by Viehl, Lynn
She switched the computer screen to the maritime report, but she couldn’t focus on the readout.
“What has this to do with us?” he asked at last.
“It has nothing to do with us. See, there was no us. There was just me, and what I had to do. I’ve never been book smart, so the French lessons almost made me quit.” She sounded bitter, and realized she didn’t care. “Your language has too many damn irregular verbs in it, and why can’t you pronounce the ends of words? What’s wrong with the ends of words? We say them in English.”
“I know,” he admitted. “It took me a long time to remember to say them.”
“Well, you’re immortal; you have the time to spare,” she reasoned. “Oh, and then there was tolerance training. For that, I got tapped for blood every hour until I passed out cold. Then Burke would wake me up, make me drink a barrel of juice, and then give me work to do and evaluate my performance on the job. I’m actually pretty good at that; it only took me eight months to work up to losing three pints without compromising my ability to think straight and observe proper protocol.”
He turned her around to face him. “Christian, why are you telling me this?”
“I’m telling you I did all of that,” she assured him, “and a lot more, because that’s what tresori do for the Kyn. We serve every need you have, and I thought if I could do that for you … if I could be the perfect tresora that you’d … and you’re telling me that all this time, you’ve been in love with me? With that girl I used to be, the homeless loser with the funny hair, the pierced eyebrow, the checkered sex-trade past?”
“It matters not how you appear, or what you have done,” he said, running a hand over her hair. “That is not who you were to me.”
She went to the starboard side of the boat and sat down on the edge of the hull to stare down at the murky water in the slip. “I can’t believe this.”
Chris tried to hold it in, but her shoulders began to shake, and then the rest of her body joined in.
Jamys came to sit beside her, putting his arm around her shoulders. “Please, Christian, don’t cry.”
That did it. The first laugh rolled out of her, followed by another, and then she really let go.
Jamys frowned. “You are not crying.”
“I know. I should be,” she gasped between eruptions of giggles. “But it’s just so funny. I was so sure it was the only way we could be together. Three years, trying to be so perfect, so ladylike, so boring …” Overwhelmed again, she shook her head and just let it out.
“I should probably tell you,” Jamys said, “what I have been doing all this time.”
“Sure.” Chris heaved in a breath and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “You had to listen to my stuff.”
“I have been training as well. I have been learning how to fight. First with my father, and then by myself.” His mouth hitched. “I was never a Templar, you see, so I had never taken up the sword. One cannot rule warriors unless one can prevail over them, but I had a more personal motive. Thus I set myself to study and learn the techniques of Kyn warriors, and practice until I was ready to challenge the warriors of my father’s garrison.”
Chris sobered. “How long did you have to train?”
“Every night, from dusk until near dawn, for three years.” He smiled. “I did it for you, Christian.”
“Why on earth would you want to turn yourself into a warrior for me?” As he gave her an ironic look, she understood. “Oh, my God. So you’d have the right to take a tresora.”
He nodded. “I convinced myself that it was the only way you and I could be together.”
It was a good thing she’d exhausted her supply of laughter for the time being, because what they’d done for each other was almost hilarious. Sad, too, because they could have avoided all of it.
“You are not laughing,” he murmured, drawing her closer.
“How can I? You sold your watch to buy combs for my hair, and I cut off my hair and sold it to buy a chain for your watch.” She sighed. “Don’t take that literally, it’s an analogy. Something two other misguided lovers did in an O. Henry story.”
“‘Gift of the Magi.’” He nodded. “I know it well.”
“So do I, and yet we both made the same mistake anyway.” She looked up at him. “I know we have a couple million things to talk about, and then there’s the emeralds and Lucan and Sam and saving the world, but I need a break. You wanted me to spend the night with you in Paradise. Is that offer still good?”
“Oh, yes.” He drew her to her feet, and led her back to the navcom, where he put in a new set of coordinates. “If you’ll cast off, I’ll see to the sails.”
“We’re actually sailing to Paradise?” She’d thought he’d used the word as a euphemism for making love.
Jamys caught her around the waist, lifting her up for his kiss. “Wait and see.”
Chapter 16
Werren watched the cage containing Samantha Brown being lowered by the crane. “Has the master returned?”
“Not yet.” Clemens, the first mate, made a pushing gesture above his head for the crane operator to stop the winch. Beneath their feet the shouting continued, joined now by a furious rattling sound. “She stays in the cage until he does.”
His scent had gone sour with the stink of fear, something Werren found fascinating. “She cannot go anywhere, and if she tries to hurt someone, the men will kill her.” Unless she kills them first.
“You’d better go talk to her,” Clemens said. “Explain how we do things, and what Dutch expects from her.”
“I have no authority to speak for the master in his absence.” Werren regarded him. “I believe that is your place, Mr. Clemens.”
“Don’t play your mind-fucking games with me, whore.” He gave her a push toward the stairs. “Tell her how it’s going to be. Otherwise she’ll be hanging from the mast in shreds at dawn.”
