Daughter of the dark sea, p.8
Daughter of the Dark Sea, page 8
“You could’ve been anyone,” Kora huffed as she stomped to him. Half-naked and all.
“Well . . . I certainly wouldn’t want anyone seeing this.” His warm hands encircled her body, gently tugging her close as he planted soft kisses along her golden shoulder. He grasped the nape of her neck, his thumb stroking the column of her throat.
“Where have you been?” She willed herself not to give in to the temptation of him as petrichor and leather filled her senses. “You’ve been avoiding me for days. You haven’t slept in here for a few nights.”
Blake’s mouth paused just below her ear. A sigh tickled her neck, and he reluctantly straightened, meeting her defiant gaze. His jaw twitched in amusement, and heat collected between her thighs. Floppy obsidian hair cascaded around his face with a gentle wave. Her hands ached to touch it.
“We must pretend, Kora. People were beginning to suspect something between us.” He ran a hand through his hair—a sign he was frustrated. “I heard rumours about it among the guards. It could jeopardise your position.”
Kora placed her hands on her hips, staring up at her first mate. Rumours had travelled through her crew before. She’d easily quashed them, and she could do the same again. His inquisitive gaze lingered on her body, and a bulge began growing below his waist. The air was suddenly, suffocatingly hot.
“Even so, doesn’t explain your . . . absence.” She glanced towards the bed, and Blake hung his head apologetically.
“I’m sorry, my asterya. Once we had the prisoners, I became so focused on questioning them. There’s so much happening that we don’t understand. Something’s stirring in Galen, and we need to find out what.” He flung his arms up in exasperation.
Dark circles loomed under his beautiful green eyes—he hadn’t been sleeping. A smattering of dirt lined his jaw and neck. She studied his face, drinking in his strong, prominent features, haunted by dark shadows.
She nodded solemnly in response. Blake had been trying to find any reason other than magic to explain the Mist, and Galen’s allegiance with the pirate lords. Kora didn’t dare tell him she believed otherwise. If Galen and magic were returning, it’d mean certain death for them all. The empire had outlawed magic when they amassed control, deeming it far too volatile and dangerous for the islands, and any remaining mages were sentenced to exile or death. If Galen could wield magic, they would overpower the empire. A fully stocked army couldn’t survive magic.
She shuddered at the thought of her loved ones dragged into the Mist, becoming as soulless as the island lurking behind it.
“Please, forgive me,” he whispered. His rough, large palms reached out, leading her towards the enticing bed, and her core simmered deliciously.
“We’ll figure it out, Blake,” she murmured, distracted by his growing member as she perched on the edge of the cream bed.
His fingers lightly grazed her scar, following it to her high cheekbone, before tracing her jaw, and brushing down to her collarbone where the dark chain of the talisman rested. Kora trembled under his touch, his fingers leaving a blazing trail of sensation. She needed this. She needed him.
The swath of blue pillows cushioned her white head as she fell back and Blake continued tracing her upper body. Memorising every curve. Smiling at the talisman, he hovered over her body, brushing the edge of her waistband, teasing her flushed skin. In one fluid movement, he removed her breeches, exposing her entire bare body to him.
Her heart raced, her legs shaking in anticipation.
“You’re beautiful, my asterya.”
His mouth greedily explored her body, planting hot kisses on the scars between her thighs from the Darkoning Trials. He followed the trail of horrific memories up her abdomen to the smooth curve of her breasts. Kora shivered from his touch.
“This suits you.” He admired the talisman necklace, gently tracing the intricately curved midnight blue edges. “I like seeing you wearing nothing but it.” His hand moved to her breast, and she gasped as his tongue flicked her erect nipple.
Kora tugged at his black shirt in silent demand, and Blake chuckled as they removed it together. He settled his body above hers, his strong, muscle-toned arms either side of her head. She roamed her hands over his broad back, feeling the ridges of his own traumatic scars from the trials, and he shuddered in response.
His emerald gaze captured her, sharing the same memory that painfully danced behind their eyes, deep within their souls.
