It makes us vulnerable. Tristan frowned, staring at the water through the too-large window in his cabin.
The old man sighed. “And no one expected that we would be swept in so deep. This was supposed to be shallow search along the island’s perimeter, remember?”
“Distinctly.”
“There, you see? The dreamers can’t take the blame for everything.”
Tristan didn’t reply, silently weighing the truth of that.
Arthur angled his view upward. “And what marvelous things you can see in these windows, the sheer density of the water, and that wonderful glow it has, some form of bioluminescence perhaps.”
“Bio-what?” Tristan leaned forward on his desk, tilting his gaze through the window.
A soft haze drifted above them, brightening as the submersible floated toward an unseen surface. A carpet of watery flowers materialized along the rock walls of the passage, fat blooms of tendrils swaying gently in the current, surrounding the diving machine with a garden as bright as the moon. Pale fish with large, black eyes darted in and out of soft crevices and hidden spaces. A colorless eel retreated under the glare of the external lights, backing into the shadows until only the toothy spread of its jaws remained.
The Professor pressed closer to the glass, his features child-like. “Incredible. Some sort of adapted cave biome. They produce their own light, presumably to attract what washes in through the caves, or—”
Tristan hit the brass intercom button. “Meters to surface?”
A grainy burst of static. “Aye, Admiral, we surface in five.”
“On my way.” He left the Professor standing at the window.
Ducking into the corridor, Tristan leapt onto the steel ladder and climbed the rungs with practiced ease. The energy on the top deck was frenetic, hot and buzzing. He sidestepped a pair of engineers covered in grime and sweat, their bodies crouched over a line of steel dogging wheels.
“Admiral!” One of them attempted to rise to attention.
“As you were.” He continued on his way, ducking through the hatch to see the First Officer at his post, directing the ascent with his hands clasped firmly at his back.
Glancing at Tristan, the man stood at attention. “Admiral on deck.”
“As you were,” Tristan said again.
The First Officer nodded, returning to the business at hand, reading numbers off the gauges and snapping orders. The water outside the orbs had become thick and bright, its glow seeping through the glass, highlighting faces, walls and instrument panels. Bubbles rose from under the submersible, sparkling like mirrored beads in the blue.
Tristan grabbed hold of the closest rail, feeling a swift upward surge as the boat breached the surface. The hull shuddered, water pouring from the conning tower, pressure hissing and seething through the pipes. Streams of vapor shot from the external ducts.
The First Officer slanted him a questioning look.
“Begin venting on my order,” Tristan responded, heading for the conning tower hatch. Men moved quickly from his path.
He grabbed onto the ladder and climbed up through the inner hatchway, pulling himself onto the top grate. Clamping his hands on the dogging wheel, he strained against the metal and forced it loose.
The wheel screeched, unscrewing in gritty rotations. Steel locks slid free. A gap cracked in the seal. Dense air flowed through the open hatch, heavy with salt and lit by the eerie glow of the water.
Tristan pushed through the hatch and balanced on the narrow gangway outside, rising to stand at the top of the conning tower. The rock ceiling was close above his head, fanning upward to form a dark sky over watery caverns and bright blue lagoons.
It was an alien world, salt drenched and dripping, curved with porous walls and dancing with light. Tristan leaned against the chain rail, glancing over the sharp rock ledges and shadowy passages that appeared above the water. There were places to secure the lines, places for generators and repair equipment, places for men to smoke and walk off the tension of the past few hours. A miraculous stroke of luck. So why didn’t it feel like luck?
He narrowed his gaze on the cave passages surrounding the submersible, their darkness solid and absolute.
“Sir?” One of the deckhands on the ladder prompted.
Tristan pressed his lips together and looked down at the kid. “Relay the order to begin venting and post a watch on the boat.”
“Aye sir.”
A hollow wind slipped through the caverns, moaning over the water in a ghostly choir. Tristan felt the hair rise on the back of his neck.
Definitely not luck.
Can you feel me? The way I feel you? Jia met his gaze directly, though she was hidden in the darkness and he stood in the light, peering in her direction from atop of his shining metal tower. His ship blazed in the water, a monstrosity with bright silver skin and dozens of glowing glass eyes, its arching back rimmed with hot floodlights. He stood haloed in the glare, tall and strong, with broad shoulders and shining black hair.
She crouched along the rock, summoning her focus.
The hunter and the hunted must become one.
The task proved difficult. His mind and heart were guarded, but his complexity, the dark and light of his being, slowly coalesced from the living energy of the cave. She closed her eyes, sensing a soldier’s logic, then the whispering of internal language underneath, the quiet song of the soul. She felt the connection take hold, allowing its influence to flow through her like water, imparting many things at once. A weary familiarity with war and chaos, a solitary existence and…regret.
Fragments of another world, a life lived faraway.
Jia clenched her teeth, retreating deeper into herself, letting the empathic bond ease to something comfortable. Part physical, part spiritual, it would allow her to track him as he moved, anticipate his decisions. I feel you now, your restless searching and your wary intuition. And I hear you, the slip of your breath, the pulse of your heart. The hunter and the hunted are one.
