She shook her head. “I’ve been thinking about our hostages. Why didn’t you take Annja up on her offer?”
“What offer?” Maxime said. Now he was the one confused. He trailed his fingers along her thigh.
“I am the captain. I know everything,” Imena said.
“She offered herself to you.”
Maxime shrugged. “You know why I have no interest in Annja.”
“She’s warm and willing. And you might have been able to get a little more information from her if you’d fucked her.”
He hadn’t expected her to put it so coldly. He withdrew his hand from her leg. “Is that what you think of me?”
“Am I wrong?” she asked.
Their eyes met and held.
Maxime looked away first. “If I was sure she had information that we needed to protect ourselves, and there wasn’t any other way of getting it…yes, I would fuck her.” He paused. “But if you told me you didn’t want me to do it, then I wouldn’t.”
Imena blinked. “What if I ordered you to do it?”
“That would be different.” Her steady gaze and her questions were making him uncomfortable. It was clear where all this was leading. He drew up his legs and wrapped his arms around them. “I would do that for you, if you needed me to.”
“Would you enjoy it?”
He wanted to give a flippant response. To anyone else, he would have done. Imena wouldn’t have asked if she hadn’t really wanted to know; and if he wanted to move forward with her, if he wanted to convince her of his feelings for her, he had to be truthful.
If she didn’t like his answers, he might lose her.
He swallowed down his terror at the thought and said, “I enjoy sex under most circumstances. So I suppose I would feel physical enjoyment. It would be stupid to suffer through something I had to do if I could feel pleasure instead. And I find it easy to enjoy sex. That’s the way I’m made. But afterward…no. I wouldn’t like that. I truly dislike dishonest sex. And it would be dishonest. To question her afterward, I would be pretending to feel more for her than was true. I would do it, if you asked, or if I felt it necessary, but I wouldn’t enjoy it.”
Imena was still watching him when he glanced at her. She said, “Why do you think Annja propositioned you?”
Not a word about what he’d just said. Maxime reined in his emotions with a sharp jerk. Perhaps this wasn’t about him and Imena at all, but about Annja. He said, “She wants security. A place in the crew. I am becoming convinced she wants to stay on Seaflower.”
Imena said, “Why not approach Chetri, then?”
“She considers me lower status. A stepping stone, perhaps.”
“And now?”
“Perhaps now she’ll speak to Chetri. He wants her, you know.”
“I suspected that.” Finally, she looked away from his face for a moment, and he could breathe again. The change of subject relieved him. She wasn’t going to stop speaking to him. She wouldn’t have, not entirely, but he realized he’d feared she would treat him differently after hearing how he felt about sex as an interrogation technique.
Maxime unfolded his legs and slid off the log, wincing when sticks crackled sharply beneath his feet. He held up his arms.
She checked to be sure her bag was slung properly, then slid off the tree trunk into his arms. Maxime held on to her for a moment, then another and another, treasuring each breath. Imena leaned into him, resting her forehead against his cheek. She lifted one hand and rubbed his chest, a gesture more soothing than erotic. She said, “Thank you.”
“For?”
“Being honest with me. I value that in you.”
“I’m always honest with you.” He’d been more honest with her than with anyone he’d known in his life.
Imena lightly slapped his chest. “Let’s walk. We’re meant to be gathering fruit.”
As they walked, Maxime stripped off his shirt and tied it around his waist. The tall trees blocked most of the sunlight from above, but the air was still warm, and here, away from the sea breeze, humid. He was glad the Knife had given them both an anti-insect salve to smear onto their skins, as, besides the usual gnats and flies, the occasional large wasp buzzed past.
Flower-laden vines crawled among the decaying leaves beneath their feet, taking advantage of every tiny patch of sunlight in their climb up the trunks of the giant trees. In this part of the forest, most of the flowers were a deep orange red, the color of the silk jacket Imena had worn the first time he’d seen her. She’d carried a sailcloth portfolio beneath her arm, bearing trade agreements from one of the smaller island nations on the fringes of the empire; she’d promised to deliver them to his duchy, along with a cargo of rice and spices. He remembered how Roxanne and Chetri had flanked her, aloof and protective, but he’d barely noticed them, his gaze devoured by the strong bones of her face and her steady confidence. “Maxime!”
