Heather Graham - [Camerons Saga - North American Woman 02] (50 page)

“Damme!” the man swore.

“Fool!” Logan raged. “Seize her, take her! She cannot best you all! By God, I thought I had men on this ship!”

She could not best them all, Skye knew that. But she spun away from the pirate who had stopped her plunge into the sea and backed herself to the railing again. The pirates surged toward her, but they were forced to take care. She parried their steel swiftly and desperately, aided by Logan’s next bellowed order.

“I need her alive! Idiots! What good will she be against the Hawk if she lies dead!”

Two of her attackers backed away. Skye eyed them warily, and they watched her like sharks, waiting for her to blink, to drop her guard for a single second.

“Ahoy, Captain Logan!” someone cried. “A ship approaches!”

Logan’s attention was temporarily distracted. “The Hawk!” he called, savoring the words.

“Nay, sir, I think not. Or perhaps it is! ’Tis Blackbeard, sir, I can see him standing toward the bow!”

“Then the Hawk is with him!” Logan said. “I need the girl! Now!”

Skye was already crawling up atop the railing. She screamed when she was caught by the hair and thrown down hard to the deck. She looked up, gasping for breath. It was Logan himself. She still held her sword. She lifted it in a definite threat.

“You want to fight, little girl?” he demanded. “All right, then, we will fight! Toss me my sword, gents! Someone toss me my sword.”

A blade swirled through the air and landed at his feet. Skye feinted toward him as he reached for the weapon, but he was quick, and he was good. He lunged toward her, and it was all that she could do to evade the heavy thrust.

“Milady, have to!” Logan cried. He attacked and she parried, and he attacked again, and she parried once again. His men backed away now as they fought, and she thought that she knew why. Logan didn’t believe that she could really kill him. She was good, very good. But she didn’t have his strength or stamina, and if he kept a fair distance, he would eventually wear her down.

She could not let him do so.

He smiled at her as they fought. “Milady! Your cleavage is showing!”

She smiled in turn, aware that the cloak gaped open, then it spun and flew as she fought. She could not seek modesty now. Logan hoped to unnerve her with that ruse.

“Does it, sir?” she inquired, undaunted. Their swords clashed hard and the momentum brought them together, face-to-face. He reached out as if to touch her with his hook and she cried out, flinging herself away. She leaped toward the mainmast, and kept it to her back. When Logan charged, she quickly sliced the air.

She caught him in the cheek. A thin stream of blood appeared against his flesh. He paused, wiping it away with the back of his sleeve, then staring at the blood that stained his sleeve. His eyes shot back to Skye’s with undimmed hatred.

“Little girl, you play rough. But I will play however you want, and lady, you will wish that you were dead!” He thrust toward her hard and she screamed, ducking. His sword sliced into the masthead, dropping rigging, and Skye screamed again, rushing over to the side of the boat. Blackbeard was coming. He would be there any second.

She could not believe that she was waiting for the infamous Blackbeard to save her, but she was. If he would just arrive while she still held her own, the pirates could all engage in battle, and she would be free.

But her father would not. Where was he? Somewhere
aboard the ship? She prayed that she could help him, but she could hardly help herself.

“Hold her, seize her, take her!” Logan ordered, and suddenly they were all coming after her again.

She held her own. She fought valiantly, and she fought well, and she was certain that no lad could have lasted longer. But the sailors were already upon her. While she parried the one, the next was striking. She was forced further and further along the deck to the stern, and then she parried and turned to leap but found that her way was blocked. Logan was there, and his sword was ready this time. He cast the point hard against her throat.

“Drop the sword,” he ordered her.

“I’d—I’d rather die!” she managed to cry, even though she shivered and quaked with the fear of it. She wanted so desperately to live!

“Fine. Drop the sword, or I will slice you from head to toe. And when I am done, I will drag the old man up here on deck, and while you bleed slowly to death, I will hack him into little pieces before you.”

“And you will never have the Hawk.”

“One day I will have him. It is inevitable.”

“You will never have the treasure.”

“Is there a treasure, my dear?”

“Of course!”

“I think not.”

“There is—”

“Drop the sword.”

“Logan! Captain Logan!”

The call came from the longboats, far below the railing. It was Blackbeard’s voice. The pirate had arrived at last. Too late.

“Drop it!”

