But until now, he hadn’t truly been humbled before her.
Fighting came easy to him. His body had been made to destroy his enemies. From almost the date of his birth, his mind had been filled with the fires of rebellion.
Yet it wasn’t so easy for others. And seeing her sleeve, Ariq felt as he often had while traveling through villages and cities back home, listening to the stories people told. There were always incredible tales from the battlefield, of great warriors whose legends were recounted through the centuries—but the tales that affected Ariq most were the ones often forgotten. Men who stood in front of their homes, protecting them from the Khagan’s armies until their last breaths. Women who cut out their own tongues rather than reveal the locations of families in hiding. Anyone who refused to be trampled beneath the Khagan’s feet.
Neighbors sometimes called those people reckless and foolish, too.
Ariq would never blame those who chose safety over rebellion. He didn’t know what it was to live in fear, so he couldn’t know how difficult it was to stand against the terror. But he knew those who stood risked more than he ever had.
So had Zenobia. No wonder she held his heart in her hand.
Her ink-stained hand.
Remembering his earlier assumptions, Ariq grinned against her hair. Not a spy. His wife was a writer.
A popular writer of fanciful rubbish, according to the twins.
The twins’ judgments meant nothing. Any story that didn’t include the torture of innocents would likely be rubbish to them. But fanciful? They probably weren’t mistaken in that.
He wouldn’t have guessed. Zenobia seemed so practical. Yet if she had written so many of these stories, something of the fanciful must appeal to her.
The twins had given him one of her stories—the one that had been called seditious in the imperial city. Ariq wished he’d read it. He wished he had it now. They had been drifting with the clouds throughout the night, putting distance between their balloon and the ironship. Ariq should be getting up, setting the course back to the Red City. But he didn’t want to wake her, so, if necessary, he would sit here for the next few hours. A story would have passed the time. He couldn’t remember ever reading any fanciful tales before, though he’d heard his share in the soldiers’ tents. He’d only read histories, some poetry, descriptions of battles—nothing fictional. So his wife’s would be the first fanciful adventures he read.
He looked forward to them. He looked forward to discovering everything about her—and to the day when she loved him in return.
Maybe she already did. If so, Ariq didn’t think she would let him know yet. Her walls were too high, too strong.
He looked forward to breaking through them. Whatever it took.
His gaze fell to her soft lips. Whatever it took—but he hoped it required using his mouth over every inch of her body.
Her eyelids suddenly squeezed tighter. She frowned in her sleep and shifted in his lap, wriggling closer and turning her face against his shoulder. Her hip nudged the hardening length of his cock. Ariq stifled a groan, then tugged the edge of her blanket up, shielding her eyes from the early morning light. She needed to rest.
A balloon basket was no place to bed his wife for the first time, anyway.
And he would continue reminding himself of that. Closing his eyes, he leaned his head back.
Almost six days had passed since they’d left the smugglers’ dens. Meeng, Tsetseg, and the others should have returned to Ariq’s town by now. They’d have carried the news that the rebellion was responsible for the marauders’ attacks. Ariq had told them to prepare the town’s defenses.
They wouldn’t need those defenses against the marauders. Lord Jochi had sold about two dozen of the silver flyers. Most of them were destroyed now. If Ghazan Bator wanted to continue attacking airships, he would have to procure more flyers. No doubt he could, but Ariq would hear about it. And now Ariq knew what to look for. The ironship had most likely served as the marauders’ base. Before the attacks, they’d made temporary camps inland to launch from, but Ariq probably hadn’t found any other sign of them on the ground because there wasn’t any sign. Commander Saito could hunt the waters if the attacks resumed.
Unless Saito received orders to fire on Ariq’s town, instead.
It shouldn’t happen that quickly. Saito believed the empress would order a fleet to the western coast as a deterrent first. Only after another attack would she send men to each of the settlements to search out the marauders. If they found nothing and the attacks continued, firing on the towns would be her final order. But if Ghazan Bator used the flyers to suggest the marauders had abducted Ariq and Zenobia from the embassy, that might have changed everything.
Instinct railed at him to return home, to defend. But he couldn’t do anything there that his brother and his soldiers wouldn’t do just as well. He had to stop this at the source. Not Ghazan Bator or Admiral Tatsukawa. He knew the general too well. If Ariq killed him, Ghazan Bator would have another plan in place, and Ariq wouldn’t be prepared for it. Better to face the enemy he knew.
And he couldn’t touch Tatsukawa. If he did, Ariq might as well be declaring war on Nippon.
So Ariq had to appeal to her empress, instead. That wasn’t the sort of battle he was accustomed to fighting. He could be diplomatic. But he had little proof. It was his word against the admiral’s—and that was only if his word even reached the empress or one of her ministers; he couldn’t simply stride into the palace and request an audience. And if they knew that Ariq had infiltrated one of their prisons and killed fourteen guards while freeing an accused traitor, he might never get the opportunity to speak at all. The attempt might be for nothing, but he had little other choice.
