The Kraken King (47 page)

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Authors: Meljean Brook

Tags: #Romance, #Fantasy, #Adult

BOOK: The Kraken King
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Biting her lip, she turned back to the sea. The horizon was still clear—and the glow ahead was brighter, so bright that the hand she held out was illuminated by the faint blue light.
A giant jellyfish, maybe. And they were on course to fly right over it.
Her heart raced as they neared, as she imagined the stinging tentacles whipping up out of the water like a kraken’s and dragging them down. That was absurd, of course—oh, but it definitely had to happen in the next adventure she wrote. Because the reality was not all dangerous. It was just heart-stoppingly beautiful.
She must have gasped. In the next moment, Ariq stood beside her, the angular planes of his face washed in that soft blue light.
“A bloom,” he said.
“How many?”
“I can’t imagine.”
Neither could she. But it must have been
so
many. Hundreds of thousands. Maybe millions. A long swath of the ocean was aglow, the mass rippling underwater in a fluid dance of light. “It’s incredible.”
Ariq didn’t answer. When she glanced up, he was looking south over the bloom, his eyebrows drawn. She followed his gaze.
Lights on the edge of the horizon. Not jellyfish, but the familiar yellow glow of gas lanterns. As she watched, darker shapes resolved against the night sky.
Ships
and
airships. Not Tatsukawa and Ghazan Bator. Their lantern fish flew faster than either the ironship or airship could travel, and these were coming from the wrong direction. Yet Ariq had stiffened as if he’d sighted their vessels, instead.
She took his hand. “What is it?”
“A Nipponese fleet,” he said flatly. “Fifteen ironships. Six airships. Headed west.”
Her mind raced.
Headed west.
Of everything he’d just stated, that seemed to hold the most import. “Do you think they’re headed for the western coast? For Krakentown?”
Jaw clenched, Ariq nodded.
Oh, God. “How much time?”
“I don’t know. They might intend to search for the marauders first.”
“Then we have time.” She squeezed his fingers. “We have time to make it right when we reach the Red City. We can let everyone know what really happened.”
“Yes,” he said. His voice was rough, his expression troubled. Not the calm she’d come to expect.
Her stomach cramped. If Ariq was openly worried, then clearly everyone on the western coast should be terrified.
“I don’t know anything about war, but if there’s anything you need from me, just ask.”
He tore his gaze from the horizon to search her face. His palm cupped her cheek. “Stay.”
She would. Until everything was settled, one way or another.
At her nod, he drew her against him. His dark gaze returned to the fleet.
What was he seeing? A formation that told him more about the ships and their intentions? Or did he simply see the threat they posed to everything he’d fought for and loved?
She slipped her arms around him. “Are you all right?”
He slowly nodded. His hand stroked down her back.
“My heart is iron,” he said.
Part VI
THE KRAKEN KING AND THE CRUMBLING WALLS
In a jellyfish balloon
Just north of the Red City, Nippon
June 3
Archimedes,
In all of my previous letters I threatened you with gross mischaracterization if you followed me to Australia. Most likely you have disregarded my requests and are traveling here now.
    On the slim chance that you haven’t disregarded them, however, now I implore you to ignore what I’ve written before. The attack on our airship revealed a conspiracy that threatens every settlement on the western coast of Australia, and your wife’s skyrunner and her services as a mercenary might prove useful to the people I want to help.
    You might as well accompany her, my dear brother. I’m certain that we can find a way to make you useful, too.
Your dutiful sister,
Zenobia
     P.S. I apparently agreed to be the Kraken King’s wife during our abduction. I don’t yet know if our nuptials will stand—though he has married me, I have not yet married him—but I suppose a dutiful sister would apprise a brother of such news.
XXI
Airships and boats crowded the Red City’s harbor. Ariq slowed the lantern fish’s approach. The sun had just risen, offering enough light to identify the anchored vessels. If Admiral Tatsukawa had flown directly to the Red City after sending his messenger to Ghazan Bator’s ironship, he could have arrived before Ariq and Zenobia did.
He lowered the spyglass. None of the airships was Tatsukawa’s. No doubt someone would report to either Ghazan Bator or Tatsukawa when Ariq returned to the embassy, but Ariq didn’t think they would be intercepted now.
Zenobia joined him at the basket’s side, tucking her notebook into her belt. “It’s safe to fly in?”
“Safe enough,” Ariq said, then glanced at her notebook. She’d been bent over a page since the sky had lightened enough for her to write by. “Do you need more time before we head in?”
“No. It’s just a letter to Archimedes, asking him to come. It’s doubtful that I’ll have a moment to write after we arrive, and I want to post it as quickly as possible.”
Asking him to come.
After saying that she would leave with her brother if Ariq couldn’t persuade her to marry him.
After she’d promised to stay.
