Heart of Steel

by Meljean Brook

  She wanted him to, Archimedes realized. Even though this meant she could avenge her crew, she didn’t want it to be Bigor. Respect for him, perhaps—it was easy to respect such quiet strength.

  “I did,” he said.

  If Yasmeen was disappointed, she didn’t show it. Instead, she hardened. “Ordered by al-Amazigh?”

  “Hired.”

  “Is that different than ordered?”

  A nod. “Only my superiors give me orders. A man who simply possesses money is not my superior.”

  “And there’s no loyalty to him, which is why you’re telling me this now.”

  Another nod.

  Yasmeen advanced on him, crouched a few feet away. “I’ll trade you a story, Mr. Bigor. You tell me why al-Amazigh wants Hassan dead, and I’ll write a letter to your wife and children that doesn’t mention the slaughter of an entire ship, murders that weren’t in service to your king.”

  “But they were, Captain Fox.” The big marine stood.

  Archimedes drew his gun. Yasmeen might not use hers as a warning, but by God, he would. “One step toward her and I pull the trigger.”

  The man didn’t move, his eyes locked on Yasmeen’s face. “They will receive a letter, Captain, but not from you. One that tells them how I was instrumental in assisting the French take their first step back into the Old World. That is an honor that needs no lie—and it is with that honor, I die.”

  Without warning, Bigor threw himself backward. What the hell? Archimedes rushed forward as the marine flipped over the rail. He didn’t make a sound as he dropped into the harbor below. A splash swallowed him up.

  Archimedes looked back in disbelief. Yasmeen hadn’t moved, her face thoughtful as she looked out over the side of the ship. Her fingers reached for her sash—for her cigarillo case, he knew—and only when they encountered nothing did she shake her head, focus on him.

  “It always seems a shame not to let a proud man go his own way,” she said.

  “You knew he’d do that?”

  “I thought he might. And I am so tired of shooting people.”

  “Perhaps you should have.” Archimedes looked over again. “You know what will happen now? He’ll return when we least expect it and take his revenge.”

  She snorted. “That only happens in Archimedes Fox serials. His hands are tied.”

  “I returned from Venice,” he said.

  “So you did.” Yasmeen pursed her lips, approached the side, and looked over. “If he bobs up again, feel free to fire. But don’t wait too long for him to appear—you’ll miss dinner.”

  Yasmeen would have been happy to miss the meal itself, but she’d always enjoyed sharing dinner with her passengers—and eating with Hassan and Archimedes for company was just as pleasurable. If she’d planned to stay on as Ceres’ captain, she’d have eventually traded the stiff chairs for pillows around a low table, but this would do for the two or three weeks she intended to remain aboard.

  The low thrum of the engines could be heard and felt from all the way aft, the conversation was entertaining, and for a short time, it was almost as if Yasmeen was exactly where she belonged again. In an odd way, Guillouet had put her back in her place.

  But this lady wasn’t hers, and so it wasn’t quite where she belonged—and the only perfect thing was that Archimedes was sharing the table with her.

  Tonight, they’d share the bed.

  She could not stop imagining it. Not when he sat so close, so quick with a grin or a clever reply. Not when he swallowed his wine, and she couldn’t take her eyes from the strong column of his throat, remembering how he smelled, how he tasted. The way he held his fork, the thickness of his hair, his rough jaw—every detail recalling what it was to touch him, to be touched, to be loved.

  “You’ve grown quiet, Captain,” Hassan said.

  Lusting after my husband. Something that Yasmeen had never imagined herself doing, and yet she enjoyed every delicious second of it.

  But of course she lied, and mentioned another matter that wouldn’t have made for pleasant conversation during dinner but was acceptable over wine. “I am thinking of what Bigor said just before he jumped over. Did al-Amazigh have other French contacts aside from the marsouins?”

  “Yes.” Hassan sipped his—unpoisoned—tea. “For some time, he considered bringing in allies to help overthrow Temür, and to ease the transition from a Horde territory to an independent state. But I argued against it. I could too easily see that we might simply trade one occupying force for another, especially as the French had asked for portions of the city to be given over, so that their citizens could also settle here.”

