Girl in the Bearskin (Once Upon a Harem Book 6)

by C. L. Stone

  With my arms twisted behind my back, my sword was pulled from me as was anything else besides the cloak and my clothing.

  I was brought out of the rear rooms and onto the main deck.

  The bearskin hood was pulled back, along with a handful of my hair.

  I blinked at a torch being held so close to my face.

  I found Captain looking down at me, his broad nose close to mine. A grin stretched across his face. “Surprised you, didn’t I?”

  I tried to turn my head, but someone behind me was holding my hair close to my head and kept me looking forward. I hollered, growling. “Let me go!”

  “No, Adelina,” Captain said, but he pulled the torch back. “Not until you promise to behave. Don’t you trust your old friends?”

  I blinked rapidly, but I did finally recognize a few of the guys from our unit in the army. They wore different clothing, thin leathers and wools to keep off the wet and damp.

  “What are you all doing out here?” I asked.

  “Once we heard the son of Roth might be on to us, we investigated who had come to town. Turns out, it’s our own Adelina joining him.” He laughed and then shrugged. “It was too easy to get you to come out with us alone. You talked them into staying. But it’s a good thing I sent some of our team northward for them to chase for weeks. Pretty clever, right?”

  I huffed, looking at the others and then back at Captain. “I can’t believe you’d all start stealing. After everything we did to protect this country, you’re tricking people… Your own people!”

  “Come now,” Captain said. He backed up a few steps, and used the torch to swing around, casting light onto the wood of the ship around him in different angles. “Look at yourself! Dirty and poor. Thankless after everything we’ve done. And we don’t keep it all for ourselves. We give it to our own. If we’d known you were doing so poorly, we would have given you some.”

  “I don’t want it,” I spat at him.

  “I saw you give those coins to your friends. It was nice of you.” He came back to me, putting the torch near my face again.

  I leaned my head back as far as I could. The men around me held me fast. Some just standing around, watching, looking on at the beast under the bearskin.

  Captain loomed over me closer. “Where did you get the gold, girl? And what’s this outfit? Are you tricking people, too? You can’t tell me you’ve earned that gold.”

  I wouldn’t tell him. Never. I shook with anger, and despite not wanting to show any emotion at all, my eyes watered, stinging.

  After everything we’d done.

  After all those times we risked our lives for the people of our country.

  Why would they turn their backs on them? They had no reason to! I, who had been turned away at inns… I, who had to fight to get someone to let me even talk to them… I had more reason than they to hate people.

  And yet I didn’t.

  I hated them now. I hated it that they were so selfish and cruel as to do this to Heinrich and his family. And who knew how many more people they had swindled before I came after them.

  “Not going to talk, hm?” Captain asked.

  “Maybe we should throw her over,” one of the men said. “She won’t say anything. You said she gave them all she had. Throw her back into the sea. Let the ocean take care of her.”

  “No,” Captain said. “I want to know. She got it from somewhere. There might be more.” He pulled back and waved to the men. “Throw her in the brig. Let her see what happens to traitors of our own team. She might come around.”

  I was dragged backwards. I stretched an arm almost out of my socket to try to pull away. My hair was held tightly. It took three of them with me kicking and screaming to pull me down into the ship.

  Down into the very bottom. It was dark, dank. By the time we got to it, I was breathless and sore from all the fighting and screaming.

  I was thrown into a cage, too short for me to be able to stand fully in.

  They shut the door with a large clank, locking it.

  “Behave,” one of the men said. “Don’t give us any trouble, or we’ll have to tie you up like him.” He nodded to the cage next to mine.

  I was too busy glaring at him through the bars to look over. I bared my teeth at them all. I cursed at them all. “I’m not the traitor,” I cried out. “You’re all…”

  One of them kicked the cage that I’d leaned up against. My gut reaction had me jarring backward to avoid the blow. I tripped over the edge of the cloak and fell back on my knees.