He had hope, though. Ironically, Tatsukawa had given it to him. The admiral had been disappointed that this empress hadn’t continued the war with the Golden Empire as her mother had wished. It was possible that she would want to avoid starting a war with Ariq, too. He’d lose . . . but he wouldn’t lose easily. The cost might be higher than she wanted to pay.
And he hoped, because he didn’t want to lose anything.
Starting with the woman in his arms. He looked down. Her dark eyelashes fanned shadows over her cheekbones. Still sleeping, but he would have to risk moving her. The sun was brighter now. The clouds had begun to dissipate around them. He needed to see where they were.
Gently, he laid her on the blanket that had been folded beneath him. She stirred before turning on her side, her cheek pillowed on her hand and her lips softly parted. He tucked her blanket back around her shoulder and stood. His stiff joints protested, a reminder of the jump from Tatsukawa’s airship. Every time he rested, his body tightened up again. But it would pass, just as the soreness from Zenobia’s bludgeon would.
The mist around them had paled and thinned. Blue water sparkled below. No sign of a ship; no noise from any engines. But he couldn’t be certain it was safe until he dropped out of their cloud cover and scanned the horizon.
Basic need called first, though.
A drowsy whisper sounded from behind him. “Is the ironship still down there?”
Ariq glanced over his shoulder. Zenobia had rolled to her right side and propped herself up on her elbow. She watched him from beneath lids still heavy with sleep.
With his back to her, he looked at the stream of piss arching from the side of the balloon.
“I wish it was,” he said.
Silence. Then she sucked in air, coughed, and a moment later the muffled sound of her laugh rolled through him. He glanced back. She’d buried her face in her blanket. Her shoulders shook.
Grinning, he finished up. The wash water was cold but better than nothing. Before she used it, he’d warm the water over the gas burner. Belonging to a naturalist who spent hours at a time in the basket observing the ocean, the balloon had some small comforts.
Zenobia suddenly sucked in air again, but the sound was more of a strangled gasp than choking on a laugh. Alarmed, Ariq looked away from the burner. She lay on her back, staring upward, her green eyes wide.
Delight danced through her voice. “It’s a jellyfish.”
He glanced up. It wasn’t really a jellyfish any more than a kraken was a squid. But it still resembled one. A translucent body formed a billowing dome. The digestive stalk hung from the center of the bell and terminated in the feeder apparatus. The feeder formed the upper portion of the basket’s support frame, with access to the electrostatic wheel and navigation controls through a panel overhead.
“It’s a lantern fish,” he said.
“Does it glow? I’ve heard that some glow.”
“Not this one.” A glowing balloon would have exposed their position. “Some say that they’re called lanterns because they reminded Munduhai Khatun of the floating lanterns released in the southern provinces during their festivals. Others say that the scientists who created them during her rule were inspired by the sky lanterns, and that is how they received their name.”
“How does it work? Does it— Blast it all. Do you have a knife? Didn’t you give one to me last night?” Sitting up, she searched along her sash before pulling her notebook from her tunic, followed by a pencil. She showed him the dulled point. “I need to sharpen it.”
“I took the dagger back. I didn’t want you to roll onto the blade.”
But he didn’t immediately reach for it. He crouched beside her. Without anything to write with, had she been forced to scratch more notes under her sleeves? Ariq wouldn’t let himself look. That would only spark his anger, and he didn’t want that now.
She stilled, looking up at him. Her gaze slipped to his mouth.
Ariq wanted that, too. But this, first.
“Your letters?” he asked softly. “Your story?”
The dimming of her eyes tightened a band of pain around his chest. Her voice was hollow. “Gone.”
That was all she’d said before—and that Ghazan Bator had burned them. His gaze dropped. A reddened patch marked the back of her hand. That might have been an abrasion from the bludgeon, the material scraping her skin. It might have been a burn. Perhaps from reaching into flames.
“You saw it happen?”
Swallowing hard, she nodded, then looked down at her hand, too. Her fingertips traced over the red mark, as if she was remembering when she’d gotten it.
His blood began to thrum. He wouldn’t let the anger through. Ghazan Bator wasn’t here. Only his wife, and she was hurting. Ariq knew little about those letters—just that they’d been written by her brother on his travels—but she’d guarded them more closely than she had her gold. There was no question how much she’d valued them.
And her work, too. He’d seen the stack of pages she’d written.
“The general said that he couldn’t be certain whether my story would expose him and his plans.” She raised her gaze to Ariq’s. The dark pain had vanished; determination hardened them to jade again. “So that’s all right. I’ll just write another. And this time, he’ll be absolutely certain I did.”
Ariq didn’t doubt it. “And you’ll include lantern fish and boilerworms?”
“Yes,” she said, and her smile was everything. “As soon as you sharpen my pencil.”
“That has to wait. Something more important comes first.”
“Such as?”
Despite her question, she knew. She looked to his mouth again. Ariq tilted her chin up and held her gaze as he leaned in.
“I didn’t greet you properly last night.”
She laughed, a breathless sound against his lips. “You said ‘good evening.’”
It had been. The best evening, because she’d stood before him, fierce and fighting.
He cupped his palms under her jaw, his thumbs in the hollows beneath her ears. Her eyelashes fluttered closed, and he savored the sigh that escaped her.
