Chapter Thirteen
Cutting Lady Corsair’s engines the previous night had delayed them. It was nearing midnight before Mina climbed above decks in anticipation of her first glimpse of the Market, prudently leaving her short uniform coat behind in favor of a less conspicuous black waistcoat that buckled tightly over her shirtsleeves and armor. Trahaearn had already joined Yasmeen at the quarterdeck, and she knew they were discussing whether to wait until morning before attempting to find Colbert. That decision was made for them, however, when the notorious settlement finally came into view as an unmistakable orange glow against the dark sky.
The Ivory Market was burning.
Though the spyglass, Mina could only see flames and gray smoke. “What happened?”
Beside her, Trahaearn shook his head.
Lady Corsair’s approach seemed endless, and from a distance, the extent of the fire impossible to determine. Trahaearn’s grim expression reflected the captain’s and the crew’s, and they waited, their eyes on the horizon.
They passed the spyglass between them, and the orange glow slowly resolved into detail. Mina watched through the lens, astounded by the size of the Market. She’d pictured a larger version of the carnival near Chatham, not a city that sprawled along the edge of the coast. By the orange light, she could make out the market proper—an enormous collections of tents and stalls that formed a wide swath at the city center. But it was flanked by large houses of stone and wood, pockets of shantytowns, and rookeries that Trahaearn told her were as dangerous as the worst in London. Not all of them were burning.
He took the spyglass again. “The fire is centered in the French quarter.”
Where Colbert’s residence and his auction house would be. Though the Market included more than four distinct sections, each one was known as a quarter—including the Horde quarter, populated by refugees who’d escaped the empire. As soon as Trahaearn pointed it out, Mina trained the glass on the terraced roofs with reluctant fascination. What would it be like to walk through those streets? To look like everyone else? She couldn’t imagine.
“Eighty ships in the harbor,” Trahaearn continued. “None of them the Terror. Twenty, perhaps twenty-five airships.”
“Josephine?” Yasmeen named Hunt’s skyrunner.
“I don’t see her. Either Hunt has given her up, or she’s flying along with the Terror.”
“I’ll make a round of the harbor to be certain.”
Trahaearn shook his head. “Take us into the French quarter first. The auction house is of stone, and secure. It won’t be long before the looting starts—if it hasn’t already—and Colbert would escape the fire there. So we’ll find him.”
With a nod, Yasmeen looked back out over the city. “I’ll send teams of runners down. They’ll ask around, find out what happened. I have five men to send with you, and I’ll return to the French quarter and wait as soon as I’ve had a look at the harbor.”
“And Scarsdale?” Mina wondered. “Will he be able to ride down the platform with us?”
The duke glanced at her, faint humor in his eyes. “Yes.”
But not on his own. White-faced and shaking, Scarsdale made it up to the main deck. One look over the bow sent him scrambling for the ladder again, retching with fear. Trahaearn stepped into his path, barked his name. Scarsdale stopped. Bracing his feet, he faced the duke. Trahaearn’s fist shot out and the other man crumpled to the deck.
With a sigh, Trahaearn hauled the dazed man up over his shoulder and joined Mina at the platform.
Chaos reigned below. Carts sped through the lanes, rattling over the ruts in the baked earth. A man led two horses who snorted and pranced, necks arched and heads high. Arms loaded with children and clothing, families ran together down the walks, ducking through the sparks and burning ash. Some spotted the descending platform and rushed toward it, screaming and waving. One of Yasmeen’s crew struck the chain, and the platform jerked to a halt eight feet above the street. Mina leapt down and rushed out of Trahaearn’s way. A faint vibration shook up through her boots when he landed.
The air shimmered with heat. Backing to a stone wall off the street, Mina helped carry Scarsdale to the ground and patted him awake while Trahaearn stood over them. As soon as Scarsdale blinked, the duke hauled him to his feet by his coat.
“Ready?”
Gaze quickly sharpening, Scarsdale nodded. Trahaearn pushed a gun harness into Scarsdale’s grip and grabbed Mina’s hand.
