A Kiss in the Wind (19 page)

His words scraped across her soul. Pride interlaced with love, something she yearned for from Alain. She knew what toll she’d have to pay to gain her father’s hollow pride. But…would there be love?

“Now’s your chance. Kill your brother,
ma chérie.
”

Strike down Monte?

“You must kill him before he kills you,” he continued. “He
will
kill you.”

She looked over to where Monte stood. The Castellan men often reveled in the sins of humanity. Greed, gluttony, wrath, vanity and lust—these vices ran deep and without regret in their veins. Even Luc had not been immune to the lure of overindulgence. But as Marisol watched Monte, watched how he casually took his reloaded pistols from Grimshaw, plucking them back into his brace, watched as he disregarded Blade’s demands for surrender, a dawning of disgust, of pity shed new light upon him. Monte surpassed these sins.

“Don’t be foolish, Monte,” Blade called. “You’ll not survive.”

“Your bloody threats don’t scare me,” Monte said.

“They’re not intended to. ’Tis just a courtesy.”

“Ha! Here’s paltry invention. Save your gentlemanly propriety and let us square away, shall we?”

“My pleasure.” Blade addressed his men. “Up to the shrouds, swabs! Grapnels, ready!”

Men on the
Rissa
swung barbed grappling hooks in deadly circles waiting for the command to board. Others climbed the ropes like spiders bursting from an egg sac. Marisol recognized some of the fellows and they weren’t
Rissa
lads. Alain chuckled. They were the tars from the
Sablewing,
men she deemed fine and trusty bawcock friends.

Monte turned to Grimshaw and gave him a subtle nod. Grimshaw trotted to the hatch and disappeared inside, only to reappear again. He towed a chain over his shoulder, tugging it as he pulled it along. Shackled to the other end were Drake, Valeryn and two other
Widow Maker
men. They were unmarred but that fact made decidedly little difference by the wrath shining in their eyes. Annihilation roiled off Drake like volcanic ash from a mountainside. Marisol prayed the irons held.

“Found several longboats floating helplessly in the oggin after the storm,” Monte said. “I figured plucking out the captain and a few of his chaps might come in handy. ’Course, I left the others to the mercy of Mona’s Passage.”

Marisol bit her lower lip at Blade’s deadpan expression.

Alain chuckled low in her lap. “Boy learned to strategize,” he wheezed. “This could get interesting.”

Had Monte gone mad? Challenging Blade, capturing Drake, killing pirates at his discretion…the whole bloody Caribbean brethren would hunt him down and skin him with barnacles. And what about her? Blade must think she had a part in this. They would never make it out alive.

“You want me, Tyburn? You want your silver? Then come on over and take it.” He threw up his arm in invitation. “But I give you fair warning.” Monte snapped his fingers and five men bearing long arms filed in front of Drake and the manacled men. “Board my ship and these men die.”

“Warning received.” Blade acknowledged him with a crooked smile. His dimples nicked deep and Marisol winced. That grin sent wayward desire sparking through her that quickly fizzled. Double-edged, that smile meant he had become the predator. A predator out for blood.

“Hey, princock,” Drake called out to Monte. “Don’t you know when a boy plays a man’s game, he gets hurt?”

“Big words from a lout who’s a pig in the slaughterhouse.”

“Ah, so we agree that you are a swine farmer.” Drake and his men laughed.

If it weren’t for the seriousness of the situation, Marisol would gag on the male conceit wafting through the air.

“Shut your yap, cur.” Monte’s face flushed red and his jaw tightened.

Drake’s pleasant demeanor vanished. “Why don’t ya make me, ya little upstart?”

“Gladly.” Monte raised a finger for his gunmen to take aim.

“No!” Marisol dropped Alain’s head onto the floorboards. The thunk and groan didn’t slow her from scrambling to her feet.

Too late. The wheels were already set into motion. Drake and his men spread out and rushed forward. With the chain threaded tight between them, they knocked down the armed buccaneers.

In the same instant, Blade made the call to his own fighters. “Grapnels on!”

