Pirates

Two beautiful Naathi women were clinging tightly to him. His hands, unfortunately, had come to rest in places neither of them had planned.

He could not pretend the feeling was unpleasant. In some ways, it was even softer than Daenerys.

What man could endure that kind of trial? But there were lines he would not cross in silence or confusion. Ronan considered himself a straightforward man. If something was going to happen, it would happen openly.

So endurance became the first great task of his shipwrecked morning. The mind could endure. The body was less obedient.

Worse, both of his hands were trapped. He could not even rescue his own dignity. He could only suffer in silence and resent the universe.

Dessa, still half asleep, sensed something was wrong. One of her hands felt too warm, as though it had slipped into heated spring water. The sensation startled her, but it also carried a strange pull.

She shifted uncertainly, waking by degrees, until she finally understood what she was doing.

Shame flooded her so fiercely she wanted the sand to swallow her. The worst part was that when she lifted her head, she met a pair of eyes red with restraint.

Dessa opened her mouth, but Ronan covered it before she could wake Inara. The sudden motion frightened her for a heartbeat. Both of them were breathing too hard to pretend calm.

Ronan did not want a misunderstanding. He glanced toward Inara, silently asking Dessa not to wake her.

The woman understood. Perhaps not completely, but enough. Dessa's fingers closed around his wrist. For a breath, he thought she meant to push him away. Instead, she held him there and gave the smallest nod against his palm.

The fear in her eyes changed into something warmer and harder to name. When Ronan looked at her again, she was no longer trying to pull away.

He understood that the choice before them had changed.

Dessa was light in his arms, almost weightless, and her slender waist had a softness that made restraint increasingly difficult. The most unexpected discovery was that she was still untouched.

After drifting so long at sea, the pressure Ronan had carried inside him finally found release.

To his surprise, Dessa was stronger than she looked. No matter how fiercely the encounter turned, she met him with a stubborn courage that made it feel less like surrender and more like challenge.

Had she thought that was the full measure of him? No. She had not yet learned the true stamina of a conqueror.

Again and again, the contest turned. Even a woman with remarkable spirit eventually spent her strength and yielded to the reward she had chosen.

Nearby, Inara woke and quickly noticed that something had changed. Her friend was gone, and so was the outsider. Since Inara herself had not been taken, it was not slavers or pirates.

It was something else. Then faint sounds reached her ears, and she understood. Her cheeks warmed, and she cursed the shameless pair under her breath.

She was angry, but beneath the anger lay complaint. When she finally saw the full truth of the situation, jealousy joined it.

Dessa lay spent and dazed, her strength temporarily gone. Ronan, however, looked far from finished.

His gaze moved with hungry certainty, and Inara felt her own hesitation begin to weaken.

Inara met that look, and jealousy became a choice she could no longer deny. Soon enough, she chose the same path as Dessa.

Later, standing on unfamiliar ground, Ronan felt surprisingly well. Of course, that had nothing to do with the morning's unexpected benefits.

It was because the fire inside him was burning again. The crisis at sea had passed. Now he needed to understand where he had landed.

Unfortunately, his mind had not been at its sharpest at dawn, and his impulse had left both women in no state to answer questions.

He studied the beach before him and the two foreign beauties resting behind him. This had to be an island near the southern seas. If it was an island, then somewhere there should be ships.

Speak of the devil. The men approaching offshore looked very much like pirates.

One eye, one arm, rough clothing, and a crew of ragged brutes. Their behavior was even stranger. They did not hurry ashore. Instead, they anchored in the shallows and kept staring toward the island, as if searching for something.

Yet they did not land. Were these people ill? The Sea Hawk. Its one-armed captain stood at the bow, studying the island through a spyglass. He had come for slaves.

The reason he had not landed was experience. By day, the Isle of Butterflies was extremely dangerous. One careless visit could bring butterfly fever, and even the mild cases were terrible. The worst left men begging for death.

To avoid unnecessary risk, he preferred to observe by daylight and strike suddenly at night.

The problem was that the Naathi had grown more cautious. They had long since abandoned the old shoreline. Even the nearer forests and hills showed no sign of them.

Finding the Peaceful People now took real effort. No slaves were more obedient, but obedience was worthless if he could not catch them.

The one-armed captain sighed heavily. A spyglass alone would not reveal those walking coins, as pirates liked to call them.

They would have to wait until night, and even then, finding the Naathi could take time. The forest after dark was not safe. Large beasts could make the whole trip a loss.

"Damn those stubborn beauties. Why can they not be obedient?"

"Captain, when we find them, I can teach them a lesson. Heh."

The captain understood his mate's meaning, but he was not so short-sighted. If they ruined the very people they meant to sell, where would future profit come from?

"Enough. Find them first."

He answered with irritation, then returned to the cabin to rest. The night's work would not be easy.

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