Pirate Wolf Trilogy (127 page)

Up to this point, Dante had
not uttered a whisper about the
Nuestro
Santisimo Victorio
, not even to Stubs. As
far as anyone in the crew knew or believed, La Fantasma and the
lost treasure she carried was a legend, and while he trusted each
and every man’s loyalty in battle, they were considered pirates for
a reason, and that reason was shiny and played havoc with a man’s
common sense.

He had been wrestling with the problem of
what to do, when to tell them, how to explain the whole convoluted
story since the moment he had set eyes on the wreck and he still
had no clear answer. He had discussed it around the fire with Eva
and William Chandler but neither of them had suggested an easy
solution. For the time being it was enough for the crew to believe
Dante’s intent, before crossing paths with Muertraigo, had been to
reunite the mermaid with her father.

After securing the rope ladder to a large
boulder, Dante shimmied down and found Eva and her father waiting
below. Using a wooden sledge, William had dragged several twenty
pound kegs of black powder from his stores into the cavern. Loading
them three at a time into a net, the casks were hauled topside by
Billy Crab, who rolled them out of the net and lowered it again to
be refilled. William also sent up several heavy barrels, the
contents of which he kept to himself, promising only that Dante
would be grateful to have them.

Rowly dispatched men to transport the kegs
and barrels back to camp, along with thirty trumpet-nosed
blunderbusses, spools of rope soaked in saltpetre to use as fuses,
several wide planks of timber to build sledges, and one very
fine-looking crossbow with two quivers full of iron bolts.

“Johnny-boy would weep to
see this,” Rowly remarked as he ran a hand along the polished wood.
“But he’s aboard the
Iron Rose
an’ strike me dead if anyone else knows how to
fire one.”

“I do,” Billy said, grinning through his
gums. “Can take the eye out o’ a lizard at fifty paces.”

Rowly whistled softly as he tilted his head
well up to see the giant lad’s bearded face. “I don’t doubt ye can,
lad. No need to show me just yet, all the same.”

Billy felt a tug on the rope and put his
back into the task of hauling on it hand over fist. When Eva’s
blonde head emerged from the crevice, Rowly’s eyes popped out of
their creases and his whistling ceased abruptly.

“Be double damned if the Mermaid isn’t
rising from solid rock now.”

Eva stepped out of the loop of rope and let
it slither down the gap again. Minutes later Dante and William
Chandler had both climbed up unaided and the four, with Bill Crab
slinging the crossbow over his shoulder, walked toward the
encampment.

“Nay, don’t tell me what the devil is going
on,” Rowly muttered to himself. “Mermaids found at sea, men popping
up out of the ground. Nay, don’t tell me. I’ll just wait for a
flyin’ Viking ship to swoop down out o’ the sky and carry us all
off to Valhalla.”

~~

A plan was discussed and set in motion. The
men, with William Chandler as their guide, would push hard to reach
Spanish Wells by nightfall. Having overheard her father
volunteering to help arrange a warm welcome for Muertraigo and
Lawrence Ross, Eva was feeling confident, if she kept out of sight
and drew no attention to herself, her presence might go unnoticed
until it was too late to do anything about it. Despite Gabriel’s
threat, she had no intentions of being left behind, or being parted
from her father again, not after everything she had gone through to
find him. To that end, she went upstream with a dozen water pipes,
ostensibly to fill them with cold, clear water, but taking care to
keep a thick patch of trees between her and Dante’s line of
sight.

Just as the camp was about to break, she saw
him climb a rise and turn a full circle, hands on hips, searching
the terrain. Feeling a bit like a child playing a game of hide and
seek, Eva ducked behind a jumble of boulders, peeking around the
edge with one big green eye until she saw him scowl and stride back
down the hill. When the men started moving out of camp, she tucked
her hair into her hat and pulled it low over her brow. She slung
the full water pipes over her shoulders and fell into step with a
noisy group.

She made it a full half-dozen paces before
she felt a hand grasp her elbow and pull her aside.

“I have been looking for you.”

She peeked up at Dante from under the brim
of her hat. “I was getting fresh water.”

