CHAPTER FIVE
It didn’t take them long to row their tiny boat towards the pirate ship, with Robin using a spell to conceal it. Their original ship sailed off as per Isabella’s instructions, one that didn’t sit well with Dylan. If something went wrong, that meant that they had no backup ship at all.
Not that he was banking on anything going wrong. But one could never tell.
He glanced at Isabella, who was wrapped in a dark cloak and even darker clothing, looking at the pirate ship ahead. She was a beautiful one to look at, really—all that dark, luscious hair and olive skin, with pretty blue eyes that could melt you or freeze you with a look. She was also a prickly little thing, riled up too easily even while she hid it well. He could easily tell by the way she would go rigid when he ordered something against her instructions, or when he went ahead and bypassed her orders.
They would have to work on that, then. It wouldn’t do to be at odds with each other at a time like this.
He knew it wouldn’t be easy. Hell, Isaac had barely budged when he told him the situation, opting to solve the problem himself. The only thing that made him consider was Dylan’s insistence that he wasn’t going to oblige the panther clan leader in joining the alliance if he didn’t wish. Still, if this mission was successful, there was always a chance—and as leader, he always needed to think about those chances and weigh them out.
Robin had her eyes closed, and Simon was observing their surroundings. The boy had been quiet the whole time, but Dylan could tell he was listening. As if on cue, he straightened when they were near, positioning himself to make the entrance while they were covered in fog. That was the deal—for him to go first, Isabella second, Robin third, and Dylan last.
They finally hit the side of the boat. Simon leaped into action, his body leaping gracefully up like he was just climbing a tree. Isabella followed suit, her movements more contained, but even more fluid than Simon’s. It was obvious Robin wasn’t a shifter with the way she followed them—awkward, almost stilted movements, though she didn’t make any noise at all. When they were all up the side and had disappeared from his view, Dylan tied the tiny boat beside one of the pirate ship’s metal chains. Then he climbed up as well and hoisted himself to the inside, his eyes taking in the ship’s exterior and assessing the situation before making a move.
There was already a quiet fight going on, and he could hear the grunts of men. He saw the blur of Simon’s paws and the flash of Isabella’s blades, indicating she hadn’t shifted. There were also some sparks coming from Robin, a combination of red and gold.
Any second now, the whole crew would be alerted. While they were still ignorant to the infiltration, Dylan carried on with his task, moving straight to the captain’s cabin.
It was an easy enough feat, especially since the captain seemed to be a drunkard who snored when he slept. Dylan hauled him up and knocked him unconscious, then tied him up and left him in bed. Then he went back out the way he came in, hearing the shouts now as the fog cleared. Some pirates passed his way, and he shifted his hands into claws and swiped at them before they could draw out their guns. He kept it quiet as to not draw unnecessary attention.
More chaos ensued on the deck, and Dylan joined the fight. He had just managed to swipe at two more pirates when he saw it—Isabella in motion, her cloak gone.
She was wearing all black, and she was a vision as she stood at the center of the deck and kept the pirates at bay. She twirled in motion, her blades swinging in every direction, as they kept coming at her.
Dylan had seen assassins, but he hadn’t seen panther assassins in motion. They were a league all their own when it came to grace, and he quietly took note of that for future reference.
But now, it was time to break it up.
Dylan leapt from his elevated spot down to the deck, holding her gaze when she whirled in his direction, blades at a ready. When she saw it was him, she nodded her head and they stood back to back, facing the pirates that were circling them.
The fight didn’t even last that long. Isabella’s man’s estimate was right—there weren’t more than thirty of them, and most of them too young. But it was obvious in their eyes that they were greedy for the kill and wouldn’t let Dylan and company leave alive or surrender, so there was no choice but to kill them first.
Simon’s furry blur came back from below. Robin trailed after him, out of breath and hair flying in all directions.
“There are no prisoners yet,” she reported. “But there was lots of blood and shifter scents downstairs.”
Which meant the children were already delivered to the island, and they were back in the waters to get more. Isabella’s face turned positively stormy.
“Isaac protects the land area they were headed towards,” she clipped out. “They’d have been dead before they could get any of the children there.”
He detected a hint of doubt in her tone, but it was gone as soon as it came. Dylan nodded. Then he went back to the cabin, where he had left the captain.
He had some major interrogating to do.
*****
Once the captain was up, it wasn’t easy to get past his hysterical screaming of bloody murder and how they were going to regret this. But Dylan rode his insults out and waited until he was rational enough to listen.
When he was, Dylan delivered a cold, calm speech: that of how he was going to cut off the captain’s fingers one by one if he didn’t cooperate, and tear off his skin slowly while he was still alive. Then the other body parts would follow. The captain turned white and sweated, trembling as Dylan approached him.
The blow came without warning, right towards the captain’s chin. Dylan kept at it, remembering the scent of sex he’d found in the cabin when he came back. It was mixed with the scent of shifter, which meant the captain dabbed on the so-called goods he sold.
The blow kept coming. The captain sang like a bird, spilling everything there was that Dylan needed to know about the island. When he was done, he threw the captain in one of the cages and went back on deck, where Isabella and the teenagers were waiting. Simon was already clothed and back in human form, and the ship was clean of pirates now. It stank of staleness and dirt, though.
They made no comment about his treatment to the captain. Instead, Isabella stepped forward and waited for him to meet her gaze. It took him a while, still needing to fight with the beast in him raring to go and destroy the captain completely. When he finally met her gaze, Isabella spoke first.
“Did you get anything from him?” she asked.
Dylan nodded, then turned to Robin. “What have you been practicing with your teacher so far?” he asked, referring to Henrik’s wife.
Robin began enumerating the spells she knew, and Dylan ran it through his mind. He looked up sharply when Robin mentioned a complicated spell, and held up his hand. Robin’s voice trailed off.
“You know how to alter appearances?”
Robin nodded.
“At sixteen?”
Robin’s chin went up. “I’m very good at it. I’m a fast learner.”
He thought it over again. Then he looked the three of them in the eye and spoke.
“One of us is going to imitate the captain. You kids will pretend to be captured slaves. Let’s discuss.”
They changed the ship’s course back to the island and hashed out the plan, estimating that they still had a couple hours before they would reach it. It was agreed that the ship would appear to be attacked, the captain barely escaping for his life and bringing only two teenage slaves along with him. Isabella was initially supposed to be an invisible scout until they realized how hard that would be to keep up. She also couldn’t be an ordinary pirate, because that meant she wouldn’t be privy to any internal conversation Dylan planned to have with whoever was heading the island—something that obviously didn’t sit well with her.
Their third option—that of making her the captain’s newly acquired concubine—was the only choice, considering he was the type of person who would never get a girlfriend or a wife. Isabella didn’t protest this, and soon they polished the plan enough to be satisfied nothing would go wrong.
When they were done, Dylan advised them all to get a few hours sleep to recharge. He and Isabella took turns in their nap, with Isabella taking the first shift. Dylan took the second and crashed inside the captain’s cabin, already wearing the captain’s clothes and immersing himself in the captain’s scent.
When he woke up, they were twenty minutes away from the dock. It was also already past midnight. He took a moment to think of his brother, who he’d shared a mother with but nothing else. Lance Porter had been a loner from the very beginning, rejecting the pack the moment he could be independent.
Now he was in trouble, and Dylan needed to save him. He re-thought the plan over in his mind, finally realizing that there was nothing more to polish and they could only hope for the best.
It was time to get things in motion.