Life in Nassau was dangerous. Everything was out to get you. The pirates, the navy, the fucking island itself. Life was dangerous for the men that lived in that island, that sailed those waters. If you were unlucky enough to be born with a pair of tits, then, life had fucked you up for the very beginning.

Women in the Caribbean had few choices. If you were legal, and respectable, you marry a man with a legal way to earn his living, and you would give him children and be a faithful wife the rest of your life attending church on Sundays while you're husband got himself lowly drunk on the pub or the whorehouse. Then, life had other choice for women, you could became a whore, and make money selling yourself to men who would abuse you and use you every day of your life until you became too old for them to have any interest on your body.

Few, very few, went for the third option. You grew up some balls, learn how to fight, renounce to skirts and dresses and feminine things, and join a pirate crew. It will give you freedom as nothing else would on these waters. But it was a risky thing to.

No matter what choice you make. In the end, men would come that would take away all you held dear, that would rape you, and beat you and kill you and your own. But you have the choice to let life fucked you up good without a fight, or get that fucker back with tooth and nails and everything you've got.

Alex was trying her best to do something between been legal and pass as a man. Her father learned his lesson when the Pirates went deep into the island, back when the bay was not protected by the men in the fort, and killed Alex's mother. Alexandra herself and her brothers saved their lives because their mother stuffed them of the tiny hole under the planks of the floor in their house. She had moved the table over the secret door and braced herself for what may come. The hole would fit the skinny children and their valuables, but not the grown woman. She had died screaming in the floor, surrounded by pirates. Emmet Randall, Alex's father, decided that if his daughter had to live in such a dangerous place she should learn how to protect herself. At first it had been a mere change of clothes. Of name. Alexandra became Alex, and soon even Sam and Joe forgot she was their sister. Later, children's games taught her how to punch. Her brothers taught her how to spit; she worked with her father on the docks. And at the docks, knowing how to use knife, pistol and sword was essential to survive. She learned how to tolerate alcohol when her father and his friends started to take her to the inn for a drink or two after work. And so, she became a man in the eyes of the world.

Alexandra Randall had a few rules that she lived by. Never anger the pirates, Never spent more money that you got on your pocket, and never mess up at work. She had a few alternatives, depending on the occasion, but mainly, those three kept her out of trouble. Since she accepted that job as peacekeeper on Miss Eleanor's inn a couple of months ago, though, it seems she would be unable to follow number one every night. Especially with the crew form the Ranger in town. Those men were animals, led by one even more brutish than the rest. Charles Vane wasn't a gentleman, not even a human being. When Miss Eleanor wasn't close, sometimes even when she was, and Charles Vane walked into the inn, someone ended up bleeding.

Since Miss Eleanor and Captain Vane split up ( She ditched him, it was said, and knowing Miss Eleanor, It would be very possible) Vane had been keeping himself on check, as if avoiding staining the floor with blood would put him on Miss Eleanor's good side again. And Miss Eleanor has noticed, Oh, she noticed, and that was exactly the reason why Alex was hiding in the shadows of the pub, as usual, but, instead of watching out for troublemakers, she was supposed to keep her eyes glued to captain Vane all night. Or all the time he was on the inn.

Vane new he was being watched. He knew. Every couple of minutes or so he would take a sip from his drink, squeeze the girl on his lap and look straight into Alex's eyes at the other side of the pub. Alex new that she would have to act if the captain and the girl starting acting too indecently, that was Miss Eleanor's inn, for other things, the brothel was just across the street.

Sip. Squeeze. Stare. Sip. Squeeze. Stare. Repeat. Again. Again and again. Fucking guy was getting on her nerves. But Alex couldn't let it show. She was been paid by Miss Eleanor to keep things right on the inn, and now, to keep an eye on Charles Vane. Who was moving from his table to the bar, for another drink, she thought, only, he didn't return. He stayed there, out of her sight. Crap. She had to follow Miss Eleanor's orders; she was supposed to do her job. She shifted, to no avail. From this position she didn't see a fucking thing that went on at the bar. She sighed. She had made numbers. A few years in the docks and the inn, maybe some less dangerous works, here and there, and her family would have enough to get the fuck out of this hell on earth. It was freedom, but it was death and madness too. She made her way to the bar and made a sign to the girl behind the counter. She knew she could only serve them water while they were working, but Alex needed to fake it or Vane would be even more suspicious than he already was. Miss Eleanor could have chosen another for this, she thought. Someone who could actually take down Vane if trouble aroused. Alex following him around would bring only trouble damn it, but it wasn't like she could say no to Eleanor. It was a good thing those bandages around her tits were so fucking tight. They had grown bigger that last summer, and now she had to wear tighter bandages and loose clothes to hide them. Eleanor though her a young boy, Alex boy, eager for a job and a fight. No use fighting when you could breathe only half the air the other guy was breathing.

