There seemed to be no point in denying it now. “Yes.”
“And you want to mate with me.”
“Part of me does.”
“And the other part?”
“Does not find force attractive.”
Her gaze flicked to the dagger. “This offends you.”
“Yes.”
“It violates your custom.”
“Yes.”
“But why should it matter? I offer something you want. Men put their desires first, before rituals. They are slaves to their animal nature.”
“This one isn’t.”
She studied him for a moment, searching for signs of deception.
“I’ve been placed in command for a reason.” He reminded her, shifting slightly to keep the swelling evidence of his ‘animal nature’ concealed. “I’m responsible for the lives on this vessel, the success of this venture. It’s my duty to maintain order and observe rituals.”
Jia frowned.
He struggled to keep his thoughts moving along the same purposeful, Admiral-like bend, unwilling to allow her to ‘feel’ how compromised he truly was, and how, if she simply pressed a little further, settled back with her hips or stroked her hands a few inches lower, the task of denying the fact would become infinitely more difficult.
She muttered something that sounded like a curse. The blade lifted from his skin, only to hover at his throat. “What do you want then? What is the proper way to mate with you?”
“Ah.” He took a risk, gently freeing his hand from under her thigh. Taking care to move with his palm in plain view, he touched her wrist with his fingertips. Their gazes locked as he urged the dagger to the side.
“You require that I be unarmed,” she said.
“I’d settle for sheathed.”
“And then?”
“Then you tell me why the Oracle feels we’re such a good match.”
“I do not know.”
He drew a deep breath, relieved to be rid of the blade against his skin. “Well, let’s figure that part out first, shall we?”
Jia climbed from the bed and took a step back, sliding her dagger into its bone sheath. His chamber was small, awkward, forcing her to stand against the full glow of the window, its face a shining, transparent moon at her back. She waited for him to rise from the cot and fill the remaining space, but he didn’t. He swung his long legs over the side, shifting his weight gingerly before leaning into a seated position.
His gaze slid from the dagger to her face, a dozen questions forming in his eyes. She sensed no threat from him now, no hidden plan of action, only this genuine desire to understand. But what could he understand? A life lived at peace, without the wars he fought? A world of women, their spirits and their gods, the sun and rain along the reef? Could he understand a day spent waiting for a boar, or the strange sway the moon held over schooling fish, or the way the wind turned before a storm?
He was a man, a war-maker. And for all the lives he was responsible for, on all the vessels he’d commanded, there were ten other lives, ten other vessels, he had sent to the bottom of the sea. He talked nobly enough of duty and ritual, but what did he truly understand about either one?
The Way of the Oracle was the ancient way of women, the preservation of life in secret. It was something he would never understand. But, by all means, let him try.
“Ask your questions,” she said.
He shot her a measuring look. “How did you get on this ship?”
“Easily.”
“What does that mean?”
“Your guards look in all the wrong directions.”
He smiled tiredly. “Ah, so you do have a sense of humor.”
“They did not see me.”
“We didn’t expect to find anyone here.”
“You expected to find gold.”
He weighed his reply, conceding that with a slight nod. “Some hoped for that, yes. Others hoped to discover what happened to your temple.”
“Nothing happened to it. The Temple stands as it always has, in the deep caves, in the heart of the island. An earthquake collapsed and flooded the passages long ago, when the last empire was at its height, and it took the Oracle seven years to find a new way to the surface. By then, she was forgotten. Ships do not stop here, because of the reef and the currents. The island does not lie on the path to anywhere that men want to go. The Oracle proclaimed it a great gift from the gods. Our isolation protects us.”
“So, you’re the only inhabitants here?”
“The only humans.”
“And your men live somewhere else?”
“There are no men.”
“But to survive—”
“We do not need men to survive.”
“I can see that. But how do you maintain your population? You recruit women somehow, or—”
“When a woman is called to service by the Oracle, she journeys to one of your outposts and chooses a mate that pleases her. Then she returns. All children belong to the Oracle.”
He stared at her. She felt him struggle to hide his horror, but it was too deep, its light burning in his eyes. “You use men, strangers.”
“It is natural.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Many animals do this. It is left to the female to bear and raise children, and the male is not important.”
“What about male children? You’re telling me you only have daughters? Never any unimportant sons?”
“The air in the caves is filled with the Divine Spirit. It comes through the rocks, the water. It affects women who are with child. They bear only daughters, because the highest of all gods is female.”
“But—”
“All servants of the Oracle are women. It is only us on this island. That is the Way of the Oracle.”
He stared at her. “And you don’t see anything wrong with that?”
“No.”
“The Oracle sent you on a mission to have sex with me. Look at me. Tell me that you want to do that.”
“Why would I not?”
“Do you even know what it means?”
“I know, yes.”
“Do you?” He stood, suddenly taller, darker, than she had anticipated. “And this daughter we would conceive. Do you know what it means to have a daughter?”
