Reza lunged again, roaring, but the chains still held him and he twisted about as they pulled taut, keeping him within the cell.
The bear lifted to its hind legs, maw gaping wide as it bellowed back at him.
Just come inside the cell, Reza thought, baring his long fangs and letting out a hiss of challenge. Just come inside the cell and I shall shred you to ribbons of flesh and blood. We’ll see who’s truly alpha aboard this vessel.
The bear gave an answering growl and charged.
Chapter 11
Cressida had never been so arrogant as to flatly deny the existence of God and, by association, any other mystical or supernatural nonsense, but nor had she ever intended to see proof of such things with her own eyes. The sight of Reza transforming — or perhaps unleashing was the better term for it — of the liquid shift of his bronze skin giving way to banded black and orange fur as he dove for Kelly was enough to cause her heart to skip a beat with shock. And then Kelly…
She’d heard of course of all manner of odd creatures, living as she did amongst pirates, who were by nature the most superstitious lot. Mermaids and seal-women, the doom of the albatross’s flight, betentacled Davy Jones and his crab-handed minions, the sirens and their death song. She was too practical to have taken any of it for more than fancy, but now…
Now she questioned all she thought she knew, and all that she might come to know.
But there wasn’t any time for an existential crisis now, because the two men — beasts — were going to kill each other. And just where would that leave her?
With the swift instinct of one accustomed to fighting for her life, she drew the pistol from her belt and aimed it even as the bear went barreling toward the cell. She pulled the trigger and the shot exploded, smoke and sparks leaping into the air, the bear letting out a furious roar of pain as it fell back, rolling against the wall of the brig, back and away from the cell door. Cressida rushed forward and slammed the door shut on the cage, tossing the spent pistol aside, and bent down, lifting Kelly’s abandoned rapier to lance it right through the cell bars and point it between the hissing tiger’s eyes.
Tiger. She was looking at a tiger. She had seen paintings and photographs of such a creature, sepia and crinkled and blurry, drawn in broad strokes or black and white in an old newspaper. She’d read stories of these beasts being brought to the civilized world, kept in gilt cages or grand exhibits. She’d never seen a real one. She’d never found herself gazing into a tiger’s eyes.
It was huge. Far, far bigger than she had imagined. Not quite as tall as a horse but certainly the length of one, its paws as big as her face. And it was beautiful. That striking polarity, black ripping right through orangey-gold, ragged and yet perfectly juxtaposed. Its eyes were predatory and beautiful at the same time, green-gold and black and starving.
She shook herself, rallying her courage.
“That is enough,” she snapped at the giant cat. “Now I’ve shot him for your sake, so you had best back up and — and — change back.”
The tiger growled again, and she held its eyes, willing herself to find Reza the man behind them, and then slowly the tiger lowered its head a little and took a few steps back from the cell bars. Cressida turned towards the bear.
Not so exotic but unfamiliar all the same, the bear heaved a breath as it struggled on the floor. From this vantage it looked like little more than a giant black rock, until it breathed, its gleaming midnight fur moving in the sunlight pouring in through the porthole.
Cressida watched, her heart in her throat, as the bear shrank before her very eyes, the thick black pelt receding, giving way to Kelly’s pale English skin, and the angry gunshot wound she’d inflicted upon his shoulder. It could be seen to, she told herself. She’d not shot to kill. And she was thankful that Kelly was large as a man, as well, and her aim had been true enough.
“Bitch,” Kelly spat. “You shot me.”
“And you’re a bear,” she fired right back.
There were footsteps on the staircase, and Kelly rolled onto his back, nude and bleeding and unaccountably attractive to Cressida in the moment. He clutched at his shoulder, muscled figure clenched, and turned his head to glare at her with furious brown eyes. They were, she realized now, a bear’s eyes.
Cort and Harry came stumbling into the brig.
“Captain, we heard a shot!” Cort announced, and then he saw Kelly and rushed toward him. “Captain!”
“It’s fine,” Kelly grumbled, struggling to sit up. “It was an accident.”
Cort looked at Cressida, and then so did Harry, and she took a step back, struck by the glint in both their eyes. More bears. She glanced at the cell and was startled to see that Reza had transformed again as well while she wasn’t looking, and was sitting once more with his back to the cell wall, chains piled modestly in his naked lap. He looked back at her, expression dark.
“I want an explanation,” she said to Kelly, even as Cort helped him to his feet.
“You shall have it,” he sighed, wincing. “Come on.”
“And Reza?” She indicated the man with Kelly’s rapier.
“He stays as he is for now.”
She wanted to argue but, given the display they’d just put on, thought better of it. Best that at least one of them was restrained, or they might try again to kill each other. As Harry went back up the stairs and Cort followed, Kelly leaning heavily upon him, she turned back to Reza.
“We’ll sort this,” she murmured.
Reza seemed to hesitate. And he said, “I’m sorry. If I frightened you.”
She frowned. She thought she must have been frightened, at least for a second or two, in the midst of it. But fear was a thing she had no use or time for, and so had learned to turn it into motivation instead. She didn’t like that he thought he’d frightened her.
