Though he wasn’t drunk, he was perfectly willing to let every other buffoon in the tavern believe it were so.

Thor, Captain of The Sea Devil, and longtime second-in-command to the Prince of the Devils of the Deep brethren, often played this game.

The thing was, when a dunce believed Thor to be deep in his cups, he often joined him, and when a man was liquored up, his tongue became loose as a tavern wench in need of coin. And that was how Thor often found out about treasure that needed saving, or heads that needed bashing. Verily, the usual squealers were the swain with enough ale or whisky in their bellies to widen their jaws and wag their tongues.

As it happened, right now, a very intriguing conversation was taking place a few tables away. Talk of pirates and gold—two things that were liable to interest anyone in the tavern, not just Thor.

Letting out a belch loud enough to shake the rafters, Thor tapped his mug on the table rather obnoxiously and shouted, “Another! And shome for my”—he waved his hands in the air and pretended to tip back on his chair, balancing mid-air before righting himself with a snort of fake laughter—“all my friendsh.”

The men in the tavern let out a loud round of whoops and hollers, clicking their mugs as the wenches scurried to fill them with ale up to the rims and collect the coin from Thor before he changed his mind. On the far side of the tavern, men broke out in song, boot heels tapping against the sagging wood of the floor. The torches danced precariously in place where they hung on the walls. One of the drunkards picked up a set of bagpipes and began to play a rather dismal and shameful rendition of a Highland ballad.

Well, that wouldn’t do. Thor charged across the tavern, making certain to bounce against a few backs, spilling his ale and appearing unstable as he made his way there.

“That ish not how ’tish done,” he slurred. “Let me show ye.”

“Ye?” the buffoon laughed. “Another round says ye fall on your arse when ye blow.”

Thor grinned. “And if I do, I’ll shtill keep on playing.” Lord, help him, but he hoped the men discussing gold and pirates fell for his act.

Thor grabbed the pipes, settled them against his shoulder, left hand holding the chanter, right hand on the bag. He blew into them, and the squealing sound that issued was enough to have the men falling over laughing. But once he had a handle on the pipes, he played a haunting melody he’d penned on the high seas. The men of the tavern couldn’t hear the words he’d created to go with the song. No one would ever hear them twice, for he changed them in his mind each time.

When he finished the song, he dutifully fell to his arse with a laugh, tossing the pipes back to their owner.

“Impressive, ye drunk bastard,” said the man as he caught the pipes.

“No matter how drunk, a man always knows how to play his pipes,” Thor said, bringing out a round of laughter from the men. “Drinks on my friend here!”

As the wenches moved to refill the cups, Thor climbed to his feet, glancing out the side of his eye toward the men he’d been spying on earlier. They were still there, still talking in hushed tones. They’d stopped while he played, mesmerized as everyone else was by Thor’s sea song.

He wagered the time to be nearing midnight, and most of the rapscallions in the place had been splashing ale and whisky down their throats for the better part of several hours.

Thor staggered around the tavern, pretending to drink his empty cup of ale and slapping random men on their backs. To keep his ruse going, he shared a juicy tidbit about a wench he’d bedded the day before—a total lie—but it drew him closer to the table huddled in the corner, which was what he wanted. Thor didn’t bed women simply to brag about it, but for some reason, bawdy jests and innuendo always seemed to open men up, and so he’d use that to his full advantage.

“Aye, he’ll be paying a hefty sum in gold,” said the man farthest at the table from Thor.

Thor listened to their conversation as he continued being rowdy with the men at the table beside them.

“How much?” one whispered.

“I heard tell it was an entire chest of gold. A king’s ransom.”

“For a wee bairn?”

A wee bairn… What in the bloody hell kind of treasure was that? What pirate wanted to deal with a child? Thor could barely stand the adolescent lad he’d helped his pirate prince Shaw “Savage” MacLeod rescue just a few months ago. The lad followed Thor around like a puppy. Well, until Thor snarled.

“Well, ’tis not a bairn no more,” they continued, and Thor let out a loud belch to his newfound friends, which inspired a round of who could belch the loudest.

“How old?” The men looked about, none of them seeing Thor’s side-eyed glance.

“He said twenty or so.”

What in Hades were they talking about? Thor resisted the urge to knock their heads together and insist they spit the information out faster.

“Lad or lass?”

“He’s not sure.”

“Ye mean to tell me, Santiago Fernandez put out the word that he’d pay a king’s ransom for a bastard he got on a Scots lass two decades ago, but he’s not certain if it be a lad or lass?”

Whoa now… Thor almost choked on his empty mug. Santiago… Had he heard that correctly?

“Aye. A Scots whore. Santiago’s got a bastard running around if ’tis still alive.”

An icy chill rushed through his veins at the mention of Santiago Fernandez.

Thor growled, letting out a low curse, which startled his new friends.