Led by Scarsdale and trailed by Yasmeen’s men, they ran into the street, past a long vehicle that clipped along on dozens of narrow legs like a centipede, the seats loaded with children and guarded by hard-eyed nuns armed with scimitars. Mina had only a second to gawk before they rounded a corner. The sounds of shattering glass and cracking wood came from every direction. Shots and shouts rang out. Not just the panic of the fire, Mina realized. Ahead, a team of three men tossed a chair through the window of a house before climbing in. A blunderbuss boomed nearby. A robed woman crying in the seat of an abandoned rickshaw shrieked and covered her ears. Scarsdale slowed, pointing to the crater caving in the side of a large stone house. Mina’s eyes widened.
Firebombed. The French quarter had been firebombed.
They didn’t take time to look. Turning down a narrow lane, Scarsdale led them to a large iron gate set into a high wall of white block stone. It protected a columned marble building topped by a pilastered dome. Behind the gates, two men armed with rifles stepped forward—and quickly took aim through the iron bars as Trahaearn reached into his coat.
Their shouts of warning died when the duke withdrew a purse.
Little wonder that he assumed that everyone was for sale, Mina thought moments later, racing through the gates to the auction house entrance. Most people he encountered were—and this time, she had to appreciate it. Paying those men had been easier than shooting their way in.
Scarsdale was grinning when they paused at the doors and Trahaearn bent to the locks. “If Colbert paid a man what he’s worth, we’d have holes in us by now.”
“If he’d invested in a bar for this door, we’d be climbing in through the dome,” Trahaearn observed as he pushed the door open. “But he didn’t.”
Inside the thick walls, the building was cool and dark. Two pink damask sofas inhabited the small parlor to the left of the grand foyer—perhaps a waiting room. On the right, a wide marble staircase wound up toward the dome. The auctions were conducted upstairs, Trahaearn had told her. But the merchandise was secured underground and on the main level, and carried to the auction floor by lift. They listened. No sounds came from upstairs. One of Yasmeen’s men ran up the steps, confirmed that the dome floor was empty. Toward the back, then.
A locked door across the foyer opened to a narrow passageway. From deeper within the building came the hiss of hydraulics, the rattle of chains, the squeal of metal bearing too much weight. Trahaearn moved to the front, followed by Scarsdale and Mina, holding her pistol at ready. Opium wouldn’t stop an uninfected man as quickly as it would a bugger. They passed empty rooms, stopping to check each one. As Trahaearn stepped into the next corridor, metal glinted in the dark to his left.
Mina opened her mouth to call a warning, but Trahaearn had already pivoted around and charged into the dark. A quick scuffle was followed by a thud and the sharp clatter of a blade hitting the floor. Trahaearn dragged a man back into the passageway, his forearm across the man’s throat.
“Is Colbert that way?”
Colbert’s man shook his head, wheezing and pulling at the duke’s wrist.
The muscles in Trahaearn’s arm flexed. His voice flattened, cold and deadly. “Are you certain?”
Eyes bulging, the man pointed down the corridor.
“Good man,” Trahaearn said. His arm tightened. The man struggled and slowly weakened, his eyes rolling back. The duke dropped him to the floor—just unconscious, Mina saw with relief. Not dead. She didn’t want to think that he’d have killed a restrained, unarmed man.
Scarsdale must have read her expression. As they followed Trahaearn, he said softly, “That man is just crew. And you don’t kill crew unless they’re a threat.”
Mina understood. This wasn’t a ship. But since no law ruled this place, they used the law they knew.
And that also meant his treatment of Colbert—who wasn’t crew—would be guided by a different set of rules.
A harsher set, Mina guessed. Colbert obviously didn’t take care of his own well. That man proved to be the only guard they met, and the secured chamber opened easily. Inside, steel cages housed hissing zombies. Others contained a lion, a small gray elephant, and a sad-eyed antelope with a delicately boned face and legs. Almost a dozen men worked the levers of a lift and packed items into crates. Everyone busy, no one watching the door. And when Trahaearn and Scarsdale entered the chamber with guns drawn and backed up by Yasmeen’s men, no one was ready to shoot back.
“Colbert!” Trahaearn’s voice froze everyone in place.
Though it was easy for Mina to guess who was Liberé or native to the Gold Coast, she didn’t know how many of the paler men were French. Picking out Colbert wasn’t difficult, however. Although his buff trousers and white shirt were streaked with dirt and sweat, they’d been fashioned at obvious expense. His brown beard didn’t quite hide the softness of his jaw. Thick gold rings studded with rubies bedecked his fingers.
