Blackheart (6 page)

“You married me, such grants you the right.” Siren caressed Lochlanaire’s back.

He flinched. “You’re my captive. Not my wife.”

“What transpired between us the eve prior professes otherwise.”

“It was under the submission of lust, only that.” Lochlanaire withdrew to the desk. He rummaged through its drawer and uncovered another shackle and chain. Retrieving one of his shirts, he held it out to her for Siren to use to cover herself. Enraptured, he watched as she removed the ripped shirt, baring her breasts to him while she lowered his shirt over her enticing body. She left the laces untied. Lochlanaire defied his yearning, moved to her, cuffed the iron and locked the chain to the ring above his bed, the chain then he locked to the iron ringing her wrist as Siren stepped to the bed that was again her prison.

Lochlanaire silenced his urge to drown himself amid her eyes and he discarded the cabin. Outside his door, he pondered the signet haloing his finger -- he detested the passion that lured him to be tangled in Siren’s web. Lochlanaire’s fingernails cut his palms. He went in a hunt for his brother.

Mid ship, Lochlanaire found Grayson, a spyglass veiling his eye while he surveyed the horizon for Zore or any other ship, which might threaten. With Lochlanaire’s approach, Grayson laid the spyglass aside, waiting for his brother to inform him of what villainy eclipses the ship.

Lochlanaire confessed, “The lady captive…Siren Rain…my gypsy wife…is a woman that I’ve been commanded to hunt at an accord presented by King William. She’s King James II’s third daughter. Siren’s the child bred of an illicit affair King James had with a commoner. The child was unknown to most everyone. King William gifted to me my freedom if I would accept his decree…to find her and sail her to him as prisoner.”

“My God…he wants her slain…that’s why he’s ordered you, his assassin, to pursue her.”

“Exactly. Should she not survive the journey to Britain, he’ll suffer no guilt with her death. I shall be furnished everything of which was stripped from me for reward…my freedom, title, a manor, a fleet of ships, a pardon of murder and the liberty to continue as the king’s indebted slayer. I may prey upon those ships not permitted the Crown’s alliance, attacking most any ship I choose. Simply stated…Siren Rain’s death assures my freedom. Her survival is my end.”

“Your death,” Grayson clarified.

“Precisely.”

“Is she aware… ‘bout her father or any of this?”

Lochlanaire stared out to sea. “As far as I may discern, Grayson, the lady bears no knowledge of her father’s kingly stature, or of what a threat she is to the current monarchy. She held in her possession only one treasure…her father’s ruby signet that I was told to commandeer with her imprisonment. So I have done and I’ve not told her why she’s captive, merely that I’m the king’s assassin.” Lochlanaire revealed the ring to his discerning brother.

“It’s worth a bleedin’ fortune.”

Lochlanaire leered. “It is my life.”

Grayson sighed. “What of your married stature, Lock? You did take her for wife. Such could alter her plight
and
yours.”

“Aye, but would such a marriage, ordained by outlaw gypsies, be considered lawful in the eyes of the British? And I’m not sure if this is wise to reveal to a bloodthirsty king. She may still lose her head, chopping mine off with hers.”

“It is a villainous web.”

Lochlanaire agreed.

“You’ve bedded her?”

Rankled, Lochlanaire nodded. “I bore little choice. We feared the gypsies might somehow be watching us, for they left her with me in a locked cottage. I couldn’t resist. You’ve seen the witch…could you have forsaken the temptation?”

“It’s not a question for me to answer. The question I must ask is whether you bear feelin’s for the subjugated lass?”

Lochlanaire shook his head. “Lord, she tempts me with that gorgeous body, and those sultry eyes. I cannot suffer the anguish of standing in her presence anymore without touching her. How am I to slay her when all I want is to take her in fiery ecstasy?”

“Can you release her to the king if you must?” asked Grayson.

