“I left that boy in chains. Why the fuck should I care? He should have stayed in chains. How did this last Oradhé manage to remain sighted?”
Vaal’s boy frowned at me. “My understanding of the conditions of Intana’s slavery did not lead me to believe you wanted your son enslaved forever.”
I laughed at him. “I ordained those conditions to make my son suffer all the worse for his betrayal. It was I who told the first Oradhé to put out his own eyes.”
“Oh.” His eyelids fanned down to his cheeks and stayed there, and I felt a deep burst of something swell into the cabin for a second, gone too quickly to fully comprehend.
“What are you?”
“A man, looking for your neglected child.”
“Do not remonstrate with me, mortal,” I said warningly.
His eyes opened, and the sharpness had come back tenfold, but his tone remained soft when he spoke. Everything about him had seemed so gentle upon first impression, but edges upon edges lurked throughout him. I hadn’t met anyone quite like this boy since…Vaal.
Damn. Damn. This Brellin stripling was most certainly Vaal’s precious little prince.
“Will you help me or not?” he said.
I didn’t see why I should. Intana, that little bastard—I should have eaten him like I’d eaten all the others. Worthless, him and his siblings, but in Intana I’d thought I had discovered a strong offspring. His weakness with regards to Vaal had shown me otherwise.
“Speak to me, Omos,” the mortal said. “There must be something Vaal can offer you in exchange for your cooperation.”
Something Vaal could offer me?
“You?”
He didn’t blink, didn’t flinch, didn’t show a sign of emotion. “A contract of usage, then. For a specified term.”
Fucking damn! “Forever, or until I tire of you.”
“Impossible. A specified, finite term, to be agreed upon now, and to include definitions of usage, and specified damages should you breach contract.”
He was a fucking whore, pimping himself out to find my worthless son. I couldn’t believe Vaal would waste a treasured lover on Intana. There had to be something wrong with this mortal, something imperfect, or Vaal wouldn’t be throwing him at me.
Even so, I’d agree to fuck him, then kill him and leave. “All right. Tell me what you think these terms should be. No great detail. Just the basics.”
“There will be details,” he replied. “And there will be a signed, binding contract. But basically, you shall not be permitted to damage me permanently in any fashion, nor kill me, nor keep me after the contract has ended.”
“I see. And the damages should I breach contract?”
“Vaal eats you.”
“Like fuck! As if I would agree to that.”
“If you are so weak-willed that you cannot keep a simple contract, then you should just jump off the ship and be eaten now.”
Like fuck again. I’d fly to safety first. And now I had to eat him for being so arrogant as to think he could tempt me into such a stupid contract. Disgusting prostitute.
My dragon self commenced to solidify, to loom above the deck, ready for a plunge downward to break into the cabin and snatch the insolent mortal into my mouth. He smiled at my human avatar, a shark’s smile, and then attacked.
I couldn’t conceive that a mortal would have the speed to best me at any time, but just then, he did. He grabbed me about the middle, banged my head into the top bunk while lurching upright with me, and charged back up on deck with my body slung over his shoulder—all this at a velocity that left me dizzier than the second knock on the head.
And then I was overboard, in the water, and land was farther off than I’d thought.
“Fuck!” Fear induced more shock than the plunge into cold water. Vaal would have me in his teeth if I remained in his pissing bowl.
Faces lined the rail and looked down at me. Only one laughed, and it belonged to the little turd who had tossed me over the rail.
“Fuck!” I shouted again.
Before the ship completely sailed out of my grasp, I swung my dragon head at the stern and latched on. The coils of my greater body whipped my human avatar upward and set it back on deck. I let my dragon shape fade to safety, and I was weaker than before, so much weaker.
Below in the water, a massive shadow passed under the ship from the stern end.
“Fuck,” I whispered, kneeling in my puddle of water and dread, panting. To meet Vaal after all this time, when I had been so unintelligent as to have wasted my strength on needless destruction. This couldn’t have been pure coincidence.