Jia retreated a step, the cold glass of the window pressed against her back, her voice dying in her throat. Loss. Pain. Helplessness. She shut her eyes in panic, feeling him cycle through blinding emotions, catching the glare of something so immense it could swallow them both.
“Tris-tan, no, you must stop, please.”
She felt him pause before her, his warmth a breath away, his body lean and tense. There was no defense for this flood, no way to find her way through it, or to defend herself if he chose to rip the dagger from her side and take her prisoner while he had the chance.
She couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe.
A curse slipped through his teeth and he took a step back, seeking distance, allowing the dangerous tide to ebb. Jia drew a ragged breath, feeling the strength of emotion fade between them.
She opened her eyes to see him standing at his desk, his back turned, his black hair shining blue with the light from the window.
Who are you? Why would the Oracle send me to you? A damaged spirit, a broken heart? Why you?
“I think you’ve made a mistake,” he said.
“There can be no mistake. The Oracle has seen you.”
“I’m sure we can come to an understanding about that.”
“An understanding?”
“I’m hardly a drunken sailor you can bed and forget. This expedition has private investors, but it’s backed by a global power and carries a fair amount of public interest behind it. This, such as it is, represents the first official contact between our two cultures. It would be best if we could persuade the Oracle to put matchmaking aside for a moment and consider the conditions she may have for a workable treaty.”
“We do not want a treaty.”
“But you need one. The world will know about you now.”
“We do not want to be known.”
“Jia.” He turned to face her, his dark eyes thoughtful. “These sensational rites of yours involve citizens of other nations, advanced nations. It’s only a matter of time before you’re discovered and your isolation here comes to an end. There will be certain, unavoidable consequences.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I need you to take me to the Oracle.”
She shook her head. “You do not want that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“She is not . . .” Jia wet her lips, searching for word in his language and finding nothing that translated well. “Merciful.”
He straightened, his gaze sharpening with interest. “Merciful?”
“She has only one purpose for you.”
“Ah, yes. You.”
“Not me. The daughter she expects, a Dini, a spirit of prophesy.”
“It’s the first thing we’ll discuss, I promise.”
She grimaced. He wasn’t listening. He had distanced himself from her, from the attraction and the emotion she provoked. He was secure in his rank now, a shadow concealed behind the obscure layers of responsibility he used to keep the world at bay.
This was how he controlled his emotion, how he functioned.
She hissed under her breath, knowing that she shouldn’t find interest in him or his ways. It was risky to do so. But how could it be avoided? A good hunter was a good observer, an admirer of all things.
This man was like the giant shark that appeared along the reef when the current was at its coldest, materializing like a ghost to block out the light, its gray and white skin marred by rolling scars, its restless motion haunted and desperate. The shark and the man were kindred spirits, both predators, both animals of blood and war that had encountered even greater terrors in the vast territories they crossed.
She felt the hunter’s urge to understand, to run her fingers down the length of his scars and sense the danger they warned against, to understand him, his world and his method of survival, his cool mannerisms and the reeling emotional core they protected.
But this was madness.
Jia tightened and relaxed her fists, finding the skin moist, covered with a nervous sheen of sweat. She had to reach him, convince him, but persuasion was not her gift. She wet her lips. “Tris-tan, Tristan, you must mate with me, now, here, where you are still in a position to leave quickly and preserve yourself. We cannot change fate, but we can choose its easiest path.”
His expression darkened and he turned away, sliding the towel from around his neck and draping it on a hook. “That’s the wisdom of the Oracle, is it? The reasoning that put you in my bed and a knife to my throat?”
No, you idiot. You don’t understand—
A faint scrape issued from the wall.
Jia stilled, feeling the danger growing.
A scurry of nails climbed along the metal, dozens of claws finding clumsy footholds, dragging wet reptilian bellies upward.
Jia glanced back at the glass, catching a wild flurry of bubbles, the twist of long tails lashing in the water. Black lizards. “Close your doors!”
“What?”
“Close your doors!”
Gunshots cracked in quick succession. The sound of chaos rose from outside, garbled yelling followed by screams.
Tristan opened his mouth to respond, but she was already moving, already drawing her dagger from its sheath. She darted past him, pushing the door open with a curse.
“Jia!”
She was gone, down the hallway.
What the bloody hell?
Ducking over the desk, he yanked open the drawer and pulled his pistol from its holster. The sounds of fighting rang through the ship, echoing down the corridors. He felt a cold prick of panic, surprised by an attack he hadn’t anticipated, flash combat warring out of control.
He clicked the intercom. “Secure all hatches immediately.”
“Aye—”
He didn’t wait to hear anything more. Cocking the hammer on the pistol, he ducked through the door after Jia.
She had already passed the length of the corridor, her slender form now climbing the rungs of the ladder, the blade of her dagger secured between her teeth. Extending her hands to the floor above, she pulled herself up, as graceful as a cat, and disappeared.