So she said nothing, and turned, following Kelly and his crewmen back up the stairs.
Back in Kelly’s quarters, he gave over all.
He sat in a broad-backed armchair, a blanket covering his lap, as the ship’s mechanic — a nervous little man named Chester — went about cleaning and stitching the gunshot wound just inside his arm, below the eave of his collarbone.
His wide, burly shoulders were slumped. Dark brown hair fell disheveled into his face. Cressida noticed an abundance of old, silvery scars snaking beneath the wealth of dark hair that fanned across his chest, and wondered how she had never noticed them before, in all the times she’d run her hands over his skin.
“When the government began to hunt bears across England,” he was explaining, “we fled. I am the alpha of this den. I lead and protect these men. We do what we do so that we might buy a parcel of land for ourselves somewhere, and live as we used to.”
“You’re all bears,” Cressida clarified, eyes widening. “The whole lot of you?”
“There were more,” Kelly explained, flinching as Chester took the needle to his flesh. “Women and children, too. We had to leave them, scattered about the islands, where they might be safe. We promised to return for them when we’d found sanctuary.”
“And Reza is a tiger.” Cressida huffed. “This is pure madness.”
“This is the truth of my life, Cress,” Kelly murmured. “With the Jewel of So Sur, I could buy us a home. Please help me.”
“He won’t do it—you saw him.”
“He cares for you. That’s what I saw.”
“How did you even hear about him? And this Jewel? And the clipper?” she asked.
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but this purpose. Please.”
Cressida understood well enough not having a home, even if the rest of it was strange and bewildering to her. Bears and tigers and, she wondered, what else haunted the fringes of society? But that line of thought would take her nowhere quickly.
She had never seen Kelly look so defeated as when he spoke of leaving the women and children of his — what had he called i
t? Den. Having to leave half of his den behind. She understood having to leave people and places behind, as well. Surely Reza did too. That was the thing, she thought, that linked them all together. That was the thing that had drawn her to both of these men. A kindred sense of loss, and the pursuit of something more.
She got up from her seat and went to Kelly. He looked at her, surprise on his face as she brushed the blanket aside and sank down in front of him, leaning in to steal a kiss from his lips.
Chester, behind his chair, looked away.
“I’ll try to help you,” she murmured, looking into Kelly’s eyes. The bear was still there, she realized, huddled in their depths, bristling. “So long as our deal remains the same.”
“It does,” Kelly whispered, his voice hoarse. “It does, Cress.”
“I help you,” she reiterated. “Then you help me.”
“Aye.” He nodded a little and lifted a hand, the rough ridges of his knuckles brushing her cheek. “That’s the deal.”
“And Reza’s chains come off,” she added.
He grimaced, and looked away. “Fine. But if he attacks anyone on board this ship…”
“I’ll make the consequences clear,” she assured him.
She straightened to her feet and went to the door, lifting the ring of keys from where Cort had tossed it onto Kelly’s writing desk as they’d come in.
Before she left, he said, “You care for him too.”
There was something brooding in his voice, and Cressida sighed. “That is none of your business.”
Back in the brig, Reza was still sitting just as she’d left him. He was watching the patch of sunlight spilling in from the porthole, and he looked up as she came down the stairs. She felt his eyes on her as she approached the cell, as she unlocked the door. Then she stepped inside and squared her shoulders before she dropped down into a crouch before him. She lifted his hand.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She slid the key into the lock and turned it. With a heavy clank the shackle fell from his wrist. Her eyes met his.
“I’m freeing you,” she told him simply. “So that you can help these men. And me.”
The line of his mouth tightened, his gold-green eyes narrowing angrily. “I said I won’t help them.”
“Please, Reza.” She found herself echoing Kelly only moments before. Please.
“He’ll get us all killed. He’ll get you killed.”
“Then help. Help him, help me. Help yourself.” She lifted his other hand and leaned into him, close and then closer still, until their noses brushed.
His free hand rose, fingertips just barely touching the spill of her hair, and she thought she saw longing in his eyes, behind the tiger’s hunger.
She unlocked the second shackle and, as it fell, Reza lifted both his hands to her face and he kissed her. A heady, impassioned kiss that warmed through the whole of her. But after a moment’s indulgence, she pushed him gently back and looked into his eyes again.
After a long moment, he nodded. “I’ll help you.”
She smiled. “Thank you.”
Though it seemed like they had come to an accord, there was anything but peace in Cressida’s heart. She went mechanically through the motions of finding Reza appropriate clothes and arranging a bunk for him amongst the crew. Kelly seemed to recover from the gunshot wound far too swiftly, already up and roaring orders within an hour of receiving his stitches. And the crew of the Oso Armonia, Cressida thought, all looked different to her now. They looked not simply like men, like sailors, but also like animals, moving through unnatural terrain. Even Reza, his movements catlike now to her eyes, plainly did not belong aboard a ship.
She wondered what she looked like to them.
She wondered if she could maintain this very fragile peace between Kelly and Reza, or if they would murder each other and leave her alone with a ship full of angry, leaderless bears. She wondered what on earth had possessed her to agree to such a long, uncertain journey fraught with perils and complicated by the very conflicting emotions she felt every time she looked at one man, or the other.
