Chapter 25 #2
“Aye.” Fox probably wasn’t the best person for that particular job.
Especially now when the tips of his fingers were itching with pent up energy.
He did dumb things all the time and often roped the others in as well.
Last winter, Logan had had to stitch the right pocket of all his pants closed after Fox and Henri devised a game of slipping little trinkets—acorns, buttons, bits of cheese, and the like—into them, which Logan could not retrieve with his wooden hand.
He would have to ask someone—usually Rowan, holding back laughter—or take off his pants entirely to remove the stowaway objects.
Personally, Fox thought it an overreaction.
That was why Fox was probably—no, definitely—the last person Logan should ask to keep their captain from being reckless. Then again, if he and Rowan were going to get into trouble, they were probably the best two to get themselves back out of it.
Logan eyed him wearily. “You’re thinking about my pockets, aren’t you?”
“What? No!” Fox sputtered. He knew he was easy to read, but Logan could be scarily canny sometimes.
Rowan issued orders in the form of short whistle blasts, the crew following his every command as the two ships hurtled toward each other. Logan’s hand on Fox’s head wrapped them in a lone pocket of calm amidst the ordered chaos.
“Fox, focus. If this is Shaw’s ship, Rowan won’t be in his rational mind. Don’t let Rowan kill him. We need information.”
Fox clamped down on the energy humming through his veins and managed a solemn nod. He didn’t point out that he had no idea what Shaw looked like and therefore could not prevent Rowan from revenge-murdering him over regular-murdering anyone else. He’d deal with that when they got to it.
Rowan whistled another signal, and Fox braced as the Siren swung about and came to a halt mere feet from the side of the other ship.
A maneuver only Rowan would have the balls to execute.
Cannon fire fell quiet on both sides, smoke hanging in the air between the ships as both crews readied for a fight.
“Shit,” Logan swore under his breath. He pushed Fox toward Rowan, who whistled the signal to board even as he grabbed a rope and readied to swing across. Armed sailors on the other side tossed grappling hooks toward the Siren.
Fox caught up just as Rowan stepped up onto the rail, faded black coat flapping in the wind. He caught the back of Rowan’s bandolier.
“You’re not going without me!”
“Come on then, nanny.” Rowan blinked. Frowned. Then lifted his eyepatch and winked. He hauled Fox up on the rail with him.
“Don’t get into trouble!” Logan shouted, as pirates swung over the water to clash with the sailors on the Marigold’s deck.
“Do you know who you’re talking to?” Rowan shouted back with a grin.
He wrapped one arm around Fox’s waist and leapt off the rail.
Fox yelped and barely managed to clutch onto Rowan before they crashed into the thick of the fighting on the Marigold’s deck.
Fox stumbled, rolled, and righted himself just as a huge sailor barreled toward them.
Fox’s cutlass barely cleared its sheath.
The sailor swung a massive wooden club, and Fox ducked as the crack of Rowan’s pistol deafened all three of them.
Crimson bloomed on the sailor’s chest, and he went down to his knees.
The club caught Fox on the back of the knee, bruising but not debilitating, and he kicked the sailor to the ground before whirling on Rowan.
“Bitch! That was right in my ear!”
Rowan shouted something that Fox definitely could not hear over the ringing.
He smacked the side of his head as if trying to dislodge water.
Abandoning the need for words, Rowan signaled for him to follow, and they cut across the deck.
Sound slowly washed back into Fox’s consciousness as they fought through the crowd, no doubt searching for Shaw. Fox stayed on Rowan’s blind side.
Who exactly were these people? They’d attacked without warning, but so far there’d been no sign of Shaw, unless he was the man Rowan was currently skewering with his cutlass. Were they just pirate hunters? Privateers?
A sailor lunged past him, managing to nick Rowan’s arm with the tip of a knife before Fox kicked him to the ground and stomped his hand.
“Get your head out of the clouds!” Rowan barked.
“You punched me in the kidney last night!” Fox whined. This was actually fun. He could tell they’d both sleep like the dead tonight. “I’m injured.”
“Oh please!” Rowan whirled to punch someone in the face and followed it up with a stab through the neck. “Sleep in your own damn bed if you’re going to complain.”
Fox pouted while he kneed a man in the balls, then yelped when that didn’t work and the man seized him. “Shit!”
Rowan managed to bowl them both over, and the man screamed and cursed as Fox and Rowan stabbed him in the chest together. Fox helped Rowan up, and Rowan wiped a bit of blood from Fox’s ear.
