Pirate witch, p.7
Pirate Witch, page 7
part #3 of The Deadwood Series
Several of the other vampires look at him with barely concealed contempt for speaking over Sade, but Pierce just snorts. The corner of the queen’s mouth twitches, but it’s too quick for me to determine if it’s in amusement or distaste.
I reach for my bag, only to find a spear levelled at my throat. Right. No sudden moves.
I flick the pointy thing away from my face and glare at the guard who literally appeared from nowhere with his vampire speed.
“If my Goddess wanted your queen dead, I’d have done it by now and you’d be none the wiser,” I growl, before turning back to the table and Cirio. “I have a letter for you from Val.” I open my satchel and fish out the piece of paper before holding it out like an offering. “He’s explained everything.”
Cirio chuckles, grabbing the letter from me with impatient hands.
“Goddess, his grammar is atrocious,” he bemoans, sinking back into his chair. “See what I have to endure, Pierce? Pirates just don’t comprehend the proper use of the apostrophe.”
His mate just shakes his head, smiling. “That’s not what’s important here, and you know it. Read the damned letter.”
Cirio hums and puts his arm back around the vampire, his thumb rubbing absent circles across the side of his mate’s neck. Despite only having one eye, he seems to read faster than anyone else I’ve ever known. Flicking between the sheets like they’re not full of Val’s cramped scribbles, his brows drawing deeper into a frown with every line.
When he finally looks back up at me, his eyes are more assessing. “You’re mated to the whole crew.”
I nod. “And we desperately need your help.”
He gives his mate a sideways look, waiting until Pierce nods before continuing. “Aye, you really do.” He turns to Sade. “I believe, my queen, we have found ourselves a new ally.”
Sade’s eyes flash and she leans back in her chair, steepling her fingers beneath her chin. “How so?”
“This is the witch who obliterated the Claw and disembogued the sirens from the facility on Fior.”
His mate elbows him. “Plain words, remember?”
Cirio winks back. “She freed the sirens and blew the place to smithereens.”
When he puts it that way, I sound like a one woman wrecking ball. And it seems like Val didn’t even mention what happened to Cirio’s Cove.
“So you’re an enemy of Queen Catherine?” Sade asks. “Even though your men sail the seas at her command?”
“The Moon charged me with her death,” I reply, evenly. “But even if she hadn’t, I want the bitch dead. She’s got my mates trapped in a fae bargain, and she’s working to kill what few witches remain.”
Sade stares at me for a long time, judging me. I don’t look away, and it becomes a game of who will break eye contact first. It isn’t until the rest of the table starts shifting that she nods, looks over my shoulder, and beckons at another guard.
“Tell Amelia it is safe to return.”
Her mate’s eyebrows fly upwards in surprise, but he doesn’t question her.
“Tell us what you know about the bargain that ties your mates to the Eagle,” Sade continues as another, younger vampire runs forward and places maps on the table in front of the vampire queen.
We’ve stumbled into a war meeting, I realise, as the vampire carefully lays out model ships across the surface.
And the surprises don’t stop there. Opal’s voice chimes into my mind a second before she joins me in the garden, followed shortly after by a woman dressed from head to toe in black.
“Fancy seeing you here. By the way, I found a human princess, and she had chicken.”
Chapter Eight
NILSA
Princess Amelia looks thinner than when I last saw her. Her grief has wasted away her frame, exaggerating her harsh bone structure and giving her a haunted look. I’ve only seen her once before, and that was back in Galmere, before my failed attempt to kill the Eagle.
Despite her obvious pain, she’s taken great care with her appearance. Her straw-coloured hair is soft, shiny, and braided back from her face, and her long, black dress is made of fine satin. Around her neck, she’s strung a simple pendant depicting both the moon and the sun, and her wrists are chained together with heavy, silver cuffs in front of her.
“She’s a prisoner?” I ask, eyeing her warily as Opal leaves her side and jumps into her customary place on my shoulders.
