Apocalyptic Pirates 6, page 10
“No,” I said.
Manuel waited, but when I didn’t say anything further, he nodded and looked curiously at the women. They smiled back at him, except for Dia, who rolled her eyes in a predictable way.
Manuel grinned and said something to her in Spanish, to which she retorted something that made him lean back in his chair and laugh.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“He was being very cheeky,” Dia said with dignity. “I just put him in his place.”
“Ooh, Dia,” Letty said with a grin. “Were you flirting?”
“I was not flirting,” Dia retorted hotly. “Look at him, he’s just a little boy.”
Manuel was young, maybe about nineteen, and he was grinning at Dia in a way that suggested he might be a bit smitten with her. I couldn’t blame him– Dia was one of the most gorgeous and sexy women I’d ever met– but I didn’t like the idea of him flirting with her if she didn’t want that. I was trying to figure out the best way to fix the situation without coming across like a caveman when Dia solved it for me.
Manuel said something to her with a teasing grin on his face, and Dia rolled her eyes, stood up from her chair, grabbed hold of the front of my shirt, and kissed me soundly.
Her mouth was fierce and soft, and I didn’t realize how much I wanted to take things further until she abruptly broke the kiss and settled back down in her chair, and I was left with butterflies in my stomach and my cock twitching in desire.
Dia flashed Manuel a pointed look.
He was blinking at her in dazed wonderment.
I crossed my legs to hide the erection growing in my shorts and tried to clear my mind of all the thoughts that had rushed through it the second that Dia’s lips had touched mine.
“Satisfied?” Dia challenged Manuel.
He swallowed and nodded meekly.
“Damn, girl,” Shannon chuckled. “You broke the poor boy’s heart.”
“Good.” Dia sniffed. “I don’t play games.”
“Is that what he was suggesting?” Ally gasped.
“He wasn’t far off from that,” Dia said with a sigh. “I’ve been in this kind of situation before, and it’s always best to crush their hopes and dreams as soon as possible. I’m not about to two-time on someone I really care about.”
She glanced at me, and a rosy flush spread across her cheeks.
I reached over, took her hand, and pressed it to my lips.
“Mi amor,” I said in a low, intense voice.
Dia licked her lips and shifted in her chair as she held my gaze with unwavering intensity.
“Hey, um.” Shannon cleared her throat. “Not to completely destroy this moment, but we should probably keep this PG-13.”
“Yeah, there are little kids nearby,” Letty said with a giggle.
“I’ll go fetch a pail of cold water,” Ally joked.
“No, no cold water.” I sat back in my chair. “I’m fine.”
“Yeah,” Dia echoed. “We’re fine.”
Manuel seemed to have recovered from his embarrassment, and he leaned forward to stare at the knife at my belt.
“You kill dragons with that?” he asked.
“Uh, yeah,” I said, and when I saw the gleam in his eyes, I decided to cut the kid some slack. “Here, you want to hold it?”
“Si! Yes!” he exclaimed.
His eyes were huge with excitement as he took the knife from my hands. He made a few experimental cuts through the air.
“Better than my knife,” he commented. “Bad for killing dragons.”
“What did you use?” I asked.
“Not much.” He shrugged. “Mostly we just hide. No guns here. Just knives and sticks.”
I looked at him with a new respect. He might be a goofy kid, but it took a lot of guts to face a dragon with just a knife and a stick.
I clapped him on the shoulder, and he grinned as he carried on playing with my knife.
Marisol slept for a few more hours, and when she awoke, she immediately demanded that she introduce us to all her friends. She grabbed hold of Letty’s arm and practically dragged her out of her chair in her excitement. Letty laughed and went along with it, and Marisol insisted that the rest of us accompany her as well. She led us on an excited and not very coherent tour of the village.
“Esta es mi pollo,” she announced proudly and pointed to a scrawny white chicken that was pecking around the back of the hut.