“I need more ale!” he shouted, pretending that was the reason for his outburst.

A wench was by his side in less than a second, filling his mug as she rubbed her ample bosom against the front of his shirt. He winked at her, made to reach for one of her breasts, but she playfully batted his hand away. The men at his table laughed, but Thor felt no humor. Rather, he was seething inside at what he was hearing.

Captain Santiago Fernandez was his mortal enemy. Hate didn’t even begin to explain how Thor felt about him. He loathed the man. And for good reason. The first time Thor ever laid eyes on him was when the Spanish pirate stood over the body of Thor’s mother, laughing. The bastard had killed her. Murdered her in cold blood and left her bloodied and battered body on display for everyone to see, including Thor when he was just a lad. Santiago was the reason Thor had become a pirate two decades before. Five years ago, he’d thought the day of reckoning was at hand, but the bastard leader of Los Demonios de Mar had outmaneuvered him, then captured and tortured him. But that didn’t mean Thor was going to give up. Their parting words all those years ago had been Thor’s vow to see Santiago dead.

“Where’d ye hear it?” one of the scheming swain asked.

“From one of his crew. They were bragging about how they’d be the first to find Santiago’s offspring.” He leaned closer. “So I shanked him.”

A plan started to formulate in Thor’s mind. A crazy idea.

If these men were willing to kill for the information, the promise of a king’s ransom had to be accurate. Why else would they gut each other for it? Aye, they were all a bunch of scoundrels, but they didn’t kill just to kill, not without cause.

How many years had Thor waited to exact his revenge on the bastard? Was it just coincidence that the perfect opportunity had just presented itself? Or was it fate?

Thor didn’t believe in fate. Nor did he believe in coincidences. But he did believe in luck, and today was turning out to be his lucky day.

A slow grin covered his face, and he pretended to throw back another swig from his empty cup—the contents of which he’d surreptitiously poured into each man’s cup as he clinked mugs with them. He tossed the barkeep a sack full of coins, which he always did to maintain the secrecy of his identity, then waited outside the tavern until the three men who’d been whispering about Santiago’s bairn stepped through the door.

Thor wasn’t a small man. Even as child of ten, he’d been taller than most men in his mother’s clan. She was a MacLeod, and after his bastard Viking father left his mother to the care of her family, Thor had repudiated any connection to the whoreson—but he couldn’t deny it when he glanced at his reflection. For a long time, he’d shaved the wheat-colored hair from his head, only recently growing it out because he realized how much more savage it made him appear. Being a pirate was all about appearances. The only physical trait he’d inherited from his mother was her blue eyes. Thank God for that, because it meant when he did peer at his likeness, he could still make eye contact with himself, for he saw her instead of his traitorous father.

He was well over six and a half feet tall, and weighed as much as an ox. Even still, he was quiet, and the three men didn’t hear him approach. He bashed one on the head, knocking him out cold, then he grabbed the other two by the scruffs of their necks and jerked them into the alleyway behind the tavern.

One of the men pissed himself before passing out. The other stared at Thor as though he were God or the devil, it made no difference.

“Tell me where I can find the bairn?” Thor demanded.

The scab’s eyes widened, knowing instantly to whom Thor referred.

“I…I dinna know.”

“Then how were ye planning to find him?”

“Might be a her.”

Thor tightened his grip on the back of the imbecile’s neck and leaned in closer. He spoke slowly, pronouncing each word in a clipped tone. “What was your plan?”

“We were going to put the word out. Offer a small reward for information.”

“And then take the larger reward.”

“Aye.”

Thor nodded. “Sounds like a solid plan. And what makes ye think that the child survived?”

“No telling.” The man was shaking so hard he vibrated Thor’s arm.

“Here’s your new plan—go home and pretend ye never heard of the bairn, or risk me finding ye and tearing your arms off and shoving them up your arse.”

“Aye, sir.” He nodded emphatically. “Aye, never heard of whatever it is ye speak of.”

Pressing his lips together in thought, Thor head-butted the scab and dropped him to the ground beside his friends.

Sounded like as good a plan as any.

Thor grunted and nodded to himself again. This was truly happening. Revenge for his mother, for himself, for every man, woman and child Santiago had ever harmed, was within reach. Retribution would be his. And he refused to think of the bairn as being one of those victims, though guilt did prick his gut for it was likely true.

He stepped over the sleeping shites and made his way down to the wharf. The sun would soon be rising, and he needed to make certain his crew was on board with this newest mission, and that the reward of a chest full of gold and the satisfaction of revenge was well received.

A slow grin filled his face. Aye, soon he’d have Santiago’s child tossed in the dark cell of The Sea Devil. He’d arrange to meet with the Spanish captain and toss the body at the man’s feet—for he absolutely could not let a child of Santiago live, not when the man wanted it badly enough to offer such a massive reward. Then, when knowing dawned on the bastard’s face, Thor would sink his blade deep into Santiago’s heart. Revenge complete. An eye for an eye. A loved one for a loved one.

