Page 7 of Immortal Pirates

He continued, “Corvindale did mention that you have a particular affinity for navigation, as well as searching and finding other vessels. Which is why Captain Bonny is one of the most feared and most successful pirates of the Caribbean. She seems to be able to navigate her ship from out of nowhere.”

“Don’t leave out the Atlantic. And the Indian Ocean as well. I’ve done my share of pirating there too,” she said pertly.

“You are quite a treasure,” he said, and there it was—the faintest glow beginning in his gaze. “Are you certain you won’t join me for dinner?”

Arial almost laughed—for in truth, they could dine together quite compatibly. “I regret that my duty calls—to you and to your friend the Earl of Corvindale. Oh blast…I see I’ve forgotten my telescope. I’ve left it in the captain’s quarters…would you be so kind, St. Albans? I thought I saw a ship on the horizon, and I’d like to check before the sun is fully gone.”

He gave her an inscrutable look that bordered on insulted, but nevertheless his gentlemanly breeding won out. St. Albans gave a brief bow and turned away, striding off on his long legs and boots that thumped purposefully on the deck.

Arial acted quickly and moved into the shadows cast by the mains’l, ducking under lines and around a neat coil of rope until she was nearly at the stern.

Then she touched her tattoo, smoothing two fingers over it, feeling the pulse of her other self jumping beneath the image.

She closed her eyes and…became.

3

Raine had a feeling she was sending him on a fool’s errand, but he went off into the shadows as directed. It was difficult to resist the warmth in her eyes as she made her request. He almost believed her.

But he hadn’t been born yesterday. In fact, he’d been born more than a hundred years ago—but his physical aging had ceased on the Christmas Eve he dreamt about Lucifer. When the Devil came to him in a dream and offered him immortality in exchange for his soul. When the fallen angel gave him an escape from the dark, empty life he’d been living.

Or, at least, that was what Lucifer had led him to believe. An escape.

How foolish he’d been.

Raine shook off the memory of that morning, when he awoke beneath a swath of festive evergreen boughs, head pounding, mouth dry, empty stomach heaving from drinking himself into a lonely stupor yet again.

But from then on, his life had been radically different.

And it had all led him to here, and now, and the fact that, although he went off as Arial Bonny had asked him to do, he didn’t quite go as far as she intended.

Raine had excellent instincts—except when it came to gambling, which was how he’d ended up at Luce’s mercy in the first place—and so he stopped once he was out of sight of the captain.

Then, when he heard her move—ever so lightly, nearly soundlessly—he emerged from the shadows to follow her.

The wind was steady and strong, but the weather was otherwise calm and comfortably warm, and there were only a handful of crew members up on the deck. No one to notice as Raine skirted the mains’l in the wake of the lovely, spicy woman who’d most definitely caught his fascination.

She was making her way to the rear of the ship, which was the most deserted area of the vessel. He was so intent on keeping her in his sight while not being seen that he tripped over a camouflaged coil of rope and nearly stumbled into a rack of water barrels. By the time he recovered and made certain no one had noticed the disturbance, Arial Bonny had disappeared.

He couldn’t see her, nor hear her any longer. The night was silent but for the soft flap of the sails above, and a distant metal clang from some metal hook hanging from a rope.

Damn and blast. Where could she have gone off to?

And then Raine heard a different sound. A sharp flap, then a change in the air followed by a soft, elegantwhoosh.

He stumbled back on his heels as a massive bird of prey suddenly flew around from the stern and up, off into the night: graceful, smooth, and powerful.

He caught a glimpse of its coloring as the hawk passed through a moonbeam—a combination of black, brown, and gold. Its beak was elegant and sharp, frosted white in the starlight, and its talons were the same. She…somehow he knew it was a she…had a wingspan wider than his arms would go.

Raine stared after the hawk, his skin prickling.

Surely that wasn’t…no. Ludicrous.

Then he began to chuckle.

Well, why the bloody hell not?

While Arial was goneon what Raine surmised was her reconnaissance mission to find out where theDevil’s Targetwas—and now her skill at easily finding and following other ships was explained—he went in search of someone on which to feed.