“Aqui es donde crece mi flor favorita,” she said, and she pointed out a patch of small violet flowers growing on a vine that dangled from a nearby tree.
“Esa es la camioneta vieja,” she said of the old pickup truck. “Nadie lo conduce ahora.”
“She’s saying it’s old and no one drives it anymore,” Dia explained when I looked puzzled about that last statement.
“Right.” I nodded.
Marisol looked up at me curiously as we walked back to her grandmother’s hut. She seemed to be deciding something in her head, and then she came to a conclusion, and she slipped her hand inside mine and held it.
I gave her fingers a gentle squeeze and smiled down at her.
I still couldn’t get over what a difference there was between the little girl walking beside me and the girl I’d met yesterday. The sickly tint to her skin had vanished, and already her face seemed to be losing that tight, pinched look that made her look so ill. I didn’t know if it was my imagination, but even her hair seemed to be shinier, and the bald spots on her scalp less obvious.
“Tu mano esta lastimada,” Marisol said.
“She says that your hand is hurt,” Dia said, and she frowned. “Is it hurt?”
“It’s a bit red,” I said with a smile. “The heat from the fever was pretty intense.”
“Does it hurt?” Ally asked in concern. “We might have some aloe vera or something back at the yacht.”
“It’s fine.” I dismissed her concern. “It’ll be better by tomorrow.”
Marisol was looking up at me with a faint pucker of concern between her eyebrows, and I smiled reassuringly down at her.
“It’s all okay,” I said. “Uh, bien. Todas esta bien.”
Marisol giggled, and I sighed and shook my head.
“Don’t tell me,” I said to Dia. “I’m used to it by now.”
“All I’m saying is that your Spanish teacher at school was either very bad or very patient,” Dia giggled.
Marisol finished the tour of the village and led us back to her grandmother’s hut. We heard a commotion inside, and Dia informed us with a grin that Marisol was hungry and loudly demanding when the evening meal was going to be served.
I was surprised by how quickly the day had flown by. We hadn’t had lunch, and I’d been so focused on everything that I hadn’t had time to realize how hungry I was, but Marisol’s outburst awoke me to the fact that I was starving.
Thankfully, Eva must have realized this as well, and she sent Marisol out of the hut with a plate of sweetbreads to share among us. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to keep me satiated until the meal was served.
When it came, it was a simple but tasty dish of rice, beans, and some fresh green leaves. There was more than enough to go around. I was hesitant to take too much in case Ally was right and feeding five strangers would put too much of a strain on Eva’s resources, but the old woman was insistent that we clear our plates and come back for second helpings.
After dinner, we lay back in our chairs with our bellies stuffed full of food and watched the sky change color overhead.
Eva sat with us in another folding chair, and more of the neighbors brought out chairs and joined us. A low, easy conversation started between them. Marisol was quietly playing with some of the other village children.
Everything was very peaceful and quiet. A sense of calm filled me, and I looked around at the scene and at everybody with me. The beautiful women by my side. The villagers who had extended their hospitality to us. And the family that we had been able to help.
“Dia,” Letty said. “What’s the Spanish word for vegetables?”
“Las verduras,” Dia replied.
“Thank you. Eva,” Letty said. “Las verduras que comimos, donde ellas es?”
Eva spoke a quick line of Spanish, and then seeing that Letty hadn’t quite understood, she spoke it again but more slowly.
“Me mostraras?” Letty asked. “Mañana?”
Eva gave her a wide smile and nodded fervently.
“What did you ask her?” Shannon said.
“Where she got the greens we ate at dinner,” Letty replied. “She said she found them in the forest, and I asked her if she could show me where they are tomorrow.”
“That’s a really good idea!” Ally said excitedly. “She could show us which local plants are safe to forage.”
“We could all go,” Letty suggested. “It’s useful information to have.”
“It’s not really my thing, babe.” Shannon pulled a face. “I need to clean the guns tomorrow anyway.”
