Even after he left the castle, blood continued to pump in his veins with white-hot fury. He had lost the only good thing in his life, but he wasn't prepared to lose it. He had abandoned all sense and restraint. He marched to his airship, went down to his father's cell, and extracted a key from his pocket. As his son unlocked the door, Stephen Doon backed against the wall. There was a storm in Francis' eyes. Unbridled, it would destroy anything in its path.
“Francis.” Stephen cowered against the wall as his son stalked toward him. “Francis, what are you doing? What are you--”
“You!” Francis screamed as he seized the collar of his father's shirt. “You are the one who made me this way! You're the one who ruined me. You're the reason I can't have anything good. You. You. You. You!”
“I assume things didn't go well with your young lady, Kitt?” Though he mocked him, Stephen's voice was tinged with fear.
“You're not even worthy to speak her name!” Doon's fist collided with his father's jaw, sending him spiraling to the ground. “You're not even worthy of the shit in your chamber pot, you fucking filthy bastard!” He kicked his father's stomach, then dragged him back to his feet.
“You would hit your defenseless father?” Stephen chuckled as he spit in his son's direction. “I always knew you were a mongrel.”
“Oh, like you didn't hit me?” Francis seized his father's shirt, shook him, and threw him against the wall. He slammed him several times, letting his father's skull hit the wall every time.
“Stop... stop...” the older Doon whimpered. “Why would you beat a man in chains? It's not even a fair fight. You bloody coward!”
“You treat me like something less than human, so I became less than human. You treated me like a monster, so I became a monster. So don't even try to plead with me!” He plowed a fist into his father's rib cage, then he boxed him in the jaw. “You're the reason I don't deserve her! I could never deserve her!”
“Are you talking about Kitt? It was your own stupid mistakes that drove her away, boy! Don't try to pin that on me!” Stephen tilted his head and chuckled defiantly. “If you're unlovable, you can't blame that on the man who made you.”
“You're right. I am what you made me!” Doon plowed his knee into his father's stomach so hard, he made him gasp for air. “You're the one that turned me into this.”
As he struggled to catch his breath, Stephen sputtered, “Don't be a fool. You were worthless from the moment you came screaming out of your mother's twat, you little shit!” Before Francis could hit him again, Stephen brought his head forward, headbutting his son's nose.
When Francis staggered backward and felt the blood rushing down his face, another wave of rage possessed him. As his father tried to retreat, Francis grabbed his collar, shoved him against the wall, and held a knife to his neck. He pressed the blade into his father's flesh as hard as he could without drawing blood.
“Go ahead,” Stephen taunted him, even as the knife started to pierce him. “Do it, you little prick. Do it. Do it! Kill me. I want you to. Kill me kill me kill me kill me kill me.”
Francis shoved the knife a little harder, lightly sawing into his father's skin. He didn't kill him—yet—but the blood was strangely satisfying. “I should kill you, Father. But I won't.”
“And why not? Why do you bat an eye at patricide when you've already killed so many? This will be the death you remember most, son. Do it.”
“Death's too good for you. You suffer more as a prisoner, wasting away in a cell on the ship I took from you.” Francis pocketed his knife and shoved his father to the ground. “And oh, how I want you to suffer!”
“I know you do! That's why it's so thrilling!” When Stephen swiped his neck and looked down at the blood on his hand, he was grinning. “You're exactly like your father, boy. I always knew you'd turn out exactly like me, one way or another. You always had it in you. It was that girl who finally made you break.”
“Kitt didn't break me. She made me better.”
“How stupidly sentimental,” his father scoffed at the thought. “Now... if you've finally finished beating on your old man, leave me alone. I don't like to see your face. I don't need to be reminded of the scum I brought into the world.”
“And I don't need to be reminded of the pile of shit that made me!” Francis kicked the bars as he slammed the cell door.
“One day, you'll wish you had killed me!” Stephen screamed at his son's fleeing backside. “And the day might come sooner than later, boy! When that day comes, you'll remember what real pain feels like!”