He clenched his jaw against the ache building in his chest. Only two weeks ago, he’d decided to give her up because he couldn’t fight two battles: one for her heart, and the other for his town. But the heavens had favored him and kept her near, allowing him more time with her as he searched for the marauders. Yet now the same struggle was upon him again. Here in the Red City, she would still be close, but his waking hours would likely be spent convincing Nipponese officials to hear him speak.
Ariq had told Zenobia that he would have her so hard and so long that they would need three days to recover. But the Nipponese fleet was sailing toward his town. He would be lucky to have three hours. Now, when he most needed to win her.
And she was already writing to her brother.
Her cold hand slipped into his. “To come help.”
He frowned. “Help?”
Zenobia nodded, looking out over the sea, her hair a wild tumble down her back. “I know nothing of battles and fighting. But my brother and his wife do. And Yasmeen has an airship, so she might prove useful to you.” She glanced back at him, her brows raised. “Did you think that it was so I could leave? I said I would stay until this was settled.”
His voice was rough as he said, “So you did.”
“Because we agreed that it was more sensible to know each other better before deciding whether to stay married. It’s difficult to learn whether a man will be a good husband while he is off to war.”
Her tone could not have been more practical, but amusement shone in her eyes and tugged at her mouth. Yesterday, Ariq had been certain that he couldn’t love her more. Would she prove him wrong every single day?
He hoped so.
Pulling her back against his chest, he wrapped his arms around her slender waist, giving her the warmth of his body. As much as he hated this uncertainty, she’d been right to insist on knowing him better before committing to a lifetime. Had Ariq been any other man, had their circumstances been different, he would have lived with Zenobia and her family before their marriage, so they could be certain of his character and his worth. This arrangement was as near to the custom of his people as he could hope for—and how could any man be displeased with such a sensible wife? He only feared she might use the additional time to push him away.
“War is the best time to learn the character of a man,” he told her.
“Will I learn nothing, then? You’re trying to thwart a war.”
“Because the greatest victory is a battle won without shedding any blood.”
And that would tell her even more about his character. She had already seen him spill blood when he’d killed the guards on the ironship. Ariq
would
destroy his enemies if necessary, but he preferred not to. And he didn’t want to see any bloodshed against Nippon and her empress.
She leaned her head back against his shoulder. “I like to negotiate.”
Telling him something about herself in return—but Ariq already knew this. From the night she’d first arrived in his town and persuaded him to escort her to the smugglers dens, to their second kiss which she’d decided was
his turn
. Every step she’d taken closer to him had been an exchange or a bargain of some sort.
But he didn’t know why. “What do you like about it?”
“Increasing whatever small advantage I have—or turning my disadvantage into equality. And getting my way. I like that very well.”
He grinned against her hair. “Do you?”
“Oh, yes.” But the amusement in her voice quickly faded. Her hand smoothed up the sleeve covering his forearm and stopped with her fingers curling lightly over his biceps. “You’ll have a lot of negotiating ahead.”
“Yes.”
“Do you have the advantage?”
“No.” The same heaviness that had weighed on his heart when he’d seen the fleet sailing west returned to his chest. “I only have the truth.”
And that was never as powerful a weapon as it should be. The truth had not pierced Zenobia’s defenses, and he was familiar with the strength of her walls. He didn’t know exactly what he would face in Nippon.
“What of your reputation?”
“It might work in my favor. But it could just as easily work against me.” No one would want to make an enemy of Ariq—so they might choose not to involve themselves and refuse to hear him. If they did, even truth would not help. Any attempt to march into Nippon and force them to listen would be more disastrous than silence.
“You will have allies. Helene’s husband, for one. He was already indebted after you rescued us from the marauders’ attack and brought Helene to the Red City. Now his obligation will be all the greater because we were abducted from his home.”
The French ambassador. Ariq didn’t know how much influence the man had, but he wouldn’t reject his assistance.
Or Zenobia’s. Already she was trying to help him. He couldn’t love her more.
Yet Ariq knew that he would. Watching her profile, he asked, “Do you wish to join me when I speak with him—or anyone else? To negotiate?”
When she smiled, the tip of her nose tilted downward very slightly while her cheeks and eyebrows rose. “I don’t offer you any advantage. And wouldn’t I be a distraction?”
No,
he wanted to say. But she would be, at a time when he couldn’t afford any distractions or to give anyone leverage. If they saw how Ariq felt for her, he would be exposing a weakness in his armor.
When he nodded, she said, “Then I will give them the truth of our story if they ask me for it. I’d hardly be of much help, anyway. I can’t speak Nipponese—and even if they speak French, God knows how many times I might inadvertently insult someone. Helene warned me how easy it is to offend.”
Not so easy. But she spoke sense. Either she would be lost in every conversation, or the dialogue would be delayed by continual translations.
She seemed to tense a little, and paused before adding, “Every night, you can come to me and tell me how it went.”
No. Because he was fighting two battles, and although he would have to spend his days wielding words to avert one war, the best way to win Zenobia was not to tell her how he felt, but to show her. So he would
not
be spending his nights talking.
