Free The Devil's Tide by Matt Tomerlin

the makeshift fuses in a solution of saltpeter and lime water. She worked the first fuse into Teach's thick beard. "You'll set yourself alight one day," she scorned.
    "They'll amend my name to Firebeard," he said with a guttural laugh.
    "Is that not the sort of end you dream of?"
    "Already you know me better than I know myself."
    "Oh, I don't think anyone truly knows you, Edward Teach."
    "You look ravishing tonight," he said. His beard twitched, and the creases in his sun-scavenged cheeks told her there was a smile cloaked beneath that black thicket. His piercing blue eyes scaled her body up and down, halting momentarily to fixate on her breasts. Perhaps tonight would finally be the night.
    "I didn't think you'd noticed," she said, starting on the second fuse.
    "Of course I noticed," he said, feigning injury. "I always notice."
    Annabelle merely nodded. It had been two months since her ship had been intercepted by
Queen Anne's Revenge
, and in all that time Edward Teach had done nothing more than sleep beside her in bed, fully clothed. She had tried every trick in her considerable array, but nothing worked. She was starting to wonder why Teach had taken her aboard his ship in the first place. When he first looked on her, she had been damaged goods, still suffering nightmares from a brutal rape at the hands of a loathsome pirate named Edward Livingston. When Teach brought her into his cabin, she was frightened out of her wits that he would do the same, night after night. She had heard horrible stories about the things he had done to whores, but he had done nothing of the sort to her. He didn't even touch her until she made the first move a month later, after her fear had been replaced by extreme boredom. Now she would give anything for him to tear her clothes off and ravish her. She was a strumpet, and she feared her talents were going to waste. Thus far, she had managed not to voice her distress, but she wasn't sure how much more of this she could take.
    "What devious notions crowd that mind of yours?" he said. His bushy eyebrows were pinched together as he studied her, the many creases of his brow closely bunched.
    "Many at once," she answered with a smile.
    "I prefer to tackle each in the order it came," he said, looking to the stern window. The curtains were parted, and it was pitch black beyond the faintly lit rail of the stern gallery.
    She finished the second fuse and went to work on the third, tying as fast as she could. "I'm sorry. My fingers are clumsy today."
    "Don't fret," Teach said. "The longer they're made to wait, the more nervous they be when I emerge."
    "Are you going to kill them?"
    "Aye."
    "All of them?"
    "Enough to leave a mark on those I don't."
    "That's good," she said, finishing the third fuse. "It's been too long since the last. I overheard John Garretty saying you'd gone soft."
    "Garretty?" he said, looking puzzled.
    "The cook's boy."
    "Ah yes. He said that, did he?"
    "Mmhmmm."
    He seemed unconcerned. "Two months deprived of murder and they think me Benjamin Hornigold."
    "I suppose you'll make up for it tonight," she reassured him.
    Annabelle could scarcely forget Teach's last murder. He had killed Charles Martel, her employer. She held no love for Martel, who was vicious with all his whores, and he had been particularly angry with her for getting raped and bruised up, as if she'd had any say in the matter. She told Martel to take up his grievance with Edward Livingston, and Martel gave her a fresh bruise for her smart mouth. When the pirates abandoned Nassau due to the impending arrival of Woodes Rogers, Martel decided to spirit the best of his whores to Tortuga. He never made it that far. Teach killed Martel first, making an example of him, severing his head from his neck. Annabelle would never forget the sound Teach's massive cutlass made as it tore through skin and muscle in a sawing motion. "The spine be the most stubborn part," Teach had said, gritting his teeth as he worked through the bone.