Skye did not respond, and Logan surged forward with a fury. He caught her blade with his, and it fell flat to the deck. He wrenched her to him by her hands, hurrying over the fallen rigging to reach the portside of his ship and the new arrivals. “Blackbeard, you common traitor! Get away!” Logan roared.

“Now, Captain Logan, that’s not atall nice, sir, not atall nice! Now I’ve come in good faith—”

“You’ve come for more treasure, you greedy viper, and that’s that. You’d kill me, you’d kill the Hawk, you’d kill your own mother’s every living son or daughter for more treasure!”

“Yer hurtin’ me, Logan, yer hurtin’ me deep!” Blackbeard called out sarcastically.

Slammed against the railing with Logan behind her, Skye could see that longboats were arriving with men by the dozen. Her heart caught in her throat, then suddenly soared. Against the lantern glare and the darkness, she could see Robert Arrowsmith. The Hawk’s own men had arrived. There would be a mighty battle here, indeed.

“Where’s the Hawk?” Logan raged.

“Not with me!” Blackbeard called.

“He’d best be. It’s the Hawk I want. If I don’t get him, I kill the girl, and that’s that. Stay out of it, Blackbeard. This is no business of yours.”

“Now Logan—”

“Shut up!”

In a fury, Logan turned around, thrusting Skye toward one of his burliest men. The man caught her hard, sweeping his arm around her and dragging her across the deck again. He held her against the railing while Logan looked down to Blackbeard. “I want the Hawk. I don’t know what he’s playing but I want him now. Don’t think to storm the ship. Hans has Lady Cameron, and he has a blade at her heart now, and he’ll kill her quicker than you can blink. Get the Hawk before me, and get him now.”

“Now, Logan!”

“I’m done!” Logan thundered. “Man, I am done, and she is nearly dead!”

Nearly dead …

And that she was, Skye thought, for the man with his arms about her was huge, well over six feet, and each of his arms was greater in circumference than her own waist. His arm was clamped around her, holding her tight against him. And as Logan spoke, he drew out his dagger and smiled as he moved
the cold steel between the valley of her breasts. His hold was so tight she could scarcely breathe. He would smother her before he could stab her, she thought. And yet she was afraid. Deathly afraid.

“He’ll come!” someone called out. “Don’t fear, lady, the Hawk will come!”

And then silence reigned. There was nothing, nothing but the night, nothing but the darkness and the eerie glow of the lanterns, and the sound of the water lapping against the ship at night.

“He’ll come!” Logan laughed, casting back his head. “She’ll die!”

His laughter faded, and the silence continued. Logan strode over to her furiously. He plucked up a piece of her golden-russet hair and fingered it slowly. “Pray, lady! Pray now, pray deep, for if I do not soon see his face before me, you will swiftly die!”

He dropped the lock of her hair. He stroked the length of her cheek and he jerked open her cloak, drawing the palm of his hand slowly down to cup her breast. Skye moved to fight him but Hans jerked her back, his hold as secure as rock.

“Blackbeard!” Logan called. “Can you hear me?”

“Aye, Logan!”

“Tell him—tell the Hawk that her hair is satin and her flesh is velvet. Tell him that her breasts are lush and firm and ripe. Tell him that I’m touching her.”

Skye spat at him. He started, and wiped his cheek. He stared at her and smiled and she cried out, for he viciously caught and twisted her breast. “Next time, milady, it will be the hook!” he warned her.

He smiled, and his touch lingered, and she barely dared breathe, nor could she move. Logan tired of staring at her. He strode back across the deck. Silence held the night once more. Silence …

She heard something. It was nothing, she told herself. It was just water lapping against the hull of Logan’s ship. It was nothing, nothing at all.

But then she managed to cast her gaze behind Hans, and
she was glad then that she was so nearly smothered, for she could not gasp out in startled surprise.

He was coming … he
had
come. To save her. The Hawk.

He had crawled up along the hull of the ship, barefoot and bare-chested, his knife between his teeth. He silently leaped over the edge of the starboard hull, landing with the softest thud upon the wooden deck. Hans started to turn, his knife still taut against her breast.

But Hans turned too late. He dropped his hold on Skye to defend himself against the Hawk. Roc attacked quickly, catching the bulky Hans right in the rib cage. Hans didn’t get to say a word. The breath left him with a soft
whooshing
sound, and he crumpled to the deck.