“You’re always cleaning the guns,” Letty said with a chuckle. “I swear you’ve given those things more washes since we got them than you’ve taken yourself.”
“That is patently untrue,” Shannon scoffed. “And I’m just thorough, okay? It’s a virtue, not a weakness.”
“Alright, alright.” Letty grinned.
“I like the idea of a foraging trip,” Ally said. “And if Dia doesn’t want to come, then I’m sure you and I have got enough Spanish to get by.”
“Let me think about it,” Dia sighed. “Plants bore me, though.”
“You’ll have fun,” Letty promised. “Foraging trips are the best.”
“Sure they are,” Dia grumbled.
“Drew?” Ally asked. “Will you be coming with us?”
“I want to see if I can get a call through to Sammy,” I said. “This whole thing has made me want to see her face.”
Ally smiled softly and reached over to pat my arm. I linked my fingers through hers, and we sat quietly together while the sunset bled out of the sky and the colors changed from blue to fiery red to gentle peach and soft pink and finally to deep navy-blue.
As the last of the colors faded from the sky, we got up from our chairs and said goodbye to the villagers.
Marisol was sitting on the ground with her head resting on Eva’s knee. She looked like she was about to fall asleep, but she jumped up to say goodbye and shyly patted Letty’s arm in farewell.
“Aw, come on, sugar.” Letty held out her arms with a wide smile. “Give us a proper hug.”
Marisol smiled and wrapped her arms tightly around Letty’s middle. The Southern woman laughed softly and stroked back the little girl’s hair.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she told her. “Hmm… te veo mañana.”
Marisol nodded fervently. She looked around shyly at the rest of us, and the other women held out their arms to give her a goodbye hug.
When it came to me, I got down on my knees and offered her a fist bump.
Marisol bumped her knuckles against mine and giggled when I made a whooshing sound and fluttered my fingers at her.
Eva began to heave herself out of her chair with a groan, but we hurriedly stopped her before she could trouble herself too much on our account.
We said our goodbyes and walked through the gathering twilight back to the yacht. The river water was a sheet of rippling darkness under the sky, and the yacht moved softly up and down on the current as though the boat was breathing. A lone night bird let out a cry that echoed over the water, and the air hummed with the song of insects that were busy in the trees.
“Has anyone else had the same thought as me?” Dia asked as we stepped back on deck and went down the hatch.
“Depends on what that thought is,” Letty said.
“Knowing what Dia’s thoughts are usually like, I sure hope we haven’t shared any of them,” Shannon teased.
“Fine.” Dia rolled her eyes. “I won’t tell you what my thought was, then.”
“Oh, come on,” Ally said in a gentle tone. “Let’s not squabble. What’s your thought, Dia?”
“That there are plenty of people in that village who could also benefit from a little dragon medicine,” the Latina stated. “Eva, for instance. She can barely move because of arthritis. I bet if we gave her some of the blood, it would help her. Maybe it would heal her entirely.”
“It might,” I said. “But we can’t force her to take it. It was enough of a struggle to get her to agree to us giving it to Marisol, and she only agreed to that because she was desperate and out of options.”
“And now that she’s seen what the blood can do, maybe she’ll be more willing to try it for herself,” Dia argued.
“Dia has a point,” Ally said. “We could at least offer it to her. She might leap at the chance to try it.”
“And what if she says no?” Letty questioned.
“Then she says no.” Dia gave a shrug. “But at least we’ll have offered it, and at least she’ll know that it’s an option. What if she’s secretly wishing that she could try the miracle cure, but she doesn’t realize that we’ve got more blood that she can have? I doubt she would ask us to go into the woods and kill another dragon just for her.”
“Another good point,” Ally said.
“That is a good thought, Dia,” I said. “We can certainly mention it to Eva, and we can see if there’s anyone else in the village who she thinks might be interested in trying it, too.”
“We can ask her about it tomorrow,” Letty suggested.
“Great.” I smiled. “Sounds like a plan.”
