Blackheart Read Online Free Page A

permitted to abscond. The pirates of Satan’s Victory pillaged the ship of its treasures: silks, satins, sails, cannon, pistols, swords and foodstuffs. The ship was soon delivered to Poseidon’s den with cannon ball shot mid hull at water line. The ship sank.
    Aboard Satan’s Victory’s bridge, Lochlanaire was disturbed by his ferocity in the kill. He silenced this mortal immorality and calculated his ship’s condition. The mainmast had partially splintered when a mast ripper’s chain tore through it, wood and rigging now littered the deck.
    Grayson hurried to the tiller, “The ship anchors, Captain. We cannot journey far without that mast.”
    Lochlanaire asked, “Is there a port nearby?”
    Grayson removed a chart. “Serpent Isle is southerly. We can limp to it, should the wind keep to our cause.”
    Lochlanaire nodded. “Clear the mast. Head us in the direction of that island.”
    “Aye, Captain.”
    After Lochlanaire surrendered command to Grayson, he ventured to his cabin. Therein, he cleansed the cutlass of blood and washed the stains off his hands. He pegged the weapon to its nail piercing the wall. Unwillingly, he relived the battle fought. He saw the eyes of those men he’d slain.
    Needing a distraction, Lochlanaire retrieved the parchment painting of the maid he had sworn to hunt. He used a pistol’s butt and nailed the painting to the wall closest to where he could see it at his bed.
    Lochlanaire rifled within the desk’s drawers, found a couple of shackles chained together and sat on the bedside, spellbound by the beauty of Siren Rain. The manacles swayed eerily back and forth.
    “‘Evil’s cast ye here. Hell has spat ye out, Heaven will not weather ye, prisoner shall ye be…crazy, crazy, were Satan’s whispers, hang, hang, hang ye, dead, dead, dead ye be…dead, dead, dead ye be,’” Lochlanaire murmured icily.

CHAPTER THREE

    Siren

    Siren Rain dropped against the wall of her prison. Chained, irons clenching her wrists, she remembered the villainy of which tempted her to this hideous position aboard this ship of the damned…
    While she threaded among the crowd of drinking and gaming men, Siren attended those who smirked lustfully at her, maligning the gaming hall, the Virginian. Having run from her cruel stepfather aboard a ship bound for the Americas from England, upon which she’d stowed away, Siren embarked on an adventure she prayed would bring freedom and enchantment. Sadly, she only procured starvation with her arrival in Virginia. She required employment so to compensate the captain for her voyage to America as; of course, he discovered her hiding in the cargo hold. She attempted to scrounge up a governess station but, possessing insufficient expertise, Siren was forced to labor as a scullery maid in a brothel’s smoky kitchen. This status repugnant, and with the madam beginning to ogle her shapely body, she tiptoed out of the house in the dark night, a skittish maid without benefit of employment or benefactor. Siren broke inside the icehouse outside the Virginian, seeking shelter. Regrettably, she fell ill and was recovered by its proprietor, who took pity on her and placed her under his charge. Now beholden unto him, as well as to her previous servitude to the Adventure Galley’s reprehensible captain, she labored for her keep, wearing a peasant’s shirt of white linen and a high cut, multi-colored skirt that reminded her of a gypsy. Her clothing was presented for which to bare the silhouette of her unbound breasts and curvy legs to the enraptured rogues designing debauchery in her company.
    On the night of her captivity aboard this ship where she now resided, Siren noted in a corner of the Virginian, slouched a black-haired, similar eyed fellow whose scowl followed her every step. The patron drank little, not partaking of the gaming within the crowded edifice. Erroneously, she did not think further of the chap, declaring herself plagued by exhaustion with the warnings sensed.