The Pirate's Heart

by Bethany M. Sefchick

  Daniel struck first, his cutlass swinging out and slashing at Boucher’s arm, drawing first blood. That had been a thinking man’s strike. After that, however, Daniel simply let instinct born from years of piracy take over, his arm swinging to both block Boucher’s attack and launch his own.

  He was aware of the dull clank and clang of metal elsewhere, indicating that his crew might have joined the fray, or, if not them, then another pirate crew. After all, Boucher was not welcome here and more than one pirate ship full of men had it out for the Frenchman. Some of them might not care for Daniel, or rather Midnight Jack, either but they utterly despised Boucher.

  More clanking of metal. The guttural sounds of fighting. All of that and more filled Daniels ears.

  Until the moment it didn’t.

  In the heat of the battle, the sudden silence behind him was not a good thing, but he could not worry about Katherine just then. He needed to defeat Boucher first before he could defend her. This was why he had not wanted her to come ashore. He could not protect her here. Then – in the stillness of the expanding silence – he heard the soft, scraping hiss of metal being withdrawn from a sheath and his heart sank into his stomach. Old metal. Rusty metal. He could only pray that the next few minutes went quickly, and that they both lived to see the dawn of a new day together.

  Katherine had planned to allow Daniel to handle Boucher and his man alone. She knew the French pirate meant to exact a price from her body for her crimes against his crew, but she also understood that he hated Daniel – or rather Midnight Jack – far more than he hated her just then. Boucher also would not be free to take her as his prisoner as long as Daniel lived. Therefore, Daniel had to be dealt with first. Preferably killed. She had anticipated that and had done her best to prepare accordingly.

  What she hadn’t anticipated was Lord Wilds’ eagerness to get his hands on her, though she supposed she should have.

  “Come, my lovely.” Katherine felt his hand clamp down on her shoulder as his fetid breath fell upon her neck. It seemed that sea travel did not agree with him as much as it did with her. “Let us be away from here so that we can become better acquainted, as I’ve long wished.”

  Katherine didn’t reply. Nor did she think. She simply lashed out, her left arm swinging backward, for it now clutched the dagger she had withdrawn from her hip sheath the moment Boucher and his men had appeared in the alley. In all of the shouting, no one had heard or noticed her arm herself.

  Spinning around as she easily freed herself from Wilds’ grasp, she pulled back, not surprised to see blood drip from the tip of the dagger.

  “You fucking bitch!” Wilds snarled as he clutched his thigh. “You’ll pay for that! On your back! With my cock plundering your cunt until you are screaming for mercy!”

  Wilds lunged at her again, but once more Katherine was ready for him, stepping neatly out of the way. In her pirate garb, she could move quicker than he could in his puffed-up lord’s finery. He had dispensed with his normal powered wig she noticed, but other than that, he still wore the hard, buckled shoes that he favored, ones that, given his lack of balance, slipped on the damp cobblestones beneath their feet, unlike her own sturdier boots.

  “I am not your plaything, Lord Wilds,” Katherine swore as he charged at her again, attempting to rip the dagger out of her hands. “I would never allow you to touch me!”

  “But you would allow that pirate scum’s cock in your cunt so he could fuck you senseless and beget a bastard with you? As if you were his whore? That you enjoyed his cock so much that you now welcome his filthy touch? Is that what you are telling me?”

  In response, Katherine threw one of her daggers as she had aboard The Darkness, but it missed her intended mark and she heard it clank against a wall in the distance. She had two daggers left. The daggers themselves were heavy and before she had left the ship, she decided that too many of them in her pouch weighed her down too much. She might have moved easier and thus been able to carry more daggers, without the saber at her side, but for some reason, she could not explain, she had been unwilling to leave the rusty piece of metal behind.

  Unlike Daniel’s cutlass, the saber was lighter since it had been fashioned for a woman. Old and rusty, the weapon still felt better in her hands than anything other than the bow she had used the day the ship had been under attack. Now, she withdrew the saber from its sheath and prepared to fight – both for her life and Daniel’s.

