Damn him to hell anyway.
With Le Noir reclining in the blood of his own gore, Brendan turned to find Ricki coming to, his face bloody, his broken nose blowing crimson bubbles.
No one betrayed the Rees’.
Thrusting the tip of the blade into Ricki’s chest, Brendan brought justice to the family, and to Rio.
A husky chuckle tickled his ear, and he turned to gaze upon the one who’d laughed. Emerging from the shadows beside the door, a familiar face grinned at him.
“Well, damn, Cousin, I had hoped you would leave some for me.”
Brendan tossed the borrowed sword back to its owner, offering a curt nod in thanks.
His focus on Rio, he knelt beside her, rolling her onto her back. His first sight of her after her near death, he was nearly felled by relief.
She was alive. She was mostly unhurt, save for the bead of blood that had dripped from her chin to her naked breast.
“And who is this?” his cousin asked, kneeling down beside Rio to lean in and help Brendan with her binds.
Rio moaned, her body tensing.
“Shh,” he cooed, rubbing Rio’s unbound wrists. “You are safe now. I have you, Whelp.”
Rio’s eyes were wide, flicking from him to his cousin, and back. He chuckled at the confusion in his beloved’s gaze.
Unknotting the gag from behind Rio’s head, he pulled the sodden fabric from her mouth, the immediately brushed his lips over hers. He needed to kiss her deeply, to taste her, but that would have to wait for when they didn’t have such an audacious audience.
“Rio, this is my cousin, Rose,” he began. “And Rose, behave.”
Rose snorted, rolling her dark brown eyes. “As I have always said, Brendan, I will behave when there is nothing more exciting to be.”
Chapter Sixteen
Brendan’s cousin was gorgeous, stunning, breathtaking—and Rio had never been more relieved to learn that the beautiful redhead was related to la Bete. Not a lover. Not a contender for his affections, not that she was certain she was a contender for his affections.
She’d been pacing Brendan’s cabin on the Torriwr for the last hour, her heartbeat still thundering, her mind still racing. She had nearly died. Brendan had nearly died, and for what? Because some wicked man wanted his revenge. Revenge against a whole class of people! It was ridiculous, it was mad. And the man had escaped.
Her body suddenly heavier than she’d ever known, she slumped onto the bed and leaned down to cradle her head in her hands. She ached. Her body ached, and more than that, her heart ached.
Now that the business with the letter was done with, would she and Brendan go back to being Captain and his cabin boy, or would they return to the man and the woman, who they were in that inn room, where she’d realized how deeply she cared for her Beast.
But he left you. Walked away.
And she remembered how utterly gutted she’d been when he’d gone, leaving her naked and still vulnerable after their love making. She’d felt cheap, used, and abandoned. But it had been her fault. She hadn’t trusted him, and she’d trusted him too much, giving him her body when he’d made no promises to cherish the heart that came with it.
A knock on the door made her flinch, but she hadn’t the energy to lift her head.
Oh, how far she had fallen.
What would her brothers think of her now? She was their leader, the one who held them all together on those nights when it was so cold the ground froze beneath them while they struggled to sleep. She was the one who made sure six mouths were fed, at least three times per week—and more if she could steal enough. For eleven years, it had been her that they leaned on, depended on, and she’d been the strong one, the one who fought and bled to care for them.
And it had taken one man, his gentle touch and ravenous kisses, to render her weak.
When she didn’t answer the knock at the door, the door latch clicked and the door squeaked open. The footsteps that sounded were light and yet purposeful. Rio glanced out from between her hands, peering through her lashes at the unwanted visitor.
“You look about as happy as a dog hanging from the mast,” Rose drawled, her voice the sharp side of disgusted. “Brendan was wrong. You are not as resilient as I am.” She pouted, her gaze scouring Rio’s slumped shoulders and sloppily-dressed frame.
Dragging her head from her hands, she pinned Rose with a glare.