He leapt onto to the ladder after her, too heavy to match her speed. More screams echoed from the metal, the sounds of horror warped by angles and corners. Boots pounded the floor grates in all directions. An acrid haze of gunpowder thickened the air.
“Sir!” A dazed ensign sighted him as he came off the ladder. “You shouldn’t be out here. They’re—”
Tristan ignored him, pushing past a pair of bloodied engineers to find the open cargo door. Three men were positioned at its edge, firing and reloading in sequence as a writhing mass of alligator-sized animals swarmed across the loading ramp.
A handful of technicians battled for their lives on the rock ledge below, clustered around a hissing welding torch and screaming for help. They were overwhelmed on all sides, the lizards snapping at their legs, ripping through fabric and skin, spilling blood as they tried to drag off the least protected men.
Jia paused at the cargo door, tilting her gaze upward. Before he could catch her, she jumped, grabbing onto the top of the doorframe and climbing up onto the back of the submersible.
Tristan swore under his breath. He tapped one of the shooters on the shoulder. “Secure the door!”
The man looked back, his eyes wide and shining with fear. “Sir?”
“Secure the door and follow me.”
“But the men down there—”
“Take a firing position on top of the ship. You can’t hold it here. Secure the door now or we lose the boat!”
“Aye, sir.”
Sliding his pistol against the small of his back, Tristan stretched his arms and clasped the door frame. He heaved himself up, finding a foothold near the lock, and climbed to his knees on top of the hull. An arching curve of steel plates stretched out before him, textured with rivets and slick with water dripping from the ceiling.
He drew his pistol and pushed to his feet, finding his balance on the wet plates. The scrape of heavy claws issued from the aft rudder, one of the big lizards crawling up from the water.
Jia was crouched further down, balanced on the docking bridge of the mini-sub, her attention darting from one side of its overhang to the other, as if she were tracking something.
He saw the animal catch sight of her, its reptilian body lashing over the metal, its breath hissing. It charged her in a frenzied streak, hollow noises turning to hungered growls.
“Jia!”
She rose, not looking at him, or at the lizard, but spotting something in the water below.
“Jia!”
He took aim with the pistol and fired. The crack from the barrel shattered the air around him, the recoil punching him square in the shoulder. The lizard tumbled on its side, its claws spasming wildly, unaware that it had not caught its prey. Blood splotched and spilled underneath it.
Jia merely glanced at the dying animal before cutting her attention back to the water. Spotting her target, she raised her dagger and sprinted up along the steel plates, her gaze never leaving the surface below.
A large shadow formed alongside the ship, a lizard twice the size of the others. It snorted wet air, its head gnarled with scales and trimmed with glistening red spines.
Jia! Tristan watched in disbelief as she leapt from the back of the submersible. She swept her arms forward, sailing down to knife into the glowing water and plunge deep under the giant reptile.
The monster turned in alarm, hissing, its claws tearing at the surface. A dark cloud bloomed underneath it, blood flowing thick into the current. The lizard made a sudden screeching noise and whiplashed its large body, swimming for the protection of the deeper caves.
T
he animals on the rock ledge issued screeches of their own. Then they were all in the water, clawing wildly in their haste to escape, their bodies forming a slithering black cloud under the surface.
They were retreating.
The siege was over.
Tristan released a tense breath. Glancing at the rock ledge on the other side of the ship, he caught sight of the technicians, still dazed and bleeding as they rose from cover. The security officers were back on the ramp, righting overturned tables and tool chests, clearing a path.
All of us, saved by a woman with a dagger.
He looked back into the channel. The water glowed under the submersible, clear and empty.
“You must wound the largest one,” Jia said, her voice breathless behind him. “Just one wound. If you kill her, they will fall into chaos. If you injure her, the rest will follow her escape, because she is the oldest.”
He turned to see her standing on the steel plates, shifting her weight from foot to foot, struggling with her own nervous energy. She glanced at the channel below, as if to assure herself that the monsters were gone, then back at him, the intensity of the fight still burning in her eyes, her skin flushed and slick with water. The blade in her hand glowed between them, its sharpened edge reflecting the strange cast of light.
Who are you? What are you?
“Your guards need to be up here,” she said. “They need to watch the water from a high place.”
“I’ll make sure they do.”
She took a step closer, her breathing ragged, her pulse racing at the base of her throat. Her slender body trembled, the effects of adrenaline still flowing thick in her blood.
“They’re gone.” He placed one hand on her shoulder, hoping to steady her, but the feel of her bare skin, sleek muscle and delicate bone under his fingers, stilled him. He’d never seen a woman, or anyone, move the way she did. And he’d fought side-by-side with decorated officers not half as brave.
Jia. His thumb grazed the thin line of tattooed symbols along the base of her neck in fascination. Strong. Beautiful.
She straightened, but didn’t shy away, regarding him with her large, dark eyes as if he’d suddenly changed into someone else.
The Admiral Page 3