She took a sip while looking at Vane from the corner of her eyes. The man finished his drink, tossed a coin to the barmaid and then proceed to go straight to FUCK, Miss Eleanor's receiving room, at the end of the stairs. She knew Miss Eleanor didn't invite him there. Alex left the glass on the table and went after him, skipping the steps two at a time in her haste to reach Vane. Until, at the top of the stairs, just when she was looking left and right for the man, a hand came from nowhere (or at least she thought it was nowhere) and grabbed her hair just to throw her against the wall. Fuck. Vane. His eyes were burning holes into her soul. Those fucking blue eyes. The fist on her hair slammed her skull again into the wall before releasing her.

"What the fuck are you doing boy?" Alex tried, and failed to conceal her voice "Following orders from Miss Eleanor" She knew that Miss's name would stop him from killing her. She hoped. "Were you? Oh, In that case…" Vane punched her in the face, and her skull bounced on the wall before she doubled over. Her breathing wasn't very regular. The adrenaline and the bindings were keeping her from doing it properly. Fight back damn it. Fight. She wouldn't let this brute beat her. She was better than that. She dodged the next punch. Delivered a couple of them herself at the end of Vane's ribs, where she knew it would cut his breathing. He tried to go for her neck but she threw herself to the left, against the wall, and it was too late by the time she realized she had trapped herself on a corner. Panicking, she did the only thing she could think of. She kicked him on the balls, and use those precious seconds were he's mind was clouded with pain to punch him straight in the neck. He fell to his knees, scratching at his throat and looking at her with those bewitching eyes opened widely with surprise. She tried to pass by his side but his hands closed like iron around her ankles, making her fall face first. She kicked wildly, until a kick in his skull freed her from him.

Alex drew her sword and put it under his chin. She was panting and hurting all over. "If I kill you, Miss Eleanor would be mad at me" she put more pressure on her blade, forcing his chin up. He looked at her with those eyes, and she saw her death on their bottomless depths. She was scared, so, so scared. Of all the pirates she could have fought, she never imagined she would end up holding a cutlass against Charles Vane's neck. She was going to end up dead. And raped, if they discovered her before they cut her throat. Nay, probably fucking animal would beat her to a bloody pulp with his own fists.

Vane smirked and she realized she was trembling. "You are just a boy, bloody lucky boy, stop playing with sharp things, or you will end up cutting yourself" Alex was two heartbeats away from screaming for Miss Eleanor to come and call this beast off. "I…I have orders from Miss Eleanor" Vane took her blade in his hands and pushed away. She resisted, but stopped the very moment she saw the blood on his palm. Vane brushed the blade away and kept staring at her. He rose from the floor, and Alex realized that, compared to her five foot and a half, he was a bloody giant. "You have guts, boy, but, cross me again, and I would beat you to death" Alex straightened and fury took over. She was just doing her job! The bloody bastard could have some compassion for a lass, well, lad, lass, for her! She had to obey Missus orders or get kicked out and be on the streets. "I work for Miss Eleanor" She said, dripping venom in every word "She said to keep an eye on you as long as you were on her propriety, and that's exactly what I was doing. You can't blame a lad for earning a living honestly, Captain or not, and you most certainly don't have Miss Eleanor's permission to go to the upper rooms, so it was my job to make you go back to the bar downstairs" She didn't realized she had her fists balled resting on her hips or how much like her mother she looked in that moment. She would have been worried for what the pirate might do to her, if said pirate wasn't laughing his ass off at her.

