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R ebecca feared Mrs. Adams would jump off the boat into the ocean. It was a stupid fear and far from the biggest threat to either of them at the moment, gliding in the longboat between two slave ships towards the master slaver. Yet it was all she could worry about.

If Mrs. Adams jumped into the ocean, Rebecca wouldn’t be able to save her. Then Rebecca would have brought the goat on this godforsaken adventure for nothing.

She resisted the urge to look back at Sharkhead.

He could have volunteered to come on the longboat with her, but he hadn’t.

He could have embodied the shark that raged across his skin and insisted to Captain Boukman that the plan was too faulty, but he had caved at the captain’s first verbal lashing.

When condemning her to the longboat, he could have at least lied and said he loved her. But he hadn’t. Proving once again that a man could bind his body to hers physically yet not lend her any of his heart.

And so Rebecca would not look back to find him on the Ghost , nor would she waste any of her last moments worrying about him.

She would worry for Mrs. Adams instead.

As they approached, she could see the flagship’s name painted in gold lettering: Whimsy. Her sides were well scrubbed, the ropes new. That couldn’t take away from the smell that grew stronger as they drew closer. Old wood mixed with something human—and something evil.

Rebecca had heard that slave ships stank of their sin even when they were empty. She had dismissed that as lore to scare greedy men straight. Now she knew better.

Not even the strongest soap wielded by the hardest-working sailors could scrub away the smell of so many people tortured and killed.

She held Mrs. Adams’s lead that much closer as the slaver’s sailors hauled the longboat up to their deck.

Jack Davies, the twenty-year-old Scottish coxswain who thought far too well of his own looks, acted as spokesperson for the Ghost as they clambered out of the longboat.

He shook hands with the captain of the Whimsy —who wore a fine coat with shining gold braids and a black patch over one eye—and gave a report on the weather and their positioning.

“Is that a tribute?” the captain asked, turning towards Mrs. Adams.

“We found ourselves with too many goats and thought you might like one,” Jack replied.

“Does its keeper come with it?” The captain’s eyes roved over Rebecca as she had known they would.

As Captain Boukman had known they would.

As her husband had known they would. Yet Sharkhead had personally put her into the longboat despite the fate that awaited her.

It wasn’t that Rebecca was unwilling to do her part as a crew member of the Ghost. She had the machete, currently strapped by a piece of rope to her thigh.

She had a burning rage that she was anxious to unleash upon the cotton and sugar and rum the ship was carrying as currency.

She wanted to see these slavers begging for forgiveness—and she couldn’t wait to tell them they would never have it.

But it was one thing to join the fight and another to walk onto the deck of the Whimsy, where their longboat group of twenty would have to face a crew of seventy-five men.

If they lost this battle—if the Whimsy sailed away while the Ghost engaged with the other two slavers—then Rebecca would be at the mercy of this captain and his men, who were already looking at her like she was the cheapest whore in New Orleans.

She didn’t know why Sharkhead had allowed Captain Boukman to send her away, but she knew that if she made it back to the Ghost , she would never permit herself to be in this position again.

In the meantime, Rebecca was going to play the hand she was dealt, whether she liked it or not.

Curving her lips as if to smile, she replied to the captain, “I can stay for a cup of tea, at least.”

The man gulped. His voice suddenly reedy, he barked to his first mate, “Give these men a bit of grog and show them around.” To Rebecca, he jerked his head. “This way, then.”

Once again, she resisted the urge to turn her head back in search of the Ghost .

She wouldn’t be able to see Sharkhead anyway.

If he was watching through the telescope, maybe he was wondering why she was disappearing with the captain.

Maybe he was realizing what a coward he had been not to insist that Captain Boukman permit her to remain on ship.

Whatever he was doing, it was not firing at the slavers. Which meant Rebecca had to bide her time, even as she followed the captain into his whitewashed cabin. She tied Mrs. Adams to the railing just outside his door. He shut it without locking it.

Rebecca had been seduced by a wide variety of men in her lifetime.

Fellow servants who sweetened the experience by swiping a glass of wine from the dinner table or picking wildflowers from the side of the road.

