Page 79 of Storm over the Caribbean (Storm and Silence Saga #8)

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From somewhere far away, I heard voices. Muted voices. One of them seemed familiar, though. Who…who could it…

I frowned. It was so hard to think.

Then why not just sleep a little longer? Rest? Relax, and—

ABSOLUTELY NOT! Relax?! What kind of demon had suddenly possessed me?

Growling, I shook my head, chasing away the drowsiness, and suddenly, the voices became much clearer.

“…where to get food, do you?”

Lillian? She was…talking to someone?

Suddenly, ice filled my veins. Someone else was here! Here with my wife! And it sounded as if she was in his power. How long had it been since I had fallen unconscious? Days? What had he done to her? When I got my hands on that son of a bitch—

“Woof!”

—on second thought, this kind of son of a bitch may be acceptable.

“No, I can’t go to the store and purchase dog food, Fence.”

With excruciating effort, I parted my lips.

“W-who’s Fence?”

Although I already had a pretty good idea. That did not mean I wasn’t still going to make sure, however.

She froze.

Slowly—far too slowly, in my opinion—she lifted the head that had been buried in her hands and met my eyes. For a moment, I sank into those pools of warm chocolate, unable to resist. She was here. She was still alive. We both were.

“Mr Ambrose!” A shout pulled me from my deplorable daze. “You’re awake!”

And not dead from poisoning yourself. Barely.

She didn’t say it out loud. But the truth was there in her big, wide, desperate eyes. Just like the deeper truth was inside the rock in my chest that I called a heart: For you, it was worth it. And I would do it all over again.

Leaping to her feet, she dashed towards me, arms extended.

“Do. Not. Run!” I ordered, glaring at the foolish woman! What did she have to go through during the time I was unconscious? How did she survive? I would not let anything like that happen ever again! “You’re preg—”

That was about all I managed to say before I was hit by a wife-shaped cannonball and two arms wrapped around me tightly enough to strangle me.

“Too…tight!” I managed to squeeze out. Was this how I was going to die? Squeezed to death in my wife’s embrace on a Caribbean island? And here I had always hoped to die peacefully in bed at the ripe age of ninety-nine, surrounded by my safes and cheque books. “Can’t…breathe…”

“And?” She loosened her grip ever so slightly. I was about to take a breath of relief when a hand smacked the back of my head. A pair of brown eyes, no longer gentle and warm, sent me quite the impressive death-glare.

Ah, so she learned a thing or two from me over the years.

“I should worry about that why , exactly?” she demanded. “Didn’t seem like you particularly cared if you lived or died when you ate that bloody poisoned fruit !”

Women. Always getting overly emotional.

“It was a valid tactical decision at the time,” I pointed out.

“Oh, it was, was it?” Her eyes narrowed into slits. “So, what would you say to me making such a valid tactical decision next time?”

On the outside, I managed to remain perfectly calm and composed. But inside…apocalypses were less cataclysmic than the rage that flared to life within me at the idea of my spouse harming herself just to…to…

To protect the one who is most important to her in the world?

Oh.

Slowly, understanding dawned. I opened my mouth to tell her it was different, that I was the man of the house and that it was my job to take care of her—then closed it again as I met her wide, vulnerable eyes.

Tarnation.

She had me. That sneaky little…

I took a deep breath.

Calm. Stay calm. Your wife gallivanted around a wild island full of predators, nearly dying of thirst and hunger, and now is suggesting to eat poison. A trivial matter. Not important. No need to get angry.

I took another deep breath. Not that it seemed to help much.

“My question still stands.” I fixed my gaze on her. “Who is Fence?”

She opened her mouth, hopefully to give me a suitably dutiful and deferential response. But before she could, a blurry figure suddenly shot towards me and leapt into my arms. Now, if that blurry figure had been my wife, that would have been fine. But…

“Woof!”

It wasn’t.

“Woofwoofwoofwooooof!”

It most definitely wasn’t.

“What,” I enquired in a voice capable of scaring the hounds of hell away. The slobbering dog on top of me didn’t care one bit. “is that?”