That was when Logan turned.

“Hawk!”

“Aye, ’tis me, Logan! Here, where you have her!” Roc cried. He grabbed Skye, throwing her behind him to the rigging. “Climb!” he ordered her. “Climb high!”

She obeyed him, clinging to the rigging for dear life. She paused, and looked back.

Roc had found the sword Logan had forced her to discard. He held to the rigging, balancing as he fought with speed and fury, knees bent, the whole of him as agile as a dancer. “Come, fellows! You’d fight a mere girl and threaten her life as one, come, take me on, too.”

Steel clashed. He parried forward, he allowed himself to be thrust back, only to surge forward with a whole new force again. Men fell before him. One sailor leaped over the side; Roc caught his midriff with the sword and the fellow screamed as he crashed into the water.

“Come, Logan!” Roc cried out. “It’s you and me, isn’t it? Isn’t that what this melee is about? Come, sir, let us have at it again.”

“Sir!” Logan stormed. “As you wish it! And understand that there will be no mercy for you!”

The sounds of a score of cries, battle cries, suddenly burst through the night as Blackbeard and his men and the Hawk’s crew climbed aboard Logan’s ship, all of them entering into the fray. Skye, climbing high atop the rigging, looked down
and saw the fight. She saw Robert Arrowsmith and Fulton, fighting finely, their swords flashing, bringing about victory. Then she gasped softly, for she saw young Davie, too, and she was stunned.

Roc had taken the innocent lad aboard a pirate ship! she thought, but then her thoughts gave way, and her attention was riveted back to the pirates fighting below her.

Logan and the Hawk.

This was, she knew, a duel, and a duel to the death. Neither man would leave this fray until one of them lay bleeding life away upon the decks.

Pray God that it would be Logan dead, Skye thought!

“You bastard, hold still!” Logan shouted. “Then I may skewer you through!”

“Skewer me? Why, sir, it seems that you cannot touch me!”

Logan bellowed at Roc’s words, leaping forward. Roc caught hold of the rigging and swung clear of the man’s lunge, turning swiftly to renew his own attack.

“She was sweet and wonderful!” Logan taunted, backing away.

“What?” Roc demanded quickly.

“I touched her, I had her, all of her. I held her taut and I let her scream, but I had her, deep and sweet and sure—”

“Lying bastard!” Roc roared, surging forward. It was the advantage Logan wanted. He lifted his sword to crack it down upon Roc’s shoulder with all of his might. Just at the last second, Roc dropped down and back, spinning about, reappearing on the other side of the mainmast.

“I’ll have your ears!” Logan called. “I’ll slice your ears and your toes and your privates, and I’ll stuff them down your own throat, and you’ll choke to death on your own flesh, knave!”

“You’ll have to best me to do it, rogue!” Roc retorted.

Logan looked up suddenly. He smiled, seeing Skye perched high upon the rigging. He suddenly lifted his sword and brought it hacking down hard upon the ropes.

“No!” Roc bellowed.

Skye screamed as the rope sagged and the wood beams could be heard to crack and shiver. She held tight, afraid to climb upward, afraid to climb down.

Someone knocked over a lamp. A fire caught in the forward section.

“So help me, by God, by the very devil! This night will be the end of you, Hawk!” Logan screamed.

“Abandon the bloody ship!” a voice raged out.

Skye’s heart sank. Her father!

“Roc!” she screamed. He paused, his gaze still warily upon Logan as he listened to her. “My father, Roc! He’s aboard! He’ll burn to death aboard this bloody death trap.”

He looked up at her, and smiled slowly. He looked out to the sea, then over to Logan. Logan started to laugh. “Ah, the Hawk is in trouble at last, is he? Save the girl, save the man—or slay me, and save his own hide!”

“Do you mind a bit of a swim, love?” Roc murmured.

She shook her head, frowning, having no idea of what he meant to do. Suddenly he lifted his own sword and hacked with a swift clean blow against the rigging. She couldn’t help but scream and hold tight as the mast seemed to sway and tottered with her and the rigging, then started plunging toward the sea.

She fell … fell and fell and fell, and felt the cold embrace of the water. She plunged downward, downward into darkness at first. There was nothing, nothing but the cold, nothing but the darkness. Her lungs were near bursting. She closed her eyes against the darkness, kicked with all her strength, and went shooting back up to the surface of the water again.