What little rapport I had recently found with the girl would be gone. Strangely enough, that made me . . . sad. Thousands of miles from home, surrounded by strangers, it had been nice to talk to someone who didn’t want me dead.
Casper paced the small room, his fingers drumming hard against his thighs. I couldn’t imagine what the song might be, but it was hard and pounding. His breathing was fast, and when he stopped to look at me, his pupils were pinpricks in the darkened blue of his eyes. As much as I had liked meeting his beast, what I saw in him now was madness of a different sort, and it worried me.
“Ahna.” It came out ragged, harsh. Tortured.
“Maybe you should go,” I said. I realized that my dress was unlaced, showing the white corset underneath. I held the velvet together over my chest and struggled to lace it, sure that my face was redder than blood.
“Maybe I don’t want to go.”
I turned my back, hiding my shame and the damning tears that I couldn’t stop.
“Ahnastasia, please—”
“Just call me Anne,” I answered quietly. “It will be easier that way.”
For one long moment, he stood there. I imagined his hand held out, something holding him back from touching me, comforting me. But I didn’t let myself look to see if it was true. Maybe he was counting his money to see if he could afford one of the courtesans tonight instead. Maybe he had a deal with Miss May. I just wanted him to leave so I could cry in peace.
“Just go, Casper.”
He sighed sadly, and I heard his boot turn on the wood. Just then, the airship shuddered, throwing him onto the bed with me. I stifled my protest with a hand over my mouth at my sudden nausea. Screams erupted overhead, and the Maybuck bucked again.
“What is it?” I croaked, bloody bile rising in my throat.
Casper went into a defensive crouch. “I don’t know, but it’s wrong.”
Feet thundered above us, and I stared at the ceiling, quite positive that there shouldn’t have been that many heavy boots on the ship. Casper opened the door to look out, and the sounds of screams and clashing metal rang down the hall.
“Stay here.” He tossed something onto the bed, and I picked it up. A dagger, barely more than a letter opener. “I don’t know what’s happening, but lock the door, and be ready. I’ve got to find Keen.”
I turned the blade over in my hands and slipped it beneath my leg. Casper held the empty bottle like a club and staggered toward the hallway as the ship tilted again. Something dark flew through the open door and thunked heavily against his bare head, and he crumpled to the ground. The form that filled the doorway was wild, with matted hair and a single eye that gleamed in the lamplight like Tommy Pain’s.
With a hiss, I was on my feet on the bed, Casper’s knife clutched in hand.
“You’re holding that all wrong, missy,” the man said with unexpected humor.
“I’ve got other weapons.”
“It ain’t your weapons I’m wanting to see.”
As the pirate stepped closer, somehow both menacing and tentative, my predator’s eyes scanned his every detail. His hair was dark and fell in long, tangled locks down his back, wrapped with bits of rope and shell and bone. He was built like a bear, with huge arms and callused paws. One of his eyes was the color of honey, and the other was covered with a black leather patch. Weapons hung from every inch of him, swaying with each step. A strange C-shaped piece of wood was in his hand, matching the one that had clattered to the floor beside Casper.
“What do you want?” I asked, voice low.
In answer, he smiled slowly, showing a mouth filled with metal. “This here’s the Maybuck,” he said before spitting on the plush rug. “What do you think I’m here for, poppet?”
I started to whimper and turned it into a growl. He chuckled and stepped closer, and two more figures shoved each other through the door like pups on the heels of a big dog, hoping for his leftovers.
“You try to touch me, and I’ll rip your throat out, I swear it.” I had to raise my voice to be heard over the shouting, stamping, and fighting from overhead and spilling down from the deck. A quick glance at Casper proved that he was still unconscious and breathing but unable to save me yet again. Not that I needed to be saved.
“What’s this, eh?” one of the new pirates asked, his voice high and excited. He was small and as twitchy as a mad bludlemming.
The third man was silent and slight, holding a crossbow and wearing a Freesian coat with a high, funnel-like neck and a bowler pulled down low over leather goggles. Something about him tugged at my memory. I breathed deep, hoping for clues.