“So I see. And you think you can carry those
pipes all the way to Spanish Wells?”

Her lips parted with surprise. “You’re not
going to stop me from going with you?”

“Would I have any success if I tried?”

“No.”

“Then it would be a waste of my breath and
time, and I have already squandered enough arguing with your
father.”

Her face brightened. “Father convinced you
to let me come?”

“He convinced me it would not be overly wise
to leave you here on your own, and since I can’t spare any men to
stay with you...” He shrugged through an expression that clearly
showed his displeasure. “I agreed on the condition that he vouch
for your behaviour. You will do exactly what you are told to do. If
I think it’s too dangerous for you to go any further, you will stay
where I put you.”

“Agreed.”

“It wouldn’t matter if you did or not.” His
scowl turned into a smirk as he glanced over her left shoulder,
then her right. Eva turned and saw Billy Crab standing on one side
and Eduardo on the other.

“They have been told not to let you out of
their sight for an instant or they will find their ears nailed to a
tree trunk. That was William’s threat. Mine was somewhat more
detailed and painful.”

Eduardo shifted slightly and his hands moved
reflexively to shield his groin area.

Dante reached over and unslung the heavy
water pipes from her shoulders, dividing them between Eduardo and
Billy Crab. In their place he gave her a leather scabbard with a
shortsword, which her father had assured him she knew how to use,
and a long-snouted snaphaunce pistol. As he was sliding the gun
into her belt, Eva thought his hands lingered a few moments longer
than was necessary to complete the task, but then he turned and
strode away without another word.

Beside her, she heard Eduardo release a long
gust of air. “Don’t see him real angry that often, Miss. But when
you see them white lines around his nose- holes… you’d best just
slit yer own throat as wait and have him do it for you.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Spanish Wells earned its name because it was
one of the few deep water bays where a ship could drop anchor. The
beach was sandy and wide, shaped in deep C. The shoreline was
flanked by a curved, thirty foot wall of rock capped by swaying
palm trees. More caves were formed at the base of the rocks, where
remnants of previous visitors were strewn about the floors. The
inlet was also close to a vast fresh water lake that sent several
streams emptying into the bight.

With William Chandler guiding them, the
landing party reached the Wells an hour before sunset. Acting
further on Chandler’s advice, they carried on past the beach to a
spot a mile further inland where a densely thick pine forest
provided a safe place to make camp. Come first light they could
explore the beach and set up watch posts to give ample warning of
any approaching ships and hopefully join up with Giddings’ small
scouting party, which had taken the longer route along the jagged
coastline.

The men who had dragged the heavy sledges
burdened under kegs of mud and gunpowder were grateful to find a
soft patch of earth and sleep. Fires were built to ward off the
dampness of the night air, although after a full day’s hard march
under the beating sun, the cooler air was a welcomed relief.

Dante’s impatience would not permit him to
wait for the morning and he returned to the beach as soon as the
full, bright moon came up. He posted guards on the bluffs then
walked the crescent of white sand from one end to the other, his
practised eye searching out the best defensive positions on the
surrounding higher ground. The beach itself was fairly open and
exposed but above it, the rocky incline would provide ample cover
for an ambush. Twenty men placed on the high ground could keep ten
times that number pinned on the beach and his confidence grew
thinking of what a hundred could accomplish.

It was on his way back, while following a
tiny stream into the forest that he came upon a golden haired
forest nymph perched at the end of a tree trunk that had been
uprooted in some past decade and was tilted out over the glassy
surface of a pond. He stopped at the edge of the small clearing,
letting his eyes drink in the effect of the moonlight spilling down
over her hair and glittering softly off the surface of the
water.

Eduardo, sitting cross-legged on the grassy
bank shot to his feet the instant he saw Dante. A moment later
Billy Crab materialized out of the shadows beside him, the enormous
crossbow held lightly in his big hands.

“Tried to keep ‘er in camp,” Billy mumbled
unhappily, “but she wouldn’t have none of it. Snuck off twice
wi’out us.”

