the bilge.
At the bottom of the ladder, I didn’t know what I expected to find. But as I turned and lost my breath, it wasn’t this.
Madwulf was chained to the wall.
Alive.
My heart luffed, turned about, and plowed into a vicious storm. I drew the cutlass from the brace around my hips, my wounded arm trembling beneath the weight of steel, as I growled at the monster before me.
“Easy, Goldilocks.” Ashley stood at my back, close enough to breathe against my ear. “Ipswich didn’t keep him alive for two months for you to strike him down in one swing.” His voice dipped, deliciously dark. “Savor it.”
Madwulf hung from chains, nude, mutilated, and glaring out of pained, bloodshot eyes. His mouth gaped and drooled as he screamed garbled nonsense. No tongue. His ears were gone. As were his fingers, toes, and one entire arm.
The missing extremities had been treated to thwart infection. Ipswich was a master at that. Many men on my crew hobbled around just fine with wooden limbs after Ipswich’s care.
The rest of Madwulf appeared intact. Covered in bruises, old and fresh, his filthy skin crusted with blood. Someone had shaved his head and face, depriving him of that which he cherished.
“All this time…” I heaved through a smothering fog of black memories. “I thought he was dead.”
“We let you think that.” Priest leaned against the far wall and crossed his arms. “We didn’t want his survival to tax or distract you while you worked so hard to heal.”
“You brought me severed feet and other body parts that he clearly still retains.” I rubbed my head, trying to remember. “Did I imagine that?”
“No. Those belonged to the men involved in your torture. Ashley and I collected their souls with the very plank of wood they used upon your body.”
I shivered. Shuddered. Then I smiled. “This is my gift?”
“Aye.” Priest tipped his head at Madwulf. “Show him how utterly fierce you are, my love.”
Ashley circled me, lifting the cutlass from my shaking hand and passing it to Priest.
“Madwulf knows nothing.” He leaned in and cupped my face. “He’s been rotting down here for two months with no answers as to how you outsmarted him. Tell him.” A shadow passed over his expression, threatening, deadly. “Make him feel the pain he inflicted upon you when he destroyed your father’s letter.”
My mind ran amok with bloodthirsty plans, my veins sizzling with the depravity of my thoughts.
From my waist, Ashley removed a dagger and pressed it against my hand. Then he lifted my hat from my head, kissed my lips, and joined Priest, Jobah, and Reynolds along the far wall, settling in to watch.
Oh, where to start?
“Syphilis.” I prowled toward the Highlander, casually paring a fingernail with the knife. When I reached him, I put my face in his, slanting him my most disturbing look from beneath my lashes. “Priest and I have no infections or disease.”
As I told Madwulf about Priest’s reaction to oranges, Jade’s location on Harbour Island, and my bait with the island of the birds, I flayed the flesh from his body, strip by despicable strip. I cut and diced until bones glistened in the lantern light. I removed his nose, carved out his eyes, and relieved him of the shriveled rotten meat between his legs.
I gloried in the flow of blood. It wouldn’t bring back my father’s letter, but I felt vindicated for ridding the earth of an evil that would never again threaten a farmer’s daughter or separate a lady pirate from those she loved.
As he expelled his final breath, I felt purged.
“I didn’t rush it, did I?” I wiped the bloody blade on a rag.
“You’ve been at it for nigh two hours.” Reynolds pushed up from his position on the floor and ambled toward the ladder. “I think I’ll go vomit now.”
“In my homeland,” Jobah said, “we lashed our enemies to poles and held them over a fire, just above the lick of the flames, cooking them alive from the inside out for days.” He grinned, all teeth and savage loyalty.
“I believe Jobah just volunteered to clean up the gore.” Priest clapped the helmsman on the shoulder, chuckling.
In the end, we all carried out Madwulf’s remains. The gift, as it was, was fed to the gulls and cold-blooded vertebrates that lived in the bay.
That night, I slept peacefully in the arms of a pirate and pirate hunter. But when I woke, it was still dark, and the arms were gone.
I raised my head, listening to the hushed