Or the next few minutes.
But before his hands slid to her hips she was spinning to face him—she must have decided that it was her turn. She rose onto her toes. Still not tall enough to reach his mouth, she anchored her arms around his neck and leapt.
Prepared to lean forward, Ariq staggered a little, readjusting his balance and his grip. She laughed against his mouth, then claimed his lips, and he had the thought that she’d bludgeoned him again before her heated taste burned his brains to ash and hardened his body to steel. Her hands fisted in his hair. Her tongue curled against his, and what began as an attack of weight and teeth and laughter became a controlled assault, slow and deep. Her legs tightened around his waist, and she began a long, leisurely ride up and down the aching length of his erection.
Shaking with the need to guide her faster, harder, he fought the urge to take hold of her hips, to take control. He’d done this to her. Held her still and invaded. It had been pure pleasure. But he hadn’t known how devastating it was to be held helpless in the wake of it. To simply take, until desire was a beast with sharp teeth, and just let it bite into him.
She made Ariq take until her thighs began to tremble, until her effort burst between them in her panting breaths. Her legs fell from around his waist. Her feet slipped to the floor, leaving his body a minefield of explosive arousal.
Yet she still kissed him, finally pulling him down to her height. Turning disadvantage into equality—and both of them suffering the same torment. Her breathing was ragged when she finally tore her mouth from his.
“Tonight?” she whispered against his lips.
“Tonight.” Need roughened his vow. He would have her. And they would finally be equal in that, too.
Because she already had him.
***
One battle at a time.
Just one. But by midmorning, Ariq was forcing himself not to succumb to his frustration at how slowly the battle was progressing. That wasn’t like him. Countless times he’d waited before—for orders, for an enemy to move into position. He’d spent more time in a camp than he’d ever spent on a battlefield.
This wasn’t any different. Instead of a camp, he stood in an ambassador’s study while the man wrote messages at his desk.
He just had to be patient. There was nothing that he could do.
And doing nothing was tearing at him.
Abruptly Ariq stopped his pacing and rolled his shoulders, trying to will away the tension gripping his body. The large window in Basile Auger’s study overlooked the embassy gardens, which butted up against the Red Wall. He could scale its massive height. At night, the guards in the watchtowers regularly walked the battlements, but it would take little effort to slip past them. After Ariq was in Nippon, he could . . .
Do nothing.
He didn’t know whom to talk to. He didn’t know how to make them listen.
Auger did. And the ambassador
was
helping. When Ariq and Zenobia had arrived in the lantern fish early that morning, most of the embassy household had already been awake. After they’d told their stories and Helene’s initial shock upon hearing news of their marriage had passed, Zenobia had been bustled away for food and rest while Ariq had met with Auger to once again lay out every step from the marauders’ initial attack to the abduction a week before. Auger had begun sending messages then. As there was nothing else for him to do, Ariq had bathed and eaten, his frustration souring every bite. Now he waited for the man to finish and for the initial responses from the ambassador’s contacts to come in.
Auger’s chair scraped back. At the ring of a bell, a servant entered the study. The ambassador gave him a stack of sealed messages. “See that these are delivered immediately. And ask Lieutenant Blanchett to join us on the half hour.”
The servant bowed and closed the door. His expression grave, Auger joined Ariq at the window. A cigarillo box stood on a nearby table. He opened it and glanced at Ariq. “Will you have one?”
“No.”
Aboard the airship from the smugglers’ dens to the Red City, Ariq had seen Zenobia wrinkle her nose and move away from an aviator who lit one near her. Sometimes battles were won or lost for the smallest of reasons. He wouldn’t lose her for a cigarillo—and the pleasure of her kiss was greater than the pleasure of a smoke could ever be.
“I don’t usually indulge so early. Today I make an exception.” Auger regarded Ariq through the curling smoke. “This isn’t easy for you. The waiting.”
How could it be? “Every hour that passes, the fleet sails closer to my home.”
The ambassador nodded and drew on his cigarillo again. Not just smoking, Ariq realized, but using the time to watch him—to judge his reactions and to decide how to proceed.
His next words told Ariq that he’d judged correctly. “Diplomacy often requires me to mince words. I suspect that you would rather I not.”
“I prefer a boar to a squirrel.”
“Boars are also better for eating,” the ambassador said. “Which is why we rarely employ the finesse of one. There are too many pit traps and tigers who lie in wait.”
Those dangers always lay in wait, no matter how a man spoke. “I won’t eat you.”
“You might want to when you hear how I have already made your circumstances more difficult.” Auger scrubbed out the tip of the cigarillo and set it aside. He met Ariq’s eyes again. “I am partially responsible for that fleet. When you were abducted, I sent . . .
strongly
worded messages over the wall, asking how they could allow a few men on flyers to threaten Nippon’s new alliances. I recognize now that is exactly what your enemies hoped I would do.”

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