Princess at Sea

by Dawn Cook

  Jeck’s impassivity trickled away into amazement. “You would have voluntarily stayed behind?” he said, his brown eyes wide.

  Uncomfortable in that I didn’t know for sure, I looked at my finished stitching. “She’s my sister. She’s my master’s most important piece. And with the two of them safe, I was the pirates’ only chance at gaining a ransom, so I would have been reasonably safe once they started to think again. Besides, I already know I’ll survive—somehow.” I didn’t need to bring up the prophetic dream. I was sure Jeck’s thoughts were turning the same direction.

  “What about your cheat?” he asked, moving so the sand hid most of his feet. “Would you have left him behind knowing you weren’t going to make it off the island?”

  My fingers worked at the tie of the sewing kit, unable to manage a simple knot without fumbling as the memory returned of Duncan pressing into me and the feelings his kiss had stirred. My attention flicked to Jeck, then away.

  Jeck pulled his knees back to him and started to unroll his trouser legs. “I left him behind. You called me a coward—”

  “No, I didn’t,” I interrupted quickly.

  “No,” he said slowly. “I guess you didn’t.” He took a breath. “Princess, about your cheat . . .”

  “Don’t call me that.” My pulse quickened, and I didn’t know why. He hadn’t said more than three words to me all day, and now he was touching upon things that weren’t his business.

  “But you are,” he prompted. “Technically.”

  “Technically, I’m a guttersnipe,” I shot back, feeling my anger rise.

  “No,” he insisted. “They bought you a name.”

  He sounded almost jealous, and my lips pursed. “Your father gave you his.” There was a difference. It was subtle, and I really didn’t know what it meant.

  Jeck sat up and reached for his shirt, hanging beside me. “Princess, about Duncan.”

  “Oh?” I mocked. “He has a name now?” I didn’t want to talk about Duncan, and anger seemed to be my best defense.

  Just as I’d hoped, Jeck’s face closed. “Never mind,” he muttered, jamming his arms into his sleeves and working the front laces. Shirt half-undone, he rocked to his knees and reached out for me.

  “Hey!” I shouted, pulling back. “What the chu pits are you doing?” Surprised, I rolled to my knees out of his reach. My muscles protested at the quick motion, and my pulse hammered. I’m in my underthings! Does the man have no sense of propriety?

  His dark eyes were empty. “I saw you hurt your shoulder while pulling the mast up. Let me see it. You may have torn something open.”

  My hand rose to hide my shoulder. All the wounds were closed, covered in new skin. It looked a week healed, not three days. I didn’t want him to see it. I didn’t want him to know how close we were to the time where that prophetic dream figured in. “It’s fine,” I said, voice shaking. Knowledge was power, and me knowing how far off that dream was and him not was all I had. And I didn’t trust that empty look he was wearing.

  “Let me see,” he insisted, inching forward on his knees in the shade-cooled sand.

  “No.” I got up, sand shifting beneath me.

  Irritation crossed his bearded face—emotion at last. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, standing as well.

  My breath came fast as I ran my eyes up his much bigger frame and felt my face go white. “Then you won’t have a problem staying away from me. I’m going to check the tide pools for fish.” Turning my back on him, I started to walk away, moving faster than my aching right leg was ready for.

  Hard and fast, my heart pounded as I heard him start after me.

  “Princess . . .”

  “It’s Tess,” I said. A hand hit my left shoulder, and I spun. My hand was swinging for his face, and he caught it.

  “Just let me see,” he demanded, holding my left wrist. Damn it, he’s almost smiling. “I want to know how long until we reach the mainland and find that horse in your dream.”

  “No . . .” I insisted, frightened. He was a master player. I was a student. Why was he making me defend myself?

  My blood abruptly sang as he pressed his lips together and tugged me closer. I staggered as the venom from my bite surged, pulled from my healing tissues by my fear. My vision dimmed, and I sagged to my knees. Jeck followed me down, half-supporting me.

  “Just let me see,” he said grimly, reaching out.