  “One foot back in the Old World,” Archimedes said. “After losing so much territory in the Liberé war, they’ve been feeling the pinch.”

  “Yes. Eventually, Kareem abandoned the idea, agreeing that the change needs to come from our own people.”

  “What of the two French officers I saw him with in Port Fallow?” Archimedes asked.

  “We still must find friends in the New World,” Hassan said. “To make certain that our trade routes are secure, that tariffs are reasonable, that our people will be able to travel without incident. We have met with a great number of men wearing many different uniforms.”

  “But al-Amazigh wanted to kill you,” Yasmeen said. “Perhaps he had returned to his original intention, and didn’t want your opposition.”

  Hassan nodded thoughtfully. “Perhaps. But if he brings the French to Rabat’s doorstep believing that it will accomplish anything, he has sorely underestimated Temür Agha.”

  “They could begin a siege, cut off trade to the city.” If Yasmeen were to attack it, she would begin that way. Rabat was isolated; an ocean on one side, a desert and zombies on the other. They depended on goods brought in by the Horde and other sources. “They could try to starve Temür out—or wait until the starving people ousted him themselves.”

  “A siege with what? Sailing ships on the water, dreadnoughts in the air?” Hassan looked amused. “Wolfram did not destroy all of Temür’s war machines. He has hidden them in the desert so they will not loom over the city, but they are accessed easily enough.”

  “Oh.” She glanced at Archimedes—who was staring at her mouth. “I suppose Rabat has nothing to worry about, then. Right, Wolfram?”

  It took him a moment. His gaze lifted from her lips to her eyes, then like a man dying of thirst, he threw back the rest of his wine.

  “I suppose not,” he said.

  Guillouet had kept his papers in good order, so that her evening’s entries into the records were not the chore she’d been expecting. On the opposite side of the desk, Archimedes was making his own records: a rudimentary map of Brindisi, an inventory of the items they’d gathered, the locations of the items they’d left behind. It had killed him to leave the clockwork man, she knew—but he’d agreed it was best not to bring something of that value aboard a ship with a new captain, on an expedition where mutiny had threatened and blood had been shed.

  Even if they had been the ones to shed it.

  “You are the perfect match for me,” she said.

  He stilled, then slowly lifted his head. His gaze caressed her face, emerald eyes dark and intense.

  She leaned back in her chair. “But I think, for you, that is probably not enough.”

  “It is.” His voice was rough.

  “No. Not for Archimedes Fox, who throws himself into every danger, every excitement. ‘A good match’ would not be enough. It would be like drinking saltwater after wine. It is like lining up two people in bed like figures in a ledger. It adds up, but gold in hand is so much better.”

  He tossed down his pen. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m wondering what you thought when I kissed you today. About to be killed by zombies, perhaps you thought it for pity—or to give you reason to hold on.”

  Wood shrieked as he came up out of his chair, braced his hands on the desk. His gaze bored into hers. “No.”

  �
�I could not blame you. Because what followed then? Crew and dinner and ledgers. Hardly the passionate responses of a woman who declared the softening of her heart with a kiss just that morning.”

  His jaw clenched. “Why are you saying this?”

  “Because I am about to kiss you as I want to. As I would have, if zombies had not been at your back, and a new responsibility laid on mine the moment we stepped aboard.” She rose slowly. Lifting her knee to the desk, she stalked him across its surface, put her lips almost to his. “Because I cannot believe I almost lost you today, because it still hurts, and I only have to close my eyes to see that door shattering again.”

  “Then don’t close your eyes,” he said softly.

  “How can I not? Without that pain, how could I have ever known?” She breathed in his breath, loved the taste, the warmth, him. “So I tell you all of this because you are a man of deep emotion, Archimedes Fox, and I want you to know: We are a perfect match.”

  For a long moment, his breath stilled. “So you are warning me.”

  Her lips curled. “Yes.”