As Werren descended the narrow staircase, she considered using her gift once more to disguise herself. Altering physical appearance was the most difficult illusion to maintain, however, as movements and speech constantly demanded thousands of tiny adjustments of the facade. Places and things required much less of her gift, usually no more than a single flick of thought. In this instance, however, her actual appearance might be more effective in convincing the lady to listen.
Werren found Samantha kicking at the base of the cage with her boots, alternating left and right as she worked at creating a gap between the bars. The scent of blood and copper made Werren’s stomach clench, and she saw the raw wounds the detective had inflicted on her wrists while trying unsuccessfully to free them from the manacles.
“If you will stand still,” she said, causing Samantha to do precisely that, “I will remove the shackles.”
“Go to hell, you fucking bitch.” She resumed kicking the bars.
“I regret deceiving you as I did,” Werren said, raising her voice to be heard over the racket. “I had no other choice but to carry out my master’s commands.”
“You can drop the pathetic human act now,” Samantha said, wedging her boot against one bar and trying to push it out with no success. “I know you’re Kyn.”
“Like you,” Werren said. “But you are of this time. How did your master change you without killing you?”
Narrow hazel eyes glittered. “Let me out of here and I’ll tell you all about me, my master, and our secrets.”
She sounded pleasant, even sincere, but Werren knew better. “Dutch will have all of his secrets once he brings him under his control. You cannot escape. The men will not permit it, and when you try, they will hurt us both.”
Samantha stopped kicking. “Do you really believe I give a rat’s ass what happens to you?”
“No. Not now, not when you’re this angry. But I can explain myself, my lady. Once you hear what has been done to me and the others, you will understand how desperate our situation is.” Despair made her go to the cage and grip the bars. “Please, allow me to—”
A bloody hand shot out and gripped her by the throat, cutting off her voice. “Open the fucking cage. Now.”
“I cannot.” Werren felt the other woman’s nails stabbing into her flesh, drawing blood, and her gift exploded out of her, transforming her into a snarling beast.
Samantha held on. “Sorry, no sale this time, sister.” She tightened her grip. “Drop the illusion, or I’ll rip your throat out.”
Werren forced back the roiling power pouring out of her and resumed her honest appearance. “What do you want, my lady? You hurt me, but I am like you. A prisoner.”
“Funny, but I don’t see your cage anywhere.” She dug her strong fingers in deeper. “Who are you? The truth this time.”
“No one of importance.” Werren tasted her own blood on her tongue, and with it the temptation to goad Samantha into killing her. She was so weary of the nightmare of her existence, and death would be her only release. The women she left behind, however, would suffer—including this one, who had yet to understand the horror that awaited her. “My name is Werren Reed, and I have been a prisoner here for a very long time.”
“Why? What did you do?”
The same two questions she had been asking ever since Dutch had taken her. “My master purchased me from my mother’s employer. I have been his slave ever since.”
The hand tightened. “Slavery isn’t legal.”
“It was when he took me,” Werren said simply. “He kept me in his bed for weeks, using me for sex and slowly draining me of my blood. I prayed for death, my lady.”
Something flickered in Samantha’s angry eyes. “You’re still breathing.”
“Not by any choice of my own. When I died from the blood loss, I thought, ‘At last, it is finished. I am free of him.’” She curled her fingers around one bar. “I woke up in a cage much like this one, naked, helpless, hopeless, and there I stayed.”
“You’re breaking my heart.” Despite the harsh tone she used, some of the pressure of her hold eased. “You said there were others. Did he buy them, or did he let you out the cage to grab them for him?”
“In the beginning he did not know how I had been changed. He dragged me out of the cage to service him and the crew.” She didn’t care to think on those wretched years of her existence. “When I fought them—and I did fight, lady, every time—he would punish me until I blacked out. The master’s punishments were terrible, but no matter what he did, I never died again.”
Samantha shook her head. “He had to know you were Kyn.”
“He did not know what he was,” Werren pointed out. “None of us did. And so I would wake up tied to a cot with some grunting, sweating sailor atop me, my wounds healed. When the men were satisfied, the master put me back in the cage. I was left there to starve for weeks, sometimes months.”
“So you saved your own ass by becoming his partner and getting other women for him?” Samantha shook her. “You think that makes it okay?”
“I am not his partner. I am his possession.” Werren touched her snarled hair. “This is my latest punishment for speaking out of turn. I’m not permitted to wash myself or comb my hair until the master says I may again. If he is pleased when he returns, he may allow me a bucket of water and a sliver of soap. That will be my reward for capturing you, my lady: permission to bathe.”
A powerful stream of seawater blasted down into the cage, knocking Samantha off her feet and freeing Werren from her hold. She staggered back to see the fire hose Clemens was using on the detective.
She wanted to shout at him to stop, but that would only make him angrier, so she went to the cage and released the shackles around the detective’s wrists.
“Let me out of here,” Samantha shouted, only to be knocked to the floor of the cage.
“Keep your head down, and your mouth shut,” Werren called above the sound of the water.
The first mate hosed the detective for another minute before he shut off the spray. “Take her to the others and have them school her,” he shouted down in a tight, ugly voice. “We leave in ten minutes.”
She nodded, and waited until he disappeared from sight before she went to the cage and crouched down. Reaching in, she helped Samantha into a sitting position.