  “Jeck?” I said, my eyes suddenly unable to focus. An unreal feeling of disconnection reverberated through me. I felt like a plucked wire, tension singing through my bones and setting my hands to tingle. “Jeck?” I called again, louder, this time as a plea for help.

  Something was happening. Panic clenched my heart, forcing it to beat faster. A bubble of force glowed in my belly, hot, angry, demanding to be used. Jeck’s hand was gripping my upper arm, his fingers working at the tie of the bandage beneath my underdress.

  “Jeck, let go,” I panted softly, afraid if I raised my voice, the bubble would break. But my fear wiggled under it, forcing it higher, closer to the surface. “Jeck, let go!” I said, louder, and the anger swirled, creeping upward to send red tendrils into my head and squeezing.

  “Jeck!” I shouted, unable to feel his grip any longer but knowing he was still there by the anger building in me. “Jeck! Let—go!”

  The last word was a shout, the sound of it breaking the bubble of anger in me. It rolled through me, gathering up my will and taking it with it. Anger poured from me, burning as it went. I couldn’t control it. It controlled me.

  I watched as if from outside myself when my hands reached for Jeck, grasping his forearms as he held my shoulders. His black eyes widened when my fingers fastened about his muscular arms. “God, help me,” he whispered as if he saw what was coming.

  And then my anger hit him.

  White-hot and ravenous, it spilled from me. The fear, the pain, the frustration I’d been holding in raged from me in a single instant. I heard myself screaming. It was too much, and a gray haze of denial slipped between me and my fury, protecting me. But Jeck got it all.

  Crying out, Jeck jerked himself backwards, falling to the sand.

  “Leave me alone!” I found myself shouting, standing over him. “I will not be pawed over! I am not a thing to be bought or sold. I am not a child or a dog that you know what’s best for! I make my choices, and you will not force them on me! I said no, and I mean no!”

  Shocked, I closed my mouth, my hand rising to cover it as I realized I was screaming. The anger was gone, spent. As hot and furious as it had been, it was gone, leaving me feeling cleansed. The hurt in my shoulder was absent for the first time since I had been bitten, and I stood upright and unpained. Jeck, though, wasn’t moving, sprawled before me on the sand.

  “Jeck?”

  Worried, I looked at my hands. They were red, and the wind across them made them tingle. “Jeck?” I called again. Oh God. I’ve killed him.

  “Jeck!” I dropped to my knees beside him, the jolt from the hard-packed sand reverberating up my spine. I reached to touch him, then snatched my hand back when he moved. My heart hammered, and I felt like I was going to pass out. The feeling of euphoria was gone, and the trauma of the last few days thundered back down on me.

  “Did you catch it?” His voice was thready, a hand over his eyes as he faced the sky.

  Relief shook me, and my fingers trembled. He’s alive. “Catch what?” I said, lurching back when he rolled over to sit up, his head bowed over his bent knees. Sand caked him, and he brushed it from him, not looking at me.

  “Your hands,” he said breathing heavily. “Did you see what you did? Did you feel it?” He coughed, hunching as if his ribs hurt. “Please tell me you did.” He took a shaky breath, dropping his forehead to his bent knees. “I don’t want to do that again.”

  A sick feeling slipped through me, and my gaze flashed to my hands. “What did I do?” I whispered, frightened. I felt numb, disconnected. What had I done?

  J
eck’s brown eyes were pinched when he pulled his head up. “You tried to kill me. This morning, you nearly released a killing pulse when you tried to slap me.” Still hunched, he wedged his legs under himself and lurched to his feet and stared into the vegetation. “You stopped yourself, not even conscious of where you were going. You’re a half-tamed wolf, Tess, ready to bring down foe or friend alike until you learn to control this.”

  I couldn’t seem to get enough air. A wash of cold went through me despite the sun. The waves hitting the beach sounded hollow, echoing in my ears. What had I done?

  “I’ve been trying all day to get you angry enough to do it again,” Jeck said, continuing to brush himself off. “So you could learn to recognize it and gain control of it before you kill someone you care about. But the more closed I got, the more you seemed to like it. I should have known all I needed to do was try to touch you.”

