Spice Box: Sixteen Steamy Stories

by Raine Miller

  She would avoid falling prey to any softer emotions or other explanation for her presence. Maybe she was having a heart attack. Maybe her mental breakdown was evolving into a real medical crisis, and soon she’d wake up long enough to see the doctors laboring over her. Such a tragedy.

  A fragment of the talk around drew her head up. Brother? They were brothers? She focused on what Glacious was saying. She was an incredible-looking woman. Emily kept trying to decide if the hair was glacier blue or arctic blue.

  Distraction. Yes, she needed other distractions to focus on. Not her heart. She could feel its steady beat where the fur was snug at her neck. She was okay. She knew the score. Fuck it. What did Glacious just say?

  “I understand your claiming his portion of my gift, dear Captain Silvestri. He is your brother. And he marked you.” She reached out to touch the curved scar at Alan’s cheek.

  Emily shuddered, the bitch considered the damage done by the curse to be a gift? Sick!

  Ah, she’d wondered where that came from. It must be when Mick attacked him.

  “But he should carry a reminder also.” Her black eyes danced to Mick.

  “Ah, dear lady, I do. Nothing romantic like Alan’s. Only modesty keeps me from showing it to you.” Mick grinned, and winked at Alan.

  Too many jokes. Why was she here? Emily picked at the bandage on her left hand. It unwound and she let it. The cold air felt good on the raw tissues. She could feel the Kraken’s pendant at her chest, heavy and cold. Why was it cold? Even against her chest and buried in furs, it radiated chill. The rest of her was warm, almost too warm.

  “Now, what did you bring me this year?” Glacious left her seat and walked to where Alan sat. Standing behind him, she set her hands at his shoulders, and bent over, the swell of her white breasts on display for Mick. “You’re always careful, but I know my gift struck true. I felt it.”

  Emily watched her hands grip Alan’s shoulders, and he groaned, while sweat beaded his face. He appeared to be in pain. A pain Glacious absorbed so that it shone forth from her. It was obscene, intimate, and impossible to look away from. Emily shuddered.

  She’s a vampire! An actual emotional vampire!

  Glacious crooned, “An entire galleon, Alan. What a wonderful thing to bring me!” The icy blue woman flushed, head bowed.

  Alan tried to jerk away from her grip on his shoulders and partial succeeded.

  One hand still touching him, Glacious looked up straight into Emily’s eyes. “And why did this one escape my gift? A sister? No, you’re not that twisted. You know that isn’t allowed.”

  She dropped Alan. He hauled himself erect, though the effort obviously cost him. The lines on his face truly betrayed his age. The vitality faded. He gasped, “No! I will pay for that! She didn’t mean to fire that pistol! It was an accident, and she is an innocent!”

  “You are gallant, dear Alan. Very well, this last time.” Glacious gestured at him and he jerked violently and fell from the seat. Emily stood up and hurried to the head of the table to help him. Why she cared enough to go to him was beyond her. Instinct, probably. She paused as he climbed back to his seat before she got there. He held his right hand close, blood dripping from it.

  His knuckles were pitted with bits of metal and black with powder burns. Her pistol that exploded? His palm was gouged and bloody with mangled flesh. He met her eyes and hissed, “Get away!”

  Emily stopped dead in her tracks.

  Glacious ignored the drama, gliding to the other side of the table to confront Mick, also on his feet. “You seem a most practical and pragmatic man, Captain March. I am done with Alan—his luck has run out. Would you care to strike a bargain with me? Bear the gift of good luck while you sail the seven seas of the world?”

  “Bad idea, Mick,” Alan muttered. “I should know.”

  Emily turned her attention to Mick and watched in disbelief as Jezebel’s man bowed to Glacious. Emily grimaced, appalled at the idea.

  “Dear Lady, what a gracious offer. And terribly tempting….”

  Emily couldn’t stand it. Her loyalty toward Captain Jezebel reared up, overcoming her confusion regarding Alan. She reached out with her right hand, grabbed a handful of blue hair, and yanked, jerking Glacious away from Mick. The hair broke off in her hands. “Leave him be, you bitch! He is spoken for. He’s Jezebel’s.” Shock traveled through her system. The strands she held sliced into her hand, wires of frozen ice. Screaming she backed into Alan, who kept her from falling.