“Couldn’t it?”
I looked up. “What are you?” I cried.
“A Brellin merchant seeking to deal with you,” Vaal’s boy answered. He sat crossed legged on the deck. I stared at him, certain that he’d been in my head constantly since I’d boarded the ship. Why couldn’t I feel him doing it?
“I’m not intrusive. I only take the thoughts you spill through your own sloppy management of them.”
Damn him! Damn him! No mortal had frustrated me this much since…well, since Intana’s mother, but I’d managed to eat her eventually.
“You will not eat me. That will be a condition of our contract.”
“And if I don’t wish to deal?”
“Then get off my ship.”
“A contract signed under coercion is dishonest and not binding.”
“Very well. I’ll set you back on your small island.” He levered up and called the orders to bring the ship about.
“Damn it! I don’t want back on the island!” Not that I couldn’t get to safety from there. I could, but… “I’ll deal. Stop shouting orders and take me back to your cabin.”
It all came down to the fact that I wanted him, and if that meant helping Vaal find Intana, so be it.
The mortal offered me a hand up, and I took it. Creation, how his grasp tingled.
“I can hurt you temporarily, can’t I? Without leaving permanent damage?” I said, clenching his fingers too hard. He didn’t wince, didn’t protest, just smiled and led me to the cabin again.
Chapter Four
It took him all day to write out the contract, the canny bastard. We spent most of that time haggling and changing the details, first because he wouldn’t settle for general terms, then because his astuteness irritated me, and I started giving terms of my own, just to be annoying. I thought better of my flippancy after I considered the ramifications of actually putting my symbol on paper.
I’d be bound to him, bound for as long as the conditions of the contract were unmet, or the contract physically existed. I paid more attention and made certain the arrangement had a definite start and finish, but afterward harried him to hurry writing the thing up and hindered more than helped at that point.
I wanted to provoke him, like he provoked me, but he must have dealt with annoyances far worse because, no matter what I did, no matter how many times words had to be scratched out, or the papers re-lettered from the first line, he continued on with a patience at once admirable and thoroughly frustrating. And worst of all, he wrote the contract in duplicate.
He was completing the last lines on the second contract when I, pacing behind him, reached over and yanked his two-toned braid again. The nib came off the paper at once, before the current word was ruined. He didn’t look up, just continued to regard the paper, a fan of thick lashes almost on his cheeks.
“Omos, leave go my hair, if you please,” he said.
“I don’t please,” I answered. I wanted him to look at me, but he was too infuriating to give me even that much. “You’re taking too long.”
“You’re making me take too long, as well you know. Go outside. I’ll call you when I have finished.”
“You’ll change the contract when I’m not looking.”
“You can read both again before signing.”
I pulled his head back and curled the braid around his neck. I smiled into his flat stare. “Have you ever tried a
sphyxiation just as you get off?”
“There is nothing in this contract with regards to divulging my past experiences in any activity. Do you wish to discuss an addendum?”
Fuck him! “No!” I let go of the braid, but bent and stole another pre-contract kiss from his lips. He shoved my face off.
“Go out, Omos. Eat another shark.”
“I’m full of sharks! Fucking get me something different to eat!”
I’d been nipping sharks all afternoon. Vaal had been very obliging and had sent up Little Brother as a snack many times, but it galled me that I was being pampered and soothed like a cranky pet.
“Would you like a large squid?”
Ah, the turd! With the least words, he goaded me. “I might, yes!”
“Go outside, Omos, and wait for your large squid.”
“I’d rather eat one of your crew. Just one.” And just one would give me enough energy to kidnap this whore and do as I pleased with him. But with Vaal watching so closely, I didn’t dare an open attack on anyone. Now if this boy toy agreed to losing one man…
I’d been keeping my thoughts tighter since learning he could rake through those I let tumble carelessly, but this mattered little, as I learned from his response.
