Page 62 of The Lost Child

Oh, sure. Now he cares that I'm his only blood heir.

Macguire wasn’t having any it. “She destroys my fleet and massacres my men with her evil magicks, and you suggest I take her for my lady wife? That is no lady!”

My cheeks flushed with heat as Macguire withdrew his cutlass, which was already dripping with blood.

My father’s eyes bulged. “What have you—”

Then we heard the screams.

And still my father refused to stand.

“What did you do, betray me to the other companies?” He sneered at Macguire, his grip on his feather pen close to snapping it in half.

“Worse,” Macguire replied cheerfully, stepping right up to father’s desk. “I’m legalnow. The royal forces are rounding up whichever of your men they don’t butcher, and they’ll hang them around the island as a warning to anyone else foolish enough to try to claim this base for theirs.”

I didn’t have time to be smug about my father getting his just desserts for ignoring my warning. My heart dropped into my stomach.Canavar!Then just as quickly, despair replaced it. Canavar didn’t care about me. He refused to help me. He’d been brainwashed too badly by my father. Gods, I hated him and Macguire. Both of them were pox marks upon this world.

“Your men died screaming for their mothers,” I spat out, enjoying the rage that filled Macguire’s eyes. “I splattered them like a fine wine into the ocean. There was nothing left of them but bloody mist.”

Macguire took a step toward me, only to flinch back as a dagger sailed through the air where his head had just been.

My father stood from his desk, eyes narrowed. “If you aren’t taking her, then don’t damage what’s mine,” he growled.

I could have laughed at the irony; I wasn’t worth a damn defending as a person, but as a possession? My father was akin to a dragon with his gold.

Macguire threw back his head and laughed like my father had just told the world’s funniest jape. “Who said I wasn’t taking her? I said she was unsuitable to be my wife and bear my heirs. She’ll do just fine chained to my bed on my flagship.” He leered toward me then, and I spit in his face.

CRACK.

His hand split my lip open, and I laughed more from surprise than pain.

“My father hits much harder,” I said, spitting blood to the floor. “Want to try again?”

Macguire’s face went red to match his hair.

“You think you’re clever, don’t you?” My father sneered, crossing his arms leisurely across his chest, a dark smirk on his face. “This one seduced my monster. I can’t imagine what skills she’s picked up. Or what diseases.”

And here I thought he might be proud of me for one shining, glorious moment. Oh well.

I gathered more blood in my mouth and hocked it as far in his direction as I could. It landed just short a few inches from him. How I wished I had my knife. Or any knife!

Wait … I did have a weapon, of sorts. I casually let my hand drift to my pocket, feeling the outline of Canavar’s tooth.

My father’s eyes narrowed. “Luckily my beast knows where his bread is buttered, and it’s not his dick. All it took was a little reward and the dog came crawling back to its master on its belly.”

Macguire huffed, but raised an eyebrow in appreciation at me. “As I said, not wife material. But a good cunt is hard to find. I’ll add her to the rest of your plunder I’m taking.”

Father’s face twisted in rage, but at the exact moment Danix burst into the office covered in blood and breathing hard. His face went white when he saw our pirate lord’s nemesis standing next to his captain, bloody sword and all.

“C-captain, the king’s-s men are everywhere. We’re s-surrounded.” His lisp was more pronounced in his state of panic. He looked anywhere but at me, my father, or Maguire.

Yells went up from outside and down on the shore. They contorted to screams and got closer. My father took Macguire’s moment of distraction when Danix entered to swipe at Macguire with his cutlass, but the other pirate leaped away, expecting the attack.

“Better get out there,” Macguire taunted. “Wouldn’t wantallyour men to die. I need some to man my new fleet.”

My father’s face twisted. He was clearly torn between wanting to bathe himself in the blood of the king’s soldiers, and wanting to keep his possession from his enemy’s clutches. Me.

He grunted, then dove out the door with a roar.

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