Page 21 of Bloody Black

“ M ost women would write a letter.” A wry smile ghosts across full lips. “Hell of a way to get my attention, though.”

I angle my sword, pressing the tip under his chin, forcing his face up toward mine.

The tousled hair, like polished hickory. The sea-green eyes. The lightest scent of woodsmoke and rose. The man from the tavern kneels before me, hands bound. Blood drips down his face, carving a red path down his cheek. Tall, dark, and dangerous.

Something twists in my chest. “What are you doing here?”

“This is my ship.”

His ship? There’s no possible way that’s true. The Concorde is the crown jewel of William’s fleet, and there’s no captain’s hat on his head. No mark of rank on his chest. His shirt is unbuttoned at the throat, his sleeves rolled up over bronzed forearms. He’s not even wearing a signet ring .

“Robb Maynard, Lieutenant of the Southern Seas. Though I suppose introductions go out of fashion when you’re raiding someone.”

Lieutenant Maynard.

Now that is a name I’m immediately familiar with. He’s one of William’s most trusted inner circle–one of just four naval commanders. Each was hand-selected for their fierceness, for their skill in battle, for their absolute loyalty.

I hate him already.

Robb glances down at his wrists. “I’d shake your hand, but I’m a bit tied up.”

“You don’t seem that worried about it,” I snap.

“Should I be?” He scans my crew, the group of roguish women now gathered around.

Prudence steps in and gestures to me. “This here is Blackbeard. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.”

Robb eyes the black tattoos snaking up my neck and chest, the wild black hair that flows down my shoulders and back, the tricorn hat, and the small silver daggers that dangle from my ears. This is the first time he seems surprised.

“You look good,” he says at last. “Better, even.”

Prudence grabs his hair, yanks his head back. “Mind your tongue or I’ll cut it out.”

I lift my hand, and she steps back.

“I’m not here for a social call,” I tell him. “You have something I want.”

“How exciting. Shouldn’t we be somewhere private for that? ”

“Behave, you fucking fool.” Prudence cuffs him across the head with the hilt of a knife.

Shaking off the blow, he blinks repeatedly. “Was that necessary?”

“We don’t take kindly to insolence.”

It feels fake. It feels like he’s doing it to disarm me, to charm me, like he thinks I’ll foolishly believe his flirting. He has the nerve to smile, even after we’d massacred his crew and taken his ship by force. He’s kneeling at my feet, and the bastard wants to exchange pleasantries?

I don’t believe it.

“Let me be quite clear, Lieutenant. On the main deck down those stairs, the fighting is over. Many of your men are dead; the ones that still live are broken. Bleeding. They have their hands tied behind their backs.”

“Aye, I can see that.” He pauses, weighing his words. “These are good men; they don’t deserve to die. Don’t disgrace your victory with a slaughter.”

A pause, a beat of silence heavy as cannonfire.

“Are they good men, Lieutenant?” No one became William’s right-hand man because they were honest, or good, or decent. I pivot slowly, staring out at the undulating sea. The sunlight winks off the water like glass—beautiful, but dangerous underneath.

I’m not going to give Robb anything, not even the smallest crumb. He is loyal to William, and William is my enemy. Fury tightens in my belly; my next question will seal his fate, even if he doesn’t know it.

“Are there women and children on this boat?” I keep my voice casual, disinterested .

“Why? Are you looking to enslave them?”

He’s pretending to be concerned, trying to throw me off his scent. Images of the women—the women of my own crew—play through my mind. Huddled and bruised, flinching away from sunlight, reeking of urine, with open sores on their skin. Whores and slaves. Used. Kept hostage by men like him.

I toss a bottle of rum to Prudence. “Check below decks. The brig, the state rooms, the storage.”

“There’s nothing to see,” Robb interjects, and I whirl on him, grabbing him by the front of the shirt, twisting the fabric in my fist.

“I always find them. Every harm inflicted, every bruise, I will return it to you. Tenfold.” I hold his gaze for a beat, then two, then three. “If there are women captive here…”

I stride away, too angry to linger. He thought he could fool me. With his pretty eyes and flirting. Across the way, Teach looks grim.