Seawater dripped from the hair hanging in the detective’s furious eyes. “Is that how you take a bath?”
“Only when they are angry.” She propped her shoulder against the bars and studied her hands, which looked cleaner than they had for days. “I’d rather have the bucket. The salt makes me itch.”
“Stop talking to me like we’re friends.” The other woman checked the raw, torn wounds circling her wrists, watching the edges shrinking before she eyed Werren. “He said you’re leaving. He meant you with him.”
“Yes.” Only one more trip, and it would be finished. “It will not take long.”
“I don’t care,” Samantha said. “How many humans will he leave behind to guard me?”
“Twenty. Each of them knows what you are, and how to hurt you,” she warned. “If you approach any of them, they will kill you.”
She wiped the water from her eyes. “Then why bother to kidnap me?” Before Werren could answer, she sat up with a jerk. “Lucan. He did this to get to him. Does he have any idea what Lucan will do to him when he finds out?”
“Of course he does.” Werren stood up. “But he will not allow it. Nothing and no one can harm Dutch. He can make anyone do as he pleases. When he finds the treasure that was stolen from him, he says he will become the most powerful man in the world.”
“That’s what every sick, twisted jackass thinks.” The detective got to her feet and scanned their surroundings. “Where are these other women?”
“I’m taking you to them now. They will try to help you understand.” She took the key from the peg on the wall. As she unlocked the cage, she added, “I was not jesting about the men. They are armed and they will shoot you. They use only copper bullets.”
Once Werren opened the door, Sam shoved her aside and ran for the stairs. It would be simpler, and more merciful, to let the detective get herself killed. Yet Werren followed, climbing up on deck to see Samantha standing by the mainmast and staring at the sea that surrounded them.
“Where am I?”
“The ship is called the Golden Horde.” Werren joined her and pushed back the tangled hair the wind blew into her eyes. “Welcome to hell, my lady.”
*
“I know you’re probably tired of hearing me,” Chris said into the mobile, “but I’ve left three voice mails, Sam, and now I’m getting worried. Call me, say you’re okay, and I’ll quit bugging you.”
Chris left the phone on the bunk as she went to the closet and took out a T-shirt and jeans. Stripping out of the dress was a relief; as beautiful as it was, she didn’t think she could ever wear it again, at least, not in front of anyone except Jamys.
He loves me. She couldn’t stop that thought, or the idiotic smile it summoned from her lips. He’s loved me ever since we met. A fairy godmother couldn’t have done better by her with a thousand waves of a magic wand.
The rabid little organizer that inhabited her soul wanted to make plans, but Chris felt curiously detached about the future. If she and Jamys were able to make it work, they’d definitely have problems—some rather large, especially when she began aging and everyone who saw them together assumed she was his mother, or his grandmother—but there were plenty of ways to turn back time. Alex Keller had been a plastic surgeon before she’d been changed to Kyn; when the wrinkles came, Chris could probably talk her into doing some strategic nips and tucks.
The Darkyn were incapable of reproducing, so they’d never have kids. Chris thought babies were cute, but she’d never once felt the urge to start popping them out. Adele and Frankie had done too good a job as nightmare parents while destroying her childhood; her biological clock had been smashed along with it.
As for plans, Chris suspected she’d be better off living in the moment, and making the most of every nigh
t she spent with Jamys. She couldn’t do anything about death, so she’d devote herself to making their life together amazing.
The motion of the boat under her feet changed, first slowing and then shifting to a subtle bob. Above her head, Jamys’s footsteps moved from the helm to the port side, and she heard the drag of rope across the deck.
Chris climbed up to see the silhouette of palm and mangrove trees against the moon, and the silvery path of the narrow pier leading from the boat across a small cove to an island.
“This is Paradise?” she asked Jamys as she went to help him with the last of the mooring lines.
“Paradise Island,” he corrected, and without warning scooped her up into his arms. “The owner of the boat suggested we might enjoy visiting his house here.”
“I bet he did.” She wriggled a little as he stepped from the deck to the pier. “You don’t have to do the bride-over-the-threshold thing. We’re not married, and I can walk.”
“You agreed to become my kyara, my human wife.” He brushed his lips over hers. “So, yes, in the eyes of heaven, you are my bride, and we are newly wed.”
Jamys carried her the entire length of the pier, across a curving walkway of cut bleached coral studded with mollusk shells, and up to the front door of a very modern-looking beach house. Slightly overgrown bushes with dark green leaves flanked the entry, the frame of which had been inlaid with different types of antique brass compasses. The door opened easily and he stepped inside with her.
“I guess on an island you don’t have to lock up when you leave,” she said as he set her back on her feet, then lifted her face as rosy light illuminated them. The source, flame-shaped bulbs enclosed in seven garnet-colored glass floats hanging from an artfully draped old fishing net, brightened the hall enough to show a keypad next to a large framed mirror.
“I have the disarm key.” Jamys went to put it in.
Chris walked up to the mirror, which had been framed with weathered, carved deck planks. Primitive gold-painted cutouts of the sun, moon, and stars adorned the frame’s top and sides, but someone had carved words into the bottom plank: Do You See What I See?