Blackheart (14 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Murder

Aboard the ships,
Satan’s
Victory
and the
Ranger
, took place a gleeful celebration, for the night wind died and they could sail no farther. Grappling hooks were thrown. Crewmen from each vessel ventured ship-to-ship, while musical instruments played, and trenchers of food and wine spread throughout the crowded decks. All joined in these joyous enchantments.

All, that is, except for Lochlanaire.

He sat, secluded on the mainmast’s highest canopy, pondering everything he’d awakened of his past, feeling wretched to his blackened soul.

***

Below decks, Siren marveled, noting Grayson’s stoic approach the moment he entered the captain’s quarters, for he grasped the key and released the iron cuffing her wrist. Curiosity baited Siren to ask, “Where is Lochlanaire?”

Grayson threaded the key along the gold chain glimmering around his neck and clasped it, freeing the necklace to his chest. “Lochlanaire sits astride the canopy mainmast. He asked me to unlock you so you could enjoy the festival aboard ship. However, he commands that you remain aboard
Satan’s
Victory
and unveiled to either his sight or mine. You are to be imprisoned for sedition with your folly should you disobey. Understood?”

Starved to rebel, Siren surrendered to her fate, and nodded, walking beside Grayson. They boarded the main deck, strolling by the drinking, gaming, supping and dancing men. Music clinked over the ships hauntingly.

Siren paused under the mainmast and explored heavenward along the tall spire where it speared the darkness to its round canopy near the top. In meager shadow, she saw her hunter’s booted leg and the limb flopping over the edge drew Siren to wonder how he’d climbed so far distant.

“It has always been his sanctuary. Lochlanaire takes haven amongst the stars with the ship’s lollin’ sway.”

Siren dipped plagued eyes onto the golden-haired vixen who stood, slumped against a cannon, her long legs crossed over booted ankles. The woman was a magnificent beauty, her blue eyes startling in intensity, the flesh of her face unsoiled. Siren crushed her jealousy and the need to claw the pirate’s face bloody and said, “Sanctuary?”

“Aye. Whenever Lochlanaire found himself despaired, he’d climb to the highest point aboard ship, the mainmast, and there he’d sit, thinkin’. Obviously, he’s not forgotten this, or it is instinctive to him.” Aynore shrugged.

“You’ve been an acquaintance of the Blackheart family for a while, I gather.” Siren couldn’t search the female captain’s perceptive eyes, still itchy to scratch them out.

“Aye. Grayson’s a mystery. We’ve never been close. Zore, as you’ve no doubt reconciled, is to be avoided at all costs. He’s a venomous rogue. Lochlanaire can be broodin’ and surly, but is a provocative lover, a relentless hunter, glacial, calculatin’.” Aynore confessed, “To be forthright, I know him little presently due to his memory loss. He and I, however, had our wild times in the past, seekin’ gold and glory. At others, we clashed as titans.”

Siren flicked her glance away. Aynore roved to where she stood. “Did you know about his assassin ties?”

“No. Lochlanaire hid the truth. Wisely. He’d be damned a betrayer by most pirates because those trusses encumber his feet.” Aynore altered subject, “I must question why he’s kidnapped you, Siren. You’re hardly the bounty Lochlanaire usually hunts.”

“I menace those of highest stature in Britain.”

“You? A meek maid? Why, you threaten no mouse,” quipped Aynore.

Siren despised this woman, sensing her questions illicit. “Nevertheless.”

“If Lochlanaire plots to sail you to Britain, so you say, why do we journey in the opposite direction?”

“We meet someone in my family, someone who could also be threatened by those who possess no cause for unease.”

“Someone King William endangers?”

Siren nodded.

“How mysterious. Where do we journey? No one seems to hold the precise anchorage.”

“We venture to the Spanish Main. That is all I’ll say, Captain Lacy,” Siren spouted.

“Secrets? How bewitchin’. Perhaps this is why Lochlanaire’s enamored of you. Of course, your beauty is unrivaled. What man could resist a woman who possesses your allure? Lochlanaire certainly couldn’t reject a woman who loves him. What man could?”

