Page 1 of Stealing the Merman

Chapter One

Darin

The Bahamas, 1724

The first time Darin was kidnapped by a merman, it made his day. Of course, things didn’t start that well.

The heat in the pirate ship’s navigation room was stifling. Darin had taken off the long, embroidered waistcoat he’d stolen from a nobleman during the pillage of a merchant ship last year. Frequent use had turned the garment ratty, and now it hung sad, gray and droopy over the backrest of a heavy mahogany chair.

Darin was still hot, so he stripped off his white undershirt. Sweat ran down his torso, where the Caribbean sun had darkened his pale and freckled skin to a tan. He wiped his face with the shirt and tucked it into his waistband.

Why Captain Conall MacGeorge had ordered him to clean and dust the navigation room, he didn’t know. Or why he’d asked him to do it in the late afternoon, when the unforgiving sun scorched the deck and turned the rooms directly underneath into an oven. But Darin hadn’t objected. Nobody challenged someone as intimidating as Conall.

With a sigh, he picked up the cleaning cloth and worked himself into an even greater sweat as he wiped every surface in the room. Golden light fell through the paneled windows of the ship’s stern, illuminating the room’s wooden interior and heating it further. The humidity pasted Darin’s fringe to his forehead, and the wooden pendant hanging from his neck on a strap of leather stuck to his chest.

Darin Hardy, born May 25th, 1702, the clumsy inscription read. His mother had given it to him as a distinguishing token when he was placed into a London orphanage hours before her death. Not that he remembered—he was two weeks old when they hanged her for petty crime. The oval-shaped token was the only thing he had left of his mother, and if there were any other living relatives, he hadn’t been able to find them.

All Darin had ever wanted was a home. A family. People he belonged to. Because even working on a crowded pirate ship, he was on his own with no one to turn to. Most of the crew were rough men many years older than him. He was utterly alone.

Love, too, had evaded him. He held no interest in girls, meaning that starting a family of his own was out of the question, and the intimate encounters with men he’d experienced in his young life had been superficial.

He’d never had a warm, loving home. The cold hand of the orphanage had brought him up with an iron fist, but as an adult, he benefited from the employable skills it’d taught him. Being able to read, write and do math, he landed work on a ship, and soon after, he bid rainy London farewell and sailed for the sunny Bahamas. If the empire had known he was going to raid their ships, they would’ve hanged him before he left the city.

Now he was a pirate ship’s third mate… and cabin boy. And the latter was weird.

The door creaked, and Darin looked up from where he was dusting the cabinets—and froze. Captain Conall MacGeorge had entered the room. Darin’s heartbeat took off like a stallion bursting into a gallop.

Blue eyes that cut right into Darin’s soul. Six and a half feet of densely packed muscle. Conall’s powerful physique was barely contained by the straining cotton hugging his chest and the breeches stretching over his thick legs and other parts Darin didn’t dare look at.

His hair hung down to his shoulders in a wavy, golden-brown mane. Darin recalled a painting of the Lion of Saint Mark in the church across from the orphanage. He’d marveled at it on Sundays when the matrons had dragged him to Mass. The lion’s mane, blown out by the imaginary wind streaming through the picture, held a majestic and frightening quality. So did the captain’s.

A full stubble lined Conall’s jaw, and the muscles in his face bulged as he grit his teeth, looking Darin up and down as if he disdained every inch of him. Was something wrong with the way he dressed? Only then did Darin remember he’d taken off his shirt and was standing half-naked before his captain. He flushed.

Behind Conall, the ship’s navigator crept into the room. Thin like a stick, he was half the captain’s size and a third of his weight. Darin gulped as he glanced between them. Conall was a giant next to the weedy old man.

“Darin.” Conall’s deep voice rumbled through the room, and he stepped closer. His expression was unreadable.

Darin’s trembling hand nearly dropped the cleaning cloth. “I… I’ll leave, sir,” he stammered.

“Stay,” Conall ordered, pulled out a chair and sat, spreading his legs wider than necessary. He appraised Darin over the table between them, oblivious to the navigator unfurling an old map in front of him, its torn ends rolling in on themselves. “Keep cleaning.” Every word was laced with his rough Scottish accent. A hint of a smirk curved one corner of the captain’s lips upward.

Conall was a prick. He also had the stature of a god, bold and imposing. He was dangerous. That didn’t mean Darin couldn’t dislike him from afar.

And—Darin hated admitting it—Conall was a fucking gorgeous bastard. All that muscle, the glorious long hair, those stunning blue eyes. God, if he weren’t so despicable, Darin would be on his knees in front of him.

Darin turned, and as he bent to wipe the oak chest, he felt Conall’s gaze on him. The navigator droned on about the best route from Mayaguana Island to Great Abaco and where he suspected merchant ships, but Conall’s non-committal sounds said he wasn’t listening.

Darin almost hadn’t accepted to work aboardThe Pillaging Seas. He’d work as third mate, sure. It was the same position he’d held on other pirate ships. But as a cabin boy? It meant catering to the captain’s every whim, and it was a junior position reserved for boys sixteen and under. Nobody hired a twenty-one-year-old like Darin as a cabin boy. Not unless he was expected to serve the captain ineveryway. Then, of course, a young man of age was the perfect choice.

The word “no” had been on Darin’s lips when a recruiting quartermaster asked him at the docks of an outlaw haven if he wanted to work as third mate and a cabin boy. Then Darin spotted Conall disembarking the ship, his feathered hat identifying him as the captain. One look at him and Darin confirmed that, yes, he’d very much like to accept the position.

But that was before Darin knew what a brooding son of a bitch the captain was. To Darin’s confusion, Conall had never required hisservices. He’d given him long looks, walked closer to him than necessary in the hallways and asked Darin to bring him food, maps and all sorts of things to his cabin, but he hadn’t invited Darin for the night.

Did he find him not to his tastes? The silent rejection made Darin feel relieved, hurt, disappointed and angry all at once.

And yet… here he was, half-naked and covered in glistening sweat, cleaning the navigation room while Conall was holding a meeting. There was no reason for the captain to order him here and have him scrub the place at the hottest time of day. Well, that wasn’t true. There were two possible explanations. Either Conall hated his guts more than Darin had thought possible and liked to watch him suffer, or he liked to watch him, period.

Bloody hell. Darin needed a stiff drink.

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