AN: Warning: There are mentions of attempted rape in this chapter. If this is a trigger for you please avoid! Thank you to my reviewers! I really appreciate the feedback and I'm glad you are still enjoying the story! Thank you to everyone who has followed and favorited the story as well! So, a little teaser here, can anyone guess what Edward Teach is up to? Until I began writing his character, even I didn't know where it would go, but he whispered in my ear as I wrote him and now it's clear and I personally really like it! Message or post a review with your guess!
/
Teach was at the railing, the sun rising behind him, waiting for her when she stepped out on deck. Charlotte didn't waste any time, striding right up to Blackbeard, "Captain," she acknowledged. Teach looked at her through calculating eyes before gripping her upper arm and thrusting her towards the ladder that lead to the row boat down below. She wanted to fight his grip, but knew at the slightest sign of her distress, Charles would forget his willingness to not piss of Teach. When she turned to climb over the railing, she saw Anne standing in front of Charles as he glared daggers in to Teach's back. Charlotte sent him a small smile of reassurance as she disappeared down the ladder. She hoped Anne and Jack would take care of him in the coming weeks.
/
Charles watched Charlotte disappear over the side of his ship with Teach and barely held himself back from stopping her. He had known Teach a long time, and he knew him better than anyone. He knew Edward was up to something and the fact that he couldn't place it pissed him off badly. When Teach grabbed Charlotte, only Anne's hand on his shoulder kept him in tune with what he had to do. Charlotte's small smile as she climbed down sent a chill through his body as if it was the last time he would see her.
Charles shook off the foreboding feeling, not daring to look too deeply. He and Teach had once seen eye to eye, but when it became clear that Edward would never let go of his control, Charles had decided to strike out on his own. To say that Teach was angry was putting it mildly and when he had found out about Eleanor he had been irate.
Charles turned away and focused his energy on readying his crew for the impending fight. Anne and Jack stayed right with him until he snapped at them both, "Get the fuck off my back." Neither moved and Charles raised his eyebrows, "What?" Jack beat Anne this time, asking, "You aren't worried about her?" Both Anne and Jack noticed Vane clench his jaw before answering, "There's nothing I can do about it right now. We need Teach for this fight and for whatever reason, he wants Charlotte."
Jack shook his head, "I don't like the man, never have, but I really hate that he has her alone when he's clearly up to something." Because Jack was the closest, Vane took out his anger on his first mate for voicing his own concerns, "What the fuck would you have me do Jack?" Vane demanded this as he closed in on Jack, getting in his face. "I know that man better than anyone so I know he's up to something Jack, but until I figure it out, what would you have me do?" Jack didn't have an answer and he stood still as Charles backed off. Anne spoke up then, "We are just as worried about her as you are. We need to end this soon."
/
Charlotte was soon on her way to the Queen Anne, with Blackbeard sitting just in front of her and another crew member behind, rowing. The sun glinted off the choppy waters as the row man cut the oars through the surf at an unrelenting pace. Unable to stop her curiosity she questioned Teach, "You seem to be concerned with where I am all the time despite telling me initially that I didn't belong here." Teach turned to face her in the boat and the look he gave her, unnerved her. "My interests or concerns are my own. You are a crew member. Nothing more."
As he began to turn away from her, Charlotte pushed her luck a little too far. "I think," was all she got out before Teach backhanded her across the mouth hard enough for her lip to split slightly, drawing blood. Charlotte recoiled in shock, her hand coming up to feel the cut. She eyed Teach with renewed fear and suspicion, barely resisting the temptation to look back to the Ranger.
The rest of the ride was done in silence as Charlotte contemplated the problem in which she now found herself. She should have listened to Jack and never joined Blackbeard's crew, but she had been angry at Vane. Not to mention full of confidence at her ability to persuade Blackbeard to join them when everyone else had failed.
Now, in the cold shock of reality, she wondered at his quick turn around. Why would the great legend of Blackbeard be persuaded by the likes of her? In truth, Charles had been right that day when he said she could have died. Teach's reputation suggested his reaction should have been to shoot her, thrust a blade through her heart, or even beat her to death. She was now trapped on a ship with the man, alone, and without allies. Why hadn't she listened to Jack?