A crooked smile wavered on Stephen's lips as he fantasized about being released. He often dreamt of his son, screaming in agony, begging for the pain to stop—as Francis had begged him so many times before. Francis Doon was a false captain, a pathetic version of the real thing. One day, Stephen was determined to reclaim what was his.
As soon as he got out of his cell, the first thing he would do was cut off the rest of the false captain's fingers.
Eight
“If I'm going to leave you today, can I make a final request?” Lyneah asked as she moved throughout Tobias' flat, collecting her belongings. “Do you think I could get another omelet?”
“Of course!” Tobias was on his feet in a flash. He cracked a few eggs, freshly gathered from the marketplace, and started to whip one up. “Making omelets is my special skill, you know.”
“Is that so?” Lyneah's voice was flat, completely devoid of emotion.
“I like to think so.” Tobias tried to smile at her, but the gesture wasn't returned. “Would you like anything else in your omelet besides cheese? Tomato, perhaps? Sausage? Onion?”
“Just cheese.” When the last of Lyneah's possessions was tossed into her bag, she collapsed into bed with a sigh.
“Okay, now I know you're upset.” Tobias thought he knew the reason for her dark mood, but he wanted to hear it from her lips. “What's wrong?”
“Do I even need to answer that?” Lyneah clicked her tongue with disbelief. “Tobey... you can be so sweetly naive. Obviously, I'm sad because I don't want to leave you.”
Tobias gently folded her omelet. It required a great deal of concentration, so he didn't respond right away. He would accept nothing less than an omelet that was perfectly shaped.
“I thought I'd be able to spend a few more days with you,” Lyneah griped. “But Kieran was too damned efficient. I didn't think he'd find the engineer as quickly as that. But... he did. And now I'm losing your company again. And since you're the only person in the world I actually care about right now, the thought makes me sick to my stomach.”
“W-w-well...” Tobias caught himself stuttering, so he paused a moment. “What if you didn't have to leave me?”
When Lyneah sat up in bed, she looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
Tobias turned her omelet, then he crossed the room and picked up an already-packed bag. With a grin on his lips, he told her, “I'm going with you.”
Lyneah's eyes swelled at the thought. “What?”
“You can't even tell me not to, because I've already quit my job,” Tobias said. “And before you lecture me, let me just say I did give it a great deal of consideration. And every time I considered it, I came to the same conclusion.” Tobias went back to the omelet, which was cooked to perfection, and scooped it onto a plate. “You're far more important to me than that s-stupid job at Lucky's.”
“Oh, Tobias.” Lyneah could barely speak, so she simply sighed his name.
“I know I'm the most useless member of your team, but I'll try to find ways to make myself more useful.”
“You're not useless. Having you with me would mean the world to me!” Lyneah accepted the omelet from Tobias and took a bite. She wasn't disappointed. “But still, I feel a bit... guilty. I wouldn't have wanted you to quit your job for me.”
“It's not a problem,” Tobias claimed. “When I get back to Lundun, I'll find a new job. Simple as that.”
But it wasn't simple. Finding a job
in the slums that didn't involve back-breaking labor was quite a challenge. After decades of hard work on a dock, his father was practically crippled. Tobias always hoped that wouldn't happen to him, but for the moment, he only had Lyneah on his mind.
As for Lyneah, she came close to suggesting that she could give him a job after becoming queen, but she held her tongue. She had come to think of Tobias as an equal, not a peasant, and she didn't want to draw attention to the cavernous gap between her social status and his.
“Well, I'd be honored to have you with me,” she finally said. “Honored... and extremely, extremely happy.”
When they set off for the train station together, Lyneah's heart felt lighter than usual. To say she was happy was an understatement. She held Tobey's hand as they climbed onto the train, and she didn't let go until they reached Kieran's garage, where his hovercraft was stored. The scene inside the garage didn't exactly instill her with confidence. Kieran and Carol were standing side-by-side, next to a smoking hovercraft.
“Wowwwww,” Carol cooed. “I can't believe you actually travel around in this rust bucket. To be honest, bud, that's just an accident waiting to happen!”
Kieran grumbled at her comment. “You're a mechanic, right? Or so you say. Can't you fix it?”