Dante nodded. “Next time shoot her in the
leg. Go back and get some sleep now, the pair of you. I’ll deal
with her.”

“Aye. Good luck wi’ that.”

When they were gone, Dante walked to the
edge of the pool. The log Eva was sitting on was barely thick
enough to support her weight which is why, he supposed, the two
dolts had not shimmied out to fetch her off.

“You will have to come back to shore some
time, unless you plan to sit out there all night.”

Instead of answering, she untied the laces
at the collar of her shirt and peeled the garment up and over her
head. Her feet were already bare, having removed her boots and
flung them at Eduardo earlier, and with a bit of cautious
wriggling, she managed to ease out of her breeches and drape them
over the tree trunk with her shirt. Naked, she slid off the log and
dropped down into the water, submerging completely before she came
up again, her head tipped back, her hands pushing the skeins of wet
hair off her face.

With nothing but a glance in Dante’s
direction, she swam to the middle of the wide pool and ducked under
again, emerging with streams of silvery water sluicing off her head
and shoulders.

“Come in, Captain, the water is cool and
sweet,” she invited softly. “Rinse the hot day off your skin.”

“I suspect my skin might grow hotter, not
cooler,” he murmured.

She only smiled and leaned back, stretching
out her arms so that her slender, body floated on the surface and
glided through the pale mist that swirled around her.

Dante unbuckled his sword belt and let it
fall to the ground.

His bandolier and leather jerkin were next,
followed by his boots, breeches, and shirt. Two feet from the bank,
the bottom dropped out of the pool and he dove in smoothly,
swimming out most of the way underwater. Looking up through the
warm, crystal clear water, he found her by moonlight, her hair
spread out in a silky fan, her slender legs treading lightly to
keep her suspended. He reached up with his hands and dragged her
under by the waist, meeting her halfway, his mouth finding hers as
they both rose to the surface again.

Arms encircled, they hung there a moment,
devouring each other’s lips. Eva felt his flesh, hard and thick,
pressing up against her as her legs went around his waist. A groan
into his mouth was the only sound she made as he thrust himself
inside her, and there he remained as he took them both back to
shore. When his back brushed against the sandy edge, he rolled her
over and thrust again and again, bringing them both to a swift,
shattering release.

“What happened,” he growled between panted
breaths, “to the promise you made to do whatever I told you to
do?”

“You didn’t tell me I couldn’t come to the
pond to bathe.”

He growled again and moved his hips so that
she would know he was still there, still hard, and not amused in
the least by her answer.

“In future I shall have to be more specific
then. Do not leave camp. Do not set foot in the forest, do
not—“

“—move,” she gasped through a shudder. “Do
not move.”

She tightened her legs around him and arched
her hips up and the tiny spasms that had set her flesh clutching
around his again, sheared through her in a sweet, hot rush of
sensation.

“Discipline, Mermaid,” he whispered
raggedly, their bodies twined and moving together in the moonlight.
“I see I still have much to teach you about discipline.”

He rolled with her again so that she was
straddling his hips. Moonlit water streamed off her hair, glistened
on her body as his hands gripped her waist and showed her how to
move, how to take what she needed, how to give him what he wanted.
He dug his heels into the soft sand and strained upward, barely
able to hold himself in check as she rode him to a hot, fierce
explosion of pleasure. She arched back with a startled cry, her
hips moving in a blur, her heat pouring around him until he could
hold back no longer. He rose up one last time and felt her flesh
squeeze around him like a greedy little fist, stripping him of the
ability to think of anything other than needing more… more…
more….

~~

Much later, when they were both stretched
out on the moss, their bodies cooling in the night breezes, he
found enough energy to roll onto his side and assume a stern
expression.

“I am quite serious. You cannot just wander
away from camp and do as you like.”

“I thought I was doing what you liked,” she
said with a soft grin.

“You know damn well what I mean.” He stood
and gathered their scattered clothing, then reached a hand down to
help her up. “Until we hear from the scouting party, we have no
idea where Muertraigo is or what he is doing. We don’t even know
for certain he is going to land here at Spanish Wells.”