Thanks again to IheartNY and Conni!:)
Chapter Thirteen ~*~
Florisz's coarse advances ceased as abruptly as they'd started, and he quickly pulled her down to sit on the edge of the bed next to him. Elizabeth tensed when he slid a hand behind her head and leaned close to whisper something. What it was, she had no idea, since it was in Dutch, but she rather felt that she'd rather not know, especially with the moist, breathy way he'd exhaled the words in her ear.
Cringing from the way her ear now felt slightly damp, Elizabeth had little opportunity to react to the unpleasant sensation, as Florisz clamped his mouth onto her neck like a pale leech, and she had the distinct impression that she now knew just how it was the stew bones the cook at home often gave to her bulldog felt, with the way he slobbered his way across her throat.
She found herself torn between dreading things progressing any further, and wishing that Florisz would tire quickly of slurping her skin and move on. Undead pirates she had endured, and a Kraken attack she'd survived, but this was shaping up to be considerably worse than either.
When the twitchy little smuggler began laying a generous layer of saliva on the opposite side of her neck as well, Elizabeth was fairly certain that she was going to have no qualms about killing a second Pirate Lord. She distracted herself for a moment or two from Florisz's moist ministrations to fantasize about just where she might shoot Barbossa first, and it certainly wasn't going to be his black heart this time.
At last, feeling that he must have plied her with enough 'foreplay, ja!' after two minutes, Florisz pushed her gently but insistently back on the bed, pressing himself down on her and sliding a hand behind her head again. Elizabeth realized what he was after and braced herself, wishing at that moment that she were safely tucked away in the Port Royal jail again with the leering criminals.
She knew it was going to be wet and awful, but when Florisz finally managed to engulf her mouth with a soggy kiss, complete with copious moist smacking sounds, she was fairly certain she was going to vomit.
Again she lamented her fate and cursed Barbossa, but when the smuggler managed to mash his tongue past her lips, she was convinced that she'd rather be kissing the Pirate Lord. Not even he could possibly kiss as badly as the sweaty man who seemed to be making an effort to explore her throat, and she was fairly certain that at least the old rogue wouldn't drool on her.
Whether it was his overly sloppy technique, or the sounds that accompanied his endeavor to drown her with saliva, vaguely reminiscent of a pig at a trough, that pushed Elizabeth over the edge, she didn't know, but at last, knowing that the involuntary way she retched was only due in part to his tongue holding hers hostage, the young woman decided that she had had enough.
No woman should ever have to go though such an ordeal, she thought, and the second Florisz's damp fingers were under her shirt, crawling their way up across her ribs, she took Barbossa's earlier advice, and shared with the Dutch smuggler the universal message for get the bloody hell off me.
Florisz immediately let go, curling up reflexively and grabbing his wounded parts with both hands, crying out in agony. Elizabeth seized the opportunity and shoved him roughly off of her, causing him to hit the floor, still curled up in a ball with his hands in his crotch.
At that moment the door burst open, and Will leapt into the cabin with sword drawn, only to slide to a halt at the site of the incapacitated smuggler moaning pitifully on the floor.
"Quickly," Will said to her as she grabbed her coat and shrugged back into it, holding his hand out to her. "We're getting off the ship!"
Elizabeth spared one last venomous glance at Florisz writhing on the floor. "You're a foul, sticky, little man," she snarled, and then she gathered the remnants of her dignity about her and stepped over him like so much manure she might encounter on a busy road.
Things were still quiet on deck when Elizabeth slipped out of the cabin with Will, meeting instantly with Barbossa outside the door, and it looked as though they might have a minute or two longer than they thought, since the incapacitated Captain Florisz had not yet managed to sound an alarm of any sort.
"See if the boat is ready," Barbossa said quietly to Will, glancing about to make sure no one was near. Will nodded, understanding that it would be safer to make sure they had a clear path to the commandeered boat, and he trotted ahead.
Elizabeth turned toward Barbossa, fury blazing in her eyes. "You are the most underhanded, manipulative brigand I have ever met, and I loathe you with all of my being," she snarled softly.
"And why might that be, Miss Swann?" he asked, a glint of mischief in his eyes.