Imena shoved a handful of green fruit into his arms. She’d collected it while he daydreamed. Reflexively, he grabbed and promptly regretted the action as sticky juice adhered to his chest. “What is this?”
“Jubo,” she said. “Don’t eat the skins. I need to climb that tree.” She removed her cutlass from her belt, bent and swiftly roped her ankles together.
Maxime looked up, and up, and up. The coconut tree wasn’t as tall as Seaflower’s mainmast, but devoid of rigging or footropes. “Are you going to throw them down on my head?”
“I’ll lower a net,” she said, bracing one hand against the tree and giving it an experimental push. He’d scarcely drawn a breath before she grasped the narrow trunk firmly and leaped, gripping with her roped feet. She hitched her way upward, not as quickly as a monkey, but deftly. The view of her back and rear and long legs was spectacular.
“I’ll just sit down here,” he called.
“Keep your eyes open,” Imena replied. “Snakes and such.”
He looked down at his bare feet. Perhaps if he was lucky, snakes wouldn’t want flesh that had been smeared with insect repellent. He began retrieving the coconuts Imena sent down from the tree, then another tree and two more after that. He unfolded a tattered piece of canvas, cut from a retired sail, and laid it out on the ground, tossing the coconuts onto it along with the jubo. A few coarse stitches and the bundle would be easy to drag back to shore. He and Imena together would be able to lift it when needed.
As she shimmied her way down the last tree, he eyed the second piece of canvas they’d brought. It wouldn’t be needed to carry supplies; they wouldn’t be able to carry any more than they already had. He tugged the bundle of coconuts out of the way and spread the doubled canvas over the clearing. It wasn’t a soft bed, but it would do. It would take a while for ants to find their way onto it to bite his ankles.
Imena’s feet met the ground and she bent to slide the looped rope from her feet. Then she straightened, brushing scraps of bark from her singlet and worn trousers. “I should have known you had other motives for helping me,” she said. She indicated the spread canvas with her chin.
“You’re surprised?” Maxime dusted the soles of his feet against his calves. He untied his shirt from his waist and tossed it down before he settled cross-legged on the canvas pallet. “If you have no interest—”
“Oh, enough of all that,” she said, sitting down next to him. She smiled, and cupped his cheek in the palm of her hand. “I’m not sorry I questioned you earlier.”
“It’s your right,” he said. “You’re the captain of the ship, not me.”
“It isn’t so much that as…” Imena’s hand dropped to his bare shoulder and caressed him idly. “It bothers me.”
Maxime pulled away from her. “What does?”
“That you’re so free with your affections.”
His stomach felt cold and he had to resist pulling away from her. “You mean I’ll fuck anything that moves. Isn’t that what you really mean?”
“Not anything,” she said, but her smile at the attempted joke faded when he didn’t
reply in kind.
He said, “I thought you knew me better than that.”
Imena drew her knife from its sheath and stared down at it as she rolled it back and forth across her palm. “I’m not sure what I think,” she said.
“About me, or about your ideas of me?” he asked. Then he looked away. He hadn’t meant the words to come out so harshly.
“We shouldn’t talk,” she said in a rush. She turned away from him and flung her knife. It stuck in a tree, quivering.
“Yes, we do get on a lot better when we’re just making the tide,” he noted bitterly. He straightened his legs and pulled her down to the pallet with him. Her singlet came off easily enough when she lifted her arms to help him remove it. While she braced above him on bent arms, he wriggled lower, splayed his hands on her smooth, muscled back and settled in to tease her breasts, using his beard as much as his lips and tongue. Her skin tasted of sweat and herbal insect repellent, and he hoped it wasn’t poisonous to humans, because nothing was going to make him stop. After a few moments, she used one hand to plunge her fingers into his hair, holding his head to her.
