by Pride, Mia
“Well…” Kat said, looking up at him as they boarded the Catalina. “I dinnae ken how to be a countess.”
Juan chuckled. “I do not know how to be an earl or a Scotsman.”
“Och, I can teach ye that. Ye just need to talk like me.”
“Aye!” Juan said, knowing he sounded ridiculous with his thick Spanish accent. “I shall require practice.”
“Speaking of practice,” Kat said, fluttering her lashes. “There are things I feel we must practice more of, as well.”
Understanding exactly what Kat referred to, Juan jumped on the deck of his ship and shouted to his crew. “Ready the sails and raise the anchor, men! We sail back to Clew Bay once more and any enemy ships we find on the way are the property of the Beast and his men!”
His crew shouted with excitement and jumped to their tasks, while Juan snuck away to take care of a few tasks of his own.
Epilogue
Two Days later
Biting her lip to keep from screaming out her pleasure, Kat clenched the sheets in her fists as Juan buried his head between her legs, doing that thing with his clever tongue that always made her feel dizzy with need.
After her body stopped spasming from another whole-body release, Kat sat up and pushed Juan back onto the bed, climbing on top of him with a wicked grin. “Ye are a clever Scotsman, are ye not?” she purred.
“I do not know if I am clever, but I am damned fortunate,” he replied with a smirk that drove her mad.
Looking down at his stiff rod between their bodies, Kat wrapped her hand around it and slid onto it, always enjoying the feeling of their bodies coming together as one. “I think I am the fortunate one,” she sighed, moving slowly on top of him while he gripped her backside and groaned. “I remember the morning I saw all of ye and wondered what it would feel like to be with ye, but I never kenned it would be this good,” she whispered, closing her eyes as their bodies moved in tandem.
His hands moved up her back and around to her breasts, squeezing them in his palms before pinching her nipples in his fingers, causing her to groan and move faster.
“You are a wild one, Catalina Sanchez,” Juan grunted, matching her increasing speed and closing his eyes. She liked to watch his face as they made love, especially right before he gave in to his final release.
“Do ye not mean Katherine Stewart, Countess of Moray?” she panted.
Opening his eyes and looking into hers, he said, “You will always be Kat O’Malley to me, my wild Irish lass.” She moved against him wildly, feeling them both ready to experience ecstasy.
“And ye will always be my pirate beast.” Moaning, she felt herself tensing, felt the pressure building within, ready to explode. Bearing down on him, she looked him in the eye. “I want ye to spill yer seed in me, Juan.”
“You do?” he asked, looking into her eyes.
“Aye. Come what may, I will leave it up to fate. It has brought us this far together.” Then, at the pinnacle of her pleasure, Kat lost control of herself and screamed as waves of pure wonderment washed over her and she felt Juan tense beneath her, letting his release go, letting his pleasure fill her.
Collapsing on top of him, Kat sighed and kissed him gently, rolling off as they held one another, feeling their sweat-slicked skin against one another.
A bang on the cabin door made Juan groan in annoyance. “A captain’s work is never done,” he mumbled against her neck and she giggled, loving the feel of his scratchy beard against her flesh.
“Captain! A fleet of ships can be seen on the horizon!” William hollered from the other side of the door.
Grumbling, Kat watched as Juan got up and put on his breeches, knowing he had work to do, but wishing they could just hold each other forever.
“How many ships?” Juan shouted, slipping his tunic over his head and tucking it in quickly. Kat did the same, wanting to be dressed and on deck if trouble was approaching. They walked a fine line between privateers and pirates, the role changing depending on every situation.
“At least four,” Will’s nervous voice on the other side answered.
Opening the door, Juan looked at the young crew member and stepped out, Kat following behind in her brimmed hat.
“Whose flag do they fly?” Kat asked, walking over to the railing and looking into the horizon, seeing ships swiftly approaching.
“The same flag we do,” Juan groused, looking through the spyglass.
Kat looked up at the mast, not sure which flag they currently flew, as they changed it from time to time depending on the waters they sailed. A black flag with a boar’s head clenching a bloody blade whipped in the wind and Kat cringed. “Shite.”
