“Don’t touch her.” He could barely form the words. His lips were numb and the black spots were spreading. “Leave her here.”
The hiss of gas grew louder. They’d known he’d be too strong. They’d known just how to come. And he knew what would happen now, because he’d taught them how to do this.
A pungent cloth covered his face and he was gone.
XV
She was warm and sick and blind.
Zenobia opened her eyes to darkness. Strong arms cradled her tight against a broad chest. Nausea curled in her stomach and her head pounded, as if she’d drunk too much wine.
But she hadn’t. She’d been kissing Ariq.
Now she was on an airship. The muffled vibration of an engine sounded from behind her. She sat sideways on Ariq’s lap, her bare feet on a cold metal floor.
Kidnapped again.
Kidnapped by idiots. They’d brought Ariq with her. If they’d valued their lives as much as they valued a ransom, they’d have left him behind.
As if sensing that she’d awoken, he tilted her chin up before sliding his hand around to support her nape. His fingers pushed into her hair. His chest was bare. Only warm, dense muscle lay under her palm. Their kidnappers had taken them as they were.
She swallowed, forcing moisture into her dry throat. “Are we alone?”
“Yes.” Gently, his callused fingers massaged the back of her neck, as if he knew how much her head hurt. “You’re all right?”
Mostly. She nodded against his hand. Blurred memories were flooding in, of Ariq’s mouth on her breast, of words flying from her mouth on dizzy laughter. “What happened?”
“They pumped a mixture of gases into the room.”
“What gases? Were we poisoned?”
“No. I don’t know their names in French.” His voice was calm. So calm. As if he’d been kidnapped before, too—or intended to break everyone aboard this airship in half. “One is called a giggling gas.”
“I know of it.” She’d once written an adventure where Archimedes had felled a villainous surgeon with it. Archimedes Fox and the Laughing Death. And this was all wrong. They’d been clever enough to use gas instead of trying to fight Ariq, but they’d brought him along? “I don’t think this is another kidnapping. Do you know who took us?”
“Rebels,” he said. “We used that technique to remove people from enclosed spaces—usually homes—so that we could go in and out with a minimum of casualties.”
So they’d come for Ariq, not for her. Something related to the marauders. “Then they want you alive.”
“Yes.”
And her, too? Why?
Her mind didn’t have to race far to think of another reason—but it was one that she’d barely begun to believe herself. And her memories were fogged. Maybe she’d only dreamed it.
The sick tension in her stomach curled tighter. The rebels would have had to monitor the effects of the gas in some way. Too early, and she and Ariq wouldn’t be asleep. Too late, and they would suffocate. “Before they took us, would they have been listening to us?”
“They were listening,” he confirmed softly and held her closer.
Then they’d heard everything. Who she was. That Ariq had read her letters. Her anger and hurt. None of that mattered. Because it was the last thing he’d told her that they could use against him.
Unless she’d dreamed it.
Heart pounding, she made herself ask. “Did you tell me you were falling in love with me?”
“Yes.” His hand stroked down her back. “I said that you’re everything. And I always knew you would be.”
God. Oh, God. This wasn’t the time to be a ninny. But she couldn’t stop herself from turning her face against his shoulder and kissing him there, breathing in his warm skin.
It would be so easy to stay like this forever. But they were in a dark room on an unfamiliar airship. She forced her mind back to the problem.
“How do we escape?”
“We don’t yet. This is a vault aboard a Nipponese naval airship. Wood, I can break through, and I can force most doors aboard an ironship. But this is reinforced with steel.”
“A Nipponese naval ship?” That meant an official one. Yet rebels from the Horde empire had taken them?
“I don’t understand it yet, either.”
Yet he didn’t sound upset by that. Still calm. In the alley when Polley had tried to abduct her, that calm had been terrifying. Now it was reassuring.
“They were ready for you. The gas. This vault.”
“Yes.”
But wood could have stopped most people. Even if they were infected by nanoagents, as Mara and Cooper were. As Archimedes was. They were stronger, had more endurance, healed more quickly, but Zenobia didn’t think that they could have broken a hefty man like Polley in half.
At the time, she’d attributed it to rage and Ariq’s size, and had suspected that he must be infected, too, even though most rebels wouldn’t risk it. A radio signal could control the tiny mechanical bugs, stopping the host in their tracks—or killing them. The Khagan could have destroyed the rebellion long ago if they’d all been infected.
She let her fingertips slide over his shoulder, down the thick muscle of his biceps. On their journey from Krakentown to the dens, she’d seen him sparring with his soldiers in the morning, back and forth in tight, controlled movements. They’d left the rebel army, but none had softened. She suspected they all practiced often, keeping their skills and their bodies sharp.
Yet none had been as big as Ariq. Even Vasili, who was almost as tall.
She squeezed the heavy muscle. Her fingers barely seemed to make an impression. “Have you been altered?”
Squid had been changed to kraken. Sharks had become armored megalodons. Coral could build a city. Surely it wasn’t a stretch to imagine a bigger, stronger human.
