12

Captain Teeth

“Lift off the lid, or my next shot will blow your nutmegs into pudding,” I whisper to the idiots guarding Sabrina’s tank.

Between her sister’s drama and the late arrival of me hearties up the tent’s rigging, this has taken far too long. The whistles of the local authorities sing along the streets. That’s what I get for allowing the children to go free—and the mothers to whose skirts they clung. One of those buggers went to the lobster soldiers and local devils on patrol. If we don’t wish to find ourselves in hempen necklaces while hanging from the Sheriff’s picture frame, we must get aboard and weigh anchor.

“Not so fast,” says a slimy little man over my shoulder. The confidence in his eyes flares when his security stooge holds a knife to my Adam’s apple. “This is my show, and these animals are my property.”

“Animals?” Bettina’s sputter of rage comes out faster than my mind can go. “This human woman is an animal?”

I step aside so the larger man can see Sabs lying in her tank. She’s an excellent actress. I almost believe she’s conked out. Blimey, she lives in the ocean. Certainly, she breathes underwater? Perhaps she looks dead because she breathes like a shark and her mouth is closed…sharks hold their mouths open.

“My Kraken!” The little man’s shouts rush my blood, pulsing at my temples.

She’s mine .

I unsheathe my dagger and press it to his bulbous belly. “My lady love needs air. Now call off your man and open her tank, or I’ll gut you like a fish.”

“You wouldn’t! My security will have your head,” he shouts, raining spittle down the bottom half of my shirt.

“Catalina,” I yell. Silky threads wrap around the security guard’s neck and wrist.

“What’s this?” He yells as his dagger falls through his fingers. His opposite hand claws the tether. From across the room, Catalina weaves a lattice between his neck and wrist. If he yanks his wrist hard enough, he may strangle himself. Avast ye! I love what Chub and Catalina have devised to protect her in a fight.

“This is your exit or your last stand,” I say with my namesake smile. “Your choice.”

Yellow-bellied, giant landlubber steps backward.

“You can’t leave me,” the shorter man blubbers. “We have a contract.”

“Not enforceable by colonial law. I know the generals,” the guard says as he turns on his heel. He stomps to the perimeter with his wrist hanging from his neck. He grabs himself in a hand necklace to save face, but me hearties laugh as he passes. I nod to the ratline climber holding the perimeter to allow him to disappear into the night.

“Tank’s open,” stammers one of the tank’s attendants.

Sabrina doesn’t stir with the jostling of the water. My heart races. I knock on the glass. Her hair waves around her hips, but otherwise, she’s still as a marble statue. Panic, bile, and my last sip of rum surge up my throat.

“No!” I yell, kicking my leg over the side of the tank.

The wooden frame creaks and groans as I hoist my body over the lip. My right boot absorbs the putrid water. Bracing each knee against the ledge, I rip off my holster and leather duster. Hat be damned, but a water-logged pistol is useless to anyone. Before my items hit the floor, my upper half dives into the murky water. I gather my lady love in my arms.

So light and delicate in her human form…did her ribs always stick out like this? They didn’t the last time I held her Kraken body. I memorized every inch of her. Pressing her chest to chest, I feel every knob and ridge of her skeleton. I doubt she’s eaten much in the last few weeks while I scoured the seas for her. My hand cradles her head to my shoulder, wishing her breath teased my neck.

I topple over the side, landing on my dry left boot. Bettina shoves the show’s master backward so I have space to lay Sabs flat on her back. I press her belly up and under her ribs in an old waterlogging remedy. Half me hearties owe their life to this maneuver, for all greenhorns seem to struggle with staying on the boat. If only it would save Sabs. She gurgles with each thrust, so I turn her head to the side. Her sister removes a pin from her hair to pick the locks on the weights holding her wrists and ankles.

“Come on, love,” I whisper as water dribbles from the corner of her mouth. “Come back to sass me. Nobody will keep me in line if my last memory of you turns me into a monster.”

“She’s dead,” shouts the show’s owner. “You owe me her worth…and the tent…and what I paid thos e worthless patrolmen. I’ll see you hanged for this!”

“No, you won’t,” I say, whipping my pistol from where it lies in its holster on the ground beside me. The hole in his forehead smokes as his eyes roll toward it. I raise my elbow to catch him before he can fall onto Sabs. Bettina removes the last weight but can’t seem to remove the collar. There’s a locking mechanism in the ring instead of a lock hanging off of it. We need the specific tool they used to fasten the collar around Sabs’s neck…or Chub’s machete.

