To Chase the Storm

  To Chase The Storm

  Kimberly Cates

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be sold, copied, distributed, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or digital, including photocopying and recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of both the publisher, Oliver Heber Books and the author, Kimberly Cates, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  COPYRIGHT © Kimberly Cates

  Published by Oliver-Heber Books

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  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Preview Crown of Mist

  Thank you

  About the Author

  Also by Kimberly Cates

  Prologue

  Fairies danced upon the sea, sprinkling the waves with stars. Tempted by the sight, Tessa skipped to the edge of the shore, reaching out her small dimpled hand to catch one of the tiny creatures, but they darted away with laughter she alone could hear. Tessa was left with wet rivulets of silver sifting through her fingers.

  Determined, she plunged deeper, even though the cold water lapped at her chubby knees, then her bare belly as she toddled toward the bits of light, unafraid.

  A wave washed over her, filling her mouth and nose with salty water, but she didn't tumble beneath it, and despite her age she didn't shriek or wail. She laughed as her face broke through the water, blinking her dark-lashed eyes, and shoving her riotous curls away from her gypsy-sweet face.

  Her feet were scarcely touching the pebbly bottom now, the sea spray beckoning her. She wanted to fling herself into its arms, wanted to delve into its magic, its mystery. Beneath the deep were the fairy castles and fairy folk that peopled her father's delicious fireside tales.

  Once again she rushed into the water, pushing off with her toes, and she felt a strange, wonderful sensation, as if she were flying.

  The sea filled her senses, making her head whirl in colors bright as jewels.

  Suddenly, someone whooshed her out of the water and she was safely in her father’s strong arms.

  "Nay, nay, little one," he said. "The fairy folk cannot have you yet."

  "Play," Tessa cried, her bottom lip thrusting out as if robbed of a sweetmeat. "The fairies want me to come play. I heard them, Papa. They sang to me."

  William of Ravenscroft cradled his tiny daughter in his arms, his eyes glowing with tenderness. "Come now, poppet, the fairies must not be so greedy," he told her. "It has only been three summers since your mama and I plucked you from the waves. Surely you don't think the fairies would steal you back so soon."

  Tessa squirmed as her father's arms tightened fiercely about her. His eyes darkened as if he were afraid some mystical being truly would snatch her from his grasp.

  "Story, Papa. Tell me the story 'bout me an' the fairies an' the ghosts from the sea."

  "But you've heard that tale a hundred times," he teased her, "surely you cannot wish me to tell it again."

  "Please, Papa!" Tessa begged, knowing his question and her answer was a game between them.

  With a sigh, William crossed to the stone where he'd sat with his wood carving, and sank down among the curly yellow shavings, perching Tessa on his knee.

  "Once upon a time, there was a man named—" He paused, waiting.

  "Will'm," she lisped.

  "And a beautiful woman called—"

  "Hagar."

  "They loved each other so much that their love spilled over and filled the tiny cottage where they lived. They needed someone else to help soak up all this loving, and they thought that a child—a little girl—would be the perfect one to do so. But though they prayed and prayed to be blessed with a child, none came to brighten their days.

  "They were very, very sad as time dragged on, and sometimes William would awake at night to find Hagar weeping."

  Tessa stilled, subdued by the thought of her mother's sorrow, even though she knew the joy that was coming.

  "One night, after William had found Hagar weeping, he could not bear his wife's sorrow any longer. He left the little cottage and wandered along the cliffs to the sea. A storm had come the night before, and everything was washed clean from it, but though William usually loved the sea and its magic, tonight he found no comfort in watching the sea-sprites dance upon the moon path in the waves.

  " 'How dare you gallivant so joyfully when my wife is in such pain?' William railed at the fairy folk. And he threw a shell into the water to shatter the moon path. The fairy folk, their dance ruined, circled around William and threatened to plunge him deep into the sea where the great fanged monsters wait."

  "Monsters," Tessa repeated with childish glee. "What next, Papa?"

  "William faced the fairies unafraid. He knew he'd spoiled their revels, and they were right to be angry. But the thought of Hagar, in the cottage for years and years to come, with no husband, and no baby for her to love, made him strong. William straightened tall and stared into the fairy king's eyes. 'I'll go to the monsters and gladly,' said William, 'if you will but grant me one wish. Give my poor wife a babe to love.'

  "The fairy king scratched his diamond beard, his sea-green eyes dark with thought. 'Never have the fairies met a human who has not deafened us pleading for his own life,' the fairy king said. 'Perhaps we can help you. There was a ship from France we charmed into a reef a night past, and among the treasures was a child of such beauty and such courage, we carried her off in a magic cradle to our castle beneath the sea.'

  "William's heart was thundering so hard, he could scarce speak. 'May my wife have this child? In exchange for my life?'