“Tris-tan.” She tested his name on her tongue, the sounds foreign and difficult to pronounce.
Another figure appeared on the top of the tower, a tall man in a gray uniform, his expression grim as he peered into the caves. Quick words were exchanged, a concern over rules, a precaution against fatigue. Tristan conceded the man’s points, agreed to take the rest required and return with the next shift. He gestured at the water, a cursory glance, a frown.
The other figure nodded. All precautions would be taken. A watch would be posted. The boat would be secure.
But, of course, it wouldn’t be.
In their wisdom, they would place guards along the rails and those guards would stare into the caves, wholly concerned with what they couldn’t see, while ignoring what they could. They would not see a woman swimming silently in the clear blue water beneath them. They would not see her as she approached from under the ship and climbed onto its back.
Being who they were, they would not appreciate how she could move in the shadows, or remain still for as long as it took to deceive them. They would never expect a woman, slender as a reed and armed only with a dagger, to slip past their guns and trap their master in his own bed.
And yet, that is exactly what would happen.
The hunter and the hunted are one.
Tristan unbuttoned his shirt collar, tugging the garment loose with a tired hiss through his teeth. Crossing to the sink in the corner, he braced one hand along its steel rim and turned the lever. A slip of water spilled from the faucet, its flow gurgling in the drain. He cupped his fingers in the chilled stream, watching it pool in the silvery light.
Something there, something in the darkness.
He’d merely felt it at first, then half imagined that he’d heard it. A whispered voice. A woman’s voice.
He shut his eyes, forcing reason. How many hours had he been fighting the damn boat, the terrified crew, the failing engines? All told, it had to be eighteen, perhaps twenty. Exhaustion could only be ignor
ed for so long. Fatigue could turn wind into words, shadows into outlines, safety into menace. He knew the danger of that better than anyone.
Scooping the water from faucet, he raised it to his closed eyes, swiping his forehead and his jaw, tilting his head forward to press the knotted muscles at the back of his neck.
A watch had been posted. Repairs were being made. The search for a passable exit from the caves would, more than likely, offer greater tests, greater strain. The First Officer had been right to relieve him, and would need the same consideration in four hours. So…
Tristan slipped the starched white towel from its hook on the wall and dried his face, leaving the cool fabric curled around his neck as he stooped under the angled metal ceiling and collapsed on his cot. He closed his eyes, seeking the sound of the ocean washing around the hull, the soft rock and tilt of a terrible force in its gentlest mood.
When the dreams came, they were deep and brightly colored, blooming with bright flames and ancient sculptures, the figures of women dancing in threads of sulfur-tinged smoke.
The Hunter
Jia was inside the machine, its skin pulsing and thrumming, its dark corridors braced with arching beams and lined with thick metal veins. Nothing she had ever done, ever seen, compared to this. She ducked against the wall as voices echoed around her, her breathing shallow, her fingers tightening on the bone handle of her dagger.
Men were everywhere, their scent cloying in the closed space, their spoken words snapping back and forth as they moved, lifting and exchanging heavy tools, rolling supplies and equipment down the narrow ramp they had lowered to the stone.
It had been an easy task to climb up from the water and drop unnoticed behind the guards as they directed the flow of movement down the ramp. But being inside the machine was far more difficult, its angled spaces, its strange chaos of noise. It was impossible to tell what lay around the next corner, or whether footsteps were coming closer or moving further away. It offered only skewed perception, a lost and nightmarish lack of anything living or natural.
She clenched her teeth and darted forward, risking detection as she ran the length of the corridor and paused at the top of a ladder. He was on the floor beneath her, close.
Jia glanced over her shoulder then climbed onto the cold rungs, descending smoothly to the lower level. More voices, more men coming. She slipped into a corner as they passed by, their boots trembling the floor grates, their conversation trailing after them as they disappeared.
She waited, taking a breath before angling her body forward, her focus drawn to a metal hatch across the corridor. He was there, drifting, asleep perhaps.
Breaking from cover, she crossed the tight passage and shoved her shoulder against the hatch, ducking after it as it swung inward, its latch left unlocked. The compartment on the other side was small and dark, crowded by a desk and a niche with shelves, lit by the blue glow of water through a large round window.
She closed the door behind her, pressing her lips together as he appeared from the gloom, his body long and lean and tucked into a narrow, sagging bed. She approached him carefully, the dagger steady in her hand, the faint light playing along its silvered edge.
His breathing became louder in her ears, its rhythm smooth and even. She paused above him, searching his expression as he slept. Was he beautiful? It seemed so. He was different from the statues of the old gods in the Temple, their masculine bodies carved from cold white marble, their luminous faces framed with long, curling beards.
This man was real. His skin was pale, perhaps, but warm with life, his dark eyebrows feathered in thoughtful lines, his closed lashes forming graceful sweeps of black. His face was more angular and interesting in its set, his mouth richer and more sensual than any cut from stone.
Her gaze moved down, recognizing the athletic build of the statues, the broad chest and long torso, the strength in the arms and hands that formed so differently than her own, larger bones, larger mass, but the same lean and predatory quality.
“You are beautiful,” she murmured.
