Pirate Wolf Trilogy (133 page)

Dante cursed and lowered his sword. “Next
time, give a warning or you’ll find your heads cracked open as
well.”

Still muttering at the lunacy, Gabriel
turned to retrace his steps along the tunnel. Halfway back he
realized he was no longer holding the gold ring Eva had found. It
had either flown out of his grasp when he dove to shield her, or he
had dropped it somewhere in the trampled dirt and mud on the floor
of the tunnel.

For the first time in a life filled with
adventure, danger, sea battles, violent encounters with pirates,
cannibals and Spain’s elite soldiers… Gabriel experienced a clutch
of genuine dread. He did not want to see the look in those huge
emerald eyes when he had to confess that he had lost the ring. He
backed away instead and climbed the rope ladder, wondering how long
he could stay hidden behind trees and boulders.

~~

When Dante did not return, Eva carefully
tucked the salamander back into the coral box and set it aside. She
had heard some of the men laughing as they emerged from the tunnel
and was relieved to know they were not being bombarded.

She returned to the task of sorting pearls
and emeralds, but after two more hours, when there was still no
sign of Gabriel, she wandered through the connecting tunnel to look
for him. He was not the only one who was missing, for she heard her
father shouting for Billy Crab and getting no response. He did,
however, wave absently toward the ladder when she asked if he had
seen Gabriel.

“If Billy is with him, tell the lad to skin
his hide down here, we’ve work to do building more bells.”

Eva kissed her father’s cheek then climbed
the rope ladder. As always she was surprised to realize she’d had
no sense of time below; in the caverns there was no difference
between day and night.

To judge by the purplish color of the sky,
it was too late for a sunset, too early for more than a handful of
stars to wink overhead. There was no private forest glade nearby,
but she knew Dante liked to walk to the edge of a nearby escarpment
that overlooked the bight. The path followed the stream uphill,
twisting around and through a dark stretch of forest. She had never
walked it alone before and had no intentions of doing so now. There
were snakes in the underbrush, and spiders as big as her hand
lurking in overhead branches waiting to fall on her head.

Not that she was ever completely alone, and
she knew if she turned quickly and looked over her shoulder she
would see Eduardo duck quickly behind a tree or rock. He took his
duties seriously and one of them, delivered with severe threats
from Gabriel, had been to keep Eva in sight at all times. Back in
Spanish Wells, the lad had learned to follow at a discreet distance
until he knew she was in safe hands. The fact she could not hear a
bootstep or a rustle of leaves probably meant he was staying back
deliberately in case she was bound for some private time with
Gabriel. There had not been much of that since returning to the
caverns. None at all, in fact.

Eva picked her way carefully over the rocky
ground and descended the hill, searching out the same place beside
the stream where she had sat, a fortnight ago, and dangled her
aching feet. That was the night Gabriel had shown her the eerie
green lights rising from the ground, and the same night they had
fallen into the cavern and found her father.

So much had happened since then; enough to
fill two years, let alone two weeks!

She was almost at the stream, passing
through a small copse of fir trees, when a night bird whistled
nearby and startled her heart up into her throat. Searching for the
source, she saw the unmistakable silhouette of Billy Crab perched
on a boulder.

“I’m to tell you that you are wanted down
below,” she said, hailing him. “Father says that between you and
Master Giddings, you have managed to blow up all the spare
breathing bells and more are needed for the divers.”

When there was no response, she tramped
through a patch of tangled weed and came up beside him. “By chance,
have you seen the Captain? Did he happen to pass this way?”

There was still no answer and when she
reached out to touch his shoulder, he swayed a moment then slowly
started to pitch forward. His head tipped sideways at an odd angle
and it was not until she saw the inky wetness gleaming down the
front of his shirt that she saw his throat had been slashed clean
through to his spine.

She stumbled back and drew a breath to
scream but a hand came out of nowhere to clamp tightly over her
mouth. She tried to twist away but a muscular arm grasped her
around the waist, lifting her off her feet. Eva kicked and fought
and struggled to break free but there were more figures stepping
out of the shadows and surrounding her. The heel of her boot caught
one of them on the shin and, cursing in Spanish, he raised the butt
of his pistol and brought it down hard across her temple.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

“And so we meet again
Senora Padilla… or would you prefer I call you by your proper name,
Senorita
Chandler
?”

Eva’s head was throbbing. There was a
Spanish soldier on either side holding her up by her arms. She
tried to look around but saw nothing familiar and had no idea where
she was. There were a lot of tall trees rising up to a pitch-dark
night sky. A small fire crackled nearby, brushing the faintest hint
of light across the features of the man who stood before
her—features she recognized with a sharp stab of fear.

“Evangeline?” Estevan Muertraigo snapped his
fingers to gain her attention. “Where is he? Where is Gabriel
Dante?”

She fought to quell the panic rising in her
chest and tried to stall. “Who?”

Muertraigo grasped a
fistful of her hair and yanked her face up. “Do not play games with
me, little
puta
.
The man you were with on board the
Santa
Maria
. Gabriel Dante. Where is
he?”

“I… don’t know. And that is the truth, I
swear it. He took his men to Spanish Wells two weeks ago. They have
not come back.”

Muertraigo tightened his fist until it felt
as if the roots of her hair were going to be torn from her scalp.
“I think you do not lie very well, puta.”

“I am not lying. He went to Spanish Wells, I
swear it on my mother’s grave.”

Muertraigo snarled and gave a final, cruel
twist before releasing her hair. “Indeed. You do speak the truth
about that. He did go to Spanish Wells. But I also think he has
come back to claim his prize, yes?”

“I don’t know what prize you are talking
about.”