She stared dumb folded at Captain Charles Vane, feared among the feared of Nassau, while he laughed, his hands on his belly trying to stop himself, tears on his eyes, nearly doubled over. "Do you think is funny? To nearly cost a fellow the way he puts food on the table?" She still had her work on the docks, but been a guard for the inn was more profitable by far. Vane was sobering up a bit, at least he could stand up straight, even if his shoulders were shaking badly. "How angry you are, boy. What a mighty impression of your mother have you done! How old are you? Fourteen? What was Eleanor thinking?" He lighted again "you are full of fire, aren't you? A couple of years more and I wouldn't mind adding you to my crew!" She was a little hurt, She was a grown woman of eighteen, many a girl of her age already had whelped two or three kids. But better for her that he thought she was a little boy, than he figured out she was a woman. Woman didn't fare well on the Caribbean, not when trapped on a corner with a dangerous, drunken pirate. "Please go back to the inn sir, go back downstairs, so I don't get in trouble with Missus" He wasn't smiling anymore "I have business with Eleanor"

"You can't be here sir, please go away" Alex was going to get into trouble. She knew were Miss Eleanor was. She was across the street, with Max, the french whore. Vane would get angry. But, then again, if he crossed the street it would be the whorehouse problem, not hers. Anyway, if the pirate got angry he may just beat her black and blue before going for Missus. Alex wouldn't be a very good bodyguard if she led him to the one she was supposed to protect. " I don't give a fuck about it, fetch Eleanor, NOW" He looked savage. But he was drunk. She had a chance. Anyway she had to escape this situation. The cutlass was still on her hands, he never bother taking it from her. But. Missus would definitely fire her if she stabbed Vane. Not to mention that Vane's crew of animals would be hot on her trail when word went around. She sheathed her blade and held her hands in front of her.

"Captain Vane, She's not here, you should try to find her later, If you would just go down stairs…" his big callous hand came to twist itself on her shirt and he lifted her from the floor "I'm gonna enter that office, and you aren't telling me what to do, boy" Then he dropped her, and she fell flat on her bum. The brute. The drunken brute. That bastard son of a rotten clam. She was there on the floor looking at him walking to the door of the office. Suddenly a white hot rage burn through her and before she realized it, she had jumped to her feet, grabbed a vase and broken it on the Captain's head. Finally, the alcohol and the blow brought Vane to his knees. She stared to her hands, at Vane unconscious form, at her hands again, and Vane. Crap. Crap. CRAP. DID SHE JUST HIT CHARLES FUCKING VANE ON THE HEAD WITH A BLOODY VASE? SHE WAS SO DEAD. Think. Think. Don't panic. Okay, maybe panic a little, a lot. Oh Fuck. Vane was going to gut her. She opened the doors of Miss Eleanor's office and dragged Vane into it. Closing the doors, she combed her hair with her fingers. So Dead. Nah. She was no one. He wouldn't remember in the morning. She only had to put him on somewhere comfortable and wait for Missus to return. Explain the situation and then, make herself scarce for couple of days, maybe weeks, so Vane would forget her face, That, if he had looked at her in the face enough time to remember it. She was unimportant enough that Vane wouldn't bother to remember her face. She dragged him to the corner where the sofa stood. Problem. HE WAS SO FUCKING HEAVY. No way she could put him on the sofa on her own. She laid him on his back on the floor and put some pillows under his head. And that was it. She only had to wait until Missus came back from across the street. She sat by Vane's side, holding one of the heavies chandeliers, just in case.

Time passed. Alex grew impatient and started pacing. More time passed. Fuck. How long was the boss lady going to be with the french whore? Step after step, to the end of the room and back again. More time passed. Alex realized that the sounds from downstairs weren't as loud as before, and she stopped pacing, sitting beside Vane's head, she passed the time looking into the man's face. The man was good looking when he wasn't trying to strangle you. Interesting nose, interesting cheeks. Very kissable lips. The shirt was open all the way down to his waist. All right. The man had a freaking gorgeous body. Those Abs. Very, very, edible. Nooope. Not thinking about that. Not at all. She couldn't risk it. She would have to wait until she made it out of that place and found a respectable man for herself. That didn't meant she was made of fucking stone. Well, that certainly meant that, even if she couldn't touch him… she could watch.