Thor ignored the bitter taste his own thoughts left on his tongue. He was a pirate. This was what pirates did. They ravaged, maimed, stole, took lives. Part of the brethren code he’d vowed to keep was not taking a life unnecessarily. But there had to be someway to get around that.

As he marched toward his ship, anyone scurrying around the docks at this bleak hour leapt out of his way, not wanting to cause trouble with a man the size of a mountain. The rest of them stayed where they were, hidden in the shadows, waiting for someone more vulnerable to pass by. Bodies heaved. Moaned. They were all up to no good.

Thievery.

Assault.

Smuggling.

Debauchery.

Thor had seen it all. And honoring the code of the brethren, if he came across an innocent being abused, he always stepped in. While he thought on it, he watched a lass leap across several barrels as two wharf guards chased her, their swords clinking as they shouted at her about the promise of the hangman’s noose. She was dressed in breeches, but there was no hiding the feminine curves she was blessed with. The moon lit off her creamy skin and the flash of her wicked smile. Added to that, her hair fell loose of its plait in wild black curls that surrounded her face like a shroud of devilry. Och, Thor liked her. A lot. Had he not been on a mission, and she not running—quite well, might he add—from the authorities, he might have asked her to join him aboard his ship for a dram.

Thor grinned, watching her impressive dodging. She thrust one long leg out to catch the top of a barrel with a dainty foot, making running from wharf guards look like an elegant dance. The lass was clearly used to being chased by the authorities—and with getting away. She taunted them with lewd remarks he’d never heard come from a lass’s lips and made a rude hand gesture at them as she darted into a darkened alley.

That was a lass who could take care of herself. His kind of woman.

Chuckling, he sauntered off, thinking it might be fun to go after her and offer her that dram after all, but she’d likely take his offer of respect as him wanting something else, and he might end up with a knife in his gut. Or worse—his ballocks.

Better to mind his own business. And keep his precious parts.

The Sea Devil loomed before him, the Devils of the Deep flag safely hidden and the merchant’s flag swaying in the evening breeze in its place. Every time he saw her, his heart swelled as it had the first moment he’d found out the ship was his. It was after he’d escaped from Santiago. Shaw had seen fit to give him the twenty-two-gun galley in an effort to turn his mind from revenge and back on the brethren. The responsibility of being the captain had been exactly what Thor needed to get his head back in the game. His men respected him. He respected himself. He had more to focus on than just the revenge he’d lived and breathed for the better part of two decades. But that didn’t mean he’d forgotten. Nay, he’d been a wild animal in hiding. Hibernating that need for vengeance until the right time presented itself. As it just had.

Thor leapt the few feet to the rope ladder and climbed. They never left a plank out for any scoundrel to climb aboard. That was asking for trouble. Trouble they did not need. Or want. The ship deck was littered with swabs, half of them drinking and cavorting, and the other half dead asleep.

Thor picked up his bagpipes, licked his lips, blew into the pipe, setting the tone for the music and then gave it his all, playing the same ballad he had in the tavern and longing for the seas to embrace them once more. Those who’d been asleep awoke, and those who’d been carousing quieted. They listened to their captain play, and when Thor was done, they waited for what he had to say.

“A treasure awaits us.” Thor met each of their gazes, nodding. “A bounty at this port that will lead us to a chest of gold doubloons.”

“Spanish gold,” someone muttered with obvious pleasure.

“What kind of bounty?” another asked.

Thor grinned, settling his pipes back in their case. “’Tis the bastard bairn of none other than Captain Santiago Fernandez.”

There were a few sharply indrawn breaths, and the men grew silent, waiting for their captain to expand on his words. He searched the sea of faces for Edgard, his first mate and second-in-command. Edgard’s face was guarded, but he did nod his support. The man had been with him for as long as The Sea Devil had been his, and Thor trusted him implicitly.

“I dinna know if ’tis a lass or lad, but I do know he or she would be twenty by now. We’ll put out the word for a small reward, and once we’ve the bastard in hand, we’ll set sail for Scarba, and then arrange to meet Santiago to claim the gold.”

“Ye’re not going to give him the child.” Edgard made the statement rather than asking, having picked up on Thor’s choice of words.

“Nay. I’m going to kill the wee bastard. Kill Santiago. And take all the gold on his ship.”

The men cheered, all except Edgard, who he suspected would remind him of the brethren code when his men wouldn’t dare. Thor took the large mug of ale they passed him, swigged it hard and then tossed it in the air.

He set his mouth to the pipes again and played a victorious tune, his hard gaze on Edgard’s all the while. Screw the code. Vengeance would be his. The taste of sweet retribution was already thick and delicious on his tongue.