Unlike Sade, who oozes power and lethality like sex appeal, Amelia doesn’t look like she could hurt a fly. The cuffs are definitely overkill.
“An escapee,” Amelia corrects, her voice hoarse and whisper thin. “My aunt assumed I was the one who helped you get into the palace. She condemned me to the Claw at the same time as you, and we haven’t managed to find a mage strong enough to remove my cuffs.”
Sade waves the human princess forward with a flick of her hands, and Amelia almost falls into the chair on the vampire queen’s other side.
“Thanks to the Princess, we know about the Mortal Cure.” Sade spits the last words. “And we know that your men are responsible for ferrying the ingredients to the Eagle.”
“Which I told you Valorean would never do voluntarily,” Cirio insists.
“They’ve been trapped by the bargain for years,” I explain. “They have no choice but to obey her.”
“She still has two leviathans, a powerful mage, a legendary fae mercenary, and a vampire gladiator at her disposal.” Sade grimaces.
I blink at the ‘legendary fae mercenary’ comment.
“That’s why she’s come,” Cirio pockets the letter. “According to Val, they’ve found a way to break their bargain.”
“Unheard of,” Sade dismisses.
“No, but it is untested,” I admit. “I have two friends who should be joining us soon. We think they’ve found a way to break the bargain, but it’ll be dangerous. We need to keep them contained while they work the spell.” I take a breath and meet both of their gazes. “That’s where you come in, if you choose to help us.”
“Lass, Val’s family to me,” Cirio says, his expression deadly serious. “You’ve got my help whether you want it or not.”
“The Eagle has ordered them to kill me,” I explain. “So they’ll be coming here as fast as they can. When they get here, we need to find a way to keep all five of them locked up while Elsie and Reva work the spell.”
“What is this spell?” Sade demands. “If it’s so easy to break a bargain, we’d have heard of it by now.”
I shake my head. “It’s not easy. They have to stay near to death for long enough to fool the bargain into thinking they are dead. Elsie is a Solar and Reva is a Lunar; between the two of them, they should be able to hold them on the border between this world and the next. I won’t lie... there’s every chance it won’t work—that they’ll die—but they’ve decided this is what they want.”
I look away, staring at the horizon with dread. “Elsie and Reva are powerful. It will work.” I send out a tiny prayer to the Goddess as I say it. “Once they’re free, they’ll be able to help me kill the Queen.”
“It’s impossible,” Amelia whispers. “She’s too powerful, and she has the Mage High Councillor and the Alchemist on her side just waiting for you to try something. You won’t get close enough to attempt it.”
My eyebrows rise. “Everyone said I wouldn’t make it past the palace wall, as well, and I would’ve succeeded if not for your nephew walking in.”
“A child?” Sade snorts. “You let one child get in the way of ridding the world of that evil bitch?”
I level my best glare at her next. “I don’t traumatise children. My Goddess demands death, not the innocence of babies.”
“Your sense of morality is admirable, but they won’t stay innocent for long in that family,” Cirio mutters. “According to the Princess, the Eagle has a fondness for familicide.”
“Our aunt had our parents—her own brother—murdered,” Amelia admits, but I’m not surprised. Petra told me the same thing. “And there are rumours that she killed her own mother as well. My sister—Annette—and I lived under her thumb for so long, and we drank the cure because we didn’t know any better. How can you believe that a system is corrupt if you’re raised to live on the benefits that same corruption reaps?” She gives a tiny little scoff, picking at the edge of her cuffs. “Our aunt raised us and kept us ignorant of everything. She was so protective, and we always thought it was because she’d lost so much of her family. Now I realise it was just another method of control.”
That’s no excuse, and my lack of sympathy must show on my face because Amelia pales further. “We never knew what went into the cure. It wasn’t until my sister had Ruby and Kyle and our aunt got too insistent about making them drink it that Annette started to ask questions. She was the one who discovered exactly what the Alchemist used to create the potion. When I found out, I threw up. We tried to stop drinking it, but our aunt had her guards force it down our throats.”
