Dark Humanity

by Gwynn White

  He spun to look.

  A swarm of musketeers, some carrying bows, others swords and shields, spilled out onto the beach from somewhere in the palazzo. Running like the wind, they tore to the spot where the rowing boat would breach.

  At sixty men, he stopped counting—and yet more came.

  He had three fighters on the rowing boat. And less than five crew left on the caravel.

  He yelled to those men, “Take out that army.”

  Arrows thudded down on the musketeers.

  Even though men screamed and fell, it wasn’t enough—on and on the soldiers came. And the arrows flew.

  Amid shrieks and curses, he swung back to the rowing boat.

  It had reached the shore.

  Baylon was the first to leap out into the swell. He sprinted up the beach to Aurora and ripped Zandor out of her arms. A grunt, and he heaved the wounded bodyguard onto his shoulder. He grabbed Aurora with his other hand and started to run with her down the beach.

  She tripped over her skirt.

  Keahr and Niing gasped. Jorah’s knuckles, holding his broom, whitened to bleached bone.

  Simeon and Asher scooped her up by her elbows and ran with her to the boat.

  With all the disdain in the world, Peckle picked a path through the foam and hopped onto the boat first. He took the prime spot on the prow.

  The first line of musketeers were just yards away.

  Too close for Jorah to risk arrows. He yelled, “Hold fire until our people are safe.”

  He held his breath, watching Baylon bustle Zandor onto the boat. Zandor said something, and Baylon handed him a bow and the quiver of arrows off his back. Baylon plunked down and grabbed an oar.

  Zandor swept the cat off the seat at the prow, dragged himself up onto it and let fly a barrage of arrows.

  Ten musketeers dropped onto the beach.

  More replaced them, tripping over their wounded and dying to reach the boat. The archers amongst them responded by raining a volley of arrows.

  Simeon and Asher, still carrying Aurora, dodged the deadly hail. Jorah was almost sure they would make it to the boat when an arrow grazed the side of Aurora’s neck. It left a bloody trail across her skin.

  Niing wailed.

  That anyone dared harm her made Jorah’s back muscles, where his wings were hidden, itch. In his true form, he would have annihilated that army.

  Next time I come to Ryferia, I come in power to exact vengeance for every wrong ever committed by this scum.

  And then Asher was hit. He stumbled, then fell into the surf. The surging swell ran red.

  Jorah closed his eyes to contain his fury. But not knowing what was happening with his mate—Aurora—was untenable.

  He opened them just as she and Simeon reached the boat. A flash of filthy petticoats, and she tumbled into its bowels. And then she was up, next to Baylon, with an oar in her hand.

  Simeon shoved the boat into the swell. But instead of jumping onboard, he pulled out his sword and faced the onslaught of musketeers.

  Jorah wanted to scream to him to get on the boat.

  He didn’t.

  Simeon’s sacrifice bought Baylon and Aurora enough time to make it back to the caravel.

  The little boat nudged the side of the ship.

  With eyes only for Aurora, Jorah left it to Arwan to control the vastly outnumbered defenses of The Nautilus Spray.

  Sweaty and pale, she smiled wanly up at him. “You’re alive. You don’t know how happy that makes me.”

  He touched his heart in salute. “Likewise. Now let’s get you and Zandor on this ship so Baylon can go and tear open the chain mail. We need to get out of this benighted place before they pick us all off.”

  Her eyes flashed toward the beach. “We’ve come this far and at such loss. We are not letting them stop us.”

  Voice bleak, he said, “My view exactly.”

  A crewman dropped a rope. Zandor clambered to his feet.

  Aurora grabbed him. “No! Be careful. Wait until we help you.”

  “I can manage.” The centaur gave a strained smile. “Now I know how irritating the constant offers of help must have been.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You have no idea.”

  Jorah guided the rope to Zandor. “Pony. Let her help you tether this to your waist. We don’t want you tumbling into the sea.”

  A glare from Zandor, but he obeyed. Hands gripped the rope and hoisted him up into the caravel. He flopped back into Keahr’s waiting arms.

