Mercies which started to feel rather finite indeed when he found himself, an hour later, shackled and thrown into a stinking, crowded hold with a slaver's brand burned onto his hand.
"Just be glad you're still alive, boy," an old man with a horribly-scarred back reassured him. "While there's life, there's hope."
"Hope for what?" he'd demanded, empty and aching inside.
"Escape. Liberation. Freedom. A kind master. You're a good-looking boy—might be you get bought by a fine lady looking for a pleasure slave. That wouldn't be a half-bad life, would it?"
"You know what they call me back home?" he'd said, fighting back tears. "Lucky Franky."
"Luck can be good or bad," said another man with a milky eye. "How long you had good luck, son?"
"I turned eighteen yesterday."
"Eighteen years, huh? Well, most people don't even have eighteen days of fair luck. Be grateful you had that, Franky."
"When luck turns, it's a real bitch," said another with a cackle. "Maybe you got eighteen years of shit to look forward to. To balance the scales, as you might say. Maybe your luck flew away to find another pretty boy."
Franky couldn't argue with that assessment. Especially not after hours turned into days, turned into weeks, turned into months.
But streaks of bad luck break at some point, and for Franky, the turn came when his path crossed with the infamous Captain Roberts.
"You're free now, boy," she'd said when his erstwhile master had gone. She was a lot smaller than he'd imagined—funny how the people of wild stories were never as towering and impressive as you'd expect. She wasn't a fire-breathing goblin, nor an inhumanly beautiful witch. She was just a slim woman of average height with messy, white-blonde hair and a long, ugly scar down one arm. Her trousers were too big, held up only by the thick leather belt she'd cinched tightly around her waist, and one of the feathers in her hat was broken. She also had a somewhat snub nose and a perpetually crooked smile—and pale blue eyes that seemed to look straight through him. "You can go wherever you like."
"I... I don't know," he'd said, lightheaded and bewildered.
"Don't know what?"
"Where I am, to start," he'd stuttered. "I don't know how long it's been—I know I was grabbed the day after my eighteenth, but how many years has it been since then?"
"You don't know how old you are?" Harry said, a funny little edge to her voice.
"No."
"What's your name?" the first mate asked. Jo, her name was. She was beautiful, in a remote and grim sort of way, much taller than him and no doubt stronger, too. Despite all of the manual labor forced upon him, he still had the reedy build of a teenager rather than a man. Not enough food, and never in regular intervals.
"Francisco Cardinelli. But—"
"But?"
"My family used to call me Lucky Franky," he said wryly, managing a smile.
*~*~*
"Why'd you join up with Harry?"
His voice was a slow rumble, still slightly drugged from their lovemaking. Maddie rolled over, pushing her tangled hair behind one ear. A leaf caught up in it demanded her attention for a moment and she paused, tongue peeking out of the corner of her mouth, while she extricated it. "I didn't mean to," she said, then giggled at the confusion that flashed across his face. "You get a funny line here when you're bamboozled," she said fondly, reaching over and smoothing her thumb across his forehead.
"Of course I'm bamboozled when you give me a riddle for an answer," he complained.
"I stowed away," she clarified. "Three days out to sea when Harry caught me sneaking out of the galley with an apple in my mouth and three more shoved down my shirt. She looked pretty surprised when she saw me, but she always tells people she suspected I was there all along."
"Why were you stowing away? The reputation Harry has, why didn't you just march up to her and demand to be taken on?"
"I'd never heard of her," Maddie confessed readily. "And that was early days, anyhow, before she'd really built up a reputation. I just picked The Sappho because I liked the look of it. I liked the figurehead and how big it was. I watched it for a couple days and then snuck onboard one night when there was just a skeleton crew on guard and the others were partying ashore."
"How old were you?" Franky pushed himself up onto his elbows. He was looking at her with something very like concern.
"Don't know," she said lightly with a shrug, looking down at the blanket they'd spread over the ground. She picked at a loose thread with her nail. "I don't remember much before Harry and The Sappho, really."
"That's a bit of a lie, isn't it, love?" he asked softly. She glanced up, met his dark eyes, and shook her head quickly.
"No. No, it isn't. No. I don't—we don't talk about it, okay? I just don't. We all got things we don't talk about or think about. Scabs we shouldn't pick. Bet there's lots you don't think about from before Harry. So don't—"
"Alright, Mads, alright," he said quietly, catching her shaking hands. "It's fine. I'll stop. I won't ask about it again." He drew concentric circles over the back of her hand with the pad of his thumb, spreading out and then back in like ripples in water. Her ragged breathing steadied and slowed; she watched the motion of his hand as if it was hypnotizing. It was the same thing the rest of the crew would do for her when she got upset, so Harry must have taken him aside and told him about it.
"I'm broken, aren't I?" she whispered.
"Oh, no, love, no," he said, letting go of her hands to cup her face. "No more than any of us are. We've all got some sharp edges, one way or another, but that doesn't mean we're broken."
"But the rest of you don't go crazy at the drop of a coin," she persisted, tears burning the edges of her dark eyes. "They call me Mad for a reason, Franky. I scare people—I scare myself."