“McHale, you fool. Shut the door.” I’d barely noticed the big pirate getting close, but he was near enough that his thick legs pressed against the bed frame with a creak. “Gandy, get ready to catch her if she bolts.”
I squeezed my back against the wall, waving my knife, seconds away from showing my teeth and revealing myself as a Bludwoman.
The door shut gently, and the air went still. While I studied McHale, the first pirate reached for my ankle and yanked me down hard. I landed on my back on the bed, the air bursting from my lungs. One of his big hands plucked the knife from mine as if it were a child’s toy, and I realized that I wasn’t wearing my gloves, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. With a shriek of fury, I twisted away from him, trying to claw my way off my back and out of a helpless position. The big pirate laughed and pulled me back with sure hands, inch by inch toward him.
“Stop!” It was McHale, his hand on his crossbow.
“You forget yourself, Bluddy,” the big pirate barked. “You’ll get thirds and be glad of it.”
“Can’t you see she’s not a whore? She’s terrified, man.”
With one meaty mitt wrapped around my ankle, the big pirate slowly turned to face McHale.
“I ain’t in here because she’s a whore. I’m in here because she’s a woman. You want in on this, or you and Gandy want to go belowdecks and blow each other’s bilges?”
“I ain’t a poof!” Gandy shouted, unbuckling his belt and trying to shove himself closer to me. “Let me in, and I’ll prove it! I’m smaller than you, anyway. I’ll get her started for you.”
With a leisurely swing of his fist, the big pirate sent Gandy into the wall and to the ground beside Casper.
“This one”—he pulled lips back over teeth of glinting gold—“is mine.”
With animal quickness, McHale launched himself at the big pirate, driving him into the bed across my legs. I smelled the blood before I saw it, and the beast took me over. I had slipped my legs out from under the big pirate’s body and pressed my face to his wrist before I noticed McHale poised over the pirate’s red-splattered neck. The body danced beneath us as the big man screamed and fought for his life. Together, we held him easily.
“You,” I growled.
“Eat first,” he said with just a hint of a Freesian accent. “Then we’ll talk.”
My eyes held him for one moment, not trusting my good luck. My savior was a Bludman, and one more than willing to share, which was a prize rarer than rubies.
“You’re generous.”
“I am honored to share the kill.” He took one long pull and bowed his head to me, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. “My princess.”
20
It was oddly intimate, sharing someone’s kill for the first time. The room was a warm cocoon of comforting sounds. The polite slurping of blood rose gently over the rhythmic breaths of the still-living men, and I sighed in contentment to feel my hunger sated for the first time in days. The big pirate was fantastically full of blood.
I left the last pull for my host, as it seemed the polite thing to do. But he sat back, too.
“Please, my lady. It’s yours.”
I paused, considering. But the princess in me won out, and I drew the last of the hot blood down my throat and wiped my mouth off on the dead pirate’s sleeve.
With a nod, McHale tidily looted the big pirate’s body. When he
held out a handful of coins, trinkets, gems, and pearls to me, I shook my head. Not because I didn’t need money but because now that he was dead and bloodless, everything about him struck me as disgusting.
Kneeling across from each other over the deflated body of the pirate, we were both seized by a sudden awkward shyness. McHale flipped the goggles on top of his head to gaze at me with ice-blue eyes and concerned curiosity. I was at a loss for how to behave. He knew who I was and showed proper respect. Did I address him as I would address a Bludman in my country, with total majesty and arrogance? Or did I respect the fact that he had just protected me from a larger predator and shared his meal with me, putting us on more equal footing?
Yet again, he swooped in with perfect courtesy. “My princess, you are weak. Have they been keeping you on this filthy tub for long?” His Freesian accent was more pronounced now that we were alone, and his eyes were anxious. But that didn’t mean he could be trusted. He could easily be a spy or someone under Ravenna’s power.
“I am not here against my will.”
“But you are not . . . one of the . . . Maybuck’s offerings?”
“No.”