As she sat, berating herself for letting her pride get her in to this mess, the rowboat bumped in to the side of the Queen Anne. Startled out of her musings, Charlotte looked up at the massive ship and swallowed hard. She was truly on her own with a pirate that most assuredly had bad plans for her. The climb up the ladder seemed to take an eternity and when she swung her legs over the railing she felt as if every crew member looked her up and down. Cold fear slid down her spine as she stood frozen, clutching the railing behind her. She was considering jumping ship and swimming back to the Ranger, when Teach gripped her upper arm again, hauling her behind him.
She found herself slung down below to the gun deck. The teenage boys that were powder monkeys jumped up from their positions as they recognized their Captain. "Keep an eye on her boys. She's to be a monkey with you. Don't let her out of your sight," Teach said thrusting her forward.
Charlotte rubbed her arm where his grip had left bruises, she was sure, as he turned to her, "I don't want any trouble out of you Duchess. Do your job and try to stay out of the rest of my men's beds'." Charlotte clenched her teeth at the slur against her, but maintained her silence. Until she could figure out what Teach wanted, she thought it best to stay out of his way. She had a feeling that she was about to witness the Blackbeard of the legends, instead of the protector he had been earlier.
/
Trouble found her a few days later as the Queen Anne and the Ranger were making their way past the island. Once they had signaled the waiting pirates on the island and the Walrus, the Queen Anne and the Ranger set course for Nassau. Charlotte had been kept busy with battle preparations, but despite this, she had still noticed the attention she had begun receiving from some of the crew. Charlotte did her best to avoid being alone or drawing attention to herself, but as they sailed towards Nassau one night, she was ambushed by two men.
She was leaving the hold with supplies when someone grabbed her from behind while one man stepped in front of her. Dropping the supplies, she fought like a madwoman, kicking the man in front of her in the stomach while slamming her head back in to the man's nose behind her. When they released her, she ran for her life, but she didn't make it far. Tackling her from behind, one man sat on her back, holding her arms above her head as she felt the other man begin jerking down her pants.
She screamed then, not caring about anything but getting them to stop. She heard the man at her feet grunt to the other, "Turn her over and shut her up." The man on her back grabbed her by the hair, slamming her head in to the floor. Blood poured from her split eyebrow as the man shifted her beneath him, rolling her on to her back. He still held her arms above her head, but she struggled against his hold as he pulled her shirt up, exposing her breasts.
She desperately tried to get her arms free, thrashing her body back and forth trying for leverage, but the man at her feet pinned her legs down as he pushed them apart for access. Charlotte mentally cried out for Charles, begging the powers that be to help her, for him to somehow magically appear. She was brought back to the horrific reality by the man on her stomach roughly pinching her nipples, thrusting his erection in his pants on her chest.
As she began to feel the man below lining himself up at her entrance, she was suddenly free of all weight. Not bothering to look at what was happening, Charlotte curled on to her side hurriedly pulling down her shirt and pulling up her pants. When she was covered, she rolled over and saw Blackbeard with a few other crew members. Her attackers were backed into a corner, the one with his pants still around his ankles.
Blackbeard turned hard eyes on her as he said, "I thought I told you to keep from fucking my crew." Charlotte couldn't stop the tears that formed, her body shaking from the adrenaline still pumping through her veins. The terror she had felt during the attack now manifested itself in the face of Blackbeard's injustice. "Fucking your crew!?" she shrieked, tears streaming down her cheeks. Before she was standing up straight, Teach backhanded her, knocking her back on to her ass. Charlotte raised a hand to her throbbing cheek, while wiping the blood dripping in to her other eye.
Teach looked at her with cold eyes, "Get her up and bring all three of them up on deck." He turned without looking back as Charlotte was hauled to her feet and shoved up the stairs. Wondering what type of fresh hell was coming her way, Charlotte again lamented her rash decision to join Blackbeard. Her rough time aboard the Ranger her first week was looking like a picnic compared to the Queen Anne.
