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“Aye,” I say, blinking my wayward thoughts from my mind. “My eyesight is better than yours. It’s her.”

I turn around to look at the remaining crew who have gathered on deck. “We have spotted theNightwind!” I yell, pumping my fist into the air. “Keep this heading, bosun! The rest of you, you are not to harm any member of my crew except for Sterling McCoy, who has been calling himself captain. When we swarm the ship, go straight for him and lock him up in the hold until I know what punishment to dole out for a mutineer!”

“Huzzah!” the crew yells, raising their swords and muskets in the air. One of them is even lifting up a femur, possibly his own.

“Keelhaul him!” a skeleton yells. “Drag him under the ship!”

“Tar and feather him!” yells another.

“Maroon him,” Maren says bitterly.

I glance at her curiously. “You think so?”

She nods. “What do they say pirates do? Leave them on an island with only one bullet? I know that won’t put Sterling out of his misery, but that’s the point, is it not? Leave him on a sandbar somewhere with a bullet that will do nothing for him. He’ll spend eternity starving to death but never dying. No blood, no food, no water.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised at how sadistic you are,” I say, grinning at her devilish brain. “Though eventually, given the nature of the world, he will get discovered and possibly rescued.”

“Then chop off a limb and he’ll be useless anyway. Those don’t grow back, do they?” She eyes the wounds she left on my face.

“I’ve never known a Brethren to lose a limb,” I admit. “But perhaps we can put to the test.”

She gives me a satisfied smile that makes my cock jump to attention. Always at the most inconvenient times.

With the wind steady in the billowing sails, the hull slicing through the water in rhythmic drops, we gain speed on myNightwind. I know by now that this cursed ship would have been spotted by the preternaturally keen eyes of the crew. My crew. God help me, they will be my crew again. I can’t imagine what must have taken place on that ship in my absence, but I know the ones that would have rushed in to defend me—Thane, Sam, Cruz—might be in some danger. They can take on Sterling, but Nerissa’s the wild card. What does she even want with theNightwind? Has she sided with Sterling? Does she plan to take over, or has she already? If she can’t curse us Brethren to become the undead, can she do something else to us? And if so, why? Is she acting on behalf of Edonia?

My questions will have answers soon enough. TheNightwindhas turned broadside for our approach.

“She’s gone broadside,” the quartermaster says to me. “Shall we prepare the cannons?”

I shake my head. “Not a single shot will be fired on that vessel.”

“Even if they shoot at us, Captain?”

I grind my teeth together but hold fast. “Nay. We will take the beating and board. We will not fire upon theNightwind, mark my words, or I will mark you.”

The quartermaster lets out a groan of disappointment before yelling to the rest of the crew. “Hold steady, lads! Deadlight the windows! Hammocks in the hold!”

While many of the crew run down below to bolster the ship’s sides against roundshots, Maren eyes me with a concerned frown. “You do realize we may have to battle with a sea witch.”

“I’m realizing a lot of things, luv.”

She leans in close, my nose filling with her sweet natural scent, something akin to ocean salt, sunshine, and jasmine. “Why not feed from me again?” she whispers, not wanting the crew to overhear.

With her so close to me and the heat coming off her neck, it’s not just my cock that’s hungry for her, but my stomach as well. “You shouldn’t tease me so,” I say gruffly. “It’s dangerous for you and annoying for me.”

“I’m not teasing,” she protests, and I see the sincerity in her eyes. “Take me below and have your way with me.”

I can’t help but give her a crooked grin. “Are you threatening me with pleasure?”

She presses her hand against my chest and stares up at me. “I’m serious. Take my blood. You said it had already run through your system.”

I grab the hand that’s on my chest and squeeze it. “I also told you I made a vow not to take blood that I didn’t have to. I don’t need it to defeat Nerissa and Sterling. Let’s save it for Edonia, for the both of us.”

She doesn’t seem so sure, but I meant what I said. Yes, I want her blood. Yes I want that incredible feeling that I got from it, that I was limitless and all-powerful, that I was a damn god on earth. I want that connection I felt to her as her blood mingled with mine.

But I know that not only could I get carried away at an inopportune time, but that it would drain her as well. I see it in her eyes now and she might think it’s just from drinking all the rum, but I know the look of someone who has had too much blood taken from them. I can’t weaken her now.

TheNightwindis now just a few hundred yards away. The bosun brings the ship so it’s broadside against theNightwind, a defensive position. Every time I’m able to view my ship from afar, either from a dock or the ship’s boat as we’re rowing away, it takes my breath away. She’s a mighty ship, some might say even too big for a pirate crew such as ours, but she’s ours all the same.