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They’d done this a lot that year he’d
spent with her family. Jocelyn had been six and had just begun
showing a blossoming interest in ballet. After she’d gone to see a
show and had told him about the beautiful couple dancing on stage
he’d looked at her with a lost smile on his face.

That smile had hurt her. Stirred
something in her small chest that drove her like a demon. To
brighten that smile, to erase the broken look in his eyes she’d
asked him to help her practice with her. Almost every day that
month she’d run towards him and leapt only to have him lift her in
the air with one strong hand and spin her round and around until
she was giggling and limp.

When she was little it had felt as if
she were flying. Damon had been her wings.

She’d forgotten that time.

But the only difference between this
instance and that was that there was no laughter.

With his hand a warm brand beneath the
curve of her breasts she floated there, above the carnage, as below
her his sword became a silver blur of motion. The man who’d been
chasing her fell, his neck squirting a fountain of blood. There
were men on either side and he spun with her above his head, first
one way and then the other, lightning fast as he killed two more
men. The world was an ocean of blood and death and Jocelyn’s eyes
closed tight as nausea threatened.

If this was how seasickness felt, she
couldn’t understand how Ava stood it.

She opened them only when he lowered
her again, a silent message that they were momentarily
safe.

Looking up into his eyes she tried not
to tremble as his hands ran up and down her arms. Is sword was
still in hand so it was dangerous. She would have said something
but he seemed unwilling to either let go of the weapon or stop
touching her. Over her hack, her thighs her waist. Up to cup her
face and bring her close until she stood on her tiptoes in front of
him, her mouth no more than a breath away.

“You little fool.” That was all he
said, it seemed all he was capable of saying. But Jocelyn heard the
knife edged panic beneath his voice and knew he’d been
afraid.

For her.

A man screamed, a sound full of death,
and Damon jerked himself from her gaze.

He couldn’t believe he’d just stood
there and stared at her when there was fighting going on. But he
hadn’t been able to help himself. There had been a gut wrenching,
primal instinct to make sure she was alright. To feel her safe, and
warm and tight against the breadth of his body.

Right now was no time for him to lose
himself though.

With that in mind he let go of her and
instead gripped her hand. He began to lead her across the deck.
Kicking and pushing and stabbing when necessary to get where he
needed to go.

The longboat attached to one side of
the ship was supposed to be used in emergencies.

Damon wasn’t sure but he figured this
was an emergency, but if that was the case then why was he the only
one who’d thought of escaping on the damn thing?

For whatever reason it hadn’t been
taken yet and he was grateful. He lifted Jocelyn over the side of
the ship and into the little vessel, noting, even during all of
this, how well she fit in his hands, how good.

His hands were itching for more of her
when he heard her scream his name. He almost missed it under the
rush of the wind and rain. The storm was getting stronger by the
minute and both vessels, tangled together as they were, began to
set up a drunken rocking from side to side, almost threatening to
tip themselves over in their dance.

So really, it was a miracle that he
turned and lifted his sword in time to block the strike meant for
his head.

He felt more than heard Jocelyn cry out
again as he twisted under his attacker’s raised arm and sliced a
long bloody line across his abdomen. Blood flowed, red in the rain
and Damon felt an insane urge to laugh rise up in the back of his
throat.

He was trapped again. Once more caught
in the hell of war. Even after he’d worked so hard, and ran so far
he was right back where he’d been thirteen years ago.

There was a niggling thought in his
mind, an idea, that if he couldn’t escape in this life maybe he
could escape in the next. Then the sailor he fought with, a man’s
whose face blurred now but would become crystal clear in Damon’s
dreams once he killed him, slammed into him.

The man was built like an ox, shorter
than Damon but wide through the arms in a way that only a man who
worked hard at sea could be. He used that terrible strength to
force Damon back, back, back until his spine hit the side of the
ship and sent pain spiraling through him. Their arms were locked
between them, the blades a deadly cross framing the two men’s
heated gazes. Their deadlock was broken by the slickness of the
rain on the blades. The swords slid along one another with a low
hiss like that of a snake, and snarling, Damon lifted his foot and
kicked the man away. A terrible screaming sounded behind him and he
turned just in time to watch in horror as the longboat, its rope
cut from the movement of he and the sailor’s swords, no idea whose
did it, fell down towards the ocean below. He stood there, frozen,
all thoughts of the war, of his own death, escaping his mind as he
watched Jocelyn disappear into the darkness. He could hear the
sharp crash as the longboat hit the next cresting wave, but he
couldn’t see it.

He couldn’t see her.

The sailor was coming back; Damon could
feel him against the length of his back like a brand as he came
closer and he went blind with … something. Something dark and
strange seized him, had his sight disappearing under a white wash
of static. His body moved automatically as he turned, side moving
out of the way for the knife that would have impaled him as he
reached out and gripped the sailor by the arm. Pulled him toward
him, he plunged his own knife into his gut. He held him there a
moment longer, jerking the blade upward to cause as much damage as
possible. He felt a wash of warm blood stain his shoulder from
where it bubbled up from the man’s mouth and he shoved him away in
disgust.

Then he turned, lifted himself up and
over the side of the Gentle Marie, and leapt into the sea after
Jocelyn.

Chapter Five

Do you remember when we first met my
boy? I do. You’d just been knocked on your ass by Wellesley during
training. I watched as how, instead of getting angry and
embarrassed like a lot of the other titled young bucks, you looked
into the man who’d beaten you and grinned. Just sat there and
grinned. And I remember thinking to myself, ‘What an
idiot.’

Jocelyn was scared.

Even more so than she’d been on the
boat because at least then her feet were on solid ground, at least
then she knew there was a chance to escape this mess and see Ava
again.

