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Pirate8

"I don't want to fight you..."

The chant for us to fight builds up. I look over at Holystone. Were these two supposed to be so in love that Holystone would let this guy kill me just for his pride? I look over back at Bello. I wasn't imagining it. I knew for sure that Bello had kissed me back the night before. I remember how he tucked his hand behind my head. I remembered how he pulled me in. I felt sparks throughout my entire body. I had done all that and now he was ready to challenge me to the death because of it?

What kind of twisted shit was this?

"I'll step in for him," Ashton states.

I know he would. I have all faith that Ashton would step in to fight Bello for me if need be but I don't want him to. Ashton even saying what he says causes me to pick up the blade. The entire crew is watching me.

"I can't let you get hurt for me," I whisper to Ashton.

Ashton grabs me by the arms.

"You have to be careful," Ashton explains to me, "You have to...I don't know. Do whatever you did before."

I'm not exactly sure what I did before. That was the problem. I look across the ship. Sure enough the boys are chanting on. They want to see blood. I think a lot of boys want me to become this super pirate like I had done before. They want me to blank out and wake up and just have completely destroyed the Sea Wolf. The problem with all of this is that the Sea Wolf was one of the best fighters on this ship naturally. He didn't need much of anything to help him.

I watch as he stares. He is unmoved by the chanting or any of that. Bello's eyes are watching me. They trace me. A million people could be on this ship right now calling his name or wanting him dead and it wouldn't matter to me. He's focused.

For the first moment I see why they call him Sea Wolf.

"Fight or die," Holystone tells me.

He spits right in front of my feet. It's inches away from landing on me. He's ruthless. He could care less. For a moment I wonder if he really wants to break this curse. Maybe he enjoys sailing the seas with his ship full of beautiful boys.

I take a few steps forward. The planks rattle. My hands are shaking. It's so hot and the sea is a little choppy today.

"FIGHT HIM LAFAYETTE!" I hear O'Malley warn me.

My heart drops. They are expecting me to do the same thing I did to Trip. Even if I could do it to Trip I wasn't sure if I wanted to hurt Bello, let alone try to kill him.

Before long I realize I don't have a choice. Bello comes at me. He swings his saber and I barely duck out of the way. I roll out away towards the side of the ship. One of the boys pushes me back in the circle. The chants get louder. They get hungrier! Everyone is paying attention to this fight and I'm embarrassing myself.

He comes at me again. I keep my distance.

The Sea Wolf is faster than this though. I knew it. I had seen him back on Nassau. I saw how fast he moved. I saw him fight my father's men. He was much more accomplished than this. I knew that for a fact.

Was Bello holding back?

"Fight me," Bello warns me.

"Why?"

"You disrespected me. Fight me. Show me that side of you that we saw before," he states.

"No..."

Me refusing to fight just seems to make Bello even more mad.

"FIGHT ME!" He lunges forward and stabs me right in the upper arm. The guy literally stabs me. I weakly swing my sword toward him trying to get some distance between us. He hops back barely getting it.

Blood is pouring. Blood is coming out of me. I look at the bleeding. It makes me feel so delirious. My blood is thick. He didn't puncture me too deeply but it is enough to cause me to feel a little faint and stumble a little.

"You cut me..."

It's at that moment I realized how serious it was. The Sea Wolf was a fucking animal. Bello was really so threatened by me that he would rather see me dead than to explore whatever the fuck was going on between us. I had no idea he would go to this length. Right now he is looking at me with no sense of emotion or any sense of regret. I don't know why I expected different from him. Bello had proved time and time again just what kind of person he was.

"I warned you to fight," the Sea Wolf told me, "I can't have you living. I can't...I can't..."

There it was. There was this hesitation in the Sea Wolf again that came out of nowhere. It's this look that he has in his eyes that lets me know that he isn't completely as evil as he wants to portray. Just at that moment he seems to be wanting to say something and he stops raising his weapon at me. He looks down at my blood. Then he looks in my eyes. Then at that moment it's almost like he might feel guilty. I'm not completely sure. Either way we are just standing there awkwardly.