Lochlanaire wondered this himself, but he was never granted the chance to answer. One of the men rushed to them, informing them that the ship would be primed to heave sail in the morn. Dismissing the crewman, Lochlanaire scampered to the galley, where he sat before a scuffed table and drank until unconscious. His dreams were eclipsed by visions of Siren, who lay naked before his eyes, writhing with rapture as he fired her body to starvation for him.

Asleep, Lochlanaire groaned.

CHAPTER SIX

Truth and Mutiny

The men leveled the ship into churning waves during ripe wind.
Satan’s
Victory
hove sail the next day. Its quartermaster, however, commanded the tiller, for the ship’s captain lazed in the galley, unconscious by way of drink.

In that moment, Lochlanaire awoke, feeling the vessel’s sharp sway. He swaggered to mid ship, but his head felt so hazy that he only waved to Grayson and stumbled to his quarters. Lochlanaire unlocked the door, where he found Siren lounging abed. He ignored her angry countenance and dropped at the side of the furnishing beside her body.

Unconscious, Lochlanaire murmured, and the words he said were mostly indistinguishable. Unfortunately, some of his rambling Siren did comprehend. She was quite concerned. Having endured unmerciful silence after he fell quiet, Siren eased around Lochlanaire’s body. She was able to clutch the water pitcher and threw a wave of cold water over Lochlanaire’s face.

He bolted awake, his face dripping. “What the Hell?”

“I demand answers, Lochlanaire. Who are you? Why have you kidnapped me? What does my father’s ring have to do with all this?” Siren snapped.

“I’ve no damned intention of answering your questions, Siren.” Lochlanaire shook water-trickling locks, his fingers threading them backwards, then he rubbed sore eyes.

Siren warded off the desire to touch this disheveled rake and announced, “You married me. I have rights.”

“No,
I
possess rights. You’re simply my slave.”

“Answer my questions…
please
.”

Lochlanaire mused, “What do you know of your father?”

Siren wondered why he asked such a bizarre question. “My father was a nobleman, an Earl. Mother was unable to wed him, for she was a commoner but he, as well, was married when they met. He couldn’t refuse her and took her for mistress. After he died, she was commanded by royal proclamation to leave the cottage he’d granted her. We lived in squalor until she wed my stepfather. Why?”

Lochlanaire rubbed his unshaven chin and wandered toward the window. He reviled the sun-glinting sea. “No, the truth is, your father is distinctly more than just a nobleman…he is King James II. You, Siren, are the third daughter of a king, the daughter that’s
not
supposed to exist. Your mother had a tryst with a now exiled monarch.”

“What? My God…you’re saying--”

“You endanger the
present
king, William, who has propagated no heir by which to submit to the monarchy. The ruby signet you were given is the jewel that belongs to King James II. That jewel is proof of your lineage that I was commanded to seize upon capturing you.”

“Oh, Lord, Shevaun…” Siren muttered and withered on the bed.

“What did you say?” Lochlanaire moved to her.

“Shevaun…Shevaun’s my sister, my twin, although we look little akin to one another. Mother must have seen trouble at our ancestry. Shevaun and I were separated after mother’s death. Shevaun lives far distant…”

“Bloody Hell…there’s a
fourth
child?” Lochlanaire’s flesh drained.

“Yes. When Mother was murdered, Shevaun was taken into our aunt’s protection. Mother said in a letter given to us at her death that she must permit one of us the freedom to rise to a higher stature than hers; therefore the aunt took my sister in her care. Now I question all of what Mother said. However, Mother did say that one day fortune would rain upon us. I bore no clue that she could mean this.” Siren’s widened eyes suddenly locked over Lochlanaire’s… “My God…you’ve kidnapped me in order to ferry me to the king. What is King William plotting, Lochlanaire? You’re his assassin, are you intending to kill me?”

He did not answer.

Siren stepped as close to him as the chain allowed. “It is so…you’ve kidnapped me, seeking to surrender me to death ordained under the behest of King William’s hideous wickedness.”

Lochlanaire nodded.

“What is the ransom for my life?”

“A fleet of my own by which to use for piracy.” For some reason he did not inform her of the entire reward, Lochlanaire wondered why.