But as soon as the longboat hit the
water her scream was cut off as it tipped over on its side and her
head went under water.

For one blinding, horrible moment, she
couldn’t see or breathe, and hung upside down in a black limbo that
robbed her senses. Then the rough waves righted the tiny vessel and
she came up for air soaking and gasping. There was no time to get
herself under control, no time to flinch at the sharp pain that
grew in her chest when she realized that she’d been separated from
Damon, again. There was no time for anything but searching for the
oars to the longboat as she tried not to get tossed back into the
ocean. The two ships rose above her like mammoths, their highest
points seeming to caress the sky. She was impressed by the boat,
because even though the swells grew increasingly violent, the boat
road them out almost as well as the ship had. That wasn’t to say it
didn’t rock and dip alarmingly, but it did so gracefully she felt
comfortable enough to squeeze her eyes as tightly as she was
gripping either side of the boat, and pray for her life. She was
starting on Hail Marys and wondering if they counted if she wasn’t
Catholic when something firm and as cold as ice gripped her hand.
Visions of sea monsters and corpses from Davey Jones’ locker
floated through her head and she racked her nails across the
clutching hand before she thought to open her eyes.

Damon glared at her and opened his
mouth to curse when another wave slammed the boat and drug him
under. She reached for him, but then had to worry about hanging on
herself when the boat began to spiral out of control in the
water.

She screamed his name, hugging the
small mast tight so she wouldn’t be thrown, and thought she saw his
head break the surface again. Her heart jumped with relief and when
next he reached the boat she gripped his wrist and struggled to
help him aboard. He was heavy, so heavy, and she could feel the
fine trembling in his body from the cold. She knew he was reluctant
to simply pull himself in. The waves, and wind, combined with his
weight would capsize them; but Jocelyn was suddenly growing
desperate to get him to safety.

She had nearly given up when the wave
they’d been riding abruptly whipped in the opposite direction. The
longboat was momentarily air born and with a sobbing cry Jocelyn
tugged him inside before they hit the water again.

The impact jarred her teeth, but he was
here. He was safe. She looked up only to find that they were headed
further and further away from the Gentle Marie. Again she searched
for the oars as Damon rose groaning to sit opposite her but it was
no use. Sometime between now and when the rope securing the boat
had first been cut the oars had been thrown. The hulking mass of
the ships had now been reduced to nothing but indistinct blobs in
the shadows, and Jocelyn felt a rush of panic that had nothing to
do with their immediate danger and everything to do with the
certainty that if they couldn’t get back to the Marie now, they
never would.

“Damon!” She had to scream to be heard
over the noise. When he looked at her she pointed towards the
rapidly growing distance between them and the Marie. She watched
his eyes widen and his lips move in a curse that was too soft for
her to hear. He moved to the side of the boat and immediately began
to try and paddle with his hands. Jocelyn followed his lead. They
were desperately paddling until Jocelyn’s arms were so sore and her
stomach so twisted she feared she would collapse. But no matter
what they did, how they scrambled and rocked their little boat it
got no closer, and in a haze Jocelyn watched as the Marie slowly,
painfully disengaged from the Naval ship. In the illumination the
lightning offered, she could make out dark indistinct shapes
hurrying this way and that on both vessels as they worked to ride
out the storm. It was a good ten minutes before Jocelyn realized
that the longboat wasn’t the only thing moving further away. The
ships were leaving, apparently mutually deciding to turn all their
efforts to a common enemy.

They were leaving, and Jocelyn and
Damon couldn’t get to them. The distance was too far to swim, and
even if Jocelyn could have set up a doggy paddle, even an
experienced swimmer would have a hard time making it in the
storm.

They’d been abandoned and Jocelyn was
suddenly, fiercely, and violently enraged.

She turned on Damon like a
dervish.

“This is all your fault!” She screamed
the words in his face and watched his eyes darken.

“My fault?!” A wave chose that moment
to hit them broadside and Jocelyn screamed as she tried to keep her
seat, her heart in her throat. She found herself on the floor of
the boat, Damon’s body on top of hers as he braced himself above
her.

They were so close now that she didn’t
have to yell, his eyes no more than a centimeter away.

“What do you mean this is my fault? If
I remember correctly, Princess, it was your proud little ass that
decided to become a stowaway. If you hadn’t been on that damn ship
to begin with I wouldn’t have had to protect you and we wouldn’t be
in this mess.”

She trembled under him and not all of
it was caused by anger or cold.

Her lip curled with derision and she
hissed, “I think you have it backwards, Mr. Burleigh. If someone
hadn’t decided to manhandle me in the first place and put me in
this cursed thing I’d be on my way home by now.”

He didn’t bother with an insinuating
‘someone’. He blamed her directly.

“Excuse me for saving your life
darlin’,” The years he’d lived in Georgia were beginning to show
though Jocelyn doubted the genteel endearment was meant to be used
with so much growled warning. “Next time you make another selfish,
pigheaded, and reckless decision I’ll just let you suffer the
consequences.”

“Whose sword was it that cut the rope?”
She growled, and watched his eyes flash an angry silver.

“If I’d known what an ungrateful
hellion you were I would have tossed you in here sooner and cut it
myself.”

“I could be at home by now!”

“You could be dead by now!” His roaring
words challenged the thunder above them. “Make no mistake,
Princess, even if you had still been on board the English would
have still attacked. The storm would still have hit. You wouldn’t
be home right now but in a wooden box awaiting burial. Without me
you’d be dead, at least now you still have a chance. Be grateful
the gods have been smiling down on you, though why they would when
you’ve been so foolish I cannot guess.”