"What? You guys going to talk or fight?" Holystone asks his lover, "You told me you wanted to kill him Bello. I granted your wish. Do you what you want."

Bello looks over at his lover. The emotionless Sea Wolf comes back and his eyes glaze over. He raises his weapon. He's ready to kill me and there is nothing I can do about it.

"Bello..."

I think about begging him for his life.

"Don't..."

He's right. I wasn't going to beg him. I drop my weapon at that moment. I just drop it. The ship gets quiet. Everyone seems confused. No one seems to understand why I dropped my weapon in the way I did.

"I'm not fighting you," I tell him, "If you're going to kill me then do it."

It must seem strange to the pirates. I hear whispers on the ship. I don't think any of them have ever seen this happening before in quite this way. I look over at Holystone. He should have the most reason for us not to fight but even he seems somewhat disappointed when I do it.

"Pick up your weapon or I swear to god I'll kill you right here..." Bello states, "I'll kill you right where you stand."

"Then why do you keep warning me?" I ask him.

Bello looks around confused.

"What?"

"Why do you keep warning me? You're the stone cold killer aren't you. Do it..."

I take a step forward. I can see Ashton run forward probably trying to stop it but he doesn't get close enough. O'Malley jumps forward and stops him pulling him back. I walk right up to Bello. I'm inches away from him. I'm so close that I could kiss him. I can hear him growling. It's how it was the day we kissed.

At this point he couldn't walk away. Holystone was watching.

He had two options.

He could either kiss me or kill me.

"You think I won't do it?" he asks me.

The stone cold killer was nervous. How weird was that? I can see him shaking and I can see the hesitation in his eyes and I know at that moment without me even raising a sword that I had somehow managed to defeat the Sea Wolf.

Just at that moment though something else happens. The entire ship starts shaking. At first I think the entire ship is going down but then I realize we've been hit by something.

"We're under attack!"

I'm not sure who screams it in the confusion. A couple of boys panic and run to the side of the boat. No one saw it coming. I can see the splintered sides of the Screaming Dagger.

I notice three ships coming over the horizon! Three battleships!

"Your father..." someone says off to the side.

I turn and notice it's none other than the Sea Wolf himself. Holystone is beginning to sound the alarm. The Powder Monkeys were taking their position on the guns. Several of the other boys were putting up the sails. I'm not sure if Holystone was ready to fight or if we were going to make a run for it somehow. Both options seem slim to none.

"We're going to die here..." I hear a boy next to me say, "We're going to die."

That's when I see the cannon release.

A huge cannon.

It's coming right at us.

"DUCK!" I hear a voice say.

I am pushed out of the way. I'm not sure who does it at firs.t The cannon hits the side of the boat that I'm on. I can't hear when the cannon hits. Everything goes silent from the impact. My leg seems like I bruised it somehow when I fell to the ground. The boy who said he was going to die sure enough is dead. I turn and realize something though.

I realize who pushed me. It's Bello.

Bello pushed me out of the way and wood from the side of the ship is now lodged into his abdomen! I watch him begin to lose consciousness and he staggers backwards towards the side of the ship. He staggers all the way to the back of the ship and he just falls.

He falls right into the water.

And that's when I do something that I don't think I'd ever do.

I dive out after him.

~

When I wake up I swear I think I'm dead but I'm not. I don't know how it was possible for me to survive on the ocean but I did survive...somehow. It's almost like I have some kind of guardian angel or something watching my back.

I turn and see the Sea Wolf.

It's dark where we are. We aren't on a ship. We are somewhere else.

"Where are we?"

