The Pirate's Witch (7 page)

This woman was smaller in stature and lacked some of Clarette’s fullness, but her curves were pleasing and her skin soft and as unblemished as he remembered.
 
He rolled to the side and pulled her onto her back.
 
With his head resting on his hand, he looked down at her and impatiently brushed away her hand so he could enjoy an unimpeded view of her quivering breasts as she panted in fear.
 
His thumb brushed over a light pink nipple, tightening its puffiness to a firm, erect state that he pinched painfully until she moaned.

Monique cried when his hand traveled between her hip bones and over the slight swell of her belly until he sifted through her blonde curls and spread her fleshy lips.
 
Perhaps most disconcerting was the realization she was wet in response to his ministrations, and she felt an unexpected cramping in her core as her body seemed to be almost wanting him to fill her.
 
She had fully expected the experience to be even more agonizing with her dry passage.
 
Instead, his stroking was arousing her to a degree that frightened her further.

“Ah… little witch.
 
Your mind may not yet remember me, but your body has not forgotten the passion we shared.”

Monique let out another sob of confusion and she tried to grab his hand to stop him.
 
Once more she felt the surreal sense that she knew this man, and there was almost an aching feeling of loss coursing through her emotions that she could not understand.

Deegan rose on top of her, no longer willing to restrain himself from feeling the warmth of her center surround his cock like the softest of leather gloves, gripping and rippling against his nerves and pulling him to release.

Monique cried when he entered her, pushing deeper with each plunge until he entered virgin depths and it felt as though he would burst through her womb.
 
At some point, her hands had gripped his shoulders, and Deegan smiled in his passion as this woman mimicked Clarette’s responses.
 
He was certain he could entice her to return to him, and over the years he had come to terms with his obsession.

As the pirate settled into a steady, thrusting rhythm, Monique’s body adjusted and she felt herself responding with her own unnerving arousal.
 
Soon, she felt the small convulsions that would lead to a humiliating orgasm she could not hope to forestall.
 
As the Captain groaned out his eruption, and she felt the hot spurts of his seed jerking into her depths, her passage gripped his rod tightly with her own pulsing release.

Monique felt completely demeaned by her body’s betrayal, and she knew the man recognized her climax.
 
He looked down on her with his dark eyes shining, almost lit from within as a result of his passion.
 
As his thumb once again stroked her cheek, he murmured, “Have you come back to remove your curse?”
 
Deegan studied her eyes, and said sadly, “I don’t think you can.
 
I think that magic died with time of the chants and the drums of the dark women.”

Deegan pulled her onto his chest and threw a heavy leg across hers, trapping her.
 
He felt her silent tears work their way through curls spanning his chest, and finally recognized her steady breathing of sleep.

When Monique woke in the morning, Deegan was gone.
 
So were her clothes, so she wrapped the bed quilt around her and tried the door.
 
She was not surprised to find it locked.
 
A few seconds later it opened, and Monique realized he must have been on the helm overhead waiting to hear her wake up.
 
“Come join your friends,” he said with pleasantness that seemed inane under the circumstances.

The thought of being reunited with the other girls had Monique moving forward until Deegan reached out and swept the covering off her.
 
“The sun is quite warm today.
 
I don’t think this is necessary.”
 
He tossed the blanket back onto the bed and dragged her out of the door.

Monique blushed at the catcalls and whistles from the crew and was shocked to see her friends in the same state of undress, manacled in heavy irons and hanging from the fore boom.
 
She whimpered and tried to fight Deegan’s strength as he lifted her arms to secure her in the remaining set of irons.

The girls balanced on their toes in the hot sun, and every time one of them tried to speak the pirate nearest to her placed a resounding smack across her face.
 
Eventually, they were reduced to whimpers and an occasional quiet sob.
 
Ladles of water were offered several times, and Monique would gulp frantically to quench her thirst.
 
Even with the terror and pain of their circumstances, the day took on an almost monotonous existence in the back of their minds as the schooner cut through the sea and rocked up and down on the rolling waves.

In the afternoon, there was activity on deck and the women tried to turn their weary heads to see what was going on.
 
There was a large cabin cruiser approaching, and the girls whispered excitedly the prospects of being rescued.
 
They tried to thrash their strained muscles, and hoarse voices tried to scream for help.

The pirates quickly lowered their women, and Deegan ordered, “Get the women gagged and tied low to the scuttles.”
 
Several of tired girls tried to wedge their hands between the rails to signal, as the engines of the cruiser became louder.

“Ahoy, you headed to the festival?” a man asked.

Deegan had become a master of answering unusual questions over the years.
 