"You don't scare me," he said firmly, wiping away teardrops with his thumbs. He kissed each cheek.
"Only because you haven't seen me in the middle of a fit yet. Just wait."
"It won't stop me from liking you, Maddie. I'm sure it won't."
"I won't be upset if it does. Don't feel like you have to—"
"Keep making love to a pretty girl who makes me laugh? What torture," he said with a grin. "I'm not a slave anymore, so that means I don't do anything I don't want to. I'm here with you because I want to be, Maddie."
She found herself smiling again. "This is fun, isn't it?"
"So much fun," he murmured, kissing her. "Fun like I haven't had in years."
"You're good at this, you know," she said, letting him draw her down against him. "But then you do know that, don't you?"
"I've never heard any complaints," he said modestly.
"Been with a lot of girls?"
"Yes."
"How many?"
"I've never kept count. Why bother? I've known men who keep a tally like it was a competition, but I don't see it that way."
"Oh? How do you see it then?"
"Fun," he said. "An enjoyable thing to do with a like-minded lady. I meet someone, I like them, we laugh, we tell stories, we make love. Simple. Straight-forward. And you?"
"You're the first I've done this more than once with."
"They were that bad, huh?"
"Eh, it was more that we were both just too drunk to manage a second performance."
"Their loss," Franky said. "Something like this is best savored when sober. Here..."
A Song Without Words
"Why do you always pull away from me, Harry?"
"I don't—"
"Yes. You do." He looked at her, unflinching. "You tell me you appreciate how honest we can be to each other. You tell me you trust me, because you know I would never lie to you or lead you astray. Yet in this we are never open. Every time I begin a conversation with this inevitable conclusion, you cut it off or stop talking. I have let you do this for weeks, because in my culture there are things the women control. I always defer, because this is what I was taught to do. But living among humans, I know that is not th
e only way to act."
"Kai, I don't know what you're talking about," Harry said, looking away. She shook her head and stood. "I should go and see—"
"You are attracted to me," he said bluntly, calmly, and she froze. "Physically attracted. I know you are. You cannot hide something like that from me. And I have hardly been hiding my own attraction to you. Yet you refuse to act upon it. Is it because of what I am?"
"No," Harry said sharply, reacting rather than thinking. She crossed her arms over her chest. "No, Kai. It's just been... confusing."
"Because you are human and I am not."
"Well, a little, but... I've never felt like this before," she confessed in a rush. A blush spread up her chest and neck until it burned her cheeks, and she was unspeakably grateful that the rest of the crew was on the far end of the beach. Bad enough that Kai saw her so uncomfortable and embarrassed, red as a schoolgirl and twice as awkward. "It's been so distracting. It's nearly impossible for me to focus on other things when you're around, because I find myself concentrating instead on how close you are and the smell of your skin and how big your hands are... I'm having trouble sleeping, and my skin feels two sizes too small, and I constantly have to fight the urge to stare at you. It's, well, it's enough to drive a woman mad. I'm the captain," she finished just shy of a shout. "I can't be going to pieces over one of my crew!"
"This sounds very serious," Kai said solemnly.
"Yes, it is."
"We will have to do something about it."
"Yes, we will."
"Come swim with me."
She blinked at him, nonplussed. "I'm sorry?"
"Swim with me." He held out a hand. "Please, Harry. Do you trust me?"
"I trust you," she said hesitantly.
"Then oblige me."
Harry stared at him while her heart did its best to thrash its way free of her ribcage. The wild pounding in her ears—was that her own heart, or just the music of the waves crashing into the lagoon? He was looking at her so intently, as if she was the only thing in the world, and the water around his broad chest rippled and flashed in the bright sun like liquid silver. It was hypnotic: the combination of his dark eyes and the glinting light. How could she resist? And he had always asked so little of her. To deny him such a simple request would be cruel.
She stepped to the edge of the rock. Reached for the buckle of her belt with fingers that had started to shiver. Why was she so nervous? She knew he had already seen her naked, before they even knew each other's names, and she had never been shy about her body. It was just a body, after all, basically the same as any other woman's. Unique only in its scars. How many times had she cast aside her clothes for comfort or practicality?
Yet in this moment, she felt dizzy as she kicked aside her trousers and pulled the loose, red shirt up over her head because she recognized the significance of this disrobing: this was the first time she was doing it expressly for someone else, at their request.
The water was shockingly cold on her legs as she slipped off the rocky ledge, and her breath caught in her throat in a painful gasp. She let herself sink until she was fully submerged before bobbing back up, hair plastered to her face and teeth chattering.
"Before I left home," she said, as Kai drifted closer, "Jo's mother warned me to never swim with a mermaid, and that I was to make sure Jo was never tricked by one of their songs. She said even a kindly-disposed mermaid was liable to drown us, because they'd forget humans weren't built the same way and might accidentally kill us in the midst of sporting. All these years, and I've never been tempted to test her warning."
"Until now," he said, close enough for her to touch.
"You're not a mermaid, though," Harry said quietly.
"No, I am not." Close enough for her to feel his breath on her face.
"What are you going to do?"
"What do you want me to do?"