He lifted his head slightly. “Oh, I’m forgiven, am I?”
“There was nothing to forgive,” she said.
“I feel as though there was,” he said. He rested his forehead against her sternum. “Were you hoping I would say no? That I never would have fucked Annja for any reason, because I only want you?”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she said, bending her head closer to his. “If it got us information we needed…” She blew out her breath. “Yes. All right, yes. It’s entirely an emotional reaction, but I wanted you to say no.”
“I know you did,” he said. “But I wouldn’t lie. Not to you.” He tugged her closer and pressed the flat of his tongue to her nipple. Her breath came faster and she shifted slightly, releasing his head. He turned his face to rub the side of her breast with his cheek. Despite all the noise of the forest, the buzzing and burring of insects, the cries and calls of birds, he could clearly hear the soft rasp of his beard against her skin, and felt the sound down to his own skin. “Can’t you tell what I think? How I feel? Our bodies don’t lie,” he said. “Not nearly as much as our mouths can do.” He kissed her breast, this time drawing her nipple full between his lips. “My mouth wants you,” he said. “You’re like food to me.”
Imena said, “Like meat? Or vegetables? Or rice?”
“The food I must have, and that I need the most,” he said. “What is that food to you?”
She arched her back, brushing his face with the tips of her breasts. “Why must you always talk so much?”
“Don’t you want to know who’s with you?” he asked.
He dug his fingers into her muscular shoulders, pressing in with the tips of his nails. She made a gratifying noise but then wrenched herself free.
“Imena—”
She was already on her feet, reaching for the cutlass at her side, the cutlass that she had set aside to lie down with him. Maxime sat up slowly. He, too, now saw the five men standing at the edge of the clearing, and the brutal short spears they held steady and level.
She should have attacked instantly. Chance might have made her lucky, except she’d feared Maxime, dazed by arousal, would not react quickly enough, and be speared in the melee. Now it was too late and she would have to wait for another opportunity to attempt flight. At least their captors had let them put their clothing back on.
They were forced to walk at spearpoint through the forest toward an unknown destination. Imena glanced at Maxime, then indicated the man in front of them with the barest inclination of her chin. Another wary glance told her Maxime was now watching the man, too, and his slightly unsteady gait; he walked as if his feet were numb, or not attached to the ends of his legs. He smiled widely and incessantly, which she found disturbing. He still carried a spear, though; all five of the islanders did, in menacing contrast to the crowns and streamers of pink-and-orange flowers they wore tangled in their long hair. She wished she could see the other four men, who walked behind them and to the side, occasionally prodding her and Maxime with the butts of the spears.
Sunlight filtered down through the trees where the heat was trapped. She felt it more powerfully with her clothing on. Sweat had begun to trickle down her back, mingling with tiny fragments of bark from her tree-climbing and the sticky residue from the Knife’s insect-repelling balm. She was going mad with the urge to scratch. Finally, she gave in. Aside from a brief poke from a spear butt, their captors allowed the movement.
Maxime eased over, his hand lifted to scratch for her, but a spear promptly shoved them apart.
She waited a few minutes, then asked, in patois, “Where are we going?”
One of the men behind her spoke. His tone was slow, measured. “Don’t worry, beautiful lady. We won’t kill you. Unless you do something we don’t want you to do.”
She and Maxime exchanged a glance, ripe with irony. She said, “What don’t you want us to do?”
Another of the men began to sing. It wasn’t any song she’d ever heard, and it didn’t seem to have any words, only vowel sounds. She didn’t think it was a language. The pitch wavered gently up and down long stair steps. Mostly, it was loud. Soon, one of the other men joined in, and the first man, the one who’d spoken, began mumbling to himself. She couldn’t catch any individual words. Some sort of ritual?
She didn’t like not knowing who had taken them captive. She didn’t like not knowing what purpose their captivity would serve. She concentrated on trying to identify their origins.
