Heart of Steel (27 page)

He nodded. “And so will we.”

 

 

She went above decks, where the wind cleared her head,
allowed her to think of absolutely nothing but the mountains passing beneath her feet, the route they were taking south.
Ceres
was a good ship, bucking the wind with barely a sway. Nothing like her lady had been, but solid. When Guillouet was finished flying or dead, she would serve another captain, and perhaps another. Hopefully, she'd be treated well, loved, and serve many more.

Near the end of the afternoon watch, she reluctantly started for the ladder. She couldn't remain up on deck all day. She passed one of the Vashons—with his black eye hidden under his goggles, she couldn't tell if it was Peter or Paul—and acknowledged him with a nod.

“How goes the sky, Captain?”

Yasmeen almost missed a step, so great was her shock. Even on a mercenary ship, his familiar address was a severe break of protocol. But she'd sensed no enmity from either twin the evening before; he might have simply been pushing to see her reaction. She wouldn't give him one—and he wasn't hers to discipline. Smoothly, she turned her stumble into a pause, and responded as if he'd addressed her formally. “Very well, Mr. Vashon.”

She continued on and had to stifle her groan when Guillouet abandoned the quarterdeck and intercepted her near the ladder.

Quietly, he said, “You will not speak with my crew, Mrs. Fox.”

Her brows lifted. Ordering her about was the surest way to make her do the opposite.

His jaw was tight. “I'd heard rumor that you've been stirring up my men with talk of low wages.”

Was that what this was about? Fuck. Though it rasped against her pride to do it, she said, “If there is any talk, Captain, it was in your favor. In conversation, they asked what percentage I gave. I told them fifty percent. Less than you.”

Satisfaction briefly loosened the tension in his features. He had his own pride, and discovering that he paid a higher percentage than
Lady Corsair
's captain obviously soothed it. “This was conversation in the mess?”

“Yes.” No need to point a finger at Henri. “I haven't spoken with your crew outside of it.”

Some of the tension returned, but this time, Yasmeen sensed that it wasn't directed toward her. Holding her gaze, he said, “Beginning this evening, I would like for you to take your meals in your cabin, and to remain there as much as possible.”

This was also an order, but Yasmeen's instincts didn't immediately rise against it. Though he didn't explain it, Captain Guillouet's concern was clear—and a mutiny could be dangerous for anyone who wasn't a mutineer. “And my husband?”

“Can eat where he chooses.”

She nodded. Whatever rumors had reached his ears, Guillouet obviously believed they'd been sparked by her presence, even if she hadn't sparked them herself. “We will be away from the ship for two days, Captain, beginning tomorrow.”

“Yes,” he said, and she saw relief lighten some of his tension. And it might be true: The talk might settle without her presence to prompt it. Crews often grumbled, and rarely did it escalate into something more—but whether it did would depend on Captain Guillouet.

And in this instance, at least, he'd done exactly what Yasmeen would have. So she returned below, prepared to keep her mouth shut, her eyes open . . . and her gun within reach.

 

 

In the cabin, Archimedes was in his bunk, lying on his side
with elbow propped as he paged through Ollivier's notes. Ah, but he truly was a fine specimen of a man. He looked up, met her eyes. His smile faded. “What is it?”

Yasmeen held up a finger. She didn't want to talk with him from across the cabin, even as small as it was. With the pipes running through the ship, sometimes voices carried over the engines, and she wasn't familiar enough with
Ceres
to know where the dangerous spots were.

After shedding her coat and hat, she went to the side of the bunk, crossing her forearms on his mattress. He leaned forward, and she said softly, “Captain Guillouet fears a mutiny.”

His brows shot up. He drew back to study her face, as if to determine whether she was serious. “We are but two days out.”

“
We
are,” she said. “They left the New World many weeks ago. If there was already dissatisfaction, then seeing Guillouet's reaction to my coming aboard and the insult of him sending me down might have sparked more.”