“
Ships
…my life is only worth
ships
?”

He nodded.

“Why did Zore kidnap me? Was it for the same reason?” Siren asked, dismayed.

“I was told that he kidnapped you for the purpose of sailing you to England. You were supposed to marry a man. You were to be compensation. Your stepfather, apparently, owes someone a vast sum of money. I, however, cannot say if this tale is true.”

“Zore dragged me aboard deck after we anchored, just before you attacked his vessel. I was ordered to address a man. I did not remember him, though he seemed familiar. I was so livid that I had been kidnapped I never thought about what was whispered by the surrounding men as I stood there. Now, I remember hearing King James’s name. Perhaps Zore somehow learned of my lineage to the king and the man I confronted confirmed his suspicions.”

“It is possible that Zore recognized the ruby as belonging to King James.”

“Zore hunts me still.” Siren shivered.

Lochlanaire affirmed, “Aye, he would anyway. According to Grayson, Zore will hunt us both to the ends of the earth, for I’ve plundered his treasure -- you.”

“What about Shevaun?”

“I doubt anyone is aware of her existence. King William never spoke to me regarding her.”

“I cannot trust this. She’s endangered. We must sail at once to the island where she lives. We have to warn her, protect her.”

Lochlanaire shook his head. “No. I sail you to Britain, Siren.”

“You feel so little for me that you will permit bloody King William to kill me, leaving my sister defenseless to a fiend such as Zore. Is this what you’re saying? How…how can you marry me, Lochlanaire, loving me so insanely, as you did, and just sacrifice me to the Devil?”

Guilty, Lochlanaire couldn’t look her in the eyes. He strayed to the window. Could he love her as he had and walk away, aware that her fate is death? Was his freedom so wanted that he’d let Siren die, her blood, and possibly her sister’s, splattering his hands? King William said he was an unconscionable slayer. Is he? If so, there’s nothing to mull on, he’d submit to providence, as the executioner he’d become, and return Siren to Britain. But regrettably, this day he was not the libertine he once was in the past. He couldn’t abandon this woman to a ravenous wolf. The possible death of her innocent sister also weighed heavily on his heart, the heart of a beast. “No, I’ll not simply relinquish you to King William.”

Siren felt relieved. “We sail to my sister.”

“I’ll consider.”

Siren scolded, “Consider naught, Lochlanaire. Shevaun is my sister. She’s helpless. If Zore’s learned of my ancestry to King James, I must spare her. If I do not warn her, Zore will entrap her in the fashion he did me, or he’ll kill her, carrying Shevaun’s lifeless body back to Britain. I beg you, Lochlanaire, if you feel
anything
for me, please help me.”

Lochlanaire relented…for the moment. Savagely a vision of him yielding her
and
her sister to King William scoured his mind, doubling his ransom. Lochlanaire crushed that wicked apparition. “Where is she?”

Siren regained distrust. “I’ll only surrender to you pieces of the puzzle…one at a time. Steer toward the Spanish Main.”

Lochlanaire jeered, “You distrust me?”

Siren nodded.

“Wise, my lovely.” A leer twitched his lips. He yanked Siren to his chest and kissed her, then he freed her, walking to the door. “A change in heading is in the offin’,” Lochlanaire quipped, closing and locking the cabin door. He resumed command, yelling for the ship to prepare to turn about.

***

Inward of Lochlanaire’s quarters, Siren peered upon the sun-shimmering window, smiling, for the ship began its cumbersome turn. She defied the rip of guilt she felt for being not entirely honest with Lochlanaire. He’d not been sincere with her, why should she tell him everything? Unfortunately, she remembered how he’d loved her, and she’d loved him just as wildly, the night before. Somehow she must curtail the seduction of this captivating assassin, never permitting Lochlanaire to web her heart with his, or she’d lose everything…her soul, her life and even the dual signets and the truth of what they signified.

