“Not saying that, either. This isn’t about blame. It’s aboutsurvival. I didn’t risk what I’ve risked or suffer what I have to see any of you go down without a fight. You want to keep them both and I want to ruin Vine’s day. I say it’s time we win one. Who’s with me?”
Rather than rally, the crew began to grumble.
Thorn glanced about as if surprised by their reaction. “Really? No one’s going to rise to my challenge?”
Devyl scoffed. “You never were much to rally your forces. Only threaten them, as I recall. Step back and let those of us with experience do the leading before you cause a mutiny, mate.”
“I beg your pardon. You did far more threatening than I ever did.… And killing, too, as I recall. Not to mention, you drank the blood ofyourtroops who didn’t follow your orders.”
His gaze unrepentant, Devyl grinned. “Kept them in line, you mean.”
Thorn rolled his eyes.
Ignoring him, Devyl turned toward the Deadmen. “The bitch wants our blood. More than that, she wants the blood kin of our brother now that he’s earned his freedom. We let her have him and what he cares about, and she’ll be after the lot of us, twice as hard. Time we show her and the Cimmerian forces they can’t take what we love. Not on our watch. And not without a fight so brutal the bards will be writing tales of it for centuries to come. We set them back hard on their heels with a lesson that rings not just in their ears, but so deep in their bones that their ancestors feel it. You with me, lads?”
This time, the crew shouted in agreement.
Thorn glanced at Cameron with a stern scowl. “How does he do that?”
It was Will who answered. “Captain speaks Deadman. You speak Stupidity, my lord. Big difference.”
And still Cameron remained in her Seraph’s body while Paden stayed human. That alone raised chills on her skin. What evil was afoot to cause such? It made no sense and defied everything they knew. Everything they’d been told.
“Why am I like this?” she asked Thorn.
“I don’t know. Truly, I don’t. Even if she fed you the blood, this makes no sense.”
Cameron didn’t miss the concern that Thorn attempted to hide behind that steeled expression. Which made her even more nervous. What had they done to her?
“I’ll keep you safe, Cammy.”
Kalder scoffed at Paden’s offer. “Seems to me, you were the one what got her into this, mate. Perhaps you should step aside before you get her killed.”
“And you need to mind your own business. She’s me kin, not yours.”
“Nor is she some poppet for the two of you to be fighting over.” Sancha elbowed them apart and lifted Cameron to her feet. “Woman’s got a mind of her own. Don’t you two be forgetting that, with yer male cocks hanging out. Therefore, we’ll be the ones what protect her from harm.”
Before Cameron could comment, Valynda coiled her arm through Cameron’s right elbow while Belle took her left bicep, and the two of them whisked her away from the men, and escorted her from the deck to their quarters, where Janice waited with a knowing smirk.
The Trini Dark-Huntress tsked as soon as she saw them. “Iheard the whole of it through the planks. Woke me from me sleep, it did. Damn shame, all of it.”
Sancha shut the door behind them, then pulled her dark wig from her hair to free her snow-white tresses. Something she wore only because she hated the hair that had faded with the death of her daughter and served as a reminder of her lost child. “Can you believe the nerve of them, telling you what to think?”
“Aye,” they said in unison.
Valynda let out a deep sigh. “Well I, for one, won’t see her pushed about by them. Not after what such male fighting cost me.” She held her straw hands up in hopeless despair. The anguish in her glassy eyes was tangible and brought a lump to Cameron’s throat as she felt for the poor woman and her plight. “Why do they treat us so?”
“Fear.” Belle crossed her arms over her chest as she jerked her chin toward the porthole. “They know the harshness of this world and what waits to devour us all. Like a child with a cherished toy, they seek to hang on to what comforts them, never realizing how much it harms us to be clutched and shoved into the darkness of their protection. As mothers, we know that sometimes, even though it pains us to do so, we have to watch what we love be harmed in order to learn harsh lessons so that they can grow—like a child that has to skin its knee when learning to run. Part of loving someone is letting go so that they can be happy. We are trained for it. They’re not.”
Belle stepped closer to Cameron. “When first the captain freed Kalder from his damnation to join our crew, I thought him mad for the choice.”
That shocked her. “Why?”
“There’s a burning hatred inside that boy so intense, it’s like aliving, breathing creature waiting to rise up and devour everything in its path. When first I encountered it, I thought it directed at the world. Only after getting to know him, I realized it’s not the world he hates. Rather, ’tis himself.”
Pouring herself a drink, Sancha nodded. “Like many of us, he’s on a path of self-obliteration.”
Cameron knew Sancha spoke from her heart, because she blamed herself for her young daughter’s death at the hands of her callous husband while she’d been out carousing with her friends. To this day, the woman had no peace from the guilt and sought to drown it all in as much rum as she could manage. Especially since she’d murdered her husband over the fact that he’d shaken her child to death simply for crying over her absentee mother.
