“Cosmo!” I broke away from Fergus and made it to the deck before Pony grabbed me around the waist and hauled me back. “Let me go!” I head-butted him, gaining my freedom and darting to the rail where I waved my arms wildly.
Fergus grabbed me. “Oh, no you don’t!”
“You said you would let me go! That’s Cosmo’s boat. My Daddy is probably with him. They won’t eat you like Liam would. Just give me a life vest. I’ll jump off, and you can get away.”
Fergus yanked me against his chest and glared down at me. “I’d like to see what he’s willing to pay for you first.”
I fought for my freedom, but the pirate captain had the typical strength of a dock worker which made my struggles ineffectual.
A mighty roar came from the still distant Sea Harpy. We stopped our scuffle to stare at the long blue form that slid from the boat and into the water. It began to expand as it sped toward the Black Bounty.
“Fucking shit! Is that your dad?” Fergus asked with desperation.
“No, that’s my pet. His name is Snappy.” My answer sounded more like a question even to my own ears. Snappy’s head was as large as our transport. He had closed the distance in seconds and now rested his head on the Black Bounty’s railing. The deck tilted downward with the weight. Snappy blinked at me. “Let me go, and I’ll try to convince Snappy not to sink you.”
Fergus shoved me forward. The pirates hurried into life vests. I scrambled up onto Snappy’s head between the ridges on each side. He gave a deep, loud, and terrifying scream to the pirates. Then, Snappy swam with his head above the surface back to the Sea Harpy. Cosmo waited on the deck and pulled me into his arms. I buried my face in his chest and wrapped my arms around him glad to be home. “Oh, Cosmo!” Cosmo placed his hands to either side of my head and kissed me all over my face.
“Are you going to help me or not?” Winks asked. He had a blaster cannon aimed at the Black Bounty which was making an attempt at escape.
“Daddy, no! Cora’s boyfriend is on that ship. I think he may be working undercover as a spy for Mr. Tavora. I didn’t get a chance to question him though. Also, I found out what’s been destroying those ships.”
Winks said, “Fine, I’ll miss,” as he fired the cannon.
Snappy began to shrink back down to his normal size. I began to laugh hysterically. “Did you see their faces, Snappy?”
A loud boom interrupted my question as Winks’ blast hit the water. Spray rocketed up and then fell like rain. The Sea Harpy rose and fell on the recursive waves. I staggered and would have fallen had Snappy not coiled his tail around me. He sniffed at me and sneezed. I hoped I didn’t smell like Stinky. Cosmo hopped up into his wheelhouse. Gregory had taken over as Winks’ assistant with the blaster cannon. Again, they aimed. The Sea Harpy darted after the Black Bounty who had shut out her lights and gone as dark as her name. That didn’t stop Winks from firing at the ship’s last known position. The next wave we hit took my feet out from under me. I collapsed onto Snappy wincing at my bruises. Snappy shimmered into his human form, picked me up, and took me to Cosmo in the wheelhouse. I fastened myself into a seat.
“There,” Snappy said in a deep rumble as he pointed out into the dark night.
Suddenly, a wave rose up, and the stars were blotted from the sky. Cosmo skidded into me before adjusting his footing and bracing himself. Snappy issued forth an inhuman yell and began to shimmer as he jumped down to the deck. I heard his loud splash. Cosmo began turning the Sea Harpy. He caught the next wave and used it to propel us farther from the disturbance.
“What the hell?”
“It’s like what they said sank the other ships! It’s Umibozu!” I said.
Winks and Gregory had joined us in the wheelhouse and closed the cabin door against the frigid waves and whipping winds that buffeted us from every direction.
“Hold on!” Cosmo yelled as another wave had the Sea Harpy dipping forward and back. Winks wrapped his arms around me covering my head with his torso. Gregory helped to brace us. “That one was Snappy’s doing. He used his tail to splash us to relative safety. I’m taking us farther away from the action.”
Gregory activated the fish finder.
“That’s no baby sea dragon you’ve adopted, baby girl,” Winks observed as we turned our attention to the screen and the mountain Snappy had become. Winks slipped with me in his arms. As he gazed through the window, he became pale, and his heart made an audible thumping against my ear. “Cosmo,” he said as he slipped us back. “Get us a whole hell of a lot farther away.”
