by Julia Knight
As she dragged those last words out, she circled her hips on his lap. Sweat popped out on his upper lip and her smile was softer now, with a hint of cat about it. Josie as she’d always been with him. Loving him despite his bond, drawing him out of his thoughts. Yet she was playing him this time, as she played everyone. Part of him didn’t care. Part of him would gladly do anything she said if she’d kiss him as she once had, but he had a job to do. That she wouldn’t want to be within a thousand miles of him once it was done, when she had what she wanted, her freedom and the boy, well, that he’d deal with when he got there. Now it was too dangerous because she was dangerous, and not just in the way she robbed and killed. Just in the way she was. Dangerous to him, because she was his sort of woman, had once been the only woman he’d ever want, but if he let his guard down…
“So he thinks that you’re the mark, not him. You can’t take him in Sarigin. No ship could hold him for the time to get back to your islands. So, we tell him where to be. Tarana, to the north, where only a short stretch lies between the port and your waters.” Her lips were by his ear, her words little more than a breath. “And when he’s there in Tarana, thinking that we’re tricking you, guarding only against whether I’ll trick him back, rob him, thinking that he can twist me out of the scam, then you take him to your cells and I’m free. In the meantime, we can enjoy ourselves. Have to take it where you find it. Don’t tell me you don’t remember.”
Her lips grazed his cheek and trailed around to his mouth, leaving little bolts of lightning behind them. Maybe Holden’s mage wasn’t the only magic user on board—and then it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because her lips were soft on his mouth, tasting of sea spray and wild winds. She leaned into him, everything about her soft and strong at the same time. Dancer’s muscles along her arms, down her back, under his hands.
Straight lines gave way to swirls in his head. She circled her hips again and he held in a groan of wishing. He grabbed at her and yanked her hips more firmly toward him, let himself kiss her back and think what had once been, what might be again.
She sat back and it was all he could do not to look at her lips, at the way they seemed swollen. Begging for him to kiss them again. A hand slid under his shirt, the other down toward his breeches, each touch a tingling thrill, before her shackles pinged taut. “This would be so much easier without these chains.”
That snapped him out of whatever spell she’d put him under, made his wrist burn and throb, his mind ache as he remembered what he was held to, what his orders were. What his punishment would be if he failed. He grabbed her wrists and shoved her hands away.
“Maybe I can just do what I want with a prisoner of the Archipelago.” He’d face no censure if he just took her, there and then. Her life had become his the moment he’d arrested her, and he had to follow the Master. Had to, because his bones still remembered the last time he’d failed, and he’d not survive again. He’d rather die now than go through that again. Keep apart, don’t let her wheedle her way back in. You can’t afford to. Not if you value your life.
Her lip curled into a sneer. “And would you?”
“Not my style. But that’s not to say it wouldn’t happen, amongst my crew.” An empty threat—he could only hope she wouldn’t know it.
He grabbed her about the waist and stood up, took three steps and dumped her on her bed.
“Whatever you think, this is work. A service for my country, for my Master, for everything I hold dear. A job, a life, and one I’d do well, one I have to whether I want to or not. I’ll go along with your plan, up to and until I see you trying to play me. And this is you playing me. I’ll consider what you’ve said. Maybe pretend what you say. I’ll even pretend that all you tell him is true. But I won’t make it real. Not all the while this is a job.”
She sprawled on the bed, looked up at him with half-lidded eyes and, Kyr’s mercy, he was tempted. Dreams ran through his head, a multitude of colors and sounds when his life was grey and deaf. He couldn’t afford to give in so he made sure she was firmly chained to the bed. She reached out to him, her touch soft across his chest and down. A remembrance of what once was. He pulled away.
“What happened to you, Holden? Why didn’t you come?” she said, and the look of pained confusion in her eyes made him turn away.
He’d never thought, had he? That when the Master had tightened his bond five—or was it six?—years ago, when he’d been made up to captain and had stopped seeing her, forgotten her, that it might have hurt her. Never thought that maybe she’d loved him as he’d loved her, even when she’d said it many times. He’d never believed it, not truly.
