Chapter 29 #2
He steeled his jaw. He’d put down a thousand mutinies just for a fighting chance at earning his wife’s love. “Take the ship around, Kilmartin,” Tremaine directed.
Tension crackled off Beaton’s wiry form. The pilot’s stunned gaze went to the ship’s first mate.
“Is there a problem, Beaton?” Tremaine whispered in steely tones.
With a slack-jawed expression, Beaton handed the spyglass to Kilmartin.
The first mate trained the viewer off in the distance at the battle playing out.
“I asked you a question, Beaton,” Tremaine grilled.
Kilmartin intervened on the other man’s behalf. “Captain?” His first mate’s sun-bronzed features were strained.
Something in the garbled quality of the unflappable sailor’s voice pulled Tremaine off the pilot.
His first mate opened his mouth and tried to get more out other than the one word, and when he couldn’t, Kilmartin mutely handed Tremaine the spyglass and pointed a finger north.
A shiver traversed Tremaine’s spine. Frowning, he snatched the spyglass back and brought the distance into clearer view. He did his own study of the battle aboard the Painted Dragon.
The fight had already escalated; McQuoid’s crew battled with ferocity, but also the fatigue of men who’d found themselves taken by surprise and, in terms of numbers, at a clear disadvantage.
McQuoid’s men wouldn’t survive the night.
Strange, he’d spent this past year hating the bastard and eagerly awaiting the man’s demise, only to stand witness to the event now and discover he couldn’t just watch McQuoid die.
Maybe that was the difference between the two of them. He—
Tremaine’s body jolted.
My God.
A tingling sensation started in his fingers and radiated slowly to every extremity. He willed the sight to change—frantically adjusted his spyglass to alter the vision so it’d disappear—but true life couldn’t be altered with the turn of a knob.
Why? How . . . ? Linnie!
His stomach turned. An involuntary moan eased from Tremaine’s lips, his tortured utterance lost amidst the activity. He found himself trapped in a hideous, living nightmare there was no escaping.
“Lady Tremaine is aboard that ship,” Tremaine bellowed. “Grant quarter to McQuoid’s crew. Send the sons of biscuit eaters who dared put Lady Tremaine in peril to their watery graves. Send them to the Devil, men!”
Tremaine released a guttural roar. “Crowd on sail, men!” He ordered the crew to maximum speed.
Full-throated cheers spilled around the deck.
“Full on!” Kilmartin barked. “Keep her as close to the wind as possible.”
The ship came alive in a blur of frantic movement as sailors scrambled up the ratlines to adjust the sails and ascend the masts.
While Tremaine’s capable quartermaster handled the preparations, Tremaine remained with his glass fixed on Linnie. He’d almost left her to die. If it hadn’t been for his men stealing another look at McQuoid’s ship . . .
Tortured as he’d never been, he stood powerless, helpless, as Linnie darted about, going left and then right. Even now, there wasn’t a surety he’d reach her in time . . .
He groaned.
He had to. He had to get to her.
While he followed Linnie through his spyglass, his mind frantically went through the calculations.
One of McQuoid’s men had put himself between Linnie and the marauding privateers, buying Tremaine time. The sailor guarding Linnie handled a hanger sword with a skilled precision.
Bile stung his throat.
Me. I should be the one between Linnie and her foes, cutting down every blackguard who steps near.
So close. So bloody close.
I’m coming, Linnie. Wait for me just a bit longer.
“I’ve eyes on her, Captain,” Beaton assured, in possession of a second spyglass one of the seamen had fetched.
The action unfolded around Tremaine. Kilmartin had the preparations in hand. Tremaine had but one mission.
One of the Painted Dragon’s adversaries, a brute nearly a foot taller than Tremaine’s willowy Spartan princess, snatched her and hauled Linnie off through the melee. Linnie’s blond curls danced wildly in the night’s breeze as she wildly and valiantly fought off her assailant.
Tremaine saw red.
He’d die this night. The sailor who’d dared touch Tremaine’s wife, as would all the fucking bastards who’d partaken in the fight against her vessel.
