Paradise Island (26 page)

Weariness tugged his muscles, but he strode on, keeping careful pace with Estelle. She was sure to be feeling the same fatigue as he, but she didn't break her determined stride. Knowing that there was more to this than just the two of them, the fate of her home, her father, kept her fortitude burning.

It was trepidation kept him alert and the same depth of purpose that kept his strides from slowing. They were close to the cave now. The landscape had lost the protection of closely growing trees and became more barren. It was as if the evil that seeped from the cave had stopped the trees from growing.

Estelle stopped and withdrew her sword. Adrenaline immediately punched his veins as he unsheathed his sword, his senses jumped as he picked out every shadow.

“Up there,” she whispered.

Slowly she pointed to a large boulder that rose above them. A transparent blue mist hovered above the stone. It was in the shape of a woman dressed in a shroud. There were no features, but Estelle felt power pulsing through it. Every sense prickled to attention, building with an intense awareness. The figure extended an arm, pointing in a direction down a rough pathway that was nothing more than an animal track.

Another blue apparition, a head taller than Gregory appeared in the middle of the pathway. It hovered down the path, stopping for them to follow.

“We have been shown. Do you think we should follow?” she asked quietly.

“I think we are receiving more help than we know. I think we should at least see where this track leads,” he said.

Estelle nodded. “I agree. Let's go.”

Gregory brushed aside the leafy twigs. The track was narrow and wound around the saplings and large grey rocks that scattered the ground. Soon the trail, for it was no more than that, rose in an incline that had his attention more on his feet to stop from tripping over.

They were soon climbing a rough path up larger boulders. Estelle re-sheathed her sword to pick her way up and he did the same, following her along the slowly diminishing trail.

Estelle paused, panting with exertion. Clearly she was finding the climb as arduous as he was. “I still see a pathway through these rocks. I think we should see where it ends. I have often heard Dalia tell of spirits appearing to help their people. We need to follow it to receive its help.”

“Even up the face of a cliff?” he asked.

“She never mentioned that the path would be easy.”

A twig snapped above them, capturing their attention. The apparition hovered on the top the ridge, before disappearing over the ledge.

“There is our answer,” she said.

It took a few moments to reach the ledge, but when they had, Gregory smelt the distinct sharp tang of sea air. He peered over some small bracken low growing shrubs that lined the top of a ridge. “We are back along the coastline,” he said, surprised.

The ocean spread before him in a dark mass. Moonlight picked up the troughs and highs of massive waves peaked with white foamy caps. Beside him, Estelle peered in the same direction.

“And it seems as if we are not the only ones here,” she said.

There was a harsh edge to her voice that was threaded with abjuration and reprisal. Tension recoiled from her so much that he felt it as strongly as she. She indicated below them with a sharp tip of her head and his gaze fell to below them.

From the shadows merged a cluster of black ships that had sunk anchor in the quiet bay. Several long boats lined the black shore. Empty. He leaned through the shrubs to see where the occupants were and quickly ducked back, taking Estelle to the ground with him.

“Did you see the flags on those ships?” she asked breathlessly.

He nodded. “Cutlass,” he said, grimness hanging on his voice. “They're here. Jack's crew. All of them.”

“We must get to the cave before them, defeat it before the crew has a chance to try to stop us,” she said. Her voice was steel-edged, determination ringing from each syllable. It had seemed as though the spirit had summoned its disciples. She only hoped that she had bought Paradise some time, and that Dalia had been able to hide their village long enough to keep Jack Cutlass from destroying it.

Gregory looked around from their high perch. His mouth had flattened into a determined line, his brows set straight over an intent, bright gaze. The breeze from the ocean whipped his raven hair across his brow. His shirt billowed, revealing his broad toned chest, darkened with the night. He was every inch the pirate she knew was hidden beneath the gentleman's veneer. There was an unyielding quality to him, a sense of personal purpose, a complete ungentlemanly resolution that would have the Navy thinking twice about his current post.

It was this raw edge to him that had her breath caught in her throat. There was a sense of complete satisfaction seeing it on full display. Despite the danger and the precariousness of their position, she knew that this freshly honed side to him was unerringly fitting. This was the true Gregory Marshall.

He nodded and pointed to a nearly overgrown scrubby trail that continued beyond their ledge. “We'll go this way. We'll have to keep quiet. Sound travels far in the night and those men have help from otherworld forces.”

Estelle consented and followed Gregory along the narrow pathway. Occasionally he would peer over the edge to look for any sign of the men on the opposite side of the cliff they trekked along, but there was nothing to see. The men had seemed to have melted into the night. That was not a good sign. Estelle always liked to know the whereabouts of the men she was about to fight.

She constantly looked behind and around her, noting shadows that moved or noises that cracked the silence, ignoring her burning muscles as she walked on tiptoe as she picked her way over the small, rocky trail. Twigs brushed her arms and shrubs scratched her legs, catching and tugging her clothing. There was a rip as a twig caught her sleeve and refused to dislodge. The sound seemed to ricochet through the silence. She stopped on bent knees, swiveling on the balls of her feet, aiming her vision with the tip of her sword as she scanned the shadows. In front of her, Gregory did the same.

After a few moments, Gregory nodded towards her. She answered with a silent indication of her head and they continued down the path, pausing now and then. There was nothing, no noise, no movement. Tension built with every passing step. It grew with her rasping breath, the sweat that heated her skin and the drops of perspiration that trickled down her back.

She was always aware of the pre-battle tension. Always felt it spark the very air around her as though it was a living energy. It made her ready for battle and had saved her life many times in the past. But that was when she fought other pirates. This time there was an unknown factor. Even though she had tasted a little of it, she knew there was a depth that she could not know about until the heat of battle was upon her, when this god was fighting for its own preservation against possible destruction. Who knew what she would be up against then? She had seen men and women attack from their sick beds when they faced a life and death situation. Self-preservation was a powerful force indeed and this god had worked continuously to ensure its own survival over many years.

