by Rebecca York
Elizabeth stood paralyzed, sucking in drafts of air, her legs braced to keep from pitching forward as Zeke came the rest of the way up the stairs and took a menacing step toward the would-be attacker. Zeke’s face was drawn. Yet his eyes were fierce, as he focused on the man who had cornered her.
Scarface said something low and urgent in Greek, something that sounded like he was trying to explain that he had meant no harm to Zeke’s woman.
Zeke nodded tightly, his hands clenched into fists, yet he held himself in check as the man staggered to his feet and slouched away. When they were alone, Zeke turned and closed the distance between himself and Elizabeth. She went into his arms, burying her face against his neck and trying not to sob as he clasped her to him.
“Are you all right?” he asked in a strangled voice.
“Yes.”
The Amphitrite climbed down and then up the trough of a wave. Zeke leaned against the railing to keep his footing. Closing her eyes, Elizabeth clung to him, the warmth of his body contrasting with the coldness of the wind playing with her back and hair.
“I heard your voice. And his. What happened?” he asked.
She struggled to compose herself. “I started walking around the deck, and…and Scarface started following me. I tried to get back to the cabin, but he blocked the way. He made a comment about my breasts and grabbed for me.”
Zeke cursed. “Where was the captain when that bastard started following you?”
“He saw what was happening. I guess he didn’t care.”
“God, I’m sorry. I should never have sent you up there by yourself.”
“I thought you were too sick to be walking around,” she said.
“So did I. But when you asked where to find the bathroom, I decided it wasn’t such a bad idea. And when I made it to my feet, I realized I didn’t feel as bad as I thought. So I decided to join you on deck. Thank God,” he added, cradling her more tightly in his arms.
She nestled her face against his shoulder and murmured her own amen.
“Let’s go back down.” He started to lead her away, when she heard footsteps coming rapidly toward them along the deck. She and Zeke both went very still.
Low, urgent voices came toward them, two men talking in a language that sounded almost Greek. Although she strained to catch what they were saying, she found it impossible to understand any of the words. Zeke turned his head, listening intently, his eyes narrowing.
The captain and the other man from the wheelhouse stepped into view. They continued their private conversation for several seconds before Icarus raised his head toward Zeke.
“My first mate, Tyrone, and I have reprimanded Crewman Cydon,” the captain said in very formal English. “I want to apologize for whatever he did,” he continued, turning his palm up in a conciliatory gesture.
Zeke kept his arm protectively around Elizabeth, his eyes cold. “I want him taken into custody. He attacked my wife.”
Icarus blanched. “He was drunk.”
“That’s hardly an excuse,” Zeke shot back.
“It’s my fault entirely.” The captain apologized again, in a strained voice. “I should have left him home to sleep it off. You are absolutely right. He will be locked in the brig for the rest of the trip, and I promise nothing like that will happen again.”
Zeke was silent for several seconds. “It had better not,” he snapped.
“You have my word,” the captain said, although it looked as if the promise tasted like acid in his mouth.
“That’s comforting,” Zeke replied, and Elizabeth caught the edge of sarcasm in his voice.
“My men don’t always conform to social niceties. Perhaps it would be safer for your wife to stay in your cabin for the remainder of the journey,” Icarus said, his tone a little sharper and his face hard.
Elizabeth felt Zeke’s arm muscles tense, and she laid a restraining hand on his sleeve. His jaw knotted; he stood staring at the captain for several more seconds. Then he shrugged and turned away. Elizabeth breathed out a little sigh as he steered her toward the companionway. Confrontation averted.
She held tight to his arm, stopping once when the surging movement of the waves threw her off balance. Ushering her into the cabin, Zeke turned and locked the door with a decisive click. Then he drew her down onto the bunk she’d been using, turning so they could both fit. Wrapping his arms around her, he stroked her back and shoulders and kissed the side of her face over and over.
She started to tremble then, as she held tight to him. He was shaking, too, his hands moving over her in sweeping, possessive strokes. She could feel emotions roiling inside him. But long seconds passed before he spoke in a gritty voice.