Snappy and Umibozu churned the water with their struggles. The bobbing of the Sea Harpy had no pattern or predictability. Snappy struggled against the massive sea monster that glistened like wet obsidian in the night. Its thick, lengthy tentacles flailed against the mighty blue sea dragon, who strove to deflect the blows of his adversary and protect the Sea Harpy and the Black Bounty from destruction. Terrifying screams and roars raised the hairs on the back of my neck as they filled the air. I clutched at Winks fearful that the next wave could send us down into the dark icy depths of the vast and vacant sea. Umibozu’s screams were those of a creature suffering from torturous pain. I pressed my ear to Winks’ chest to muffle the gruesome wailing scream that emanated from the eyeless monstrosity with its bulbous head like that of an octopus.
“There is Palena!” Gregory excitedly yelled out. “She wants for us to follow her!”
As Cosmo steered the boat to follow where Palena led, the boat’s motion finally got to me, and I threw up all over myself.
“Clue! Gross. Go get cleaned up.”
“Fuck you, Cosmo.”
Winks held onto me as he helped me into the bathroom. The tossing about of the boat made me glad the bathroom was small. One moment I felt almost weightless, and then the next I felt crushed into the flooring. I managed to strip and shower. My hips banged into the sides of the stall, but I didn’t care. There was something very satisfying about washing the pirate ship away.
Winks quickly opened the door to take my dirty clothes, but it had been enough to make all of my steam escape. With a final rinse of my hair, I turned off the water and dried off. I brushed my teeth three times with the pink toothbrush Cosmo had bought for me “just in case” I ever needed it. Leaving the bathroom, I shivered. Winks had placed a stack of warm clothes on Cosmo’s bunk. I pulled a clean T-shirt on over the towel. Then, I let it drop and stood on it while I yanked up a pair of Cosmo’s boxers. I jumped and then relaxed as Winks’ arms came around me. He sat on the bunk and then examined every bruise on my arms.
“Let me see, Clue.” My dad wanted me to lay on my stomach on the bunk. I heard him walk to the kitchen area and turned my head to watch. Winks came back with a pain patch. “Stay here and rest for a little while for daddy. Okay, baby girl?”
I nodded as he covered me with thick blankets. With each toss of the boat, my mind seemed to float higher away. It was a strong pain patch. The boat was still when I woke up. I smelled coffee. Winks, Gregory, and Cosmo were seated around the small kitchen table.
“Daddy, why do you all look so scary?” Their heads turned to me. Cosmo got up and got me a bottle of sweet tea. Then, he made me a bowl of oatmeal. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed this,” I told him as I scarfed it down. He refilled it.
Softly, Cosmo asked, “Didn’t they feed you?”
“I was afraid it might be drugged. I had a can of fruit.” After a third bowl of oatmeal, I felt better. Winks helped me out of the tangled covers. With a blank expression, he turned me to face the bunk and then yanked my boxers down. “I’m sorry, Clue,” he said as he covered me back up. “I just want Cosmo and Gregory to know why I’m going to kill the man who beat you with my bare hands.” Winks kissed my temple. “Clean clothes are in the bathroom.”
My face was on fire. At least due to the pain patch, my butt no longer was. Once I was dressed, the questioning began. Cosmo asked, “Did anyone force you to do anything?”
Incredulously
, I answered, “Yeah, Cosmo. I got locked in a cabin until I realized I could slip out of it. Then, I got caught, but they still don’t know our secret.”
Cosmo reached out for my hand. He gently moved his thumb over my knuckles. “That’s not what I meant. Did he force himself on you?” he asked quietly.
My face felt like an inferno. “No! Oh, gross.” The thought of intimacy with Stinky made me shudder. “Let me tell you what happened. Well, Daddy was taking his time in private negotiations with Kiyohime, so I got creeped out and left. How’d that go for you anyway, Pops?”
Winks turned his mouth down at the corners, raised his eyebrows, and said, “Surprisingly well.”
I snorted and told them everything that had happened along with everything I had learned. Cosmo let out a long whistle. “So, you know where they’ve stashed their merchandise?”
“I know what the big rock looks like, but I don’t know where it is.”
“Draw us a picture. We’ll find it. Draw the boat next to it to give us an idea of its size,” Winks said as he passed me a pen and some paper.