  “Incoming!” Arwan shouted. “Arrows from the beach.”

  Swearing curses at Artemis, Jorah hung over the side of The Nautilus Spray to drop a rope to Aurora.

  A hail of steel thudded into the little boat and splashed into the sea around it. Baylon gurgled, then fell backward, only to hit his head on the bench behind him. Blood pooled around his face as his sightless eyes looked up at the rising sliver of moon.

  Hand reaching for Jorah’s rope, Aurora froze.

  “Aurora! Take it!” he yelled.

  Her perfectly green eyes met his. And it clicked.

  All of his men on the rowing boat were dead. Dead crew littered the caravel. He was injured. Who was left to open the chain mail?

  “I have to go.” She tossed the rope aside and picked up both oars.

  And he was too far away to stop her.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Hands blistered and aching, Aurora pulled hard on the oars.

  “Maleficent curse me, Aurora! Get back here now!” Jorah shouted.

  She had recognized the moment the awful truth clicked in his brain. The moment he realized they were trapped.

  If she hadn’t seen him hobbling with that broomstick as a crutch, perhaps she would have stayed to argue with him. But he was injured, and in no position to scramble around Guardians.

  He’s done that enough today.

  She would hate Raith and Carian until the end of time for harming him. Determined to free herself and her friends from their enemies, she set a course for the mermaid.

  Dark and brooding, it leered down at her from its spindle at the very farthest tip of the peninsula.

  Nothing but loathing burned in her as she watched it draw near with each agonizing sweep of the oars.

  “This time, nothing in Ryferia is stopping me getting through you.” The familiar throbbing in her head began again, and she cringed. “And I don’t care how sick you make me, either.”

  A sharp meow, followed by a vibrating purr. Peckle hopped up onto the prow and stared at her.

  She had forgotten that the cat was still on the boat.

  “I take it you approve.”

  A narrowing of his eyes was his only answer. His message seemed clear: Save your energy for rowing.

  He was right. The muscles in her arms trembled, refusing to move as fast as her mind. Still she pushed, harder than she ever had.

  Shouts from the beach reminded her that her lack of strength was not the only enemy tonight. The musketeers would know exactly where she was headed. She shuddered to think of all the men—her subjects—who had died tonight trying to arrest her.

  I guess I really am a traitor now.

  At least the darkness would offer some cover.

  On she rowed.

  When she finally thought she could do no more, the rocks at the end of the peninsula loomed, black and threatening, before her. In the limited moonlight, silvery foam bubbled and popped from where a monster wave had crashed on them. With no crew to help her, the only way on those rocks was by riding just such a wave and beaching onto those mussel-encrusted crags. She gripped the sides of the boat and waited to be dashed ashore.

  The boat spun and bobbed in the turbulent wake churned up by the water meeting land. But these little waves, while enough to make her hurl, were not powerful enough to sweep her where she needed to be.

  And then she saw it coming. A monster wave rolling in.

  “Brace yourself, Peckle! This is where we leave the boat!”

&
nbsp; The cat looked at her as if she had gone mad.

  “How did you think we would get to the Guardian?” She laughed; it sounded manic. “And I thought it had been hard to walk across the beach to get to her. I knew nothing about hard back then.”

  The wave surged in. The boat wobbled precariously—but it rose as it pitched and yawed.

  And then she was screaming with a combination of exhilaration and terror. The wave chucked her, the boat, and Peckle onto the rock.

  An almighty crack, and then the splintering of wood made her gasp. Water rushed into the little craft. It teetered. They would be washed back out to sea.

  She grabbed Peckle despite his protests. His claws dug into her back as she readied to jump onto the razor-sharp rocks.

  And then the boat juddered, crunched, and settled. All around her, water rushed back to the sea.

  With water dripping from her sodden dress and Peckle fighting to escape her arms, she struggled to stand. Her legs wobbled as she stepped away from the shattered boat onto the sharp rocks.