“We are plotting a course to Tortuga.”

“Oh, I’m sure they’ll appreciate you there, too.
 
This thing is a beauty.
 
How did you manage to age her so convincingly?”
 
The man turned to his friends who were fishing off the back of the boat.
 
“You guys should come take a look at this schooner.”
 
He turned back to Deegan.
 
“You really should consider hitting the festival in the Caymans.
 
If they give prizes, this ship’s a shoe in for first place.”

The man continued to look across the deck, and occasionally one of Deegan’s crew would smile in bemusement and wave.
 
They had only managed to capture one of the new vessels with engines when it had anchored for the night, and the thought of their prey actually approaching the pirates’ schooner amused the men.
 
They waited patiently for the Captain’s signal.

The man finally asked, “Would you mind if I board and look around her?
 
She really is amazing.”

“Perhaps your friends would like to join you,” Deegan suggested.

Monique discovered she had been staring fixedly at the pirate’s smile while he exchanged pleasantries with the stranger.
 
It was an expression she was not even sure could cross his features, and he was dangerously handsome in this laid back manner.
 
She had even stopped thinking of escape, and Marsha once again glanced at her oddly while she continued her own struggles.

“My friends are more interested in fishing and beer, I’m afraid,” the man laughed.

The women looked up when a sneaker landed on the rail a few feet away from them.
 
The man dropped to the deck and turned towards the bow.
 
His eyes swept the length of the ship, and eventually settled on the seven naked and bound women crouched by the rail a few feet away from him.
 
He was speechless for a moment, and when he finally found his voice, Barton’s cutlass sliced through his belly up towards his throat in a quick lunge, causing the man to emit a surprised gasp.

Deegan called to the men on the boat, “I think your friend is ill.”

The men swiveled in their chairs and bolted to their feet.
 
“What is it, Mike?
 
Is it your heart again?”
 
They bounded over the rail to help their friend, and within minutes all three men were feeding the sharks in the warm waters.
 
The pirates made quick work of securing the valuables, including the fishing gear, which caused great excitement.

The women were still hysterically sobbing as they were unbound from the railing and their gags were removed.
 
They shrieked at the loud explosion of the cruiser’s final bellow before it sank beneath the sea.

The rest of the day was uneventful, and as the exhausted women hung from the beam they were grateful they did not run into more victims for the pirates.
 
As the sun turned the sky to the mauves, yellows and lavenders of a beautiful tropical sunset, Johnny said to Deegan, “It’s almost time, Captain.”

Deegan ordered the women lowered from the irons.
 
“Come, Clarette,” Deegan called.
 
Monique had given up trying to convince him she was not this unknown woman, as most of the crew called her by that name when they referred to her.
 
She was exhausted and her muscles were strained, so she offered little resistance as he gripped her arm and pulled her towards the bow.

They walked to the front of the schooner with the rest of the crew and women following them.
 
Deegan placed her in front of him and all the pirates seemed to be studying the horizon.
 
Monique could not figure out what he was looking at, as even the sunset was behind them.
 
It
did
occur to her that the entire crew was looking out from the bow, and no one was steering the boat.

After several minutes, Peter pointed and hollered, “There she is, Captain.”

Monique squinted until she saw a small bump on the surface of the water in the distance.
 
Her eyes widened as it became impossibly larger, and an island rose out of the sea like a submarine shedding its water as it surfaced.
 
She pushed back into Deegan in terror at the landmass only a few hundred feet off the bow.

Deegan leaned down and murmured, “Welcome Clarette, to Île de la Torture.”

Chapter II

Island of Torture

At first, the women stood in shocked silence as the schooner sailed closer to the island.
 
Monique was trembling in Deegan’s arms and Patti began to sob, initiating the same flooding response from the rest of the terrified women.

Monique panicked when the boat maneuvered expertly around a ridge and into a small cove, with no one at the helm to guide her.
 
It turned sideways to the beach and nestled against an underwater reef separating a deep basin from the shallow waters.

“Make haste and get the valuables secured,” Deegan ordered.

When he tried to turn with Monique and head to where the gangplank would be lowered, he discovered she had locked her arms around the railing.
 
Somehow, Monique knew that if she got off the ship she would never leave the island.
 
Deegan laughed and pried her loose, threw her up onto his shoulder, and issued the necessary punishing blows across her red bottom.
 
Johnny chuckled when they strode by until Deegan arched his brow and glanced down at Thelma who was sobbing hysterically on the deck at his feet.
 
Johnny shrugged and began lifting her by her red curls.