The minutes tick by as I grip the helm and wait. Meanwhile, The Flying Rose bobs alongside, tethered to The Concorde by grappling hooks. We’ve anchored the two ships just off the jagged coastline, where the land hunches against the horizon like the spine of a sleeping beast.

“This is absurd.”

“If I find nothing, they’re free to go.” I point toward the island off the bow. “If not? You and your men will get the death you richly deserve.” I give him a pointed look. “I will make sure that you, Lieutenant, wish you were never born.”

I cannot abide slavery. Nor raping. Over the last three years, I’ve seen far too much of it. Things are bleak on land, but here on the sea, where there are no laws and no rules… I often lie sleepless, remembering all the horrors I’ve seen. It makes what was done to me seem trivial in comparison.

Footsteps echo against the wooden planks, slow and deliberate, as my crew emerges from below deck. Prudence meets my gaze, her jaw tight, fingers flexing against the hilt of her blade like she wants to cut something.

For a long, terrible moment, no one speaks—until Xandretta finally exhales and says, “No one. Only men.”

Relief courses through me. “How many remain?

“Ninety-six. Ninety-seven with the captain there.”

“Lieutenant,” he mumbles under his breath.

“But we’ve found the one you wanted. He’s here.” Xandretta drags forward a sailor whose hair sticks out in wild tufts, his fine blue coat unraveling at the seams.

Roger’s face drains of color. Pure disbelief widens his eyes, his mouth parting in a stunned, wordless gape. No sneer, no mockery—just a man who looked into a closet and found a pair of eyes staring back. The shock in them cheers me mightily.

With a broad smile, I greet my former guard. “Hello, Roger.”

Like a wave crashing against the hull, Roger’s shock gives way to something else entirely as he studies my face, my red sash and leather bodice, the swords and daggers and guns hanging off my hips.

He throws his head back and brays like a mule, the kind of laugh that rattles deep in the ribs, ugly and full-bellied. “Well, well, well! A ghost walks the decks!” His voice bounces off the wooden beams, echoes over the open ocean .

His yellowed teeth gleam as he grins, shaking his head. “Here I thought you had died, rotting in that chest. But you came for me.” He spreads his arms wide, smug as a prince receiving tribute. “Little old me! A woman like you, chasing after a nobody.”

He licks his lips, leaning forward as far as Xandretta’s grip allows. “I left a lasting impression, didn’t I?”

The man before me is a husk of what he was.

His lovely blue coat, once stiff with authority, hangs loose over his shoulders, worn and threadbare.

His face is thinner, and no longer the cruel shadow from my nightmares.

The skin under his eyes is dark with exhaustion and drink.

This is not the man whose face haunts my dreams.

No matter.

He may look different, but I’m sure he’s still the same monster underneath.

My body remembers his. Specifically and viscerally, remembers his.

I shouldn’t think too hard about it. About that slow, creeping way his hand felt on me.

The stench of his breath. His cock pressing. Pinning. His lips kissing me.

He’d bragged about killing me. When he drank in taverns, he’d boast of knowing the truth. He spread rumors of Princess Anne’s demise, how she’d been murdered by her own guards, how she was a whore who’d been with many men. His big mouth was how I’d found him.

The edges of my vision shrink inward, tunneling, sharpening. Bile sears the back of my tongue. Nails bite into my palms as I force myself to stay rooted.

Seeing my expression, Roger chuckles. “Fond memories, ain’t they? ”

It’s like a dash of cold water; a slap to the face. And the resulting rage steadies me. I reach for that feeling, wrap it around my body like armor.

“Jolly old Roger.” I stroll around him in a circle. “Everyone always loved your jokes. But I must say, the time I spent with you that night was the biggest joke of all.”

Roger smirks. “Yet, here you are. After a repeat performance.”

A repeat performance.

The world narrows to the space between us, to the way his lips curl in that same leering smirk, to the filth dripping from his words. My fingers twitch at my sides, aching to end him, to wipe every trace of his existence from my memory. The need is so strong, I almost grasp my sword.

But no. Not too quick. I wouldn’t want to lose my temper and kill him.

I smile back, slow, deliberate, and sinister.

“You’re very jolly for someone about to die, Roger.”

He’s not smart enough to look worried. He laughs again, his typical response. “You even touch me, and William will pursue you to the ends of the earth.”

