A Pirate for the Dead Goddess (Legends of Rahasia Book 2)

Chapter Thirteen

The bone doctor looks at me from behind a mask, a beak like a metal bird. To not breathe in bad fumes. Bad air.

I'm lying there, short of breath. On display for the bone doctor to look at.

Pay by the pound of flesh.

"This will hurt..." I'm tied down. Told it's for my own good. So, I won't mess up my own surgery. Such a special day. Finally be myself.

I don't see the disgust in the bone doctor's eyes, the utter hatred. I want to scream for Ali. But the saw. The knife that slices into my flesh. The searing hot pain.

I can't speak.

Only whimper.

Only cry.

"Where's your crew now, Captain?" The bone doctor asks. "Are you going to try to take this like a man? Are you even capable of that?"

Ali runs into the room then, Xander helping her knock the bone doctor's door in.

She turns the knife on him. "We told you to do it right, you bastard. Get the sleeping herbs to take away the pain, or we slice you and send you bit by bit to your family's doorstep."

Thank you, Ali, thank you.

I want to weep in gratitude. But my flesh is torn, and I can't focus on anything else but pain. Pain. Pain.

Ali forces the bone doctor to take up the knife again.

"Give the good captain the medicine and do it right this time, or you go through me."

Xander picks up one of the knives, baring his teeth.

Ali cuts the doctor from ear to chin. The bone doctor screams.

"And we make the incisions this time."

***

Ali's voice, drifting through the darkness. "Captain?" I roll over, fell asleep with my jacket slung over my chest. Farzaneh's curled up too close to me. Flushing, I pull away from the heap of my crew, all of us sprawled on deck or half-hanging off hammocks. I don't believe much in cordoning myself in my captain's quarters, using it instead as a sick bay, with a soft, fluffy bed for the injured. Kura's there right now, nursing her healing face.

Ali beside me, shaking me awake. She's hungover, eyes red from a bender.

"Ali," I murmur, still grateful, feeling half hungover myself from that nightmarish lucid dream. "I've never thanked you for saving me from that bone doctor all those years ago. I... Do you want to be my first mate?"

She blinks at me, astounded. Then her grin matches my own, nervous one. Sincerely, it's happiness. I haven't seen that look on her face since I tripped over my own boots when I tried to scare an Idriolan naval officer in my younger days.

"Well, that was unexpectedly kind of you, Captain. But, my first act as first mate's going to be to warn you." She points to the mirrored sails gaining behind us, could be mistaken for one of the stars out near the horizon. "Lunes are pursuing our ship."

Dammit.

"Set out the fire boats." I pull myself shakily to my feet, still rubbing sleep from my eyes. I head to the cellar, where the barrels of gunpowder are kept. "We're going to sink them."