Blake seized her mouth with his, and her hands fisted in his hair as he ground his hips, letting Kora feel his sizable, hard length. Excitement fluttered through her, parting her mouth open for him, and his tongue expertly caressed hers, making her moan.
“Blake,” she panted, their legs tangling, bodies melding together. They suited perfectly. This was meant to be. Kora had never been more certain. Their bodies simply fit, like a puzzle.
“I know. Fuck. I know, asterya.” He nuzzled her neck, and uttered the words she didn’t want to hear. “We can’t. Not here.”
Disappointment flooded her. She removed her hands from his hair and pushed up on his smooth, bare chest as a frosted current of air swept between their separated bodies.
“Why?” She hated that she sounded so desperate.
“Because . . .” Blake smiled wickedly, “when I finally take you, I will make you scream.”
Heat lanced through Kora, her cheeks blushing wildly.
“I also don’t want an audience,” he murmured against her ear, nibbling her lobe. “Trust me, I want to. There’s nothing I want more than this.”
There was no such thing as soundproofing on a ship, and she knew she would moan until the gods heard her. Kora smiled up at him and kissed along his jaw and down his neck, brushing specks of dirt away, nipping his skin and making him hiss.
Blake shifted his weight to the side and lazily stroked up and down her stomach, tracing the edges of earned scars before his fingers navigated to the quivering apex of her thighs. Her breathing hitched at the unspoken promise between them.
This male had saved her life countless times. He’d been to hell and back with her in the Darkoning Trials, and Kora had professed herself to him when they’d finally reunited a year ago. Not quite an admission of love, but she’d promised to give her whole self, and he’d vowed to serve her to the end.
If we do this, you give me everything, Kora. Your heart, your soul.
Everything?
Everything. You’re the light in my life—a shining star. An asterya.
Everything then.
I will follow you to the ends of the earth.
And Kora would never let him go.
Those three dangerous words lingered on her tongue, as Blake’s fingers grazed her slick wetness, and she gasped in pleasure. Circling her entrance, he groaned her name and she bit her lip, holding in her moans, gripping his strong, toned shoulder as his fingers plunged—
CLANG—the alarm bell rang from the centre of the ship.
They froze. The bell continued trilling erratically in the distance, followed by bellowing shouts of her crew. Kora leapt off the bed. Blake rolled to the side in surprise, and she frantically began putting her clothes back on. He hastily dressed, his movements rapid and fluid as he chucked her boots towards her and sheathed his blade to his hip with unnerving speed.
“PRISONERS ESCAPING!” a familiar voice screeched from outside. The ringing intensified.
“Shit!” Kora grabbed her daggers and back holster, briskly securing it around herself as they sprinted from her quarters onto the main deck.
11
An unsettling silence fell upon Hell’s Serpent.
A splattering of blood streaked across the deck, and Kora quietly followed it. Her boots were near silent on the wood, until she discovered one of the guards from the pit, lifeless on the ground, his throat slit.
“Damn it, William,” Blake hissed, anger radiating from him.
Kora’s stomach churned as she peered at a shadowy figure by the main mast, near the alarm bell. Fog had fallen during the night, and she strained to see against the faint illumination of iron lanterns at each end of the ship. The light of the moon barely pierced the grey veil coating the body of Hell’s Serpent.
She signalled to Blake in their code. Move in, but stay hidden.
As they neared the mast, a current of smoky air curled from the crew’s quarters, their door broken, the wood splintered. The dark smoke wafting out thickened the fog, and her brow furrowed. What in the gods had happened?
“Where is everyone?” Kora whispered sharply to Blake.
He shook his head, motioning to lower themselves into a hunting crouch. They quietly approached the heart of the ship, and the moving shadow hissed, followed by a pained yelp. Using the darkness as a cloak, they raced forward. Dread coiled in Kora’s stomach, and a foreboding chill crept into her bones as the fog thinned, reprieving her blindness.
Covered in blood, Jack panted as he threatened a sailor with a cleaver knife to their stubbled throat, and an arm tightly pinning their lean torso.
“Finlay!” Kora gasped.
