A Pirate's Revenge (Legends of the Soaring Phoenix) Read Online Free PDF Page A

hand again. “You have seen Lark, oui ? Is he well?”
    Ronan lowered his head. “Not since he was fitted with an accursed choker around his neck. Straight from hell.” His eyes darkened. “He…” His voice cracked. “He sacrificed himself to save us.”
    She blinked back tears. Lark. Like their proud father, his honor would demand that he’d save others, even if at his own risk. “He did? Who else did he save?”
    “Myself, Capt’n Knight and Knight’s daughter Hannah.” He braced his shoulders. “I dinna want to leave him. I’d have died tryin’ to free him.”
    “Where is he?”
    Ronan avoided her gaze. “Aboard the Fiery Damsel. He is Palmer’s slave.”
    Fear welled inside Mariah. “Do they…” She swallowed hard. “Torture…him?” Her voice faltered as if she said torture too loud, it would be true. 
    He nodded. “Aye.” His eyes darkened. “He always tried to anger Palmer to get him not to hurt me.”
    No, she didn’t want it to be true, but she read their grim faces. Brows knotted, mouths tight and eyes hard. Lark was trapped aboard a ship of horrors. Ronan had left him there, his supposed friend. Her desire for Ronan withered. Mariah wiped a single tear. “You claimed to be his friend and left him there to save yourself, no?”
    Ronan hung his head. “I dinna want to leave him.”
    “I do not believe you, monsieur . My brother is imprisoned on a pirate ship while you are all free, oui ? How could you all leave him there?”
    Mariah wanted to beat her fists on Ronan’s chest and cast a spell that threw him and the others off the cliff onto the jagged rocks below. But if she tried to utter an incantation, the vampires would attack. She would never finish the words in time. Bitterness burned her in stomach. Lark had been left behind while the vampire pirates were all free. And now they wanted her help.
    William turned to look at her, and sorrow glistened in his eyes.
    “You donna understand, lass,” Ronan said. “He’s forced to do the capt’n’s biddin’.”
    She remembered how her parents had been murdered in France. Some witches had been forced to do the bidding of unscrupulous men, such as casting spells to make them powerful. If they disobeyed, they’d been burnt or compelled to watch a loved one be tortured. What they’d done to the women—rape, brutality, disfigurement—gave her nightmares. What had Lark endured? She dreaded to ask. “Forced?”
    William edged closer to her. He wrapped his tail behind her lower back. Was he trying to comfort her?
    Kane approached. “You don’t want to know.” He nodded toward William. “What happened to him?”
    A black-skinned vampire hurried past Kane. Concern filled his red eyes.
    William hissed.
    “Hush, William,” the black vampire said. “I’m not goin’ to hurt da lass.” He bowed slightly at Mariah. “I’m Doc, da ship’s surgeon.” He knelt next to William. “We done got to stitch da wound. Sean?”
    “Aye?” A blond pirate came forward. He was tall, a beautiful man with long locks and a perfectly sculpted face. An angel of darkness.
    “Go back to da ship an’ retrieve my bag.”
    The angel folded his arms across his wide chest. “You want me to carry the bloody bag as a bat?”
    “Sean.” Kane glanced over his shoulder.
    “Aye, Capt’n,” he grumbled.
    “No, wait.” Mariah held up her palm. “I have a thread and needle in my satchel. Grand-mère said the dragon would be wounded.”
    Kane’s eyes burned darker. “Sean, we’ve met this grand-mère before, in Tortuga.”
    Sean shook his head. “The old crone?”
    “Aye.”
    Mariah jerked open her satchel. “She’s not an old crone.” She produced her needle and thread. “ Oui , she’s a witch. We are not evil. We do not practice the dark arts.”
    They smirked and flashed each other a sideways glance. She knew that look—half turned up smiles and twinkling eyes that friends gave each other when they both realized they’d caught someone in