  How she’d get back to the caravel, she didn’t know.

  That was a problem for after she opened the gate.

  Seaweed hooked on her ankles as she slithered and slipped her way to drier, higher ground. The ground on which the spindle turned.

  She tossed Peckle down. “You rescued me. I rescued you. Now we are even.”

  He stalked off toward the Guardian. She followed.

  The metal scraping of the mermaid’s tail squealed above the relentless crash of the sea. The wind blowing into her face was hot from passing across the Guardian’s furnace.

  Once on the peninsula, she joined a rutted track, made by the carts that arrived once a month to pour fuel and herbs into the Guardian’s hopper. It stopped at a rusted door that led into the mermaid’s spindle.

  Rust had frozen it open just enough for her to wedge her fingers between it and the jamb.

  She yanked, once, twice, three times, before it swung open enough for her to pass through.

  Peckle followed.

  Heat enveloped her from the furnace built into a pit below the spindle cogs. The glowing embers sent shadows dancing along the walls, daring her to explore them.

  A hacking cough doubled her over, driving all such notions from her mind.

  The cat rubbed against her legs. Perhaps trying to comfort her?

  Fingers numb with exhaustion rubbed his ears to say thank you.

  No time to play. Just open the gate and then get out.

  She grabbed the iron railing of the spiral staircase, dreading another huge climb. But up she went, one rotation after another. Her head throbbed, and she groaned.

  On she climbed.

  Her eyes swam, colors and edges blurring.

  Hurry.

  It wouldn’t take long for Artemis to send in reinforcements to take the caravel and to slaughter everyone on board.

  Jorah. Zandor. Niing. Keahr.

  She stumbled up another step.

  Jorah. Zandor. Niing. Keahr.

  The words were nothing but a whispered thought, but she refused to stop repeating their names.

  Legs like jelly, she finally she reached the top. The door on the landing was rusted, too. Only this one was open all the way.

  She staggered through, only to collapse against the open hole that made the mermaid’s right eye. It gave her a moment to assess her surroundings.

  The only furnishings were a panel mounted on one of the Guardian’s cheeks. Cogs, buttons, and knobs bristled. She pushed off the wall, stumbled to it, and then huffed, trying desperately to focus on the labels written in black ink on yellowing parchment above each knob and button.

  The word gates jumped at her.

  She slammed down on the button, and—with renewed energy—rushed to the eye to see what was happening in the water below. On this side of the Guardian, the sea lapped onto the gently sloping beach she had walked along the night Lazard died.

  A creak of machinery, followed by a shudder. The cog turned the winch to drop the chain mail.

  Her heart soared. She’d done it.

  And then Peckle yowled. A sound so distressing it made the hair on her body stand.

  She spun.

  Raith stood in the doorway, his eyes burning.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Raith cocked his head to the side as he watched Aurora. Dirty, dress wet and tattered, hair a bush of tangled curls, she slumped against a round, glassless window set in a sloping sheet of copper—the eye of the mermaid.

  Her filth and disarray didn’t matter. Even with the Guardian pulsing its vile poison, he could smell her blood—and it was delicious. His smile spread wide even though his fangs zinged uselessly in his gums and hunger gnawed his stomach.

  He crooned softly, “Hello, wife. You didn’t think I’d let you leave, did you?” A deep breath. “I can smell your magic.” Knowing how his eyes affected her, he allowed them to flutter. “And your fear.”

  She looked away and cringed back against the wall with its gaping hole, but there was nowhere for her to go.

  As he stepped up to her to grab her face so she had no choice but to look at him, pain, like a thousand needles, pierced his back. He yelped and writhed a mad jig to dislodge whatever it was attacking him.

  A yowl, and the claws sunk in deeper.

  The cat.

  Aurora started to slide past him along the wall. If she got too far, she’d be out the door.

  Stopping her escape was more important than a bit of pain.

  Yes, he could easily catch her on the stairs, but first he had to taste her.