“But they didn't seem insulted by you. Well, not all of them.”

“That doesn't matter so much, does it? The grumblings would not truly be about me. But, regardless—I am confined to our cabin until we leave tomorrow morning.”

He stared at her. “And you agreed to that?”

“Mutiny is never to be taken lightly. Even if this is not a navy ship, the crew would fear anyone witnessing what happened. Perhaps we'd be safe simply by staying out of the way, but it's impossible to know. So we ought to ready our packs and gliders for tomorrow, but
keep
them ready, even after we return.”

She'd rather take her chances in the wilds of Europe than stay aboard a mutinous ship.

Archimedes seemed to agree. He nodded. “All right.”

“When you go to dinner, bring back my plate first so I can taste it.” It all came from the same pots; he should be all right to eat his afterward. “When you eat with them, listen—especially to what isn't being said. Last night, I didn't sense anything of this sort, but most mutinies are whispers in the dark, not out in the open.”

“I'll do that,” he said.

She sighed. “And then I will be glad we are not on this ship the next two days.”

“And Hassan?”

“If it does happen, tell him to stay in his room, to be quiet, and if they come for him, to offer money—and to give them all the wine.”

“And remind them he is a friend to Temür Agha.”

His gaze was flat and hard, reminding her that a dangerous, clever mind lay behind those emerald eyes. Archimedes wasn't thinking of what Temür might do; he was thinking of what
he
would do if Hassan were harmed.

“Yes,” she said.

“And the marines?”

“If the crew is riled to the point of mutiny, the marines' presence alone might be enough to suppress it. But I will add that they rarely are riled to that point, no matter their complaints. Your father was
much
worse than Guillouet, and though we hated him, we'd never have attempted mutiny. Even the man your father tried to roast had only been overheard complaining—he could have been set down instead with strong discipline. If the example needed to be made, maybe a whipping.” And though Yasmeen didn't hesitate to kill when necessary, the entire situation had been horrifying. First the roasted mutineer, and then the number of men she'd shot just to stay alive . . . She couldn't regret it, but there was nothing good in it, either. “Even if he'd ordered a whipping for
me
after I'd shot the roasting man, I wouldn't have mutinied. If
Ceres
' crew rises up because of wormy bread and a lack of women, they are not much of a crew at all.”

Mouth firmly set, Archimedes shook his head. “And hearing all that only makes me more glad that you killed him.”

“Then why didn't you? And how is it that an educated son of a fanatical mercenary became a weapons smuggler with the Horde rebellion?”

“Why not kill him? I thought I'd eventually prove him wrong. And as the war heated up, he was home less often, and left us there. I don't doubt that if he'd gone back for good while Geraldine—Zenobia—was still living there, I would have.” He swung his legs over the side of the bunk, dropped to the floor. “As to the rest, I was just trying to get away from my father as much as possible. That meant supporting whoever he didn't.”

“The Liberé?”

“Yes.”

Going down on his heels, he dragged their trunk from under the bed—intending to start on their packs as they talked, she realized. Not yet. When he stood and reached into his watch pocket for the key, she hooked her foot behind his knee and pushed against his chest. Unbalanced, he sat down hard on the trunk's lid and almost tipped over backward, stopping when he braced his hands against the bunk behind him. She straddled his hips, smiling, looking down at his face as his expression moved from surprised to amused . . . and then, with a subtle shift, gained a wicked edge.

“I think you like this position, Mrs. Fox.”

She rasped her claw across the rough stubble beneath his jaw, marveling at how easily he lifted his chin, exposing his throat. He wasn't stupid, so that had to be trust.

“With you between my legs, at my mercy?” She squeezed him with her thighs. “Yes, I like this position very much. So do you, I think.”

His cock was already rigid beneath her. She rocked forward, loving the way his eyes closed, his teeth clenched. He shifted his feet, widened his legs. Yasmeen's breath caught as she settled more firmly against him.