Grappling hooks flurried through the air, snagging anything solid. Pirates poured over onto the
Sugar Lady.
Monte’s men met their attackers head-on.

Battle cries rang in Marisol’s ears. So loud, so thrilling. Iron clashed with iron and the metallic strikes melded with curses and barbaric yelling. Her fingers twitched and stretched much like the pianist she had once seen exercising his fingers before a performance. She wanted badly to join in the melee, to pick up a weapon and to fight. But she had no idea which side to take up the scrap with, Blade or Monte. She loved them both. Both wanted her dead.

Above it all, a gloriously energetic tune coasted over the chaos, whipping the men into a zealous frenzy. Marisol pinpointed the source of the music through the pockets of battling pirates. Henri stood on the poop deck of the
Rissa
playing his broken flute. Too old to fight, piping out ditties of confidence made him seem taller.

A blur of dark flesh streaked before her. Sam barreled across the deck to the chained prisoners. While the other men held down and scuffled with the
Huntress
crew who would have shot them, Drake held out his manacles over a crate. Sam’s mighty swing of his boarding axe shattered the pin, releasing Drake’s iron cuffs. The chain slipped through the rest of the cuffs and soon Valeryn and the other men were free. They used the shackles as impromptu flails, whirling them overhead and pummeling their enemies.

The space all around Marisol strangled with the putrid odor of sweat and blood. Early morning rays of sun warmed the decks and further heated the stench. Combat waged and rivals fell as both sides engaged their foe. She itched to join in the havoc bursting in swarms on every inch of the ship. A pirate, one of Monte’s she believed, stumbled away from a fray and tripped at her feet. He jumped up facing her and her instinct flared. She delivered a single pop to his snout. The blow mashed him around and he fell flat. A giddy pulsation of excitement snapped through her. She must fight, someone, anyone.

“Well done,
ma chérie.
” Alain had managed to pull his lame lower body to the main mast and prop himself against it. “Now keep your eye on your biggest threat.”

Which one?

Marisol turned in time to see Blade swing the gulf between the ships. He landed on the deck with the same grace he showed while dancing with her in the island cave. He planted himself majestically before Monte. One hand held his cutlass out, and the other beckoned Monte to join him in battle.

Monte raised his sword to the challenge. A haughty smirk crossed his face and he nodded to Blade.

Their first strike resounded in a deafening hellish crash. Together, Blade and Monte thrust and parried. The sword fight waged in a ballet of precise movements and flashes of shiny steel blades. Marisol’s skin crawled with each sharp clink of the razor edges. One missed block or parry could lead to a fatal blow for either her brother or her lover.

Marisol was quick to notice the men’s different combat styles.

They were worthy opponents. Blade stood with his feet at shoulder width and he moved keeping his legs apart. Monte shuffled a great deal, swift with his movements. Blade never stretched his arms out and instead extended his weapon toward his adversary. Monte used his weapon like a tool, very aware of what his sword was designed for, light and nimble in strokes. Yet Blade was able to read Monte’s actions. When Monte moved in, Blade launched advancing strikes, keeping parries close to his body so that he stretched less when counter thrusting.

Too many times, Monte had skipped out on lessons with Luc. Luc had mastered sword fighting with his beloved cutlass, Simone. He knew all the secrets to walking away from a fight alive. He knew how to assess the situation, his enemy and his surroundings. Maintaining a distance on the balance of his sword and his foes, being calm, having a strong defense, finding the weakness and even using trickery by pretending to be unskilled made him an extraordinary swordsman.

Marisol learned all she could from Luc, realizing that all rivals have a pattern and it was wise to use that knowledge to her advantage. Her little brother scoffed at Luc’s training and because of it missed some of the most important elements to winning.

It became obvious to her now. Blade had found the flow of the battle. He controlled it. And he would decide its outcome.

Fear for her brother registered deep within her. The little boy he had once been racing up the path to their house holding a string of fish bigger than himself, his smile bursting with pride, played in her mind. The image struck a chord. “My God, he’s going to kill Monte.”

