Page 75 of Maggie and the Pirate’s Son

The hunter was too wily, as though all the times they’d outwitted him before hadn’t been skill or luck, but a trick to build false confidence, as though they’d only escaped because the Pursuit had allowed them to. He was beginning to sound like Mad. Was the chase all in Bash’s own head this time? Had love turned him paranoid and delusional?

Love. Christ. How had that happened? And yet what else would you call it when another living being consumed your every thought and hope and desire? After all, the navy didn’t have him worried for his own sake, but for Maggie’s.

“The Pursuit,” he said finally, looking Dutch dead in the eye. “Others have seen it too, have they not?” The unasked question lay between them. I’m not being driven mad by this like my sire?

Dutch nodded slowly. “I was too hard on you before… about… Magnus.”

Bash shook his head. “You were absolutely right.”

He could feel Dutch’s brown eyes watching him, burrowing under his skin to the very marrow of his soul.

“When you were injured… well, it’s not one-sided. You know this?”

Bash tried to shrug off the implication. “Loyalty. Nothing more.” It was entirely one-sided, this pull he felt towards Maggie. It had to be, else how could he possibly let her go?

“No,” Dutch argued. “Not nothing. My concern was honest, but I can admit I was wrong to cast stones.”

“Doesn’t matter. This is no kind of life.”

“Then choose another, son,” Dutch said with an earnest sort of desperation Bash had never heard from him before.

Bash turned what must be a pathetic look on his friend, but something on the horizon caught his attention. “Damn.”

“My wisdom has that effect on occasion,” Dutch teased.

“He’s caught up to us again. Constantin is determined to have the Revenge for dinner. How can he match our speed?”

“Perhaps God is on his side.”

“If we can just make it to the islands, we’ll stand a chance.” Bash jumped up to shimmy down the rigging, but his tether yanked him back, cracking his tailbone against the platform.

Dutch gave him a look.

“I was testing it,” he lied.

“You are testing me. If you will not sleep in your own berth, then you’ll sleep in mine. Give your orders for the new course and then put yourself to bed, or I will put you there. If you continue to bury yourself in work, son, then you’ll bury us all.”

Bury not my body there, in earth too rich and scented air.

He blinked at Dutch, and then climbed down to relay his orders.

Instead of cutting between Nassau and Freeport, they would head north around Freeport. Then they could follow the Florida coast and turn sharply south, weaving amongst the low islands and reefs on their way to the Dry Tortugas. A shiver of dread reminded Bash that de Leon had named those islands Los Martires, The Martyrs, for a reason.

“Row through the night,” he told the men. “And into the morning. Thirty minutes on, one hour off.” None dared to risk his neck in protest.

Bash slept but little in Dutch’s hammock, and when Langley came to wake him, it was because they’d still not managed to shake the Pursuit.

So he took the helm alongside the captain, and as they’d done many a time, they darted around the inlets and islands scattered along the New World coastline until at last there was no sign of their pursuer.

Mad’s usual smirk was long gone as he simmered with rage at the naval captain who dared give such chase, yelling at every man who entered his sightline, ready to tear Bash limb from limb. And when at last they sailed around a reef into the protective archipelago, only to find the Pursuit there waiting for them, he howled, “It can only be Constantin! Now what, boy?” he demanded between clenched teeth, shoving Bash back against the mast, though Bash was his equal in height now he was grown.

There was a time, even into adulthood, when Bash would’ve shrunk from the captain’s rage to placate him, but somewhere over the last few months he’d decided to stand his ground.

“Galleon Harbor,” he said. “With any luck, they’ll think we’ve made for Port Royal. It will buy us some time at least.”

And at this point, time was all he could hope for, just enough time to smuggle Maggie off one ship and onto another.

Mad nodded curtly and stormed off the bridge, cuffing Duffy on the side of the head when the lad got in his way and shoving Roo into the Butcher when the cook tried to offer him an ale.