“Merci,” Rio snapped. “Though I am sure the dog was much happier once it strangled to death.” She refused to think on what Rose had said about Brendan thinking her resilient. It wasn’t a compliment, it was a matter of fact. Though, she couldn’t help the prickling of hope that Brendan had even spoken of her to Rose.
Non. How could he not speak of you to Rose? Rose had been there in that opulent room to see you at your worst; naked, helpless.
Rio cursed, dropping her hands to grasp her knees, her knuckles white with the strain to not scream her mounting frustrations.
Rose arched a trim, copper eyebrow, her plump, red lips drawn in as if to bite off a laugh.
“Hmmm, as feisty as a kitten, too,” Rose murmured. Her disgust not as obvious now.
Dog. Kitten. Rio felt more like a louse.
Rio huffed. “Did you come here only to compare me to animals, or do you have another purpose?” she asked, fuming.
Unbothered by Rio’s anger, Rose strode to Rio and plopped down on the bed beside her.
“I have come to give you the good news.”
“Oh? And what news is that?” Rio asked, warily. She knew very little about Rose, but it did not take a wealth of knowledge to know that Rose had a peculiar…mind. For all she knew, Rose had come to tell her that the ship was on fire and that they could all roast fish over the bodies of the dead crew.
“Brendan has ordered the Torriwr to sail to Calais,” she answered, more enthusiastically than the news warranted.
To Calais?
“Why?” Rio asked, fear trickling down her back. There was only one reason Brendan would be returning to Calais before her sworn year was up.
“You are going home,” Rose announced, her red lips widening into a smile that only made Rio’s chest fill with stark sorrow. Rose pulled back, her smile dying. “Why are you not happy? I thought you would want to go home.”
Sick rising in her throat, Rio forced a tiny smile. “Home.” She gave a curt nod. “Of course I am happy to go home.”
She would be back with her brothers, the only men in her life who truly cared about her.
So why did it twist her guts to think of it?
Because Brendan wishes to wash his hands of me, the whelp he never wanted.
Lifting her hands to tap her chin thoughtfully, Rose examined Rio’s expression.
“Now, why would you lie about something like that?” she pondered. “Unless you really do not want to go home…”
Tensing at the woman’s perceptiveness, Rio blurted, “Think what you want, Rose.”
Rose chuckled. “I will. I always do. Just ask Brendan.”
Rio shook her head. “I would rather not ask Brendan anything. If he has decided to take me home, we have reached the end of our—” She stopped. She didn’t know what it was that they had shared. Certainly, they’d shared their bodies with one another. The pleasure and intimacy had changed Rio’s life forever, but that didn’t mean Brendan felt the same about it.
Of course he does not, fool. Since rescuing her from La Revanche and Le Noir, Brendan hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words to her, leaving her in the care of Rose and then Callet, once they’d reached the Torriwr. And now, he was taking her back to Calais.
As a man of the world, Brendan had, no doubt, experienced his fair share of women. What was one more? Though she had given her heart and soul to him, he hadn’t even given her a second thought.
“Rio—or is it Anamaria?” Rose inquired.
Rio heaved a sigh, her eyes burning with exhaustion and emotion. “I prefer Rio. I have not been called Anamaria
since Mamma left. And how did you know about Anamaria?” No one, save Brendan, knew her true name.
Rose shrugged, her grin lopsided. “Soon, you will learn that I am the unofficial Rees master of spies. I have a network, little birds that chirp in my ears, singing their secrets and all the things they see and hear as they fly along.”
And what else did her birds tell her?
“Well, then, Rio, what the hell do you think you are doing?” Rose snapped, her dark eyes blazing.
Startled, Rio gasped. “What do you mean?”
“You have survived for twenty-two years, stealing and outsmarting and sacrificing—you are one of the toughest women I have ever heard of, certainly tougher than some of the women my favorite cousin could have chosen for himself.”