Monique bounced down the gangplank wailing over the Captain’s shoulder, and she sobbed even harder as his feet splashed through the shallow water to the shore.
 
The women were placed on the beach while the pirates hastily removed their stolen plunder from the schooner.
 
When the last of their loot was laid on the sand, the pirates grabbed their companions and sat the women in front of them, facing the water.

As the sun touched the sea, Monique imagined she heard a hiss, and she stared at the boat still rocking close to shore.
 
Blurry waves of heat, like a mirage, began to ripple through the form of the schooner, and Monique’s eyes widened as she thought she could actually see the rolling of the sea’s waves through portions of the hull.
 
She trembled back against Deegan’s broad chest and actually gripped the arm he had pinning her against him as she realized her eyes and mind were not playing tricks on her.
 
The schooner was slowly becoming transparent and the bow began to dip dangerously low.

It took only a few minutes before the boat had completely upended, and by the time the stern sank below the water, Monique could see clearly through the vessel, with only the indication of the outline remaining before it quietly submerged.
 
She froze in terror, not even bothering to fight Deegan’s arms wrapped around her.
 
His deep voice announced, “That is it, then.”

Monique heard one of her friends, Marsha probably, shakily whisper, “My god, we’re in the Bermuda Triangle.”

The comment crashed through Monique’s mind, and she thought of the ancient vessel, old clothing and old ways.
 
These were not men dressed up like old buccaneers; they were real pirates, caught in the time warp that she now found herself a part of.
 
She began to shake violently against Deegan’s chest, as she realized there would be no rescue… and no escape.

Deegan felt her coming apart in his arms as her circumstances became clear to her, and her mind tried to frantically grab hold of some alternative.
 
Knowing from the beginning of his exile that Clarette’s curse was responsible for his situation, he had no idea what this Bermuda Triangle was and assumed it was a new nautical term for an area that included at least part of the Windward Passage… perhaps, even Tortuga.
 
The pirates did not know that they had inadvertently added to the mysteries surrounding the waters, when, after their seven days at sea were finished, neither they, their vessel, nor the island, could ever be found.

In what appeared to be gentle commiseration but in reality was another comment Deegan sadistically inflicted on the girl, he stroked her arms to quiet her uncontrollable quivering, and whispered, “You see, Clarette.
 
You are now as much a part of your curse as I am.”
 
It still bothered him that he had not discovered why she had returned.

Île de la Torture was similar to the turtle shape Tortuga was named after, except it was on a miniature scale and the entire island was a paradise.
 
There were none of the inhospitable barren spaces, and there was a fresh water spring and pond in the center of the island on top of the high hill.
 
Water traveled in small streams in seven directions of the compass, and the pirates had each claimed a spoke of this ‘wheel’ as their own.
 
Deegan’s stronghold was to the Southwest, next to the cove, for like their beloved Tortuga, their mysterious harbor was to the south of the island.

The pirates decided to come back for their loot in the morning with only the rum handed out.
 
That had to be done, because even after two centuries the men did not trust each other with something only just slightly less valuable than the women themselves.
 
The men took their captives, some silently shocked, some sobbing or wailing, some trembling in terror, and they guided them to the places they had turned into their homes.
 
Only Monique and Thelma had to be physically carried off the beach.

Deegan held his bottle of rum in one hand, and his other arm gripped Monique’s thighs as she hung limply over his shoulder while he followed the path through the jungle.
 
After a few minutes, Monique began to calm down somewhat and she heard splashing water.
 
She pushed up off of the pirate’s back to search for the sound just as Deegan exited into a small clearing, and he put her down by a fire pit in the center.
 
She looked around the sandy space at a small pond fed by a waterfall, a dark ominous cave with a lean-to attached to one side with a table, and a large tree with a cleat bolted into the trunk and securing a rope.
 
The pirate watched her mouth slowly drop open, and he said in amusement, “This is your new home, Clarette.”

Something in his taunting voice broke through her shock, and Monique jumped to her feet.
 
She charged him, giving him barely enough time to place the rum on the table, and she pummeled his chest and screamed, “Take me back… Take me back,” over and over.

Deegan could hardly blame her for her reaction, because he knew that when he had found himself on the island, if Clarette had been near he would have ripped her apart.
 
He let her tire herself, and when her hands slowed their beating he grabbed her wrists in one hand and tightly gripped her chin, raising her eyes to his.
 
“That is the last time you will strike me without punishment.”

The blue-green eyes narrowed, and Deegan felt a slight shiver run through him.
 
The last time Clarette had looked at him that way was when Peter had announced the waterspout approaching the schooner.
 