  “Better Jack’s whore than your slave,” Katherine retorted icily. “I would rather die than be in your bed, Lord Wilds.”

  For a moment, the other man paused and Katherine had to wonder if he was reconsidering his plans. Then he shook his head. “It is your choice, my lady. If you wish to die here in this stinking alley with your bastard pirate lover, then that is your choice.” He made a sniff of disdain. “I’m not sure I would want a woman who would debase herself and lie with a filthy pirate anyway.”

  Except that despite his words, Wilds’ eyes roamed Katherine’s body hungrily, his gaze feasting on her bare tits and she knew the truth. If he managed to catch her, he would never let her go. He would fuck her until she no longer satisfied him. Then he would kill her. For a man like Wilds, the urge to possess something other men coveted was what drove him. As long as he knew she was what Daniel desired, Wilds would do whatever he could to take her away from him. He would not let up or relent. Nor would he leave them in peace. He would continue to hunt them down until he took what Daniel cared about the most – her.

  Katherine could not allow that to happen.

  Once more, she glanced at the sword in her hands. A sword made for the daughter of the Night Hawk. A woman no one had ever seen, but many still believed existed. Did she exist? Daniel claimed she did but who could truly say? No one had seen her, not even Hawk himself, and if the child did exist, she would likely not favor either parent. After all, a child born of an Englishman and a native of the islands would not really have the skin of either. Neither fully pale nor fully dark. Tanned, perhaps. Just as Katherine’s own skin was from so many years in the sun.

  Quickly, a plan began to form. A plan that was full of danger and, yes, death. Could she do this? Could she willfully take a life? She had killed before, true, but those deaths had been accidents suffered in the heat of battle. Could she look a man in the eyes and take his life?

  Looking up now into Lord Wilds’ eyes and seeing the naked hunger and the burning anger there, Katherine supposed she could. This man wanted to fuck her and then leave her for dead. He would take her life eventually if she did not take his first. Of that much, she was certain.

  So Katherine prepared to defend herself, all the while hoping she had not waited too long. She almost had, however.

  This time it was Wilds who struck first, wielding a sword that he could not seem to manage to hold correctly, no matter how hard he tried. Still, using a two-handed grip, he charged at Katherine and managed to catch her left forearm with the tip of his blade. The cut stung and she hissed in pain, hoping that if she lived through this battle that Dr. Wells did not have his cock too far up a man’s arse so that he would be unable to attend to her.

  Once more, Katherine managed to dance away from Wilds’ blade and promptly balanced her weight across both of her feet the way she would when firing an arrow. It was something she could do easily in her boots but would be more difficult for Wilds in his fancy shoes.

  When the lord charged at her again, this time Katherine was ready and soon, they were engaged in something resembling a sword fight. Though her blade was old and rusty, it still swung true, unlike Wilds’ wildly erratic movements. She was also not ill, something that Lord Wilds could not claim.

  Behind her, Katherine could hear shouts and screams, the strike of metal upon metal, but she did her best not to waver in her concentration. If she slipped, Wilds would strike and if he caught her? One way or the other, she would be dead, be it now or later.

  Then, from behind her, Katherine heard the most blood-chilli
ng scream imaginable and both she and Wilds froze and turned at the same time, their own battle momentarily suspended.

  As she turned, Katherine prepared for the worst. She prepared herself to see Daniel sprawled dead in the alley. She had lost him once and there was a part of her that truly believed she would lose him again before they could plan a future together.

  Thankfully, that was not to be.

  His chest heaving and blood seeping from a fresh wound on his shoulder, Daniel stood over the body of Boucher the Butcher. The man was not dead, for she could see him still drawing short, ragged breaths, but he was gravely injured. He might not survive much longer given the amount of blood pooling beneath him.

