Page 40 of Captive of the Pirate King
“About a month ago.”
“But—I thought the Pirate King was an old man. Gray-bearded, paunchy.”
Cook chuckled. “Don’t know who told ye that, lad, but it’s a pack o’ lies. The Pirate King’s no older than thirty, probably a bit younger, I’ll wager. Youngest man ever to hold so much power over the Shorn Seas and beyond.”
So Locke lied to me about the Pirate King being old and gray. Typical. He probably hasn’t even seen the Pirate King in person. Maybe he pretended he had, just to impress me. I smile as I scour the pot harder.
That evening, as the sun sets in a streaming triumph of gold, scarlet, and purple, the man in the crow’s nest releases a shrill cry. I can’t understand what he says, but the keen excitement in his tone is enough to spur everyone aboard to action.
I’m on the quarter deck, holding the cup of spiced wine Captain Neelan requested. When the lookout shouts, Captain Neelan waves the cup away. “Put that somewhere else, boy, and fetch me my spyglass.”
I wedge the wine cup into a coil of rope and hurry into the navigator’s cabin to fetch the spyglass. When I return, Captain Neelan snatches it from my hand and peers through the eyepiece. “It’s theLady Marcellaall right,” he crows. “We take this ship, and we can return to Ravensbeck with a record-breaking haul. The Pirate King will recognize me as his best captain.” He roars across the decks in his best captain’s tone. “Full speed ahead, lads, and ready the guns! You know what to do!”
I should return below, but I don’t. I hesitate near the Captain, wondering if I dare plead with him for the lives of the innocent merchant sailors aboard that ship.
Captain Neelan pulls away from the spyglass to glance at me. “What is it, lad? Don’t stand there gawking—speak up!”
“I’m sorry, Captain, sir, but I was wondering—you see, I hate to see people killed.”
“You hate to see people killed?” He stares at me. “Of all the paltry, lily-livered cabin boys. Nicholas, I’ve a mind to have you whipped, and no substitute this time, just to put a little steel in those bones.”
I clench my jaw. I have more steel in me than he knows. “It’s only the thought of my sister, you see, Captain, and how we left her adrift when you took theWending Willow. Couldn’t we spare any women that might be aboard?”
Captain Neelan slams the spyglass shut so forcefully that I jump. “Come into my cabin with me, Nick. Dolomon, take over.”
The navigator nods and steps up to the wheel. Neelan snatches the discarded cup of wine, clamps a hand on my shoulder, and steers me along until he and I reach his cabin. He shoves me inside and slams the door, then whirls on me.
I can’t deny that he cuts a beautiful figure, with his sharp cheekbones and angled eyes, his blue-black braids and his peacock-colored coat. He’s not quite as tall as Locke, but still taller than me, and there’s a swaggering elegance to his bearing. His dark eyes trail my body from top to toe.
“You know I used to be like you, Nick.” Captain Neelan sips the wine and sets the cup into a grooved holder on his desk. “I used to be soft and simpering, queasy at the idea of killing someone. It’s a decent quality, placing such a high value on life. I respect it, though I can’t say so before the others. But out here, lad, such a mindset is weakness. It’ll take you straight to a watery grave if I don’t put you there myself first.”
He approaches me, trailing one fingernail along my temple and cheek. “Nick, when I see weakness like yours, all I want to do is stamp it out. To rid my ship of the infestation. And I can do that by killing you, or I can do that by pounding the weakness right out of you. I’ve done it before, with men too soft to survive life in these waters.” He nods to a corner, and when I glance in that direction I see a pair of shackles dangling from the ceiling.
Captain Neelan’s breath ghosts across my mouth. “What I do, Nick, is I chain the weaklings naked in my cabin awhile, and whenever I sense that softness, I attack it. I attack it with whips and candle-flame. Sometimes I have to use more—invasive methods.” He cups his groin, smirking. “Point being, the subject either becomes stronger, or breaks completely.”
I’m barely breathing, snared by his violent eyes and his wine-scented breath, terrified into silence. For a moment I consider biting him, drenching my tongue and teeth in his blood, using those scant seconds of power to control him. But my sway over him would dissipate quickly, and then what? Unless I drank more of his blood, he’d go on with his plan, and he’d have me tossed overboard for using my freaky sorcery on him.
No, I have to deal with this the way a normal human would.
“Now, Nicky boy, don’t look so frightened,” the Captain says. “I don’t have time to teach you a proper lesson right now. Can you be a man and toughen up for what’s coming? Or do I need to chain you naked in the corner until I have more time to deal with you?”
Swallowing, I answer hoarsely, “I can be a man.”
“Good. I was going to have you stay below with Cook and Dez, but now I’m thinking I’ll let you prove yourself. You’ll fight alongside the others.”
“But I don’t have any training,” I say.
Captain Neelan mimics my words in a high-pitched, sneering tone that startles me. “ ‘But I don’t have any training!’Do I look as if I care, Nick?”
“No, sir, Captain sir.”
“You’ll see Locke about a weapon, and you’ll join us in taking theLady Marcella.” Captain Neelan picks up the wine again and drinks, swirling the liquid in his mouth before swallowing. “You know, Nick, in the early days when the Pirate King first came to power, the newer captains under his flag used to kill all the men aboard ship and take the women alive. That’s what was done by crews all over these seas, for generations past. It was the pirate way.”
“They kept the women alive?”
“Not for any noble reason.” Captain Neelan’s leer sours my stomach. “So these captains, they’d arrive in Ravensbeck with the captured women all softened up, used and bruised and bleeding. Sometimes they’d offer the most beautiful or buxom females to the Pirate King as part of their tribute. Well, he wasn’t too fond of that, no he wasn’t. I’ve heard that he executed two entire crews for their treatment of female prisoners. Ever since then, his law has been to leave the women on the ship when it’s scuttled, or toss them in a boat and let the Mother Ocean determine their fate. And his law also dictates that any man who surrenders to us should be offered a place among the crew.”
“Like me,” I murmur.