I don't see any of the other boys. Bello has his shirt off. I also notice he has wrapped himself with his shirt around his abdomen. I assume it is to stop the bleeding from the wound he got during the attack. I also notice a fire. He's grilling an animal he caught that seems to be the size of a pig. It would be Bello that had managed to have all of this set up before I could even regain consciousness. He looks down as he cuts out a strip of the meat off the pig and throws it my way.

"Somewhere...alive. For now, at least. Until the curse takes us."

Great.

"Good evening to you as well."

I'm being sarcastic. This was news I didn't want to hear.

He doesn't seem to be the slightest bit worried, "Eat."

"I'm not hungry," I state seeming more confused than ever, "Where are we?"

He shrugs, "Some island. Not sure where. Haven't seen no one. Walked almost a mile. No one in either direction of us."

I sit up. I have the biggest fucking headache. Last thing I remember was the Sea Wolf was trying to kill me aboard the Screaming Dagger and now he was saying we were on some island. I get up and walk around and notice we are in some thin cave. I can see out onto the island. The beach doesn't seem too far away. I don't see any towns or anything from my viewpoint but this isn't the perfect view.

"How did this happen?" I ask.

"You tell me...all I remember is a cannon and when I woke up we were washed ashore on this island. You were unconscious."

"You saved me."

"No I didn't."

I give Bello a hard stare, "You pushed me out of the way Bello. Whether you want to admit it or not. You saved me. Don't worry. Your lover isn't here to judge you."

Bello stops denying it. He just sits there looking stupid. I hate him so much for how he treats me sometimes. The idea that he saved me seems to get underneath his skin and I think he wants to continue to deny it.

He moves on though I think he definitely wants to figure this out, "What happened after that?"

"You got hit with wood. You fell in the water..." I state, "I jumped in after you."

"Why the hell did you do that?"

He gets up. He's raising his voice. The guy was way more emotional than he ever expressed when he was around other guys. Bello usually was the hard ass on the ship who didn't speak to anyone or bother to make friends. The only person he communicated with was Holystone. He wanted that hard, cold reputation and he earned it. Right now he wasn't that hard, cold person though. Right now I can see Bello's heart beating faster and faster even through that broad sexy chest of his. He gets so mad that veins are popping out of his neck and his muscles are flexing as though he would want to do nothing more than strangle me. He's angry. He's SO angry at that moment.

"I would have done it for anyone," I state, "Relax..."

I'm lying. Bello would hate the idea of me caring specifically about him enough to jump into the water. I hated how complicated of a person he was. I hated how he pretended as though he hated me but truthfully this was all just an act. I wanted to get to the bottom of this and what better time than stranded on an island.

"Good..." he states, sitting down.

He's comfortable with the idea that I just would do it for anyone, but I can tell he still would prefer I be unconscious. He sits further away from me than he initially was. He makes sure the fire separates us. This cave is definitely uncomfortable. The hard rocks are all around us. I'd probably been unconscious for an hour or even more.

"It's deserted?" I ask him.

"No..." he tells me.

"I thought you said you didn't see anyone," I explain.

He shakes his head, "I felt them. Eyes on the island. They are watching us. They are waiting."

"Who?"

Bello rolls his eyes, "How the fuck would I know? I told you I have no idea where we are. God you ask the dumbest questions."

He can't help but to be an asshole to me. I lean up against the rock. It's so uncomfortable. We get quiet for a few minutes because I hate how Bello is talking to me. Then I realize that he is more comfortable when we aren't speaking. Why should I make him more comfortable?

"Do you think Holystone is OK?"

"He'll be fine. He's survived worse than your weak father's attacks," Bello responds, "The Screaming Dagger has survived worse. He'll get away."

"Yeah I should be more concerned with us then him."

"He'll come get me."

I laugh. I can't help it. The idea that Bello had no idea where we were but he was so sure that Holystone would come get him blew my mind.

"What's so funny?" he asks me.

"Who's to say Holystone doesn't think you're at the bottom of the ocean."

"He won't stop until he finds my body."

