Frighten anyone foolish enough to cross her path. The more screams, the better. She counted that as her personal badge of honor.
Yet like their master, they were subdued today.
Sincerity burned in Xuri’s eyes as he approached her slowly. Almost as if he were afraid of how she’d react to him. “I’m glad they found you.”
She gave Xuri a cold smile. “As am I. Would have been most rotten had they not.” She was torn between anger and hurt … but really, it was mostly hurt. A deep, agonizing pain that burned straight through her heart and made her want to put as much distance between them as she could. Right now, she needed time to think about what she’d found out. Time to consider what he’d done and if she could really forgive him for tearing her out of her body and leaving her as this horrific shell of a creature.
Could she forgive him? And if she did, was that worth giving up a chance for a real human body again?
So, she brushed past him to head toward the stairs that led belowdecks.
Nibo stood completely stunned as Valynda left him with a sudden brush-off the likes of which she’d never done before. What the hell was that? Especially after everything he’d done for her!
He could tell Masaka wanted to say something but knew better than to speak in front of the others. After all, he wasn’t one to take insubordination lightly. While he could be laid-back, he did have a temper.
Right now, that temper was climbing.
Nibo passed a look to his companion that dared her to break her common sense and speak one single word. The mood he was in, he might hand Masaka’s tongue to her if she dared. This wasn’t the reception he’d expected. Valynda was supposed to be grateful to him for her rescue. Throw herself into his arms and kiss him blind. Declare her undying love. Maybe not to the extent of Marcelina and her public mauling of Devyl Bane on his left, but still. A happy medium between an all-out orgy on the deck of the ship and the cold brush-off he’d just been given would be nice.
Unable to stand it, he headed after her.
But he didn’t get far. As soon as his feet hit the lower deck, he found the tiny little sorceress Belle Morte planted squarely in front of him. The look in her amber eyes said that she wanted to give him a resounding lecture, though why, he couldn’t even begin to imagine.
Her dark skin was a stark contrast to the white shirt and exposed corset she wore over a bright red skirt. She tsked as she shook her head at him. “What have you done?”
That tone irritated him and called for a sarcastic response. “Came below.”
She rolled her eyes. “There’s a secret you be harboring. Be wary what you keep. For nothing is secret that shall not be made manifest. Neither anything hid that shall not be known and come abroad.”
Nibo stiffened at her audacity. Those words sent a chill down his spine. Secrets were what he kept best and appreciated most. At least when they were his and not someone else’s. He had more than he could begin to catalogue, and personally he liked it that way, as it kept others on their toes. “She wouldn’t understand.”
“People don’t understand lies. The truth is usually easier to swallow and causes a lot less choking.”
That was what she thought. In his experience, it wasn’t always so. The truth had once gotten him killed.
So, he sought to divert the sorceress from this discussion to a new one that was much more palatable. And a lot less dangerous. “I owe you for helping to bring Valynda back into this world. But never mistake that gratitude for leniency.”
Belle frowned at him. “Meaning?”
“I don’t like to be questioned, Mistress Morte. Not by anyone, and especially not by Deadmen walking.” He stepped around her and headed after Valynda.
Then wished he hadn’t. The minute he entered the bunk room and she saw him, she cursed him and his parentage.
“Love you, too,” he said simply.
She cast him an annoyed grimace as she straightened the blanket on her rough wooden bunk. “Is there a purpose to your harassment?”
He hadn’t meant to harass her. “I was hoping for a bit of a warmer reception.”
“And I was hoping not to die. Really hoping not to live as a scarecrow. So, I guess we’re all disappointed, eh?”
Nibo bit his tongue as he realized the mood she was in and the fact that he’d walked right into the midst of a hurricane. Naked and unprepared for it. There was no way to reason with her when she was like this. He knew that from his years of dealing with her and still, like a fool, he found himself trying anyway, because he was an idiot and he didn’t like to see her upset. “I came for you as soon as I could.”
“You didn’t come for me at all, now, did you?”
Technically, she was right. But … “I came as close as I could.”
She paused in her frenetic cleaning to right herself and glare at him. “Really?”
He’d never realized before how much that one word could be weaponized. “Vala—”
“Don’t you even try to charm me right now, Xuri. I’ve no mood for it.”
He ground his teeth in frustration. This was not how he’d seen their reunion going in his mind.
At all. Rather, he’d envisioned a lot more kissing and sweet-talking.
In the past, there would have been a lot more nudity.
“What do you want from me?”
Pain flickered behind her reddish eyes, and that singed his soul. Never had he wanted her harmed in any way. She’d been so innocent when they met. So full of fire and joy. In all his life, she had been the one pure thing he’d wanted. The only real thing to make him happy.
And happy was all he’d ever wanted to make her.
So, whenever she looked at him like he was her nightmare, it cut him to the marrow.
“Nothing, Xuri. I want nothing from you.”