“Si. Shite,” Juan repeated.
“Ah, so my former mother by marriage has finally caught up with ye, it seems,” Kat heard Lawrence say with amusement from behind her.
“Finally?” Kat asked, looking over her shoulder.
“Ye think ye could simply vanish from Clew Bay for over a fortnight and yer grandmother would not send out a fleet of ships in search of ye, lass?” Lawrence said incredulously.
“Shite!” Kat groaned, rubbing her face before looking at Juan. “My grandmother is going to kill me!”
“’Tis likely, aye,” Lawrence chuckled. “She will be glad ye arenae dead, then she will kill ye.”
Looking behind their ship, Kat saw Tomas’ in the distance and she prayed her brother would stop to help her cause. She may be a grown and married woman, even a countess, but Grace O’Malley would not care about any of that.
As the ships sailed closer and closer, Kat was more than certain her grandmother already had seen her through the spyglass. Even jumping into the sea would not help her now.
“It will be fine, Kat,” Juan said calmly, not at all concerned about the approaching Sea Banshee, Pirate Queen of Ireland.
“For ye, mayhap. I am the one who stowed away on a bloody ship without telling anyone. How could I have been so daft? It didnae even occur to me. I am a foolish woman.”
“You were thinking of protecting your brother from the Beast and his villainous ways,” Juan said with mirth. “You had more important concerns on your mind.”
“Aye, like getting my gold back,” Kat growled.
“Drop anchor!” Juan commanded to his men as he stood at the wheel of the ship staring at the ships as they drew closer and dropped their anchors as well.
Kat could see her grandmother on board the ship nearest them and she sighed when she saw her mother and Katherine with them. Turning around, she noticed Tomas’ ship had closed in and was preparing to join the impromptu family reunion, which made her feel a slight bit more at ease.
A grappling hook flew over the starboard side of the ship, attaching to the railings to pull their ship closer to Grace’s.
“Well if it isnae my pain in the arse granddaughter,” Grace shouted from her ship just as a large wooden plank slammed down on their ship, creating a walkway. Tomas’ ship did the same at their stern and Kat shook her head as her brother boarded from one side and her grandmother boarded from the other, followed by her mother and Katherine, who carried wee Ian in her arms.
Juan stepped away from the wheel and came over to stand beside Kat, taking her hand, which made Grace raise a curious brow.
“Katherine Burke! How dare ye leave home without telling yer grandmother!” Maeve, her mother, cried. She was always hysterical and overdramatic. One would think being raised by a Pirate Queen would have made her a wee bit less emotional, but her mother had always been the first to panic.
“Greetings, Mama,” Kat said, flashing her mother a large smile.
“Dinnae get clever with me, lass! How do ye think I felt arriving at Clew Bay for a visit, only to discover that ye had gone missing. We launched the ships and have been out here for days, searching for ye!’
Taking a deep breath, Kat took off her brimmed hat and scratched her head. “I am sorry, Mama. And Grandmother,” she said looking at Grace.
“Och. I
kenned ye were all right. Ye have always been a wild one… much like me. Yer mama here is the one who got all worked up,” Grace said, rolling her eyes.
“Where did ye go? Why did ye leave?” her mother wailed and Katherine stepped forward, putting an arm on her mother by marriage.
“’Tis all right now, Maeve. We have found her… and there is Tomas!” Katherine cried as she saw her husband boarding from the back and she ran to him with an excitement that made Kat smile.
“Your daughter is a brave woman,” Juan said to Maeve. “She was worried for Tomas, not certain he should trust me as much as he did. She believed I held secrets, so she dressed as a lad and stowed away on this ship. I was not aware she was here until we were out to sea.”
Grace snorted. “She is much like me. I once did the same as a young lass.”
“Aye, but ye were much younger than me then. I should have kenned better. I was not brave. I was foolish. But, all is well, Juan protected me the entire time with his life and—”
“You did the same for me, mi amor,” he interrupted, squeezing her hand, and she looked at him and shrugged.