  “And God help us both.”

  “There’s no help for this,” she said.

  Rising up, she threaded her fingers through his hair. Silky and thick, unlike the rough scrape of his jaw beneath her lips. She tasted his skin, drank in his intoxicating scent, filled just by that, still empty and needing more.

  And as her mouth opened over his, this was more than wanting, needing. It was longing, the slow, perfect pain of being so close but not yet having.

  She had not had many things, had not wanted others, but here was both, having and wanting, built into a man who simply let her be who she was. Even Yasmeen had never allowed herself that, not completely. She’d never let herself be a woman who poured her heart into a kiss. She’d never let herself fall into the sensation of a man’s mouth against hers, the stroke of his tongue, the tease of his lips, until she was hardly aware of anything else. She’d never let herself trust a man so much that when he lifted her with incredible ease, she did not even break from his kiss long enough to see where he was taking her.

  Archimedes let her be, and she loved him for it—and she told him with her kiss.

  He replied with his own need, his groans that said he loved her mouth on his jaw, her tongue tracing the straining tendons of his throat, the trail of openmouthed kisses down his chest. His stillness, his rigid abdomen betrayed his anticipation. Then his hands in her hair, his hoarse chanting of her name as his body shuddered beneath her tongue told her that she could do this forever, and never tire of his heady taste, his complete abandon to her mouth.

  And he was magnificent as he rose over her, eyes so brilliantly green, his fingers strong, his body lean. Her thighs opened at a touch, her longing deep, having him, but not all of him yet, until he came into her slowly, so slowly. Her body arched as she fought to take him all, her nails digging into his shoulders, lips parting on a soundless scream.

  His muscles bunched beneath her hands. He drove deep, and she’d never been this before, either, a woman crying out her lover’s name, desperate to have him inside her again and again. She’d never brought his head down to hers, their kiss a frantic echo of each thrust, with everything wet—mouth and sweat and the slick push and pull.

  She couldn’t let him go. Her fingers and her body gripped him tight as she felt the end approach. Then she was gasping, shaking, trying to get away from each overwhelming thrust, opening wider to take more. He gave it, as hard as she wanted, needed, longed for.

  Never this much before. Never this much.

  She shattered beneath him, and he broke with her, shaking, shuddering. Through ragged breaths, she kissed him again, deep and slow, and let everything slip away.

  No zombies. No airship. No treasure or ledgers.

  But still her perfect match.

  She’d warned him. Archimedes stared up at the ceiling, faintly visible in the predawn light through the porthole, and tried to think of anything, anything, that had been more exciting, more dangerous, more incredible than Yasmeen unleashing herself upon him. There was nothing. She’d probably ruined him for treasure hunts. Zombies wouldn’t even raise his pulse. Hell, meeting Leonardo da Vinci in Heaven surrounded by nude singing virgins and endless hits of opium couldn’t compare to the bliss of one kiss.

  He was never going to leave the bed again.

  Others on the airship had already left theirs. He heard the footsteps of the deck crew on watch above, the clatter of pots in the galley below. The engines rumbled, carrying him toward Rabat, the tower, and . . . nothing.

  At his side, Yasmeen stirred. Eyes still heavy with sleep, her sleek body arched in a long stretch. Her knees cracked. She tensed, drew a sharp breath.

  There. His reason to leave the bed. Archimedes could support her even when he felt almost nothing. He stroked his hand down her spine, smiled at her purr. She flipped her hair back, sat up, and stiffly straddled him, her knees popping again as they folded beneath her.

  “Yasmeen—”

  He broke off as she reached down, took his cock in a firm grip. Already roused by the morning and the memories of the night, he stiffened quickly against her stroking palm. She leaned over and kissed his lips, his jaw. Against his ear, she said, “I’m tired of pacing a cabin again and again. If you don’t mind, I’d like to loosen my knees up another way.”

  Mind? He was already so hard he ached. “Use me,” he said. “For as long as you like.”

  He felt her smile against his skin. “It takes me about half an hour.”