He waited for her trance or her chanting… he waited for some indication that in this new form, after so many years, she could still harness the magic of Haiti.
 
As the seconds passed by, he glared with defiance into her eyes, and he became more confident that his initial summation was right… her magic was gone.
 
Emboldened with this knowledge, he slapped her harshly across the cheek, and grabbed her hand when she raised it to comfort the stinging print.
 
He dragged her over to the pond and pushed her into the warm water while he stood on the sandy bank and disrobed.

Monique had gone under and in her surprise she had gulped some of the water, panicking until she discovered that even at the center the pond was only three feet deep.
 
The water being washed in by the waterfall, disappeared into a hole in the rock wall behind it, keeping the source constantly refreshed and drained.
 
She took all of this in very quickly as she choked out what she had swallowed and turned to face the now naked man whose dark eyes were blazing anger.

She splashed to the side, intending to hide in the tropical growth.
 
The sun still emitted enough light for her to see under all but the thickest of canopies.
 
Deegan reached her in three long strides, once more fisting her hair.
 
It had always been his favorite, convenient ‘handle’ for his women.
 
Monique shrieked as he pulled her back into the water, and when he sat down she had to arch over backwards.

He continued to yank her towards the water, and Monique screamed and her arms reached out blindly for purchase.
 
Finally, she lost her balance and fell back against him.
 
She caught his black gaze and whimpered when he smiled.
 
It was not the friendly gesture she had seen earlier when he was conspiring to get the cruiser’s captain onto the schooner.
 
This look was clearly self-indulgent and meant only for Deegan’s pleasure.
 
His strong arm continued to pull the back of her head towards the water, and Monique panicked that the Captain meant to drown the woman he seemed to despise… the woman he had mistaken Monique to be.

Her hands wound through his hair as she tried to pull herself up, and the pirate’s eyes became impossibly crueler in his enjoyment.
 
Even grasping his hair, he merely leaned over to continue his intent to submerge her.
 
His other hand pinched her nose and sealed over her mouth, stifling her wails, and one hand released from his hair as her broken nails clawed at the hand covering her mouth and tried to rake down his evil face.

When she was submerged, her legs kicked frantically and her other hand released his hair to beat and claw.
 
There was no chance of swallowing water, because his palm sealed her mouth.
 
Her exertions were using up a dangerous amount of oxygen, but there was no way she could force herself to stop fighting or trying to preserve herself.

Deegan watched as her eyes began to flutter, and then he raised her to the surface and released the gag so she could suck in noisy, panting gasps.
 
“You see how I will own you this time?
 
I will own the very air you breathe.
 
There will be nothing left that belongs to you, because just as you have stolen everything from me, so shall I return the favor.”

Monique slumped against his thighs and sobbed ragged breaths, completely involved in clearing the residual lightheadedness, and despairing over the vicious man’s declaration.
 
The head of his cock was breaking the surface of the water, excited and stiff with Deegan’s accomplishment.
 
It thumped softly against her hip and she glanced at it, thinking how much she would like to grab it in her two fists and twist cruelly.
 
As soon as her eyes focused on the bobbing rod, she felt the uncomfortable pulse as her cream was pushed out from her channel.
 
Once again, her body was responding to the fierce man with its own sense of need, and it caused Monique to sob again.

Deegan reached for a jug sitting on the bank and poured some of the slightly bitter contents onto Monique’s head.
 
“Clean yourself,” he ordered.

She was still crying while she reached up to explore the liquid.
 
She discovered it reacted like a low sudsing shampoo of sorts, and it triggered a need for her to wash herself and to get any residual hint of the man off her.
 
Deegan was likewise busy washing himself down with the soapberry tea.

When they had finished bathing, Deegan grabbed her wrist and pulled her back to the fire pit.
 
He pushed her into a kneeling position, and when she tried to move sideways to sit on a rock he stopped her and forced her back to a kneel.
 
Neither had spoken since the incident in the pond.
 
Deegan lit the fire and disappeared into the cave for a moment.
 
Monique glanced around the jungle surrounding the clearing, and considered taking off.
 
The sun was fully set and the shadows made anything beyond the reach of the firelight, pitch black.
 
The growth was so thick that he would catch her quickly as she tried to navigate the path back to the beach, and the thought of the punishment for her attempt made her shudder.

Deegan returned a moment later with an assortment of leather bindings.
 
He tossed them onto the sand and sat on one of the rocks, and then gave her the flat brush he held in his other hand.
 
Monique’s shaking hand tried one stroke at her knots, but Deegan fisted her mass of wet hair, jerking painfully.
 
“Always see to my needs first, Clarette.”