Desi was no stranger to fear.Once she’d caught her ankle in the cleft of a sharp reef and nearly run out of air before her companions found her.Then there was the day the men in black suits came to their door to inform her mother that her husband was lost at sea and presumed dead.Desi had spent the next week listening to her mother sob hysterically while she and her sister huddled upstairs in their bedroom.Not six months later, Desi watched her mother scream in agony as she breathed her last, leaving Desi and her sister alone in the world except for an eccentric old man they hardly knew.Now, she lived in terror of losingOcean’s Echoand worse, losing her sister to an incurable disease.
But this…whatever was happening, spun such horror through her that she could no longer feel her fingers or toes, could no longer form a rational thought.
The sailors shoved her into a tiny room.With their mismatched, tattered clothing and long, stringy hair, they looked more like musicians from a defunct 70s rock band than seamen.They lingered, staring too long, licking their lips as if they’d never seen a woman before.Then the door slammed, the lock snapped shut, and she was alone.
Everything was so real.The feel of the planks beneath her bare toes, the slant of the deck as the ship made its turn, the deafening rush of wind and water against the hull, and the hard cot beneath her bottom as she dropped to sit on it before she fell.She must have lost her fins and oxygen tanks above deck, though she couldn’t remember removing them.Could she really have been transported back in time?Was that even possible?Opening her palm, she stared at the Ring.The ravages of the sea and time no longer marred its beauty.A brilliant crimson jewel glistened in a ray of sun oscillating through the window.Strange ancient writing framed the edges.It was heavy too, as if it contained all the secrets of the universe.A drop of water fell from her wet hair onto the Ring and oddly, instead of sliding off, the jewel absorbed it.
Of course it did.Nothing made any sense.Her thoughts and heart spun into a cyclone of confusion and fear.Maybe if she closed her eyes and pressed on the Ring, she’d end up back in the sea off the coast of Miami, hunting for treasure.
Taking a deep breath, she held the Ring against her chest.
But all she heard were footsteps pounding the deck above, the creak of wooden beams, the snap of sails, and the orders of a captain with deep blue eyes and the chivalry to protect a strange woman who appeared on his ship out of nowhere.
And this Ring was somehow the key.But how…?Why…?
Dropping her head in her hand, she forced back tears.She was not a woman who cried.Not even when her mother died.The devastation and loss had sliced her heart like a thousand knives, but she had to be strong for her sister.She had to put up a confident front, giving the illusion that everything would be okay.
Even though she knew deep down that it never would be again.
The ship settled into a gentle roll.Though sails still cracked in the wind and footsteps still pounded the deck, the men’s shouts carried less fear, desperation, and intensity.
They must have evaded the galleon.A small consolation, but one she’d take rather than be blasted to bits in a world and time in which she did not belong.
Ifany of this were true.
Her wetsuit clung to her like a second skin, the only evidence of her own time.The only thing that tied her to the real world and kept her from going insane.
A lock clanked, and the door creaked open.One of the men who’d first shoved her inside the tiny cabin gave her yet another sultry scan before thumbing toward the hallway.“Cap’n wants to see ye.”
Slowly rising, she quickly shoved the Ring into a pocket, swallowed down her terror, and followed the man out the door, down a short hallway draped in shadows.
Desi’s pulse hammered in her ears as she was ushered through the heavy wooden door into a dimly lit cabin.The air smelled of salt, smoke, and something faintly medicinal.Flickering lantern light revealed a room that looked like something out of a museum.A sturdy desk was bolted to the floor, maps and charts scattered across its surface.Against the bulkhead, shelves were lined with worn books and strange artifacts.A single cot, barely wide enough for one person, rested against the far wall, its rough wool blanket tucked tight, and a black cat curled up on the pillow.
But it wasn’t the setting that made her breath catch.It was the men.
Four pairs of eyes turned toward her, each gaze heavy and assessing.She hugged her arms across her chest, painfully aware of how her wet suit clung to every curve.
Movement drew her gaze to a man staring out the stern windows.He turned, those gray-blue eyes locking upon her like a cannon.Several moments passed.Time seemed to slow.Sunlight shifted over the desk, the floor, and the walls with the movement of the ship.A crackling rang through the air as if the meeting of two worlds shifted something in the universe.The man was broad-shouldered, sea-worn, and far too steady in a world that made no sense.His black hair brushed the collar of his coat, damp from the sea air, and his eyes, intense, unreadable, held her like a tide she couldn’t escape.There was something in them.Something old.Familiar.As if she’d seen that face before… not in memory, but in a dream that refused to fade.He should’ve looked at her with suspicion, like the others.Instead, he watched her as if he’d been waiting a lifetime.A hint of recognition angled across his face, followed by confusion, amazement, and finally a speck of…desire…as his gaze took in her skintight wetsuit.
Shrugging out of his coat, he strode toward her.Her breath caught.What did he intend to do?A ray of sunlight glinted off the cutlass at his side as he moved closer with the skill and grace of a panther.There was no way out.The sailor had shut the door behind her, caging her in with these wild, ill-mannered men.
She could fight, but what good would it do?So, she remained in place, studying the captain as he approached.There was strength in those eyes, determination, authority.He lifted his arms.She braced.Flinging his coat in the air, he draped it over her shoulders and drew it tight around her.The fabric smelled of leather and salt, its unexpected warmth stealing some of her trembling.
“Enough!”He cast a warning glance at the others.“She’s not a spectacle,” he said in a clipped British accent.He moved back to his desk and leaned against it, arms crossing over a rather muscular chest.The open collar of his shirt revealed a glimpse of skin—and the unexpected gleam of a silver cross at his throat.A leather vest perched upon his shoulders, leading down to black pants strapped with belts, housing two knives and a sword.Black stubble that matched his hair framed his strong jaw as his stormy eyes assessed her.Eyes that held the weight of someone who’d seen too much for his age.
A dark-skinned woman slunk forward from the shadows, her gaze boring into Desi like a hot knife.“She be no mere woman, Capitaine,” she hissed, fingers twitching as though longing to trace symbols in the air.“She wears de skin of a snake!Mark me, she’s a witch, or a siren, come to curse dis ship.Evil walks in her shadow.”
Desi’s stomach clenched.Witch?Siren?What was this, some twisted play?
“Ah, let the lady wear what she wants,” a man to her left said, a lazy grin tugging upon his lips.His blond hair gleamed in the sunlight, his Irish lilt both playful and unsettling.“Witch or no, she’s a fine treasure to keep aboard, eh, Cap’n?Never seen such strange garb on a lass, but I wager it hides a great many charms.”A smooth green stone hung on a cord around his neck while a green sash tightened about his waist.“If she even is human?”he added, glancing at her feet, no doubt expecting to find fins.
“Liam O’Neil, my bosun, Miss…” The captain said by way of introduction before he nodded to another man standing on her other side.“And this is Alden Shaw, my quartermaster.”
The rugged man with a scar slicing his cheek turned sharp eyes her way.“I trust no one who appears out of thin air.Mark my words, Captain.Trouble rides in her wake.”He continued to glare at her as a priest would a demon.
The last man, stout and pale, tilted his head, studying her as though she were an interesting but bothersome anomaly.“She bears no injury.No fever I can detect.She’s clearly a stowaway, though an odd one, but I’ve no use for her unless she’s wounded.May I return to my work, Captain?”
“Aye, you are dismissed.”