Her heart rampantly thudding, Siren’s head jerked and her wounded black eyes locked over Aynore’s. She shook her head, powerless to speak.

“You were unaware of your love for your raffish captor? Why, it is obvious to us sensitive women. Surely, you’ve told Lochlanaire you bear feelin’s for him. You
are
wed to him.” Aynore smiled.

Siren balked. “I…no…I’m not in love with Lochlanaire. You’re seeing ghosts.”

“Ghosts perhaps, but phantoms that illuminate as angels breachin’ Heaven for banishin’ Hell. You love him.”

Siren was about to protest vehemently.

Lochlanaire shouted from above them, “Siren,” he demanded, “climb the latticed rigging to me. This instant!”

Fretful that he’d overheard her conversation with Aynore, Siren plodded to the knotted rigging hanging alongside the mainmast and clenched it, then she tugged herself beside the spire until she brooked the heavens and took a step toward the canopy. Lochlanaire offered his aid. She accepted his assistance and found herself yanked to the shelf, where she stood in confrontation, wondering why he bore a contentious countenance.

“Keep conversations with Aynore to lacking of information,” he reprimanded.

“Aynore is your ally, is she not? Why do you insist that she learn little, Lochlanaire?”

“I distrust her.”

“Why? You once courted her.”

“Aye. Intimacy renders her dangerous, especially since I remember nothing of our interludes. She did strike me for treason she says I engaged against her. She could seek vengeance for some other transgression I’ve no knowledge of; she is, after all, a lawless pirate. The less a pirate of any illicit reputation, aboard my ship or anyone else’s, uncloaks regarding your stature and why you are my captive, is wise, to your life
and
mine.”

Siren nodded, thirsty to drown within his guileful eyes, the black darker than the night-shroud, which dwarfed them in its magnificence, the gray wolfish.

Lochlanaire encircled her arm, tugging her into his embrace. He kissed her. Siren split his shirt’s folds, tearing the laces while he parted hers. His lips feathered to Siren’s throat, for he swept her hair to the side.

“Lochlanaire!” Grayson shouted below on deck.

Startled, Lochlanaire straightened, ripping a whimper from Siren, who thirsted for him to take far more than merely an intoxicating kiss. “Aye, Grayson.”

“There’s been a murder!”

Lochlanaire took a wrathful stride to the canopy’s ledge and grabbed the knotted rope to keep from falling. His body steeply angled, his boots barely clenched the canopy’s edge; he glanced downward. “What?”

“A crewman’s been
slain
,” Grayson yelled, spoiling the crews’ merriment. The music stalled. Silence engulfed the ship.

Moving to Siren, Lochlanaire slithered his arm around her waist, his other hand yoked a rope that vanished in the eerie darkness. “Hold on.” With her arms braced around Lochlanaire’s neck, and her body cuddling his, Siren cringed her eyes. They whooshed off the ledge and twirled through the seemingly bottomless abyss, dropping aboard deck with barely a thump. Siren grappled for her balance, for she was immediately abandoned by her husband. Lochlanaire and Grayson sliced between the mass of befuddled pirates beholding them. Clandestinely, Siren tiptoed into the ship’s inner shadows. Lochlanaire and Grayson hurried downward to where the chickens squawked, sensing trouble.

A gathering of anxious men huddled outside the cargo hold. A headless chicken lay, dispatched, its blood crossed the chamber in rivulets, the animal was pitched beside the dead pirate who was beheaded, for a knife severed his throat. Scarring the man’s chest, carved two blood-drenched initials…a
T
and a
B
.

Lochlanaire sought Grayson for an explanation concerning the carving. “Why carve the initials?”

“Our despoiler tenders a clue to their identity. I cannot say who those initials belong to, alas. They could be from a crewman aboard the
Ranger
or someone aboard
Satan’s
Victory.
They could also be a ruse intended to beguile us in an erroneous direction.”

“Who instructs such a horrid offense as to slaughter a chicken, thrashing its blood over the ship, beheading a man for no purpose?”

