Paradise Island Read Free Page B

always found utterly amazing. Parallel horizontal lines sparked lightning fast in opposite directions, like taut expandable ropes snapping back and forth.
    The lines sparked in shorter distances, growing in thickness, pulsating with bright flashes of light. Estelle glimpsed her beloved ship and she swelled with pride. She would never tire of seeing it. It was her hard won freedom, her home.
    The shimmering lines flashed slower and then stopped, revealing her ship. One second there was endless waves and a dark horizon, and the next the
Wanderlust
was dancing on top of the ocean, sleek, black and proudly majestic.
    Figures appeared over the railing and a rope was dropped over the side. Black-clad figures climbed over the side of the ship and down the rope. Soon her crew helped her frozen limbs up the ladder. A blanket was thrown around her, which helped to ward off the chill of her wet clothes and the bite of the night breeze.
    â€œCome into your cabin, Captain,” Jade, her first mate, said.
    Estelle shook her head, straining to look through the shadows at the gun rail. “I’ll wait for Claire.”
    Claire climbed over the edge of the boat, clearly fatigued. Her white blonde hair shimmered in a silken curtain, and she flicked it behind her back with a quick twist of her slim wrist. She turned, and with the aid of Estelle and other crew members, brought Gregory’s unconscious, heavy body up and over the side of the ship. It took several hands to maneuver his large frame onto the deck.
    â€œYour mission was successful,” Jade said. There was triumph in her voice.
    Estelle nodded, seeing clearly in the sublime light of the moon. Jade’s face was in shadow, but Estelle still saw the flat dent in the bridge of her nose where it had been broken by a man’s fist.
    â€œWe have him, but we are not out of danger’s path just yet. He will be missed soon, if not already and we had best make sail immediately. The Royal Navy can move fast when it wants to,” Estelle said. She knew without a doubt in her mind the Navy would miss its best and brightest Captain and would do anything it could to get him back.
    â€œWhat do you want us to do with him?” Jade asked.
    Estelle knelt next to the still, prone form of Gregory. His face was pale beneath his tan and his breathing was alarmingly shallow. He was younger than she originally thought. When she’d seen him on the pier, his face had been arranged into taut lines, creating a derisive tension that aged him a decade more than his years. Then his brows had flicked upwards in surprise. She’d been captured in an onyx-black, sharp gaze. It was as if he could see into her heart and read her innermost thoughts.
    Her hand moved on its own and tucked a wayward curl of raven hair back into the thick waves. Her fingertips grazed his forehead. A zing of energy zapped through her fingers and jolted up her arm. She withdrew her hand, frowning, still feeling her fingertips prickle like she’d got too close to a flame.
    His hand was out flung, palm side up. It was large and powerful looking, but his fingers were tapered, long and thin. She touched the skin and found it to be soft. Maybe captaincy had made him soft as well. She unconsciously rubbed the calluses on her own hands, roughened with months of hauling water soaked rope. When Dalia was recovered from hiding the
Wanderlust
, Estelle would ask her to read his palm and see what information it would reveal.
    â€œGet the doctor to look at him, check to see he’s not damaged. Then lock him in the brig. Oh, and make sure he’s chained. He’s going to be angry when he wakes up,” Estelle said. She turned into the door beneath the poop deck that would take her to her cabin and her bed, and let her crew look after the unconscious, darkly handsome Gregory Marshall.
    â€¢ • •
    His head ached with a dry throb that had him wincing. He could see flashes of burning light behind