“We take care of one another,” Kat added.
Walking over with Tomas, Katherine gasped and handed him their son. “I kenned it! Did I not ken it? I did!”
“Kenned what?” Kat asked her sister by marriage.
“That ye and Juan had run off to be together! Ye are meant to be. I kenned it, did I not?” she asked Tomas, who shrugged and nodded.
“She did. She has been saying it all along. That is why I wasnae so surprised when I discovered that ye were in love.”
“In love… with a Spaniard?” Maeve cried.
“Aye, Mama,” Kat said, feeling annoyed. “Why does it matter?”
“He is a Scottish earl, cousin to both the King of Scotland and the Queen of England, as well as the queen’s godson.”
Turning around, Kat saw Alonso on deck, standing beside Rose and she smiled at him, grateful for his support.
“Who are ye?” Grace asked, looked at the older couple.
“Grandmother, that is Alonso Sanchez, Juan’s father and she is Rose MacDougall, from Castle Dheomhan. She was a maid for the Devils of the Deep and they will be living with us at Clew Bay.”
“He is an earl and a Scotsman?” Katherine asked, looking at Kat with wide eyes. “That makes ye… a countess? Bloody hell!”
“I am Katherine Stewart, Countess of Moray, aye,” Kat said with a wink. “But, that is only when I am in Scotland visiting our lands in Stirling. Here, ye may simply call me Kat Sanchez, the wife of the Beast of the Bay and Grace’s pain in the arse granddaughter.”
“I have nay bloody idea what any of ye are blabbering on about anymore, but now that we have found ye, I will go back to Clew Bay. Believe it or not, a Pirate Queen has more to do than chasing ye down!”
Grace walked up to Kat and stared at her with her own bright green eyes and gave her a small smirk before leaning in to whisper in her ear. “I am proud of ye, lass. Ye can tell me all about yer visit with the Queen of England when we return.”
Walking away, Grace hopped on the plank back to her ship, while Katherine went with Tomas, and Maeve decided to stay with Kat to learn more about where her unruly daughter had been all these days, yet she seemed to be calming down, somehow soothed that her daughter had married a Scottish earl, which made Kat simply wish to roll her eyes.
“Are ye ready to return home, wee wife?” Juan asked with his best Scottish accent, yet it was horrible, and Kat burst out laughing.
“Si, mi amor. Let us return home.” Getting on her tiptoes, Kat kissed his cheek just as she heard her grandmother shouting from her own ship.
“Dutch on the horizon! I smell a plundering waiting to happen! Who’s with me?”
Juan looked at Kat and smirked. “One more adventure before we head back to Clew Bay, Wife?”
Excitement thrummed through her and she rocked on her heels, smelling the brine in the air as the wind whipped her hat off into a sea that sparkled like a million diamonds in the light of the afternoon sun. She may be a countess when in Scotland, but here in the wilds of the Atlantic, she was a pirate through and through.
“Aye, there is always time for an adventure, Beast,” she replied, watching her family ready their ships to sail into the horizon, where the Dutch would learn once more what happens to those who sailed into the Pirate Queen’s waters.
Author’s Note
Thank you, lovely reader, for taking the time to read Beast of the Bay, my second contribution to the Pirates of Britannia series! I had a lot of fun writing this story, and there is a fair amount of history entwined in the plot that I would love to share with you!
Clew Bay, where this book begins, is the real Irish pirate stronghold where the famous Pirate Queen, Grace O’Malley, once lived during Elizabeth’s time. Everything I said in the book about Grace is true. She lived at Rockfleet Castle on Clare Island in Clew Bay and had several children who appear more in my first book, Plunder by Knight. Maeve, or Margaret, was truly her daughter and she did have a grandson named Tomas who appears very briefly in history but little is known of him. Plunder by Knight is Tomas’ story, but Juan first appeared in that book and though he is a fictional character entirely, I decided to give a person, a child, who could have been a king if he had a lived, a chance to live once more: Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias.