Grayson straightened, for he’d hunched by the slaughtered crewman. “I surmise, Captain, that the slaughterer thinks we should identify him. He taunts in a game by which he perceives himself the uncontested conqueror.” He took notice of movement behind Lochlanaire and Grayson saw Siren cradled in the shadows. “Your lady, Lochlanaire, bears witness to the travesty.”

“Damn it.” Lochlanaire stomped to Siren and throttled her arm. He dragged her amidst the lantern light. “You hunger to witness unadulterated evil, I presume. Since you followed us, witness it, you shall.” Tugging her to the felled crewman, Lochlanaire forced Siren to gaze upon the hideous scene. Perhaps after she witnessed this villainy, she’d not be so inclined to trail his footfalls.

Sickened, Siren covered her mouth, distraught she saw the man’s barbarically ripped throat, blood drenching his carved chest and the floor surrounding him. Jerking free of Lochlanaire’s grasp, Siren ran off through the ship.

Lochlanaire was enraged by his own cavalier ruthlessness. “Investigate, Grayson. Venture whatever information significant to me. Order the men to arm themselves at all times. We’ve a deviant haunting the ship.” Lochlanaire escaped the vessel’s bowels, trailing his wife.

Siren raced across the ship’s hull and eventually halted upon a staircase’s landing which was dressed in lantern light. She stalled so to catch her breath and swiped away the tears rolling down her cheeks. The vision of the slain crewman sullied. Behind her, a hand snuck around her face, gagging her mouth. Siren screamed, for another muscular arm braced her body and she shielded a man’s broad chest. She was wrenched to an intentionally darkened corridor, her screeches remained muffled.

“Siren Rain?” a craggy voice disrupted the silence, murmuring ghostly by her ear.

When she’d struggled for her freedom, Siren was commanded under a knife’s prick piercing her throat to nod in recognition of her assailant’s question.

“Do not screech or attempt to run or I’ll slit your throat where you stand. I’ve already murdered this night. So you may attest. Your death is a meager consequence to me. Understood?”

Siren’s attacker freed her mouth. “Understood.” Seeking escape, she dared not make the attempt, for the villain’s knife still pricked her throat, his arm bridled her stomach.

“You’re prisoner of Lochlanaire and were Zore’s captive. Why?”

“Zore kidnapped me, proposing to return me to Britain for satisfaction of my stepfather’s gaming debts. Lochlanaire seized me for the purpose of relinquishing me to King William.”

“Why does King William hunt you?”

Siren hesitated to answer.

The knife sunk deeper.

She whimpered, “I’m…I’m King James II’s daughter from an adulterous affair between him and my mother.”

Thorn replied, “Truly? The daughter of King James? Why, what a treasure you are indeed.”

“I’ve married Lochlanaire.”

“In hopes of stayin’ the devil’s butchery?”

“No. We wed under duress,” Siren announced, disheartened by her admission.

“I hardly think marriage to you would be under duress, enchantress,” chided Thorn.

“Who are you? Why do you accost me?”

Thorn growled, “The questions are mine for the askin’, not yours. So, you threaten the monarchy. If Lochlanaire’s the king’s assassin, which he claims, why does he not shoot you and be done with the malevolence?”

Grieved, Siren responded, “He was commanded to sail me to the sovereign.”

“Lochlanaire’s not to butcher, for what objective? Is the king covetin’ somethin’ more vile than death? Perhaps beddin’ you himself is his want.”

Mortified, Siren seethed. “You’re hideous. Release me, you bloody brigand.” She wrestled for liberty, only to freeze, for the knife gashed her throat.

“We journey in an erroneous direction for Britain, Siren, why?” 

Siren refused to speak.

The knife cut deeper.

She cried out. For her treason, he strangled her throat and her attacker’s fingers squeezed, his jagged fingernails cutting. “Screech again and it will be your last. Understood?”

Siren nodded, frozen still. “I…my sister…we search for my sister…to keep her disguised of the king.”