  Glacious turned to her. “Not so stupid are you! Simply ill-advised. No woman’s claim supersedes mine.”

  Mick opened his mouth to reply when a shock traveled through the palace. A muffled cascade of booms could be heard.

  Glacious swiftly turned her head toward the other end of her hall and threw up a hand. The wall of ice instantly grew transparent and showed a ship, firing at the glacier.

  Mick grinned. “Jezebel! My dear captain!” He sounded both relieved and proud.

  “The Quill?” Emily wept at the pain in her hands. The left palm now dripped blood from where she’d hit it on the side of the table trying to get away from Glacious. Both hands ached and bled red to stain the pure white world.

  “Oh, too many stupid women today!” Glacious leaped to the tabletop and strode toward the transparent wall. It fell with a gesture when she walked to it, melting to a sudden rain of water. The chill outside rushed in. Emily cried out when the ice queen shouted out to the giants, “See that ship sunk!”

  ***

  Alan shivered as the icy wind dried the sweat of Glacious’ earlier attention. He clung to Emily, trying to help her with the newly wounded hand. Mick hurried to them. “Now what? She’s going to sink the Quill!”

  Alan’s vision blurred as he held Emily’s hand, trying to fashion a bandage from a scarf. The fever from having his victim’s pain pulled from his soul made it difficult to remember where he was and why. But a vision rose in his memory from his dream of the Kraken taking down Glacious. He kissed Emily’s forehead. “Where is the pendant?”

  “My neck.” Emily tried to get to it, but only smeared blood on the white fur at her throat. “It’s cold!”

  Mick gently pushed her hands away and slipped the chain out, leaving the pendant at her chest where it pulsed and glowed.

  “Mick, bloody your left hand and take her right. Emily? Hold on to us. We’ll see you safe!” Alan took her left in his right, mingling blood.

  Mick slid his left palm across the sharp edge of the table, hissing as he did. With blood flowing, he took up Emily’s right hand. Alan turned, and they gazed across the open water to the transparent ice wall where the Quill fired her guns, dodging chunks of ice falling around them. The ship couldn’t last long! The ice would eventually strike it and take them all down.

  ***

  The cold that traveled through Emily froze her solid, but this wasn’t the cold of the glacier. This was the deep cold of the ocean, mixed with the warmer water of more temperate climes. Every ocean in the world pulsed through her. She suddenly stood up straight, hands locked to the men, power flowing through her. Alan felt it, and he was certain Mick also felt it.

  Alan spoke first. “Come on, Old Monster! We cleared the way! Follow your agents!”

  Mick chuckled. “Old Monster, reclaim what is yours.”

  Emily felt the force rising from the sea floor. The entire ice structure shuddered from a massive collision. The three of them staggered.

  Glacious spun, glared at them. “No!”

  “Yes!” Emily shouted, hearing the words deep inside her head. A voice with a slight accent, like that of the old woman in Tortuga, whispered at her what to do, what to say. “Though the portal, straight to this frozen heart! Come, Old Monster! Old Monster, come!” The pendant at her chest exploded with impossible tentacles, sweeping out at Glacious. The queen of the ice palace screamed and ran, a Kraken slithering after her. Emily glanced down at the pendant. “Wow.” It was just a pendant now. Her clear head fought wit
h the physics of what just happened. Why didn’t she fall back?

  Then the water of the bay exploded with great tentacles of every color and size. Massive white suckers, the size of elephants, rose around the dining hall, enlarging cracks as they pushed through. They crashed through the ice and everything solid fractured. The physics of gravity became paramount.

  The ice wall between the Quill and the enclosed bay disappeared, falling to pieces in the water. Emily roared with energy, no longer cold, tired, or confused. She was jubilant! Alan pulled the three of them out of the crumbling hall. They stumbled to the top of the long stairs. Ice melted everywhere, making the way treacherous.

