Rafe shook Thorn’s hand and stepped back. “No surname? Or is Thorn it?”
“Thorn is all anyone needs to know about me.”
“As in thorn up all our collective nether regions,” Devyl muttered.
Rafe laughed. “Understood.” He gestured toward his ship. “Gentlemen, after you.”
Devyl snorted at the invitation that could still be a trap. “I’ll pull the rear.”
Rafael gave him an exaggerated innocent stare. “What? Don’t you trust me?”
“After you took a shot at me outside that tavern last time? Nay. But don’t take it personally. I never trusted my own mother, either.”
Rafe feigned indignation. “’Twas a drunken misfire at someone else. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
“Until I believe you, which will be never.”
Thorn shook his head and sighed before he swung himself over to Rafe’s ship. He sent the line back for Rafe, who followed suit.
Refusing to have his hands that far away from his weapons, Devyl ignored the line when Rafe slung it to him and, with a running start and Herculean feat, jumped from his ship to Rafe’s. Something that caused an echoing gasp and ripple of stunned awe to rush through Rafe’s pirate crew.
And Devyl’s.
Especially as he rose slowly from his crouch like the predator he was and swept a weather eye around the entire group to make sure that if any treachery existed in their hearts, they rethought it fast. He was, after all, a motherless bastard who wouldn’t hesitate to lay an attacker low.
Rafe snorted with an amused smirk on his handsome face. “Always one for the grand entrance, eh, mate?”
“Benefits of a heartless reputation, and quick sword arm.”
Thorn laughed at Devyl’s surly tone as he crossed the deck to stand by his side. Though he’d never admit it out loud, he actually held a lot of respect and affinity for the giant beast of a warrior. “Heartless for you is a step up, my brother.”
And yet there had been a time in his past when Thorn would have slit his own mother’s throat to have commanded a general as cold-blooded and ruthless as Devyl Bane. Even a warrior with half this demon’s incomparable skill set in battle. It was a good thing the boy hadn’t been born until long after Thorn had turned against his father and abandoned his cause for a far more nobler and kinder goal.
As united warlords, they would have brought this world to its bloody knees and ruled every part of terra firma.
In retrospect, a terrifying thought. So thank God Bane had been born centuries later and none of Thorn’s original generals had been this fierce or capable. Or willing to slit a throat to win a battle or hold their lands.
Devyl glanced about the top deck as a strange sensation went down his spine. And this time it wasn’t from Thorn’s presence here.
Nay, there was another powerful entity here. One trying not to let him sense it and yet unable to remain hidden from him.
“So what’s this about, Santiago?”
Rafe motioned for them to follow him below.
Wary and highly suspicious, Devyl cast another jaundiced gaze around the ship and its crew before he climbed down, with Thorn right behind him.
Irritating bastard that he was.
It only took a moment for Devyl’s eyes to adjust to the darkness. But the scent down here was unmistakable.
Unique and revolting to any beast who was familiar with it.
Like dried musk, mixed with something soured. It sent a chill down his spine. He instinctively moved his hand to his sword and prepared to confront something that should be dead and buried.
Or better yet, burned beyond all recognition and scattered to the four winds so as never to rise again.
Rafe lit a lantern. “At first, we thought it a jumbie.”