“God willing.”

She spun around to Alain. He had ripped his pant leg and used a scrap of the material as a tourniquet above his wound to staunch the bleeding. “How can you say that? He’s your son.”

Even as she said it, the sad truth sank in her gut. Monte was gone. He was far from being that little boy on Cow Island, and farther from a son or brother.

“That bastard’s no son of mine.”

Ben, a mate from the
Sablewing,
fell wearied to his knees before Alain. “Capt’n. Can ya move?”

“Nay, lad. This here arm’s numb. Least it ain’t my shooting arm. Damn near shot off my leg, too, the Judas. And I think I broke something, thanks to Marisol.”

Ben scanned his captain’s wounds then sent Marisol a hard glance. “Be anything I can do fer ya, Capt’n?”

“Your pistol, boy.”

Ben handed Alain a pistol and disappeared into the fracas.

She needed a weapon of her own. Her safety depended on it. Who was friend and who was foe? Only a fool would wait to find out. As a pair of men brawled past, she reached out for one of the buccaneer’s pistols hanging from his waist. She ducked just in time, away from the downward swing of a cutlass blade. Filching a pistol or knife from someone else might leave her missing a limb at best. There had to be another way.

Fallen men may still be armed. She spied several unlucky fellows across the deck. All were too far away and too dangerous to get to.

Belaying pins used as clubs would do little in fending off any attackers wielding a firearm or sword. If she angled close enough to a pair of fighting men, she could whack one of them in the head, but probably not without getting severely injured herself.

Grimshaw’s knife.

The gully still protruded from the mast. Grabbing its handle, she pulled with all her might. It didn’t budge. Not even a little. Deep the blade had been buried.
Damn!
She wiggled it up and down to loosen the grip of the wooden mast, up and down splitting through the grain.
Come…on.

The timber freed its clamp on the dagger, and Marisol lurched backward from the sudden release. She nearly lost her equilibrium, bumping into another set of fighting pirates. She hopped around and crouched into a defensive position, but the tars paid her no mind and kept on trading vicious punches in turn to one another’s marred faces.

Beyond the combatants, Blade and Monte continued their impressive swordfight, a graceful performance of give and take. Sweat ran in rivulets down their faces and soaked through their tunics. The clashes of blades rang as solid as at the beginning of the spar, but Monte had clearly begun to tire.

Blade influenced the fight and Monte’s footwork and parries had lost precision, becoming sloppier.

Monte overextended a thrust, leaving his side wide open for Blade to make a fatal strike. Monte twirled back, but Blade’s cutlass slit through his shirt.

Marisol gasped.

At first it appeared the sword’s edge altogether missed. Monte stumbled away and inspected a ghastly wound across his ribs. “Son of a—”

Blood seeped down the torn cloth of his shirt, but the gash was not life-threatening.

Blade raised his sword, his muscles bulging with the strength to finish the job, his eyes flared with victory. Monte put distance between them, stopping within a few feet of Marisol.

“Kill him, Marisol.”

She closed her eyes at Alain’s gruff demand. Never was it wise to stare into the eyes of a wild beastie. That only served to provoke him further. True to her nature, and always when not in her best interest, she would rebel against him.

“No,” she said. “I will not kill my brother.”

“You will. Kill him before I kill you.”

Marisol faced her father and a chilling terror seized in her chest.

Alain trained his pistol on her.

Tendrils of hair wisped across her face from the mockery of a serene breeze. The noise from the ensuing battle was muffled in the vacuum of her devastation. That which Marisol had kept sealed and buried all those years ruptured free, annihilating her ill-conceived perceptions. Alain held not a single thread of love for his daughter. This she knew. Why had it come as a surprise? The valley of her despair widened. But being overcome by this revelation would weaken her chance of survival.

Alain held the gun propped in his lap.

Must relax. Must unclench my fists, regain control.

“You care so little of me that you would see me dead should I not do your bidding?” Call it a challenge, call it a bluff, she would bide her time. Look for an opening, something to reverse her fortune.