At least I know that’s true. I saw as much when I snuck into the palace.
“When Annette said her children would be raised without the cure, our aunt started feeding them the potion against my sister’s wishes. That was the last straw for my twin. When she found out, she burned down the storeroom, destroying nearly all of the ingredients.”
“Explains the scorch marks we found,” Opal says, hopping up onto the table and taking advantage of everyone’s distraction to start playing with the tiny model ships on the table.
“So the Eagle had her killed,” I guess.
“Executed for treason in front of the entire court—” Her voice cracks. “I knew my time was coming. I was locked in my room. I wasn’t allowed to see the children or anyone I knew. My aunt suspected me, and your assassination attempt was the last straw. I was sent to the Claw. Then, when you caused the riot, I barely escaped with my life. Pierce found me trying to run to safety.”
“I don’t know if Val told you, but Cirio robbed my ship on my way to my arranged mating.” Pierce shoots his mate a playful glare. “Needless to say, not turning up for my own wedding was an insult worthy of going to war over. We were in Galmere trying to negotiate a peace with the nest I was supposed to be mating into.” Pierce rolls his eyes. “Unfortunately, they were attacked at the same time that the Claw was destroyed, and our presence was called into suspicion.”
“Wait, you were going to mate into the nest which runs the Pits?” I demand.
“War was coming anyway,” Pierce replies. “We knew mating me into the Galmeri nest would only slow the inevitable.”
“You sound like my mother,” Klaus snorts. “War is horrid, but allowing everything we hold dear to be destroyed in the name of maintaining peace with a monster is even worse.”
“You’re young,” Sade snaps. “All of you have never seen what true conflict looks like. You didn’t live through the wars which erupted when the wraiths came to the surface and the survivors turned on each other in fear. We survived because we stuck to policing our own people and didn’t start unnecessary conflict.”
“And in doing so, you let a human queen chop up and eat pieces of your own people,” I snap. “I’m so fed up with people justifying evil and giving excuses for shoving their heads in the sand when they had the power to do something.”
Cirio holds up a pacifying hand. “We can’t change the past,” he says, looking between us. “Right now, war is inevitable, no matter how long it took us to get to this point. I concur with the witch. We need to free the Deadwood. They’re a huge asset to whichever side they fight on, and we can’t risk Catherine using them against us. Two leviathans would rip through my fleet easily.”
Sade rubs her temples and nods. “Fine. We will help with this ritual. But when they’re free, they fight for us.”
“They fight for themselves,” I growl. “You think they won’t want to take their own pound of flesh from the Eagle after what she’s put them through?”
She waves a dismissive hand. “Hot-headed revenge doesn’t win wars. I have a fleet, but it’s a fraction of the size of Catherine and the mages’. I need numbers and powerful allies.”
“We can discuss what I can bring to the table after my men are free,” I reply evenly. “I have a few tricks up my sleeve that will even the playing field.”
“I’ve already said we’ll free them,” Sade objects.
“And in the same breath, you talked about how you plan to use them. I came here for Cirio’s help, not yours. My mates trust him, not you, and I’m not putting all of my cards on the table until I do.”
She rolls her eyes. “You better not be talking out of your ass,” she mutters.
“She won’t be.” Cirio vouches for me before I can retort. “Val’s not one to hyperbolise. If he says she’s the key to bringing down the Eagle, then she is.”
Val... said that?
I will not glow. I do not need that asshole to validate me. I am a strong, independent woman who can prove my own worth, damnit.
Goddess, I would kill to know what’s in that letter.
“So what do you need?” Cirio asks, turning to me.
I sigh and turn to Klaus. “I need a way to contain all of them long enough to break their bargain. They’re going to have no choice but to follow me here because Nos had a vision of the Eagle ordering them to kill me, and you’ve got the fae dust the Eagle wants.”
Pierce coughs. “Well, actually, we don’t anymore.”