“I should never have gotten us onto this tub. Never have put you in that kind of danger.”
She reached to press her fingers against his cheek. “You didn’t know something like that was going to happen.”
“Yeah, well, it seems I was in too damn much of a hurry to get off the mainland.” He gave a little snort. “And at the same time, I was worrying about how sick I was going to feel. I should have been thinking more clearly, before signing on with these guys.”
She raised her face and looked at him questioningly. “They aren’t all like Cydon, are they?”
He replied with a mirthless laugh. “They’re not all as stupid as he is. The captain’s sorry about Crewman Cydon’s little lapse, all right. Sorry the bastard was dumb enough to try something before he had permission.”
“Wh—what do you mean?” she managed.
“Icarus was having a strategy session with the first mate, and he thought I couldn’t understand them because they were using a local Mythos dialect that’s quite a bit different from standard Greek. But it happens that I’ve studied it extensively.” He swallowed. “They’re planning to turn us over to someone else as soon as they get to Mythos. Maybe Aristotle. I’m not sure about who, exactly. Cydon figured that it wouldn’t matter if he—”
“Raped me?” she asked in a strangled voice.
He closed his eyes for a moment and held on to her more tightly. “Yes.”
She got the shakes again, and Zeke stroked her gently until she felt more in control.
“We’ve got to talk about it,” Zeke finally said. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
He turned so he could meet her eyes. “The way I figure it, when the captain saw his crewman follow you, he thought the guy was just teasing you. Then when Cydon didn’t come back, the captain started worrying it might be going farther than that. Whoever hired him wants us to think everything’s on the up and up—until we get to Mythos. It’s supposed to be a big surprise.”
Elizabeth looked toward the door, remembering the way Zeke had snapped the lock behind them. She was pretty sure the lock wouldn’t hold, if the crew decided to attack. “What are we going to do?” she whispered.
“We have to take over the ship,” he answered in a matter-of-fact voice, glancing at his watch. “In the next couple of hours. Then we’ll have to check the charts and land at a port without a reception committee waiting. There are lots of good harbors along the Mythosian coast. That part won’t be a problem.”
The scheme sounded preposterous, yet he spoke calmly, as if he really did think they had a chance of hijacking the vessel. Her mind made a quick inventory of the roughlooking crew. She’d counted four of them, including the captain. “I assume you have a plan?” she asked, in as steady a voice as she could manage.
He ran a hand through his hair. “Well, not exactly. Give me a couple of minutes to concentrate.”
Right, she thought, struggling not to start shaking again. If anybody could figure a way out of this situation, it was Zeke Chambers.
When he stirred, she raised her head questioningly.
He sat up and cast a glance toward the closed door. “First I’m going to check the hatch at the other end of the passage. If it’s locked, I’ll open it. Will you be okay by yourself for a few minutes?”
&
nbsp; She gave the only right answer. “Yes.”
As Zeke climbed to his feet, Elizabeth watched him carefully, trying to judge his physical condition. He’d told her he was holding his own in his battle with seasickness. Yet, as he pulled the duffel bag onto the bed, she could see the claim was relative. His skin still had an unhealthy pallor and his forehead was damp. However, she knew he wouldn’t appreciate it if she asked him how he was feeling.
Her focus of attention changed as Zeke dug in the duffel and extracted something metallic from a nest of T-shirts. The gun.
She blinked. “Weren’t you taking a chance bringing that into the country? We could have been stopped at customs.”
“Yeah,” he answered laconically. “But I think it’s going to come in handy. You hang on to it while I’m out of the cabin.”
Feeling light-headed, Elizabeth pushed herself up and braced her back against the bulkhead as Zeke handed her the weapon. She automatically wrapped her fingers around the grip.
“Nothing’s going to happen while I’m gone,” he said quickly, in response to her strained expression. I’ll be right back. The gun is just in case.”