  “I am sparing you, Boucher, so that you may owe me your life.” The tip of Daniel’s cutlass was at the other pirate’s throat. One breath drawn too deep or one wrong move and the Frenchman would die. “In exchange, you will leave us alone. We are not yours to hunt any longer. I have bested you once and spared you. Remember that and live with the humiliation.” He flicked his wrist and the cutlass withdrew. “Now see yourself out.”

  Behind Daniel, Katherine could see shadowy figures moving in the darkness. Some of them were likely the crew of The Darkness, but the others were probably Boucher’s crew who had dropped their weapons and were now scuttling forward to pick up their leader from the alleyway. Daniel’s men allowed Boucher’s crew to pass, understanding that for a pirate like Boucher, living with the shame of Daniel’s mercy would be far worse than dying here in the alley this night.

  The Frenchman’s power and legacy were now tainted. There might be some people that still feared him, but there would be more who knew that Midnight Jack had not considered Boucher enough of a threat to kill him and that Boucher now owed his continued existence to Jack. For a man as full of pride as Boucher, that was almost a fate worse than death.

  “No!” That strangled cry came from Wilds who charged forward, Katherine momentarily forgotten, his eyes wide. “No! You cannot do this! Get up, man! I demand it! I am paying you!”

  Katherine was certain Lord Wilds had lost his sanity. After all, Boucher was half dead and his men were dragging him out of the alley as if he was a piece of meat. What did Wilds honestly expect him to do?

  “You.” Slowly, Wilds rounded on Katherine, his attention focused back on her once more. “This is all your fault, you pirate-fucking whore. I will see you in Hell before I see you in my bed.”

  Wilds charged before Daniel could react, but some part of Katherine must have been expecting the other man’s actions. Without thinking, she brought up the rusty saber and thrust it forward, directly into Wilds’ gut.

  She had no idea what part of his innards she had hit, but he went down immediately with a strangled cry, blood beginning to bubble from his mouth. A part of her was horrified. Though he wasn’t dead yet, he soon would be – by her hand.

  Katherine’s gaze flew to Daniel’s, and then back to the sword she clutched in her hands. A silent understanding passed between them, as if he had been thinking the same as she. As if Daniel could somehow read her mind. In this Vodun-infused land, he very well might have. Still, Katherine felt her knees begin to tremble and she likely would have crumpled to the ground if not for the sharp nod he gave her. That single nod gave her strength. She was not alone. Nor would she ever be again.

  “The Night Hawk’s death is finally avenged!” Daniel cried to the crowd who had gathered around the alley as he gestured for Katherine to step forward. “A wrong righted and justice served by his daughter’s own sword! It is what she and I have been working for these many years. Revenge again the man who tainted my name and stole her father’s life!”

  Several people had brought torches into the alley, and in the dim, flickering light, Katherine could see the men begin to whisper to one another. Several pointed to the necklace she still wore but more men gestured to the rusty and now-bloody saber she still clutched in her hands. A saber that, according to legend, had been fashioned for the daughter of The Night Hawk. A saber that Daniel owned because he had been kind to the now-dead pirate.

  But these men didn’t know that. All they knew was that The Night Hawk had fashioned a special weapon for his daughter and that weapon was now clutched in Katherine’s tanned hand as she stood over the body of a man that Daniel had just announced was responsible for “her father’s death.”

  Or at least that was what Daniel had implied. Though, for these men, the implication was obviously enough and a cheer went up among the assembled crowd, along with whispers about how it was right that the Night Hawk’s daughter had taken up with Midnight Jack. Something about poetic justice, which Katherine hadn’t realized pirates understood.

  But these men obviously did and rather than seize her for killing Lord Wilds, they were celebrating her and, as they stood over Lord Wilds’ body chuckling and cheering, they were also rather gleefully talking about dividing up the spoils from his corpse.

  “Jack.” More than anything, Katherine wanted to call out his real name just then, but she didn’t dare.

  “Hush, Duchess,” he whispered as he took the saber from her hands and handed it off to one of his crew. “All will be well.”

  “But I…”

  He placed a finger to her lips. “There will be time for that later. First? This.”