  They laughed and then walked away, taking the torchlight with them.

  I hissed at them and then when I thought they’d truly gone, I lowered myself to the floor, bowing forward, banging my head on the ground.

  Shaytan.

  Wilhelm.

  Klaus.

  I forced myself not to cry in the outrage of it all. I hoped I hadn’t sent Wilhelm to his doom chasing phantom people, or if they might capture and kill him for chasing.

  And Klaus…I’d told him to stay in the city. He was in danger.

  And who knew where Shaytan had gone.

  A mumbling sound from the cage next to mine started up, a muffled deep voice.

  I sat up, looking over.

  His eyes flared at me, but his mouth was covered in metal. His hair was loose, hanging over his face in places as he was on his right side to look at me.

  But I knew his face instantly.

  Thorne.

  The Brig

  I reached out to Thorne through the bars. He was on his side, his hands tied behind his back. His legs were bound as well.

  His eyes were flared, and he continued to mumble as recognition settled in.

  He knew it to be me.

  I reached as far as I could, trying to get to the mouthpiece at his face, but I couldn’t get to him. He wouldn’t get up to come closer to the bars to help. How long had he been tied up like that?

  I knelt down, holding on to the bars, pressing myself against them as if I could weasel between them, but they were too close together. “What happened to you?” I whispered.

  He mumbled, but there was nothing to understand.

  But he could nod. He did so, and then shook his head.

  I’d have to figure it out the hard way. Why would they tie him up? “Did you…come after them? Did you know they were stealing from people?”

  He nodded animatedly. He fought briefly against his bonds, mumbling again but then stopped, groaning.

  “So, they captured you…Ivan said he saw you in the capital not long ago.”

  He nodded. He was there.

  “He said you married.”

  He raised an eyebrow, shaking his head.

  “So…he…lied?”

  Thorne nodded slowly.

  But why would he lie to me? He must have assumed I was looking for him. “He…wanted me to stop looking for you.”

  He didn’t move, but his eyes widened and then he narrowed his gaze on my face.

  He was angry with me.

  “Don’t look at me like that!” I cried out to him. I kicked the side of my cage with my boot. “Of course I was looking for you. You’re the one who ran off with nearly everything I owned…”

  A cocked brow went high up.

  I rolled my eyes. “What? Did you forget? Last day of the war. I came back and you were gone. With most of my things.”

  He shook his head slow, the eyebrow still up on his head.

  “You did leave,” I said. “You were gone.”

  He nodded slowly.

  “So…but…you…didn’t take my things?”

  He shook his head rapidly.

  I sat back on my butt, and then fell onto my back, looking up through the bars at the top of the cage.

  All these years.

  All this time.

  I closed my eyes, pressing my palms to them to shut out light completely. I couldn’t believe it. My heart hurt at the realization that I’d hated him for so long when something else had h
appened. I’d suspected before but allowed myself to think the worst when it was suggested…

  By Captain…

  “Captain was the one to tell me…” I sat up to look at him again.

  Thorne’s eyes were wide. His bulky dwarven body a heap on the floor. He pushed himself with his chin slightly to give himself momentum so he could get up on his knees. Without use of his arms, it seemed difficult.

  He leaned against the bars near mine.

  I bent my head forward, pressing against one of the bars. “I don’t know why you left. But I spent a few years looking for you to find out why. And everything was gone when I went back to the tent. Captain and Ivan had said you’d probably taken it all. But…if it wasn’t you, it was set up to make me think it was you.”

  The hate in his eyes, the darkness to them, this increased. He growled behind the iron muzzle they’d placed on him.

  “Yeah, yeah, we’ll get to them,” I said, finally settling my anger enough. I checked out the bars of the cage, but they were solid. I tried kicking the door, near the lock.

  Thorne’s muzzled shout got my attention before I could try again. I guessed that was what he was doing before they tied him down.