Zeke exited quietly. Pressing her shoulders more firmly against the wall, she trained the gun on the door in a two-handed grip. But the pitching of the boat and the quivering of her arm muscles made the position too difficult to maintain. So she lowered her arms and sat with the weapon in her lap, thinking that when Zeke had asked her to marry him, she’d had no idea what she was getting into. Yet she knew with absolute conviction that foreknowledge wouldn’t have changed her decision. She still would have agreed to help him—for Ariadne, and because she loved him.
Three endless minutes ticked by. Finally, the door handle turned, and she braced her arms and raised the gun. When Zeke called her name, she relaxed again—as much as she could relax.
“I’ve unlocked the hatch,” he reported as he stepped into the cabin. “And I took a look topside. Our friend Captain Icarus is in the wheelhouse enjoying a glass of retsina—probably to celebrate pulling the wool over our eyes.”
“A glass of what?”
“Retsina. It’s a wine flavored with pine resin.”
Elizabeth made a face.
“An acquired taste.” He crossed to the bunk and sat down beside her. “You can give me the gun now.”
“Oh, right.” She handed it to him, then pressed her shoulder against his, picturing the two of them barricading themselves in this room and waiting out the rest of the trip. Yet that fantasy only held the illusion of safety. He’d said they had to take over the ship. “Now what?”
“We’ve got to shift the odds in our favor. You’re going to go up, the way we came down, and start talking to the captain. Speak quickly, in English, so he has trouble understanding you. Act like you’re upset. Tell him that walking around and getting angry about Cydon was too much for me. I’m sicker, and you need some medicine or something.”
She listened to the directions, wondering if she could pull that off.
He must have read her thoughts. “You can do it.”
“I guess I have to,” she agreed, marveling at the cool way the words slipped from her mouth.
“Get him to turn, so that his back is to the door of the wheelhouse. I’ll come up from behind and get the drop on him. Once we’ve bagged him, we’ll take care of the rest of the crew.”
It sounded reasonable.
“I’ll leave the cabin two minutes after you do,” Zeke said.
He gave her a hug, and she let herself cling for a moment. Then she snatched up her windbreaker, gave Zeke a cocky grin and slipped out of the cabin.
The moment she closed the cabin door, her expression hardened into a mixture of determination and fear. Could she really follow Zeke’s directions? And what would she do if she met Cydon again? To her vast relief, he didn’t materialize at the top of the companionway. Perhaps the captain hadn’t been lying when he’d said he would throw the man in the brig.
Rolling with the motion of the waves, she struggled toward the wheelhouse, noting that the Amphitrite was pitching even more than it had earlier. Any hint of blue had vanished from the sky. Spray hit her in the face, as she clutched the rail and fought the wind. It seemed that Poseidon, the god of the sea, was testing her resolve. Maybe he didn’t want her and Zeke to take over a ship named after his wife, she thought with a grim laugh.
With the boat bucking so badly, she couldn’t move very quickly, and it took several minutes to make it to the wheelhouse. Peering through the door at the side of the small enclosure, she froze. Ever since she and Zeke had worked out this plan, she’d been picturing Captain Icarus at the helm. But he wasn’t anywhere in sight. The man standing at the console in the center of the room was younger. It was Tyrone, the first mate.
Elizabeth gulped. Now what? She’d taken so long to get here that Zeke was probably already on his way up through the hatch.
She was standing in the doorway dithering, when the man at the wheel glanced to the side and spotted her, his face registering surprise that she’d ventured out in the wind and spray. Now that he’d seen her, she straightened her shoulders and forced a little smile. She didn’t have to fake uncertainty, as she took a step forward.
He looked her up and down, as if she were a wet rat that had come crawling out of a drainpipe. Yet he kept his voice carefully neutral. “The captain advised to stay below,” he said.