  Then Daniel pushed Katherine back against the same dirty alley wall where they had nearly fucked before and kissed her as if he never wanted to let her go. And she, in return, clung to him for that very same reason. For she never wanted to let him go again. Never.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Daniel’s heart had all but stopped when he saw Katherine plunge the old saber into Wilds’ gut. It had started to beat again when his proclamation that she had avenged her father’s death took hold and spread through the crowd like a fire. The lie, so quick to his tongue, was easy enough to believe, especially with the fabled saber in her hands and her body garbed as though she were one of them. A pirate queen and not a proper lady.

  In general, pirates liked a good comeuppance and, with Daniel’s story ringing in their ears, the assembled crowd now believed that the pompous Lord Wilds – the man supposedly responsible for The Night Hawk’s death – had received his in spades.

  However, Daniel didn’t think he had truly relaxed until the local constabulary had shown up and, with a shrug of their collective shoulders, proclaimed that there was nothing to see. Just a dead body of unknown origins turned up in an alley in a questionable part of town. They had sent the crowds on their way, and called for someone to remove the carcass. All the while, the lead constable had looked at Daniel askance, his gaze occasionally straying to Katherine, who looked very much like an angry, avenging angel prepared for more than a little bit of sin as well.

  When Daniel had introduced her as Night Hawk’s daughter, there were more raised eyebrows, but no one challenged his story, nor seemingly cared to, either. Apparently, Lord Wilds had been on Tortuga for several days awaiting The Darkness’ arrival and had made something of an impression with the population of the island – albeit an unfavorable one.

  The peer had blackened the eyes of two whores, broken the jaw of one of the island’s wealthy pirates-turned-merchant and come within a finger’s width of strangling a young serving wench to death. To say that the constabulary was thankful he was gone was something of an understatement.

  They had been a bit curious about Katherine, saying that from what they had been told, Midnight Jack was believed to have captured Lady Katherine Sedgewick from Barbados, at least according to both Wilds and Boucher.

  For his part, Daniel had feigned innocence and gestured to Katherine, her tits bared, her tanned body clearly visible, and her arm still bleeding and asked if she looked like a lady or if she looked like a pirate’s daughter. When everyone agreed that no lady would dare look so scandalous or even dream of exposing her breasts, the matter had been dropped. Though there was some question as to whether or not she was actually a pirate
as no one had seen her before, not that Daniel supposed they really cared one way or the other.

  Again, the officials hadn’t actually cared, and a small exchange of coin guaranteed that they never would. Instead, the constables, such as they were, nodded and proclaimed they were satisfied that the matter was closed. Then, with a small wave and a secret smile of thanks, Daniel and Katherine had been left to their own devices after a brief warning that they might wish to set sail again soon.

  That was a warning Daniel would be quick to heed.

  Which was why he and Katherine were now safely back aboard The Darkness, the crew busy resupplying the ship so that they could depart as soon as possible.

  For a brief moment, he had thought about booking the two of them passage to England under aliases, but just as quickly dismissed the idea. They were known to Tortugan officials now so it would be foolish to take up other identities. Wilds was dead, and Boucher owed Daniel his life, so there was no threat from that quarter either.

  Both Jennings and Goddard had been found dead in a brothel about an hour after the brawl in the alley. Their throats had been slit and no one claimed to know anything about how they had come to be there. The brothel’s madame had, however, said that her girls did not service traitors, leading Jack to believe that word had spread throughout the pirate community and beyond that the two men had betrayed the infamous Midnight Jack. Jennings and Goddard had likely been killed as a sign of loyalty toward Jack and his crew, probably in hopes that, if he planned to do any plundering, they would be spared.

  Though at present, the only plundering Jack – or rather Daniel – planned to do was of Katherine’s luscious cunt.

  “You could have died tonight, Duchess.” Daniel and Katherine had only returned to their cabin a quarter of an hour ago after making certain that everyone on the crew was agreeable with sailing on to England, for that was now The Darkness’ next port of call.