  I sat again on the ground and encircled my knees with my arms. We weren’t going to get out of this quickly. I’d have to wait for an opportunity.

  First, I’d free us.

  Then, I’d find a way to stop what they were doing.

  I just needed a plan.

  Suppressed

  For weeks, I was given barely enough water to drink, and moldy bread or apple cores to eat.

  I couldn’t believe their treatment of me, despite all the years I’d help to defend their lives. I knew what they were doing. Weakening me so I wouldn’t fight them.

  The cage was unbearable. It was too short to stand and fully stretch, and not wide enough to lie down in without curling up. My limbs and back ached after the first few weeks.

  The bearskin was my only comfort. I didn’t dare pull more coins out of the pocket, as I’d thought initially to bribe someone to let us out. Instead, I just used it to sleep on and for warmth. I didn’t want any chance for them to find out what I could do.

  For Thorne, they left him with a bucket and it contained water and floating bits of bread, apple, and sometimes fish. He had to try to drink it through the mask. They wouldn’t remove it.

  Captain would come down, ask me a few questions about where I’d gotten the coins. I refused to talk to him. He’d threaten me, and leave me alone for longer periods of time.

  I think at first he was just amused. After a while, he became more stubborn, determined to know what I knew. It was almost an obsession, to see how long it would take to break me.

  Months passed, but the longer this took, the weaker I became. I was losing my ability to fight my way out of this.

  Thorne was, too. He became thin as the months wore on.

  Slowly, we were starving to death, rotting in the bowels of the Faded.

  Thorne and rats were often my only companions, and Thorne could barely sit up to listen to me, and got frustrated when he couldn’t communicate back very well. Thorne rotated himself in different positions, the bonds he had marking his body. He itched all over, and used the bars sometimes to try to scratch.

  Sometimes I reached through to scratch for him. With my long nails, it was too easy to hurt him, so I had to be careful.

  During that time, I told him about the long years I spent on the road, sometimes looking for him.

  I told him of Wilhelm.

  I told him of Klaus.

  Klaus’s ring I’d kept near my heart. And I used a piece of string I found to tie it around my neck. With the time I had, I wrote Klaus’s name into it.

  For Wilhelm and for Shaytan, I clawed my nails into the inside of the bearskin, scratching their names into the coat.

  The ship sailed for so long, I lost track of time completely. To where, I wasn’t sure. It was also hard to tell when we were in port, but sometimes it was louder up above us than other times. And sometimes it felt like the ship had slowed down and only bobbed instead of being pushed on by wind.

  None of the other men talked to me. Captain was the only one. And this was rare.

  From what I could tell, I had two years left of the time in my cloak. There’d been no sign of Shaytan. I wasn’t sure if he could just magically appear, and as time wore on, I knew he couldn’t. If he was looking for me, he’d need to find me in person.

  I didn’t dare tell Thorne of Shaytan. I was sure others were listening.

  I didn’t tell him of the money, either. Although Captain asked of it every time he came down.

  Without anything else to do, and without Thorne able to talk to me, I spoke instead. I told stories of what happened while I was on the road. I retold him of times before I joined the army. There was a time before he came into my life, and I spoke about what I’d done.

  Part of me was going over in my head, trying to figure out when I’d misplaced my trust in Captain. Did Captain have someone come to my tent to ransack it after Thorne had gone?

  Captain didn’t answer my questions, like I never answered his.

  But over time, I came up with a plan. Despite wanting to break free, it was no use. I’d have to find a way to get Thorne out of his bonds as well. Not to mention I didn’t know where we were. If we were out at sea, there wasn’t anywhere to escape to. I didn’t want to leave just to drown.

  It was another several months before Captain came down to the brig again.

  He’d freshly shaved his jawline, leaving only the chin and mustache at his face. He’d tied his hair back with a cloth. He stood, mocking me with his eyes at the condition I was in.