Rio snarled, her anger and despair eating away at her. “Brendan has no more chosen me for himself than I have chosen him. He is taking me home, is he not? That means we are done, our arrangement is over.”
Rather than immediately remark on Rio’s outburst, Rose crossed her arms and regarded Rio thoughtfully. There was a small charm on a thin cord around her neck, and she seemed to instinctively reach for it, rolling it between her long fingers. “You have not chosen him, eh?”
“Non, I have not,” she lied, the words sour.
“Then why are you sitting in here, pouting like a kitten that has lost her favorite ball of string?”
Again with the animals?
“I am not a kitten—or a dog. I am a woman—”
“A woman who is pouting,” Rose interjected.
Rio shot to her feet, her fists clenched. “I am not pouting!”
Rose shot to her feet as well, though she was only a little taller than Rio, she seemed all the larger simply because she carried herself with a wicked, deadly confidence.
“Then why are you in here and not out there, climbing Brendan and begging him to anchor his sloop in your harbor?”
The image was so outrageous, Rio could not stop the bark of laughter that erupted from her chest. When another laugh escaped, she let it. Eventually, when the laughter stopped, Rose was grinning at her, her beautiful face shining.
“You are good for Brendan. The Beast of Blades could use some merriment in his life. He has been so focused on completing his mission for the Demonios, that I was sure he’d gone from flesh and blood to stone and metal.”
After her return to the ship, Callet had taken it upon himself to explain all that she’d heard between La Revanche, Brendan, and Ricki. She’d told the older man what they’d said, and he’d told her about the Rees’ and their debt owed to the Spaniard pirates, and how intercepting that letter in Calais had been the last part of his final mission for a man named Santiago Fernandez, the man from who La Revanche had tried to steal the silver.
The factions, the enemies, the allies, the treasures—it had all been so confusing that Rio had felt a greater respect for Brendan. He had been involved in something that could have exhausted a lesser man, but he’d accomplished everything he’d promised to do.
He is a man worth fighting for.
Struck by a sense of determination, Rio drew her shoulders back, a fire growing in her chest.
“What do you suggest I do?” Rio asked. She’d spent her life living as a boy, never once considering what it would take to attract a man when survival meant keeping them away.
“First thing, you will change,” Rose replied, going to the door and opening it. On the other side stood Callet. He was holding something long and shimmering over his forearms.
“Good man, Callet,” Rose cooed, reaching out to take the item from the man, who was peering over Rose’s shoulder at Rio. The lines beside his eyes were crinkled, his eyes dancing.
“Twas my pleasure, Rose,” Callet replied before Rose closed the door on his grinning face.
As Rose practically ripped the ill-fitting clothes from Rio’s body, chuckling to herself, Rio realized that she was in trouble.
Please, let him feel the same.
He felt as though his skin were too tight for his body, his bones too heavy for his frame. Another kick, delivered with more than enough force, landed square in his belly.
“Now, my lord Martin LaBroque—for I refuse to call you La Revanche—have you finally realized the error of your ways?” the man hovering over him drawled, his accent making his words thick.
He refused to speak, to give these dogs the courtesy of acknowledging them at all.
Another kick followed in the wake of his silence.
“Let me remind you of your errors, then, since you seem to have forgotten them.”
Non. He had not forgotten. And they weren’t errors, or at least they would not have been if his plans had gone according to his machinations. He’d spent years plotting, drawing his enemies in, and then making them his puppets, and before he could cut the strings and laugh as they fell, that goddamn Rees and his fucking whore in breeches came along.
“You should not have targeted my ships, LaBroque. You should not have thought to befriend men such as the Van Rompays, who would sell you out the moment it made them coin. You should not have believed yourself above all others to such a height that you would look down upon us all and deem us unworthy.”
“But you are unworthy! You are nothing! You have become nothing. But I have come from nothing to become everything!” A kick to the mouth made his head snap back, nearly jarring his soul from his body.
