“What do you want?” Ashley shifted closer and slightly in front of me as if preparing to shove me back. “You already have my ship and my soldiers. My career is ruined. I won’t be able to show my face in London again. My life is over.”

He didn’t cant the words in a whining, pompous voice. He spoke coldly in a tone he reserved for low-ranking servants. Or for fools who made the mistake of inciting the murderous side of his unseemly manners.

“Your life isn’t over,” Madwulf said, “until your head is separated from your body. Set down your weapons.” He wrenched hard on the girl’s hair, making her sob. “Or this pretty little lass won’t see her next sunrise.”

The mother shrieked behind the pirate’s hand, her fear trickling sparks of pain through my chest. Madwulf hadn’t made a hollow threat. His eyes burned with vindictive anticipation in cutting the child while we watched.

With effort, I loosened my grip on the cutlass enough to drop it. But Priest and Ashley didn’t move.

“Do it,” I said to them. “He’ll kill her.”

The potent masculine energy on either side of me held still.

Twisting my neck, I found Priest staring furiously at me with those blade-sharp eyes. Yes, he despised this as much as I did. But he didn’t have to hammer the point home with his withering, belligerent glare.

I refused to back down and returned his scowl with one of my own.

At last, with an enraged grunt, he surrendered his weapons.

Meeting the same resistance with Ashley, I stood my ground until he dropped his blades. Between the two of them, I’d never seen such torment. It was true that, disarmed and defenseless, our chances of survival were slim to none. But I had a plan.

“Release the girl, Madwulf.” I crossed my arms, shielding the rapid rise and fall of my chest. “We did what you asked.”

Without warning, a new swarm of pirates spilled out from around both sides of the cottage. All at once, we were overrun with nowhere to go. The hostile mob fell upon us too fast, with too many weapons. Some held us down. Others restrained our arms with rope.

Outrage and helplessness swept through me. I kept my eyes on the child, knowing that one wrong move would end her life.

Within seconds, Priest, Ashley, and I were shoved to our knees, hands bound behind us, in the horrifying custody of Madwulf MacNally. I ordered my damned tears not to fall, even as they clogged my eyes and turned my captor blurry.

He shoved the girl into the arms of a nearby pirate and stared at me in a way that could only be defined as evil. “Kill them.”

In my periphery, a cutlass reared back, aiming for Ashley’s head.

“Noooo! Wait!” The hysteria in my voice pierced the air. “I have something you want!”