by Megan Derr
Nessa's mouth tightened so severely, white lines formed around them. Finally she drew a breath and said, "I wish I could watch you die. It's the least I deserve after all you took from me, all you put me through. We thought you killed alongside your father. We mourned you, missed you, wished we had been able to save you from your father's arrogance. All this time we were ashamed for sending you on a mission we should have known you weren't ready for, ashamed we sent you off to die—and all these years you played us for fools, lived a life built on betrayal and the blood of your own. If I could kill you right now, I would, but Iron Moon should not be deprived of that honor, so I will settle for seeing you suffer. And don't worry about your foolish friends; I'll take care of them too." She motioned her men forward with a sharp cutting gesture.
Myra felt the first blow, the second and third. He felt the next few a little less, and by the time he lost count of the hits and kicks and smacks, he'd stopped feeling anything.
At some point, he passed out, waking now and again, but in too much pain to take in his surroundings or understand what the voices around him were saying—he couldn't even be sure if the voices were real or the result of fevered imagining.
He was fairly certain he called for Jac and Charlaine, sobbing their names when he could draw enough breath to do so.
Eventually, he passed out again and stayed that way.
*~*~*
The next time he woke, he stayed awake, and took in the unfamiliar room around him. Not the inn they'd been in before, but definitely an inn. To judge by the sunlight pouring in the two windows, it was the middle of the day—and they must be somewhere nice, to have such fine windows and more than one. The room had four beds, and two more had been made up on the floor close to the door.
Myra could smell food from the covered plates on the table, but all it did was make him want to throw up. Instead he closed his eyes again and focused on his breathing.
Every last bit of him hurt, but the pain was distant, like someone had given him drugs and they were only just started to wear off. He could feel the scratch of bandages, the itch and pull of healing cuts, and about three hundred bruises. His face felt swollen, and his lips were definitely split.
Tears stung his eyes at the thought his mother had ordered all this abuse. Stupid to be upset after all he'd done to them, but it hurt all the same that his mother had stood there and watched as he was beaten nearly to death. Pantheon, he must look a fright. Would it all heal? Would he ever look respectable again?
Myra gave a shaky laugh, then groaned at the way it pulled at various cuts and bruises on his chest. What did it matter how he looked? He was going to be dead soon. Whether he died a pretty corpse or an ugly one made no difference.
Thinking of corpses and his mother brought back her final words: that she'd take care of his friends too. Please let Jac and Charlaine be all right. Why couldn't those stubborn fools have stayed in Harken where they were safe—where they were alive. They should have stayed there and looked after each other like he'd asked. Clearly they were not as good for each other as he'd thought. Why hadn't someone stopped them, made them see reason? They were bodyguards, for crying out loud. They had important duties, important people they were supposed to be protecting. They shouldn't be running around putting themselves at risk for a foolish coward like Myra.
Pantheon, he wished he could see them just one more time.
Chapter Eleven
Charlaine woke slowly, groggy and sore and exhausted, chased by fanciful dreams and the crick in his back reminding him they were on a creaky boat and would be for some time yet. He stared up at the sky, still dark but with the soft haze of a slowly rising sun. The stars were still visible, fading diamonds in a velvet sky.
The soft sound of shifting clothes drew his attention, and he craned up just enough to see Jac sitting at the prow of the boat, staring out at the water looking as though she carried the weight of the world, spinning one of her knives with absentminded deftness.
He sat up slowly so she would hear him and not startle, then shifted closer. Near where he'd been lying, Mark and one of the smugglers were still fast asleep. Near the bow of the boat, the other two smugglers still commanded the craft, speaking occasionally in low tones to each other but otherwise content to travel in silence. "What has you frowning so much?"
Jac smoothly slid her dagger back into its sheath at her thigh next to its sister as she turned to face him, hands on either side of her for balance in the gently rocking boat. "All the usual, and it's been so quiet since we returned to the sea, I'm leery. Quiet is never a good thing on missions like this."
