Dropping to his knees and grabbing for the wall behind him, clutching the thick root from the tree on the next level of the cliffs that he spotted from the corner of his eye, Darrick only just prevented his own plunge over the cliff’s side. He gazed down, hypnotized by the suddenness of the event.
Orphik missed the river’s depths, though. The little pirate plunged headfirst into the shallows and struck the rocky bottom. The sickening crunch of his skull bursting echoed up the cliff.
“Darrick!” Mat called up.
Realizing the precariousness of his position, Darrick turned toward the other pirate, thinking the man might already be on top of him. Instead, Lon had headed away, back up the ledge that led to the passable areas on the mountains. He covered ground in long-legged strides that slammed and echoed against the stone.
“He’s makin’ for the signal fire,” Mat warned. “If he gets to it, those pirates will be all over us. The life of the king’s nephew will be forfeit. Maybe our own as well.”
Cursing, Darrick shoved himself up. He started to run, then remembered the rope tied around his loins. Thrusting his knife between his teeth, he untied the knots with his nimble fingers. He spun and threw the rope around the tree root with a trained sailor’s skill and calm in the face of a sudden squall, gazing up the rocky ledge after the running pirate. How far away is the signal fire?
When he had the rope secure, giving Lon only three more strides on his lead, Darrick yanked on the rope, testing it. Satisfied, he called down, “Rope’s belayed,” then hurled himself after the fleeing pirate.
“Get up and get dressed,” Captain Raithen ordered without looking at the woman who lay beside him.
Not saying a word, having learned from past mistakes that she wasn’t supposed to talk, the woman got up naked from the bed and crossed the room to the clothing she’d left on a chest.
Although he felt nothing for the woman, in fact even despised her for revealing to him again the weakness he had in controlling his own lusts, Raithen watched her as she dressed. He was covered in sweat, his and hers, because the room was kept too hot from the roaring blaze in the fireplace. Only a few habitable houses and buildings remained in Tauruk’s Port. This inn was one of those. The pirates had moved into it, storing food and gear and the merchandise they’d taken from the ships they’d sunk.
The woman was young, and even the hard living among the pirates hadn’t done much to destroy the slender lines and smooth muscles of her body. Half-healed cuts showed across the backs of her thighs, lingering evidence of the last time Raithen had disciplined her with a horsewhip.
Even now, as she dressed with methodical deliberation, she used her body to show him the control she still felt she had over him. He hungered for her even though he didn’t care about her, and she knew it.
Her actions frustrated Raithen. Yet he hadn’t had her killed out of hand. Nor had he allowed the other pirates to have at her, keeping her instead for his own private needs. If she were dead, none of the other women they’d taken from ships they raided would satisfy him.
“Do you think you’re still so proud in spirit, woman?” Raithen demanded.
“No.”
“You trying to rub my nose in something here, then?”
“No.” Her answer remained calm and quiet.
Her visible lack of emotion pushed at the boundaries of the tentative control Raithen had over his anger. His bruised neck still filled his head with blinding pain, and the humiliation he’d received at Cholik’s hands wouldn’t leave him.
He thought again of the way the old priest had suspended him over the long drop from the rooms he kept in the city ruins, proving that he wasn’t the old, doddering fool Raithen had believed him to be. The pirate captain reached for the long-necked bottle of wine on the small stand by the bed. Gold and silver weren’t the only things he and his crew had taken from the ships they’d raided.
Taking the cork from the bottle, Raithen took a long pull of the dark red wine inside. It burned the back of his throat and damn near made him choke, but he kept it down. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and glanced at the woman.
She stood in a simple shift by the trunk, no shoes on her feet. After the beating he’d given her the first time, she wouldn’t dream of leaving without his permission. Nor would she ask for it.
Raithen put the cork back into the wine bottle. “I’ve never asked you your name, woman.”
Her chin came up a little at that, and for a moment her eyes darted to his, then flicked away. “Do you want to know my name?”
Raithen grinned. “If I want you to have a name, I’ll give you one.”
Cheeks flaming in sudden anger and embarrassment, the woman almost lost control. She forced herself to swallow. The pulse at the hollow of her throat thundered.
Grabbing the blanket that covered him, Raithen wiped his face and pushed himself from the bed. He’d hoped to drink enough to sleep, but that hadn’t happened.
“Were you an important person in Westmarch, woman?” Raithen pulled his breeches on. He’d left his sword and knife within easy reach out of habit, but the woman had never looked too long at either of them. She’d known they were a temptation she could ill afford.
“I’m not from Westmarch,” the woman answered.
Raithen pulled on his blouse. He had other clothing back on his ship, and a hot bath as well because the cabin boy would know better than to let the water grow cold. “Where, then?”
“Aranoch.”
“Lut Gholein? I thought I’d detected an accent in your words.”
“North of Lut Gholein. My father did business with the merchants of Lut Gholein.”
“What kind of business?”
“He was a glassblower. He produced some of the finest glassware ever made.” Her voice broke a little.
Raithen gazed at her with cold dispassion, knowing he understood where the emotion came from. Once he’d found it, he couldn’t resist turning the knife. “Where is your father now?”
Her lips trembled. “Your pirates killed him. Without mercy.”
“He was probably resisting them. They don’t much care for that because I won’t let them.” Raithen raked his disheveled hair with his fingers.
“My father was an old man,” the woman declared. “He couldn’t have put up a fight against anyone. He was a kind and gentle soul, and he should not have been murdered.”
“Murdered?” Raithen threw the word back at her. In two quick steps, he took away the distance that separated them. “We’re pirates, woman, not bloody murderers, and I’ll have you speak of that trade with a civil tongue.”
She wouldn’t look at him. Her eyes wept fearful tears, and they tracked down her bruised face.
Tracing the back of his hand against her cheek, Raithen leaned in and whispered in her ear. “You’ll speak of me, too, with a civil tongue, or I’ll have that tongue cut from your pretty head and let my seadogs have at you.”
Her head snapped toward him. Her eyes flashed, reflecting the blaze in the fireplace.
Raithen waited, wondering if she would speak. He taunted her further. “Did your father die well? I can’t remember.