"Your relationship is odd, Bello," I admit, "What does Holystone have over you? You don't fucking love that guy. What the fuck is it between you two?"

He gets quiet at that moment.

"Go to bed. We'll hike tomorrow to see if we can find the locals and hire a boat to one of Holystone's resting points."

He doesn't want to talk about it. Bello is avoiding me and he's avoiding the question. That's what he always does. I guess I'm not too surprised about it. He turns at that moment and leans up against a rock. I swear I'm surprised that the guy sleeps like that. Inches away from him is his dagger. He sleeps sitting up like it's the most natural thing in the world.

There is no way I'd get sleep on this rock.

A few minutes pass and I find myself realizing how comfortable his chest must be. His chest is so built and defined. I could just imagine laying my head on it. I could imagine hearing his heartbeat through it. I keep staring at his pink beautiful lips. For a pirate they seem always to be perfectly moisturized and always reflect any light source near. I'm staring at them so much. I can see the way his silver dread locks scatter over his shoulders.

I get up.

I can't help it anymore.

I've never been so attracted to someone in my life.

I take off all of my clothes and me doing so seems to wake him up.

"What are you doing?"

I take a few steps closer to him. His eyes seem real alert when I do it. You would think he was surrounded by a million scorpions or something. I manage to get closer and closer. My hands press up against his muscles slowly. He seems confused. I see him even shake when it happens. He shivers as though this is the most uncomfortable thing ever done to him. He stares at my fingers as though I'm about to claw out his skin.

I get lower to his trousers. I can feel him breathing deep as I creep down his tight abdomen. I make my way to his trousers. He holds his breath.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asks me.

I grab his cock. I grab the imprint. I feel it. I pull it out. The heavy meat is in my hands. It hardens in my hands slowly. Every second adds another inch. The thick long dick is fully hard after a little bit and it stares at me, winking with its thick head.

I lower my head to kiss it.

That's when I feel his dagger up against my throat, "You suck my dick and I'll slit your throat..."

"Do it."

"Are you desperate to die?" he asks me.

"Are you so desperate to prove to yourself that you don't want me to do this?" I ask, "If you were going to kill me, you would have done it a million times over by now. You don't want to kill me. You're just afraid. A scared animal lashes out..."

I take my tongue out of my mouth and I lash up against the tip of his cock. As I assumed he doesn't slit my throat. He just sits there. He doesn't react when I put my tongue up against the shaft nor when I start to suck it. I suck up on the head. He doesn't moan or anything like that. He watches. He silently watches as though I'm the one with the knife taking advantage of him and there is nothing that he can do.

I feel so powerful when I take him deeper down my throat. I deep throat Bello engulfing his cock down my throat and not gagging even a little bit.

I break him a little bit as I hear him mutter a long, deep, hard, sexy, "Damn it..."

I know I'm doing it right when he drops his blade and starts panting. He's breathing so fast. The faster I suck his cock the faster his heart beats. Soon I begin to lick all over him. I lick his inner thighs. I lick his muscular legs. I lick all the way down to his feet.

"I bet Holystone doesn't do this," I tell him.

I don't know why I bring up Holystone. I think that this is going to bring him out of the fantasy. Luckily though before he gets out of the fantasy I take his toes out of his shoes and suck on the toes. I suck on each toe individually slowly. Whatever idea that he may leave the moment is gone. He closes his eyes. I don't think he's ever experienced anything like this before and I never thought that I would want to do anything like this to anyone else.

By the time I'm done he's precumming.

He doesn't say a word but his eyes are screaming: I want you.

He even bites his lower lip and stares at my body silently. He's giving in with his eyes now and even his facial expressions. They give away what his voice still can't. His mouth opens wide as I climb on top of him, straddling him as he sits. I press one of my hands up against the wall of the cave. The other hand I use to guide his wet, lubricated dick down towards my tight hole.

"Fuck you're so big," I state as I mount him.

