by Maddie James
As he hoisted her onto the rail, he felt the slice rip into his thigh. The pirate with the dagger was lunging. Quickly, he glanced into Hannah Claire's frightened face and pushed her over the side of the ship shouting, “Swim!"
He prayed she could swim.
He whirled back, having no idea where Blackbeard was. The other pirate careened into his side and blocked his peripheral vision. Jack plummeted to the floor. The pirate slammed into Jack's chest, pinning him to the deck, knees bent and his dagger at Jack's throat. The pistol sailed out of Jack's hand and skidded across the sand-covered deck. The atmosphere around them grew abruptly still.
Again, he peered into the pirate's eyes. Cold steel bit into the flesh of his neck and he felt the sting, but did not acknowledge it. He held the connection between him and the other man, sensing that there was more to his story than met the eye. No words needed to be spoken between them; there was a bond, an understanding, that the two of them should be natural enemies. It all had to do with Hannah Claire. And this man, this pirate who had held his wife captive, and now held his own life in his hands, had a purpose to fulfill.
A deep chuckle went up behind him and he knew he was being toyed with.
This man wanted him dead.
Blackbeard wanted him dead and humiliated.
Slowly, not breaking the locked gaze between them, Jack reached to his boot and slipped his own dagger free. His thoughts were to sink the dagger deep into the pirate's belly, hoping to take him off guard enough so he would not slice his jugular. The howl that went up behind him at that moment however, caused both the pirate and Jack to jerk, and the dagger to slice into the man’ thigh.
Blackbeard came at them both in full force, brandishing the cutlass, blood spurting from his wounded shoulder. “You'll not get by me this time, you bloody bastard!"
He hurled the words as both Jack and the mysterious pirate skittered toward the ship's rail. Jack knew that Blackbeard would sacrifice the other man to get to him. The cutlass whirled. The pirate sank to the deck, a look of awe upon his face as he watched the blood ooze through his fingers while holding his thigh.
Jack wasted no time. He'd leave Blackbeard to Maynard's men. Up on the rail he jumped, and without a backward glance, he dove straight off the ship and into the brackish waters of the sound.
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Chapter Sixteen
Tiny grains of sand still held the day's warmth beneath her, gritty against her unclothed skin. Each granule massaged and clung to her moist body, titillating her every pore. Her senses heightened, every sensation vibrant and new as the grains stung her backside. She didn't care. She wanted to feel. She wanted to live life to its fullest.
Pulling Jack down over her once more, she captured his lips in a soft alluring kiss, wet and wild, like the ocean surf pounding just inches from them in the night mist. Her body was open, willing him into her core, plunging into her very center.
She arched, her back rising up off the sand, her head thrown back. She moaned, long and low and throaty.
Jack steadied himself above her. Thrusting once more deeply within her, he then rolled both their bodies to the side and flipped her over on top of him, throwing small sprays of sand. She straddled his firm hips and muscled thighs, sheathed him in her moist velvet, and reveled in the incredible fullness she felt. This time Jack moaned and called out her name.
She answered by running her fingers and hands up his lean chest and swaying into him, running her tongue lightly over one firm peaked nipple. Jack then thrust upward, forcing her forward, sending shivers of ecstasy up her spine and spilling over onto her breasts, which peaked and blushed upon the sensation.
His mouth took one breast and then the other, suckling, licking, pulling her into his mouth, his tongue lavishly making love to them, his mouth devouring her.
Suddenly, almost erratically, he reached up and pulled her closer by grasping either side of her sand-encrusted hair. His hands played over her face and down her neck to her chest and belly, spurring her desire and passion further than she ever anticipated.
She kissed him then, wild and wanton, her tongue mingling with his. Jack's hands grasped her buttocks and pulled her closer as he thrust and parried, danced with her over the moonlit sands. Tidal waters rose with their passion, taking them to higher heights.
Wave after wave crested and lapped over them until they merged and reunited not only their bodies, but also their lives, and their souls.
* * * *
Claire feathered a touch down Jack's thigh to his wound, then leaned over and placed a gentle kiss there. After swimming to shore, they'd run as fast and as far as they could from the pirate's lair. She knew Jack's leg was hurting.
They'd watched from the beach as Maynard's ships had moved into place and had witnessed the battle from afar. The cannons rumbled and shouts broke through the morning quiet. She knew Blackbeard was dead, or would be soon. And for the first time in while, she let her fears slip away.
"How's your leg?"
"Umm ... better now.” She fell into his embrace, cradled against his chest. While rubbing some of the sticking sand off her back, he whispered, “Why don't we take an early morning bath in the ocean and rinse off this sand?"
She nodded and then they rose. Jack stood away from her as they stepped into the ocean and looked at her in the early sunrise. “You're so beautiful, Hannah Claire. Golden hair shimmering. Green eyes flashing. Ivory skin, so soft and precious. But yet you let me make love to you like a ... a heathen in the sand. Why? I'm sorry, I just couldn't ... I just needed to have you...."
She grinned, stepped forward and placed the palms of both hands on either of Jack's hips. “Sometimes I like to be a heathen, Jack."