Even in the shadowed room, he was handsome. A very fine specimen of human male. Strong and savage. Unconscious and drunk. Very, very drunk. And bleeding from a cut on his forehead. It had stopped bleeding a while ago, but the blood had dried on his skin and it looked really bad. The kick she had given him before wasn't that bad, but it was slightly red and swollen. Alex stood up and searched for something to clean his face with. She found a jar of water and a cup, and took it back to Vane. He was still unconscious on the floor. Alex removed her hat and the scarf she wore around her head. Carefully, she dipped it on the water and started washing away the dirt and the blood. "I'm sorry, please don't kill me" She didn't knew why she was even speaking to him, he wasn't listening, anyway, though she thought, she wouldn't speak to him at all if he had been awake. "But really, you made my work difficult on purpose. You knew that I was watching you; you knew Miss Eleanor was my employer. Did you listen? No, you didn't, and of course, you had to beat the crap out of me. I could have run you through with my blade, you know? I mean, your crew would have killed me in some horrible, imaginative, painful way came morning, but I would have been the lass that killed fucking Captain Charles Vane" She finished with him and washed her face for good measure, knowing that her eye would be black, even if it wasn't swelling, and her nose bled for a while, just the same as her split lip.

"Fucking brute, you did a number of my face" she put on her hat " I hope miss Eleanor chews your balls off for this" Just in that moment, Eleanor Guthrie crossed the door and fixed her eyes upon them. Alex jumped to her feet.

"Miss Guthrie! He was acting very calm all night, booze and girls, but he seemed to notice me and then he came upstairs. I tried to stop him, he demanded to see you and I might have hit him a bit too hard on the head" She was babbling. Fuck. Miss Guthrie always looked like she has been sucking lemons. How someone who just got laid could have such an expression? Eleanor Guthrie looked upon her ex lover and back to Alex. "Ask one of the men to come and help you get him to his tent" Alex swallowed; she didn't want to be with Vane more that it was necessary. "Miss Eleanor, Am I in trouble?" Eleanor Guthrie looked at her with her cold calculating eyes. "You will be if you disobey me, go" She went downstairs and called Jack to help her. Between the two of them dragged the unconscious pirate back to his camp. About half way there, Alex was already cursing and struggling. She had been carrying barrels around since she was thirteen, she could bare the weight. But, such a big man, there was no way she could get a proper hold, not with jack, who was much taller than her, on the other side of the pirate.

"Vane sure is built like a fucking bull" said Jack, and Alex grunts as an answer. The tents where Vane's crew spent shore time were just at the end of the street. Just a few more meters. JUST. A. FEW. Oh god. She was going to be so sore in the morning, and she had to get home yet. And there was work on the morning now that most of the pirates came back from their hunting trips… She groaned again, and Jack chuckled. "Came on Alex, we will find one of his men and he will be their problem" But, Oh just her luck. All the men must have gone to town. None was left on the camp. Alex wanted to cry. She was tired, Vane had fucking beat her and it bloody hurt, and now this. Patience, she needed more patience. "Fuck our luck" said Jack, and damn it all, she agreed. "This way, I know which one is his, I have been here with Missus before" They dragged him the rest of the way to the tent, opened it and put him in to what seemed the bed. They both were panting and sweating. And just in that moment, she could swear she had seen that bastard Vane smile faintly, but she couldn't be sure with the poor light of the tent. Bastard. Yes, make her drag him all the way back to his bed, who would have thought that bloodthirsty Charles Vane was a fucking five year old? Jack was already out of the tent waiting for her. She glared at Vane. Got close enough to him and whispered "I hope I hit you that hard, asshole, because if not you are a childish son of a bitch" She hit him again on the arm with her fist and run away.

She left Jack behind and kept walking fast through town until she reached the house she shared with her brothers and her father. Everything was dark, and her brothers were already asleep. Her father, though, was smoking a cigarette, in the dinner table, and smile upon her arrival. "I was starting to worry, everything all right at work?" Alex didn't know if telling him, but her father had always been a wise man. "I got into a fight with Charles Vane while following Miss Eleanor's orders but I'm afraid the bastard may have feigned being unconscious so we had to carry him back to his bed and so, I punched him again before leaving his camp and now I'm afraid He's going to kill me even if I really hope he was really really drunk so the hangover finishes him off and I can live another day" Her father rose with a worried expression and hug her. Uugggh, it hurt. "Try to stay out of his sight from now on, please Alexandra, and no more fights in a while" She hugged him back " yes dad, I love you, I'm going to sleep now" "Goodnight sweetheart" Alex changed her clothes and undid the bandages around her chest. Man, It was wonderful to been able to breath so deeply. She feel into her bed and was sleep in no time. Her dreams were full of strong, long haired pirates with piercing blue eyes and a wicked smile.