Her lips might be saying that, but the rest of her …
She was angry and he’d done something that had seriously pissed her off. He knew that tone, and she definitely wanted him to do something to appease her mood. Some sacrifice to the angry goddess before him. Too bad she wasn’t telling him what it was that she wanted him to do to make it up to her.
Damn it.
I am in so much trouble. Too bad he didn’t know why. Or how to undo it.
Wanting to please her, he held his hand out and manifested a single red rose. “I’m here for you, Vala. If you need me.”
For once, she didn’t take it. “But you’re not … and you weren’t.” She shifted her gaze from the rose to him. “Were you?”
With that last hurtful question she brushed past him to leave.
Xuri had never felt worse, which, given his past, said a lot.
“She thinks you’ve lied to her.”
He turned sharply at the unexpected voice in the doorway. It took him a second to remember the name of the Dark-Huntress Janice Smith. Her lyrical accent was smooth, like her dark skin and beauty. She had the kind of lush curves and sweet scent that had once driven him to madness and lured him into all kinds of trouble.
Before Vala.
Now …
He only craved one lady and she was currently furious with him. “What do you know of it?”
Dressed in dark breeches like a man, along with a long overcoat, she came into the room, careful to avoid the sunlight that was deadly to her kind, and sat down on a bunk to his left. She glanced to the porthole someone had left open. “Would you oblige?”
He used his telekinesis to close it and seal the room in total darkness so that the rays would threaten her no more. Though to be honest, he’d always thought that particular restriction from Artemis for her warriors was a bit shortsighted. While Nibo understood why Apollo had banned the Apollite race the god had created from sunlight after they’d attacked Apollo’s mistress and slaughtered her and his son, and then cursed them to prey on each other for blood sustenance, he’d never quite understood why the goddess Artemis had done the same for the hunters she’d created to police them. After all,
he’d have gone insane too, over such a betrayal by his people. But Artemis’s insanity made no sense given that the Dark-Hunters were supposed to keep the Apollites from eating humans.
But then Artemis seldom made sense.
“Thank you.” Janice watched him with a strange curiosity.
He inclined his head to Janice. “Why does Vala think I’ve lied to her?”
“You have, haven’t you?”
That was beside the point. “Everyone lies.”
Janice shook her head. “Nay, Nibo. They don’t. Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out. In all things, show yourself to be an example of good deeds, with a purity in doctrine, dignified, sound in speech which is beyond reproach so that your opponent will be put to shame, having nothing bad to say about you.”
He rolled his eyes at her quote that had almost made bile rise up inside him.
Still, she gave him no quarter. “You have a problem with that?”
“Aye. You seriously misjudge the wickedness of a corrupted tongue out to court mischief. Those who seek to sow strife for the sake of misery and entertainment need no more reason than that to do so.”
“And by that tongue they are always undone and found out. For nothing is hidden, except to be revealed. Nor has anything been secret, but that it would come to light.”
She was as naïve as Vala had once been. “You’ve no idea of the depths some will go to to keep their secrets buried.”
Janice snorted at him. “I’m a Dark-Hunter, Nibo. Born of vengeance and violence. Made such because I was so betrayed by the one I trusted most in this world that upon the hour of my death, my soul screamed out so loudly for retribution that it summoned forth a goddess I didn’t know existed to offer me a bargain to strike back at the one who had wronged me. Do you really think I know nothing of the lengths people will go to, to keep their bad acts buried? But what they underestimate is the determination of those who have been so greatly betrayed to repay that debt in full and in kind. For Nemesis wields a mighty sword, and she is fueled by a fury so great that it can and will defy the grave itself to ensure justice is done, and that those who have done wrong against them will pay for their sins in this world and in the next. May the gods have mercy upon them, for those of us who are wronged will not.”
Her heartfelt words sent a chill down his spine. Not just because they resonated within her and he knew she meant them. But because he knew of his part in what had happened with Valynda.
That had been an accident.
Did it matter?
He’d known better than to care for anyone. That was his punishment. He knew of the curse. Had he simply dallied with her and moved on, she’d have never been harmed.
They had killed her because he made the mistake of caring. Because he’d been unable to walk away.
Forever damned.
He might as well be one of Apollo’s Apollites who was cursed from birth over something he’d had no part in. For he was caught in a vicious cycle he didn’t know how to break, and like a spoiled toddler he lashed out at everyone around him. Even Masaka and Oussou because they were part of it.
No one was immune. If he felt anything for them, they would pay for it. There was no hope for him and he knew that, too.
“Janice?”
Nibo moved aside as Belle leaned in through the door to have a word with the Dark-Huntress.
“Captain wants to speak to everyone. We’re meeting in the galley.”
Janice got up to follow after her. That was probably his cue to leave as well. If he had any common sense, he’d have gone the moment Vala brushed him off.
Damn his lack of self-preservation. It’d been getting him into trouble since the dawn of time.
And today that lack of sense found him following after the women to the crew meeting where, for once, he didn’t really stand out with the motley bunch of miscreants who called the Sea Witch II home. How strangely comforting.