  “Girl,” he said, “when are you finally going to join us?” He lowered himself, squatting to meet my eyes as I was sitting on the floor.

  I kept my arms across my chest, defiant still. I wanted to work in my plan, but I needed time to make sure he’d do so in a way I wanted. If I blurted it out all at once, he’d never believe me.

  He leaned into the bars, as close as he dared without risk of me kicking out, which I’d done before. “Adelina. The men want me to throw you over. I don’t want to do it. Come on. Give me something. Just tell me where you got the coins. We know it wasn’t from that son of Roth. He had none left in his family.”

  “After you took it,” I said.

  “Heinrich and his spoiled brats had it coming to them,” he said. “I’m surprised they talked to you at all with what you’re wearing and how you don’t even wash yourself anymore.”

  “They talked to me just fine. So you clearly don’t know anything about them,” I said. “You lie through your teeth and it is ugly. And who are you to play God and decide who gets what? Do I deserve to be in this cage?”

  “You never questioned me before when we were killing the enemy.”

  “We were protecting those who would threaten us, to trap us…” I kicked out then, causing him to jerk back in reaction. “Like you trap me in this cage!”

  “We couldn’t have you coming after us to kill us, and we knew you’d try if we released you somewhere,” he said. He returned to leaning in, only not as close. “I keep you for your own survival, for all the years of loyalty in the war. As a friend. Just tell me something I can tell the men. We can make you a deal. Maybe you can buy your freedom.”

  I twisted my lips. “How could I trust a liar?”

  “You’ve no choice, right? Would you rather rot in here?”

  I didn’t answer him. I waited.

  He shook his head and stood up. “Don’t be surprised if the men come in and toss you out of the ship. I can’t stop them much longer.”

  I waited for my moment. He went to the door, had it open.

  Then, I shouted at him. “You would not be able to survive what it takes to get the gold!”

  He paused in the doorway. He looked on at me from the distance. “Survive what?”

  I covered
my mouth, backing up into the corner. Pretending. Appearing shocked I’d said something.

  But I was ready.

  He came back to the cage and hovered over it. “The only reason I haven’t let them beat the answer out of you was because of how you killed for them, to protect them.” He seethed at the door, shaking the cage. “Adelina, don’t make me send them down here.”

  “I protect you all now,” I said, letting my hand slip away from my mouth but staying huddled in the dark corner.

  Thorne in the cage next to mine grumbled at me. He’d gotten weaker, and spent most of his time lying down. His mask was caked with old food rotting at his face. His eyes, the shadows underneath, were heavy.

  He was going to die if I didn’t get him out of here.

  I got distracted when he mumbled, but I shook my head at him and refocused on Captain.

  He squinted at me and then looked on to Thorne and then back to me. “No, Adelina. Don’t make me hurt him to get to you.”

  I seethed at this. “You’re such a…”

  The curses flew from my mouth, but Thorne also cried out, rattling the chains bound around him until they were so noisy, we couldn’t hear anything else.

  Captain waited, standing still, until Thorne settled enough. He pulled out a knife from his belt and pointed it at Throne’s direction. “You’re going to make me kill him to get information out?”

  “You probably don’t want to,” I said. “You’d need the both of us, all of the men you’ve got, if you want even a taste of the gold I was able to give to Klaus and Wilhelm.”

  He seemed to hesitate. “I don’t understand. Who did you get the money from?”

  I crawled toward him on hands and knees. At the door, I picked myself up, sitting on my heels, leaning my face out to him. “Have you ever made a deal with a demon?”

  Thorne seemed to choke on his own spit behind the mask. He shouted at me through it, but I ignored it, focusing on Captain.

  What I said seemed to have gotten his attention. He lowered the knife blade and squatted down again close to me. “Is that what you did?”

  “There are creatures out there who will give you whatever you want in exchange for something of yours. You could wish for wealth, if you wish. But you’d have to find him. And then he’d ask for something in exchange.”