His feet slowed, his gaze fixed in the direction of the sea. “He’s not who you think he is.”
“What do you mean?” I glanced at the oranges he held, my throat tightening with suspicion. “Why are you mentioning him now?”
His head turned slightly, his face averted and suddenly pale. Then he went chillingly still. Distracted.
My nerves turned inside out.
“Do you see that?” Eyes wide, he stared off in the distance at something I couldn’t see.
“No, what are—?”
He clapped a hand over my mouth, and the oranges tumbled to the ground. With a hard look in my direction, he held a finger against his lips. My bones fused at the joints with fear.
Moving slowly, soundlessly, he crept away, angling his neck to see through the trees. Whatever alarmed him contracted his muscles, straining every sinew and tendon in his bare back.
Pulse racing, I leaned forward and squinted through the foliage. And gasped.
Was that a ship? The hazy silhouette of rigging and masts looked so far away, but not inconceivable if the shore lay beyond those trees.
The ground cover stirred behind me. The crunch of leaves, the snap of a twig… Footsteps.
Ashley spun toward me as I twisted to look back.
A fist cracked across my face, jarring my vision and hurling me to my knees. I thought I might pass out until Ashley’s enraged roar shattered my stunned fog.
I snapped my head up as two shaggy white men attacked him. They held his arms and neck, attempting to restrain his body. But he broke free and rushed forward, his expression seething with unleashed violence.
Halfway to me, the men leaped onto his back. He dragged them several more steps, his teeth bared and eyes locked on mine.
“Ashley!” I grabbed a heavy branch to use as a weapon and tried to stand. But my legs failed me, my entire body pulling downward if I were submerged in mud. My head didn’t feel right, and it messed with my coordination.
A few feet away, Ashley swung his fists and elbows, knocking off the men only to be attacked and overpowered again. They wrestled him to the ground, and his gaze stayed with me, his fight driven by one single purpose. I saw it in his eyes. His determination to protect me.
Then his attention jumped to something over my shoulder. His expression warped, transforming from a man into a savage animal as he bellowed and wrestled, attempting to crawl forward.
In a flash of steel, a blade caught me under the chin. My stomach plunged.
“I’ll take her head.” The unfamiliar English accent came from behind me, deeply male and decisively triumphant. “Move a single muscle and she dies.”
Ashley’s face went ghost white, his fingers digging into the dirt. Lying on his chest on the ground with two roguish brutes on his back, he had no choice but capitulate.
My lungs panted as I strained my range of sight to the side. In my periphery was the solid cupped hilt of a cutlass, held fast by a calloused seafarer’s hand.
Pirate.
As the blade pressed against my throat, I knew I’d lost my freedom the very day I’d gained it.
“State your purpose, pirate.” My voice splintered, and I coughed, fighting dizziness. “Who are you?”
“You don’t remember us?” The bearded bastard holding Ashley threw back his head and laughed. “I look forward to reminding you.”
Ashley stared at them, his eyes shining with recognition and horror. Then his entire demeanor hardened with raw, bone-chilling rage.
“The ship…” Without moving my neck, I flicked my gaze toward the shore, shaking with fresh outrage. “It’s HMS Blitz, isn’t it?”
“She’s Blitz, all right. But no longer His Majesty’s Ship.” The man with the cutlass gave me a nudge in the back. “On your feet. The captain’s not going to believe his eyes when he sees you.”
Captain Madwulf MacNally.
Nausea rose, roiling with dread.
I didn’t look at Ashley as I stumbled to stand. I couldn’t bear to see the misery, fury, grief—whatever must have been twisting his expression.
My captor held me up and helped me walk, for my head weighed too heavily on my shoulders. They used sashes and leather straps from their waists to bind our hands at our backs. Ashley was kept behind me, both of us escorted with pistols and blades. Weapons they’d pilfered from the armory on Ashley’s ship.
The march through the wilderness passed in a blurry fog. At some point, I emptied my stomach, losing every bite of orange I’d ingested. Consciousness floated away, pulling, but I hung onto it by a thread.