Cirio smirks. “The second the princess informed us of its intended use, I ordered Fitz to jettison the whole lot into the ocean.”
Klaus snorts. “I pity any siren or shifter swimming in that particular current.”
Oh, Goddess. The idea of shifters and sirens swimming into an unexpected fae-dust high and just spacing out for a few hours is hilarious…
Cirio and Pierce both grin. “Aye, hopefully they appreciate the free high.”
“The moment the others are free, we’ll do the same with the scales in their cargo hold,” I promise Klaus. “No matter what, she’s never going to make that awful cure again.”
“So, a cage big and strong enough to keep two shifters, a vampire, a fae, and a bloody powerful mage,” Cirio muses. “Any ideas?”
“With Elsie and Reva here, we’ll be able to enchant metal to make it unbreakable,” I say. “But it will take time.”
“Once they get here, we can lure them into it easily enough,” Sade adds. “All we need is your scent to act as bait, and they’ll run straight for it. We’ll need a strong sample...”
Blood. She means I need to bleed all over a cage in a city full of vampires. I sneak a look at Klaus, and he gives me a nod, reassuring me that he understands and has my back.
“Fine. Let’s get to work.”
Chapter Nine
NILSA
It doesn’t take long for their sails to appear on the dusky horizon. My new hobby of staring at the sea from Sade’s terrace means I spot them at the same time her sentries do. I never thought I’d come to recognise a ship so quickly from such a distance, but I can feel my mates drawing closer. All of my muscles start to unwind the closer they get. My body doesn’t understand that they are the danger now.
They’re too early. It’s the last night of the new moon. Reva and Elsie aren’t here yet. The cage we’ve built is still just earth and metal. There’s no way it will hold them.
Even if we manage to get it enchanted, it will deplete the magic reserves Opal is holding for me.
In the distance, the ships of Cirio’s fleet begin to move, forced aside as something massive—Cas—moves through the water beneath them. Carving a path through the blockade for the Deadwood to sail through.
“Nilsa, we have to go.” Klaus rushes into the room, carrying my broom. “Your friends aren’t going to make it—”
“So little faith,” Reva’s snarky voice cuts through Klaus’s warning.
We both whirl to face her as she lands on the patio behind us. By her side, Elsie topples from her broom and flings her arms around me, hugging me so tightly I can barely breathe.
I eventually hug her back, patting her shoulder awkwardly as I rake my gaze across both of them.
The two of them are exhausted. Their eyes are framed by dark shadows and their hair is windswept and unkempt. They must have flown hard to reach me in time, and my heart clenches with gratitude as I start to try and unwrap the Solar’s arms from around my waist.
“Elsie, we don’t have time for this,” I remind her, gently.
She springs away from me, as if she’s only just remembered that we’re together for an important reason, and I have to suppress the wry grin that threatens to escape.
The Solar is definitely a hugger.
I offer Reva a nod, then freeze as I notice the third person with them.
Cooper Castleman is just as gangly and awkward as I remember him. His ginger hair has grown so long since we last met that he’s pulled it back behind his head in a leather tie, giving the lean lines of his face a sharper look.
“Don’t ask,” Reva grumbles, noticing my stare. “I’ll explain later. We have work to do.”
I glance back at the shifting water of the bay and nod. “This way, quickly.”
The room we’ve converted for our purpose is buried deep underground. It has one door and no natural light. It was one of Sade’s wine cellars, but her vampires cleared out the casks and bottles to make space for a cage in the centre. It’s not the nicest room, but it’s clean and dry, and—once we enchant the place—it will keep my pirates secure until we’ve prepared the ritual to break their bargain.
“Have you got what we need?” Reva asks, drawing a dagger from the sheath at her side.
“Yes.” I grab a handful of finely chopped wormwood and lemongrass from the bowl at the entrance and make for the opposite side of the room. The herbs sting as they come into contact with the still-healing wounds on my hands from an hour ago when I spread my blood in the cage as a lure. “Have you got enough power stored with your familiars?”