  Within ten steps, all three fell as the palace gave a great groan and tilted to one side. Emily lost her grip with Alan, but Mick swept behind and literally grasped her about the waist as the slide and tumble began. Alan fell to one side of the steps.

  Emily knew with clarity why she’d come to this world and how, and the energy of the Kraken’s single-minded purpose filled her with laughter as the ice palace was reclaimed by the sea. Explosions behind them signaled the sulfur baths sweeping away what held them captive. She shouted with glee as Mick controlled their slide and saw them come to a halt at the quickly melting shore.

  Mick bellowed out to the Quill, “Jezzie!” Emily watched in a daze as he tried to gain the Quill’s attention before the icy water swallowed the two of them.

  The Immortal’s crew worked swiftly to recover their captain. He’d ended up in the water, not far from their bow. They hauled him aboard. Only he turned and attempted to throw himself back into the water, hand stretched out as if to grab hers.

  She raised her hand, suddenly sad. The bit of ice she and Mick stood on cracked, and the icy water rose up her fur-wrapped legs.

  “Save them!” Alan shouted into the air.

  A green tentacle swept around them. Mick grimaced, but bore it well as they were hauled through the water to the Quill and dropped onto the deck. He stood up and made to embrace Jezzie, who recoiled from him with horror. He wiped a gobbet of slime off his face. “Well, they are green and slimy when young. He brought the whole family!”

  Emily staggered to the rail, hands no longer bloody. The Immortal hove to, while the Quill’s crew followed Jezebel’s orders and the ship turned to reclaim the open sea. The ice fell around them and instantly melted. The other ship disappeared in a sudden frozen fog.

  A single, massive tentacle rose above the chaos. Wrapped tightly inside, the terrible beauty of Glacious, her screaming rose above the terrible crashing of ice until the albino limb carried her below the surface. Emily squinted, swore she saw smaller tentacles below the scrap of the grey dress. An errant wife? Daughter? She shook her head, certain her eyes played a trick on her.

  The Quill broke through into the sea, as the last rays of the sun disappeared. There was no sign of the Immortal.

  Emily fell to the deck, her energy gone. She turned to see Mick take Jezebel’s hand. “I knew you’d find me, love.”

  “Go get cleaned up.” Jezzie’s voice was rough, but the relief on her face spoke volumes.

  Emily wondered what her future held. It was obvious Mick would not leave the Quill. He’d never even entertained Glacious’ offer. The amount of subterfuge left Emily reeling. Suddenly, leaving was all Emily wanted to do.

  Davis helped her stand and took her below to a sponge bath and to her cabin. He didn’t ask anything and she didn’t speak.

  Hours later, deep in the night, she took up her mirror, poured a bit of rum on it and asked to return to Vallejo and the pirate festival.

  ***

  Mick tapped at her door come sunrise. When there was no answer, he slipped in to tell her the Immortal was sighted, listing slightly, but following their wake. But Emily was gone. Two letters sat on the bed. One was addressed to Jezebel and one to Captain Silvestri.

  CHAPTER 24

  The cold still surrounded her. She hauled herself up; one hand touched a hay bale at her back. She inhaled deeply. Exhaust, oil. A generator hummed somewhere. She picked up her pack and slung it over her shoulder.

  “Miss? Excuse me, ma’am. What are you doing here?”

  A slender young man in the orange T-shirt, security in big bold letter across the front, glared at her.

  Emily snickered, immensely tired. “Looking for the exit, asshole. You’re security, escort me, idiot.”

  “Fuck you!” He stormed off, muttering, “Stupid old cow.”

  Emily leaned against the hay and laughed. Definitely back in her world! Morning she assumed.

  She stumbled across the corner of a tent and nearly fell. A hand grabbed at her. “Hey, careful!”

  “Listen, I must have fallen asleep last night, where is the exit? I’m trying to get out of here.” She tried politeness this time.

  “Sure, where did you park?” This guy was a gentleman. He set her hand on his costumed arm and led the way through the fog. It sounded like the festival was getting ready for the second day of fun and make believe. She’d had enough of that.

  “I’m in the lot for the ferry building. Thanks!”