Jack whipped his wild gaze to her as she revealed herself from the shadows, and her heart thundered as Finlay trembled, his tremor worse than ever. The knife pressed deeper against his throat.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
She held up her hands as Jack eyed her suspiciously, spitting on the floor near her boots.
“Jack, what are you doing?”
“Guess again, lassie.” His features twisted into a hideous smile.
A tattoo blazed on his right arm, paired with a red grog-blossomed nose from excessive drinking, spreading across a squared, menacing face.
The other Flint brother.
He looked identical to Jack in ways, but his foul nature distinguished them apart.
“Just let him go.” Thank gods her tone was calm. “You’re surrounded.” She gestured to the bereft ship. Eerie silence answered, sending Kora’s mind flying as she scrambled for sight of her crew through the thickening mist. The alarm had been so loud, why weren’t any of them here?
“Nah, don’t think I will, missy.” The twin’s shoulder oozed thick, darkened blood, soaking his tattered, filthy shirt.
It spilled onto Finlay, as his foot flexed for his broadsword behind them, by the pit entrance. Blood soaked the blade, and a small seed of pride bloomed with Kora. They had fought. Her pride quickly extinguished as Finlay’s head wound spurted, dripping down the side of his ashen face.
“Don’t see any of ye here to stop me,” the pirate sneered.
Blake had disappeared, melting into the shadows, becoming one with darkness, and she swallowed, praying he was circling the ship to capture the pirate from behind.
“Ye see, I think ye like this lad,” he continued, laughing sinisterly in Finlay’s ear. Kora grimaced at his rotten teeth. Finlay’s sparkling dark eyes pleaded with her as his tremor became violent. “Ye be wantin’ him alive.”
She ground her teeth. “What do you want?”
“Me and me brethren will be gettin’ off ye ship now,” he grinned. “With our booty, and ye coffers—as interest.” He winked, and she nearly launched herself at him. Bilge-sucking scum.
Kora edged closer, and the pirate tutted as he pressed the thick, sharp knife against Finlay’s stubbled throat, spilling precious drops of blood.
Where were the crew? She tried to suppress the rising anxiety within her.
“Stop!” She raised her hands higher, desperate to save Finlay. “Where’s Jack?”
A dark predatory shadow weaved through the equally dark gloom of Hell’s Serpent.
“He be here soon. With our treasure.” The pirate’s gaze flickered, and it was enough of a sign. Kora twisted and froze in horror. A warm light beamed from the open door to her quarters, slicing through the fog, and Jack silently shuffled out of the cabin, dragging something behind him.
This was a diversion.
Blake slithered up behind the rotten pirate with disturbing calmness. He hesitated, glancing towards her with concern, and swept his leg under the twin’s. Blake’s fist pummelled down into his chest, knocking him down, and he mercifully lost his grasp on Finlay.
Finlay careened to Kora, and she caught him before he hit the deck. Thank the gods. His shaking hands gripped onto her as he cried out with fear—fear of death circling him once again. Blake wrestled with the pirate, his hand reaching for the cutlass sword sheathed at his side.
“We need him alive!” Kora ordered. She was determined these pirates would meet their demise in the courts of the Aldara Council.
“Silas!” Jack cried from the quarterdeck. He staggered from her quarters, his right shoulder bleeding, the arm hanging limp, hauling the makeshift knapsack of Galen’s wealth with his left arm. He froze at Blake pinning Silas to the floor, his sword drawn in an execution.
“Jack! Don’t move!” Kora shouted.
Jack dropped the knapsack, swiftly sprinting for the steps up to the quarterdeck, and she chased after him, with Finlay hot on her heels.
“Don’t kill Silas!” she called to Blake over her shoulder, and he growled in response.
They’d absconded from their cells, and she knew Blake saw death as a fit punishment, but she wanted a crueller hand of justice. Kora wanted to see them rot in the worst place on earth—
Aryn suddenly stumbled out of her quarters as they raced for the ebony steps, and he collapsed to his knees, the fog wrapping around him like a blanket.