During my months of research for this novel, I was looking deeper into the Hapsburgs, who were the royal family of Spain during that time. Due to inbreeding over many generations, their line was plagued with birth defects, most notably an enlarged chin and protruding lower jaw. Many of their children did not live past their first years. Philip II of Spain had four wives and almost every male child died very young, including his first son from his fourth wife, Anna. Ferdinand lived to be seven years young before he passed and for some reason, his portrait called to me. I stared at it, wondering what he would have become if he had lived. Maybe it’s the mother in me, for I have two young sons of my own.
I wanted Juan to have a sordid and complicated past, one he would have to keep secret no matter what… until he had no choice but to show his cards. I thought it would fun to give Ferdinand the chance to live again through Juan, and so I did.
Ferdinand’s true father was Philip Hapsburg, but I also wanted to save Juan from the disasters that came from being a true member of that family. Anna really did cross through England on her way to Spain to meet Philip. I thought it would be intriguing for her to fall in love with someone else, and James Stewart was a perfect choice. He was assassinated right at the time when Juan (Ferdinand) would have been conceived, was a royal bastard, but still held much power. He was also Elizabeth’s cousin, and Philip’s wife before Anna was Mary I, Elizabeth’s sister. How fun it was to see how they all connected. I even had to make a small family tree to see their connections while I wrote the story. I definitely played with some history, but for all we know, it could have all happened! History’s mysteries!
Remember the portrait of Ferdinand I referred to? Well, it was painted by a man named Alonso Sanchez when Ferdinand was four years old. But since he passed away at seven, I created the second portrait so Anna would have a chance to give Juan over to Alonso. Nobody would ever suspect that a royal child had been swapped as the painter’s son.
The events unfolding around them in the story are factual and true to the time and year, as well. The story starts in 1598, which really is the year Philip II died and his son Philip III took over. He was a horribly incapable king, also having birth defects. I imagined if he were to discover his elder brother still lived, he would want to quietly remove him before the Spanish people discovered his existence.
The Battle of Turnhout happened in the year 1597, just before our story begins, between Spain and the Dutch and English, which was a massive defeat for the already struggling Spanish. Half their army died in this battle, and they had already suffered two failed attacks on England with t
heir armadas, one of which Juan was a part of before being shipwrecked in Ireland and saved by Tomas.
Tomas made Juan a captain because he had to deal with events up north in Ulster, which also was happening at this time. Ireland was at war with England, doing all they could to keep their independence. Many of the raids were led by Hugh O’Neill, as was the attack of the English base that Tomas attempted to quell, unsuccessfully.
As for Kat, well… her parents really existed. Maeve was the daughter of Grace and she married John Burke who lived in Burke Castle. Very little to nothing at all is known of her personal life. We know she did have a son named Tomas Esmonde who was fathered by Lawrence, her first husband who she left because he was a Protestant and loyal to Elizabeth, while she was a Catholic. She took Tomas with her, which is all seen in Plunder by Knight, as well. As for Kat, she is a figment of my imagination and a mighty wild one, I do say! She is spunky and full of pride for her family, resembling her grandmother in many more ways than she does her skittish mother, Maeve. Just as Kat dressed as a man to board a ship, Grace really is reported as having done that and earning her father’s respect in the process.
My favorite part of writing historical romance, aside from the romance, of course, is being able to use true history and often forgotten events and people to build a realistic yet fictional world. I hope I have created a story that not only piqued your love for history but kept you engaged as you lived the adventure with Juan and Kat!
Again, thank you so much for choosing Beast of the Bay. I know you have so many books to choose from, and it means the world that you chose mine! If you have not yet read Plunder by Knight, the story of Tomas and Katherine, now is your chance! Feel free to follow me on social media or many other sites to keep up to date on my releases!
Cheers,
Mia Pride
About the Author
Mia is a full-time wife and mother of two rowdy boys, residing in the SF Bay Area. As a child, she often wrote stories about fantastic places or magical things, always preferring to live in a world where the line between reality and fantasy didn’t exist.