  He left her at the opening in the fence, after pointing out the right way to go. The fur was warm, but her feet were like ice. Nice of him not to comment on her arctic wear.

  It took some maneuvering to get the key out of the bottom of her bag, but she finally slid it home and entered her camper. She didn’t bother covering the windshield, simply stripped. No one was about, and no one wanted to look at her, anyway.

  “Damn it, what a freaky dream. Yup, a bad hangover and some prankster with an excess of fur.” She spoke to the empty camper, smelling strongly of chemicals, and her mouth tasted funny.

  She shrugged and gazed at herself in the small mirror on the tiny shower door. Her eyes locked on her right nipple and the gold ring there. “Oh, well. I must have been rip-roaring drunk.”

  She turned on the water, gave a prayer of thanks for the new solar panel on the roof to keep the water hot, and tried to convince herself the entire fantasy was in her head.

  She hung the Kraken pendant on a hook and slid the mirror into a drawer. She stopped at a Safeway for donuts and coffee, and headed for points north.

  She followed the road away from the coast, longing for some mountain air. Over the next few weeks she visited remote locations in northern Nevada, gazed at the Grand Tetons, toured Yellowstone and stayed busy, always occupied. She spoke to no one about her Caribbean fantasy, as she termed it. And if she cried herself to sleep most nights, no one was there to see.

  When summer eased into fall, she left the high country and aimed for Seattle and Vancouver. Seeing the Pacific before her, after the many months away, her heart finally shattered. She camped next to the water and cried for hours. She reclaimed the pendant and held it in her hand, stroking the fierce eyes and trying to figure out what hurt more: believing it was a dream or praying it was real. Did she walk away from a second chance at happiness?

  That night, she fell asleep to the sound of the pounding waves and dreamed of him. That wasn’t unusual. Most mornings she found herself waking up totally aroused with a sense of having dreamed of him. But this dream, he was looking for her.

  It was dark, foggy and he didn’t call out, he searched. Every night for a week, the dream came with more and more detail.

  She turned her camper south and meandered down the Washington coast line. In her head, she carried on long conversations with herself.

  I liked being the secret lover of a cursed pirate. Making books, and learning how to throw knives.

  So did I. But it wasn’t real.

  Bullshit. Look at that nipple and say it again. Quit lying. You still have the mirror, go back.

  It’s insane. He never loved me, he loved Jezebel.

  I doubt that and you never gave him a chance to explain. Probably only Mick talking nonsense.

  This is insane. Even talking about it.

  But it was fun. It was exciting and he was a fu
cking miracle.

  What a mouth!

  She giggled and thought about it. Thought about that mirror and whether it would still work. That night as she again dreamt of the pirate, she recognized something behind Silvestri. When she woke up, she pulled out her small computer and searched through old photographs. And she found it. The massive foot of the bridge that crossed the Willamette River.

  “Oh my God, he’s going to be at the Portland Pirate Festival? Is that what this means? Looking for me!” She quickly clicked over to the site detailing when the festival was occurring. Two days, less than two days to get to Portland.

  It would be a hairy drive, but she could do it. And she could decide when she got there. If he was there.

  ***

  He folded her letter again. It left him little hope of reconciliation. Full of pain and a sense of betrayal. But if given a chance, he could explain. Mick would admit the lie he spun was all about trying to keep Glacious from taking aim at Emily. He lifted the tiny perfume bottle and undid it, inhaled softly. She still lingered in the scent.

  Mick and Jezebel had let him search her cabin. He’d found the bottle of perfume he’d given her and taken it. The jewels and shoes, the dress…. He took her book making supplies and set them up in his house above Tortuga.

  He offered the ship to Mick, who shook his head. “No, I have a ship. I saw the proof of my not-father’s gambling and what he set out to do. He made certain we became enemies. The ship is yours. You did right by the man who wasn’t truly my father. Keep it. Now that the crew is fully awake, I expect being her captain will be much more of a challenge than it used to be.” He and Mick talked for hours that night, mended fences, and admitted to some lingering resentment, on both their parts. They’d make a try at being brothers. Why not?