CHEVERLEY RECREATED Amental image of the pirate—black hair, malice-cursed eyes, and full, feminine lips in a misleading, practiced pout. Ignoring the cold sweat beading at his temples and soaking his nape, he overlaid her image on his target and focused his enmity at the center of her putrid heart.
He balanced the lower curve of his longbow against his boot and located the leather mouthpiece he’d tied around either side of the copal beads fused around the nock point. Using his right arm as a counter-weight, he nocked his arrow with his left, then shifted that hand to the bow. Then, with his back teeth, he bit down on the mouthpiece.
Feeling Hurtheven’s gaze but refusing to acknowledge his fascinated stare, he pushed away on the bow at the same time he pulled back the string. The muscles in his neck corded as the already taught flax strained to breaking.
He unlocked his jaw. The arrow whizzed through the air, hitting the target with a thud and a subsequent low-toned, thoroughly satisfying pulse.
“Huzzah.” Hurtheven whispered—not so much a cheer as an exclamation of awe.
Chev spit. The lingering taste was disgusting, really. Then again, after spending years believing he’d never shoot again, disgust was a small price to pay.
In the past few months, he learned to use every part of his body as he rebuilt his strength. But even his newly honed skills were not enough to silence the voice that besieged in nightly shadow, gnawing like a rodent, whittling away the hopes of family and home that kept him alive in the pirate’s sunless cave.
Tu pourrais t’échapper, mais tu m’appartiens, maintenant et toujours.You might escape, but you belong to me, now and always.
He spit again.
No matter how hard he worked, the pirate’s words—as much as her surgeon’s saw—left him branded. Enraged. Broken.
Thaddeus believed his father a hero. Thaddeus did not need the truth.
And, Penelope, well, she’d proven she did not need him at all.
Not only did Penelope own a now-thriving Pensteague, the papers recently claimed she’d set an intention to wed.
With eyes fixed to the red-centered target, he agonized again.
The night he’d arrived at the Admiralty, he’d found those in charge deeply embroiled in scandal. Their greatest hero—Chev’s former commander, Admiral Stone—had died, and the Admiralty’s plans to use Stone’s funeral to rouse nationalist pride were threatened by Stone’s wife, his mistress, and their dual claims to Stone’s estate.
Chev had knowledge of all three—the admiral, his wife, and his mistress. Consequently, the Admiralty “requested” he resolve the matter using a false name. The last thing they needed was a concurrent scandal—one that would explode when a gently bred captain they had “lost” and proclaimed dead returned very much alive.
Chev fulfilled the Admiralty’s demands—a task which had been neither as simple nor as easy as anyone expected, especially when Chev’s friend, Ash, had compromised—then married—the admiral’s widow.
Now, however, the thorny problem had been resolved, and Cheverley was left with a choice: He could reclaim his title at the expense of the lives Penelope and Thaddeus had created, or he could use the alias the Admiralty provided—Captain Smith—and riskhislife hunting down the pirate witch.
One option would destroy the lives of those he loved, the other would destroy his soul. Both left his tight-fisted, non-existent hand in pain.
“How long did that take you?” Hurtheven broke Chev’s reverie.
“Which part?” Cheverley snorted. “Finding a proper bow, or figuring out how to fashion a mouthpiece?”
“The strength,” Hurtheven replied. “Your neck swelled as if you had fish gills.”
Chev looked away. “I’ve practiced daily since I returned.”
“Justsince you returned?”
Chev ignored the question. He’d used his teeth to wrestle with his restraints the entire time he’d been captive.
“Your turn,” he said.
Hurtheven made two attempts to pull back the bow string. Both failed. Cheverley corrected Hurtheven’s stance, and then Hurtheven tried again. This time, he made the shot, but missed the target, though not by much.
Cheverley clapped his hand against his thigh. “I’m impressed.”
“Impressed I failed at what you accomplished with yourteeth?”
Chev shrugged. “Necessary adjustments.”