The women took turns showering, and while they were getting ready for bed, I emptied out Dia’s rucksack and stored the bottles and Tupperware in the fridge. They made a grim and bloody little display with the slimy red and gray sliding up the sides of the Tupperware containers. I just hoped that Letty didn’t decide to make black pudding for breakfast one day.
I shuddered at the thought. I’d been telling the truth when I said to Eva that if it came down to it I would use dragon blood to save Sammy. But for myself? I wasn’t sure I could actually bring myself to drink cold blood from a water bottle. Maybe if I had it stirred into a cocktail of some kind I could manage it.
It would certainly put the ‘bloody’ in Bloody Marys.
The thought of a dragon blood themed cocktail line kept my thoughts busy during the hours of my watch on deck, and when it was time for Shannon to relieve me, I went below and fell into a sleep where I dreamed that I was a bartender attempting to sell alcohol to a man in a rowboat.
I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but I was just glad to have a dream that was less disturbing than some of the ones I’d been having lately.
The next morning was another beauty.
The sun was sparkling on the blue water of the river, and the trees and grasses seemed to be extra bright as though someone had turned the saturation all the way up. It was warm but not too humid, and I was looking forward to phoning Sammy and catching up with my family.
Letty was excited about the foraging trip. She was dressed for the occasion in a tight, white camisole top that hugged every generous curve of her chest and almost seemed to glow against the gorgeous dark brown skin of her cleavage. Her hair was tied up in a bun with a colorful silk scarf, and the bright design popped against her happy smile and lively eyes.
“You look extremely pretty today,” I told her as she set a plate of pancakes on the table.
“I bet you say that to all the girls who bring you stacks of pancakes in the morning,” Letty responded with a smile.
“That’s true,” I teased. “I do.”
“That’s because you’re the only one who does bring us pancakes in the morning.” Shannon sliced off a fluffy corner of the stack on her plate and popped it into her mouth. “Mmm. Yep, Letty, you are one gorgeous broad.”
“A broad?” Letty sputtered. “Can’t you find something nicer to call me?”
“A dame?” Shannon suggested with a teasing grin. “A bird? A chick?”
“If you keep that up, I’ll take away your pancakes,” Letty warned.
“How about, a gorgeous, beautiful, talented, and clever woman?” I took a mouthful of my pancakes and let out a sigh of contentment. “And one who knows how to make the best pancakes I’ve ever tasted.”
“You see?” Letty dropped a kiss on my head and raised her eyebrows at Shannon. “Now that is how you compliment a lady.”
“Yeah, Shannon.” I grinned. “Take notes.”
“Fine,” Shannon chuckled.
“Do you remember how to get back to the village okay by yourselves?” I asked Ally as we finished up our breakfasts.
“Yes.” She nodded. “It’s not that far away, and I remember the route.”
“Make sure you take your guns with you,” I said. “And your knives and spears.”
“We’re not going to have any hands left to forage anything if we take all that with us,” Letty protested in amusement.
“We’ll definitely take the guns,” Ally promised. “And the knives.”
“But if we take the spears, we’ll be too loaded down with weapons to do anything else,” Letty said.
“Okay, okay,” I conceded. “No spears. But be careful, alright?”
“We will.” Letty nodded. “We have our guns, and we’re not going far. Eva said it was by the water, so I reckon we’ll probably be staying close to the river anyway, which is safer than going deep into the trees.”
“That’s a good idea,” I said.
I was still a little concerned about the two of them going off by themselves, but I reminded myself that Ally and Letty were old hands at defending themselves by now. Even though they weren’t the best shots in the crew, they had still improved by leaps and bounds since they first joined us, and they had proven time and time again that they were adept at taking care of themselves.
When breakfast was over, Letty and Ally armed themselves with the weapons and equipment that they would need for their expedition.
Dia was standing by and watching them, and I beckoned her over.
“Are you going with them?” I asked.
“I wasn’t going to,” she said with a sigh. “Like I said, plants bore me.”