“I like it,” he said. “Very much. Now hold still.”

“I don't take orders well.”

“For this, you will.” He sat up. At her back, his hands slipped beneath her shirt. His strong fingers began slow circles up the length of her spine.

“Oh, yes.” Yasmeen's eyelids seemed suddenly heavy, weighed down by the pleasure sliding across her skin with each circular stroke. She all but melted against his chest, slipping her arms around his back to hold herself against him, and let him do as he willed. “But tell me about the smuggling.”

“There's little to tell. Bilson was a friend from university. We both supported the Liberé, and he knew someone who needed men to bring weapons in from Horde territory. So we did.”

But that wasn't all, Yasmeen wagered. “And it was dangerous.”

“You have me down, don't you?” His mouth curved into a wry smile. “Yes. Almost all of the meet-ups with suppliers were at the Hapsburg Wall, or at the edges of the empire. The first was on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea. I saw my first megalodon, my first zombies, spent the whole journey with my heart pounding, certain I would die. And the moment we were done, I couldn't wait to return.”

She laid her cheek onto his shoulder. “According to the stories, you were good at it.”

“I was.”

“Until you lost your cargo.” The smooth motion of his hands faltered slightly, and made her wonder—“
Did
you lose it? Did you sell it to someone else? What did you do with the money?”

“I didn't sell it. I sank the barge.” His voice was low. “This was not long after I was shot, after I was infected by nanoagents, was affected by the tower. My emotions were a wreck—and Temür was shipping war machines to the Liberé.”

She opened her eyes, stared blindly past his neck to the porthole. That sort of power would have ended the conflict quickly. But, no—he'd changed his name six months after Bart had stabbed her, she remembered. “But the war was over by then—the Liberé had already won.”

“Aside from a few skirmishes, yes. The Liberé said they wanted to have the machines, just to make certain the French weren't a threat again. But I was convinced they'd use them, and war machines on any side tipped the scales too far. So I sank them.”

While his emotions had been in turmoil. “And now what do you feel?”

His hands lazily stroked up to her shoulders. “I don't regret it.”

“Despite all of this trouble now with your debt, the search for the sketch.”

“Yes.”

“My crew is dead, my ship gone.”

His hands froze. Obviously, he'd never put it together like that. “God, Yasmeen. I can't . . .”

Lifting her cheek from his shoulder, she shook her head. “I don't blame anyone but the person responsible—and the person who gave the order.”

Fingers gliding down her sides, he asked softly, “And if it's Nasrin, how will we kill her?”

We.
She liked the sound of that too well. “We don't have to kill her. If we kill Temür, she'll die. Of course, getting past her to Temür is another problem entirely.” She smiled when his brow furrowed in confusion. “You cannot release a weapon like Nasrin without some tether. When she was altered and the royal she served was chosen, her nanoagents were aligned to his. Even if duty failed, she would save his life simply because hers is also at stake.”

“So if he dies, she dies.”

“Yes.”

“That's . . . barbaric.”

Perhaps. “But to her, it's beautiful.”

“And to you?”

“It's both.” To the
gan tsetseg
, whose very existence was created to honor an act of love and protection, those bonds of loyalty and duty
were
life—and there was nothing else. Yasmeen couldn't believe the same, not anymore, but she couldn't shed everything from her upbringing, and there were memories and stories that she held close. So, too, would the other women. “I'd never wish it for myself. I'd have hated it. But I've also recently thought that there are some bonds that I do welcome, because I receive something that makes the burden worth bearing in return. So I understand her a little better.”

“Perhaps you do. But even if you loved me, I wouldn't want you to do that. I would rather you never loved me at all than to know my death killed you.”

Such a romantic. Sitting up, she cupped his strong jaw. His gaze locked with hers. She lowered her head, breathing his breath.
Yes.
He was right: This was almost better than a kiss. When he whispered her name, she pressed her face into his neck, smelled his incredible scent.