  " 'Nay, this child is special, marked by the stars,' the fairy king told him. 'She is far too wonderful for mere mortals to keep forever. Already the seers of the fairy kingdom have peered into her future and divined that she will be carried off some day by the lord of the sea, a bold sea ghost who will come for her. But we could entrust her into your keeping for a little while—until she is grown. Then you must give her back to us.' "

  Tessa snuggled closer, the story and her father's warmth making her drowsy from her afternoon of play along the shores. "What happened then, Papa?" she asked, trying to stifle a yawn.

  "Why, then, William agreed, and the fairy king took him to that tiny cove, where the waves lap quietly, and there, in a fairy cradle, was a tiny baby girl, more beautiful than anything William had ever seen." Hands, callused from work and care, smoothed over Tessa's soft cheek.

  "So you taked the baby," Tessa said, leaning into his caress.

  "William took the baby to Hagar, fully intending to give himself over to the fairy king, afterward. But when the king saw how much Hagar and William loved each other, he could not bear to part them. So, with the fairy king's blessing, William and Hagar kept the fairy child, bound only by the promise that when the lord of the sea comes to claim her, they will let her go."

  Tessa gave a sated sigh, burying her face agai
nst her father's chest. Her lashes drooped, closed. "Tired, Papa," she whispered, and felt the answering rumble of her father's soft laugh.

  "Then sleep, Tessa, babe," he whispered, kissing her tumbled curls. "Sleep, little love, and dream of the sea phantom who will make you his bride someday."

  Chapter 1

  July 29, 1588

  The roar of cannons thundered across the English Channel. Flame spewed from scores of huge guns embedded in the bellies of the ships engaged in a deadly battle on the roiling sea. The English fleet coiled about the slower Spanish vessels like a great fanged serpent, striking at will, then slipping out of the grasp of the armada's massive galleons.

  For days Queen Elizabeth's seamen had taunted their Spanish rivals, daring the hot-tempered captains to break away from the battle formation strictly commanded by the lord high admiral. The smug arrogance of the northern seamen seeped like poison into the hearts of the Spaniards, searing the pride that was more precious to them than life, until the threat of hell itself could not have leashed the fury in Captain Rafael Santadar's broad chest.

  He braced his legs against the pitching quarterdeck, aware that the rest of the Spanish fleet had fallen far behind him, certain that he had been tricked into making a deadly gamble: Sir Francis Drake had lured him toward disaster. Rafe's hand clenched in white-hot frustration about the hilt of his saber as his helmsman battled to bring the Lady of Hidden Sorrows closer to Drake's Revenge—a prize that would bring not only glory to its captor, but put heart back into the sick, half-starved crewmen who manned the armada's ships. But there would be no laurels at the end of this foray, Rafe thought, sensing imminent defeat. There would be nothing but a noose crushing his throat and the hope that his crew would not share his fate.

  He seethed with frustration, helplessness. He had no choice except... except what? To turn from Drake's attack? To flee? Never once had a ship under his command turned from battle. But if the Lady held her course, these men who trusted him so blindly would soon sleep with the serpents of the deep, their death the price of Rafael Santadar's pride.

  And if they rejoined the rest of the Spanish fleet? Rafe jammed his fingers back through the unruly mass of ebony waves that tumbled about his chiseled features, his gaze sweeping over the battered, beloved hull of his gallant Lady. If they returned without Sir Francis Drake as their prize, a hangman's noose would dangle from every spar, the punishment for disobeying the lord high admiral's express orders. Rafael's knuckles whitened as his hands clenched into fists.

  God forbid that a man with sea spray in his blood should use the instincts earned in a lifetime of roving stone-scoured decks. Saints forbid that any mere ship's captain should disobey the bumbling commands of the dull-witted king or object to the misguided notions of a nobleman who grew seasick at the sight of water. Spain would have had a better chance of invading England if Philip had sent the Lady alone, free under my command, Rafe thought grimly. But nay—

  "Rafe, beware!" The cry shattered his bitter musings just before a cannonball crashed into the mast above Rafe's head.

  Rafe dove from beneath the mast, the sound of cracking wood wrenching through him as though his flesh had been torn. He braced his free hand against the pitching deck, the layer of salt cast across the boards to absorb the gore of battle grinding into his palm.

  Oblivious to the pain, he leapt to his feet a heartbeat before the main yard crashed down, the shattered wood hurling thick, deadly splinters at the men battling to reposition the cannon. Rafe winced as he felt something slice his cheek. He brushed it away, his hand warm with blood, and had scarce regained his balance when the roar of another cannonball pierced the wind.

  The second deadly ball cracked into the ship, smashing the block on which one of the massive cannons was mounted. Rafe cried out as a scream split the powder-hazed air, and the cannon's wooden supports shattered. The huge barrel crashed down onto a scrawny powder boy.

  Rafe lunged across the deck toward the lad, but felt a hand clamp around his arm to halt him. He wheeled in fury, desperation, sickened by the death surrounding him.

  "It is too late." Bastion's ebony gaze locked with Rafe's, holding the empathy that had bound the two men in unbreakable friendship for five long years.