Could she be falling in love with them both?
Was it possible to fall in love with a man after having known him only a day? Was it possible to love a man who had harbored such a huge secret from her over years of knowing him? And more to the point, was Cressida the sort of woman who could love a man, any man, at all?
She stood on the forecastle of the Oso Armonia and gazed not towards the darkening sky to the east, in the direction they sailed. Instead she gazed back west, watching the sun bed down along a horizon that shifted, the light pulled back and forth by the waves. There was nothing, she realized, behind them. Nothing for her, nothing for any of them. The adventure lay ahead.
Rules of the Tribe
(Alphas of Black Fortune: Part 2)
By Scarlett Rhone
Copyright 2015 Enamored Ink
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 1
They had been months at sea, and morale on the Oso Armonia was flagging badly. Though Kelly had known that the journey would be longer than any they had attempted before, he realized now that he had not been prepared, and his crew had not been prepared, for such a long time at sea. It was unnatural; even for humans, such a length away from land would have been difficult, but for bears it was worse. They were creatures of the forest and the mud and the fresh water. The ocean was particularly unkind to them, no matter the years they’d spent adjusting to its fickle temperament.
And having the tiger on board did nothing but exacerbate the situation. Kelly had released the man from the brig at Cressida’s urging, and Reza was a good enough sailor, but he was not of the den and he made that very clear. The open displays of aggression and refusal to submit to Kelly’s leadership put the entire crew on edge. He worked with them, ate with them, and slept in the crew bunks with them, but he refused to really count himself with them. Kelly wondered if Cressida could perceive it, or if being human kept her from understanding the delicate balance being maintained all around her.
Kelly didn’t ask. After their first tumble together there had not been another. Once she had learned what they were, she had put them both at arm’s length and kept them there. Kelly wondered if it was driving the tiger as mad as it was driving him. Months at sea without a woman’s touch would have been difficult enough, but to then see her there every day, to catch her scent on the wind as it buffed the sails, to know that she was in front of him but out of reach…
She slept in the crew bunk in a hammock of her own, and that was best. Kelly had very plainly laid claim to her; none of the other den members would harm her or try to claim her for himself. And they would stop Reza if he tried. But Kelly spent too many nights lying awake in his bed, convincing himself not to go down to the crew bunk and haul her out of her hammock, carry her back to his quarters and ravish her properly.
There were consequences to that, however, and not simply the possibility that she’d smack him and storm angrily out. Tension was high enough on the ship as it was; if the crew caught on that there was mating and they weren’t a part of it, even Kelly’s status as alpha might not be able to stop the eruptions of temper. The ship full of rampaging bears (and a tiger) would destroy itself quickly.
And so Kelly did his best not to gaze too long at Cressida as she climbed the rigging to patch the sails. Though just the movement of her legs encased in those leather trousers, the shift of her rounded buttocks and the stretch of her torso as she reached for the higher ropes was enough to drive his mind and body to lust. He forced himself to look away, instead taking in the view of open, endless water and the cerulean line of the horizon ahea
d of them, which seemed to go on and on forever from where he stood on the ship’s forecastle. They had been sailing, it seemed, towards that same glimmering line for months, and never gotten any closer. But Kelly was confident they would find their way. He had to be, for the sake of the den, and all the dreams the Oso Armonia carried.
The weather had been kind to them, at least. In this part of the world so prone to violent storms, the skies had been clear and the breezes had been generous. All of Kelly’s research, including his contacts in the East, spoke of the great cyclones that devoured ships whole. He had not mentioned those to his crew, though he suspected Reza was waiting for them, from the way the man stood at the railing and stared at the horizon sometimes, expression full at once of challenge and dread.
“Cap’n.” Kelly turned to find Cort standing beside him. He squinted in the bright sunlight, looking his carpenter over for a moment. The man looked thinner; he supposed they all looked thinner. Cort’s usually bright green eyes were dull.
“What is it?” Kelly asked.
“We’ve run almost out of salted beef,” Cort muttered. “And there are only five limes left. It’ll be porridge from tomorrow on.”
Kelly nodded and looked away again. “Do you think we should turn back?”
Cort didn’t answer him immediately. Kelly was grateful for it. A moment of deliberation meant that things were not so desperate that the crew would jump on any chance to give up.
“No,” Cort eventually said. “We’ve come too far.”
“I think so too.” Kelly nodded.
“We stand with you, Cap’n,” Cort assured him softly.
Kelly grimaced, but turned it into a wicked smile at the last moment and looked again at Cort. That familiar, determined expression was one he’d relied upon for years to relay confidence, and it didn’t fail him in that moment either. Cort smiled back, nodding, and turned to leave him.
Kelly decided, as he watched Cort descend the steps from the forecastle to the deck, that his only recourse now was to act as though they had reached their destination even if they hadn’t yet. He had to keep things moving forward. His only chance to forestall the death of hope and faith was to simply pretend they had already succeeded. With that in mind, he descended from the forecastle as well and called for Cressida to join him in his quarters below.
Alphas of Black Fortune (Complete Boxed Set) Page 5
