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Rage from that moment in time a year ago surged in Roe’s veins, sending him forward through the sickly haze of smoke, of swords swinging, of bodies thunking to the deck, of men screaming. The battle wasn’t as he wanted it, more of his men down than he’d hoped for, but they weren’t losing. They were on their way to the death of this ship and every bastard of a man on it.
And if he could get to Lord Bockton and sink a blade between his eyes, it’d be over before another man of his went down.
Over for good and he could get off the blasted sea.
Leave theFirehawkto Des and never set foot on a rolling ship again.
He wasn’t natural on the sea—never had been. It still took days of walking barefoot on board after setting sail for him to get his sea legs.
Hell, if he lived so far inland he never caught a whiff of the salt of the sea again, he would die a happy man.
If he didn’t die in this battle first.
He kicked the back of the leg of a brute about to swing a cutlass at the neck of Filbert. Filbert was half the man’s size, but always picked the biggest man to fight in a battle. The brute fell backward, his weight dragging him down no matter how fast his feet shuffled for balance. His back slammed into the deck.
Filbert could take it from there.
Roe rushed forth, blocking swings of steel at his head as he advanced. One man. Another. Another. In the long stretch to the stern, he lost count of the men he’d downed in his wake.
Then it was just the four men left in front of Lord Bockton. Two of them already engaged with his men.
End it. Now.
Yanking the dagger from his left boot, Roe charged forward with his cutlass high.
“Cap! Cap!” Des’s bellow cut through the echoes of gunfire, the clashes of steel.
Roe skidded to a stop, spinning in a quick circle to see what Des was alerting him to.
Shit. Torrie.
A band of four men—not in his crew—running across the gangplank. Running onto his damn ship.
Blast his crew. How could they let Bockton’s brutes get close enough to the plank?
Roe started running, his head jabbing around swinging steel as he crossed the deck, his chest tightening to where he couldn’t breathe, to where he couldn’t force air past his throat.
He’d always fought with full, easy lungs. With aplomb—never considering death, for he truly didn’t mind if it came or not. He’d fought without care since he was eight and in the thick of misery of St. Giles.
But in that moment, he cared. He cared because death was bearing down on Torrie. And all his breath, all his senses left him.
“Abandon—cut the hooks.” He screamed the words across the cracks of gunfire and steel clanking steel. “Cut the hooks. Pull back. Now!”
His boots thudded onto the gangplank and he was across the gap in three strides, bearing down on the backs of the four brutes. He heard them below the quarterdeck before he saw them—Weston battling them back from the door to his cabin.
Dammit, he should have hid Torrie—hid her in a barrel so deep in the ship she would never have been found—or seen.
Roe stormed under the quarterdeck and into the wide vestibule in front of his room. Weston had been pulled far to the left of the door by two of the brutes, swords flying wild in the air.
Where were the other two?
Roe’s legs sped, but slow, too slow.
The clank of steel from his quarters. Torrie attacking—or fending off attack.
Faster. Faster. He had to be faster.
Another clash of blades and the distinct sound of a cutlass clattering to the floor.