Charlaine didn't reply, because what was there to say? He agreed completely. The quietest moments came right before everything went wrong. You knew things were going well because the camp was chaos and the captain was complaining about his food being burned.
"Keep your thoughts on the goal, your attention on the present, and your worries in your bag," Charlaine said. "Lesto used to say that so often I got to the point I wanted to punch him every time I heard it. But it's good advice."
Jac snickered. "He said it once to us, and Rene was right behind him, mimicking every gesture. Lesto swung around and punched the shit out of him. Rene punched him right back, and then resumed speaking like nothing had happened. I think their antics cheered everyone up more than Lesto's words."
"They're good at that, though they'd deny it." Charlaine's fingers twitched to reach out and reassure through touch, but that illicit kiss on the boat was never far from his mind, and the urge to kiss Jac properly grew stronger with every passing day. Not that it mattered. Regardless of that kiss, Jac was gone on Myra, and Charlaine would leave well enough alone no matter how much it was killing him.
"Have you thought about what you'll do once we're home again?" Jac asked.
Charlaine looked out over the sea, which was gaining color as the sun continued its slow rise. "I have no idea. I've been a soldier so long, and one who mostly worked from the shadows, it's hard to figure out how to live any other way. How sad is that?" He swallowed, feeling immediately stupid and pathetic for whining so unexpectedly. Jac was like Myra in that she was deceptively easy to talk to, all the more disconcerting when Charlaine was the one who usually did the listening.
Jac made an indistinct noise that could have been a curse or her choking on something. "Trust me, you'll get used to it. Look at Lord Lesto—actually, don't, he's a terrible example. Shemal shoved him into the swimming pool a couple of months ago when he tried to get involved in something. I thought Lesto was going to kill him, but it was the funniest thing I've ever seen."
"I heard about that," Charlaine said. "I would have given every pin to my name to have seen it."
"It was worth the money." Jac smiled. "If you need help finding ways to spend your free time, I can suggest some things." Charlaine almost bit his tongue. "Like napping. Eating. I know all the best places to eat in Harkenesten. You could get back into acting."
"I was never an actor, just helped around the stage and read parts when people were practicing. Even if I had been, I'm hardly fit now." Charlaine reached up to touch the edge of his bad eye. "I'd only be allowed to play the thugs that get killed off in the first act."
Jac's noise that time was definitely derisive. "That's stupid! It's not like any of those people are real. They're roles. You could do it. And I know there's a dashing hero with one eye. I've seen that play. He's framed for murder but manages to escape on the way to prison and then comes back years later as a merchant."
"The Merchant of Jarla," Charlaine said. "No one with half a mind would ever cast me as Shera. I could be the bit part manservant, though."
"You're ridiculous."
"So are you if you think I could get cast as the lead in one of the most famous and highly-regarded plays of all time," Charlaine replied. "Just how much sense did Cartha knock out of you, woman?"
Jac grimaced. "I'd say quite a bit, though to be fair, it can be argued I didn't have muc
h to begin with."
"Oh, now who's being ridiculous?"
"It's true." Jac laughed sourly. "I didn't have much in the way of skills before I joined the Dragons, and those skills would only be good at getting me into another mercenary band, which I have no desire to do. I'm not like the rest of you."
"What in the Pantheon are you talking about?" Charlaine would argue she was better than the rest of them, capable of breaking the face of a person three times her size just as a warm up, but still capable of smiling and laughing and being sweet. Even Sarrica wouldn't argue that Jac was a large part of the reason Allen had opened up more, learned to relax and smile and show emotion.
She gave him a disbelieving, somewhat angry look. "What do I mean? Don't give me that. Every child in the palace can read better than me. No matter how hard I try, I've started too late in life. I'll never be anything but passable at the most basic Harken—mostly informal, I stand no chance of mastering written formal Harken." She gave another unhappy laugh. "That's just the start. My options outside of the Dragons are scullery maid, prostitute, or muscle at a pub."