“What good are you to me if you refuse?”

“I’m your daughter.”

He shrugged. “I’ve others, be assured.”

“Bastard.” The barb stung, but she counseled herself to hold her tongue further. She’d only hurt herself.

“Come now. I’m much more than that.” He afforded himself a quick laugh. “I’d kill the bastard myself, I would. But he’s too fucking far for me to bury one in his skull with one shot. You must kill him.”

“Shoot me if you must, but I won’t kill Monte for you.”
Use your knife. Incapacitate him. Get the gun. Do something!

“Brave, chit,” he said, “but very stupid. He means to destroy us. I might be joining Luc soon and I no longer will be your safeguard…” he took in a deep breath, struggling against his slurred words, “…your guardian. Better you die by my hand than what the devil has in store for you.”

Clanging swords, grunts, hollering, pops from pistols, the wall of riotous clamor smashed into her. In the mayhem of Alain’s statement and her labyrinth of severed emotions, confusion took root. A dull ache seated in the frown of her brow. Guardian? Luc, Blade, Monte, Alain. Who was there to protect her from but the very people she cared for?

Alain cocked his chin. “He’s weakening.”

Marisol glanced over her shoulder. ’Twas true, Monte foundered in keeping his torso forward, making it harder for his body to twist away from blocks. Blade kept him on point, the tip of his sword eye-level.

“Could be a trick to fool Tyburn. Take him, Marisol. Take him now. Use your gift of marksmanship. Put your gully in his back before I put a plug in your head.”

More time. She needed more time to figure out what to do. Why must she choose between her father and her brother?
Could
she choose? She didn’t want to kill either of them. Marisol twirled the dagger in her grip, trading the coarse handle for the cool blade, readying herself to make an accurate mark, though she had not yet decided what that mark would be.

She turned to face her father. Alain leveled his pistol. Steady now, he took aim at her heart. Would she be faster than the pull of a trigger? Her fingers tightened on the blade.

Alain blew out a tattered sigh. He shifted the gun away and fired, but the pistol did not ignite. He had removed the flint, letting the gun tumble to the floorboards from the fingers of his useless hand. “My daughter, loyal and bold, I will grant it.”

Dumbfounded, Marisol warred with his words. Did he have a sliver of compassion after all?

Within the moment, Drake appeared, kicking away Alain’s gun and landing a solid downward punch into his blighted nose. The force of the blow left Alain unconscious, slumping against the pole, fresh blood oozing down his whiskered cheek.

Drake politely, but ever-so slightly, bowed to Marisol before ebbing back into the sea of combat.

Where’d the pistol go? She frantically searched the planks for the weapon.
There.
Among shuffling feet, the gun slid across the coarse floor. She had to get to it before someone reached down and snatched it. Flicking her knife back, she stooped beside Alain to find the flint. She patted through his filthy clothing until she discovered it under his thigh. The truth struck her hard. He really had removed the flint. What did that mean? No time to entertain herself with ridiculous false hopes.

She darted to where the pistol lay and reached down to grab it. A callused heel bumped the weapon, sending it skating past her. She wheezed on the dust swirling up from the sandy floorboards. The grit jabbed her palms and dug through the knees of her breeches as she crawled for the gun.

Almost…got…it.

Keen metal poked at the tender skin of her neck. Marisol froze, not risking a move sure to decapitate her.

“Stand down, Tyburn, or I’ll tear her weasand open.” Monte panted in short, exhaustive breaths. He had indeed grown tired. Blade had eroded his youthful strength during their combat.

From the outer edges of her vision, Blade stood with his sword ready to deliver judgment. He lowered his weapon only marginally.

The point of a sword pressed firmly under her jaw, threatening to slice into her throat.

“Let go of the knife, sister.”

She tried to push down her terrible reluctance to let go of her dagger. She wouldn’t be able to seduce her way out of this one with empty promises. It worked before. But this time, her brother was the enemy. A flick of her hip and an inviting smile would not serve as a distraction aimed at escape.