“There’s no time,” I whisper to her. My crew must weigh anchor before the mele in the streets breaches our perimeter. “Back to the ship! Back to the ship!”

I throw Sabs over my shoulder—hopefully, the position will continue to drain her as we run to safety. Chub and Catalina lead us with sword points forward. We’re flanked by former captives and my pirates as we scuttle toward the docks. My focus is straight ahead. Patricia’s Wish sits at the end of the dock. Her sails unfurl as her anchor rises from the deep. Greenhorn stands by the railing’s edge with the gangplank resting on his shoulder.

With one arm wrapped around my lady’s naked arse and my other brandishing my sword, I engage with soldiers wearing more finery than I thought existed. Where did these rich mollies come from? If it isn’t their brass-handled swords that fail, it’s the hands I slice off with my heavy, iron sword. Best item I’ve ever stolen! We drip water from the show’s former tent to the harbor. The moans of my lady love as she recovers harden my sugarstick and hobble my gait to our boat.

Blimey, now is not the time! Why is it that every time I hold this wench, I feel the need to ink my quill in her? I thought she was dead a few minutes ago. There’s something to this soulbond she’s not telling me. I’m a bastard who knows every brothel’s madam in the Caribbean on a first-name basis, but fighting my way off an island with my cock half-mast is a new development.

There’s something about my magnificent lady love.

“Let them all aboard unless they’re firing at you,” I shout at Greenhorn as I leap onto the boat. The momentum slams Sabrina’s belly onto my shoulder. She shites through her teeth down my back. Avast ye, not even her flashing the hash on me cools my passion.

“Aye, aye,” he replies as he drops the gangplank. He grunts when Chub throws Catalina into his arms. The pair stumble backward but maintain their footing .

“Chub, get us on open water,” I yell over my clean shoulder.

“Aye, aye, Captain,” he yells as he runs by me to the helm.

“You’re alive if you can paint my back with your innards,” I say as we cross the deck to the captain’s quarters. I kick the double doors open and help them close behind us. They muffle the chaos on deck to a dull roar.

“Sorry” is music to my ears. I flip her onto her back hard enough she bounces off the sheets. I take her jaw in my hands and claim her mouth as my own. My open-mouthed kisses migrate down her body as my greedy hands check for injuries. She’s thin, with knots in her arm muscles where they must have yanked her around. Her skin chafes under the metal collar she still wears.

“Stop, I taste gross,” she whines in a breathless tone that sets me ablaze.

“All right, Sabs—” I pause and sit up because the beaming smile she gives me when I call her by her nickname takes my breath away “—you win this time. If death can’t keep my cock deflated, we will have a hell of a time getting acquainted.”

“Acquainted?”

“Yes,” I say, running my sparse fingers through her hair because I can’t help touching her. “You say we’re soulmates. Our attraction is incredible, but I’d like to be friends too. I want to dance with you on deck, introduce you to me hearties, and watch the sunrise.”

“I never took you for a romantic,” she replies, squirming under my gaze. I lift the bed’s black coverlet, a remnant of the vampiress who decorated the room, over Sabrina’s shivering body. Her sigh of contentment as she snuggles warms my heart.

“I am romantic, fun, hilarious—”

“Humble?” The twist of her lips and the flash of sass in her eyes threaten to turn the contents of my britches to stone.

“Never humble,” I say with a chuckle. “A humble captain will acquire a blackspot in his first days on the job. You are only as powerful as the stories say you are. That power is what keeps your crew believing they will live through the trials of the sweet trade—hurricanes, boat damage, sickness, engaging with prizes, and the trials of everyday life on the ship. I swear, someone flies off the rigging and into the drink every damn day.”

“They do,” she replies with a giggle. “I’ve pushed many of their arses to the surface in the years I followed your boat.”

“Why didn’t you say something to get my attention? All those years lost—”

“I hated you.” Ouch, there’s a dagger to me heart.

“Oh,” is all I can say.

“You humiliated me, Teeth. We shared promises of love and commitment that night. The next morning, you couldn’t get away from me fast enough. You treated me like I was less than human, without knowing I was a Kraken shifter. How could I open up to you and give you a chance to accept my dual nature if you couldn’t accept me as a fellow human being?”