***

With night fall rain showered the ship, lightning and thunder cackled. Sitting on Lochlanaire’s bed, legs drawn beneath her chin, Siren was startled, for Lochlanaire burst open the cabin door. He hurried to the weapons stirring back and forth upon the wall, pegged farthest to her reach. When she stood, he ignored her and sheathed the sword, a knife stabbed in his boot, and then he departed, never spouting a word to her of what prevailed aboard the ship. Frantic to see through the wave and rain-streaked glass, Siren then explored the captain’s quarters, seeking liberty of her chain. Fatefully a jar of salve, employed to aid in healing wounds, nudged off a shelf and rolled in her direction. Siren hopped about and eventually she grasped it, just in time, for it would have rolled too distant. She carried it to the bed and dabbed the muck upon the flesh of her bound wrist. Gritting the iron with her loose hand, Siren pulled, moaning, for the iron cut her skin. The cuff stripped loose. Siren was free again.

Now what?

It appeared with Lochlanaire’s earlier actions that he prepared for an attack of some villainy. Siren wondered what could be happening aboard deck. She discarded her cautioning voice of reason and rummaged amid the desk’s drawers where she recovered a dagger. She advanced on the door that Lochlanaire forgot to lock. She cracked the entry and explored the interior of the lantern-ensconced passageway. No pistol-wielding sentry guarded in defiance, so she tiptoed along the corridor and stilled upon its threshold.

What Siren witnessed alarmed…

The crew gathered center ship, circling Lochlanaire, Grayson, and four other men. In seething voices the four challenged Lochlanaire and Grayson, who drew swords on the cutlass-wielding traitors. Although they greatly outnumbered the mutineers, the witnessing crewmen were sworn to observe the duel, diverted by some pirate code which Siren couldn’t understand. Siren watched her husband deflect his two enemy’s attempts to slash his body in half, for he lashed his sword and the knife he withdrew from his boot. Siren jumped, jarred by the swords’ clash and cutlass’ clang. His brother dodged the attack the two other men affected. The brothers employed fists and feet, for their weapons were stripped from their hands. The traitorous men struck a hardy blow. Lochlanaire’s shoulder was gashed. The felon to his right delivered another strike across Lochlanaire’s neck, felling him onto buckled knees and almost unconscious. Siren cut apart the entranced masses, her dagger held on the men who were starved for Lochlanaire’s blood. The rebels were so startled by her audacity in breaking their midst that the distraction offered sufficient time for her husband to regain his composure. Infuriated, Lochlanaire swept his sword off the ship’s hull and sliced the throat of one man, slitting the chest of the other in the same instant. Both men tumbled to their deaths. Siren lurched backward. The pirates’ blood splashed. Siren shielded herself behind Lochlanaire, for he turned on the two men dueling Grayson. The brothers ended the attack, for Lochlanaire threw to Grayson the sword he’d lost. Lochlanaire pierced his challenger’s heart. Grayson stabbed the other’s stomach. The assembled crewmen regained their positions aboard ship, not partaking of the rebellion. Grayson yelled for a couple of men to lug the slain four over the ship’s port flank. He resumed captaincy for Lochlanaire, leaving him to explain what evil violated the vessel, along with his merciless chastising of Siren for her having needlessly risked her life.

Siren clasped her husband’s arm and guided him to the stairs toward his cabin. Within the corridor, Lochlanaire froze. He sank to his knees, spellbound by another fragment his past jarred to memory. His vision clouded.
Surrounded by a tavern that was crazed with chatter, Lochlanaire fought blood-ravenous men, deflecting knives, cutlasses and swords, desperate to triumph. A woman behind him threw a chair across his back, lurching him to the ground, unconscious.
Mystically, Lochlanaire returned to the passage.

Siren wondered about Lochlanaire’s vague eyes, yearning to awaken him of his phantasm. But he still gritted his bloodied sword. She knew he did not have possession of his actions when tangled in this condition of agony. Lochlanaire motioned for her to assist him onward. Footfalls shaky, he stood under her guidance.

