A mug was pressed into Skye’s hands. She looked into the drunken eyes of a middle-aged, buxom woman with her bodice torn in two. The woman smiled and started to laugh. “Dearie, dearie, a lady! We’ve a lady among us! Let us take her, Blackbeard, and she’ll not be a lady much longer, I’ll warrant.”
The woman reached for Skye, tearing at her bodice, Skye screamed, trying to draw away. Her chair fell over. Her head cracked against the platform, and she was dazed.
“No!” There was another sound of thunder as a second chair fell back. Roc was on his feet. He came to stand before her, his booted feet planted hard, his hands upon his hips. “She’s mine; she’s mine this night, and she’s Blackbeard’s promise of safe conduct when this night is over. No one touches her. No one but me. She’s mine, and ’tis my night, and I’ll have her in peace from the lot of you scurvies and whores!”
He bent down and lifted her from the floor. “No!” she whispered in desperation.
He barely glanced her way but turned to Blackbeard. “This is your party, Captain Teach! I’m your guest this night, and would request quarters, sir, if I may!”
The pirate Blackbeard laughed and nodded. “Aye, Captain Hawk! If it’s a dead man you’re to be, you should have this night! Every man gets a last request before the gallows!”
“Wait!” Logan protested. “I did not say—”
“Tomorrow, Logan, you may take the Hawk. Your prisoner, sir! Tonight, he gets his last request!”
Blackbeard indicated a building fifty yards from the platform on the beach. Roc leaped down from the platform with her in his arms and began striding toward the waterfront shanty. Pirates and their doxies applauded and laughed.
“She’s a tough one, Captain!”
“Aye, there, lad, feisty but fun!” Roc agreed. Skye hit him, slapping him just as hard as he had slapped her against the cheek. She was just barely aware of the guffaws rising from the pirates sprawled about them with their half-clad drunken whores.
“Take her, Captain!”
Roc, staring at her with fire in his eyes, quickly replied, “I intend to, lad, I intend to!” He lowered her down. Skye screamed, shocked and alarmed as she fell hard upon the sand. He bounded down upon her, seizing her hair in a rough grip, holding her still to his pleasure as he ravaged her lips with his mouth, all the while raking his hands over her breasts.
Laughter arose, whistles and catcalls. He leaped up, jerking her back to her feet, then forcefully into his arms. “I intend to this very minute, lads!” he cried.
“No…!” she gasped. Her lips were swollen and bruised and she had never seen such reckless disregard in him before. She gritted her teeth and beat against him in a sudden, desperate fear.
“No!”
“Shut up! Damn you, shut up!”
His eyes lit upon hers, silver and hard. “Open your mouth again and I swear you shall learn something of brute force this very night!”
Skye opened her mouth. She shivered uncontrollably but fell silent to the warning in his eyes.
And Roc dashed up the steps to the shanty and kicked open the door. She was alone again with him, with the pirate, with the lord. With her lover, with her husband.
Alone…
With the very devil himself…
XVII
Roc kicked the door closed and set Skye down. For a second she remained perfectly still, for shadows fell all around them, and she was frightened of a terrible darkness falling.
Darkness did not come. It was barely afternoon, she thought. She spun around, stared at Roc, and moved away from him, running quickly to the wall, setting her back against it.
He glanced her way with a certain disdain and fell against the door himself, sinking down before it. His eyes closed wearily, then shot open and stared at her with immense displeasure. He pointed a finger at her. “You! You little bitch! You’re going to get us both killed!”
Skye stared at him wide-eyed. “Me! You’ve lost your mind!”
“I am grabbing at straws to keep us going—”
“Straws!There is no treasure!” she hissed.
His lashes fell briefly over his eyes. “That’s my problem. I want you out of here. Blackbeard may be many things, but his reputation for cruelty has been deliberately exaggerated. He will keep his word to me. Tomorrow he will see that you are delivered back to Virginia, where you belonged in the first place.”