“The contract stipulates you shall not in any way hinder my efforts to find your son. Eating one of my crew would do so. Do you intend to dishonour the agreement before we even finish the formalities?”
Fuck! I bent and seized his lips again. He tried to shove me off once more, but I pressured him, so much that the chair went backwards with him in it. We tumbled to the cabin floor. I locked an arm around his neck and shoulders, grabbed his chin to stop him from moving, and kissed like a desperate man.
There was blood, his, a bitten lip. Creation, he tasted good. To steal even a fleeting fuck before this contract was signed, just a little fuck.
“Aiee! Shit!” I cried. I jerked back, looked to my rear, found his quill stuck in my right shoulder, metal nib almost to the root. “Turd! Little turd!” I turned with my fist raised, but his landed on my jaw before mine swung, and then we struggled in earnest.
How many sharks had I eaten? I’d lost count, but whatever the amount, they hadn’t been enough, because he bundled me out of the cabin a second time and tossed me overboard again, straight onto a giant squid with one large chunk missing from its head. It was still alive.
My human avatar almost drowned, but eventually my dragon shape managed to get the lesser body out of the knot made of dragon, me, and tangling squid. Throughout the tussle, Vaal was a massive shadow lurking below, watching. I could feel him laughing at me. I could feel it.
I lay panting on the deck after, my consciousness still half in the dragon shape that ate squid, and I wondered how potent a human could become when a god took the time to mould him. Vaal had made himself one powerful minion.
The minion planted feet to my side. I looked up. He looked down. He didn’t seem perturbed at all.
Bastard. I loved the bruise I’d given him on the lip.
“I’ve finished writing out the contracts. After you’ve dried off, we can sign.”
“What was the problem with one little fuck beforehand?”
He laughed and left me lying there. I lay on the deck a little longer, until Valerys stalked over and dumped towelling on my head. I dragged it off to say something to her, but she was already retreating toward the bow. It came to my mind that perhaps she was irritated I’d be taking up a lot of time in the cabin banging her captain, which meant she had to languish elsewhere, and with men she didn’t necessarily want to fuck.
Well, too bad. I’d get around to fucking her, too. It was just a matter of time.
I dried my face, hauled off my shirt and towelled my torso, peeled out of my trousers and sponged off my lower half. I was still squeezing my hair when I walked naked to the cabin, ignoring the sailors who watched me traverse the deck to do so. Ignoring Valerys as well. Little hole could look at what she’d refused. Look at what she’d get later anyway. And she had better ring the seawater out of my clothes and hang them to dry.
Haru stood by the desk when I entered. He offered the chair without a word. I laid the towels over the back, sat, picked up the new quill, stabbed the nib into my forearm and signed my name. Twice. The marks were bluish silver, and I’d become irritated enough that my skin had acquired fiery cobalt sparkles on the upper parts of my arm. In the centres of these bright patches, a growing blackness reminded me of the dark places between stars.
Damned human. I didn’t have the strength to give him a disaster, only more of the truth that was me.
I rose and gave the chair to Haru. Still without speaking, he seated himself, wiped the bloody nib clean, and made me go stiffer than a diamond nail, scratching a red line down his tongue with the nib.
Fuck! The little fucking bastard! When he goaded, he did so quietly, and he always hit his target. I’d come in naked, and he’d given me an excruciating stiff.
He signed in blood and quietly informed me we had to wait for the ink to dry.
“Then do something to keep me distracted,” I said. “Or we’ll be rehashing those contracts all night.”
He set the nib down, his movements as controlled and placid as usual, turned and pulled me closer by the hips. The heat, his mouth and throat—I loosed a low noise, not quite a growl, and clutched the back of his head. He pulled away slightly. I shoved him back down my shaft, wove his braid in a loop around my right arm, and fucked his mouth hard with a prick that had also taken on the blush of cobalt and black.