And disconcerting. He was used to being one of the strangest people in the room, but given Rosie with his dark blond dreads and mismatched island wear mixed with a brocade coat, and Cookie, their oversized cook who barely fit into the room, Nibo definitely didn’t stand out here.
Silently, Masaka came up behind him like a shadow to rest at his back.
She dropped her chin on his shoulder and placed a possessive hand on his hip while Oussou stood on his left. There were many who mistook her actions for those of a lover. But they were closer than that. More akin to siblings—they even fought as such. And while Masaka was viciously beautiful, she had never attracted him sexually. Mostly because he knew the darkness of her past equaled his own and feared falling into that bottomless abyss that would suck him in and leave him even more soulless than he already was. The last thing either of them needed was to feed each other’s hatred of this world and those who dwelled in it.
Rather, he chose those like Vala who made him want to see beauty. She was his glimmer of light when the darkness began to close in and he couldn’t see a way out again. She kept him grounded so that he could find his way through the hate and bitterness to something better.
If Vala closed him out and left him adrift …
Pain savaged his heart. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing her love. Of being cast back into the place where he’d lived before he’d found her.
He was an animal and she was the only one who tamed him.
If he had any doubt about that, all he had to do was look about at the others and see the fear in their eyes as they glanced at him. This fearless crew who had faced down the worst of evils.
A crew made up of insidious Deadmen.
They were terrified of him.
Except for Devyl Bane. The World-King who had once led an army for the Lord of All Evil himself. Bane feared absolutely nothing and no one. He met Nibo’s gaze as an equal. Because he was as evil as Kadar had been on the moment the bastard had been spawned.
“So what pissed down your leg, Bane?”
Devyl let out an irritated sigh at Nibo’s question. “Why are you still here?”
Nibo shrugged. “Morbid curiosity.”
“Well now, you know what they say about curiosity.”
“It’s the ruin of good men, but I see no such here.”
Masaka bit his shoulder to warn him to silence.
Bane’s nostrils flared as if he were the one she’d just taken a chunk out of.
That was Nibo’s one flaw—well, maybe not one. He did have many. Still, it’d been ever his nature to rankle. He couldn’t seem to help himself.
Today was no exception.
“As I was saying …” Bane cleared his throat. “Vine has taken refuge with the Malachai’s army … at Death’s Door.”
A whisper of protest went through the group at the mention of the infamous gate that had been holding back some of the worst evils of the world, including Bane’s first wife.
Vine.
Rotten to the center of her being, she had murdered him, and in retaliation, Bane had reached out from the grave to capture her and imprison her so that she couldn’t harm any more innocents.
But when the Malachai had escaped, the gate had fractured, and Vine, along with countless others, had escaped, and they were now preying on mankind.
“You’ve got to be japing,” Bart groaned. “For the love of all that’s unholy, tell me you’re joking, Captain.”
The grim look in his eyes said he wasn’t.
Will sighed. “Is it too late to tell Thorn I quit? I say we summon his buddy Michael, jump overboard, and let our damnations take us. Be quicker, less painful, I’m thinking.”
Nibo snorted at the mention of the archangel who was a friendly enemy to Thorn and the Deadman crew.
Sancha Dolorosa scoffed at the men. “Ah, you big bunch of crybabies! What is it with you? We’ve faced down greater things than this. Besides, we got a mermaid!” She pointed to Kalder.
“Myrcian,” he corrected.
“Ah, don’t get your gills in a wad.” Sancha jerked her chin toward one of the older members of the crew. “And we got Sallie and his soul in a bottle. I say we head for it. Let’s show ’em what we’re made of.”
Devyl nodded. “But first we need to take on supplies and leave behind—”
“Nay!” Mara cut him off, knowing exactly what he was planning. “There will be no leaving behind of your crew, Captain. Especially if that means me or Cameron.”
“Aye to that.” Cameron turned a vicious glare toward Kalder and then to her brother, Paden, who turned sullen at her defiance. The former blond captain had never been able to corral his sister, hence how she’d become a member of this wayward crew.
Nibo chuckled until he caught the glare from Valynda, who had joined them. He started toward her, but Masaka tightened her hand on his waist.
Leave her alone.
He winced at Masaka’s voice in his head. Normally, he’d balk at her orders and disregard them. But something inside told him to pay heed.
So he stood down, even though it was the last thing he wanted.
Much like Bane. The reluctance glowed deep in his eyes before he nodded. “Fine, then. We’ll take on supplies before we see this met.”
“And perish abysmally. Again.” Will sighed heavily. “Poor Will Death. We knew him well. He died in anonymity and none knew of his sacrifice.”
“Will you shut it, Will?” Bart elbowed him in the stomach.
“Easy for you to say. No one ever loved you.”
Bart scoffed. “None ever loved you, either. Not even your mum.”
Will opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. “You’re right. I’d deny it, but for the truth.”
“As I was saying,” Bane said loudly over them. “We have a few days, and we know not what we’re headed into. Make peace and rest. Most of all, prepare.”
At Death’s Door Page 6