Inside the captain’s quarters, Lochlanaire sat on his bed. Siren retrieved what she’d require in order to tend his wound. Moving to the bed, she dipped cloth in water drawn from the pitcher to a basin and untied the throat of Lochlanaire’s shirt. She withdrew the shirt from his body so she could surmise the tear violating his flesh. With difficulty, Siren rejected the seduction of his sinewy body that was bared to her famished eyes.

Lochlanaire quipped, “Why is it, Siren Blackheart, that I cannot keep you prisoner where I chain you?”

Siren plied pressure against the wound, wheedling a yelp from him and grumbled, “Perhaps if you did not chain me at all, then I would never possess the yearning
to
escape.” Rinsing the bloodied cloth and wringing water, she inquired, “Lochlanaire, those are your men, why did they duel you and Grayson?”

Lochlanaire thought to lie, “They hungered for you.”

“Me?” Stunned, Siren froze. “Why would they…” horridly she understood. “You fought them so that they could not seize me?”

“No.” Lochlanaire shook his head. “I fought them so they would not acquire the
chance
to ravage you.”

“They could have killed you…”

“Grayson says the four were raw to the ship, unaware of my assassin stature, or suspect of my abilities. They thought to see if I am capable of defending your honor. Then they might capture you and the ship for themselves. Fools.”

“You killed them for me?”

“Justly.” A leer engaged his lips. Looking at his injury, for he couldn’t peer into her baiting eyes, Lochlanaire confessed, “The bleeding’s halted. I shall live to resume my evils.”

Siren clasped Lochlanaire’s chin and kissed him passionately, then she freed him, searching his intrigued glance. “A kiss is meager reward for your chivalrous protection.”

Lochlanaire silenced the need to toss her across his bed. He struggled with a lengthy cloth and drew it around his arm. Disastrously, he fumbled. “Protecting you is the least I may do…your prisoner stature lies at my feet.”

Siren righted the cloth and tied it. Blood droplets stained the linen. “Not entirely.” Siren reminded him of Zore’s position in her imprisonment.

Lochlanaire roamed to the window.

Seeing the slashes of which scar his broad back, she asked, “What does the song…or the words ‘
Evil’s cast ye here. Hell has spat ye out. Heaven will not weather ye, prisoner shall ye be. Crazy, crazy, were Satan’s whispers, hang, hang, hang ye, dead, dead, dead ye be’
…mean?”

Lochlanaire faced her and angrily asked, “Where did you hear that song?”

Siren was so arrested by his glare she stuttered, “You…sang it while lost in slumber.”

Lochlanaire heard the death chant echo, feeling beaten to his soul. “It is nothing…a blasphemous memory.”

“Why, Lochlanaire, did someone flog you? I see the lashes crossing your chest and back. I’ve felt them beneath my fingertips. They are no fable. They scar your flesh cruelly, why? What demanded for you to be cut so venomously?”

Lochlanaire denied her the true answer, “They were conjured punishment for a cause you bear little to do with, Siren. Let it go.”

Lochlanaire recovered from her questions. Gathering her chain, he speared the key dangling at his throat, unlocking the iron and wiped off the smeared salve she’d used to free herself. He eased the cuff around her ankle. “You seek to duel? You shall be taught, so if you are commanded to it again in future, you will possess the advantage of learning at the tyranny of an assassin. Lessons begin with sunrise.” Lochlanaire withdrew the salve, waged courage, and left his captive to her discontentment, this time locking the door.

***

Siren wondered why he wouldn’t surrender to her anything of his past. She understood that much of his memory remains clouded. However, somehow she sensed that he was not telling her everything.

Gracing her bed, Siren murmured the bizarre song she’d heard Lochlanaire singing while asleep…
“Evil’s cast ye here. Hell has spat ye out. Heaven will not weather ye, prisoner shall ye be, crazy, crazy, were Satan’s whispers, hang, hang, hang ye, dead, dead, dead ye be.”

What could be the significance behind this sinister song and why was her husband enveloped in agony when he sang it? Lochlanaire apparently sheltered secrets, those he guarded for a purpose, in protection of himself, or with malice waged that she ought to fear