Free The Devil's Tide by Matt Tomerlin Page A

When Martel's limp body finally dropped away, Teach held the blank-faced head aloft for all to see. He found no quarrel with the rest of the crew after that.
    Teach's crew took everything in the hold and enjoyed the company of the whores. When Teach looked on Annabelle, he allowed no other man to touch her, and he promptly escorted her to his quarters. Even in her post-Edward Livingston state, with a deep scar running down her right cheek, she knew she was far more beautiful than her sister whores. Her breasts and hips were perfectly curved, her skin was toned copper by day or by candlelight, and a mane of thick black hair ran the length of her back. Countless men had stared into her large brown eyes and told her she was the most beautiful woman they had ever seen, and she would not humbly deny it.
    Teach said the same, nearly every night, though he had done little more than talk. She had stolen a kiss, but his lips proved less deft with kissing than they were with words.
Has he kept me here for conversation and nothing more?
    She supposed it could have been worse. She reminded herself that most women would have been used by the entire crew by now until they were nothing more than a semen-crusted corpse.
    She finished the final fuse and set her hands in her lap, watching him stare out the window as he often did at night. "What are you always looking at?"
    "The night."
    "There's nothing to see out there."
    "Everywhere I look, there be something to see. The world brims with obstacles begging for notice. Out there my gaze finds no quarrel. Strike the fuses, would you?"
    She set a match in the candle until it took flame and then gingerly lit each fuse, taking care not to light his beard on fire. The cabin quickly filled with smoke, and Annabelle plugged her nose.
    Teach stood in the haze. "My coat," he instructed. She took his long black leather coat off its hook and dressed him. She set a black tricorn hat over his dark locks, fitting it in place. The smoke rolled up over the brim. He looked every bit a devilish wraith, blue eyes gleaming beyond the haze.
    "Come out with me," Blackbeard said.
    She lowered her head. "I should get dressed."
    He pinched her chin. "Nay. I want them to see you like this. I want them to see what I return to after my business be resolved."
    "As you wish," she said. She opened the neck of her robe enough to reveal her cleavage, and smiled. "Is that better?"
    If he heard the question, he made no attempt to acknowledge it. "Follow me as far as the quarterdeck, but stray no further."
    She nodded dutifully. He turned at once and threw open the door, his pace quick and deliberate. She followed him out, trying not to cough as the smoke from his beard trailed into her face. She stopped at the foot of the quarterdeck and watched him descend the stairs.
    Much of the crew was gathered on the cutdown forecastle, with three prisoners lined up in front of the capstan. A small merchant ship flying Dutch colors bobbed in the water off the port of
Queen Anne's Revenge
. Blackbeard's men were presently ransacking the ship while its crew looked on in horror. A few of the merchant ship's crew had been killed, their corpses left to bloody the deck. One poor soul was face down in a puddle of his own blood with a cutlass sticking out of his back.
    Queen Anne's Revenge
loomed over her prey like a giant hawk that had claimed a small bird. She was a three-hundred ton frigate, originally named
Concord
. She had been a gift from Benjamin Hornigold, who captured her near the island of Martinique. Teach had served in the Royal Navy, and he confided to Annabelle his undying respect for Queen Anne. He said her death had left him heartbroken, and he thought it especially tragic that not one of her seventeen pregnancies had resulted in a surviving child. He renamed
Concord
out of sympathy. Benjamin Hornigold was quick to point out the irony when Blackbeard set
Queen Anne's Revenge
upon every British vessel he encountered. That was the