Raising the dagger, she braced herself for the act of it. She had been told that mating was a quick procedure. There was some coaxing, some stimulation, but men were instinctive. Once it had begun, they completed the joining according to their animal drives. There might be some pain for her, but it would not last, and the experience would be over soon enough.
But how to begin?
Jia grimaced, knowing she had no gift for subtlety or deceit. If it was her destiny to conceive a daughter with this man, then she would succeed using her own methods, her own ways.
Using one hand to balance against the wall, she stepped onto the thin frame of the cot and crouched silently over her sleeping target, pressing the blade of her dagger to his neck.
Leaning closer, she whispered into the air between them. “Tris-tan.”
His expression darkened, his lashes meshing tighter. Drawing a long breath, he came awake slowly, wincing before opening his eyes.
Blinking her into focus, he froze.
“Tris-tan,” she whispered. “I will not hurt you, but you must make no alarm, no effort to hurt me. Do you understand?”
He narrowed his gaze, raising his chin in response to the dagger at his throat. She sensed anger, frustration, but when he answered, his voice was calm. “No one on this ship will hurt you. There’s no need for this.”
She nodded, but left the blade at his neck. “This is your destiny. Your purpose has been divined by the Oracle.”
“The Oracle?”
“I am her guardian, one of many.”
A glint of understanding formed in his eyes. “You live in the caves.”
“Live and hunt, in the caves and in the open.”
“On this abandoned island.”
“Sacred ground.”
“A thousand years and no one knows about you.”
“It is necessary. Secrecy is necessary.”
“To protect your wealth?”
“To protect the Way of the Oracle.”
He pursed his lips and nodded, though she sensed him making his own conclusions, as if she were relaying facts with a child’s logic.
Jia felt a surge of irritation. She may speak his language with some difficulty, but she understood it, and understood about machines and wars and everything that his kind had wrought upon the Earth. He was fortunate that, through the beauty of his body, he still had a purpose, a redeeming role in the divine act of creation and continuance.
She pressed the blade against his skin until he hissed through his teeth. “I came for you,” she said. “To mate with you.”
Tristan stared at her in disbelief, this slip of a woman holding a knife to his throat, threatening to force him in the most unlikely of ways. She was a surreal image above him, her golden skin tinged blue in the half-light, her black hair glittering with tiny beads braided through its length.
She wore almost nothing, her small breasts bound with strips of soft leather, a skirt of the same skin laced over her slender hips to accentuate a figure as lithe and muscular as a cat’s. A thin stripe of tattoos, rich in symbols and characters, trailed over one shoulder. Her bottom lip had been marked with a straight line down its center.
She watched him with dark eyes, an alluring creature from a lost world, as mystifying to him as the moon-eyed sharks or winged eels that washed onto the decks of ships during open ocean storms, sleek monsters flung up from black depths that he would never see.
“We should begin,” she insisted, her accent tightening the words, lending them clipped tones.
He held her gaze, trying to ignore the prick of the blade against his skin. “And this is usual for you? Sex, at knifepoint, with strangers who wander into the caves?”
“No one has ever wandered as deeply as you. The Oracle has foreseen your arrival. She has divined it.”
“But your own men—”
“There are no men here. Men are forbidden.”
Tristan struggled for words. Wha
t sense did that make?
She lowered her gaze, her lips parting as she considered the opening in his shirt. Gently, experimentally, she placed a cool hand on his chest, rubbing the muscle under his shoulder and testing it with her fingers.
“You are large,” she said. “Strong.”
Tristan drew a quick breath. She was sitting astride him, the warmth between her legs resting directly on his groin, shifting and caressing as she moved. It was unconscious for her, he realized, but effective nonetheless. He felt himself stirring beneath her, an old hunger returning, overeager after several long and dormant years.
An image came unbidden, her breasts sliding under his hands, her lips parted, the glimmer of need bright in her eyes.
He clenched his teeth.
The blade never wavered from his throat, its edge a burning line against his skin as she explored lower, spreading her fingers to measure the span of his ribs in fascination. He released a frustrated noise under his breath, trying to return his focus to the information he needed. “Do you have a title, a name, I’m allowed to know?”
She didn’t look up, simply answered. “Jia.”
“And how do you know my name, Jia?”
“The Hunter’s Gift, our ability to bond empathically. I bonded with you in the caves. Now I feel your emotions, your identity.”
The voice in the caves. “I don’t understand.”
“All servants of the Oracle share her power. Priestesses divine the future with it. But Hunters, no, we are lower empaths. We use the Hunter’s Gift to connect with living things, to bond with them and feel them.”
He grimaced, hoping this wasn’t true. There were certain things he wanted to continue not believing in. The psychic abilities of humans in general, and women with knives in particular, was one of them. And yet, she knew his name. He had felt her in the caves, in the shadows, a presence and a feeling he couldn’t explain. “So, with this ‘Hunter’s Gift’, you can sense what I’m thinking?”
“Thinking has many parts. Most are closed to me. I feel your emotions.” She cast a sideways glance at him, her eyes acquiring a strange light. “I feel you are attracted to me.”
The Admiral Page 2