A treasured sister. Another illegitimate daughter of King James II? How thrilling. “Does Zore know ‘bout your hidden sister?”

Siren stuttered, “He…no, I do not believe so. However, I cannot say for certain.”

“Where is your sister?”

Siren meant to twirl a falsehood but she heard the footfalls struck by the ship’s approaching crewmen. Her abductor’s grip loosened. She stomped on his foot. She battered his chest, thrashing her elbow backward, freed herself, and ran. Hearing her persecutor’s mocking laughter trailing her footsteps, Siren fled in the opposite direction from where he’d abducted her, eyes leaping toward the stoop at which she’d been accosted, sure she was not followed. Siren faltered aboard the ship’s main deck and raced to the captain’s quarters. She slammed the door. Siren splashed water from the pitcher over her ashen face and throat, ruby droplets tainted the linen cloth she used to dry her flesh with. Gravely, she peered at the telling bruises the mirror reflected. The assailant’s grim voice echoed within her mind. Shivers ran down her spine.

At Lochlanaire’s contentious breach of the cabin, Siren wandered to the window, secluding the cuts vilifying her throat. “This is a ship of titanic travesties,” she droned.

Lochlanaire paused beside his desk and replied, “It is, assuredly. I apologize for my earlier disgrace, Siren. There was no need for you to witness the atrocity struck by a shameless beast.”

“The killer…accosted me,” she whispered, lowering her head.

Lochlanaire couldn’t be sure he’d heard correctly. He stepped around the desk. Cuffing her arm, he compelled Siren to face him. Lochlanaire studied the ragged cuts reddening her flesh, for she raised her head, revealing her throat to him. “My God.”

“He dragged me into the darkness of a corridor; he thrust a knife against my throat. I…I could not see him, for he held my body to his chest. He questioned me about why you and Zore kidnapped me.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him…you kidnapped me from Zore for the king because I’m the daughter of King James II and Zore accosted me for my stepfather’s sins. He questioned why you’ve not shot me.”

Lochlanaire caressed her throat. The bruises formed by a man’s crushing fingers darkened. “The bastard strangled you?”

“I screamed. His knife cut me. He threatened to slit my throat, admitting that he was the crewman’s slayer and he would suffer no qualms about killing me. He forced me to admit that we sail, searching for my sister.”

Lochlanaire withdrew to the cabin’s middle. Damn it. Who is this demon prowling his ship, striking naught but death? The brigand must be acquainted with him
and
Zore, but what profit would be gained by slaying the men of
Satan’s
Victory
? Vengeance? Whoever the beast is, he now possessed the information Lochlanaire hoped to seclude and that makes him exceptionally dangerous, especially to Siren and her unknowing sister. “I’ll speak to Aynore. Perhaps she will shed light on who might seek to spill blood aboard my ship.” Turning, Lochlanaire stared at Siren. “Did you tell him where your sister takes sanctuary?”

“No. After he heard men in the distance, his grasp loosened. I trampled his foot and ran.”

The mercenary allowed her to flee or she’d be dead. Lochlanaire was convinced of that. “Our slayer’s callous, whoever he is.” He nodded and trudged to the bed, where he gestured for her to approach.

“Must I be chained? I possess no route of escape, Lochlanaire.”

“No, you do not brandish a path by which to run. Nevertheless, there are others lustful for harm aboard my ship. Our mercenary is in no way distraught, committing witchery against a woman. I refuse to risk you being attacked unnecessarily. Currently, I’m too distracted to protect you.”

Siren wilted on the bed. Lochlanaire relocked the iron around her wrist. Unable to take his leave without touching her, he hunched, exploring her bewitching eyes, then thirstily he kissed her. Lochlanaire severed the kiss and crossed the threshold. He departed, locking the door or else he couldn’t prompt another step.

***

Siren stared upon the entrance to her prison, questioning if he’d overheard the conversation she’d had with Aynore. Is the pirate captain correct and she’d fallen in love with Lochlanaire? With the mere thought, Siren’s heart quaked. She looked through the window, feeling damned to her soul at simply the suggestion of loving her roguish captor.