  Oh, God. His fingers gripped her thighs, and heaven surrounded him as she sank onto his shaft, softly biting her bottom lip, eyelids half closed as she worked herself down his length. He slipped his hand between her legs, thumb stroking through her dark curls.

  “Oh.” Her head fell back, the ends of her hair brushing his thighs. “By the lady . . . I can’t even feel my knees anymore. Just . . . you.”

  And then she rocked, and before the half hour had passed, she’d ruined him for pacing a cabin again, too.

  It was for the best that she’d drawn the line at the cabin door, but she still missed Archimedes’ touch, his wicked replies, all the things that couldn’t be said or done in front of a crew. At least she could read his smile and his eyes—and that morning, both were telling her that he was troubled.

  He stood beside her on the quarterdeck, flying over the sparkling Mediterranean. A perfect sky lay before them, brilliantly blue, yet he looked inward, his eyes unfocused.

  Perhaps he felt her gaze. He glanced at her, the corners of his lips tilting in the same smile that Yasmeen found herself giving when she met his gaze after a long time apart—not amusement, but simply the pleasure of seeing him, having his attention again.

  “You looked very serious,” she said.

  His brows rose, and he nodded. “I suppose I am. I was attempting to judge our speed, and the distance to Rabat. We will arrive tomorrow, I think?”

  Why guess when he could ask her? “Twelve hundred miles from Brindisi,” she said. “A full forty hours, with this wind against us. We’ll reach the city the morning after tomorrow.”

  “And how long until we are within range of the tower?”

  Oh, lady. She had completely forgotten that he was susceptible to that signal. It was just . . . impossible to imagine him subdued in that way, with every strong emotion turned mild. Shallow happiness, shallow anger, no desire. She didn’t know whether he could bed her, but he wouldn’t want to bed her.

  How could that ever be Archimedes?

  “Rabat’s tower has about a 250-mile radius,” she said. “It will be late tomorrow night.”

  He nodded, watching the sky ahead. Terrified, yet not showing a bit of it. Such a man—and her line at the cabin door said nothing of hands. Silently, she laced her fingers through his, faced the oncoming wind. His throat worked.

  “I will still love you,” he said.

  She squeezed his hand. “Yes. And it i
s only temporary. A few days, at most.”

  Not much time at all.

  But the day felt as if it flew by, and though Yasmeen reminded herself that they would only be in Rabat a short time, she could hardly bear the thought of watching everything lively in him fading. Where was her heart of steel now? She skipped her recordkeeping and pulled him to the bed early, as if somehow she could sink deep inside him, put herself between his nanoagents and a radio signal. In the morning, she loosened up over him and then paced the day away on her quarterdeck, watching the height of the sun. When it began to slide west, she couldn’t stay past the cabin line any longer.

  With a clipped, “Mr. Vashon, the helm is yours,” she asked Archimedes to accompany her to the cabin, and had barely closed the door when she was on him, tearing off his clothes, desperate to kiss him enough so that the next few days wouldn’t matter, wouldn’t hurt so much, wouldn’t look so bleak. She leapt up around his waist, loved his hunger and ferocity as he pounded her back against the wall.

  “Hard,” she told him. “So hard we feel it until next week.”

  Pain, if nothing else. And that would have to be enough.

  That would have to be enough.

  Hassan appeared in a cheerful mood at dinner. Perhaps he enjoyed having his emotions castrated. Archimedes hated his own glower, his dim mood—but that would be cured soon, ha!

  The older man’s gaze rested on his face for a moment, then moved to Yasmeen’s. She gingerly ate her beans one at a time, but she was moving everything gingerly. Archimedes hadn’t been getting around so easily himself. He’d never have imagined it, but it was possible that they’d actually fucked too hard.

  God, what a woman she was.

  He glanced at the clock. A few more hours. They’d move into range just before midnight. Christ, he felt so maudlin, as if he were waiting to die. He should be sensible, instead.

  “When the tower comes down,” he said, “don’t you worry that the people will have the same reaction they did in England?—the panic, the chaos?”