Chapter Eleven
ANATOLE
The sail appeared at dawn, a pale smudge against the eastern horizon that shouldn't have been there.
Anatole had been at the helm since the last bell of the night watch, letting the wheel's resistance ground him while Jeanne slept below. He'd developed the habit over the past week, these stolen hours before sunrise when he could think without her scent unraveling him. The mornings were his. He used them to be the captain instead of the man who was losing his war against loving her.
The smudge resolved itself over the next twenty minutes. Not one sail. Three. A formation, running close-hauled on the wind, cutting across the Barbe-Bleue's heading with a purpose that had nothing to do with coincidence.
"Luc." He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. His first mate slept light as a cat and always within earshot.
Boots on the stairs. Luc emerged onto the deck, already buttoning his coat, his scarred face creased from the hammock's canvas. He followed Anatole's gaze to the horizon and went still.
Luc pulled the spyglass from his belt and raised it. "Three ships. Bone Harbor colors." After a long moment he lowered it again. "The Sang-Noir leads them. That's Rickard Pleisse's flagship."
Anatole knew the name. Every captain on the Crimson Sea knew the name. Pleisse ran a pack of sixty wolves out of the Bone Harbors, trafficking in everything from stolen cargo to slaves.He was the kind of alpha who measured his worth by what he could take from others, and he'd been circling Anatole's territory for years, waiting for weakness.
"How did he find us?" Anatole's grip tightened on the wheel. "We've been sailing open water for weeks. No ports, no trade lanes."
"Word travels. You took a new omega in Roquemort. Half the coast watched her come aboard in chains." Luc tucked the spyglass away. "A human omega, Captain. You know what she's worth to men like Pleisse. There are wolves who'd sail into a hurricane for the chance to claim one."
Anatole's wolf surged behind his ribs, and the surge wasn't the familiar ache of wanting Jeanne. This was something older. Blacker. The territorial rage of an apex alpha sensing a rival near what was his.
Kill them,his wolf said. Not a suggestion. A command.Kill them before they get close enough to smell her.
"Wake the crew," Anatole said. "Battle stations. And send someone to lock the cabin. She doesn't come on deck until this is over."
"And if Pleisse wants to parley?"
"He can parley with my cannons."
Luc nodded and was gone. Within minutes, the Barbe-Bleue came alive. Wolves poured from below decks, pulling on boots and strapping on weapons with the economy of a crew that had fought together for years. The gun crews ran out the cannons. Sails were trimmed for speed and maneuverability. The black flag rose up the mainmast, snapping in the morning wind.
Anatole watched the approaching ships grow larger and calculated distances, angles, wind advantage. The Barbe-Bleue was faster than anything on the Crimson Sea, but three against one meant he couldn't simply run. Not without showing his stern and giving Pleisse a shot at the rudder.
Besides. Running wasn't in his nature.
The Sang-Noir was close enough now to make out her details without the glass. Red sails, dark hull, a crew that lined the rails with weapons drawn. And on the foredeck, a figure Anatole recognized even at this distance. Tall, lean, red-haired. Rickard Pleisse, grinning like a wolf who'd cornered a rabbit.
"Bluebeard." Pleisse's voice carried across the narrowing water, amplified by alpha projection. "We heard you'd taken a new bride. A human omega, no less. Generous of you to sail so far from help."
Anatole said nothing. Let the silence do the work.
"I'm a reasonable man," Pleisse called. "I have no interest in fighting the great Bluebeard over a woman. Trade her to me. I'll pay handsomely. Whatever you spent on her, I'll double it. She'll fetch ten times that in the Bone Harbors."
The Barbe-Bleue's crew went rigid. Twenty seawolves, every one of them staring at their captain, waiting.
"She is not for sale, for trade, or for negotiation." Anatole said. He amplified his voice so that the other ship and crew heard it in their bones.
"Then what is she?"
"Mine." The word came from somewhere below thought, from the place where man and wolf were the same creature.
