In a fury, Logan turned around, thrusting Skye toward one of his burliest men. The man caught her hard, sweeping his arm around her and dragging her across the deck again. He held her against the railing while Logan looked down to Blackbeard. “I want the Hawk. I don’t know what he’s playing but I want him now. Don’t think to storm the ship. Hans has Lady Cameron, and he has a blade at her heart now, and he’ll kill her quicker than you can blink. Get the Hawk before me, and get him now.”
“Now, Logan!”
“I’m done!” Logan thundered. “Man, I am done, and she is nearly dead!”
Nearly dead…
And that she was, Skye thought, for the man with his arms about her was huge, well over six feet, and each of his arms was greater in circumference than her own waist. His arm was clamped around her, holding her tight against him. And as Logan spoke, he drew out his dagger and smiled as he moved the cold steel between the valley of her breasts. His hold was so tight she could scarcely breathe. He would smother her before he could stab her, she thought. And yet she was afraid. Deathly afraid.
“He’ll come!” someone called out. “Don’t fear, lady, the Hawk will come!”
And then silence reigned. There was nothing, nothing but the night, nothing but the darkness and the eerie glow of the lanterns, and the sound of the water lapping against the ship at night.
“He’ll come!” Logan laughed, casting back his head. “She’ll die!”
His laughter faded, and the silence continued. Logan strode over to her furiously. He plucked up a piece of her golden-russet hair and fingered it slowly. “Pray, lady! Pray now, pray deep, for if I do not soon see his face before me, you will swiftly die!”
He dropped the lock of her hair. He stroked the length of her cheek and he jerked open her cloak, drawing the palm of his hand slowly down to cup her breast. Skye moved to fight him but Hans jerked her back, his hold as secure as rock.
“Blackbeard!” Logan called. “Can you hear me?”
“Aye, Logan!”
“Tell him—tell the Hawk that her hair is satin and her flesh is velvet. Tell him that her breasts are lush and firm and ripe. Tell him that I’m touching her.”
Skye spat at him. He started, and wiped his cheek. He stared at her and smiled and she cried out, for he viciously caught and twisted her breast. “Next time, milady, it will be the hook!” he warned her.
He smiled, and his touch lingered, and she barely dared breathe, nor could she move. Logan tired of staring at her. He strode back across the deck. Silence held the night once more. Silence…
She heard something. It was nothing, she told herself. It was just water lapping against the hull of Logan’s ship. It was nothing, nothing at all.
But then she managed to cast her gaze behind Hans, and she was glad then that she was so nearly smothered, for she could not gasp out in startled surprise.
He was coming…hehadcome. To save her. The Hawk.
He had crawled up along the hull of the ship, barefoot and bare-chested, his knife between his teeth. He silently leaped over the edge of the starboard hull, landing with the softest thud upon the wooden deck. Hans started to turn, his knife still taut against her breast.
But Hans turned too late. He dropped his hold on Skye to defend himself against the Hawk. Roc attacked quickly, catching the bulky Hans right in the rib cage. Hans didn’t get to say a word. The breath left him with a softwhooshingsound, and he crumpled to the deck.
That was when Logan turned.
“Hawk!”
“Aye, ’tis me, Logan! Here, where you have her!” Roc cried. He grabbed Skye, throwing her behind him to the rigging. “Climb!” he ordered her. “Climb high!”
She obeyed him, clinging to the rigging for dear life. She paused, and looked back.
Roc had found the sword Logan had forced her to discard. He held to the rigging, balancing as he fought with speed and fury, knees bent, the whole of him as agile as a dancer. “Come, fellows! You’d fight a mere girl and threaten her life as one, come, take me on, too.”
Steel clashed. He parried forward, he allowed himself to be thrust back, only to surge forward with a whole new force again. Men fell before him. One sailor leaped over the side; Roc caught his midriff with the sword and the fellow screamed as he crashed into the water.
“Come, Logan!” Roc cried out. “It’s you and me, isn’t it? Isn’t that what this melee is about? Come, sir, let us have at it again.”
“Sir!” Logan stormed. “As you wish it! And understand that there will be no mercy for you!”
The sounds of a score of cries, battle cries, suddenly burst through the night as Blackbeard and his men and the Hawk’s crew climbed aboard Logan’s ship, all of them entering into the fray. Skye, climbing high atop the rigging, looked down and saw the fight. She saw Robert Arrowsmith and Fulton, fighting finely, their swords flashing, bringing about victory. Then she gasped softly, for she saw young Davie, too, and she was stunned.
Roc had taken the innocent lad aboard a pirate ship! she thought, but then her thoughts gave way, and her attention was riveted back to the pirates fighting below her.