The dark eyes glittered. He
reached inside the collar of her shirt to withdraw the silver
locket. Wrapping the chain around his fist he gave such a violent
tug, the links cut into the back of her neck before they snapped
apart. He opened the locket and removed the silver escudo, admiring
it for a long moment before he held it up in front of her face.
“The
Nuestro Santisimo
Victorio
… where is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“And your father. I suppose you do not know
where he is either?”

She squared her jaw defiantly. “Actually I
do. He is with Captain Dante.”

Muertraigo stared into the blazing green of
her eyes, then swung his open hand across her face, striking hard
enough to split her lip.

Eva reared up and nearly managed to twist
free of the two men holding her. She kicked out at Muertraigo,
winning a moment of satisfaction when she felt her toe sink into
the soft flesh between his thighs and heard him grunt. A third
soldier stepped up to capture her wildly thrashing legs and it took
all three men to subdue her long enough for Muertraigo to punch her
twice… once in the belly and once across the jaw, the latter hard
enough to render her insensible.

“Bind her,” he ordered, his voice cracking
with rage. “Hang her over there…from the tree.”

Eva was vaguely aware of being dragged
across the dirt. She felt ropes going around her wrists and ankles
and she could not hold back the involuntary cry as the ends were
tossed over a thick branch and she was hauled upright, her arms
stretched wide apart. Her ankles were similarly splayed and the
ropes anchored tight.

"You
will
tell me what
I want to know, little
puta
."

The words vibrated against
her ear and sent cold shivers scratching down her spine. There was
a frightening edge of pleasure in the huskiness of his voice, as if
he was hoping she would remain stubbornly quiet. She suspected that
he derived pleasure from the fear he instilled in others and she
knew he would use it against her if her courage faltered by so much
as a quivered breath. Determined to deny him, she set her aching
teeth in a hard clench. Her fingers curled around the cords of the
ropes taking some of the pressure off her wrists.

There were others standing
in the darkness. Unseen faces, shapes without substance that
watched and whispered from the shadows. The russet glow from the
firelight barely touched them, glinting instead off flashes of
metal from pistol-barrels and swords.

"You show courage,
puta
. Far more
than is wise or necessary."

The threat in Muertraigo’s
voice was stark and needed no interpretation. Eva knew she had to
close her mind to the pain and try to focus inward, to block out
the voice as well as the feel of the cold sliver of steel that was
placed against the side of her neck.

An unwanted image of Billy
Crab, his head almost severed from his body, caused her eyes to
flood and she closed them, not wanting the Spaniard to see her
terror.

The ferret-like eyes roved
over her face, staring at the blood that ran down from her split
lip. They moved on, glittering with interest when they touched upon
a tiny rip at the top of her shirt.

"Tell me where the Wolf’s
cub is,
puta
. Tell me the location of his camp." He leaned close enough
she could taste his breath, redolent with tooth decay. "Tell me and
it will go easier on you, this I promise.”

“I told you, I don’t know.
I w-was left behind and I don’t know where they have
gone.”

"Left behind?" A
thoughtful frown brought the point of the knife dragging along the
top of her shoulder to the rent in the garment. "You continue to
lie,
puta
,
and that disappoints me very much.”

A deft twist of his wrist
sent the steel sliding into the frayed seam on the collar of her
shirt, slicing it open all the way down her back. As the cloth
parted, the whispers and murmurings from the onlookers ended
abruptly, leaving only the soft
ssssssssssssss
of the blade
slicing through cloth to fill the silence.

Eva drew a slow breath to
calm the pounding in her breast. The blood was flowing hot and fast
through her veins, flushing her skin a mottled pink even though the
air was chilled where it touched her exposed flesh.

"Because I am in a
generous mood,
puta
," his lips scraped across
her ear, "I will give you one more chance to tell me what I want to
know."

She steeled herself to
keep from flinching. "I cannot tell you what I do not
know."

There was the faintest
hint of appreciation for the defiance he saw in the taut lines of
her body, but it was not enough to keep the tip of the knife from
sliding down to the waist of her breeches. It slivered through the
cloth with a quick flick of his wrist then tore downward, following
the slender curve of her hip to her thigh, then down to her ankle,
leaving the moleskin split wide open.

She tried to twist and
pull against the ropes, but there was no slack. Splayed and
vulnerable, she could do little more than writhe and thrash her
head, scattering her long blonde hair wildly over her
shoulders.

Muertraigo smiled and with
another downward slicing of the knife, cut through the other leg of
her breeches until it too hung open over her parted legs. He slid a
hand between her thighs and stroked back and forth, watching the
disgust, humiliation, and anger alter the expressions on her face
as his fingers probed and explored the sensitive flesh.

"So. You refuse to make
this easier on yourself?"

She made a sound in her
throat then spat the words free. "I told you,
I don’t know anything
."

Muertraigo’s eyes crinkled
at the edges. "We all know
something
, my dear. And I can
promise with some certainty that you will be begging to tell
me
everything
you know before the sands fall through the hour
glass."

"Then do your
worst,
capitan
," she whispered, lowering her eyes and squeezing out a tear.
“For you will never hear me beg.”

The Spaniard chuckled low
in his throat and addressed his rapt audience. "They all say that.
In the beginning.”

He withdrew his hand and
gazed at his fingers a moment, then lifted them to his nose and
breathed deeply, inhaling the scent of her fear. Three quick
slashes saw the rest of her clothes lying in a heap at her feet,
causing the watchers in the shadows to offer up a collective murmur
of appreciation.

Muertraigo walked another
full, slow circle around her, his eyes lingering here and there.
The bold inspection caused an involuntary reaction in her flesh,
the revulsion making her skin feel as if it was shrinking
everywhere on her body.