"What about the way you dance? Your experience with sailing? You're good with people—that alone is a skill that could set you up anywhere, and you're not even close to the only person who can't read. You can do much better than prostitute or door guard."
"Maybe."
Charlaine did reach out then, curling a hand around the back of her neck and dragging her in close to press his forehead to her temple. "Dragon, pretending for a moment that Allen would not move mountains to see you well situated if he could not find a way to keep you, neither Myra nor I would ever abandon you to such a miserable fate. We have come this far, the two of us, and I have every intention of three of us going home, and we'll still be three when we wind up on the streets with no idea of what comes next."
Surprise filled Jac's face, followed by longing and an unmistakable heat, then all of it was smothered by disbelief—but her mouth ticked up in a teasing, if hesitant, smile as she pulled back and said, "Three, is it, Lieutenant? Here I was resigned to the fact Myra would never pick me when he could have you."
Charlaine jerked, sputtered, thoughts going in too many vastly inappropriate directions at once.
Jac burst into giggles and buried her face in her arms, which she braced on her knees. It did little to smother the noise, amusement so great her whole body was shaking. If they weren't in the middle of the ocean, Charlaine would have shoved her over the side of the boat.
"You're terrible," he said gruffly, smothering his anger, because it was really only embarrassment. Of course she'd been joking about such an arrangement. "What nonsense are you talking about, Myra picking me? He was beside himself with excitement that you asked him to tea."
Slowly looking up, flushed with laughter, tears of amusement still on her face, Jac gasped out, "Your face! One would think you'd never heard of a threesome before. Sheltered life, Lieutenant? Do your captain and the former commander keep you too busy?"
"Oh, be quiet, I know perfectly well what a threesome is," Charlaine said. "I've had the same adventures as any young, stupid merc on leave in strange ports. I wasn't expecting you to suggest one with us and Myra."
Jac's amusement faded, uncertainty and longing falling over her face again. "No? I—maybe it's just me, then, but I'd rather—" She looked away. "Never mind. I'm just being stupid. I think I've been alone with my thoughts too long. I'm sorry if I caused any offense."
Charlaine's mouth was dry, and he couldn't seem to unstick the words trapped in his throat.
Seeming to curl even further into herself, Jac made to turn completely away.
That wouldn't do.
Charlaine reached out, grabbed her, and hauled her close, leaving her awkwardly sprawled between his legs, her hands on his thighs for balance.
"What do you think you're doing!" Jac hissed.
"Having a discussion," Charlaine said. "Though I'd prefer it be anywhere else in the world. Well, I prefer this to the prison cells of Harkenesten. Anyway, I think this conversation missed a step. Let's begin with the ship."
Jac looked torn between amusement and annoyance. "Let me go."
Charlaine obeyed, partly because he'd made his point, and partly because she needed to move before he embarrassed himself. Sometimes he really envied people who didn't have dicks to make fools of them at every stray thought and stiff breeze.
"I thought we were pretending I didn't make a complete ass of myself by kissing you," Jac said. "I was perfectly all right with that plan, for the record."
"You were drunk," Charlaine said. "I didn't want you to be more embarrassed than you already were, and my ego is fragile and already bruised. It's hard to compete with a younger, prettier person, especially one who dances and kisses like you do." He scrubbed at his face, feeling tired, even though he'd just woken up. This was not the conversation he'd anticipated when he'd prodded Jac.
A hand rested heavy on his thigh again, and Jac's voice filled his ear, low and warm and husky. "I'm not drunk now."
Charlaine's head jerked up, but before he could say a word, Jac gripped his hair and dragged him into a hard, deep kiss. Her mouth fit to his like a missing piece. Pantheon, he'd thought her lethal when she was too drunk to know what she was doing.
Jac with intent and awareness wasn't something he was certain he'd survive.
Tearing himself away, Charlaine asked, "Do you have some sort of thing for boats and ships?"