  My mouth was dry, and I couldn’t swallow. “You taught me how to kill a person with my hands. . . .” Slowly the realization forced itself into my consciousness. How dare he!

  He squinted at me, looking beaten and tired. “Yes, I did.”

  My anger started to rise, and my jaw clenched. “You taught me how to kill with my hands.” The glow of anger started anew. I recognized it this time, and I willed it to grow. He nodded, and I whispered, “You dirty . . . filthy . . . dock bastard.”

  Jeck’s head jerked up. Surprise flicked over him. “Now, wait a moment . . .”

  “I am not your apprentice!” I shouted. The warmth trickled upward, fanning my anger to a white-hot heat. It was happening again, but it was as if I was beside myself, watching.

  “Princess . . .”

  He was backing up, now, and I was following, feeling the venom surge as my pulse increased and my anger topped. “I will not owe you anything!” I said. “I didn’t ask for this!” I flung my hands at him in accusation. My pulse pounded, and venom scoured unchecked to make my fingers tingle and my leg sluggish.

  Jeck’s eyes were riveted to my hands, but he wasn’t afraid. “Princess—”

  “Don’t call me that! I didn’t want to know how to kill with my hands! You knew that!”

  “Tess.” His hands were out in placation, moving but not touching me. I took a step forward, and he retreated, going ankle deep into the surf. “Tess!” he exclaimed, a hint of alarm in him. “It was Kavenlow. Kavenlow wanted you to know, not me!”

  I rocked back in disbelief, reading the truth of it in his pained eyes. He stood barefoot in the surf with an old look of pain flitting in his dark eyes. My heart pounded, and I hesitated.

  “You taught yourself,” he said, his low voice soothing, seeming to go right to my core. “It was going to happen one way or the other. Listen to me,” he pleaded when I turned away in confusion. “It was going to happen. You were going to learn this whether you wanted to or not. This way, you only hurt me, not accidentally killed the person you were arguing with.”

  And with that, my anger vanished in an icy wash. My lips parted, and my knees shook as the venom swirled, magic unfocused with nowhere to go. I felt it slowly seep into me, easing from my healing tissues into my veins to make me dizzy and nauseous.

  “Like Duncan,” he said, his eyes wise and knowing as I stood in shock, realizing what he had done in his past; the hurt in his eyes was too real. “Or even Kavenlow,” he whispered, taking a step out of the surf. “Neither of them would have survived that. I could see it happening and prepare for it, protect myself. Anyone else would have died, Tess.”

  My throat closed, and I turned away, clenching my arms about myself. From behind me, I heard him step out of the gentle surf. “Killing a person with nothing more than your will leaves a bad enough scar,” he said from right behind me. “But to kill someone you love by accident?” He took a ragged breath. “In an instant of easily forgotten anger?”

  I clutched my hands about myself and turned to him. The ocean touched my heels—a cool caress that quickly retreated to leave me colder. Jeck stood before me with his trousers wet about his ankles and his white shirt still undone. The wind ruffled his black hair, and he looked far and distant from the upright, refined if somewhat rough, Misdev officer he was. He took in my understanding, obvious by my white face. God help him. He killed someone he loved.

  Pressing his lips together, he dropped his gaze. “This was your master’s choice, not mine. Be angry at him, not me.”

  Back hunched, he walked past me, leaving me frightened and confused. I hastened after him, the sand cold and firm under my feet. “Kavenlow?” I quavered.

  Jeck never slowed. “That’s why I was able to come on this trip,” he said, still walking away. “He didn’t want me here. He had everyone convinced I wasn’t necessary for security. I bought his permission to enter his playing field with the understanding that if your skills grew to this point, that I would teach you how to control it properly.” A rueful chuckle escaped him, and he stopped, hands on his hips, head cocked, and his back to me. “I didn’t think you would reach this point for five to ten years more. He made a good deal, your master. We’re even now.”

  He started to walk again. I followed. “Jeck,” I said, fear heavy in me for what I had become—what we both were. “Who . . . did you kill when you learned how to do this?”

  Wide shoulders tense, he hesitated. “A woman,” he said, not turning. “It was an accident. I might have cared for her. I don’t remember.”

