Within A Captain's Hold. Lisa A. Olech

the French shattered the Scarlet’s jib foresail and blew two of her swivel gunners to their deaths. Jaxon roared like a wounded beast. The crew became a riotous horde, firing sulfurous bombs upon the deck of the other ship and shooting muskets blindly into the smoke.

      Jaxon shouted for grappling irons as soon as they were in range of one another. Badly damaged, the other ship could no longer flee, but the French crew stood ready to battle as the pirates swarmed their decks.

      Men leapt over the span of water separating the Scarlet Night from her prey and swung wide on ropes to drop onto the brigandine’s deck. Through the clashing of blades and the pungent smoke of cannons and pistols, Jaxon boarded the merchant ship. The French captain slumped upon the rope tackles of one of the cannons. Already dead.

      Jaxon rushed headlong into the fight, jumping into the pack like a half-starved dog defending his last bone. He spent his two pistols, hitting his chosen marks. Three men rushed him as he pushed the smoking guns back into his baldric, then pulled his cutlass and dagger.

      A bull of a man swung a heavy ax toward his head. The thick steel of his cutlass blocked the powerful downward stroke. Using his dagger, Jaxon slashed a killing path across the man’s chest. The other two Frenchmen soon joined the first. A member of his crew stopped one man as Jaxon brought down the other with a mighty swing of his sword.

      Sulfured smoke and the smell of blood filled his senses. A tangle of sail and wood and rigging caused by the toppled mast made the fighting more difficult, but men still fought between the rubble. Confidence settled in Jaxon’s gut. The French crew stood no chance against the vicious onslaught of his men.

      As the battle came to its bloody end, another twenty French seamen lost their lives, including the captain and their quartermaster. Nine others suffered grave wounds. The few men remaining begged quarter. Jaxon lost three good gunners and five others. Ten more men would need tending.

      His crew relieved the captured ship of the choicest bits of plunder to fill their hold. The brigandine suffered serious damage, and Jaxon decided to leave the limping ship and its wounded to their own fate.

      His dead crewmen needed to be slipped into the sea, and the injured needed to be cared for, but his thoughts turned to only one thing. Annalise.

      He entered his cabin and caught her when she flew into his arms. Her body shook as he crushed her to his chest and held her while she sobbed.

      “’Tis over. Hush now, ’tis over.”

      Jaxon reached down to tip her chin. His thumb brushed at the wetness on her cheeks before he lowered his mouth to still the trembling of her lips.

      CHAPTER 8

      When he’d stormed out of the room earlier, Annalise was left reeling from Jaxon’s kiss. Her body hummed with a hunger she’d never known. The hardness of his body left an imprint upon her. Her lips scorched. And, he had left her the key.

      Snatching it off the bed, she unlocked the drawer. For a moment, she imagined it might have been a cruel trick, but when the key hit its mark and the drawer opened, there sat her ring. A small circle of golden hope in the vast sea of uncertainty. Annalise almost wept as she held it to her chest.

      She tried to make sense of it all. Jaxon had been furious. Anna threatened him with his own sword. What made him give her ring back? She had little time to wonder, however.

      Cookie returned and warned her that the Scarlet Night was poised to attack a ship.

      “Ye best be findin’ a place to hide yerself, miss. Just in case.

      “In case?” Annalise clutched at the rent in her chemise.

      “In case the bastards don’t take kindly to havin’ their ship taken by pirates.”

      As soon as Cookie left, she searched the room. The cupboards on either side of the bed were too narrow for her to slip into, and the space beneath the bed held old logs and parchments. She found a niche in the corner of the room where two trunks came together. Annalise wrapped a thin blanket around herself and slid over the rounded tops of the trunks to crouch behind them as the commotion overhead grew louder.

      A blast of cannon fire brought her screaming from her hiding place. The Scarlet Night jerked violently and shuddered from the volley. Distant sounds of returning fire had Anna bracing herself for the hit, but it did not come. Instead, more cannon fire erupted overhead. Howls and screams of men and the smells of smoke and sulfur rained down upon her as her mind’s eye conjured the most horrendous scene.

      Fear gripped her as she frantically looked to run from a room she could not escape, with legs that wouldn’t stop shaking. Jaxon was going to die. They were all going to die. Any minute a blast would blow her and the ship surrounding her into a watery oblivion.

      Cannon fire roared again from the Scarlet Night, and Annalise screamed. She fell to her knees and covered her head to block out the hellish crescendo building around her.

      She shook with terror, even as the battle above her quieted. Had they won? Shouts and the sounds of running feet were her only answer. Cookie’s words returned to her. She needed to hide. Suppose the first person through the cabin’s door wasn’t Jaxon? What if whoever held the ship was more vicious and bloodthirsty than even Wolfsan. As if to give life to her fears, the latch scraped in the lock. There was no time to duck away. Panicked, she snatched a heavy brass sextant from Jaxon’s desk and raised it over her head. If she were to die, she’d die fighting.

      Annalise had never been more terrified to watch a door open, or more grateful to see Jaxon walk through. Raw, unchecked emotion tumbled around her like rain as she dropped the sextant onto his desk and leapt heedlessly into the safety of his arms. Then he kissed her. Again.

      This was not the angry, punishing kiss from before. It began tenderly but the rush of emotions swept her into a heated exchange, igniting a deep desire she could not explain. The need for his comfort overwhelmed everything else. She clung to him as the kiss deepened and surrendered to it--to him.

      Jaxon broke the connection but still held her. Had his anger returned? Would he mock her for being weak and afraid?

      “I’m sorry. The battle…cannons exploding…. I’ve never heard anything so horrifying.” Beneath her hands, his shirt was red with blood. “Dear God, you’re hurt.”

      “Nay.”

      “But…”

      “This isn’t my blood.”

      Anna stared at the color upon her hands. The smell of the blood mixed with his sweat assaulted her senses. “Oh…God…” She tried to wipe it away and discovered blood soaked into the fabric of her chemise. “Oh, God.” Would this nightmare never end? “Get it off me. Please.”

      “It’s just blood. Calm yourself.”

      “No. It’s dead men’s blood.” Bile rose in her throat. “I don’t care if you see me bare. Cut it off. Please. Get it off…Oh, I’m going to be sick.”

      “No, no, no, you’re not.” He grabbed at the tear and, in one strong pull, tore the fragile cloth straight up through the neckline. The garment fell to the floor, and he wrapped her in the thin blanket she dropped earlier. Stripping off his shirt and the crimson band about his waist, he pulled her over to his washstand and held her hands over the bowl to clean them. She clamped her eyes shut.

      “There. It’s gone. Wait…” He dipped a clean cloth into the pitcher and wiped her cheek.

      “Ahhh, it’s on my face.”

      He wiped at her cheek again. “No, it’s gone.”

      “Do you swear?” She grabbed at his arm.

      “Aye, woman, I swear.”

      Annalise opened her eyes. The water in the bowl was a sickly pink. She poured more water from the pitcher over her hands and rubbed at them.

      “I told