Was this really happening? Was he truly here? Or was it just a figment? My brain felt foggy and full of shadows.

I cleared my throat. “What happened with Priest?”

“He hasn’t visited the brothel in years.” He gave me another concerned inspection. “Can you stand?”

“Yes.” With the help of his hands on my waist, I climbed to my feet. “He lives, then? Priest?”

“I didn’t kill him or capture him.”

Relief soared in my chest.

“But that was never my aim.” He strode toward the ladder.

“What do you mean?”

He retrieved a bowl of salt fish that one of the officers had brought down. That was when I saw them. The two men who had hauled me in and out of the hole.

They lay in a pile of lifeless limbs, throats cut open and eyes unseeing. That would explain some of the gruesome noises when Ashley had entered. The other ominous sounds I’d heard became apparent as my gaze landed on the third man. The one who’d raped me.

A concave hole hollowed out his head. All that remained of his face was a bowl of splintered bone and red mush. The skull, the eyes, all of it was crushed, completely pulverized beneath whatever had caused the repetitive thump, thump, thump…

I looked around for the weapon and paused on Ashley’s broken, bloody knuckles. “Did you…?”

“If I could kill him again, I would. But I would slow it down. Draw it out. Make him suffer for weeks.” His teeth ground together as he set the bowl of salt fish in my hands. “Eat. I know it’s the last thing you want right now, but you need your strength.” His eyes narrowed coldly. “Who else hurt you?”

“Just him.” My stomach tightened.

The mutilation extended beyond the face. Multiple stab wounds covered the abdomen so as to permit the bowels to fall out. A knife protruded from where the genitals used to be, the hilt jutting upward like a crude erection. A few feet away lay the severed flesh that had hurt me so brutally.

Sick satisfaction hummed through my soul. Ashley had disemboweled, castrated, and defaced this man in a matter of minutes. The only person I’d ever seen do something so swiftly and grotesquely was Priest.

“Who else knows what was happening in here?” He collected the knives from the bodies of the officers. “Be very certain, Bennett, because I will slaughter every man on board this tarnal ship.”

“Only these three as far as I know.” I swallowed down a sour bite of fish and fought back nausea. “Did you recognize the man who raped me? He always smelled like—”

“Onions. He ate them raw.” He cast the body an intense, fevered glare. “Sir John Dycker.”

“The admiral? You killed your superior?” I clutched my forehead, whirling beneath the implication. “They’ll execute you, Ashley! They’ll hang you right alongside me!”