“Look... I'll be honest with you, Kieran, because I think you're a decentish guy who deserves nothing less than brutal honesty.” Carol exaggerated a pained grimace as she stared at the hopeless hovercraft. “This thing is tragic. It isn't even worth the price of the parts you'd need to fix it. You need to let it die.”
Kieran was glowering as he listened to her speech. Clearly, he didn't appreciate her criticism of his precious vehicle. “Well then... how are we going to get to the radio tower if we don't have a craft? It already crossed the desert two times, and recently at that. I think it's capable of more than you think.”
“Um... it's smoking,” Carol pointed out. “There's literally a sizzling noise coming from the engine. It won't even start.”
Lyneah cleared her throat, letting them know she was there. But they were so engrossed in their concerns about the hovercraft, they didn't turn around or acknowledge her presence in any way.
“I mean, I guess I could try to get it running, but I can't make any promises,” Carol continued. When Kieran nodded, Carol dipped into her bag and pulled out a ridiculously long, bulky, oversized wrench.
Without warning, Carol suddenly banged on the hovercraft's engine with her wrench. “Bing bang bong!” she shouted as she clobbered the engine a few times. “Bing bang... bong.” She brought down the wrench so hard, she left a dent in the metal.
“Bing bang bong?” Kieran's eyebrow raised. “Are those your magic words? Because if they work, I'll have to try that.”
“They might be magic. Try to start it and see if that helped.”
Kieran hopped into the hovercraft's front seat and turned the ignition. By some miracle, Carol's barrage of blows was actually effective. Not only did the engine roar to life, but it stopped smoking as well.
“See?” Carol was grinning as she returned the wrench to her bag. “Sometimes you just need to give fussy engines a little whackity smack. It works like a charm every time.”
“Ahem,” Lyneah stepped forward with Tobey and cleared her throat a second time. “Does this mean we're ready to depart?”
“Right. Yes.” As he spoke, Kieran tossed pairs of goggles to his three passengers. He intentionally pitched poorly at Tobias, hoping he'd drop the goggles again, but Tobey snatched them from the air as they sailed over his shoulder. “The radio tower is east of Lundun and north of Dovyr. It should take us a bit less than three hours to get there. We'll be in the desert for a while, so I'd suggest putting on the goggles before we depart.”
Tobias offered Lyneah a hand, helping her into the hovercraft's second seat. When he climbed in behind her, he was proud of himself for his much smoother entry. Once he was seated, it occurred to him that he should have helped Carol into the hovercraft as well—but there wasn't a fourth seat for her.
Carol was scratching her head, thinking the same thing as he was. “Sooo... am I gonna be the one who has to point out that there are three seats and four passengers?” she asked. A moment later, her eyes lit up, as if she'd had an epiphany. “Ah, never mind. I have a solution.” Carol jumped onto the craft, landed on her stomach, and practically rolled into Tobias' lap. “I'll just sit on you... if you don't mind?” Her question was punctuated with a wink.
“Uh... I-I... I don't mind.” If he was stuttering, Tobias assumed he was blushing too. If he shifted to the left, he thought there might be enough space for her to sit beside him, but Carol looked perfectly content on his lap, so he didn't move.
“You are precious, by the way. Seriously. So. Precious.” Carol exaggerated an infatuated sigh as she tousled Tobias' wavy hair. “I kind of like sitting on your lap, Tobey Toe. But seriously, if your leg starts to fall asleep or something, let me know and you can sit on my lap instead.”
Tobias chuckled at the thought. “N-no... I think I'll be fine.”
As Kieran piloted the craft out of the garage, Lyneah realized she was clenching her fists. In fact, she clenched them so hard that she could feel her fingernails digging into her palm. She had been in Carol's company for all of three minutes, and yet she was already getting tired of the other woman's obnoxious flirtation, sharp voice and grating colonial accent. Carol was unlike anything Lyneah expected her to be, so much so that she was starting to doubt the girl's resume.
Lyneah was a bit vexed with Tobias as well—after all, he didn't seem to mind having another woman on his lap. He wasn't Lyneah's boyfriend, of course, so it wasn't as if she could claim him. Nevertheless, she thought they had an understanding. Lyneah expected him to know it would disappoint her.