All but one of the men were medium brown in skin color. The outlier was dark brown. His skin was a shade lighter than her crewman Seretse’s, though his features were similar, especially his broad nose. The others, despite similarity of skin color, had a wide range of facial features. The mixture made her think the men were, or had been, sailors. She guessed some were from the edges of the Horizon Empire, others possibly from the duchies; the darkest man likely came from farther south.
She shifted her weight, so she was walking a little closer to Maxime. In a low voice she hoped the singing would cover, she said, “I don’t smell alcohol, but…”
“They do seem a bit to the wind,” Maxime agreed.
She waited to see if any of their captors would react to their conversation. None of them displayed any reaction; they continued their strange song and mumbling. She murmured, “I don’t like unpredictable people with spears.”
“They haven’t harmed us yet.”
“Unless you count my bleeding ears,” Imena remarked.
Maxime hid his laughter in his fist.
They walked through the afternoon. When the singing finally died out, Imena didn’t risk speaking again, but she and Maxime communicated their feelings with eloquent glances, until it began to grow dark. As the stars began to be visible, Imena smelled a hint of smoke. Soon, she was sure the smoke was from campfires, some of them being used to grill fish on flat rocks. Her stomach growled. Maxime shifted closer and bumped her shoulder with his, suffering a punch from a spear butt without complaint.
The camp was substantial, with at least three hearths and numerous shelters leaning against the trunks of the towering trees. Perhaps fifteen men and women were in easy view, though she couldn’t be sure of that, outside the flickering firelight.
An old man with matted hair came forward and, smiling broadly, gestured for them to sit. Under guard from their original five captors, plus five more who ambled forward, the old man bound Imena and Maxime, both wrists to opposite elbows across their chests, and ankles to knees, and their ankles then bound to each other. He smiled all the while, his hands as swift as birds. Imena’s mood plummeted just as swiftly.
She could recognize the knots’ origins, an effective blending of peninsular and imperial styles. The rope stretched between their ankles was no more than the length of her forearm. They might manage to walk a little, with coordination, if their lower legs weren’t bo
und, and if they, perhaps, had their hands free to help them balance. They weren’t tied as uncomfortably as they could have been. It was still enough to prevent them getting very far.
Maxime spoke up just as half the spearmen wandered away, muttering among themselves. “What’s your name? Are you going to feed us?”
The old man looked puzzled for a moment, then said, “I’m Sheng. Would you like some flowers? You don’t have any.”
“I’d prefer some fish,” Imena said.
After a long pause Sheng said, “Oh. Yes. I suppose I can get you some. It helps the stomach.” He went to one of the campfires.
Maxime said to their remaining guards, “We’re tied very tightly. I don’t think you’ll need to harm us with those spears, do you? We aren’t going anywhere.”
To Imena’s surprise, two of the men considered silently for a time, then ambled away. The last three remained, but one of those leaned on his spear.
Maxime glanced at Imena. He lifted his brows. Imena nodded, to let him know she understood. These men weren’t drunk, but they did seem to be suggestible. Did it have something to do with the pink-and-orange flowers?
She and Maxime were only outnumbered by one man now. She wished she could see where her cutlass and their knives had been taken. Perhaps their situation was better than she’d supposed.
“Some of them speak imperial,” Maxime murmured.
“I noticed,” she said. “The dialect is southeastern, for the most part.”
“Are they any danger to you?”
“To me?”
“Yes, to you,” he said. “You’re the one with the…family,” he said discreetly. “And the former career.”
“My hair has grown over the only tattoos that truly mark me,” she said. “There’s a reason we put them on our scalps, you know.”
“Hard luck if you go bald,” he said, grinning.
Sheng returned then, carrying green leaves stuffed with flaky cooked fish. He knelt before them and Imena barely had time to open her mouth before he shoved fish into it. The meat was slightly burned and tasted of no spice other than smoke. She didn’t care. It was food. She ate all she was offered.
The Duke & the Pirate Queen Page 18