“Not me. My father’s line.” He shifted on her his lap, away from the hardening length at her hip. “Qorchi Khan was the first to ask the royal scientists to strengthen him. All four of his brothers and two of his sons had been assassinated. He believed the khagan should be more difficult to kill. That was two hundred years ago.”
“So it’s passed on?” she asked, and felt his nod.
“Not to every child. But there are others like me—and everyone knows what it means. Everyone knew who my father was.”
Zenobia hadn’t known. “Did any rebels resent you for it?”
“No.” He gave a short laugh. “It was a point of pride. ‘Even the Khagan’s sons have turned against him.’ Almost every general has someone in the royal line under his command. Others intend to use us to legitimize their claims for establishing a new rule when the Khagan falls.”
“But isn’t that what they’re trying to tear down—to replace the Khagan with a new government, instead of the old?”
“Some are. I don’t care if there is a khagan or a parliament, or if they can trace their blood back to Chinghis Khan. I only care that they have the interest of their people at heart, instead of their own.”
Chinghis Khan? He was referring to Genghis Khan, she realized. “Can you trace your blood to him?”
“Yes,” he said, and no small amount of pride filled his voice—whereas Zenobia had grown up fearing the name. To suggest someone had Mongol blood was the worst insult. The Horde had represented everything destructive and evil in the world, with little difference between Genghis Khan and the Devil.
The tenor of the engine changed. Slowing.
Nearing their destination, hopefully. She fingered the shoulder of her tunic. The silk had been torn and the ripped edges tied together—either by Ariq or their abductors. But she couldn’t tell how secure it was, or whether she would expose herself the moment she moved. “I wish they’d left a light.”
“I could use a lantern as a weapon.” His broad palm smoothed a soothing circle against the small of her back. “Do you fear the dark?”
“No. I’m used to this. My father used to lock me and my brot
her into a cupboard for days at a time when we spoke out of turn.”
Ariq stiffened against her. “Did he?”
“Yes.” She laid her head against his shoulder. “It was not so terrible. Well, it was—but we were usually together, so it was easier to bear. My brother was a great reader, and he would tell me of all the places we would visit when we escaped the cupboard. Then I would make up stories of the adventures we might have when we traveled there. And it was . . . it was . . . not so bad.”
Except she was on the verge of crying. Her breath was catching on a jagged hole in her chest and tears burned in her eyes.
Stupid. She pushed the heels of her palms against her hot eyelids. “The smell was terrible, though. Especially after a day or two. So this is much, much better.”
Ariq’s gentle hand cupped her jaw, tilted her face toward his. His kiss was only a whisper against her lips.
Because this wasn’t the time or the place for anything else.
She wiped her eyes on a shuddering breath. Ariq seemed oddly quiet as she gathered herself. Not just calm. Something more.
His thumb swept across her cheek. “Was that why you began writing his adventures later?”
“No. And yes. I would have written anyway. But I liked those adventures. I still do.”
“Tell me about your brother,” he said.
What could she say? “He’s like the sun—always shining. Even his clothing. It’s so bright and the colors are so gaudy, yet it’s still not as vibrant as he is. And he’s ridiculous. Always running into danger. What kind of idiot salvages in Europe with all of those zombies around?”
“A reckless one.”
“Yes. But he needs to run like other men need air.”
“And that recklessness puts you in danger, too.”
“No.” She straightened against him, irritated by the accusation. “That isn’t Archimedes’ fault. It’s the fault of every greedy bastard who thinks he can have a little of what my brother earned. He’d done what he can to protect me. He’s done so much to protect me. But aside from locking me away in a room, there’s only so much that can be done.”
“When did he change his name?”
Her blood froze. She stared into the dark, where she could feel Ariq staring back at her. There was nothing to see, but she knew he was watching her as intently as she was trying to see him. “What?”
“From Gunther-Baptiste to Archimedes Fox.”
A shiver wracked her from head to toe. His arms tightened around her.
“Zenobia?”
She forced her tongue to work. “How long have you known?”
“Long enough to think that everything you told me last night was a lie. But it wasn’t, was it?”
Her brain moved sluggishly. “Last night?”
“You did write those adventures.” He was laughing. Laughing. “I am the Kraken—keeping tight hold of every assumption I make, not just what I grab with my hands.”
She gripped his forearm. “I don’t understand. What assumption? Why did you think I lied about the writing?”
“Because I knew who your brother was, and it wasn’t Archimedes Fox. I never imagined that he’d changed his name. When did he?”
She hesitated.
“Zenobia— Or Geraldine?”
That was easier to answer. “Zenobia.”
“You’re protecting him?” When she didn’t respond, he pressed a kiss to her brow. Softly, he said, “Trust me. I wouldn’t hurt you or him.”
It was so hard to trust. But there was little to hide now. “Your uncle sent assassins after him after he sank the war machines.”
“He sank them?”
“You didn’t know?”
“No. We were told they were lost at sea.”
Oh. Zenobia bit her lip. Maybe she shouldn’t have said.