The devil’s own rotten luck left her stripped of any means of defense. Her fingers, one by one, uncurled from the handle. Prodded by the sword, she leaned back on her knees and Monte kicked the dagger away.

“On your feet.”

Rising slowly, her eyes locked with Blade’s. Their charming brilliance had clouded with something dark and foreign she couldn’t identify. He looked straight through her. Blindness perhaps? Impartial to destroying the Castellan line?

Monte grasped her wrist, jerking it up behind her back, and pulled her in front of him. The wide part of the sword’s blade, before the cross guard, tucked into the delicate flesh of her neck.

“What makes you think that I care if you cut open one of your own?”

Her heart sighed heavily, as heavy as Blade’s abrasive tone. Monte had spoken true—Blade did believe she aided Monte in stealing the silver.

“I suppose there’s a chance that you don’t,” Monte countered. “I thought since you’ve already bedded her, and being the gentleman you are, you would do the chivalrous thing and try to save the lady.”

“How predictable. Only a coward would shield himself with a woman.”

Monte’s lips snarled at the insult. “A dangerous thing to say.”

Blade continued, unfazed by Monte’s growing friction. “’Tis true I’m a gentleman, but your theory is weak.”

“Oh?” Monte said.

“You and I both know Marisol is no lady.” His sword still at a deadly angle, Blade let his gaze drift to her. “She’s a troublesome shrew.”

A knife to her heart would hurt less. She really had lost Blade. To never feel his tender caress, taste his wicked kiss, to lie in his warmth or hear the beating of his heart, to be denied requited love,
his
love, nothing, not even eternal burning in hell could ever be worse.

“So, Captain
Castellan,
your traitorous pawn is worthless.”

“Ah,” Monte smirked, “but you should know, Tyburn, Marisol had nothing to do with taking the
Gloria.
Nor did she know about me and my plans. She cannot claim the thrill of putting a bullet in your tarry mariners’ brains. No. My dear sister, for once, is a victim.”

Marisol studied Blade. Was the man made of granite? No sign of compassion. No sign that Monte’s declaration chiseled away at his stony heart.

Monte’s grip tightened.

“It makes little difference to me,” Blade said. “Lying roguelings are best left to their own kind.”

“Tsk. I had hoped you’d give me a reason to kill her. Damn the luck.” Caustic sarcasm spewed from him like the cackle of a raven.

He rested his temple against her head. To the casual observer, his simple action would seem like a loving gesture. “I thought to leave you in the cavern to drown, Marisol. You don’t know how close I came in doing so. Walking away would have been easy.”

He spoke as if recalling a fanciful dream. ’Twas anything but a dream.

“But then all my plotting would have been wasted. That, my dear sister, would be a damned pity. I’d miss the thrill of watching this grand moment. This very moment when you breathe your last breath.”

He leaned in close to her ear. “Are you scared, Marisol?”

Terrified.
She stared straight ahead. Stared at the man she had betrayed, the man who now spurned her. No one. She had no one left. Cheating death time and again had all been for naught. The path to the river Styx’s shore would be revealed by the hand of her brother. ’Twas good she kept that silver piece. She would be able to pay the ferryman.

Marisol mustered up her nerve. If she were to die, she would die without showing fear. “I am more scared for you, Monte, than for myself. What will be left of you once you kill me?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll tell Mama the truth. You and Luc perished because you listed in the service of Alain and the devil.” He leaned his cheek in closer. “Well then, I never cared for keeping rubbish about. Time to die, sister.”

He drew the cutlass edge across her skin slowly, filleting her neck with a small notch. Marisol whimpered at the smarting pain. Squeezing her eyes tight, she blinked away the tears brought on by the tremendous sting. She couldn’t die this way. Not by the hand of her little brother. There was so much more to see and experience. An entire ocean waited for Marisol, beckoning her to ride the trade winds, to visit distant shores. And there was love to be conquered. And hope. Hope that she might win back Blade’s affection. Her heart pounded in her ears. The air she labored to suck in parched her dry lips. Warm liquid trailed down her neck, reaching beyond to the basin of her chest.
Please, I don’t want to die.

