My muscles tensed. “He tried to kill you,” I gritted, feeling myself slip into the darkness. “In the castle, if I hadn’t heard you –”
She shrugged. “It wasn’t the first time. Abram’s never hidden his hatred of me. His own trainer couldn’t stop him when he went after me. Maru did a few times, though. He kicked Abram’s ass good, too, but Abram’s stubborn. He would just fume and wait for another opportunity – one he always seemed to find.”
Titus
I returned to the ship empty-handed, soaking wet and pissed off, only to find Enoch and Eve sitting together cozily on Enoch’s bed. Enoch stood abruptly when I entered the room. “You didn’t find him?”
I shook my head. “The storm’s bad, but I checked everywhere I could. I found one of my clones. Let me just say it’s a weird feeling… looking at yourself, but knowing it’s not really you. And he took one look at me and made fast tracks in the opposite direction.”
“Has Asa been to this island?” Eve asked.
“It’s been months as far as I know, but yes.”
“Where is Asa now?” Eve stood up and then quickly sat back down, holding the heel of her palm to her temple.
Something was still wrong. Not that her stubborn ass would admit it. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I just stood up too fast,” she laughed, trying to play it off. Her hand tech glowed, emitting a cool light across her forehead. Enoch shot me a worried glance.
She dropped her hand and slowly stood up. “Enoch, where is Asa?” she asked again.
Enoch shook his head. “He has a home on Nassau. That’s where I’d wager he is, but I can’t say for certain. He, too, has a ship.”
Eve stared at me. “What if Abram is there? If Terah and Enoch are here, and we landed here… maybe our tech somehow senses our targets and pulls us toward them. Kael told us we would land directly in front of them, which was a lie, but what if it wasn’t entirely untrue? Maybe we just land close to them.”
“Like an unperfected upgrade,” I answered. “It makes sense.”
“The whole land, strike, run, and jump thing would’ve been impossible given the way we landed and Kael said he went back in time. If he wasn’t lying he would’ve known it and shifted our mission so that we would land, recover, find our target, strategize a way to get close, and then try to strike.”
“And use our upgrades to hopefully make it home,” I added.
She nodded. “Kael values precision, but learns from his mistakes. He adapts.”
There it was. The haunted look she sometimes wore. Kael put it there. She was his greatest creation, but what had she given up to become it? As soon as he realized that male DNA rejected most of his upgrades, Kael left me and Abram alone. At one point, I envied her. Now, I felt damn bad for what she went through. I should’ve spoken up for her. I’d suspected that something was wrong a few times after she was upgraded. Some were easy for her. Others… clearly weren’t. She’d be absent from training for days.
Enoch’s features darkened as Eve spoke. As protective as Maru was, even he wasn’t as intense as Enoch when it came to Eve. I saw glimpses of it back in thirteen forty-eight, but now that he’d found her again, there was something darker and much more profound in his eyes when he looked at Eve.
Enoch lost his people, but had found Eve again. Something told me he wouldn’t let her go so easily this time. I was leery of the first vampires in the beginning, but now… Well, I was still leery of Terah. But Enoch? Despite him threatening to skewer me a few times, Enoch was alright.
“So… we’re going to Nassau?” I asked, rubbing my hands together to warm them.
“I’ll gather my crew,” Enoch answered, never taking his dark eyes off Eve.
“Right, so I’ll just give you two some space…” I backed out of the room and headed for a set of steps that led below decks.
It was dark but dry beneath the deck of the ship. I let my hands trail down the cool metal of the cannon, swung a few of the hammocks back and forth as I passed by, and peeked in a few sacks to find grain within. Some of the barrels were full of rum. Beyond the lingering stench of body odor and sweat, the smell of gunpowder and sea-wizened wood wafted through the cavernous space.
Enoch didn’t play around. He had piles of balls and shrapnel positioned beside and ready to be fired from each cannon. How often had he actually taken other ships? Was he a true pirate, always searching for ships and plunder he could steal? Whether he was aggressive in his pirating or not, he wouldn’t hesitate to defend his ship and men. I stepped through coils of rope and peeked in everything that wasn’t sealed.
A male chuckle erupted from the shadows deep within the bowels of the ship. I pulled out one of my stakes and crept into the darkness. A metal cage sat empty in front of me. To my right, the pirate Enoch called Thatch sat on a barrel, his shackled hands resting on his thighs. The heavy, dark chain between them rattled on the floor when he raised a hand and wiggled his fingers at me.
“You, my friend, are lost,” he said matter-of-factly. “Freedom is that way.” He pointed to the scant amount of daylight drifting down the steps that led down to him. “There’s nothing but death down here.”
“Titus!” Eve yelled as she jogged down the stairs. Her eyes were wide. “Don’t go any farther. Step away from the cage.”
“Why?”
I turned around just in time to see a set of sharp fingernails claw the air in front of my face. “One more step and I would’ve had him,” a sultry voice complained.
One of Eve’s clones suddenly appeared behind the iron bars. She’d been invisible…but more unsettling than that, she had fangs. Either Enoch or one of his siblings had turned a clone into a damn vampire. This was bad.
Turning around slowly, I took a deep breath. “Who turned her?” I asked Enoch.
“I did,” he answered, unapologetic.
“As if Eve weren’t terrifying enough on her own merits, you had to give her fangs? Are you out of your mind?” I yelled.
Enoch started toward me, but Eve caught his arm. “Oh, no. Let him go, Eve.” I fixed my attention on Enoch. “You gonna turn me now? Was that what you were gonna do? I don’t think so,” I challenged. My hand tightened around my stake. If he brought the fight, I was pretty certain I’d lose, but I’d go down stabbing this stake until he drank me dry.
Eve let go of Enoch. He straightened his shirt, but stood tall by her side. “I wasn’t going to bite you.”
“Then what were you going to do?”
“I was going to finally teach you a lesson in manners and civility.”
Eve snorted beside him. “Good luck. His trainer tried to teach him that for years, and it never quite sunk in.”
I gave her a sarcastic grin. “Thanks a lot. I guess I know whose side you’re on.” It didn’t come out as playfully as I meant it… or maybe it was just hard to hide the fact that my assessment was true. We were teammates. I sure as hell hoped that if it came down to it, she’d remember that.
We had to make it home.
Eve grabbed her head again, making a hissing sound. I started toward her, but Enoch got to her first. He shot me a look of concern before gently suggesting, “Perhaps you should rest while I find my crew. We’ll set out for Nassau as soon as possible.”