{ Chapter 16 }
The bloody docks.
The damn bloody docks.
Talen jumped out of the hack before it even started to slow, running toward the pier where Ness had been spotted.
He prayed it was her. It had to be.
How many dark-haired, broken-armed, innocent waifs travelled in this area at night?
None.
His feet thundering through the muck covering the cobblestone street, he slowed with heaving breath as he passed the last warehouse and could see the pier with several ships docked.
Swinging lanterns dotted the darkness. Men busy loading the last of goods onto two ships ready to depart with the tide.
His heart pounding, he rushed into the bustling crowd, searching faces, searching for someone short, probably with the dark hood of a cloak covering her face. That was if she knew what was good for her.
If she knew what was good for her? Laughable. If she was down here, she didn’t have the first clue what was good for her.
There.
Straight ahead by the closest gangplank. A tiny figure faced away from him in the middle of three men looming over her.
Shit.
His arms flying, shoving men out of his way, Talen tore along the fat wooden boards of the pier.
Before the three men saw him coming, he reached past the closest man and grabbed the arm of the small figure, yanking her body toward him.
The hood of the cloak fell from her face and Ness’s startled eyes found him.
“Talen?”
The first real breath he’d had since returning to his townhouse only to find Ness had disappeared sank down into his lungs. He’d just tortured a man to within a hair of his life and all he’d wanted was to see Ness. To let her smiling face when she saw him wipe free the echoes of the man’s cries from his mind.
But she was gone.
With another seething inhale, he stepped in front of the man to the side of her, creating a wall.
“What the blazes, ye scalawag?” The man to Ness’s right grabbed his arm, ripping away his grip on Ness. “This little piece is joining our ship.”
Talen’s foot instantly swung out, kicking out the knee of the man and sending him hobbling, holding his leg, howling at Talen. “Ye bloodymaggot.”
Talen set his glare on the man between Ness and the gangplank. “Don’t touch her.” He looked down at the top of her head. “Ness, don’t even think to encourage what they’re trying to sell you.”
“Who do ye think ye are?” The man behind him shoved him in the middle of his back and Talen stumbled a step forward, falling into Ness but managing to grab her about the waist and keep both of their balances.
Talen spun around, fury spiking on his face.
The man met his eyes and his look went wide, his mouth gaping like a fish for a full second. “Ah, so sorry, Mr. Blackstone. I didn’t see that it was ye. Pardon our enthusiasm for the young lady’s…business. She thought to join our voyage to Caribbean waters.”
“She did?” He glanced at Ness, his rage directed fully at her after reaching a boiling point in his limbs. He needed to crush something. Anything. He looked back to the man, leveling his voice. “The islands, you say?”
“Aye. Then onto America. We’ll be out with the tide in the hour. The lass be lucky to catch it with us, for how much she said she needed to leave.”
Talen jabbed a step forward to the right, grabbing the man’s arm and twisting it behind his back, sending him doubling over. He leaned over the man, his words violent. “She isn’t going with you and I will forgive this incident on one condition.”