They did not believe him, the dogs. He had come from nothing and gained everything. He had! Born a bastard and forced to bugger wealthy men to survive, he had spent many a night, his body beaten and used, hating those same men, the men who paraded through the streets as though they were above it all. But then rutted poor young men like animals. He knew that if given the chance, he would expose them, use them for his own gain, and then watch as they dismantled their own power, their own mansions, as he drank and laughed and breathed out vengeance upon them.
He was vengeance! Revenge against a world of wicked men with black hearts dressed in fine clothes and shining jewels.
His jaw hanging strangely, he could barely force out his words. “I will have my revenge.”
There was a deep, mocking, heartless chuckle.
“No. I will have mine.”
His body was pulled up, his limbs tied by ropes attached to pulleys. The other ends of the ropes were secured to large stones which were set precariously at the edge of the ship’s railing.
Santiago Fernandez, leader of the Demonios de Mar, leaned in beside him, peering down into his swollen face with disgust curling his lips.
“You should not have gone into battle with a demon, unarmed.”
La Revanche’s screams were torn from his body just as his arms, then his legs were.
Chapter Seventeen
Brendan gripped the railing tightly, his body moving with the undulations of the waves. If only he could say the same about his tumultuous emotions.
When he’d been confronted by Le Noir in the alley, his only thought was that Rio was safe—she had to be, but then the dread had set in. Hearing Rose’s near perfect barn owl screech had offered him a moment of hope, that he had someone in the shadows watching, waiting to give aid when needed. But once he’d walked into that room and seen Rio on the ground, bound, and naked, he had nearly lost all sense of preservation. He’d wanted to kill every last one of those bastards. Wanted to take back his blades and slice pounds of flesh from each man while he screamed in agony.
He was glad Le Noir and Ricki were dead, wanted to revel in it. La Revanche had escaped, but Brendan knew he would not get far, not with Fernandez and the rest of the Demonios closing in. The fool’s plan to steal from the Demonios and blame the Van Rompays had a critical flaw—aside from La Revanche’s arrogance; he did not know that the Ganwyd o’r Mor, the Rees family pirate faction, and the Demonios de Mar were in a sort of loose association based on their equal hatred for the French faction, the Les Porteurs d’eau. Also, though he’d thoroughly d
espised being tied to the Demonios for the last two years, they had formed a tight network of allies along the coastal ports that could pass information quicker than any letter could.
And it had been a goddamn letter that had changed his life forever. That letter had brought him Rio.
At the thought of the fiery, stubborn, resourceful, loyal, and incredible woman, his chest grew tight but never felt so full, and his soul immolated, the fire of his heart spreading through him.
As soon as they reached Calais, he would tell Rio everything he’d wanted to tell her that first day, after their first kiss. And once she knew, he would beg her to stay with him, offering her the world—even if he had to drain the seas and scorch the land to do it.
Brendan caught a flash of black, making him turn toward the bow where Rose was ascending from below decks. He’d sent her to check on Rio, to make sure she was settling in, and to tell her they were returning to Calais. Aye, he could have gone to her himself, but he was terrified that he would take one look at her, wrap his arms around her, and never let her leave that cabin again. The memory of her gagged, her eyes wide and pleading, with Le Noir’s blade at her throat would forever haunt him, the ghost of his failure to protect her. To protect what was his.
“What took you so long?” he asked Rose and she sidled up to stand beside him, a smirk on her face.
“I thought I would take some time to get to know that woman who was able to tame the Beast,” Rose teased.
Tamed the Beast, eh? He chuckled. Rio did more than tame him, she captured him, body and soul.
Forever.
“And what did you two talk about?” he asked, his curiosity rising at the flickering of mirth and mischief in his cousin’s eyes.
She shrugged, which only made him all the warier. Rose was not known for her good ideas.
“Oh, nothing important. Just about kittens and dogs, anchoring and harbors,” she replied smoothly. “Oh! And her going home and never seeing you again.”
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