But Ariq didn’t seem angry. An odd note deepened his voice, instead. “This is why you didn’t tell me the entire truth last night—because you thought it would risk exposing your brother to more assassins? This is why you worried I might suspect you?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He suddenly tensed. “But what you said of my uncle gathering an army—that was true?”
She nodded, and his tension eased.
“And the letters in your pack—you aren’t delivering them to someone in the Red City?”
She didn’t know how to respond for a long second. Never would she have even considered that. “Why would you ever think I was?”
“You were determined to reach the city, despite the danger of traveling through the dens. You had mercenaries protecting you. And you guarded those letters as if they were worth more than gold.”
“They are worth more than gold. They contain descriptions of locations I’ll never visit or know. That no one alive will ever visit again, unless they’re as mad as my brother. Half of my research for every story is in those letters. And if anyone had read them, my identity would have been exposed. A good portion of a new manuscript is in that satchel, too.”
“Then why the rush?”
She wouldn’t expose her friend’s secrets, but she could offer a partial truth. “Helene desperately wanted to see her husband.”
His big body shook with another bout of laughter. It didn’t seem that funny. But she had no idea what he’d imagined—so perhaps it was.
“What did you think I was doing?”
“Spying,” he said, and her mouth dropped open. “Or that you had been forced into carrying the information for someone.”
“What information?”
“I thought it must be about my uncle.”
She couldn’t believe this. No wonder he was laughing. “You thought I was a spy.”
“A bad one.”
A terrible one, if she’d been so easily detected. “Who did you think was forcing me to deliver the letters?”
“Your brother. Or someone threatening your brother’s life.”
She snorted. “If ever I need an absurd plot, I should consult you.”
“No,” he said, and his laughter quieted. “No. It all fit. I just started from the wrong point.”
By imagining that she was someone else entirely. All this time, thinking that she was in danger and racing to the Red City to trade secret information—part bumbling spy, part damsel in distress.
All this time. Thinking she was someone else.
Then who had he fallen in love with?
A dark ache bloomed through her heart, doubt that threatened to rise up and choke her. But she couldn’t let it grow now. Later. After they were safe.
“What point?”
“The marauders. Their attacks on the airships.” A quiet thud sounded, as if in frustration he’d banged his head back against the wall. “By the time I discovered that the rebellion had purchased the flyers, I had you and those letters fixed in my mind as the reason. But I should have gone back to find the reason, instead.”
“What reason?”
“A war machine. The Skybreaker. Ghazan Bator asked me to reveal its location. I refused. So he’ll use my town to persuade me.”
But the marauders hadn’t attacked Krakentown— Oh. Of course they hadn’t. They could threaten and destroy airships, but to directly attack Ariq and his town full of soldiers? They wouldn’t have succeeded. They weren’t enough of a threat.
The Nipponese empress was.
“That’s why they sacrificed so many men to destroy the French airship,” she realized. “None of the others were catching the empress’s attention. But a diplomatic disaster might.”
Ariq’s fingers caught in her hair, tugged her close. “This is why,” he said roughly against her lips. “This is why I wanted you from almost the moment I pulled you from the water. The way you think. You’re like an arrow.”
And sometimes a squirrel, scampering this way and that, wildly collecting nuts. Her awareness shot from the warmth of his mouth to the impossible, mad plan to threaten a town. “But it’s so indirect. How could he—Who i
s he?”
“Ghazan Bator. A general.”
“How could a rebel general know the empress would respond as he wants her to?”
“She’s predictable. Saito warned me. And the twins thought the same.” But something in his voice said that point bothered him, too. “He’d want to be certain, though. He must have some way to influence her. And look where we are.”
A Nipponese naval airship. Someone must have authorized its use. “And those flyers were of Nipponese design,” she said slowly, “and were sold through the one den lord with enough integrity to keep the names of the buyer and seller secret. They didn’t want you to make the connection. And they probably don’t want the empress to see a connection. The question is: Who is it?”
“We’ll know soon.”
Zenobia nodded. The airship was slowing. She fought a niggle of panic worming through her gut. “Ariq. If this is about the location of some machine, they only needed you. Maybe threatening your town isn’t the only way they’ll persuade you.”
His hands cupped her face. His voice roughened on an urgent promise. “They won’t touch you.”
“I hope that you saying so is enough. Because under your protection, I hadn’t thought I’d be kidnapped again, either.”
A harsh breath expanded his chest. Angry tension locked his frame. She almost felt sorry. Almost. But she would not have him tell her not to worry when she clearly should.
Then the stiffness eased, and he said softly, “They won’t touch you. Trust me.”
Her throat suddenly ached. “I want to.”
“I know.” His lips caught hers, sweetly, briefly. “And you must be my wife.”
The air wheezed from her constricting lungs.
“Wife?”
“So they know what you mean to me.” His body was still, his voice intense. “Will you agree?”
To pretend she was his wife. Giving her more protection.
“Yes.”
The response had barely left her tongue before his mouth angled over her parted lips, hotter this time, more urgent, and she was breathless when he pulled away.
He rested his forehead against hers. “I’ll try not to make you a widow again.”
The Kraken King Page 27