“That’s Fence,” came my dear wife’s voice from somewhere beyond the sea of saliva. “He’s happy to meet you.”

“You don’t say?” I tried to raise my arms to push the dog away.

Unfortunately, those rebellious things just flopped around weakly and wouldn’t cooperate, so I had to settle for another glare at the canine who was still doing its best to clean my face of everything but dog saliva. “I wouldn’t have guessed.”

“Well…” Beyond the four-legged fiend, I saw my wife flash me a grin. She was enjoying this, wasn’t she? “…then I’m happy to help.”

“Mrs Ambrose?”

“Yes, Mr Ambrose, Sir?”

“Get. This. Mutt. Off. My. Face.”

“Why, yes of course, Sir. Would you like me to put it on your groin instead?”

I tried to jump up to grab her by the scruff of the neck. As a result, I flopped around on the ground uselessly.

“Don’t you dare !”

“All right, groin it is.”

Maybe, in retrospect, I shouldn’t have eaten that poisoned fruit after all.

Suddenly, the dog leapt off me and dashed away. I was about to breathe a sigh of relief when the canine rushed back with some object in its mouth. A moment later, something rough and hard slammed into my nose. Something made of…wood?

“Mrs Ambrose?”

“Yes, Dicky Darling?”

“Why is that dog trying to shove a stick in my face?”

“Well…either he noticed the stick up your arse and thought you could do with a new one…”

“Mrs Ambrose!”

“…or he wants you to play fetch.”

I fixed her with a gaze that told her exactly how thrilled I was by that prospect.

“I,” my voice filled the tropical cave with all the frost I could muster, “do not play .”

“I beg to differ. Or do I need to remind you of a certain part during our wedding night, when you—”

Hurriedly, I cleared my throat. No need to publicise such things in front of an audience, even if only a canine one.

“ Ehem! Enough of that, now.” Pushing myself up into a sitting position with all my might, I sent her a glare that told her exactly what I thought of her bringing up that matter.

It might have worked better if a certain dog hadn’t still been slobbering all over me and trying to shove a stick into my face.

“We don’t have the time to waste on jokes, Mrs Ambrose.

I need to be brought up to speed on the current situation. ”

“The current situation, eh?” Cocking an eyebrow, she leaned closer towards me.

Not nearly as close as I wished, though.

May Mammon curse that dog and its saliva to the deepest layers of hell!

“Well, Mr Ambrose, Sir…the current situation is that, after you decided to take your impromptu nap, I dragged your arse, along with the stick inside it, into this cave. Somehow, miraculously, I managed to find enough water to survive for the time being. But as far as food goes…”

She held up something that smelled like an old beggar’s unwashed sock and didn’t look much better.

I inclined my head. “I see.”

All I had actually seen was some unmentionable thing. But how was I supposed to tell her that I couldn’t even tell what kind of abomination my pregnant wife had been eating these last few days?

By all the bank robbers and lazy employees in the world! How could I have let things go this far? I was her husband, for Mammon’s sake! I was supposed to provide for her, not the other way around! And that was just in normal times. Now? With her pregnant, and us stranded on an uninhabited island?

I was failing miserably.

Throughout the years, I had seen many magnificent and terrible things. I had felt fear, triumph, disappointment, rage, all without ever showing any of it. I had experienced more ups and downs than any man could ever hope to survive. But throughout all of it, one thing had remained unchanged:

I. Do. Not. Fail.

My muscles flexed. My arms moved. I placed my hands against the ground, and, with every single bit of power at my disposal, I pushed.

The world swayed. My head felt as if it had been stuffed with low-quality cotton that I wouldn’t purchase for zero pence. For a moment, bile seemed to rise in my throat—until my body remembered there wasn’t actually anything in my stomach anymore.

Irrelevant. Move!

Once again, I pushed, and this time, somehow, I managed to get to my feet. Anyone who dared to say I stumbled was a liar and would be sued for libel.

“Mr Ambrose! What the hell are you doing?”