Blade remained granite still. Would he not save her?

Maybe she wouldn’t
need
saving.

* * *

The pleading, whirlpool of panic in Marisol’s wide eyes laid siege to the wall of defense that surrounded Blade’s soul. The first tear of blood on her slender neck obliterated everything he had ever held against her. His anger, his misguided revenge, drained from him as her blood spilled. In that moment, with her life about to be pinched away, he realized what a terrible mistake he had made. He understood what his fiery dove meant to him. Not fully, but enough to want to explore all the possibilities with her. No way in bloody hell that wretch would take her from him.

Menacing pleasure swaggered across Monte’s features at his handiwork before he turned to watch Blade’s reaction. Blade couldn’t let him think he’d been affected. When he first met Monte, back in Puerto Plata, Blade briefly caught Monte’s fear of him. Knowing the fool had been frightened of him meant Monte could be defeated. Blade would sniff out that weakness and use it against him.

He wouldn’t let the little arse believe he’d care if he slaughtered his sister. He must remain indifferent to outsmart him. But the pain registering in Marisol at his cold façade gripped him with excruciating force. Threads of remaining calm and control snapped wildly apart. He must act fast. Speed would be useless for what lethal foolishness came next.

She struggled to free herself from Monte’s hold.

“Marisol, no!” Horrified, Blade charged forward, his sword brandished overhead.

From the corner of his eye, a glint of metal arced toward him. He deflected the downward blow of a cutlass, twisting it up and around. The boxy buccaneer that mistreated Drake and strung up Carrion swung his weapon around to Blade’s waist. Blade twisted with a small step back, leaving the brute slicing the air and exposing his unprotected side. With an upward thrust, Blade sliced through his attacker’s back and flank. The man roared and fell to his knees. Instead of putting his sword through him, Blade smashed the hilt into the man’s skull. The barbarous toad fell over, landing facedown and motionless.

Marisol!

She snatched an object from Monte’s jacket, so quick he’d hardly seen her in the act. Was that…hair sticks? “Rot off!” she screamed. In a blink, she impaled Monte in his gut, leaving the small spears pierced within him. Shock bolted across his face but the moment sputtered out, replaced by crazed wrath. His bellow thundered as he plunged his cutlass toward Marisol’s body.

Blade propelled himself to block the mortal blow, deflecting Monte’s weapon with his own. He swung the sword up, the metal sliding against metal and grinding out a grisly sound. Shoving him back, Blade pivoted around, his back to his foe, and rammed his blade deep into Monte’s chest. A hard yank and his sword slid free of flesh.

Monte dropped his sword and looked down. Blood bloomed from his fatal wound. His wide-eyed stare swept up, his eyes settling on Marisol. She stepped forward, her trembling fingers stretching out for him.

A ravine of sadness for her cratered within Blade. He wanted to draw her into his embrace and stroke away her hurt. So much hurt. But he thought she would shy away from his compassion, revolted by the sight of Monte’s life dripping from the end of his sword. He brought death upon her brother. She would despise him with every particle of her being. Nay, holding her would be impossible. ’Twas between Marisol and Monte, now. And she needed to walk with Monte in his final moments on her own.

“Monte,” she whispered.

Wet rasps escaped his parted lips. “I…I hate you.”

Crumpling to the floorboards, his last breath expelled, slow and cumbersome.

Marisol did not move. Her expression, neither forlorn nor horror-struck, was unreadable to Blade as she stared at Monte’s dead body. The red streaks along her neck had dried. Blade internally sighed with relief. The cut had been superficial though would likely scar.

Monte’s poisonous words chanted in his mind. How betrayed and injured she must feel to hear such excessive bitterness from a brother she dearly loved. Especially after all that she went through to find him. Blade wished he had the power to bring Monte back. Not to have him live again—nay, he wanted to plunge his sword through Monte’s rotten heart over and over again for hurting his dove.