“You know...” Kieran spoke to her over his shoulder. “If you get lonely back there, Princess, you can always crawl into my lap!”
“Not a chance.” Lyneah's answer flew from her lips.
“Come on!” Kieran tried to persuade her. “It'll be nice and cozy. You can rest your head on my shoulder, stroke my cheek, hold me close...”
“In your dreams.”
“I do dream about it, actually,” Kieran said with a sigh. “All the time. Frequently. It almost became a reality once, but alas...”
When Kieran suddenly made a sharp turn, Carol nearly toppled from the hovercraft. Tobias had to grab her waist and pull her against his chest.
“Aww, you saved me!” Carol cooed. “You're such a sweetie. My hero.”
“W-well... I don't want you to fall out and get hurt, Miss Cassady.”
“Miss Cassady. Awww!” The engineer clapped a hand over her heart and threw back her head. “Everything you say is cute. Heck, you could babble nonsense words and it would probably be the cutest thing ever. I'd probably fall to the ground and start thrashing and flailing because it'd be too much cuteness to handle.”
“Hubba loohoo doo snickle,” Tobias said with a wink. “There. I babbled some nonsense words for you. Please don't flail.”
“Omigosh, yes!” Carol shrilled. “Yeeees. So cute!”
Had she been sitting behind Tobias, Lyneah might have been tempted to punch him. Hearing Carol flirt with him was bad enough, but to hear Tobias reciprocate was even worse.
It was going to be a long and painful ride to the radio tower.
Nine
“Try not to be too hard on the young lad, my lady,” Miles politely suggested. He sat with Kitt at the end of her bed, listening to her sulk about the last few days. Though he pitied her, he knew his captain well enough to pity him too. “Whether you believe it or not, Francis Doon admires you. I'm sure you've already figured this out, but he doesn't admire many people.”
“He admires you.” Kitt indolently shrugged, as if to show how little Doon's admiration meant to her.
“Perhaps, but not in the same way he admires you. He might not express himself very well, but I see the way he acts ar
ound you. It's quite unlike anything I've seen from him before.” Miles stroked his chin as he considered his words. “Perhaps he cares about you a bit too much, and it unsettles him. He doesn't know how to handle his feelings. Our Doon isn't the best at showing and accepting affection, as I'm sure you would agree.”
Kitt sighed as she listened to Miles' analysis. At the moment, she refused to think of Francis Doon as anything but the bully who cast her aside and broke her heart. “Miles... can we talk about something that isn't Doon? Please?” she begged him. “Also, if it can be avoided, I'd rather not discuss the existence of Prince Malik.”
“Of course, my lady, of course.”
Before Miles had a chance to change the subject, there was a knock on the door. When Kitt told the visitor to enter, she prayed it wouldn't be Malik or Doon. Fortunately, it was Aislainn.
“Good day, Your Highness. I'm very sorry to bother you, and I hope this is not too presumptuous, but...” Aislainn's gaze dropped to the floor as she asked her question. “Will you come with me to visit Prince Lysander? It may very well be your last chance to visit your uncle before tomorrow's... execution.” The handmaiden winced as she uttered the horrible word.
“Oh right... yes... of course!” Kitt sprang from bed as soon as Aislainn suggested it. “I would like to see him again. When I think about him getting executed, it devastates me. God, I wish there was something I could do to prevent it!”
“I'm afraid there's nothing that can be done, now that the queen has made up her mind.” As she spoke, Aislainn briefly glanced at Miles, then back to the door. “I only hope it will be as painless as possible.”
After exchanging farewells with Miles, Kitt followed Aislainn through the door. “The worst part is, Lysander hasn't even done anything wrong!” Kitt exclaimed. “His only crime is being related to King Nikolai. He's just another unfortunate casualty in Loreina's quest to keep the throne.”
“I know you're right, Your Highness. Truth be told, there are many of us who are unhappy with the queen's actions, but most of us are too afraid to say it.”
Sky Pirate (Belles & Bullets Book 3) Page 5