“Why aren’t we moving? Aren’t we going home?”
The men exchanged glances. “We will. We’re still waiting for Snappy,” Winks said.
The wind began a dreadful howl. The Sea Harpy titled. “Shit! Here we go again,” Cosmo said as he got up. “Raise the anchor. We’ll have better odds trying to outrun it.”
Gregory followed him out. “Stay here,” Winks said as he kissed my forehead and went to help. A short time later, the wind calmed.
“You’d better come see this!” Gregory called to me.
Squinting from the deck, I stared out at a small island where a fire burned. “Are those people?”
Cosmo and Winks were inflating a raft. “Stay with Clue,” Winks said to Gregory as he and Cosmo boarded the raft.
“Oh, shit,” I said as the Black Bounty came into view. However, her crew began to mimic our actions and soon had a raft in the water. Soon, Gregory and I were playing host to cold and hungry sailors. We passed out drinks, food, blankets, and spare clothing. I saw my dad and Cosmo running down the beach and grabbed the spyglass.
“Clue, no. You shouldn’t see,” Gregory said with concern as he tried to liberate the spyglass from my grasp. I got behind a couple of rescued sailors to avoid his reach. Winks was meeting Stinky for the first time with repeated blows from each of his fists. “That man beat you. Your father has a right to punish him.”
Stinky hit Winks in the jaw. When Pony tried to interfere, Cosmo got involved. The rescued sailors wanted to know what was happening. Gregory filled them in. The sailors, who still awaited rescue on the beach, broke up the fight. Then, all of the remaining castaways clamored into life rafts for transport to either the Black Bounty or the Sea Harpy.
“Be glad you’re with us. The food on the Black Bounty is terrible,” I said as I passed out fresh cups of coffee. I took the empty cups into the kitchen where I washed and refilled them. When I returned to the deck, Winks was deflating and stowing the raft, Cosmo had started the boat, and Gregory was getting to know the two captains who were on the Sea Harpy while their crewmen listened. “Cosmo, wait! We can’t go! We can’t leave Snappy.”
“We need to get these men to Scorpius, Clue. Snappy will be fine. This is where he belongs. You saw the size he became. He’s just gotten too big to keep in the house,” Winks said as he gathered my hair together and smoothed it.
Cosmo laughed.
“It’s not funny,” I said to him.
Winks kissed my forehead. “Don’t worry. Snappy knows where we live, and he proved that he can find you no matter where you are on the ocean. I’m sure he knows where you are now.” He led me into the cabin.
Now, Gregory was seated at the table with the two captains. Winks and I sat on the bunk. I cleaned his knuckles with wipes from the medical kit. “Thanks for kicking his ass, Daddy.”
Winks said, “I was just saying hello. I haven’t lifted my foot yet.” Smiling, I kissed his cheek.
One of the captains said, “It was an ordinary night. The men were relaxing. There wasn’t much to do until time to start unloading. Out of nowhere, the water began to churn and the wind to whip about. Then, the stars were wiped from the sky as wave after wave washed over my ship. She went over on her side, and I ordered my men to abandon ship. I’d made up my mind to go down with her. It was the right thing to do. She was my ship. The men were my responsibility. She was all I had. As the icy waters wetted me up to my thighs, a huge white fish swam over the sloping, bubbling deck right to me. In horror, I thought it was a shark coming for me.” He paused shaking his head. “I thought I’d gone mad, or else it was the cold making me hallucinate. It wasn’t a shark. It was a woman with hair as white as a cloud and the tail of a fish to match. She reached out, grabbed me, and swam. I sputtered awake on the beach with my crew around me. Days passed. Luckily, the island had a fresh water spring and plentiful fish. Days later, another captain and crew joined us.” The captain nodded to the thickly bearded man beside him.
“I saw the monstrous black creature that came up from the depths. From its mouth came a soundless scream. I saw no eyes. Great tentacles lifted up with sheets of water falling from them to cover my deck. My men slipped and fell in the deluge as they flung themselves into safety vests and threw our rafts over the side. The arms lifted up so high that I couldn’t see their ends. Before it could bring them down on us, the nightmare was interrupted by the most beautiful singing I’d ever heard. I stood there on my flooded deck enthralled by it. Conrad, my first mate, yanked me back and over the side while the sea beast was trapped by the same spell. The singing lasted long enough for us to flee the suction created by my sinking ship after the creature finally brought its great appendages crashing down. When we met the other survivors, we realized we weren’t all suffering from mass hysteria. There is something out there.”
