Page 77 of Kidnapped by the Pirate
Hawk stumbled and tried to make sense of it all, Nathaniel’s weight sagging in his arms, the emissary shrieking on the end of Snell’s cutlass as it ran him through.
“Captain! Sails!”
Another voice shouted, “Brigantine from the west! Must have been hiding around the other side.” A pause, then, “Looks like eighteen guns!”
Snell had the sack open and a lantern in his hand. “Money’s here. Captain! We must away!”
But Nathaniel couldn’t seem to get his feet under him, leaning heavily against Hawk. There was something in the dying emissary’s outstretched hand…
A dagger. Its blade dark with blood in the flickering lantern light.
Hawk’s cry was distant and hoarse, as if it came from another throat. “No!” He lowered Nathaniel to the deck and tore at his shirt, red staining the linen in a widening circle. Pressing at the stab wound in Nathaniel’s gut, he screamed, “Pickering!”
Hawk peered down into that dear face, already frighteningly pale. “Stay with me. Nathaniel!” Nathaniel gazed up at him, moaning, eyes wide.
Pickering dropped to his knees before them, leaning over to inspect the wound, too much blood flowing from it. He shook his head. “He’ll die if he stays aboard.”
Hawk took Nathaniel’s hand, threading their fingers together, keeping his eyes locked on him for fear he would be gone the next time he looked down. “There must be something you can do!”
“He needs better surgeons and a safe, clean place, not to bleed to death on a stinking pirate ship—especially one about to do battle!” Pickering grabbed Hawk’s coat and leaned close, lifting Hawk’s chin roughly, hissing, “If you care for him, let him go. Or he’ll be dead before morning.”
“No… I…stay,” Nathaniel gasped, twitching.
With one last, lingering look into those rich honey eyes, Hawk ripped his fingers from Nathaniel’s desperate grasp. He somehow pushed to his feet without his knees giving way.
Down toward the launch, he shouted, “Bainbridge is coming!” To the crew, he ordered, “Lower him carefully, Mr. O’Connell, Mr. Lee. Everyone else, ready to make sail!” The approaching brigantine would be the death of them all otherwise.
Nathaniel coughed and gasped, fingers grasping at Hawk’s ankle, fingers sliding on the leather. Hawk needed to tear himself free, but he stood rooted, even once O’Connell and Lee scooped up Nathaniel, who wailed in agony as they lowered him in the canvas hammock used for cargo.
Hawk couldn’t move to look over the rail, standing frozen as Snell shouted, “They’ve got him! Now get us the fuck out of here, men! Don’t let them get their broadsides around, or that’s the end.”
Nathaniel’s screams echoed across the water even as the sails caught the wind, the brig gaining. Hawk finally turned away from Primrose Isle, a ragged hole in his chest as if the blade had found its target.
At the helm, he shouted orders and kept his gaze forward on the midnight horizon, fingernails gouging the wheel so deep the wood slivered his flesh. Nathaniel had to live, and The Damned Manta had to outrun the brig, which flew the Union Jack with the white crest denoting privateers.
No other options existed.
As the first round of cannon fire exploded in the night, he prayed to a Godless universe that at least Nathaniel would survive.
Chapter Twenty
If he was dead, he was apparently in heaven, since Susanna was there. Nathaniel couldn’t seem to open his eyes for more than a heartbeat, but he’d spotted his sister’s clear hazel eyes and dark curls, felt her tender ministrations, and heard her soft lullabies and a babe’s cry.
Was he imagining it all? Perhaps they were dead, and Nathaniel had joined them. But if he’d met his maker, surely he’d have been doomed to the underworld for his many sins.
Nathaniel knew he should likely regret said sins and repent, but couldn’t seem to muster the will, even though death had him in its sights. It seemed he was alive, considering the torment searing his gut every time he breathed in—or out, for that matter.
So, all the time. The dagger that had breached him felt as though it was still there, digging in mercilessly, its steel viciously cold yet scorching all the same.
The heat built, and he imagined flames licking at his face and chest, and of course his belly, which was only agony. The fire grew into a hungry inferno, and he barely made out Susanna’s voice after a time, his eyes far too heavy. There was another voice too, a young woman he didn’t recognize who spoke with a calming rhythm.
But the voice he heard loudest was one he knew must be only in his mind. Hawk cried his name so fervently, a heartrending plea. “Nathaniel!”
Moaning and delirious, soaked with sweat yet shivering, racked with chills, Nathaniel reached for Hawk’s damn boots, the gold tips slipping away beneath his fingers as he grasped over and over.