But she would live.
The alternative, that Linnie’s beautiful light was extinguished and her lifeless body tossed into the sea—
Tremaine screamed his rage to the skies.
One of McQuoid’s men, faintly familiar, put a sword through her abductor’s back and snatched Linnie back, dragging her in the opposite direction.
She is safe. For now.
Sweat broke out all over Tremaine’s skin.
What else would you choose in life, Linnie? Me excluded.
I’d choose to explore the world and sail the seas with you . . . if you’ll allow me.
Tremaine’s chest tightened.
Christ, Linnie. I’ll take you anywhere. I’ll carry you to visit the stars and return you safely back to earth if you let me . . .
Safe.
His breathing grew quick and shallow.
Linnie, I understand you might not believe it when I say I did come to care about you. My desire for you was always real. My hope is to see you happy, and I promise to keep you safe.
Yet another bloody fucking lie he’d told her.
I’ll never leave you again. I’ll follow where you go, I’ll walk in your shadow. Just please, please, live.
“I’m coming, Linnie,” he whispered, and he needed to do so with a clear head.
The lifelong sailor within Tremaine took over. Barking commands, he ordered the Lady Linnie to the portside of McQuoid’s ship. With his crew at his heels, he led the charge, as they let out war cries and went scrambling over the side.
Confusion broke out amongst the privateers locked in battle. A bloodstained, tired-looking McQuoid caught Tremaine’s eyes and, realizing Tremaine’s crew had joined his men, found a fresh surge of energy. With a wild shout, he cut his enemy’s throat.
Tremaine looked back to where he’d last spied Linnie.
I lost her.
Half mad, he sliced up the sailors who charged him, all the while scouring the slippery decks, slick with the sanguine fluid of fallen and injured sailors.
His heart knocked against his rib cage.
Fuck, Linnie. Where are you?
Then his gaze landed and locked on his exquisite wife. He narrowed his eyes. Fleet of foot, she wove between warring sailors, headed for the mainmast.
As Tremaine charged after her, his breath came in rapid spurts. He dimly registered his and McQuoid’s men all around Tremaine, alternately covering him.
A thick, toothless sailor stepped directly into his path. Not breaking stride, never once taking his focus off her, Tremaine brought his cutlass slashing across the man’s throat and opened him up.
He went flying past.
Linnie neared the mainmast. McQuoid’s young, nimble deckhand, Fyfe, having scrambled down, was there to meet her. The lad reached a hand out to help her climb.
Everything moved simultaneously in slow motion and at a breakneck pace.
Like Lucifer resurrected from the flames of hell, the branded fellow who’d been struck down by Linnie’s first protector found his feet. Bleeding from his mouth, the thirst for revenge lent the man a further Satanic look. His maniacal eyes settled on Linnie.
The bottom dropped out of Tremaine’s stomach. No!
“Linnie!” Tremaine thundered, his bestial cry swallowed and consumed by the fight.
The tendons in Tremaine’s neck strained like McQuoid’s taut rigging.
Surging ahead, he made his legs go faster.
Fyfe had his hands at Linnie’s waist to heft her up when he caught, too late, the demon bearing down on them.
The young man paled.
Tremaine’s throat constricted.
An enemy sailor and Tremaine fell into a collision course. Swinging his cutlass, Jeremy cut him across the middle and leapt over his separated body.
The devil unsheathed a naval dirk.
Tremaine’s lungs screamed with strain and terror.
I’m not going to reach her.
“Lady Tremaine!” Fyfe shouted and made a move to shield her with his body.
Through her blood-spattered cheeks, Linnie paled; the little color she had fled, and instead of taking Fyfe as a human shield the way any other woman would, Linnie stood there like a queen ready to go down with her kingdom.
The pirate brought his blade back and sent it on a forward arc.
With a mighty, subhuman bellow, Tremaine brought his hanger sword swinging and separated the bastard’s head from his body.
Linnie stared at him with slightly confused, vacant eyes. She swayed. And then those same beautiful greens rolled back in her head.
Tremaine caught her before she hit the deck.