“I—” Elizabeth fluttered her hands in a helpless gesture, as she crossed the threshold of the wheelhouse. “You’re right. I…uh…hate to cause any trouble again. I know I should be in my…my cabin, but I have a…a problem, a big problem,” she said, speaking quickly, as Zeke had advised, and tripping over some of her words. “I guess you know my husband, Mr. Chambers, is feeling sick. He was lying down. Then he got up…when, uh…” She trailed off and started again. “Now he’s feeling so much worse. I’m so worried, so worried. We didn’t expect to travel by ship, so we’re not prepared. I was wondering if you had something he could take.” As she spoke, she moved toward the side of the little enclosure. To her relief and satisfaction, Tyrone turned with her, so that his back was to the door.
“Madam, you will have to speak more slowly,” he said, obviously struggling to control his exasperation with this damn female passenger who was causing a variety of problems. “What are you trying to tell me about your husband?”
She gave him a wide-eyed helpless look. Let him think she was a stupid twit, she told herself. “My poor husband’s sick,” she repeated beseechingly. “It’s so upsetting—” Her voice gave a little catch, as she spotted Zeke in back of the man, moving quickly but quietly. She willed herself not to look at him. Raising the volume of her voice and using lots of hand gestures, she continued. “He’s so miserable. You must have a medical kit on board. You must have some provision for passengers who—”
Zeke was almost on him now. She increased the speed of her monologue, willing the man to keep his attention on her, willing him not to turn around.
It worked. The impassioned speech ended as Zeke stepped up behind the first mate and brought the butt of the gun down on his head. Tyrone made a low grunt and slipped to the floor. Zeke caught the man with his free hand and eased him to the deck where he lay with his eyes closed, breathing heavily.
Zeke looked down at the dark head. “It’s not Icarus. Where the hell is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“He might be taking a break, but I don’t think he’ll stay away from the wheel for long.” He looked thoughtful, then he handed her the gun and knelt beside the man on the floor. Grabbing Tyrone’s shirt in both hands, he pulled it up and over his head. The movement was accompanied by the scent of unwashed flesh.
Elizabeth coughed, then watched as Zeke took off his own shirt before pulling on the one from the first mate. With his back to the door, he hunched over the controls and turned his face away from the door. “How do I look?”
“I guess it might work, but you
’re going to need a bath.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Yeah. Well, that’s the breaks. Give me the gun.”
She started to comply, then froze as a flash of movement tickled the edge of her vision. Zeke must have registered the expression on her face, because his hands tightened on the wheel.
Speak of the devil, Elizabeth thought, as Captain Icarus stepped into view. His gaze was fixed on Zeke. “Tyrone,” he called and began to speak rapidly in the dialect he’d used before. She guessed he was asking his first mate what the hell she was doing in the wheelhouse.
She and Zeke hadn’t had time to work out a new plan. The best she could do was harden her face as she raised the gun. “Put your hands in the air and step inside, Captain,” she requested.
Icarus’s jaw went slack when he saw the weapon in her hand.
“I said, come inside,” she grated.
His eyes swung rapidly from her to Zeke; then spotting the shirtless man on the floor, Icarus uttered an exclamation that could only have been a foul curse.
“The lady invited you in,” Zeke grated as he turned to face the captain.
There was a moment of hesitation when Icarus must have been assessing his chances of escape—or perhaps of taking the weapon from her.
“Don’t think I won’t shoot,” she clipped out, even as she stood there, wondering if she could pull the trigger. “You’ve already given me enough reason to blow your head off.” She’d done it before, she reminded herself with a grimace. She’d shot Sebastian—only he’d been attacking Zeke. He hadn’t been facing her with burning eyes and clenched fists.
To her profound relief, the captain raised his hands. With a small shrug, he stepped into the enclosure.
“Thank you for joining us,” Zeke said. “Move over there, please.” He gestured toward the other side of the little room. “And sit down.”
The captain sat. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded, anger and fear thickening his English.
“Oh, I imagine you have a pretty good idea,” Zeke clipped out, taking the gun from Elizabeth. She felt as if a two-ton weight had been lifted from her hand. With the weapon trained squarely on Icarus, he said to her, “Get the rope I left by the hatch, so I can make the captain and his mate comfortable.”