The colours had spread in striations along my flanks, formed a line down my abdomen to my groin, flared at the base of my shaft. Every time his lips hit a coloured section, the shock was incredible, tingly to the point of almost hurting, yet not hurting. His fingers on my hips, where they rubbed against the sides of my buttocks, the thumb curling into softer parts to my front: they were maddening, how they were so warm and yet so languid in their motion.
He was good. He was very good. He didn’t choke once.
Blood, a stain at one corner of his lips. I eased up on him, then recalled the tongue he’d scraped with the nib, lost my reason again and fucked his face until I groaned and shuddered into him. And he still didn’t choke.
Boy was very well trained.
“Fuck! Fuck all Creation!” I gasped, still bucking.
And at last he choked, but because I’d made him laugh, damn it. He jerked loose, this despite the grip on his braid, and snorted and coughed, seed dribbling down his chin. He wheezed, laughed again, then wiped my fluid up and put it in his mouth, sucking on his fingers for a second.
Ah, fuck. He did the littlest things, and I wanted more, even now, when I’d eased the tension.
“I don’t usually like men at all,” I said.
Why had I said that? Why? Shit.
His voice was a little hoarse when he answered. “That’s all right. I don’t usually like them either.”
I blinked. That had to be a lie. He was too good at face fucking not to like men.
“Let go of my braid, if you please.”
“No.”
“The braid. I must see after the contracts.”
Sneering, I unwound his hair from my arm. “You’re a whore. Don’t tell me you don’t like men.”
“I said usually.” He swivelled on the chair and checked the signatures. “I happen to enjoy women very much, but the few men I have been with, I’ve enjoyed more than I sometimes care to admit.”
“Why would that be?”
“Because I tend to fall painfully in love with them, and something disastrous always happens.”
“Oh. You mean Vaal eats them.”
“Exactly.”
And yet he smiled as he confirmed this. He’d loved men, seen them torn by Vaal’s teeth, and he smiled remembering it. “So? You think it’s funny, picking Vaal’s victims for him?”
“It’s an old anguish. I can look back on it and see the twisted h
umour.” He carefully folded one contract.
“Old? Didn’t a man die not long ago because he made advances on you?”
“Yes, and because he made advances on me, he wasn’t welcome. It’s too bad, really. He was good at sucking.”
I stared at him, my mind wading through his unbridled hypocrisy. “You let him suck you?”
“Yes. Fastest way to bring Vaal up to eat him. He really was annoying.”
Fuck. What a cold little cocksucker. So perhaps he wasn’t being hypocritical.
“No. More being like you or Vaal,” he murmured.
I smacked him across the side of his head. “Don’t rummage through my thoughts.”
He continued working as if my abuse hadn’t happened. “Don’t leave them to fall in a torrent about my soul,” he replied, now stuffing one contract into a hermetic case. “Here’s your copy.”
I took it and thought about incinerating it right then. Meanwhile, he folded the second contract and tucked it into another hermetic case. He rose up and went to the hatch.
“Where are you going?”
“Stowing the contract,” he answered.
Curious, I followed him out onto the deck. The sun had almost left the sky. In the twilight, he raised his arm and tossed the tube far out to starboard. Up from the depths, a massive shark lunged and took the tiny projectile down its throat.
Creation shit on me. Vaal! He’d given the contract over to Vaal, and now there was no possible way for me to burn both copies. I looked at Haru. He faced the god who raced with his ship, and I saw him smile a shark’s smile at his immortal lover. How I hated him, and wanted him. He’d been one step ahead of me, even after I’d put a clamp on my psyche.
“Give him your smiles, boy, but you can’t have him,” I said. “You’re mine and mine only until we find Intana.”
Let that sour your stomach, Vaal. He’d signed away his time with you, for however long that might be. That had been one of my conditions within the contract.
“Until we find and rescue Intana,” Haru corrected without looking at me.
Find and rescue. However long it took. At least I had that consolation, for having been outmanoeuvred by an arrogant mortal. “Come back into the cabin,” I ordered and turned to go below deck.
Loved Him to Death: Omos of the Ether Page 4