The senator’s son, who had stolen her away for entire nights and offered her liquor, chocolates, even silk petticoats as proof of his love.

Sharkhead hadn’t presented her with any gifts yet, but he bestowed her with his attention, always making sure she was comfortable, always making sure she was engaged.

This captain didn’t offer any seduction at all. One moment, she was looking around his cabin, noting the bed with a mattress, the window that was cracked open to let in a breeze, and the leather-bound Bible sitting on the center of his desk.

The next moment, he had undone his trousers and whipped out his cock.

It was small, of course, but alarming enough that Rebecca’s fingers twitched towards the machete under her petticoat.

“Turn around.” He grabbed her wrists before she even had a chance to comply and marched her to the wall, hands above her head, breasts against the wainscoting. He pulled up her skirts so that her arse was bare to him and the room.

He didn’t notice the machete.

Mouth dry, heart hammering, Rebecca considered her options. She could go along with it. She could tell herself she was in control, that this was all part of her plan to weaken the Whimsy so they could be sure it was captured.

Or she could stop letting Captain Boukman determine her fate.

He was supposed to have ordered cannon fire as soon as they landed on the Whimsy .

They had been on board for at least a quarter hour now.

If he didn’t give the order soon, he never would.

And even if he had ordered her onto the ship as some kind of twisted revenge on Sharkhead, nineteen other crew members were on board, too.

Rebecca didn’t care to sacrifice her dignity just because Captain Boukman was taking his damn time to order the cannon fire.

And so, as the Whimsy’ s captain lunged forward to stick his cock up her body, Rebecca grabbed the shaft of her machete, whirled around, and aimed her blade at the offending body part.

Swing big.

The cock fell to the ground.

The captain screamed.

And, only seconds later, the ocean resounded with bursts of cannon fire.

Rebecca scuttled around the captain, who had landed on the ground and was both writhing in pain and reaching out as if to seize her ankles.

She untied the rope around her thigh to free the machete.

Someone banged on the door, crying, “Pirates!” so she opened it and stuck her weapon into the man’s stomach before he could blink.

Parts of his guts came out with her blade. Rebecca’s stomach turned, but she didn’t let it stop her. These were men who were willing to trade sugar for a person’s life. To chain hundreds of people into a hold and watch them die of dysentery. To rape women and girls without an ounce of remorse.

She kicked him into the captain’s cabin, shut the door, and untied Mrs. Adams’s lead. “Come on, girl. We’ve got some revenge to take.”

Chaos greeted her on the main deck. Sure, there were only nineteen pirates, but they had come with cutlasses and spears and guns.

The crewmen of the Whimsy mostly had knives and their own fists, though a few had located muskets.

Already, the deck was strewn with injured men trying to crawl to safety—and a few dead bodies, too.

Rebecca dragged Mrs. Adams to the longboat and tied her inside. Then, seizing a long spear, she turned around and aimed it at the first sailor she spotted.

It landed wide. The man turned to her, fury and excitement curling his lips open, and started coming at her with his knife out.

She swung her machete in an X in front of her body to distract him, and then, when he leaned forward to attack, she lunged at him and got him in the thigh. As he fell to the ground, she stomped on his hand and seized the knife from his fist.

His bones felt fragile and human beneath the heel of her shoe.

Rebecca whirled away, swinging her machete now at another sailor coming towards the longboat.

He carried a gun, which he shot in her direction—but the bullet went far to her right.

Rebecca aimed her machete at the muzzle of his musket.

Metal clanged against metal; her shoulder jarred from the impact; his gun didn’t quite fall, and he pulled it back to reload.

Rebecca surged beneath the long reach of the musket and sliced at his neck. That was even smoother than cutting off the captain’s cock: blood spurted from his throat and he fell to the ground, gasping.

Like butchering a hog.

She was sweaty; her arm was sore and heavy; she could hardly catch her breath. The air was heavy with gun smoke.

Around her, men were fighting and screaming and dying.

And then a cannonball caught the side of the Whimsy. The whole ship rocked. Rebecca fell against the side of the longboat before she could catch her footing. A new kind of smoke filled the air, and from below came shouts announcing a fire.