Read Raised By Wolves 2 - Matelots for Free Online

Though I had often seen him throughout the month of November, he had been gone again for a good ten days. And, even when I did see him, I did not see the man I loved so much as his shade.
    Though he was not always childlike in demeanor, he still did not speak to me when he put in his sudden appearances. And then, the last time I saw him, I woke from a dream to find him standing over me, a ghostly apparition with a knife in the dim light before dawn. I had not slept well since. I did not think I would, until I could hold him in my arms again and we could converse.
    Today, in the quiet aftermath of the labor and the calm before the storm, men sprawled all along the beach. Liam was in Otter’s lap. The water skin he had been drinking had been replaced by a bottle of rum.
    Nearby, Pete and Striker were likewise entwined, both with a bottle and each other. Julio was conversing with them, with Davey embracing him from behind. Near them, the Bard stood talking with two of his seamen, a couple in number as well as comportment, with Dickey a shadow hovering at his side.
    I frowned at that. Why had Dickey chosen to sail down here with the others? And why was he still dressed as a buccaneer in canvas breeches with a kerchief on his head and earrings, and not decked in the latest finery from London? I snorted at my foolishness. What did it matter?
    He was at least with others, whilst I stood here alone looking upon pairs and clumps of human companionship.
    Cudro joined me on the beach: it was often his wont, as we were the only two without a partner among the men wintering at Negril. Some days that galled me, as I did indeed have a matelot; and then there were times when I was grateful for his company, and even more grateful his loneliness had not driven him to make foolish overtures.
    “Will you be seeing him tonight?” he asked in French, as he dropped to sit beside me in the sand.
    “Perhaps.” I frowned.
    He shrugged. “I was just wondering if he still possessed the good sense to come in out of the rain.”
    “This will not be the first storm of the season, and he has weathered all but the one three weeks ago without me.”
    During that storm, we had spent a pleasant night curled together in the hammock for warmth. As always, he had not spoken and had been gone with the morning light, but I had been damn pleased to have him there nonetheless.
    I heard someone approaching Cudro and me, and turned to find Striker and Pete. As they were nearly naked, the bruises and scratches they received in the brawl Liam had spoken of were evident. But such things were merely scuffs on otherwise beautiful bronze sculptures; things easily rubbed away.
    Pete collapsed gracefully onto the sand at my side, his blue eyes flashing with amusement even in the dim twilight. He threw an arm around me, and pulled me close to kiss my temple. I could smell the rum on his breath, and I smiled, even though the sudden contact with another stirred my loins and pummeled my heart as it always did.
    Nearly bald, with more pale stubble on his jaw than his scalp, and with a swollen black eye, Pete was still the handsomest man I had ever seen.
    “We Missed Ya,” Pete rumbled.
    I returned his playful kiss and grinned. “So I have heard. I feel I missed little but abuse.”
    Striker chuckled richly from the sand on the other side of his matelot. “True. And a tale to tell your children.”
    It was a thing oft said, but I seized on it with glee. “Would you truly speak to them of such?”
    “If they be boys and of an age,” he said thoughtfully, and scratched the coal stubble on his strong jaw.
    Belatedly I recalled that Striker had once had a child and would not take issue with producing another. I felt the fool as Pete stiffened ever so little beside me. I wondered what Gaston and I would do, were one of us to wish for a child. Not that it would ever matter if Gaston did not recover from his madness. A pall descended on my heart, and I shrugged Pete’s arm