Page 14 of Hooking Captain Teeth

A net falls over me, tangling in my tentacles. A second net crisscrosses over the first. I unsheathe my knife and saw at the ropes of the first net. Why didn’t I take my knife to be sharpened two weeks ago when I was last human? The dull blade wastes valuable seconds gliding over the strands instead of cutting through them. I give up on cutting my way out.

I lean toward the deep. My tentacles dig into the sand as far out as I can reach. They bend to drag my body…and the bodies on the other end of the ropes…into the ocean. Curses and whistles beckon me to stare down my attackers, but I must focus on returning to the ocean. If I stop pulling with all my might for even a second, they will yank the closing cords on the nets and drag my tentacles from the sand. I’ll seal my doom. Pull.Pull.

“Gotcha now,” says a masculine voice. Two black, beady eyes lock with mine before a sharp-smelling rag is forced over my nose and mouth.

“Gills, you bastard,” I shout from behind the rag. As long as my gills are submerged, I can bring rich seawater through my vocal cords to speak. Each exhale soaks the rag and dilutes the foul liquid on it. “You can’t poison me this way.”

“Only I’m not alone,” he says with an evil laugh. A group of men gather around me, holding the ropes to the net. They dislodge my tentacles from the sand. I struggle, but each man wrestles a tentacle. There are too many of them. They lift my body from the water. I hold my breath as I twist and writhe to escape their punishing grip.

After minutes, I’m forced to inhale, and everything goes black.

8

Captain Teeth

“Ahoy! It’s Cap’n Teeth!” Eze shouts from the second-story window of Maude’s Tavern as I approach.

Rochelle, Cami, and Esmerelda stick their heads out the window to whistle and call me. Yesterday, I’d have welcomed their attention to lift my spirits. Today, I’m bound to a Kraken—a Kraken who would crack my nutmegs with her tentacles if she found me between their legs. I reach for my hat to wave to the youngster and his purchased bedfellows, only to come away empty-handed. Some lucky sod in Davy Jones’s locker has a new, feather-lined hat.

“I knew the sea would spit you out eventually,” Chub says from the doorway. The half doors of the tavern are eye-level with me hearty, but the way he fills the threshold says volumes about his strength. His arm wraps around Catalina’s hips, bunching her silk-spun dress up her thighs. She’s as scantily dressed as the doxies but by choice instead of profession. She could be collecting gold for her lacy frocks but chooses to weave ropes for us.

“I was too much for the old girl,” I reply with a wink.

“More like the sea didn’t like the taste of whatever grows in your leathers,” he retorts with a loud guffaw.

“She didn’t complain,” I say with a smug smile that has me hearty pausing. I take his bacon face between my palms and stare into his blue eyes. “I met her Chub. When I fell into the drink last night, I met my lady love.”

“I wondered what happened to you. A captain never leaves his ship, especially a quality man like yourself. You scared me, matey.”

“You scared all of us,” Catalina adds. She takes my hand in both of hers and leads me to the first long table.

Greenhorn scrambles to vacate the end of the bench until I lean on his shoulder to stay. Plopping down beside him, I sample the drink Catalina thrusts into my hand. The table digs into my back as I lean my elbows on it, but the pain is good. It reminds me I’m alive and awake—Sabs’s rescue wasn’t a dream. Chub climbs onto the bench on my other side and pulls Catalina onto his thigh. Her tiny feet kick myknees as she swings her legs over Chub’s lap. Just wait until Chub is hit by Sabs’s tentacles when I cuddle her!

“So, your drunk arse fell into the drink,” Chub starts with a wry smile twisting his lips.

“I would have drowned if not for Sabs—Sabrina. My lady love’s name is Sabrina,” I blurt out, the excitement in my heart pouring into the room. “She’s everything I hoped for and more.

“She a mermaid? Or a siren?” Greenhorn asks, barely containing his laughter. Yeah, when I was a whippersnapper, I would have laughed at my current state, too. There was a time when yoking myself to one woman was my worst nightmare.

“Worse,” I sneer. He cowers as he remembers I’m not just his hearty at a bar; I’m his captain who has the right to maroon his arse on this island if I see fit. If he wants a spot onPatricia’s Wishwhen we leave port, he shouldn’t cross me. “She’s a Kraken most days. She says she’s human on the full moon. That’s how I met her before—we rode the St. George one night under this very roof.”

“A Kraken bussie, I’ll be damned,” Chub says, saluting me with his tankard of rum.

“Sharp-tongued and strong as an ox, too. She dragged me to the beach in last night’s storm—cursingand bitching at me the whole way. I’ve never met such a fiery temper in a woman—"

“You best not be talking about one of my girls, Teeth. I won’t have you blaming your itchy sugarstick on my working girls when we both know you could have caught the Bube anywhere in the Caribbean!” Maude’s tired dress with the faded toucan has seen better days. Her hair still reaches the sky, but half the curls wrapped in the bandana are grey.

The ruby lips that have scolded me since I first docked on Trinidad with Ol’Blackbeard have thinned to a slash across her stern face. I remember how her eyes would twinkle with the potential earnings from stupid, young bucks like me jumping from the ratlines and into her whore’s straw beds. Now, I’m the Crusty Captain who watches my crew ascend her stairs with memories flashing before my eyes. At one point, I climbed those stairs with Sabrina—too stupid to realize what I had in my hands.

Never again.

“Do you remember a redhead named Sabrina?”

“Oh, that girl,” Maude says with a roll of her coal-rimmed eyes. “She’s as scandalous as you. You’d be best to keep away from that troublemaker! She only comes around on the full moon like some bat out of hell and stirs up the men into a frenzy.”

“How so?” Catalina asks with eyes wide withconcern.

“Sometimes she beds the whole bar—two or three at a time. Other times, she won’t touch a soul and sleeps alone upstairs. Men love a fickle woman because the chase is half the fun.”

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