“Oh Sabs,” I whisper as the tightening in my chest pushes the breath from my lungs. “I was young and stupid. While I don’t remember our exact interaction, I can tell you it was a transaction that got out of hand. I wasn’t mature enough for emotional bonds—not ready for something real. You had every right to hate me, but now I’m begging for a chance to make things right between us.”

“Begging?”

I slide off the bed so one knee hits the wooden floor. Her slender hand is cold as I wrap mine around it. My palms rub her hand vigorously to bring forth her blood. We stare at one another in comfortable silence, our feelings passing through the warm gaze in our eyes.

“I’m not a learned man. I’ve never taken life seriously and rose to this position through the support of men smarter than me. My mistakes outweigh my triumphs, and my story is a complete farse. The formidable Captain Teeth is Milton Gladstone, and he lays down his sword at your feet.”

“Milton? Milton?” Her giggles break the boulder lodged in my chest. “No wonder you never fought your pirate nickname.”

“First of all, Milton is a wonderful name…for someone else. Secondly, Blackbeard named me Teeth, and nobody argues with Blackbeard.”

“Your missing fingers demonstrate your experience when arguing with Blackbeard. They show you are mighty brave.”

“Thank you, my lovely, but they also demonstrate how stupid I was in my youth. But I digress. Thirdly, my nickname has saved my arse more times than I can count. Pirates of rival ships long to knock a tooth from Teeth’s mouth, so they aim for my face. I learned to slice their yellow underbellies when I entered the fray, ducking such egotistical foolery.”

“Whatever works. I could listen to your stories all day.”

“I can’t promise a secure, quiet life of farming in some small hamlet or a safe, bustling life as a merchant’s wife, but I promise to keep you entertained for the rest of our days. Be more than the monster who holds my tethers—be my wife, Sabrina.”

“I wouldn’t last a day on a farm or in a tiny shop in a forgotten village. No matter what life you choose for us, I will need my time in the sea,” she says, twisting the bed covers around her opposite hand’s fingers. Why is she nervous? I laid my heart at her feet. What isn’t she telling me?

“You are never leaving my sight again,” I growl between kisses to her knuckles.

“We both know I can’t keep that promise,” she whispers, running her fingers through my dripping hair to soften her words.

“We will find a way, or my name’s not Captain Teeth!” I glare into her sea-green eyes until they fill with tears. Her bittersweet smile breaks my heart. After tonight, she will be a Kraken again and need seawater more than my embrace.

“There’s a way,” Bettina says from the doorway.

“Sis, please don’t—"

“Captain, your crew needs you,” she says, leaning against the threshold. “There was something in the captain’s log of the last prize that Chub wants you to see, and the rest, well…they need direction.”

I’m conflicted until I read the anxiety on Sabrina’s face. Perhaps her sister can talk some sense into her. What could keep us apart when she calls me her soulmate? She throws this soulbond in my face when admonishing me for my past deeds but forsakes it when I talk of the future. If I were a cleverer man, I could decipher the puzzle. Too bad I’m too embarrassed of my actions to confide in Chub.

“Bettina, will you keep her resting while I get things sorted?” I ask the question as I rise to my feet. My knees scream in protest as I hide my pain behind a pirate’s mask of bravado. I drop my water-logged hat, duster, and shirt over the desk tucked into the corner of my room.

“Aye, aye,” she replies with a note of sarcasm.

“Then I will check in with Chub, set our course, and return with food—” My clean, dry shirt is another layer of armor. No one can see my vulnerability but Sabrina. It would send me walking the plank—hearties or not. We don’t disrespect women on this boat, and the female members of my crew would put me to trial for the way my younger self treated Sabrina. I’m guilty as sin, so I would lose in a heartbeat.

“Oh, please, don’t force me to eat. The most delicious food would taste horrible—"

“Madam, you are on a pirate ship. I guarantee the food will taste horrible, but dry hardtack will settle the storm in your belly,” I say at the door.

“You’re better off feeding her raw fish,” Bettina replies, crossing the room to sit on the bed. “A Kraken lives on a diet of raw fish.”

“I’m on the hunt,” I say with a bow. I will leave them to their secrets as long as they put me in the best light possible. From the cartographer’s room below, Chub and I will hear every word. Now that I have Sabrina on my boat, I’ll be hard-pressed to let her go.