“A day’s ride?”
He nodded.
She gathered up the saddle blanket and satchels, slung them both over her shoulder and sighed. “Wish we could do more than leave her for the scavengers. A day’s ride, hey? Let’s get this over with then.”
“Today?” Bull raised his eyebrows high. “There’s a few storm clouds up there, and you’re not in shape for it.”
It was true. To the north, a raft of dull gray clouds stretched across the sky.
She eyed them, shook her head. “Yes. Today.”
If she thought any more about this, she’d likely turn around and run the other way. Well, maybe not. The unknown terror of the Thing, and the ride she’d just been on, surpassed her fear of Thom Drager. He was only a man.
“Bull, if we can get another pack animal in that village, I’ll ride the quagga.”
For once their luck held and they found someone who’d sell them a donkey, old and scabrous as it was. The price: a grint and the location of Maggie’s body. Horsemeat was a gourmet meal to these people. Every time she’d seen a man at the village, she’d wondered, was this him? Was this Yacob, Lorella’s lover? The man she’d been meant to make love to? And she’d shuddered inside. More debts to pile on top of what Drager already owed her.
C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - T W O
The crow’s nest was a far more congenial place than it had been on the rougher open sea. It barely swayed at all. Standing, Samos gripped the edge and tipped back on his heels, taking the weight on his arms. He smiled. Delicious. Warm afternoon sun, a gentle and sweet sea breeze, and Ermatruse was having the time of her life gallivanting about from rigging to crow’s nest and back again.
For days they’d sailed past island after island. All of them flat with only a few yards of sand height between them being an island or an underwater playground for fish. Yet another was coming up to starboard. This one at least boasted a small range of hills.
“Hoy! What’s that pestilential creature doin’ up here,” Cork growled, as he clambered into the crow’s nest. “And what are you doin’ here too?” The scowl could have struck a seagull dead at fifty paces.
Ah, hang it. Sometimes violence was the best course. Samos grabbed a handful of Cork’s shirt and held him out, straight-armed, his feet dangling in the air.
“Time to answer some questions.” Just to remind Crow that he was an Immolator, he punctuated each word with a little shake. “Or else! Nod if you’d rather do that than have me toss you over the side.” Samos grinned his most evil grin.
Red-faced, eyes bulging, Cork looked like a floppy doll having a bad day.
“No! Don’t! I’ll answer!”
“What happened to all those other men? The ones she screwed before me? Are they dead?”
“Y-yes.”
Oh-my-gods. He was right. “So...she killed them with too much sex? How?” To be even asking that question made his world spin on its axis.
Cork mumbled something. The man looked a tad blue in the lips. Have to put him down soon, lest he have a heart conniption or something. “What? Speak up!”
“No. No, she didn’t kill them.” Cork raised his eyes. “Wasn’t her. Not her fault.”
“How? Say that again.” He lowered Cork. Dusted him off, loosened his collar. “Say it in plain English so even I can understand. The sex didn’t kill them, but they died?”
Samos commanded his pupils to open to their widest, scanning the skin on Cork’s face for telltale changes that he figured should be there if he was lying. He cranked up his hearing range. He’d seen it happen. When people lied they did certain things. There were signs he should be able to detect. Being an Immolator had to be good for something.
“Yes.” Cork pulled himself up straighter. “That’s it. Got it in one try. She didn’t do it.” He glanced nervously at Samos. “I’ll be going now.” And he climbed out of the nest, slow at first, then scrambling faster when he realized he wasn’t being stopped.
Samos let him go. He leaned on the edge again. He had an answer. Cork had believed what he’d said, but he’d not told everything. Something had compelled him to speak as he had and no amount of persuasion would change that. Did anybody on this ship speak without going round in circles?
He looked over the side. Time to try his newly developed lie-detecting skills on Tatiana. No choice anymore.
Then, with a few yells from the depth-sounding crew, and a spin of the helm, the ship turned slowly to starboard. People were running about down there, bringing the gheist cannon to bear.