This, I doubt. After all, William has sent many men to find Blackbeard over the years, including the lieutenant here. The only time they’ve had me within their grasp is when I’m murdering them. No one can find me, unless I want to be found.

Besides, Roger is no one to William now.

He’s been relegated to a random ship, a low-ranked position.

In fact, the only thing truly surprising was that Roger had yet to meet a mysterious end, that William hadn’t had him murdered for knowing too much.

For not keeping his secrets. For not keeping his mouth closed.

I’m about to gut him when I spy something. A silver glint at his waist, a familiar hilt. Gasping, I grab at it and yank the dagger from his belt. Dark blue leather, a rose pommel, and engraved swirls upon its blade.

“This is mine. How did you get it?”

He stole it. He stole my dagger, a gift from my mother on my eighth birthday. That year, she died, a victim of a raid. It was one of the only things she’d ever given me, one of my few memories. For years, I’d slept with it wrapped in a blanket so it wouldn’t cut me.

“Knicked it from your drawer. You were never coming back for it.”

I raise my eyes to him.

In a swift, fluid movement, my knife arcs in a perfect, graceful line. The tip of my blade slices through his cheek, across the line of his parted lips–then through the soft flesh of the other side of his face. Not deep enough to kill; not deep enough to behead him.

Roger’s tongue flicks out, licking at the blood beading on his split lip. Then he grins, wide and taunting, as if I’ve fumbled the blow. He thinks I’ve missed. Imagines that my aim has suffered over the years.

“That’s all you got?” he sneers. “Not much of a swordsman these days, are y—”

The words die in his throat.

His face yawns open like the mouth of a shark, and flesh peels back along the line of his grin, skin giving way to teeth. Blood pours down his jaw and neck, rivers of crimson that stain his clothing.

He screams. Claps one hand over his mouth, trying to hold it together.

“Don’t stop laughing now, friend,” I say, tucking my beloved dagger away. “You have the most memorable laugh. A big smile.” I lean in, knowing Xandretta is still holding him tightly, and whisper into his ear.

“You fooled me, Roger. Again and again. Stood right by my side with a smile. And you’re right… I have missed that.”

He starts to tremble, and I relish his fear like fine wine.

“I’ve picked out a place for you with my crew, a new role suitably high in stature. Up on a pedestal for all to admire.”

Prudence is quick. Efficient. Her calloused hands thread another rope around Roger’s waist.

The other end is already in place, securely threaded through the crow’s nest. Xandretta anchors the ropes to spread Roger’s arms wide; meanwhile, blood from his face continues falling onto the deck.

“You can laugh at my misfortunes for the rest of your days. Though I regret to inform you that they’ll be much shorter than you planned.”

Roger is hauled into the air, blood showering down from his face.

I should have cut deeper. Then the edges of his mouth would wrap all the way around his head, tie a little red bow in the back.

That idea makes me laugh. No. That’s inaccurate. I giggle helplessly, stuffing my fist in my mouth as I fight for composure .

Up, up, up. The ropes groan as they pull him toward the sky, a human husk against the morn. With his arms stretched out, his body sways like a ruined spinner of a ship adrift. His blood-soaked black cloak billows, forming a sinister silhouette. He’s screaming.

“There. A new flag for my fancy new ship.”

Next to me, Prudence watches him sway, arms crossed, a faint smile on her lips for a job well done.

Victory curls through my veins like smoke, warm and intoxicating. I waited for this moment, dreamed of it, craved it—but the fire in my chest does not dim. It only flares brighter, hotter, hungrier. Roger is the first of William’s men, and he was too easy.

As easy as they’d found me.

His words are distorted, garbled, but Roger cries out to me. “I’ll do anything! Gold! Silver! Please!”

Robb blanches, and that’s when I remember. The Concorde’s lieutenant is still there, watching. “What do you say, Lieutenant? What should I tell him?”

He looks appalled. As if the moment he opened his mouth, he’d vomit all over the deck of my ship.

“What do we say?” I insist.

Maynard’s voice is a dull whisper. “Never let a man believe he can buy you.”

“And you said you were a poor listener.” I take hold of the wheel and turn The Concorde sharply west, smiling as Roger’s screams carry across the sea.