“I believe you,” Gregory said solemnly. “It was Palena, Goddess of the Ocean Waves, and her sirens who saved you.”
“Now, we know why Palena needed us to rescue Snappy. Do you think he is helping Palena fight Umibozu?” I asked.
“Umibozu?” the heavily bearded captain asked.
“Umibozu is the creature who attacked your ships,” Gregory stated.
“But why?” the other captain asked.
None of us knew the answer. When Cosmo docked us at the marina, Winks slipped to the Harbor Master’s office while I did my best to discreetly slip into Mr. Tavora’s office. I transported myself into the bathroom. Once I was sure it was empty, I let go of my hold on the other reality. I could hear the slight hum of the heating system as I pushed open the door and entered the waiting room. Cora, knowing very well that I hadn’t entered in the traditional way, looked up at me in shock.
“He’s alive,” I said to her as I sprinted past her and barged into Mr. Tavora’s office. He was up in his loft engaged in a very serious conversation with two men who were wearing dark suits.
“Impertinent!” he yelled down at me.
“We found them! They’re alive! Come to the Marina!”
“Who is alive?” Mr. Tavora asked as he came down the stairs. His eyes glowed angrily at me.
“Your captains and crews!”
Having overheard, the two men followed him. Mr. Tavora had his transport brought around even though it wasn’t far. Cora and I rode in front with the driver. “He’s alive? You’ve seen him? Did he ask about me?”
“I’ve seen him, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to him.”
I smiled with perverse pleasure when I spotted the Harbor Master and a large group of sailors at the Black Bounty. I hoped Stinky would get in trouble for something. Another crowd was at the Sea Harpy. Within moments, dock workers and sailors were speeding away in transports and on motorcycles to spread the news. Soon, the docks were crowded with the families and friends of the missing sailors. I climbed up onto a piling to sit and watch. I saw Cora’s blonde head as she darted th
rough the crowd. Then, she was spinning around in Ivan’s, also known as Newt’s, arms. The couple disappeared into the crowd.
I heard a familiar, low, aristocratic voice speaking to Winks. However, it was the feeling of safety and warmth overcoming me that had me closing my eyes in bliss. Seconds later, Tadashi wrapped his arms around me from behind. Whispering in my ear, he said, “Quick slip us to the Wisteria while your father is distracted.”
With my cold fingers pressed against the warm tops of Tadashi’s hands, I concentrated on being alone with him in his bedroom. The drop and lift sensation of slipping along with the gliding forward feeling of teleporting stopped suddenly. I opened my eyes and saw the familiar room.
Tadashi turned me in his arms, pressed his lips to mine, and teased them apart with his tongue before I had even let go of my hold of the spirit realm. I released the other reality. Shrugging out of my jacket, I let it fall to the floor. Tadashi deepened our kiss as I ran my fingers through his short brown hair. I kicked out of my shoes and herded my fiancé backwards against his bed moving my hands down his chest so I could pull his shirt from his pants.
My lips left his to kiss his jaw while I fumbled with the closures of his shirt. Tadashi pushed the shirt down his arms. Running my hands over the muscles of his arms and chest, I pressed my face to his sternum and inhaled drawing his scent into my lungs. I lifted my arms to aid him in the removal of my shirt. Turning my back to him, I turned off the lights before removing my pants fearing the bruising would bring forth his anger and steal away his passion. The fastenings of his pants frustrated me until Tadashi’s hands covered mine and guided me in their removal. As the garment fell, I felt his erection tap against my stomach.
A throbbing ache had stolen all thoughts from me except those of Tadashi. Our lips met, and his hands caressed me as he lowered me to his bed. With his lips, Tadashi found the sensitive place on my neck that made me shiver at the same time that he pushed his finger inside of me. I moaned and arched against him. His lips moved from my neck to my breast as another finger joined the first. My breathing and heart rate were frantically juxtaposed to the calm power emanating from Tadashi. He removed his fingers.
Clue and the Sea Dragon (The Clue Taylor Series Book 2) Page 10