I work my hole around his shaft, rubbing circles with the tip of his dick as though using his precum to really wet up my tight hole. I've never done this before but I don't want to say anything like this to him. I knew how Ashton reacted to it and the last thing I wanted to do was freak the Sea Wolf out. I wanted him to enjoy this.

I wanted to enjoy it also.

I go down on it.

"Stop...please..." he states once the tip starts going in.

"Give it to me..."

I am begging him. I am pleading. He is telling me to stop but his body is doing something else. He grabs around my waist and I think he is going to throw me off his cock but he doesn't. He just grabs onto my waist as though he is contemplating throwing me off or pushing himself into me.

"I don't want this. I don't want you."

I kiss him. My lips press up against his lips to shut him up. It works. He kisses me back lashing his tongue deep into my mouth. Our saliva clashes. The deep wet kiss is pure sex and emotion that neither of us really understand. It's as though our tongues can't go deep enough into each other's mouths. It's as though his dick is struggling to get harder. Even more precum comes out. It allows me to get a little deeper.

"Fuck me Bello. Make love to me..." I tell him.

He feels my ass slowly.

"I don't want you. Goddam it. Why don't you give up? Why don't you get it? I only want Holystone," he states.

I don't know why he is trying so hard to stop me. Or at least he's trying hard verbally. Physically he is the one who initiates the second kiss. This one is just as deep as the first kiss. Our tongues interlock and we almost forget that we are having sex. The kiss is so intense that he ends it by sucking and biting on my lower lip and mashing his tongue back into my mouth over and over every few seconds.

"Fuck it," he finally gives in.

All hell breaks loose then. All the passion between us came out just at that moment. All the silent stares between us on the ship came out. All the misplaced resentment that was bottled up suddenly disappears when he lays me on my back.

He puts my legs up over his muscular defined shoulders. They hold me like torture tools. I can't move an inch. My asshole winces only for a second before he piles into me. He begins to clobber my asshole mercilessly.

I know I'm bleeding. The pain hurts so much that it's numbing.

"PLEASE STOP! PLEASE!" I'm screaming at him.

I don't mean it. Honestly it hurts but that isn't the reason I'm asking him to stop. I'm asking him to stop because it feels so good. Tears are rolling down my face. Tears of pain or pleasure or both. I've wanted this so long that I feel every thump he puts into me. I feel ever charge he lays into my asshole. I feel every pump.

He ravages my asshole in unspeakable ways and delivers more semen into me than I thought was possible.

When he's done he pulls out and just stops. He just stares.

"I can't believe that just happened," he tells me.

"Me either."

I had just let the Sea Wolf fuck me. It was shocking really. All of a sudden I just feel awkward about it. I get up and start to go to the other side of the cave but the Sea Wolf sits up and he watches me. It's not in a sexual way. He stares at me in an emotional way. It's a way that I haven't seen him stare at anyone...including Holystone.

"Holystone and me are...complicated..." he tells me.

No shit. I don't know what the history is between them. I don't know why he is so reluctant to tell me what that connection is but I know that he's struggling with it.

He leans up. His dick is still hard. He's sweating a little bit but the cold island night wind dries that up.

"I can handle your past...if you tell me. I can understand you more."

"I don't want you to fucking understand me," Bello growls a little bit, "I don't want you to know shit about me and Holystone."

It's almost like he's back to his old self. He just fucked me. I start walking away. I get back to the other side where I was. I notice him still staring at me.

"You're not going to sleep are you?"

"I can't with you nearby."

"Is that why you wanted to kill me?" I ask him.

He stops. He turns to me.

"I can't get you out of my head," he tells me, "Every moment of every day since I've met you I've been completely fascinated by you. You ever feel this hard clench in your chest every time you see someone?"

"Yes...I feel it with you too."

"Not like this," Bello explains to me, "I literally think of you every moment. I feel that feeling in my chest all the time just from the thought. I've done many things in my life. I've done horrible things without a care in the world. It's as though all those emotions from all those years have all come back to me in the form of one man. That man is you. Do you get it? Does that make sense?"