He exhaled and ran a hand down the sparse dark stubble of a beard. “Then I don’t have to kill everyone. That’s a relief.” I chuckled, and he added, “Except these two, I suppose.” He stood and curled his gloves into fists, eyes latching onto Casper.
“No!”
His eyes darted to me. “My princess?”
“Kill the pirate, if you wish, but leave the other.”
He nudged Casper with a toe, contemplating the fineness of his coat and watch chain, I suppose, and the careful shine on his boots.
“Are you sure? He would be the cleanest thing I’ve eaten in weeks. And you need blood, my liege. As much as possible.” He shook his head sadly. “So thin. So wan.”
“That man is my servant, and I’ll not have him harmed.” The mantle of royalty fell back over me, my spine going sharp and straight at his slight insult. “The other I will allow you.”
He bowed briefly before kneeling over Gandy with a formal sort of precision lacking in his attack on the bigger pirate. Rolling down the man’s collar, he wrinkled his nose. “I won’t be sorry to see this one go.”
He ripped the jugular gently, as if trying to show me his good breeding. With a question in his eyes, he held up Gandy’s arm, and I gladly took it. Together, we held the body down as it fought senselessly against oblivion. This time, I insisted he take the last pull and went to check on Casper.
I crouched beside his unconscious form, picking up the weapon that had knocked him out.
“Boomerang,” McHale said, taking it from my hand. “He should be unharmed.”
I traced the purple bruise on Casper’s temple, where the burnished wood had slammed into him. It was strange, seeing my black-scaled hands and white talons against his golden skin. He was halfway between Bludman and Pinky, predator and prey, and I was curious to know what would happen to his hands were he ever bludded. Was the transition sudden, or would the fine fingers slowly fade to dark? At least he would still have the harpsichord, if it came to that. So long as the talons were kept trimmed, a Bludman could play just as well as any Pinky, if not faster and better.
Without meaning to, I found myself brushing the hair back from his sleeping face, remembering the feeling of copper-colored tendrils curling around my fingers like unanswered question marks. If only he had more bludwine in his bottle. I wanted to taste it again. I had enjoyed that looseness, that release, more than I wanted to admit.
Tall, buckled boots stepped close, and I pulled my hand back guiltily.
“He should be awake soon,” McHale said. He nudged Casper in the side with the toe of his boot, and Casper’s eyes jerked open.
“Ahna!”
He scrambled upright and shoved me behind him. Still dizzy and wobbling, it struck me to the heart that his instinct, even damaged and uncertain, was to protect me. McHale just laughed, a distinctly Freesian sound, and clapped him on the shoulder as if he was an unruly hound.
“That’s a good servant, your highness. Jumping in front of you like that.”
Casper shrugged off the pirate’s hand and bristled as he took in the room. Two dead bodies, a minimum of blood spilled. And me, standing behind him, one step away from fretting, my cheeks pink with blood and feeling bad for a reason I couldn’t name.
“You okay, Ah—” He swallowed. “Anne. Did he hurt you?”
“He saved me. The big one on the bed knocked you out and came after me, but McHale stopped him.”
Casper looked from my mouth to McHale’s, both stained with red. “I see.”
I pushed past Casper to stand between them. The air was cloudy with the scent of blood, and I could sense each man’s hackles rising as if they both wanted nothing more than a fight. It was an awfully small room for two bristling males, and it was left to me to defuse the tension before I lost one or more of my allies.
“McHale, you’ve been so kind. Can you tell us what’s happening on the ship?”
With a chuckle, the pirate’s stance relaxed. “Please call me Mikhail, princess. And what’s happening is an act of piracy. Captain Corvus of the Bludeagle has invaded the Maybuck.”
“Then all the girls are being . . .” I gulped. What the big pirate had planned for me might have been their usual way of business, but I hated the thought of all the women on board being forced.
But Mikhail shook his head. “The Maybuck is famous, and not for the coin. I suspect my captain and your Miss May had a deal that would benefit both parties. We sent a scout several days ago to make the arrangements. Although he didn’t return, Miss May must have accepted. It was far too easy, the way your ship sat, waiting for us. You were unlucky that Big Gar found you first.”