She was brought to a stop before the main mast along with the two men who attacked her, as Blackbeard stripped off his coat and rolled up his sleeves. Charlotte's stomach went hot with abject terror and her legs began to shake as she watched Teach's first mate hand him a cat o' nines. Holy shit, the man was going to flog her for being attacked! Charlotte looked desperately for sight of the Ranger, but it must have been behind the Queen Anne because she could not catch a glimpse in the dark.
A crowd began forming as one of the attackers was dragged forward and quickly lashed to the mast, arms hugging the massive piece of wood. The first strike of the whip drew blood and Charlotte knew Teach was holding nothing back. By the end of the count of ten, the pirates' legs had given out and his back was a mass of raw, bleeding flesh. Charlotte had to breathe hard through her nose to keep from vomiting. The next man fared no better and when he was let down, the men had to hold him up as they drug him back down below.
Charlotte's heart thundered in her chest as the man behind her pushed her forward to the now bloody mast. She didn't know how she walked forward, but she suddenly felt her arms being forced around the mast and tied at the wrists while the back of her shirt was pulled up over her head to leave her back exposed. She heard Teach let out a dry chuckle without mirth, "Seems you've known this type of punishment before Duchess. I should have known you were worse than you appeared. I warned you to stay away from my crew." He said this more to himself, but Charlotte heard every word. She wondered at the way he said this, hearing his implication of including Charles in that crew.
Before she could think more on it, the whip made contact, wiping everything from her mind. Nothing could have prepared her for the pain as the cat bit in to the tender flesh of her back. She was instantly grateful for the shirt covering her face as tears poured down her face, while she bit her lip to keep from screaming. She couldn't contain the grunts of pain from each impact, but she wouldn't give Teach the satisfaction of losing her mind. When she counted five, she waited for the sixth, but was surprised when her wrists were untied instead. She wasn't sure how she had remained standing, because as soon as her arms were released she crumpled to a heap on the deck.
She vaguely heard steps approaching, but the pain made her hearing fuzzy. Charlotte managed to roll on to her stomach and was attempting to rise to her hands and knees when she was kicked hard in the side, sending her sprawling across the deck on to her injured back. She bowed up off the deck, a whimper escaping her when Blackbeard filled her vision. Looking down at her, he spit on the deck by her face saying, "Get her out of my sight."
Someone grabbed her by the arms, hauling her to her feet, then half-drug her back down below. Instead of taking her to her hammock, they dumped her in a heap on the floor where she lay curled around herself, unable to move under her own power. Sometime later, she passed out from the pain and exhaustion. The blackness a welcomed break from the harsh reality in which she now found herself. Her last thought before sinking into the numbness was to ask again, why hadn't she listened to Jack?
/
She woke sometime in the early morning as the crew changed shifts. Men stepped over her on their way above and below, not bothering to miss her. Scooting back as far as she was able, she leveraged herself against the wall until she was standing, gritting her teeth against the pain as the cuts on her back opened up again.
Finally upright, Charlotte took a deep breath, wiping at the sweat that had formed on her forehead. As she leaned up against the wall, she gave in to her self-pity, acknowledging that until this moment, her interactions with pirates had been a sheltered one. Full of confidence, she had entered this world guns blazing, saving Vane, helping to start a rebellion against the country in which she grew up, and falling in love with Charles. She had to acknowledge that her experience in this world up until now had been outside the normal for a woman and that last night and today were more realistic.
Suddenly, the words Charles had said to her after she had beaten his crew member came back to her, "You are more capable of taking care of yourself than you know. If this is the life you want, all you have to do is reach out and take it." Charlotte shoved herself off the wall and stood on her own two feet once more. Shuffling to her hammock, she fished out the bottle of rum stored in her pack. Letting her shirt rest against her beaten back, she poured the liquor on to the wounds so that the shirt soaked up the liquid, allowing her skin to soak it up. She ground out between her clenched teeth as the rum shot fire along the wounds, "Fuck you Teach."