Holden clamped his teeth down on what he wanted to say, that he’d not wanted to stay away but that he’d forgotten, for the bond, for the Master. Instead he said only, “Go to sleep,” and made for the door to give the order where to sail. He smiled grimly to himself when she swore at his back and made his face still and stern when he turned from the crewman who took his order, shut the door and made for the other bed, the one he’d sleep in alone.
He lay there a long time, wanting to get up, wanting to go to her bed. Wanting to remember all of it, but they were too close to the Master still, his duty too weighty in his mind. His bond was heavy on his arm and kept him pinned to the bed with a burn and throb of magic, of strength he could not deny. It chained him to his bed just as surely as she was shackled to hers.
Sleep was a long time coming.
Holden woke when he tried to turn in his sleep and found he couldn’t. A weight pressed down on his chest. He opened his eyes to the barrel of his own gun staring at him. Josie sat astride him, the shackles off her and round his wrists instead. She grinned her Joshing Josie grin.
Shit.
“Just a little reminder,” she said. “That you aren’t necessarily in charge. I’ll help you, if only to get the boy back safe. We’ll find Van Gast for your Master. And when we’re in there, with him, you’ll do as I damn well say, if you want to get him and live to tell about it. I don’t want to be bonded and if you don’t listen to me, then your Master will make you, because Van Gast will be away.”
Holden hardly dared to breathe. She shoved the muzzle of the pistol against his nose and let her voice go soft and husky again. “You’re alive because my lads are in the brig and I can’t fight your whole crew, not on my own. Not even I could do that. But Van Gast could. Don’t doubt what he’s capable of. I am not and will not ever be your slave. But I’m a dab hand at pickpocketing.”
Now he knew what that had been all about last night. Not her playing him, as such. Certainly not her wanting him. Just wanting to get the key to her shackles.
“So I see,” he said. “One sound out of place and there’ll be crew in here in a heartbeat. You won’t live, and neither will the boy.”
Her lip curled and she spat her next words. “Neither will you. But at least I’ll have died free, not some mage-bound, heart-dead slave for the Remorians. Not like you’ve become.”
Holden ducked his head to the side and pushed with one shoulder, tipping her off balance. He shouted for the sentry and came to an abrupt halt at the end of the chain, his arm pulled above his head. She’d been ready for it, rolled with his motion and onto her feet, out of his reach. The gun came to bear again, aiming straight for his chest. Holden stared at her, at the eyes that were wild with fear but still calculating, thinking on her feet.
The door banged open and she squeezed the trigger as Skrymir barreled into her and slammed her to the floor. The shot went wild, just grazed Holden’s arm before it burst into the wood behind him in an explosion of splinters.
Josie struggled against Skrymir, bit and spat and kicked, but she was no match for the sheer weight of him. He grabbed for the arm with the gun. She squirmed out from under him and cracked him across the head with it. Skrymir grunted in pain but didn’t let go of her waist, and it was only moments before he had her pinned to the deck, facedown, her arms behind her back. Blood dripped from his forehea
d onto the back of her head, but the dark look hidden under looming eyebrows was for Holden, not her.
Holden ignored it and pulled himself up as far as the chain would allow. “Find the key and let’s get these shackles back on her.”
Skrymir held her down with one easy hand and began to search. He murmured what sounded like an apology as he patted her shirt, his hands as gentle as he could make them. Finally he found the key and threw it to Holden. Once free of the shackles, Holden could concentrate on getting Josie back into them. Back where he wouldn’t have to watch his back. She swore vividly and lashed out with a foot, nearly catching Holden in the groin, but between him and Skrymir it was simple enough, though the big Gan looked uneasy about it.
Holden dropped into the captain’s chair and regarded her thoughtfully. He’d tried being as kind as he could and she’d only taken advantage of it. If he couldn’t at least trust her to not kill him at the first opportunity, he’d have to resort to other methods, ones he’d hoped not to have to use. His bond pulsed and burned, the Master’s voice echoing in his head, this new bond too tight, letting the Master inside his thoughts even at this distance. He had his answer, his order, though it made his stomach twist.