“And why do you move among these barbarians?” I asked, for he seemed polite, cultured, and clean for a pirate.
Mikhail’s eyes narrowed at Casper. “Can this one be trusted?”
I nodded once. “I trust him with my life.”
“Very well. Ravenna needed room on the Blud Council for her pawns, so many of the ancient barons were deposed or executed. I am a bastard son, and when my father was thrown out, I had nothing left. We formed a group and fought against her, and we lost. With Ravenna’s mark, there’s no way to prosper in what’s become of Freesia.” He pulled back his glove to show a stark red symbol burned into his wrist, an X inside a circle.
“So this mark means . . .”
“No succor. No blood. No trade. In a grand feat of irony, she has turned Freesia’s own royal sons into gypsies. Piracy seemed a safe enough option. There’s plenty of blood, in any case.”
“And your captain doesn’t mind?” Casper asked.
“It’s all the rage among air pirates, keeping pet Bludmen. Like dogs on a chain. I brought a few of my fellows with me, but they’re always careful to break us up on little runs like this. I won’t miss Big Gar.” He spat, and the red glob clung to the big pirate’s sunken cheek.
As I watched it slowly slide to the carpet, Casper exhaled in a burst and grabbed Mikhail by the arm, taking us all by surprise.
“We have to get off this boat before Ahna is discovered. Three of us. In Minks.”
Mikhail jerked his arm out of Casper’s grasp and gave him a look of grudging measure. “We’re a day away, at this pace. But the captain will want to know what happened to Gar and Gandy. He’ll blame me. If he finds you, you won’t live to see Minks at all.”
“Then how can we get to the ground?”
Mikhail’s eyes sharpened as he looked us over. “Parachutes, if you know where they are. The princess must be protected at all costs. Where is the third person?”
I looked to Casper and saw my own desperation mirrored. We two had been lucky, but what had become of Keen? The screaming above deck had stopped, and I could only hope that meant the girls had found a way to calm their new clients.
“I’ll have to go look for
her,” Casper said.
“Don’t go unarmed. You look enough like a woman from the back, and the pirates are animals.”
Casper grimaced, and I scoffed. There was nothing remotely feminine about him, except possibly his hair, and even that was wilder than any woman’s hair had a right to be. He stretched his shoulders and stooped to pluck a wicked machete off the big pirate.
“I had hoped I wouldn’t ever have to find out how bad I am with a knife.”
“Then hurry. Your only hope is to find your friend while the men are still busy with swiving.”
“Where could she be? Where would she run?” I would have paced, but the already small room was cluttered with bodies, their stench rising in the tight space. My heart jolted with an uncomfortable tightness as I thought of Big Gar reaching for his pants. What would a man like him do to a tiny thing like Keen?
“Someone’s coming,” Mikhail said, and then I heard the boots pounding down the hall.
“C’mon, girly,” a man shouted just outside, and Keen bolted into the room with a pirate grabbing for her jacket. With a casual flick of his arm, Mikhail drove a knife into the old man’s belly.
Keen hid behind Casper, shivering and panting as another dead pirate fell to the ground.
“That’s one problem solved, then,” Mikhail said, absorbing Keen’s appearance with ease, his head to one side.
“Pirates,” Keen panted, eyes wide with terror.
“We were just leaving,” I added, holding out my hand to her.
Much to my surprise, she actually came to me, nervous as a colt. I held her close as she shivered.
“What about the . . .” I gulped. I couldn’t say it.
“Parachutes,” Casper supplied.
I shot him a dark look.
“I know where they are. I can be there and back in a few minutes.” With Keen returned, his attitude went from worried to confident, as if jumping off an airship was nothing. For once, I envied his recklessness.
He quickly stripped the long duster from Gandy’s body and buckled it across his chest, before tucking his hair up under the dead pirate’s disreputable-looking bowler. The coat was too small and tugged across the shoulders, but Casper looked piratical enough.
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