They passed a point of land jutting out from the southern end of the hills and a little harbor opened out before them. In the harbor, gently rocking at anchorage, were five boats.
“Well, I’ll be a...” He could hear the crew chattering to each other about the boats. Somehow they knew what they were. This was where the Sungese were hiding.
“Sir! Sir!” Joss called up from the deck. “Miss Tatiana has a message for you!”
A new flag was being raised on the masthead as he’d spoken – a red sun background with crossed swords at the fore.
When he reached the deck, Joss recited the message to him:
Keep below deck and out of sight.
This ship and crew are masquerading as mercenaries. Be ready to fight but I hope to take the leader of the Sungese by subterfuge.
Samos smiled at that. If there was anything this crew was good at, it was subterfuge and lying.
Along with Joss, a sailor directed him to the galley. Teo was already there, sitting back in a chair, arms folded and heels up on another chair. He yawned at them and flipped a hand their way.
Samos inclined his head. For once he felt as if he and Teo were on the same side. “Comfortable?”
Teo grunted and closed his eyes.
“I guess this could take a while. Joss, can you find some cards or something?” He pulled out a chair. The oak galley table was bare of food and plates. In the center stood a tiny ceramic vase with a sprig of parsley poking up. It seemed the cook had a sense of humor. Or no taste.
“Cards? Sure!” The boy scurried off.
The wait turned out to be several hours long. The rumble of empty stomachs prompted him to explore the pantry and dig up some bread and cold meat that they shared between them.
Early evening, there came a series of knocks as something hollow bumped the ship. Bare feet ran across the decks overhead. There was shouting and a short but determined clash of metal on metal. At that, both Samos and Teo sprang to their feet and looked at each other.
“Do we go up?” Samos asked, already on the balls of his feet.
“No orders. I stay unless I get orders.”
The Immolator way. The imprinting held him to the orders of the Imperator’s designated commander. Tatiana in this case. That could have been me. A puppet, a lackey, a brainless automaton.
The sounds of fighting ceased, and from the words he could hear, and that covered a lot with his hearing, whoever it was had been overcome. He stayed. And waited some more.
A few minutes later, a crewman clattered down the stairs and knocked at the galley door, opened it slowly as if afraid of what he’d find inside.
“Sirs?” One of the crew stuck his head in. Ponytailed, brown hair, cauliflower ears. Jug was the name. “Sirs, and you –” He glanced at Joss. “You’re to come topside. Right now.”
“You have the leader then? A man named Kengshee?”
“Sure do.” He blinked and nodded.
Wasn’t lying, but the man was covering for something. Samos gave him a hard look.
“He’s our prisoner? Nobody else on the loose up there that we need to know about?”
“He’s tied up tight.” Jug grinned. “You’ll see. Follow me.”
The trek topside gave Samos plenty of thinking time. If Kengshee was restrained and under guard, what else could be wrong?
“Joss.” He put a hand on the boy’s arm. “If I tell you to, get behind me. Right?”
“Sur
e.”
At the last hatch to the upper deck, Jug waited at the bottom of the ladder and waved them up.
Midships, beneath the bright stars, the crew was gathered in a torch-lit crescent around Kengshee, who had his hands tied behind him and a cloth around his eyes. It was him. No way it wasn’t.
How could he ever forget Kengshee poking his sword under Pela’s chin or her eyes closing and her skin turning blue as he strangled her?
“Do I get to kick him a few times?”
“No. You do not, Mr. Goodkin. Teo, over here, please.”
Teo obliged, striding across and standing guard behind Tatiana. She sat in a chair at the outer limits of the light, her customary red leggings and wig eschewed for a plainer outfit that blended into the darkness: a vest and brown shirt, with her black pants tucked into tan boots. Even simply dressed, the look of her sucked the color out of all that surrounded her. Drew him in. Held him speechless.
“Mr. Goodkin?” she repeated.
He swallowed, sent his brain ticking over, assembling facts. It distracted him from looking at her. “I’ve not helped with his capture. You know I want a pardon from the Imperator. Where are the rest of his men?”