Not Josie, she’d always been so free…
It was right, the voice intoned, it was necessary. For order, for the Archipelago.
He sent Skrymir to fetch a mage-bond, and the look on the Gan’s face matched what Holden’s heart was telling him. That for someone like her, this could be death. If she fought it, it would kill her, and Holden didn’t doubt she’d fight it every step of the way. But he couldn’t fight it; he had lost the strength a long time ago. He had his bond, his order, and all he could do was fulfill it.
Josie looked at him with a clear mix of hatred and fear as she struggled against the chains that held her to a ring fixed to the deck. Not so casual now, not in the face of that. Holden moved closer to her, though not within her reach.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered and she spat at him. “I didn’t want it to come to this, but I’ve my own bond to obey.” He rolled back his shirt sleeve to show her the scars, the little strings of reddened skin around his wrist. Mark of the mage-bonded. His bonds made sure he was going to do this to her, strip her of the one thing that made her who she was. The one thing that made him want her, made jealousy creep through his bones at the lives of the racketeers, of those in other realms. “You forced me to this, and I’m sorry. But I can’t have you at my back trying to kill me. I need to get Van Gast and you’re my best hope. Probably my only hope. If only you’d played it my way, done what my Master wanted, this could have been painless for all of us.”
“Your way?” She struggled against the chains and lashed out with her foot again, just missing his leg. “Taking hostages, threatening to bond a five-year-old, locking me in chains and threatening his life if I don’t do as you say. What kind of way is that?”
He sat on his haunches and shook his head. “The kindest way I could, the only way I can. It’s a good thing, Josie, you’ll see. A good thing. What other way could I have used to get your help?”
“You could have asked.”
“And you’d have said yes, would you? Of course not. But I didn’t want to use the bond. I wouldn’t have—but I’m not stupid enough to think this would be your last attempt to kill me. Even if killing me would have got the boy killed.”
“It wouldn’t. I’d have—”
“—got everyone killed.”
Skrymir came back in, a pouch dangling from his fingers as though it were a live snake and he was afraid it would bite.
Holden took it from him with a sigh. If only there was another way. He crouched down near her again and drew the mage-bond out of the pouch. A silver string, that was all it looked like, a string with a life of its own. So simple. So all-encompassing. It squirmed around his fingers, trying to find a purchase, but it wasn’t his flesh it was looking for. There was nothing for it there.
He’d never seen such terror in someone’s eyes as he did Josie’s. She scrabbled backward as well as she could in her chains, scrunched herself as far into a corner as she’d fit, and readied her feet to kick out at him. Forn’s bells jingled dolefully as she shook. “I’ll help you, I will. I promise. Holden, I promise the Gan way. An oath I can’t break, I swear it. Holden, please, if you ever felt anything for me—”
Holden shut his eyes briefly. He couldn’t look at her, couldn’t see the fear he’d etched on her face. “I’m sorry, Josie, the time for that was before you tried to shoot me. I have my orders and I cannot disobey. Cannot. By any means, I have to catch Van Gast. I’d not have bonded the boy, unless I must. But his fate might have been worse, the way you see it, if you’d shot me. He’d have been brought up in the Archipelago, taken the bond. I gave you both a chance at having the life you wanted. I tried. But you didn’t trust me to keep my word, and now I can’t trust you. Give me your arm.”
“No…no, you can’t. I’ll kick your bollocks off first.”
“Sadly for you, I can do it, and I will. I have to, for my own bond. I won’t use it for anything other than getting Van Gast, if that’s your worry. I won’t use it to force you anywhere else, not into the cells or into my bed, as other commanders would. Ask Skrymir, I’m a fair man to be bonded to.”
Josie’s eyes flicked up toward Skrymir but her panic didn’t lessen at his nod, or when he spoke.