He smiled, but then a frown crossed his face.
"What is it?"
He looked into the water swirling around their feet. When he brought his gaze back to hers, she knew he was troubled. “Jack...?"
"I want you to know that I know you aren't her. I know the difference."
"I know that."
"I know you are a different person ... and I know that you have your duties elsewhere."
She shook her head and laid a finger on his lips. “Shhh. No, we'll not talk of that this morning, Jack. I'm here. This is where I want to be. And I don't know if I'll ever want to go back. Right now, I can't bear to think about it. Right now, I don't want to leave your side again. I missed you so much, Jack Porter, I don't think I could do it."
She could see that he understood. They didn't speak of it again.
After several minutes of frolicking and playing in the surf, they dressed and began walking toward their cabin.
"Was it difficult for you while I was ... gone?"
"The most difficult thing ever.” He stopped walking and turned to her. “I pushed you away that night, Hannah Claire. I'm a stubborn man. I was so afraid of losing you, I couldn't speak. When I saw you begin to step on that stone, every living thing in me nearly died. I thought I would die."
"Oh, Jack. I never intended—"
"I know. I just couldn't bear seeing you at that stone, thinking you were going to leave and never come back. But now, I understand, and..."
She stilled beside him. Placed a hand on his forearm. “Jack, oh my God."
"What is it?"
She didn't say a word but simply pointed to their right.
They were standing a hundred feet or so from the stone.
And they weren't alone.
The stone's pulse beat bright red against the near dawn. It throbbed and hummed on the breeze, drawing them closer. A lone figure, that of a man, stood silhouetted against the flashing colors.
Someone else had discovered the magic of their stone.
They moved closer. He sensed their presence and turned.
Claire gasped.
Jack's gaze fell on her.
"Rick,” she whispered. “What are you doing?"
Rick snickered, the pulsating of the stone reflecte
d in his greedy eyes.
Jack pulled her into his side. “What do you know of this man?” It was not a question of whether she did, or did not know him, it was of how. “It's the other pirate from the ship."
Her startled gaze meshed with his. “I ... we...” It was barely more than a whisper.
He looked back to the stone, to Rick, and then to her. “How well do you know this man?” he urged.
No words came as she stood before him. How could she tell him? What would she say?
He turned her fully to him, his hands on her shoulders, shaking. “Tell me! How do you know this man?"
Defeated, she simply let it go. “He's the man I was running from in the lighthouse. He's my former lover."
The wind suddenly burst against them, whipping her hair and skirts and clothing about.
Jack thrust her away.
She reached for him.
A spray of sand kicked up into her face.
"It's not over, Claire!” Her attention shifted. Rick picked up an object.
His words landed heavy on her chest. She looked again to Jack's puzzled face, then at the object in Rick's outstretched hand.
No.
"Look at me, Claire!” he yelled over the wind.
She did.
"Claire, what is this man to you?” Jack demanded, refusing to be ignored.
She turned to him, grasped his shirt at his chest and crumpled it in her hands. “Nothing! He's nothing to me!"
Rick laughed. “She's mine, you backwoods farmer! What the hell can you offer her on his lowly piece of shit sandbar?"
"Don't listen to him,” she begged, searching Jack's face. “He's an evil man. I want to be here, with you, on this piece of shit sandbar!"
"Look at me, Claire! Look at what I have! I told you I would get it. Power. Riches. Mine. All mine. And yours if you want it."
He held up his treasure—his firm grip tightened further on the severed head of Blackbeard, his fingers laced through the thick unruly mat of hair. The eyes closed, a gash ran the length of the pirate's forehead, his tongue protruded from his mouth. Thick ribbons of congealed blood hung from the gaping neck wound. It was a gruesome sight.
"The skull,” she said out loud.
The silver chalice. Oh my God. What the hell kind of evil thing would Rick do with something like that.
In the next instant, Rick stepped on the stone.
"No!"
She rushed forward. Jack pulled her back.
Swirling lights danced around him. Reds and oranges and yellows webbed as one color. The humming crescendoed to an ear-splitting pitch. As Rick smiled through the haze, she and Jack watched as Blackbeard's head began a frantic spinning while hanging from his hand.
Finally it stopped, facing them.
The eyes opened, yellow and glaring. The tongue slipped back into place. Claire shivered as she registered the deep belly laugh she'd heard so many times before as it exited the disembodied head's mouth. She clutched at Jack, her heart vaulting in her chest, tremors traveling the length of her spine, fear gripping at her stomach in waves. The wind still thrashed about them. Jack wrapped his arms protectively around her, both of them mesmerized by the happenings before them.
Then the thing spoke.
Very slowly at first, building to a roar that echoed across the beach and into the ocean itself.
"Be cursed, the two of ye! I place the loss of me head on your shoulders. Until me head is returned to my rightful time, yer love will be damned to reside in separate centuries! And may the curse rest with ye and yer offspring throughout eternity!"
And with that, Rick's body disintegrated, the pulsating slowed, the lights flickered.