“Good morning, Zenobia,” he said softly, before capturing her lips.
Her notebook flapped to the basket floor. Her arms wreathed his neck. She kissed in the same way she wielded a bludgeon—with haphazard aim, and as if she put everything she had behind it. Need pounded through him, aching and hot. Her fingers wound tightly in his hair and dragged him forward, and Ariq went, the heavens help him, he went, catching her as she tipped backward onto her blanket.
A groan ripped from his chest as he settled into the cradle of her thighs. Weight braced awkwardly on his forearms, feet wedged against the side of the basket, this was no way to make love to his wife for the first time. But her body arched tautly beneath his, as if trying to press closer, and his arousal had never been so sharp.
His cock rigid, he rocked between her legs and she cried out, her fingernails digging into his shoulders. His hunger surged. Urgently, he took her mouth again, and she responded to the slick thrust of his tongue with a low, ragged moan.
Her heated taste flooded his senses. Zenobia. Her name drummed in his ears like the beat of his heart. Every thrust of his hips tightened her legs around him. What lay between them? His trousers, her trousers. They both had to go, then he’d be deep inside her. So deep.
His fingers fumbled with the buckle of her tunic. Knotted blue silk lay beneath. The tunic that he’d ripped, the night in her bedchamber, head dizzy from the gas and his control gone—and the rebels waiting just outside the balcony doors.
Dregs and hell. He couldn’t lose control again. Not here. He hadn’t even descended from the clouds to determine whether their position was safe.
Slowing the desperate need took all the strength he had. His cock was a solid aching stone. When he stopped rocking against her, the roll of her hips as she urged him on again was torture.
The passion in her kiss became frustration. Her fingers twisted in his hair.
“I know,” he said roughly against her lips, then gentled and deepened his kiss.
It wasn’t just desire between them. Not just lust. Did she know he would have done anything to find her? That he would never let her go?
Ariq told her now with this kiss. When he lifted his head, her breath shuddered and her jade eyes were bright with unshed tears. Her hand cupped his jaw.
Her voice was thick. “Good morning.”
He grinned and kissed her again. But the need was still too sharp, the arousal too hot. It slammed through him and he felt her instant response in the clenching of her thighs around his waist, in her soft pleading moan.
Tearing his mouth from hers, he buried his face in the crook of her neck and shoulder. “When we’re back to the Red City, I’m going to slide into you as deep as I can, then have you so hard and so long that we’ll need three days in bed just to recover.”
She gave a breathless laugh that suddenly quieted. He lifted his head. Her lower lip was pinched between her teeth, her expression uncertain.
About returning to the Red City? Or spending the time in his bed? “What worries you?”
The uncertainty cleared and she shook her head. But it must have been something. Probably the return. Not the time in his bed. She’d been married—
No, she hadn’t.
His thoughts ground to a halt. He hadn’t given much thought to her confession, but now he remembered: She’d only pretended to be a widow to stop Helene from asking why she was still unmarried.
But that didn’t mean Ariq was her first. Her age wasn’t much younger than his. “Have you bedded other men?”
She scowled at him. “That’s hardly an appropriate question.”
Usually he’d agree. But he didn’t want to hurt her. Every touch tested his control. By the time they reached the Red City, he’d be a rutting beast.
As he watched her, pink flooded her skin. Perhaps that was answer enough.
“I’ll be gentle,” he told her.
>
She balled her fist and thumped his shoulder. “Blast you.”
He laughed. Despite her words and that soft punch, she didn’t seem angry. Just irritated. And she was still beneath him, her thighs still cradling his hips, and didn’t seem in a rush to push him off.
“Why?” It wasn’t Ariq’s place to ask that either, but if Zenobia didn’t want to tell him, she wouldn’t. “If everyone thought you were a widow, why didn’t you?”
“With whom?” Her scowl deepened. “How could I know he wouldn’t be an assassin waiting for my brother to visit? Or that he wasn’t after me for the same reasons the pirates are, and just preferred seduction to abduction? After everyone learned of my brother’s fortune, and that his sister was writing the adventures, do you know how many men I’ve received letters from? How many showed up at my doorstep? Who could I trust enough to take to my bed?”
Ariq couldn’t stop his grin. She was trusting him enough to.
Her cheeks scarlet, she thumped his shoulder again. “This is different.”
“How?”
“I want you,” she said baldly. “And I would have even without trust. I intended to visit your bed in Krakentown.”
Before she’d heard his brother’s damnable insult. “Why then?”
“Because you didn’t know who I was. So you couldn’t have wanted me for money.” She turned her face to the side, as if suddenly embarrassed. As if suddenly uncertain again. “So you would have been . . . an adventure.”
Then she would have been gone—leaving his town for the Red City.
Except maybe her plans would have changed. Ariq had intended to court her before the marauders’ threat forced him to leave his town, too. Perhaps if he’d been able to, she might have stayed.
And yet here she was, his wife anyway.
He brushed his thumb across her trembling lips. “This hasn’t been the adventure you expected.”
The Kraken King, Part 5 Page 5