Page 1 of A Pirate's Pleasure

Chapter One

Lief

Being a wanted man had never been fun, but it had grown even less so as the days had passed. Even though the streets of Glimmerfield were virtually empty and dusk already had a firm grip on the brightness of the day, I kept the hood of my cloak up. My right hand clutched the fabric tightly, ensuring it wouldn’t betray me with any untimely slips as I hurried along the path.

One glimpse from the wrong person. One innocent query about what Lief Cooper was doing back in Glimmerfield, and the weeks I’d spent staying two steps ahead of the authorities, would all be for naught. It had been a risk to come here, but it had been a necessary one. There was only so long a person could stay on the run before luck was no longer on their side. And exhaustion already had me second guessing my choices and making more mistakes than was wise. Although, if there was anything I should have second, and probably third, thoughts about, it was seeking an audience with Zephyr Chase.

Zephyr Chase. My mouth twisted at the name. Zephyr Chase was the most notorious pirate in all thirteen kingdoms. There were other pirates who would probably dispute that fact—Ashton Otto of The Crimson Wolf for one. But he didn’t have the reputation Zephyr had. Piracy and magical abilities were a deadly combination. One that said if you messed with him, he’d have no problem in dealing with you. And if all the stories that had reached me over the years were to be believed, he regularly dealt with people who had crossed him. And maybe a few who’d done nothing but be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In short, he was a man to be avoided. Not one you sought out. Not unless you were desperate. Which I was. I turned down an alley, ducking my head at the sight of a man standing in his doorway enjoying some air.

“Evening,” he said.

“Evening,” I replied, keeping my head down and flattening my vowels to avoid arousing attention for the accent I’d inherited from my mother.

Unfortunately, it didn’t deter him from making conversation. “Looks like it might rain.”

Knowing my luck, it probably would. My cloak was still damp from the last time I’d been caught in a downpour, but that tended to happen when you had no choice but to sleep rough. “Probably,” I said as I hurried on. If that had been an attempt at getting me to stop and chat with him, he’d picked the wrong man.

It wasn’t long before the lights of The Black Skull came into view. The tavern had the dubious honor of being the closest to the not so fresh-smelling dock, my nostrils immediately assailed by the familiar scent of fish and seaweed. It didn’t surprise me to find that the doors of The Black Skull were still open. I’d been counting on it. Places like this decomposed, but they didn’t go away. It looked like The Black Skull had done its fair share of decomposing in the years since I’d last set foot in it, one of its walls bearing the unmistakable black charring of fire. Somebody had obviously tried to burn the fucker down. I doubted that someone was still breathing.

I said a silent prayer as I pushed the door open. To whom, I didn’t know. Not to a god. If a god was watching out for me, he’d done a pretty piss-poor job of it so far by letting me get into this mess in the first place.

Conversation ground to a halt as I stepped over the threshold. Strangers had never been welcome here, and with my hood still up, that’s all I was. The décor was no prettier or better maintained than it had ever been. But then people didn’t come here for the ambience. They came here because they weren’t welcome anywhere else in Glimmerfield. The Black Skull was home to lowlifes, criminals, and pirates. Once upon a time, it had catered to the lost, too. The person who just didn’t fit in anywhere else. And that had been me down to a T.

There was no one in there that I recognized. Well, no one except for the man standing behind the bar, my lips twitching at the sight of him. Ignoring the dozen or so pairs of eyes that followed my progress—watching, waiting to see what I intended to do, and no doubt also sizing up whether I had anything worth stealing—I made my way toward him.

He’d packed on even more muscle since the last time I’d seen him, and gained a few more tattoos. If the scar that ran through it, and the milky-whiteness of the pupil, were any indication, he’d also lost the sight in one of his eyes. It meant that he had to make do with using just the one eye to study me as I approached. What he lacked in vision, he more than made up for in derision, though. Only being able to see a little because of the coverage of the hood didn’t stop him from eyeing me like something that had gotten stuck to his shoe and he hoped to be rid of soon. “Think yer in the wrong place,” he said as I reached him.

I reached up and grasped both sides of the hood, adding a brief pause for dramatic effect, because why the fuck shouldn’t I when I’d been gone for eight years, before flicking it back to reveal my chestnut-brown hair and familiar features. “How’ve you been, Dax?”

Silence was the order of the day, Dax simply staring at me. There was no smile, but then I hadn’t expected one. For two reasons: I hadn’t left Glimmerfield on the best of terms, and Dax wasn’t exactly renowned for his smiley nature. “Well, I never,” he finally said. “Look what the cat’s gone and dragged in. Lief Cooper returned to the fold. I never thought to see the day.”

I pointed at the barrel of ale behind him. “Does it still taste like rat’s piss?”

Dax’s shrug said it did, but that he wasn’t about to admit as much. “Yer want some?”

I nodded. He kept his eyes on me while he poured it out, or eye if you wanted to be pedantic. “What brings yer back ‘ere?”

“What d’ya think?”

He plonked the tankard of beer down hard enough that some of it sloshed over the side. There were no airs and graces in The Black Skull. You got what you were given, and you were grateful for it, or you didn’t come again. Dax’s brow furrowed. “Well, I know yer ain’t stupid enough to be looking for a certain pirate after the way yer ‘igh-tailed it out of ‘ere. So it can’t be that.”

“So you don’t think he’ll be pleased to see me? Is that what you’re saying?”

Dax let out a snort. “Is he ever pleased to see anyone?”

I swallowed a sigh. Once upon a time, I would have been on an extremely short list of people he would have been pleased to see, but an entire ocean had passed under that bridge since then. Instead of debating it when I’d only lose anyway, I rooted around in my pocket and pulled out a bronze coin, pushing it Dax’s way. “For the ale.” I took a sip and pulled a face. It was a taste you never forgot, no matter how hard you tried. “Although, I think you should pay me to drink it.” I forced myself to drink more, drowning out the taste in favor of the numbing effects of the alcohol. Whatever happened tonight, I was going to need it. “What happened to your eye? You had two the last time I was here.”

“Bar fight got out of ‘and,” Dax said. “Someone got lucky.” He lifted his hand and traced the scar with one finger.

“I’m guessing that someone became shark food?” He gave me a narrow-eyed stare, and I laughed. “It’s me, Dax. I know exactly how things work around here.”

“The old Lief might ‘ave done. But I reckon ‘e died a long time ago.”

The words embedded themselves in my chest like shards of glass, and it took immense willpower not to let it show on my face. “He’s not dead. His life just changed direction, and he went with it.”

Dax’s snort said he didn’t buy it. While I hadn’t expected anyone in Glimmerfield to welcome me back with open arms, I had thought that this tavern, given its dodgy clientele, might lack the judgment and censure of most. It seemed I’d been wrong. It was lucky then that I wasn’t here to see Dax. “Where is he?”

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