But the head of Blackbeard remained intact until the end, suspended, until the last bit of flesh and blood and tissue melted from it, leaving only the bare and sinister skull suspended in mid-air above the stone.
And then it, too, disappeared.
As the seasonal winds blow...
... the future is only the past again, entered through another gate.
—Arthur Wing Pinero
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Chapter Seventeen
Time stopped.
Claire trembled. The howling wind ceased and silence blanketed the beach. Both Jack and Claire stared at the flat gray stone.
Lifeless. Dead.
The moon shone down on it, reflecting in the stone's dull gray exterior. It seemed impossible to Claire that they had truly witnessed what they had just seconds before.
Jack held her tight as she rested her cheek on his heaving chest. Neither dared move for several minutes. Neither wanted to risk letting go of the other, not fully comprehending what had just happened. Finally, Jack's hushed voice came to her. “Who is he, Hannah Claire?"
"It's very complicated, Jack. Let's go home and I will tell you."
Drawing back, she looked into his face. His glazed eyes bore down on hers. “Let us go."
* * * *
She sat on the edge of their bed, her back ramrod straight and watched Jack pace across the small cabin floor. He didn't, or wouldn't, speak to her. Just paced. Every once in a while he stopped to stare at a wall, contemplate some new thought, then resumed his nervous pacing. Finally, he pulled a ladder back chair away from the table, rotated it face out, then sat.
He studied her face for a moment then glanced away. “Why didn't you tell me this before now? Why didn't you tell me he was on the ship?"
She swallowed hard before she began. “There wasn't time. I never intended to keep it from you, Jack. I would have told you sooner, but we just ... we were so happy to get away from there, to have each other again. And then on the beach we got carried away and, frankly, we weren't doing a lot of talking."
Pursing his lips together, he rose, walked the short distance across the room and crouched in front of her. He took both her hands into his and laid them in her lap. His thumbs caressed her knuckles as he watched, then looked up into her face.
"Did he...? Did that monster...?"
She shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “No."
Jack closed his eyes in relief, and then snapped them back open.
"He is the man. The man you loved in your time."
She nodded.
"You said you didn't love him."
She broke away from his grasp. “No! I don't love him. I left him, Jack. Don't you see? It's him. He wants me back.” She scooted closer, found his hands again, and looked intently into his eyes. “I don't want him. I want you. Never underestimate that statement Jack. I love you."
Bone-melting relief softened his features. A hand went to her cheek and stroked. “Hannah Claire, my sweet woman, I love you, too."
Pulling her closer, he lowered his face to capture her lips in his. She could still taste the salt on his lips, relished in the sting of that, and let her lips mingle with his for a moment.
They parted and Jack studied her. “But what about ... what we saw?"
She knew that was something else entirely. She wasn't sure what the hell they had seen.
"I do not mind to tell you, Hannah Claire, that I am a believer in the Lord and the Devil. What I saw out there tonight frightens me. A severed head cannot speak."
"And people don't travel through time, either.” She knew he sensed the irony.
"That man must have been the devil himself."
She agreed. “According to history, Blackbeard was sometimes referred to as the devil. He was an evil man. But he is gone, now."
Puzzled, he returned, “Tell me."
"Blackbeard is dead. On November 22, 1718, he was beheaded in a battle with soldiers sent down from Virginia. I imagine the ones for whom you piloted the ship. You had a hand in that, Jack, and you should be proud. I'm sure that is the battle we heard early this morning."
A faraway glaze sifted over his eyes. “Maynard and his men finally defeated the bastard."
"Yes."
He laid his head in her lap. She gently ran her
fingers through his long, unbound hair, then dropped them to his shoulders, massaging. He moaned and burrowed deeper into her lap, his arms reaching out to surround her waist as he clasped her to him. She knew he was having a hard time comprehending all that had happened. It was difficult for her to grasp, as well.
A surge of desire raced through her, easing away the tension. As one small tear after another rolled down her cheeks, she felt her compassion for Jack deepen. Within an instant he rose, gently nudging her body onto the bed as he lay beside her, wrapping her within the protective cocoon of his arms. “This curse. I just don't know."
Claire held onto him all the more. “I'm not leaving you, Jack. Never will I leave you.” Immediately a pang of fear jolted up within her. She hadn't made any decisions. Why had she just assured him that she wouldn't leave? What was she thinking?
"But the curse..."
"The curse is just a silly thing to try and frighten us. It's nothing. Forget it.” Was she reassuring him, or herself?
He fell silent. “I think it is a thing to be reckoned with, Hannah Claire. I think we have to do what it wants. I don't want to risk it."
She drew back from his embrace, placed the palms of her hands on either of his cheeks, and looked deep into his eyes. “But how can we do such a thing? Why, in order to get the head back we..."
"...we'd have to travel to your time."
"No,” she returned abruptly, shaking her head. “We'll not do it. We're staying here."
Jack sat up in the bed. “We have to do what the curse says. I do not want our love damned, nor the love of our children. We have to break the curse."
She stared at him, shaking her head.
"We have to do it,” he told her.
