Author's Apocalyptic Note: hello, hello, hello, there :Count Olaf-ic way of saying those three identical words: I missed you guys…Anyway, on and aboard for the dazzling next chapter of this ruinous, disastrous story. Hope the title's well chosen, you'll have to tell me, and please review, and tell me what you like and don't like about all this. And tell me, most importantly, what you think of my characters. Sorry if I make some mistakes: for the typos, because I type to fast, and for the obvious, odious ones, well, I'm French, so you'll have to forgive me, he he…Anyway, read, sit back, relax, eat sweets/ boiled postman fingers/pastas, enjoy, and REVIEW.

Chapter Six

She Who Trapped Them

The leader of the pirates, instead of turning around to face the owner of the voice, as it was Hawkke's idea he would, stepped smoothly aside, and the hunter's strike went in the air. Regaining hastily his countenance, Hawkke struck again, furiously, and the pirate escaped again; and they started to fight a quick, intense fight, while the other pirates watched and started to make bets.

'So she is your beloved, isn't she?' said the pirate, stepping backward, turning over his sword in his hand, and then back forward to hit, 'And has she promised you a kiss?'

Hawkke didn't answer, and fought more ardently than before, raging, and the pirate had to move very quick not to be cut into pieces by the furious hunter.

'No? And why didn't you come to save her, this pale girl of yours? Why had she had to face alone us pirates?'

'Because she was too stupid to listen to me!' screamed Hawkke, and his blade cleaved through the air, and went to open a large wound on his adversary's chest, ripping open the dazzling white shirt and splashing it with scarlet blood.

And the two fighters suddenly stopped, still, when the three pirates behind them cried together, and one of them said, faintly:

'The bitch! Poison!' and they collapsed all together in a heap.

Behind them came Arach, who smiled to the two men in a hatefully triumphant way. She was dripping with water, the tunic outlining the high curve of her young chest, her hair falling heavily in her back, a large pool of water growing around her. Tendrils of her black locks were already dry and crossing her face over her glittering eyes. She looked triumphant and delighted. She waved in the air a small bottle full of what looked like a kind of grey smoke, and brandished with her other hand its cork.

'What am I seeing?' she said in an exasperating tone of satisfaction and mockery, 'Two of my enemies, fighting each other without me? How, as you told me one day, hunter, how delightfully interesting!'

And with large wave of her arm, she circled them with the grey smoke. A few seconds later, they lost their consciousness, and with the dying feeling of anger greater than any hate, they heavily fell on the floor, the pirate on top of the hunter, while Arach tossed back her head to laugh.

Arach was witted. Not just witted, but also reckless, and foolhardy. The plan she had seen destroyed between the hands of the incredibly attractive captain pirate to whom she had promised a kiss had transformed itself in a diabolically intelligent and determinately ruthless plot. Let the stupid pirates in the water looking for her: she had climbed back on the ship, poisoned the few pirates left, then their Captain and Hawkke, and seized both the pirates' ship and the Gleaming Stick, and the command of the men left, whom she had rallied unbelievably easily, as they liked her already, because she had won them over jut before she had so noteworthily thrown herself in the waters, in which they had seen one of the most remarkable girl they'd ever seen disappear. Now she found herself at the command of an army of merry pirates, with two ships at her disposition, and holding prisoner both the pirates' Captain and the hunter that had dragged her in this splendid adventure. She was exulting.

Sitting in the most beautiful room of the Wreck, a lock of hair on her eyes, she was mirthfully looking at the two prisoners that were starting to wake up slowly on the large bed. Hawkke was the first to wake up completely, and he sat up on the bed, and stretched, and glared mutely at Arach, who was looking at him with her wide grin, a sword on her lap.

'Have you slept well, hunter?' she sing-sang.

'You have played finely, young assassin,' he spat, 'and if you want to know, I regret bitterly ever coming back to save you.'

'An assassin?' said the pirate, sitting up as well, and taking a hand toward his bare chest which she had carefully crossed with a white stripe of his shirt to bandage his wound.

