn’t spoken a word since she’d left him to follow her in the surf. The wind picked at his open shirt and flicked a strand of raven hair across his forehead. She glanced at his chest, bare to the open wind. The hard muscles beneath the skin undulated with each step he took. She read the power in those sinewy muscles, honed by years of warship activity. Coupled with his height, his lean, long legs, his determination, his intelligence and obvious anger at being held a captive, would make him a formidable force.
She needed to keep him manacled. There was a sense of security knowing the panther within him was caged, and she didn’t have the benefit of her crew surrounding her. Keeping him bound was akin to securing a wolf to a tree with a short lead. It would keep the wolf at bay for a time, but when it tired of being locked down, its anger and fury would reach no ends until it was freed.
He resembled a wolf, with his raven hair, tossed by the wind and sea in bedraggled strands. The night created deep shadows where hair met skin, made the planes of his cheeks more hollow and rigid, his dark eyes more onyx-solid and his sleek brows tilt downward with a watchful vengeance. She knew he was quietly biding his time. Like the wolf, he would have endless patience. She would need to keep her wits about her.
As she neared the wall of the cliff, she made out an irregular, darker shadow at the base and made towards it, hoping that it would be some sort of shelter where they could see out the rest of this miserable night. The thin, translucent moonlight picked up an outcrop of jagged rock. There was a stone or two sunk into the sand, leading to a towering stack of boulders. Tucked in the middle was a black opening just large enough for a man to slip through.
“We need to see inside, to check that it isn’t wet, or inhabited by something a little more hostile than water,” Gregory announced.
“Indeed.” She lifted a sleek eyebrow.
Estelle gathered some seaweed and searched between the rocks for pieces of driftwood. She found some sticks that were dry. She bound the seaweed and smaller shards of driftwood to the end of a longer stick and reached for her tinder box that was in her hip satchel. Thank goodness she wore it as a matter of habit, securing it about her waist wherever she was going, no matter if she needed any item from it or not. Having lived by her wits for so many years, she took nothing for granted.
It took her a moment to light the tinder. A flame burst into life and set the rest of the dried seaweed alight. She moved to the entrance to the cave, carefully crawled through the entrance and cautiously peered inside. The flames illuminated the cave. It was dry and small, and large enough for the two of them to rest and see out the night. The sandy floor was littered with dry seaweed and broken lengths of driftwood. The ceiling was low, too low for her to stand upright, but that didn’t bother her. It suited their purposes well. Estelle planted the lit stick in the center of the cave and squeezed back out.
“The space will do us well. Go in and I’ll gather some wood for a fire to dry ourselves,” Estelle said.
Gregory stood and lifted his bound wrists. “I could help you if I had free hands.”
“I’m not stupid enough to let you free,” Estelle said. “Do what you want, but I’m making a fire inside that cave because I intend to dry out. If you want to stay out here and freeze, so be it. But I’m not so ruthless that I would not offer you some measure of comfort. Besides, I need you alive and well for you to attend your trial.”
“That trial is sinking further and further away. I’m sure you agree we have more pressing issues at stake,” Gregory said.
“Nevertheless, it will still happen,” Estelle said. She stooped to gather an armful of wood and carried it through the cave entrance, set it into a pile and crawled back out. She needed to get a good fire going. This night was going to be uncomfortable enough as it was. Gregory watched her silently and helped her collect the driftwood as best he could. Before long they had enough to keep a fire going for the next few hours.
Estelle ignored Gregory’s penetrating black stare as she set about building a fire in the middle of the cave. She took one side of the cave while Gregory took the other, settled into the fine, soft sand and waited for the warm flames to lick life back into her bones. She watched him shuffle uncomfortably against the rock wall, moving awkwardly with his arms pinned in front of him by the heavy manacles. She felt a twinge of guilt at furthering his discomfort, but she couldn’t risk removing his manacles, even for a moment of relief. For this night, until she knew more about her situation, he would just have to endure the discomfort.
Eventually the flame
s did their work and Estelle relaxed against the rock wall and closed her eyes, her extremities sufficiently warmed. Her mind wandered to the attack on her ship. In her mind’s eye she watched the ships melt from the horizon, seemingly from the vapors that bound the sea to the sky. Black dots, coming fast, faster than anything she had ever witnessed before, intent on reaching her ship, destroying her crew. How could Cutlass have sailed so fast, and known their location?
“I don’t know how you were attacked with such vicious force.” It was as if he read her mind. She cracked open her eyes, found his and was locked in a bottomless black stare that had her wanting to know what his thoughts were.
“You have a theory?” she asked. She shuffled straighter against the cave wall, leaning with her arms resting on her upturned knees.
“Although I am a captain of the Royal Navy, I am still not sufficiently important to warrant an attack as extreme, or with as many ships, as we just witnessed.”
She rolled the words in her mind. The disjointed shock of being in one place and then the other in a split second was wearing off and she found she could reason again. He was right. She hadn’t expected such a chase as this. The Wanderlust sailed as fast as any rig in the Navy. At best they would have kept the same distance, with the gap neither increasing nor decreasing as they sailed the same winds, the same water. Sometimes those sorts of chases could last for days.
“Do you think it is something more than that?” She was, in fact, open to his ideas, no matter that she knew they would be those of a man desperate for release from his bonds.
“I do not know why Jack Cutlass would give chase as viciously and attack, even knowing I was on board. I am a nobody, new on the circuit, but my intentions for having my own ship, having a crew beneath my command may have been more widely known than I originally thought.”
Estelle narrowed her eyes. “Go on.”
“I think this involves your father,” Gregory said. His face was set in determined stone. There was not a flicker or a twitch, and as far as she could determine he was not lying.
Paradise Island Page 5