  “Yes, you do,” I whispered, the cool wind lifting a lank strand of my hair.

  At that, he turned, his stance tired and his motions weary. “It’s easier if you don’t.”

  I swallowed, remembering what he had said about my hurting him instead of killing someone I loved in a moment of anger. I knew without asking that he had loved her, but making him admit it would have been cruel. And for that, I pitied him.

  Jeck scanned the horizon behind me, his weary gaze lingering upon what was probably the wreck of my boat. “Soon as the tide shifts, we float the raft out on it.” He met my eyes, frightening me with how empty they were. “Don’t touch me again.”

  Without another word, he went to his raft, his steps slow and his back bowed. I was left standing alone, the wind from the sea tugging at me. Don’t touch me again, I heard in my memory as he tried to brush the salt from his dried coat. Don’t touch me again.

  Fifteen

  The sun had gone down, and the wind coming off the surrounding water was chill. Despite having spent most of the day in the shade, my skin was warm to the touch and had the rosy glow of a mild sunburn. Jeck was fine. Either his darker skin was not bothered by the sun, or perhaps he was protected by his ability to heal, an ability he wouldn’t share with me lest I figure out how to do it. I thought it disgusting that both Kavenlow and Jeck apparently thought it necessary that I should know how to kill with my magic, but neither thought it important to be able to heal with it.

  Jeck’s raft floated, and if the wind had stayed with us, it would have sailed. We had left our island on the outgoing tide and a midnight breeze. But now the wind had died, and the tide had slacked. We drifted in a silver world of moon and soft waves, far from anything and at the mercy of the currents.

  Jeck hadn’t said a word since the square sail had grown limp, the canvas and ropes hanging like dead things. He sat cross-legged near the edge of the raft atop the flat panel of the door, pensively watching the rays ghost beside us, occasionally rising to within inches of breaking the surface, then sinking again. The two casks of water were lashed to the mast beside the small bundle of perishables he had managed to save from the floundering Sandpiper. I eyed our food supply, hungry but not enough to argue with him that we should eat it now before the waves and sun spoiled it. I recognized the night as almost twin to my first venom-induced dream, and I vowed that it would not end with me tied and his prisoner. Warned was armed, and the future wasn’t set.

  I sat in the middle of the raft beside the tapped water barrel, the fingers of my good left hand wedge
d between the wood and the rope for stability. My forehead was pressed against the damp cask, and the fingers of my right hand trailed in the water through a large gap in the planking. The coolness of the water seemed to rise up my arm and soak into me to soothe my sunburned skin. I should have been sleeping, but my concern for Contessa and the memory of that venom dream kept me as awake and jittery as if it were noon.

  “How long, do you think?” I said, then coughed, as I hadn’t spoken since sundown.

  Jeck met my eyes before sending his to the silver-marked horizon. “Longer if we don’t get any wind,” he muttered.

  “How long?” I persisted, clearer this time. My lips were cracked, and salt stung them.

  “I don’t know the coast as well as I do Misdev’s mountains.”

  I did, thanks to my afternoons spent in the solarium copying them. Maybe it hadn’t been such a waste of time after all. “We’re somewhere south of Yellow Tail,” I said. “It might have been faster to have gone farther south to Dry Fort, and get horses there to ride to the capital.” A growing sense of urgency tightened my stomach, and I forced the tension out of me, imagining it going into my fingers, then out into the water. Nearby, a ray kissed the surface. “I have to get to the capital before them. If Kavenlow believes Contessa’s note, he’ll be working with bad information. He might not pay the ransom. They’ll kill them both. I know it.”

  “Kavenlow will manage it.” Jeck bowed his head in what I thought might be embarrassment. The moonlight hid the grime and sweat, making him a shadow of black and white against the slow, flat swells. “It’s going to put him in a hell-fire good position, no matter how it turns out. God help me, I never should have agreed to this.”

  My back stiffened. “I’m worried about my sister, not the fool game,” I said, allowing a hint of anger to color my voice. My attention dropped to his black sash, tightened about his middle again. He wouldn’t tie me up for arguing with him, would he?