'Of course,' replied Arach, turning her smile at him, 'What is your name, by the way?'

'Requin,' he answered, and added plaintively, 'Where am I? And what happened?'

'You are on my ship, and I poisoned you and the hunter with a Sleep Drug,' Arach smugly said.

'How?' he muttered, looking up at her pale jubilant face.

'She's coming from the Alchematoria of Nariee,' said Hawkke, bitterly.

He sighed in a pessimistic way and pulled his feet out of the bed, but when he moved to stand up, he felt Arach's sharp blade against his neck.

'I haven't finished to talk to you, hunter.'

She was about to go on, when sharp against her skin, silencing her completely, she felt a blade on her own neck. Quickly, she withdrew her sword from Hawkke, who seized his chance to grab two swords on the table next to the bed and run away from the room. And the voice in her ear:

'What is mine is not thine, goes the old saying.'

Requin grabbed and squeezed her fragile wrist so that her weapon fell on the wooden floor of the cabin, and, throwing his own dagger away from him, he nimbly turned her over to that she may face him.

'You see, your hunter has gone away,' he whispered in a vicious way, 'he will escape, and now I have you for myself. Remember you promised me a kiss?'

'I lie a lot,' she answered in a low quivering voice, trying vainly to get away from his lustful grasp.

In a slow, irresistible movement, he circled her waist with his bare arm, playing carelessly with her raven hair, his gentle fingers dancing on her tall lofty forehead, sliding down the pale curve of her cheek, then the sweet line of her jaw. He smiled as she hopelessly tried to pull away from his lascivious hold, and delicately, he bent to take a kiss; because it was the kiss he had fought, loosed and being tricked for. Her lips, tightly closed and deathly cold, parted irresistibly, yet grudgingly when his own tender ones brushed over them, and as she sharply inhaled, the rush of his burning breath filled her lungs, drugging her with his heady scent. Her eyes fluttered closed, and she relaxed in his finely muscled arms, feeling intently good against his strong, young, lean body, with his lips on hers, and his hands caressing the arch of her slender waist. Abandoning himself to the sheer delight of the embrace, Requin let go of both of them, so that they both fell back on the bed; and when she felt his sneaky, warm hand slipping under her rough humid shirt and caress her hip, she violently pulled away, with a cry, and tore herself savagely from him. Grinning, he sat up, and cried out mockingly, with a kind of lecherous fury:

'Tell me it didn't please you! Tell me you didn't enjoy!'

Trembling, feeling like a little mouse trapped by a splendid cat, she gathered herself away from him, but he was more powerful: he was a man, he was young, lean and full of an innate grace, and he desired her: he leapt upon her.

Unfortunately, he had forgotten the dagger. She snatched it, and squeezing it in her wrist, she violently punched Requin away from her, dashed to the narrow door, took up the key, bolted away from the room, and deftly locked it before he could have time to reach it. When she was outside with the door closed, she leaned against it, and sighed deeply, trying to chase the memory of the burning breath in her lung, the pressure of his delicious lips, his arms around her body, and his hand, so gentle, like a caress of silk, against her hip. She had barely time to think that immediately, she felt a gloved hand smashing on her mouth, and a rope quickly tying together her hands. She raised her dark glittery eyes toward him, and Hawkke's face was so tenebrous, so furious, with such an expression of jealousy and angry desire that she felt actually afraid.

Mutely, he dragged her along the dark corridors of the ship, until they reached a hidden passage toward a small lifeboat, in which he pushed her, still hand-tied, and followed her.

'I told you I won't let you till you don't help me to find the woman that wants my death,' he whispered in her ear, but the excuse was empty, and Arach knew it, without being able to do anything about it.

Author's Pathetic After-Note: Here you go! Finished! We won't hear of the pirates for a good few chapters now. Hope you aren't dead, and like go on loving my story (I said, go on, because if you are reading this it means that you haven't let me down, and that you are unbelievably solid and resistant.) Anyway, just Review. Which means, review. Just do it. Do it, will you? Please, Pretty Please…