Her mind was a chaotic mess of want—too many to decide on just one. To touch and be touched. To feel his mouth here, and there, and here again. To know what it was like to have his arms wrapped around her, to bury her fingers in his hair, to truly understand the strength of his hands.
She was so used to giving orders. So accustomed to having them followed without question. And she knew she could say anything and he would obey readily, but that somehow didn't appeal to her. Every day, she had so much control over him as a captain with her crewmate. Right now, she didn't want that power. She didn't want to be his superior, because she had never felt less superior than she did now. No, she was unsure and confused and nervous and a dozen other things, and, more than anything, she wanted someone else to make a decision.
"Surprise me," she whispered, and the next breath she took was his as he pressed his mouth to hers.
Prior to this moment, Harry had never understood the appeal of kissing. It looked awkward and a little grotesque, with both parties having to contend with lips, tongues, teeth, and noses. How was a kiss romantic or enjoyable? How did one person not accidentally bite the other, and when did one breathe? And while everything was going on with the mouths what did you do with your hands?
Now? With Kai's right hand at her neck and his left arm around her waist? With his tongue sliding over hers and his chest hot against her breasts? Now, she was starting to understand. She held onto his shoulders and followed his silent instructions, tilting her head just so, dragging her teeth across his bottom lip, catching her breath when she could.
God, it felt good. Perhaps she should have tried this earlier—though something whispered that it wouldn't have been like this with anyone else. Without the frisson in her stomach every time a glance was exchanged, no chance she'd be this lightheaded and giddy. Yes, giddy. The infamous Captain Roberts reduced to a giggling girl by one merman with an infectious smile.
"I have wanted to do that for weeks," he said in a pleased rumble.
"Was it what you expected?"
"I did not expect—I merely hoped."
"Aren't you going to ask if I enjoyed it?"
"No need to. I know."
"I feel you have a rather unfair advantage over me, with the auras and pheromones," she complained.
"I cannot help that my senses are more heightened than yours. Or that I have become so adept at reading your body." His hand trailed downwards, the pads of his fingers caressing her side until she shivered.
"From anyone else that would have sounded creepy," Harry warned.
"I do frighten you a little, don't I?" he asked quietly.
"Yes," she admitted.
"Why?"
"Because you have power over me. Everyone else in my life, I intentionally gave them that right when they earned it. But you? From the first, you had a sway over me. I didn't understand it—I still don't, to be perfectly frank."
"Humans do not have pair bonds? You have never met another person who felt like someone you had always known?"
"Well, Jo," admitted Harry. "But I literally have known her my entire life. I've never questioned it, because it was always there."
"I believe that had you met later in life, it still would have been the same. You and she were born podmates; you have a connection in your souls. I think it is the same for us."
"That sounds suspiciously mystical," she said.
"Perhaps. But you must admit," he kissed her again, very persuasively. "That our bodies are very comfortable together, despite our differences."
Harry absolutely couldn't argue with him. Not when he was touching her like that, not when his lips were doing positively arcane things across her chest. She was starting to lose track of her surroundings, beginning to forget that she was actually floating and not just metaphorically.
Was this a good idea? She was the captain, after all, and fraternization was usually a bad policy. It could go wrong and cause trouble—though it was hard to imagine things going wrong when everything felt so yes at the moment.
And what if this just made the constant sense of distraction worse? Stories claimed tha
t merfolk could bewitch sailors in a multitude of ways; perhaps she was literally becoming addicted to Kai. Maybe there was just something about him that was dangerous to her, something neither of them could control.
"Wait," she gasped. "Wait."
His hands immediately dropped away and she felt her heart flip. He would never touch her without her permission; he was fundamentally unable to ignore her wishes. With him, she would never have to worry about that. "What is it?" he asked, gauging her expression. "I am sorry—"
"No, don't be sorry," she said. "I've just never... It's overwhelming," she finished lamely, staring at his chest rather than meet his eyes.
"Then we shall be slow and careful," he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead. Even that chaste gesture made her skin flush and heart race.
She looked up and grinned her crooked grin. "Not too slow," she countered, pulling him closer again.
As a girl, listening to the stories in Jo's father's pub, Harry had puzzled over the appeal of mermaids in an academic fashion. Growing up as she had, she'd learned plenty about the ways of men and women by the time any of that should have meant something to her. The way she looked at it, without the vital parts required for the act of coupling, the whole affair should be a non-issue. Even if a mermaid had a beautiful face, a lovely smile, and an enchanting song, what sailor would try to make love to her if all she had below the waist was a fishtail? The idea that men routinely drowned—either through their own stupidity or because the mermaids luring them in were wont to drag them under—in the pursuit of such romantic dalliances was incredible to her.
Then, when she'd set out to sea herself, she'd learned that there were all sorts of unusual ways people made love. Sometimes the bits she'd once considered required weren't involved at all. It was surprising and a bit boggling, listening to Zora and Tessa discuss it all one night during an especially bawdy evening in Bogo. When she'd left, she'd had an entirely newfound respect for wenches and the ways they earned their keep.
"Hold onto me," Kai said suddenly in her ear.
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
"Close your eyes and hold your breath."
The Search for Aveline Page 25