Except my wife, that is.

“What do you think?” I ground out, grabbing the nearby cave wall to check its solidity. It had nothing whatsoever to do with steadying myself.

Until my feet slipped and I hit the hard ground knees first, that is.

Son of a bitch!

“Woof?”

Not you!

Dragging in a deep breath, I attempted to push myself to my feet again—only to once more slump back to the ground. “I am—ng!—going to go out there and—agh!—find some food, of course!”

With an almighty effort, I pushed myself up again, took a step forward—and promptly collapsed onto the ground once more.

“You,” came a very familiar voice from above me, “will not be doing anything in the foreseeable future. Anything other than lying down and enjoying the beautiful view of the stone ceiling, that is.”

“But…” Coughing, I tried to clear out the dirt from my mouth and throat. “But…have to…go and…”

A far-too-firm hand gripped me by the shoulder and shoved me onto my back without wasting any time on discussion. If I hadn’t been so livid with my wife, I might have felt proud. “…lie down. I warn you. If you move, I’ll sic Fence on you. I bet he’d just love to lick your face some more.”

Now I definitely was proud. Only married for such a short time and already learning how to effectively threaten people? That was my wife!

Of course I could never admit so out loud.

“Uncalled for, Mrs Ambrose.”

“Says the man who ate a happy gaga fruit and left me to lug him around for the next few days,” she shot back, trying to stare me down from high above. It was rather adorable, although it would probably be better for my health not to mention that. “Stay where you are!”

“And leave my pregnant wife to traipse through the jungle alone?” With a growl, I mobilised what little strength remained and pushed myself up into a sitting position. “In your dreams!”

“Hardly.” One corner of her mouth twitched. “In my dreams you wear fewer clothes.”

My mouth dropped open.

Did she just…

Of course she did. She was my little ifrit .

“This is serious!” I growled. Arms trembling, I forced myself forward, doing all I could to get closer to her.

Except…she was still so far away. The distance seemed to be growing with every inch I moved, and the cave swayed beneath me.

“You don’t know how to find food in this place!

You don’t know what dangers you could encounter! ”

“Then why don’t you tell me?”

Stubborn as ever, she raised her chin. No…both chins. That…wasn’t right? Since when did my wife have two chins? Or two everything for that matter. And now there were three?

“I…I’m trying to. I just…just…” I blinked. Suddenly, the world seemed…off. Why was everything blurry all of a sudden? I would not waste money on glasses! “L-listen here. Here’s what you have to do…”

“Yes?”

“You… you have to pin the banana peel to the top hat.”

She blinked. All three of her. “Pardon?”

Couldn’t she even understand something so simple? The banana peel would obviously make the hat a far more nourishing meal for a pregnant woman. Then she could give birth to a big, strong orangutan…

I frowned. Something didn’t seem quite right with that line of thought. Though I couldn’t quite figure out what.

Oh, well. Shrugging, I smiled. What was there to worry about, really? The world was such a beautiful, happy place. What could possibly be wrong?

Right! I should tell my wife how amazing the world was!

“And…and…you’ve got to look at the pretty clouds…and the bunnies hopping in the sky…oh…so pretty…”

“We’re inside a cave. There’s a ceiling above us, not a sky.”

And? Who says there couldn’t be sky-ceiling? My darling wife was so conservative in her thinking. She really needed to loosen up.

“Makes it even more pretty!” Smiling widening, I waved at the ceiling covered in pretty clouds. “And there’s a pink cloud! And a green one! And a pin-striped one.”

“You’re still high as a kite, aren’t you?”

“Most certainly not, Mrs Lamb Roast! I am perfidiously crane! I mean…perfectly lame! Incorrectly sane! I…I…”

Falling forward, my face slammed onto the floor.

And what a pretty floor it was. Covered in such pretty stars and unicorns.

As I listened to my wife give orders to her new pet dog and the dog answer in some kind of weird French dialect, I hoped she would be back soon so I could show her the pretty unicorns. I was sure she would appreciate it!