  He pounced in front of her and pinned her to the mermaid’s face with a hand on each side of the wall. “No, you don’t. And call your cat off before I skin it with my bare teeth.”

  She glared at him. “He’s not my cat. He owns himself. And if he wants to shred you, I’ll never stand in his way.”

  Raith reached behind him with one hand, ripped the beastly creature off his back, and tossed it out the window.

  Aurora gasped, then flew at him with her fists flailing.

  Raith grabbed her. Skinny, lanky thing that she was, it was a simple matter to dangle her in the air. “I don’t have time for this. The musketeers could be here at any moment.”

  His logic screamed that he should knock her unconscious the way Jorah had knocked him out and flee with her before the soldiers arrived.

  Craving for her blood drove all logic and reason from his mind.

  Mouth watering, he shoved her back against the window with all his strength.

  Pinned against the wall and the nothingness below, she squirmed like a worm on a hook. Her little fists, so ineffectual, pummeled him.

  He buried his nose in her neck and inhaled. Below the sweat and grime and blood from an arrow nick, her magic hummed.

  All control snapped.

  He pulled back his lips, sank his very human teeth into her skin, and bit down hard. Even her shriek didn’t stop him sucking on the blood that welled up in his mouth.

  Nectar.

  Bliss like no other, he swallowed and sucked, swallowed and sucked.

  Would it transfer her magic to him even if neither of them could access their powers?

  He didn’t know.

  Perhaps Carian does.

  The thought had barely germinated when blinding pain and nausea doubled him up. Mouth bloody, he rocked back from her, clutching his burning groin.

  “You bitch!”

  Her eyes, wide and strained, darted to the door.

  Even in his agony, he could not—would not—let her escape. Not now that he had tasted her.

  “I’m not done with you,” she yelled. “Not by half. Watch yourself, because I will be back. And when I come, every plant you see will be out to kill you.”

  And then she fell—straight out the window he’d tossed the cat through.

  He screamed and flailed his fists, but to no avail; she was gone.

  Still clutching his gr
oin, he hobbled to the window.

  All that remained was a silvery circle of ripples.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Jorah watched as Arwan, already soaking from pulling Peckle from the sea, dove into the swell to rescue Aurora. Helpless, angry for that helplessness, Jorah clutched a rope as he leaned against the railings on The Nautilus Spray.

  Niing clasped his elbow. Jorah didn’t resist.

  The cat sat on the deck behind him with Zandor, licking his bedraggled fur.

  Aurora had already sunk twice below the surface. Given the way her lifeless body drifted, it was only the churn of the waves that had tossed her back up into the glare of the spotlight Keahr held.

  In the distance, a dozen Ryferian ships raced toward them. With only two crew left alive aside from Arwan, Jorah stood no hope of fighting them. His best bet was to slip through the gate Aurora had opened—a gate he would never cross until he had her safe onboard with him.

  Seeing Peckle tossed out the window like trash was bad enough, but when Aurora had followed moments later, his world had clanged to a halt like two cogs jammed together.

  How was it possible that Aurora had wheedled her way into his heart in such a short time? He steeled himself against a racking shiver. He now had to live through the pain—again—of losing a woman he cared deeply for.

  His heart ached in his chest for this fiery nymph.

  Without her by his side when he reached Warrendyte, he would have to face Sabrisia and his failure. His honor—the lodestar of his life—refused to accept that the fight was over. Not while Raith stalked and Artemis ruled.

  Sabrisia would need to call on more than the Silver-Tongued Oracle to enforce the terms of that blood bond. Maleficent herself could not make Jorah relinquish his quest to avenge his mate, to destroy Raith, and to purge Ryferia of men like Artemis.

  Arwan reached her. He grabbed her under her arms.

  Jorah threw him the line, which Arwan wrapped around her. Jorah and Niing pulled her onboard.

  Arwan followed. He ran past Jorah yelling, “All hands on deck! Let’s get through that gate before the enemy has us.”

  All hands.

  Jorah’s face hardened. There would be time enough to mourn them all. For now, Aurora was his only priority.