Kengshee spoke, his words quiet yet menacing. “That you, Mr. Goodkin? We meet again.”
“Yes. In better circumstances. Murdered any girls lately?”
“Hah!”
“Be silent,” snarled Tatiana, lips drawn back from teeth. She bent for a moment, wracked by coughs. “Mr. Goodkin. You cannot fail to notice that I’m still sick, and growing sicker. I’ve found a solution however. Mr. Kengshee here is an acceptable substitute.”
Kengshee! Samos regarded him with distaste. This man was to replace him?
Oh, dear. He smiled at his own thoughts, mocking himself. Jealous and envious. Even though he knew it was happening, her trinketton heart was manipulating his emotions.
“There is one last thing that we must do. Mr. Goodkin?”
He swung his gaze. “Yes?”
“You must remove the pendant you hold in your hand. Before my heart can change its aim, it must sense you properly.”
Like a blow, that rocked him.
“Trust me.” Her eyes shone black at the edge of the circle of light, open and guileless. “Please, trust me.”
Truth. In every sign of face and body, he saw truth. But what she asked was impossible. Take off the pendant and trust her?
“I can’t. What you ask, I can’t do. Why should I?”
“Because I have seen you. I’ve watched you, for days. You love your Pela.” Her name sounded bitter in Tatiana’s mouth. “I accept that, respect it. It’s what makes you what you are.” She leant back, thumb propped under chin, fingers curling between those full lips. “Trust me, because I trust you. Why else do you think I’ve left you alone?”
Why else? For once, his new intellect deserted him. “I’ve no idea. It seems to me I’d be best to step away and do nothing here, apart from use the abilities that are obvious. I’m an Immolator. I’m strong, fast, deadly. Use that.”
She shook her head. “No. Not enough. Surely you understand that if I die the Imperator will be highly unlikely to pardon you? He knows what I need. You’re the ideal mate. Expendable. Nobody will miss you, except for Pela.”
Now that fact did hurt. “No. I can’t.”
The ring of men around them came to life. Some moved in to close the circle. Did they imagine he would attack their mistress?
Tatiana let her head rest on the chair’s back as if it had become too heavy for her muscles. Weariness weighed her words, slurred them. “I can’t make you do it, Samos, but if I die, how will you get that pardon? You have to trust me.”
Someone growled and she raised a hand. “No. It’s his decision. If he says no, he is still free to go.”
That, of all that she’d said, drove home to him what she intended. Again it was the truth. However inconceivable it was, Tatiana Ironheart had a core of goodness, and he was afraid. Without the pendant he would be hers to command without an ounce of reserve. He might as well hand her his soul on a platter.
Trust. It wasn’t that, it was fear that held him back. Fear and vanity.
“Very well.” He turned his left hand palm upward. Licked his lips. Torchlight gleamed on jade. Carefully, he unpicked and unwound the knotted leather then levered at the stone. It shifted not a fraction. Immovable. His skin had swelled up and lipped over the stone as if his body was a setting for jewelry. He put his hand to his mouth and bit down, pinching the stone delicately between his incisors. At the first touch of his mouth’s heat, the jade heart loosened. It popped out, swinging from the thong he held in his other hand.
Time counted, thudded, stabbed a primitive rhythm. A thick wave of lust waited just beyond the boundary of his body. He could feel its perverted beat, painful but bearable.
Unless he let go of the pendant, which somehow still protected him, that lust was kept at bay.
He drew in a deep, measured breath. “Here, Joss. Take care of it for me.”
“I will.” The stone landed on the boy’s palm, the thong coiling down, spiraling. Joss closed his hand, pocketed it.
Lust descended as a storm from the heavens.
“Mercy,” Samos gasped, falling to his knees.
“Do not touch that pendant again. Come to me.” He heard that beckoning request and obeyed, sobbing, crawling on his knees.
“Ha!” Kengshee cried. “You’ve done it haven’t you? Duped the poor bastard. Let me loose! Let me see this!”