  "Bastion—"

  "It is too late for all of us." The tall nobleman wiped his arm across his sweat-sheened brow, his handsome features taut with defeat.

  A sound grated from Rafe's throat, harsh with despair. Too late... The English had named him Phantom of the Midnight Sea, weaving tales about his courage and cunning nearly as fantastical as those the Spaniards whispered about Drake. The English sailors whispered of pacts with the devil's bride, a winsome, poisonous spirit who would wrap Rafe's ship in her midnight hair at his command.

  If only he could call upon some dark spirit as the English sailors claimed, to carry him away along with his beleaguered countrymen. But this was no game of seek-and-dare. There would be no escape for the Lady this time or for Philip's great armada. The aristocratic planes of Rafe's face contorted in anguish. His sensual lips tightened in helpless rage. This was all a hideous waste—every ball that pierced the ship's side, every man who screamed in agony at the loss of arm, leg, or life.

  If only he had heeded his first impulse when Philip had summoned the Lady under Rafe's command to join the ill-fated fleet, Rafe thought. If only he had lost himself in the maze of islands that lay, treasure-rich and passion-hot, in the far-flung seas an eternity away from avaricious monarchs, scheming noblemen, and fanatical priests thirsting for the blood of innocents. For all that he loved Spain itself, he loathed the religious plague scourging his country. He had sought to escape it through countless voyages to distant shores, but his quest to elude the Inquisition and Philip's hunger for England's throne had been hopeless from the start. Rafe had known it.

  But he had ever been a warrior, battling the enemies of his country. From the moment he had stepped upon his first pitching deck, he had recognized the vital importance of heeding the chain of command—on his own ship and in a vast kingdom as well.

  Rafe's gaze flashed to the Spanish ships, then back to Drake's Revenge, the pride that burned within him warring with his love of his men and his ship. He would no longer hurl them into this foolish cause. It was time to make an end. "Come about!" Rafe shouted, "Rejoin the fleet."

  Smoke-darkened faces turned to him with a mixture of shock, disappointment, anger, and relief. Then murmurs worked through the mass of soldiers and sailors crowded together on the deck. "Retreat? Nay! Captain, don't—" The protests welled from the battle-grimed men like the swell of the waves.

  "Get this ship back to the fleet!" Rafe roared, the sound of his voice turning the bravest of his men into cowards.

  "Sí, Captain."

  "Whatever you say, sir."

  Rafe wheeled, barking out commands, hacking at the fallen rigging with his saber in an attempt to cut free the fallen mast. Bastion labored beside him, as always Rafe's second pair of hands, almost his second self since that long-ago day when Rafe had saved him from the clutches of a band of English cutthroats.

  "C-Captain."

  Rafe looked up at the sound of a choked voice and saw the wide, frightened eyes of his cabin boy.

  "The ship is taking some water," Enrique stammered. "Lopez says we'd best go about. He swears the leak is not enough to sink her, but there's so much damage—"

  "Lopez raised his first sail before your father was born. If he says she can stay afloat, she can stay afloat."

  "Sí, sir."

  Rafe's gaze swept to where a bone-thin sail maker wrestled with torn, flapping canvas. "Get de Leon to brace that accursed spar before it falls and crushes what firepower we have left," Rafe roared, "and—" Rafe felt timid fingers tap his arm. He wheeled to find Enrique chewing nervously at his pale lips. "What in the name of the devil—"

  "Your pardon, Captain, sir, but Lopez... he said to—to tell you a shell hit an arm's breadth from the powder magazine. Told me to
assure you that no—no stray spark—"

  Bastion's laugh rang out, and for a moment Rafe felt an urge to pummel any man fool enough to jest, yet the sound of Bastion's chuckle seemed to lift the fearful Enrique's flagging spirits.

  "Rique, mi querido niño," Bastion said as he swung his arm around the boy's thin shoulders, "if a spark had touched that magazine, the captain would be in no need of assurance, except final absolution. It seems that God hasn't deserted us after all, eh, Rafael?" Rafe saw the wry twist to Bastion's lips. His friend's face was awash with distaste as he peered across the deck.

  "But there are times, mi compañero, I wish some of God’s servants would."

  The acid humor in Bastion's muttered words made Rafe follow the young nobleman's gaze to where a figure seemed to materialize out of the haze that hung over the deck, robes of the dread Inquisition wreathing his tall figure. Rafe could not stifle the sudden trickle of foreboding that slid down his spine.

  "Encina. What the devil is that fool doing out here?" Rafe spat. Loathing mixed with fierce resentment washed through him at the sight of the passenger. He had been forced to give the man berth on his ship, though for some strange reason Encina despised him. Rafe’s jaw clenched as he cast a scathing glare toward the man he knew to be his enemy. "I ordered that bastard to stay in my quarters during the bombardment," Rafe ground out.

  "Perhaps the good father is on a mission of mercy," Bastion said with a wicked blandness, "to, shall we say, ease the plight of the dying."

  Rafe snorted in disgust. "The only death Encina wants to see is my own, though God alone knows why."