The scarlet Dagger cut through the ocean waves as the sun bled into the horizon, setting the sky aflame. Captain Isabella "Bloodstorm" Draven stood atop the ship's rigging, her black coat billowing in the salty wind. With a cutlass in one hand and a pistol strapped to her side, she was the most feared pirate on the high seas. But tonight, she wasn't just a pirate. She was the hunter.
A traitor lurked aboard her ship.
Her crew—loyal, hardened men and women moved below like shadows, securing cannons, checking ropes, and whispering rumors. A merchant ship had disappeared the night before, swallowed by the darkness, and whispers of the Royal Navy closing in haunted them like ghosts.
Isabella's single eye her left lost in battle years ago scanned the ship's deck. She had built her reputation on ruthlessness, and if there was a traitor, she would carve them out like rot from a wound.
Then, a sound a sharp clink of steel.
She turned, cutlass raised, just as a figure lunged from the shadows. The steel of their dagger caught the dying sunlight. Isabella parried, twisting her body as the attacker's blade scraped against the brass buckle of her coat. She retaliated with a swift kick, sending the figure stumbling back into the ropes.
"Who sent you?" she demanded, her voice a growl.
The attacker one of her own crew spat blood and laughed. "You're already dead, Captain. The Navy is coming."
The words sent a chill through her. She tightened her grip on her cutlass. "Who betrayed me?"
The man only grinned, teeth glistening red. "You think you own the sea, Bloodstorm? The Crown will see your head on a pike."
A gunshot echoed. The traitor collapsed, a smoking hole in his chest. Isabella turned to see her quartermaster, Rourke, lowering his pistol. His face was grim. "We have to move, Captain."
A lantern on the horizon flickered, then another. Isabella's heart pounded. Warships. Three of them, fast approaching.
The Scarlet Dagger was no match for that many guns.
"Get to your posts!" she barked. "We fight or we die!"
The crew roared, scrambling into action. Cannons rolled into place. Sails billowed as they caught the wind, the ship lurching forward. The enemy vessels grew closer, their hulls lined with gunports, ready to turn the night into fire and thunder.
Isabella gritted her teeth. "I am Bloodstorm Draven. Let them come."
The first cannon fired, and the battle began.
The ocean became a graveyard of splintered wood and dying screams. Blood slicked the deck. Isabella fought like a storm unleashed, her cutlass dancing in the chaos. Fire licked at the sails, but she would not fall. Not tonight.
As dawn broke over the wreckage, The Scarlet Dagger remained afloat, battered but victorious. The sea belonged to her still. And as she stood among the ruins of battle, she smiled.
For she was the hunter. And no one could take that from her.
Story by Rabekah Franklin