Gregory stilled and hunched onto bended knee. He turned to show his finger across his mouth indicating to keep silent. She nodded, hunching down beside him and looked over his shoulder. Below the track they perched on was the clear area of the cave. The way they were positioned on the track, the cave entrance was directly below them. She recognized the expanse of barren dirt, and the large grey boulders that were scattered over the barren ground. Estelle stifled a chill that crawled through her belly.

The apparition had taken them to the cave. They held their position, becoming part of the shadows, watching for any trace of the phantom crew, but there was nothing save a forlorn birdcall. It was time to move.

She clasped Gregory's shoulder, firming her fingers on his sinewy muscles. She stepped around him. He grabbed her hand, stopping her just as she was about to walk down a trailing path that would take her to the entrance of the cave.

He pulled her gently towards him, until his arms were wrapped around her and his mouth was pressing against hers. She melted against his solid frame, entwined her arms around his neck and met his kiss with her own. This was not a kiss of building passion, but of one lover knowing what the other must now go and do. It was a kiss of mutual understanding, working together for a composite benefit, the blending of two into one. It was a kiss of trust, succor and refuge. The knowledge that one could only exist because of the other, whatever the outcome might be.

Estelle broke the kiss, pulled back and gazed into Gregory's bright onyx eyes. There were no words. She didn't need to find any. She read all she needed to know in the intensity of that one look.

“Whatever happens, we do it together,” she said.

Gregory nodded, relinquishing her so that they would follow the path that lead to the dusty plain before the entrance of the cave. They hid behind a sparse shrub, apprehension and doubt chipping her reserve. Gregory took her hand, warming her fingers with his own.

“Together. Remember?” he said.

She nodded, taking strength from him, buoyed by his support and total belief in her. She stepped from the flimsy protection of the shrub and walked cautiously towards the hollowed entrance, Gregory next to her, hand in hand.

It looked like a giant yawning mouth in a rough triangular shape. Large boulders jutted along the edge, like gnarled teeth and indeed she felt as though she were prey waiting to be eaten alive by this grotesque mouth.

A dank cold pressed onto her. She recognized it as the spirit god awakening to her presence. She tuned in to the feelings that embraced her. There was fear, depression, anger. She was familiar to it now, having been subjected to its wrath. There was a tinge of curiosity, a desire to know why she'd come back to it, an acknowledging that it didn't know what to expect from her, just as much as she didn't know what to expect from it. Although those feeling bore down on her, she sensed that it waited, just as a predator might wait for the best moment for a kill.

Her nerves sparked, triggered by the rush of her blood sent coursing through her body. She looked at Gregory, held the love that she felt for him strong in her mind, letting it feed her body with warmth and light. Instantly the misery, the bleakness, the hopelessness recoiled.

It was the same as had happened to her when she was in the void and Gregory had shown her the light and led her back from the entrapment of her mind. She knew how to defeat this spirit god. The old woman was right after all. Only they together, who shared the strongest of love between them could beat away the cold and the dark.

Love was the answer. The one thing that it didn't understand, the one thing that could beat it. Love would remove the power of evil, the reek of all that power, despair. It would wash it all away.

She turned her attention to Gregory. His face was set into harsh lines, wariness etching a grim line on his forehead. She squeezed his fingers and he turned his head to her. “Don't let it make you feel those feelings that are pressing into you right now. It wants to control you, but don't let it. Think of me, think of what we have together and it can't get through,” she whispered.

His face was tortured. “I can feel the cold,” he said.

She faced him, held his hands that were growing cold. “Concentrate on me. Don't let it take you,” she said.

“Is this what it felt like? For you when you were … gone?”

“Gregory, don't think about it. I'm back and here. I'm not going anywhere without you.”

He stared at her without seeing. He was sinking into the black, letting it take him just as it had taken her. The god was attacking again, but this time it wasn't aiming at her. And that was something she wasn't going to let happen.

“Look at me, Gregory,” she said.

His eyes slowly focused on her. She read the confusion and the blankness that was slowly covering the intense brightness in his eyes. The god was working its insidious path to take Gregory from her.

“Resist it. Think of all the good things that have happened in your life. Think of the Navy, your crew. My father who you are going to save. Gregory, without you I would still think him dead.”

“We will save him,” he said. But his voice was a monotone, as though he mouthed the words, telling her the things she wanted to hear.

She tightened her grip on his hands, stepped closer to him, so that he might feel her pressing on his chest. “Think of me. Think of what you have come to mean to me. Gregory, I … I can't think of my life without you. You have come to mean … the world to me. I … ”

She clasped his face between her hands. “You mean everything to me. You bring out the best in me, make me want to face the world, make me think that I can. My life in now something to look forward to, not a constant challenge or a fight. You make me want to live like to the full, with you by my side.”

She pressed her forehead to his, closed her eyes. She had never said these words before, not when they meant so much, not had anything weighted so much that it would affect the rest of her life. These were the words her soul sung to, the thing she should have let into her life years ago, that state of being that only he had managed to unlock.

The words she should have admitted to so long ago.

She sighed, a shaky sound that quivered from her lips, words on a breath. “Gregory. I love you.”

His hands touched the small of her back, traced up her spine, softly, gradually. His breath was labored, as if waking from a sleep so deep that it would be so easy to slip back beneath its silken layers. He was waking up, fighting against the black tide the god was trying to down him in.

She plunged her fingers into the hair at his nape. Pressed her lips against his. “I love you. Wholly. Completely. Absolutely. Nothing is going to take that away from us. Nothing can because it is something we own. Just between ourselves. Our own private paradise.”