As he crawled past Kengshee, a booted foot thumped into his ribs but he barely acknowledged it. So close to her, nothing meant more to him than her touch.
“Look at that!” Kengshee purred. “Your new pet. Are they all like that?”
“No. The abstinence has undone him. Too much, too quickly.” She was smiling down at him. “Never mind. That can be remedied. Can’t it, Samos?”
She touched him, caressed his hair, and he shuddered, close to ecstasy. Though somewhere, deep inside, he knew, he knew...he knew, that this was wrong. Oh, how he knew.
Her lips moved. “Captain, take the pendant off the boy and throw it overboard.”
Fascinated, intoxicated, Samos wondered why there was sadness beneath her words. When she leaned over and studied his face, trailed a finger across his mouth, he licked and kissed her hand. “And now, Samos, carry me back to my bed.”
Yes, the command he’d been waiting for. He stood, found that he was stronger now, recovered from his shock, and he easily scooped her up in his arms. So light. So precious. As he strode past them the crew backed away, some cheering. Teo was silent and impassive, only Kengshee laughed. Beyond them, Joss stood, scratching his head and puzzled.
The door slammed open, banging against the wall. He entered and kicked it shut. In four strides he crossed the room and bent to lay her down on the bed. She clung to his neck, both arms wrapped around him and pulled him down. Nuzzling and kissing and licking with her tongue, she slowly headed south.
By then his own thoughts had returned to him and he understood what had happened to him, and had not the slightest wish to reverse it. He wanted her, wanted to plow her body hard and fast, wanted to make her cry with joy.
“Fuck!” He grabbed the back of her hair in one fist, pulled her away, and with his other hand tore away her shirt and shoved down her pants, baring her body. For a moment he stopped to admire the view. The long curvaceous body, full breasts, the muscles strongly formed, the smooth skin across her belly, the dip of navel, the triangle of hair. His nostrils flared. He could smell her properly again, after days of almost nothing. He ran his hand through the pubic hair and between her legs. Wet.
She smiled that half-smile of hers that barely touched her eyes. “Fuck? Exactly, Samos.” She spread her legs.
He pulled off his clothes and covered her, his mouth owning hers while at the same time he thrust and entered her.
****
Waking up in her bed t
his second time, he blinked and thought about the previous night. This was when he should run away. He should dive over the rail into the blue sea and never dare to come within a mile of Tatiana again. That was logic. But he wasn’t ever going to do that. He couldn’t.
Her hand lay across him and he slowly turned until he faced her and watched the slow rise and fall of her breasts and the light-brown areolae. Her breathing was clear of those liquid sounds that meant her lungs and heart were failing. Peeking out from her cleavage was the gold heart of the trinketton.
She was perfect.
Her eyes opened and he stared into those gray irises, rapt, gloriously happy. She yawned and stretched, making her breasts jiggle in a most disturbing way.
Yet something compelled him to speak. “You betrayed me.” Gently, he spoke, as if he asked the time of day. He didn’t want to disturb the peace of this morning. That she’d betrayed the Imperator too, that went without saying.
“Did I?”
“How? I thought I could tell if you lied.”
“But, I didn’t. I didn’t lie, Samos.” She reached out and curled a finger through his chest hair, bent her head and ran her hot tongue round his nipple.
“Yes, you did.” He gasped. “Why can’t I leave this time? You know I can’t, don’t you?”
“How many times, how many men do you think I’ve done this with? There are consistencies I could bet on. The power grows exponentially. And right now, you are mine.”
Between the lapping of her tongue and where her hand had strayed, his mind lost track of all but pleasure.
Until she looked up at him. “Oh, Samos...” To his surprise her eyes shone with tears. “I will miss you so when you’re gone.” She lowered her head again. He didn’t stop her this time as she slithered around and forged a path to his groin with her lips and tongue.
****
By mid-afternoon Samos was exhausted. Satiated. Full of the languor of more sex than he had ever imagined could happen in one day. Tatiana crackled with energy.
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