26. Escape #3
A blade glanced off my arm as I failed to duck low enough. The sharp pain awakened my senses. Kicking, I spun and raked the machete down the back of a pirate who got too close. He fell to his knees with his spine shallowly cut open.
Pain sliced my side as I flung myself forward, the very tip of another blade piercing my skin.
I ran and slid low across the wet grass, dodging swiping weapons, then dropped to a squat and picked up a second machete.
I severed the backs of ankles as gently as I could.
Sorry about that. Pirates fell to their knees, unable to stand up.
Back on my feet, I spun in a circle.
Four new men converged. Light with adrenaline, I strategized the best way to incapacitate, flipping, jumping, lunging. Blood splattered in arcs—quickly washed away by the rain—as I sliced a path through the men.
The longer we fought, the sloppier the pirates got and the calmer I felt. Each movement was precise, and the number of foes dwindled as I incapacitated them with accuracy. They were panicking, and I was hunting. We are not the same.
Blades swung blindly while I sliced with cold, exacting precision. I bounced on my toes in the puddles, pulsing with energy. The Bear of the North had awakened.
“Shiver me feathers!” Squire screeched, getting into the spirit of the melee as a wave slammed against the wall. Chilly salt water sprayed over the road. Pirates moaned in pain. I spun in a slow circle, machetes raised defensively, hands glowing like the moon.
The ocean roared; I shouted with it, expelling the built-up pressure. The waves grew in size, shimmering with my magic.
I turned, but there was no one left to fight. Bodies lay around me in a large circle. Some of them crawled away, but most clutched at their injuries, moaning.
Straightening, I lowered my incandescent arms, cracking my neck. High on a wellspring of my magic, I bounced back and forth, practically vibrating. Is that it?
“Ravenal!”
I froze.
It was what the Marshal wanted, but I still couldn’t believe my eyes as a majestic brown dire horse sprinted down the cliffside, cutting through the rain.
“Ravenal—how dare thou!” The familiar masculine voice was warped by the downpour, hoarse and gritty.
An ominous hush descended as the spectral figure neared. The world fell eerily quiet. I stepped back, and a pirate grunted in pain as I tripped over his injured body. Blood mixed into the puddles that dotted the ground.
Waves exploded higher into the air.
Magic glowed bright silver around Tarantula, surrounding him and his dire horse. Hooves crunched over bodies as they both came to a stop twenty feet away.
Tarantula sat stiffly atop his steed, soaked to the bone. Golden chiffon fabric clung to his leanly muscled torso, creating the illusion of nudity. His curls were wild, disheveled around his ears.
Prisoner chains shackled his limbs, and his platinum mask did nothing to conceal his blistering rage. Metallic flames flickered around him like a bonfire, and for the pièce de résistance, he held my bone knife outstretched in his hand.
The one I’d slammed against his skull.
After we had sex.
“Tarantula,” I said casually, schooling my face to hide my shock.
I tried not to contemplate how I’d left him in an unconscious heap, or how his face had twisted with rapture as he held my hips tight and licked his lips while he thrust deeply into—Don’t you dare think about it.
He shouldn’t have recovered so quickly.
He’d been out cold . . . right?
I coughed, eyes watering and sinuses burning from the sheer magnitude of magic pouring off him. He was more of a force of nature than he was a man.
“Thou art a treacherous, deceptive, sadistic brat.” His accent thickened with each word.
“I won the chess match,” I blurted, unable to stop myself from gloating. I waved my new machetes. “Did you notice?”
“Oh, I noticed, princess.” He smiled, and it was all teeth. “I was never unconscious. Do thou think a little tap to the head is all it takes to best me? ’Tis beyond insulting.”
SNAP.
With one violent motion, he yanked his hands wide, and the titanium chain that bound his wrists snapped in two as if it was nothing but string. Solid metal clanked as the chains hung broken.
He’d freed himself for the second time.
This is not good.
His mouth flattened into a straight line. It was just between my thighs.
I forced my shoulders to relax and made a show of rolling my eyes at him like he hadn’t just played me for a fool. This is a calamity of diabolical proportions. With him, every step forward felt like three steps back.
He spun my bone knife expertly between his elegant fingers, the same ones that were inside of me earlier—STOP thinking about it, Zora.
Tarantula didn’t break eye contact, still not blinking. With precise control, he raised his arm and leveled my blade forward. Icy winds howled from every direction, thrashing my braid into a frenzy.
The cataclysm happened slowly, then all at once.
Sinful lips curled up with insolent aggression as he flung my dagger straight at me.