“He’s talking true. Never asks a man more than he should, and I wouldn’t have oathed to him otherwise. But, sir, to bond her unwilling…”
She yanked at the chains, had rubbed the skin from her wrists by now, but she was trapped and she knew it. It didn’t stop her fighting it though. Holden had to admire her for that and mourn that her spark, her fight, would soon be lost. It had gone out of him a long time ago, because there was no fighting the bond, not if you wanted to live.
“Accept it,” he said, the only advice, the only help he could give her. “Accept it and it will be easier.”
Skrymir had to hold her down while Holden laid the bond on her. No unbroken skin left at her wrists so he held it over her ankle, the one free of the bells that seemed to mock him, to grieve for her. “Take this bond and keep it, on your life. To break it is to break yourself. To find Van Gast and bring him to the Remorians’ justice, to do as I say or ask, to do nothing that would hinder that task or harm a Remorian, while this bond shall last.”
The end of the string wriggled above her ankle, sensing the unbonded skin so close. Holden let go with a hollow pang that he’d killed something he so admired, in service to his own bond that bound him as tight, whether he wanted to do its bidding or not.
The string slithered around her ankle, instantly burrowing into the skin in a perfect circle. She screamed at the touch of it, a ragged, wretched sound of fear and pain that hurt Holden’s ears, and his heart. Reminded him of his own bonding, of how he’d screamed and begged, afraid the pain would never end. Yet she didn’t beg, not even now.
The physical pain didn’t last long, at least not for those who bonded willingly. The other pain was what might kill her, if the bond was left on too long. The pain of not following what your soul told you was right. Remorians were different, brought up knowing to expect it, a sense of fatalism about it, trained by the milk-bond put on at birth. The rightness of it was poured into their ear every waking minute. It was good, it was necessary. They welcomed, craved it, cherished it, because they knew it was right.
For most of them it was just a fact of life, not a threat to it. Holden turned away to the desk, unable to watch. He held his fists tight to suppress the shivers of sympathy that ran through him as she thrashed in her shackles so violently even Skrymir couldn’t hold her.
It seemed interminable, the time until her screams faded away to hoarse swearing, though it couldn’t have been longer than half a bell. Holden turned back to her, pinched his lips together at the sight of her pale, sweating skin, the way she shuddered rhythmically, in time to her own
heart.
“Skrymir, go and fetch some ointment for those wrists and her ankle. The healer makes some that numbs the pain for a time.”
The Gan’s eyes judged Holden, as though he’d seen something in him he’d never thought to find there. He went finally, his shoulders sagged with sadness. Skrymir wouldn’t oath to him again when the time came, and Holden couldn’t blame him, but he’d had no choice, the Master had left him none. That didn’t mean he couldn’t do what he could to ease the pain of it for her.
He crouched down beside her and held out the key. “Give me your hands.”
Josie hesitated, the shackles jingling with every quiver, then held out her arms. Holden unlocked the chains and let them fall, tried not to look at where she’d chafed the skin away in her desperation to be free of him. She clenched and unclenched her fingers, trying to get the blood flowing again, her eyes hot and dangerous on him all the time, but he had no fear that she’d kill him, not now. For long heartbeats they stared at each other, each trying to size up this new situation.
Her hand blurred toward him, nails out to go for his eyes. He pulled back without thought and brought an arm up. Before the blow could land, her hand jerked to a stop in a hiss of pain. A low growl escaped her and she tried again with no more success. Each blow shuddered to a halt before it could land, and each attempt inflicted pain on her, burrowed through her skin like a gnawing rat.
He’d tried it once, going against his bond. He knew what that did to you. He’d not tried again.
She stared around wildly, looking for a weapon, he supposed.
“You can’t hurt me now, Josie, not me or any of the men bonded to me. You can’t hurt me or disobey me. You must help me, or the bond will bring you only more pain. Accept it, and you’ll live long enough to be free of it. I promise you that. You will be free of it if you help me. If you fight it, it will kill you, sooner or later. If you fight too hard, too long, then you’ll be too weak for me to take it off, because taking it off is worse than putting it on. The quicker we catch him and the bond is fulfilled, the sooner I can remove it, the sooner you’ll be rid of the pain of it, and you and the boy can be free. And before you ask, only I can remove it.”