"You think I'm some sort of revenge?"

"Yes? Revenge from the ghosts of my victims," he explains, "Or it's as though God saved all of those feelings and piled them away and they are all coming out all at once. Do you understand that? Could you imagine being on the other side of the walls when a flood gate opens. Everything just comes out all at once and you don't know how to control it because you've never felt it. I want to kill you to make it stop. I don't know how to handle this emotion. I don't know how to make it stop."

I stare at him.

It was scarier than I thought. I thought Bello had a crush on me. I thought he was playing hard to get. No. This wasn't that. This was something deeper.

This was something...terrifying almost.

And yet there was something so beautiful about it all.

"I'm sorry, Bello," I state, not sure of what else to say, "I'm sorry something that should feel good hurts so bad."

~

I wake up the next morning and realize sure enough that Bello had not gone to sleep. He is on guard. He has his knife in his hand and he's pacing around thinking about something. When he sees that I'm up he doesn't seem to take his mind of whatever he is thinking about.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"They are here...the strangers on the island."

Strangers?

Something about these people are freaking him out.

"We should go meet them," I state.

"No... there's something...off about this place," He tells me, "Something very off. I don't know what it is."

I didn't feel that. I didn't feel anything off about the island.

"If they wanted to kill us they would have done it already," I tell him.

I wasn't going to wait for him. I leave the cave regardless of the Sea Wolf screaming for me to stop and chasing after me. As I walk out of the cave I see a group of individuals. They are dressed in hoods almost. I've never seen anything like it except for the church really. This wasn't that though. These weren't church acolytes.

They were dressed in red.

Bello stands in front of me, "Who are you people?"

"We brought you here," someone says.

It's a woman. She's is the only one who takes off her red hood. She stares at me and takes a step forward. For some reason I'm not afraid of her. There is something threatening about them though. I can tell by how many of them have come. These people are not angels but for some reason looking at this woman I don't feel threatened by her at all.

There is something so familiar about her.

"You saved us by boat."

What are the chances? What are the chances we would have survived in that water long enough to be found by another boat?

"No...by other means..." she states.

"Stand back," Bello warns me.

"I'm fine," I try to tell him.

I don't feel threatened. Something about this woman feels right. I love how Bello is openly trying to protect me though. He isn't doing any weird passive aggressive diversions to do it. He literally grabs me and pulls me behind me. Then Bello does the sweetest thing. He grabs my hand. He holds my hand at that moment as though trying to keep me with him.

The same man who tried to kill me was now trying to save me?

"Please," Bello states, "There are stories about them. Stories from other sailors. I know where we are. I know what island this is. I didn't think it was real. I thought it was just a myth. This place is Moreen Island."

"Moreen Island?" I ask Bello, "Something seems so...familiar...about this place..."

"It's where you come from Lafayette," the woman states.

Where I come from?

I've never been here.

How is this where I come from?

"How do you know my name?" I ask the woman.

It's strange but that's when Bello drops my hand. He starts backing away from me.

"You..." Bello states, "You're one of them..."

I look at Bello. I look at the people dressed in red. I have no idea what Bello is talking about but he seems freaked out. He starts backing away and I know he's about to run any moment. I don't get it. The Sea Wolf didn't run from anything or anyone. What was frightening him all of a sudden.

"What are you talking about? I don't know these people."

Bello points at me, "I should have known."

"Known what?"

"There's no way I could really be in love with you. You put a spell on me."

I'm so confused but the look on Bello's eyes is truly fear.

That's when the one of the strangers drops their hood. And I recognize the woman. It's a woman who should have been dead. It's a woman who I know shouldn't be alive. She looks me dead in my face and stares me down.

"Welcome to Moreen Island," she tells me, "Home of the Moreen Island coven of witches. Welcome home son."

To read the next chapter in advance go to www.crushedcrown.com