“Aryn!” She diverted towards his crumpled figure and Finlay hoarsely cursed. Aryn groaned, clutching his head, which was peppered with bruises, and clogged with thick blood. Kora crouched beside him.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, his body sagging. “I saw him go in. I-I tried to stop him.”
Kora braced Aryn by his shoulders, helping him sit back against the outside wall of her quarters. “Do you know where the crew are?”
Aryn pointed weakly towards the crew quarters at the bow end. “The smoke,” he wheezed, and her eyes widened. Jack’s boots pounded against the wood above them.
“Finlay, stay here with Aryn,” she quipped. “Keep an eye on Blake. Don’t let him kill Silas.”
Finlay sharply nodded as Kora took off to the wide steps, and she rounded the corner, her hand following the smooth curve of the ebony balustrade railing. The fog was thinner up here, and Jack stood defiantly at the helm, his left hand gripping the wheel.
His dark brown eyes tracked her stalking across the deck, and she kept her palms open and up, offering a false sense of parley. “Jack, stop this now,” she spoke in Devanian. “It’s over. You can’t win this.”
He released an exasperated laugh, and his long ginger hair wafted in the gentle night breeze. “We’re getting off this gods-damned ship alive.” He spoke in the common tongue, without his pirate dialect.
Who were these pirate twins?
He sucked in moistened air, sweat plastering his face and body, holding himself well despite the obvious wound to his shoulder from one of Aryn’s arrows.
“You know I can’t allow that.” Kora shuffled closer.
“You don’t know what’s happening.” His deep breaths became shaky. “We are not your enemy!” She paused her hunting stalk, a few feet away from the helm. Her fingers itched to reach behind for one of her hidden curved sabres.
“Don’t feed me that drivel.” Her lips curled in repulsion.
Jack’s eyes pleaded and her stomach coiled. She narrowed in on his grimy hand clutching at the wheel of Hell’s Serpent.
Her ship.
“We are not your enemy,” he repeated, switching to Devanian.
Kora’s temper flared. She was angry at pirates for taking her life and her family away, but she was now angry at herself. She’d been foolish, letting Jack use their connection of Devanian to soften her and bring her guard down. The breeze turned into a gust of wind, circling around them with strange warmth, and his face broke into a mystic smile.
“Listen,” Jack spoke softly. “Listen to the voice that carries on the wind. I know you can hear it.”
Kora’s world froze. How did he know?
She’d never told anyone about the guiding hand of the wind that followed and whispered carefully to her mind. He laughed, smiling up at the dark, night sky. He was mocking her. A low, animalistic growl ripped from her throat. He had to be lying. He was tricking her once again, and she silently reached for her daggers.
“Jack! Help me!” Silas roared.
Returning the yell, Jack suddenly spun the wheel, turning the ship starboard side. The ship violently rocked, and Kora’s legs slid as she fell to the deck, her side slamming into the weathered wood.
Jack dashed around the helm, darting to the balustrade and hurling himself over. She scrambled to the railing, unsheathing one of her daggers, ready to impale it into his back. Jack tucked his body in, shielding his injured shoulder from the fall as he expertly rolled onto the deck, disappearing into the thick of the fog in a matter of seconds.
He was no ordinary pirate, and Kora smiled—it was time for a hunt.
Racing down the steps to her left, she gripped her dagger. Aryn lay unconscious by the entrance to her quarters. His body was slumped in the amber light, the exquisite cream makeshift of treasure discarded and forgotten by his feet, and Finlay was nowhere to be seen.
The fog was so thick she could barely see a few feet in front of her, but she carefully stalked to the edge of the ship, keeping her back to the open air of the ocean as she followed the thick railing. It’d become rough over the years from sea exposure, and the number of arrows embedded into it during warfare created various dips and grooves in the wood.
She’d spent so much of her time upon Hell’s Serpent, she could navigate it blind. Once Kora was sure she was adjacent to the main mast, her hand flung out and thankfully grabbed onto the shrouds. She couldn’t charge into the fight hidden within the fog and risk harming Finlay, Blake, or herself.