“Maybe I will!” Fox knew Rowan didn’t mean it, and neither did he. He hammed up the pout that sprouted on his lips. “You’ll miss me.”
“With my next shot, maybe.”
Fox cackled, and Rowan’s expression softened slightly, even as they wove through the fighting, heading for the quarterdeck.
“You know, I haven’t heard you laugh like that in a while,” Rowan said.
“I’m too tired to laugh. You snore!”
Rowan punched an attacking sailor in the face, and he stumbled back. Rowan and Fox both advanced on him.
“I do not.” His nose wrinkled as he seized the sailor by the shirt and dumped him down an open hatch.
“How would you know?”
“Yves would’ve told me.”
Fox snorted.
“What?” Rowan was smiling.
“It’s funny thinking of you two having normal marriage problems. Next you’ll be arguing about how many children to have.”
Rowan smacked him on the arm before lunging past him to slash at a sailor. He grabbed Fox’s arm to keep him close.
A small pocket of calm descended. Rowan smiled, genuine and free. “I’m glad you stayed, Fox. What would I do without you?”
The fighting flowed around them, and Fox felt a pleased smile tugging at his lips at Rowan’s words. Before joining the crew, Fox had never really belonged anywhere. But he was wanted here, needed here, and he wouldn’t trade that for the world.
“C’mon.” Rowan tugged Fox’s arm, and they darted through a passage that had opened up between the fighting bodies. Fox had thought all along they were heading to the quarterdeck, where whoever led this ship would likely be, but he found himself at the door to the room beneath it instead.
“Guard me,” Rowan ordered, his previously jovial expression serious now.
Fox turned toward the fighting, alert to anyone who dared come near.
Rowan rattled the door handle, but it was locked.
He grunted in frustration and backed up till he bumped against Fox.
He leveraged one hard kick to the area around the lock.
Then another. A few sailors charged at them, drawn by the commotion of Rowan’s boot striking the wood.
Fox readied his cutlass, but other pirates engaged the advancing sailors before they could make it to him.
In one more kick, the door crashed open. Rowan grabbed Fox’s hand and dragged him into the room, slamming the damaged door behind them.
In the sudden quiet, Fox’s ears rang with the residue of the earlier gunshot.
They were in what looked at first to be an office.
A large desk sat in the center, orderly but for what the battle had dislodged.
Fox spotted a Kefryean-style cabinet bed built into one wall, lattice-carved wooden doors mostly blocking it off from the rest of the room.
This must have been the captain’s quarters, then.
“Search for anything that might tell us who these assholes are,” Rowan ordered, prowling toward the desk.
Fuck, Fox really wasn’t the right person for this job. He remained by the door. “I can’t read, remember?”
“Then see if you can find a country symbol or anything like that. Steal some shit if you have time.” Rowan was already shuffling through papers on the desk.
Outside, gunshots went off amongst the clash of blades.
Fox rushed to the wardrobe next to the bed, only to be met with a wall of uniforms as soon as he threw the doors open.
“Uh, Captain?”
Rowan looked up, an immediate understanding coming across his features as he took in the neatly organized row of deep maroon uniform jackets.
“Kefryean, as I thought,” Rowan snarled.
Fox recalled that Shaw was from Kefrye. But he was a mercenary.
Even if his mission was sanctioned by the governor, and by extension the Marran Empire, they wouldn’t have given him a uniform or official rank.
Besides, these jackets looked too small for a grown man.
“Keep looking,” Rowan ordered, turning back to the papers in his hands. After a few more seconds, he swore softly under his breath, eye scanning over a small, unrolled piece in his hands.
“What?” Fox prompted.
“Rowan Faine!”
They both whipped around as the door burst open.
Fox dodged around the desk as Rowan shoved the paper into his pocket, along with a few others.
The woman who’d shouted lunged into the room, almost skewering Fox with a thin, needlelike sword.
Fox slashed at her, and she dodged, trying to get around him to Rowan.
She was about their height, middle aged but fit.
Her faded red hair was shot through with thick swaths of gray and pulled into a severe bun.
She wore the same uniform as the ones in the closet.
“Who the fuck are you?” Rowan snarled, flanking around the other side of the desk to slash at her, severing the maroon and silver aiguillette at her shoulder.
Another sailor rushed through the door. Fox bashed him in the nose with the butt of his sword, shoved him back outside, and slammed the door against the oncoming tide of enemies. He quickly put his back against it.