"Shut up, you stupid bastard," Jac said, and this time kissed him wet and filthy, her tongue taking his mouth like a prize to be claimed.
Charlaine groaned and enjoyed every second of it, hauling her to sit in his lap and feasting at her terrible, distracting mouth the way he'd been wanting to ever since that damned night on the ship.
Eventually, however, they pulled apart again. "You're a terrible person," Charlaine said.
Jac laughed. "You're the one who started this conversation."
"You're the one who suggested a threesome!"
"Seemed like a better solution than fighting you or walking away," Jac said. "A pity the person truly responsible for this mess is still being dragged off to his death."
"Oh, no, you and you alone are responsible for the mess you're sitting on."
Jac blinked, then burst into another fit of giggles, arms wrapped around him as she shook with it, which didn't help anything, at all, even a little bit.
Charlaine mollified and tortured himself by holding her close anyway and kissing her throat. That turned into another heady kiss full of heat and hunger, and oh, the delightful things they could do in bed together. All three of them. Because as delightful as this was, as much as he would love to spread out on a bed and let Jac have him any way she wanted, there was an important piece missing.
Pulling away, he shifted her back to the bench and tried to think unpleasant thoughts. Which wasn't difficult: there were plenty of them clamoring for attention, most of them involving death.
"Don't stop on my account," Mark said, making Jac jump and Charlaine give her a look. Rising, she took Jac's vacated seat across from them. "I had wondered if that's what the three of you were, but despite what everyone says about us nosey Harkens, I know it's rude to pry into others' relationships. We should be heading for shore soon, if I am judging the landscape correctly. We'll eat, make certain Triumvirate navy and soldiers aren't about, then start the last leg of the journey. We should reach our final destination tonight, and from there it's just a long walk to Iron Moon territory. We'll hit forest eventually, though it's nothing like the forests back home. It's hot, sticky, full of vines and more snakes and spiders than I like thinking about too hard. Thankfully, two of our companions will be happy to guide us part of the way, and I've a contact waiting for us who will lead us the rest of the way."
"That's brave of them, given how dangerous the clans and the Seven can be."
"You would be surprised by how many people hate the Seven and the clans. There's bee
n contention for years. But politics are my problem, not yours. The men helping us are…not quite rebels, that implies more organization and purpose than they possess. Defiants, maybe. They never mind doing anything that will upset the rule of the Seven, and they have even less love for the clans."
"We're grateful. I hope they do not pay the ultimate price for helping us."
Mark nodded, patted their knees, and moved to the stern of the boat to converse quietly with the men.
Several minutes later, as the sun bled orange and pink and red across the sky, they landed on the sand of a little rocky hollow. Charlaine climbed out and helped drag the boat further up so the tide wouldn't carry it away. They sat in a circle and Mark made a small fire to ward off the worst of the morning chill as they ate bread, dried fruit and pickled fish for breakfast.
They were nearly done, though Charlaine was still hungry, when one of the sailors brought out a bundle—some sort of large, thick kerchief, the ends knotted together. Opening it revealed a wonderful sweet and spicy smell. Grinning, the sailor handed the bundle off to Mark, who took two of the small steamed dumplings inside. "Spiced dumplings. They're filled with a spicy-sweet paste made from all sorts of things, popular for short trips because they're energizing and will keep for a day or two if packed correctly."
Charlaine happily took two himself and passed the bundle on to Jac. She took one and broke it open, sniffing curiously, a frown on her face. On the verge of devouring his own, Charlaine paused and watched her. The sailors did too, and one of the three was trying hard not to look nervous.
"One of the best ways to sedate someone is cemarine," Jac said, "but cemarine has a very particular smell and taste—not a bad one but distinct, which is a problem when drugging people who might be familiar with it. You can only get past that by combining it with stronger flavors and administering it within an hour or so. Because if you let it rest, for oh, say, several hours of sailing, the cemarine starts to overwhelm everything else."
