The Red Drifter of the Sea (Pirates of the Isles #3) - Celeste Barclay Page 0,77

it’s an erotic pleasure in the Orient. Maybe it doesn’t fit. All my others would be far too large though.” Tomas and Snake Eye chortled. “Not enjoying yourself? Maybe you can imagine how Moira would have despised you if you’d forced her to make your tiny cock try to work.”

“You made your point,” Dermot whined. “Enough. I’ll talk.”

“Then speak,” Kyle said with another shrug.

“Take it off,” Dermot begged.

“I didn’t say slow down,” Kyle corrected. “Let me hear what you have to say. Then I’ll decide whether it’s worth my mercy.”

Sweat poured off Dermot’s brow as his hand continued to move back and forth. His entire body trembled as he wheezed with each stroke. When Kyle raised his dirk again, Dermot coughed and nodded.

“She was in the cave I searched, but I didn’t find her. The woman is a selkie. She swam through a narrow tunnel that connects the cave to the cove. I don’t know anyone who could do that. But the bitch did.” He reared back as Kyle’s blade slashed his belly again. “I watched her come out of the water and climb the path. She smacked right into me. I let her run, thinking my men weren’t so worthless. She made it into Arklow and hid with a farmer’s family. That bastard Dónal promised me a demure wife who would cause me no trouble. She’s been no end of trouble.”

Kyle waited as Dermot gasped for air between groans of pain. Kyle thought how the right size ring, coupled with Moira’s touch, would have Kyle groaning in ecstasy for hours. But he wouldn’t be able to enjoy anything with Moira if he didn’t find her. His patience growing short, he brandished his knife before Dermot’s face once again. He’d never had respect for Dermot O’Malley, but his disgust grew as Dermot conceded to his demands without trying to fight back. Kyle saw the coward he’d always known Dermot to be.

“She escaped. Ran from the farmer’s cottage and stole my horse. Couldn’t follow her since we don’t—didn’t—have any besides mine.”

“Where’d she go?”

“Farmer said she wanted to go to Wicklow. Something about finding her twin brothers. Brothers,” Dermot cackled, then coughed. He cast Kyle a smarmy grin. “Fucking her own brother.”

“And now you’re not useful anymore,” Kyle said with a nod toward his men. Tomas cut down Dermot’s other arm. He and Snake Eye pulled up Dermot’s doublet. “I shall need my toys back.”

Before Dermot understood what was about to happen, Kyle sliced his blade downward, dismembering Dermot. The O’Malley’s knees crumpled, but Snake Eye and Tomas kept him on his feet. Blood gushed from his groin. With a lip curled in disgust, Kyle picked up the severed appendage and removed the ring. “Open wide.”

Dermot’s eyes bulged, but he complied. Kyle removed the plug, dropping it and the ring into a pouch, before his men dragged Dermot onto the deck. The man’s eyes rolled back in his head, but the plank a sailor gave Kyle brought him round when it slammed into his arse. Wrists bound, the plank tucked under his arms, Snake Eye and Tomas hefted him onto the rail. Kyle gave him a shove.

The crew of the Lady Charity watched as Dermot crashed into the water. A whistle from Kyle signaled the crew of the Lady Grace to watch the inevitable spectacle. Dermot’s head popped out of the water, blood coloring the water before him. Kyle counted down from ten, and as if on his cue, Dermot was pulled beneath the surface. Shark fins circled and dipped beneath the surface until both ships’ crew were certain there was nothing left to watch.

The Lady Charity and the Lady Grace had been underway since the crews returned to the ships. Kyle looked to the eastern horizon where the sun was already rising. He would be in Wicklow in four hours, and he intended to have Moira in his arms in less than five.

Twenty-Four

Moira rubbed her eyes, trying to focus her blurry vision. Between the saltwater and being overly fatigued, she struggled to see. Trying to maneuver a galloping, then cantering, horse without her full sight was proving dangerous. The horse had enough sense to avoid tree trunks, but she nearly decapitated herself with a low-hanging branch. After what Moira approximated to be two hours of riding, there was no hint of dawn over the eastern horizon. She and the horse were winded, and the route grew more and more precarious. She feared getting lost in a forest as much as catapulting