"After what you put me through, you have the...the...the audacity to ask why?" she demanded.
"I'm assumin' that the twenty minutes you were in there was likely not time enough even fer a greedy git like Florisz to have compromised yer honor," Barbossa replied, glancing about them once more to make sure no one was paying attention to them yet.
"My honor, Captain Barbossa, would have remained intact, even had my virtue not," she spat back quietly. "But I suppose honor is not something you'd know very much about."
"Ah, there ye'd be wrong, lass," he merely said.
"Don't even try to give me that righteous Pirate Lord drivel," she said. "You are a self-centered, self-serving, arrogant man who's deluded himself that the twisted mockery of decency he upholds is something even remotely akin to honor. You're despicable, depraved, indecent, and...and..."
"Don't be forgettin' vile and manipulative," he added for her.
"Oh!" she exclaimed in exasperation. "Thank goodness there are men like Will in the world. Heaven only knows what I'd be enduring, thanks to you, if he hadn't come after me."
Barbossa glanced at where Will was approaching, gesturing to them to come along quickly. "Most likely somethin' yeh didn't deserve, lass," he said softly, and then he went quickly to join the others near the boat.
Will made it back to where Elizabeth was still fuming. "Are you alright?" he asked, starting to reach for her, and then stopping mid-gesture lest he make her uncomfortable.
She nodded. "Thank you," she said softly, her tone colored with genuine gratitude and perhaps a little guilt.
"I'm just happy you're safe," he said gently. "I'd hate to imagine what might have happened to you if Barbossa hadn't come to get me."
He mistook the look she gave him at hearing that her rescue had been Barbossa's doing for one that meant the subject was too unpleasant to discuss. "We should hurry," he said, jerking his head toward the boat.
Suddenly feeling that she regretted some of the words she'd just said to the pirate captain, Elizabeth followed quickly to climb down the ladder into the waiting longboat.
By the time Florisz had managed to recover himself from the vicious retaliation by Elizabeth, the eight pirates had made it to the longboat and had begun rowing for all they were worth.
Barbossa scrutinized the deck as they made it away from the ship, hearing that an alarm had likely been raised. While it was true that he'd had Marty and Cotton disable the rudder chain, they'd still have to worry about being in range of the Draeck's guns for several minutes.
"Swiftly now, lads," he said to the others as they rowed, from where he sat near the prow. "Pull fer all yer worth –it'll take naught but a grazin' blow to send us all to the depths."
As if to reinforce his words, an explosion brightened the flanks of the ship, and the small boat rocked a little from the impact of the first cannonball to splash down nearby.
Urged on by the cannon fire even more than Barbossa's words, the rowers pulled harder.
Another shot slammed into the water next to them, rocking the boat more violently and spraying them all with water as they ducked involuntarily.
"They've got our range!" Gibbs snarled as he rowed.
Several more impacts churned the water on either side of them, dowsing them with spray, and the next one struck the water inches from the rear of the boat where Elizabeth sat, causing her to grab the gunwales and cry out in alarm.
A look shared among the group said they all knew the next shot would likely hit the target, and Gibbs spoke up quickly. "We'd best abandon ship!"
Barbossa was about to agree, knowing, as Gibbs did, that it would improve their survival chances for the moment, yet also that it would throw their long-term fate quickly into shadow. But at that moment, the cannon fire stopped at the same time the distant shouts on deck rose in urgency. After a few more moments, it became apparent that the Draeck was likely not going to fire on them again and it soon became clear as to why.
There, rising up into the night sky to obscure some of the overhead stars, was a distinct column of smoke.
"She's ablaze!" Barbossa called to the others, pointing to the black murk over the fluyt. "Mayhap a spark from one of the guns caught hold."
"Or maybe someone just happened to carelessly drop a flame in the hold containing their jenever," Marty said quietly, sharing a furtive look with Cotton."
"Rawk! Don't fuck with pirates!" the mute's bird exclaimed, barely getting the words out before an enormous explosion lit up the night sky, and it began raining large chunks of the Groene Draeck down, burning as they hit the waves.
"Oops!" Marty said, grinning sheepishly as the others all looked at him wide-eyed. "Maybe those were also the powder stores."
~~o~~