Once she was as cleaned up as she could be, she made her way to the galley for a scrap of whatever might be left at this late hour. The crew still lingering around did not look at her as she grabbed a hard crust of bread and a cup of grog. She hoped the mixed liquor numbed some of the pain of her throbbing back. She didn't hang around to eat, instead she soaked the bread in the drink then downed the rest of the liquid in one swallow. Placing the cup back on the table, she turned towards the door, taking big bites of the now dripping bread.
She finished her meager breakfast as she entered the gun deck and began her tasks for the day. Instead of the usual chatter from the boys, silence filled the space for the entire work day. This pattern of silence and avoidance continued over the next few days and Charlotte enjoyed it. Her back had begun to tighten from dryness, but she welcomed the healing process knowing that she was past the critical point of infection.
Every so often she caught sight of the Ranger some distance off the portside and she had to make herself not gaze longingly at where she would rather be. She imagined what Charles was doing currently and wished herself back in the safety of his cabin. She also pictured Jack and Anne, and their easy going company that she hadn't known she liked so much. The more she thought about the crew on the Ranger, the more she realized how much like home it felt. It was a silly thing to think about, but the cold malice of the crew of the Queen Anne really made her appreciate the Ranger. If this was the environment that Charles had been raised in, she could now understand him quite a bit better than she ever had. To not only survive, but thrive, Charles had to be tougher than she could imagine.
A new respect for Charles built within her as she spent her days laboring on the Queen Anne. She tried to be grateful for this new insight into the man she loved, but found herself still wishing she had avoided this experience. She also tried to imagine why Blackbeard had made such a change toward her. She thought it might be that he was hoping to get Charles to return to the fold and saw her as an obstacle. He seemed to dislike her on a level that was deeper than normal and the only thing she could imagine was that he felt her to be a threat to what he wanted.
The one part of the situation she couldn't solve was his reasoning for putting the lash to her. If he wanted Charles back, wouldn't it benefit him to keep her on his good side? Once Charles learned of this, she was sure he would kill Teach outright. That morning in his cabin when Teach had reached for her, she had been afraid of that exact scenario and Teach hadn't even touched her. Had she not been so exhausted each night, these thoughts would have kept her awake. As it was, the days flew by, until one evening the Queen Anne and the Ranger pulled side by side in preparation to swoop down on Nassau bringing vengeance.
As the ships began sailing together in to gun range, the gun deck was a mass of activity. Charlotte didn't have time to look for Charles at the helm of the Ranger even though he was on her mind. She sent up a prayer that he would be safe as she ran back and forth making sure supplies were ready for the coming battle. The next hour passed by as if it were moments and all of a sudden they heard the call to fire.
The gun deck was soon filled with thick, acrid smoke and Charlotte pulled the scrap of cloth over her nose and mouth and she reloaded the canons. In no time her arms and back were aching and she was drenched in sweat from the lack of air. Still the canons continued firing and she knew they intended to keep this pace for days. The crews would rotate as best they could, but they were still in for a rough couple of days.
The sun soon set after their first strafing run on the beach. As the ships turned out to sea to reposition their starboard side towards the beach, Charlotte collapsed back on to the keg of gun powder behind her. Her body was shaking from exhaustion when the kitchen boy came around with the water bucket. The drink she got wasn't nearly enough, but the starboard side guns began firing and the boy scurried on to the rest of the crew trying to hurry back to the galley.
This pattern kept up all night until dawn the next morning when the crews began changing. The boy that took over for Charlotte tapped her on the shoulder in a signal for her to step aside and she did so gratefully. They had been lucky in their attack, sinking the ships in the harbor in record time so that none were left to chase them out to open water. They were now targeting the fort and the unprotected beach and the frequency of the attacks let Charlotte know that Teach was expecting a quick victory.
Charlotte stopped in the galley to grab some hard tack and a drink before quickly making her way back to her hammock. Surprisingly, she was asleep before she fully laid down despite the canon fire and the rocking of the ship as an enemy round hit the water not far from its target. She dreamed of Charles waiting for her on the beach in victory and she smiled in her sleep.