Slowly, Colbert propped a painting wrapped in cloth against a crate. He faced the door. “Trahaearn. You’ve come looking for the Terror?”
“Yes.”
Mopping his brow with a handkerchief, he looked to the nearest man. “Finish with these crates. I want them ready for the airship in twenty minutes. Looters,” Colbert explained as he approached the door. His pale blue eyes flicked uneasily from Trahaearn’s guns to Scarsdale’s. “Waiting this madness out is best done above. Your weapons aren’t needed, Your Grace. I’ll tell you now: The Terror isn’t here.”
Trahaearn didn’t holster his pistols. “I know. Hunt has her. Where?”
“South. They weighed anchor two days ago.”
“He’s had the Terror for ten days, and there’s an English fleet nearby. Why risk waiting so long to leave?”
“There was a sickness among a few of the crew. It took him time to secure more hands.”
Mina’s heart jumped. Only a few? “What kind of sickness? Bug fever?”
“I don’t know what kind of sickness.” Colbert’s gaze settled on her, seemed to weigh and measure. She wondered what price he’d set. His attention returned to the duke when Trahaearn asked, “Did he sell any boys through you?”
“No.”
Mina’s relief billowed through her. That meant Andrew was probably still on the ship. Sick, perhaps. Not sold. But her relief was short-lived.
“Men line up at the harbor looking for work,” Trahaearn said. “Why did it take so long to find a crew?”
Scarsdale said softly, “Perhaps his reputation finally caught up with him.”
“No.” Colbert gestured to the cages. Disgust curled his mouth. “He bought zombies and took them aboard—shipping them to Australia, for a new game he’s set up. A rotten business, if there ever was one.”
Mina stared at him. Zombies aboard Andrew’s ship. With just one faulty lock, one little misstep, the entire crew could be destroyed—and the bug fever would have been a mercy in comparison.
“You sold him the zombies?” Scarsdale’s face had hardened into a smooth, dangerous mask.
Trahaearn’s gaze was sharp and cold, an icy razor that would have flayed Mina to the bone. Colbert seemed oblivious to it.
“I only provide the merchandise. I don’t dictate how it’s used. I’m not a tyrant.” Looking slyly pleased with himself, he patted sweat from his neck and brow. “And it matters little what he’s bought if you will be chasing after the Terror. I daresay Hunt will finally get what is coming to him, will he not?”
Revolting. That Colbert hated Hunt was clear—as was his reluctance to stop the man himself. But he’d happily send Trahaearn to do it. Coward.
Whether Trahaearn was just as disgusted, she couldn’t tell. And he couldn’t act on it yet, anyway. They still needed to know more.
“The weapon that was demonstrated,” Trahaearn said. “Has the auction taken place yet?”
Colbert laughed and lifted his hands. “The firebombing outside? That is my unhappy patron.”
“You auctioned firebombs?”
“No, no. That is Bushke. He wanted the Horde’s weapon to create a new place on the ground, you see? But yesterday during the auction, he was outbid. And so the wrath of New Eden rained down upon us.”
Trahaearn frowned. “Bushke did this?”
“Yes. He accused me of cheating, of setting up the auction for my family to win. But even they were outbid.”
“Then who bought the weapon?”
Colbert laughed, mopping his brow again. “And risk more of this? No. Bushke was enough. Now you will threaten to kill me if I do not tell you—but if you do kill me, still you won’t know. And so go on, Your Grace. Find your boat and leave us be.”
Colbert was too afraid to tell them who’d purchased the weapon? Not too afraid of Trahaearn, Mina realized—he was too afraid of the buyer’s retaliation. Who had that much power?
But whoever it was, Colbert had chosen to fear the wrong one. His triumph when Trahaearn holstered his guns transformed to sick fear when he glanced up at the duke’s face. In one quick stride, Trahaearn fisted his hand in Colbert’s brown hair and yanked the man forward, deeper into the cargo chamber.
Screaming in French, Colbert tried to dig his heels in. Trahaearn was relentless, dragging him toward the cages. The men all looked up from the crates and the merchandise. Not a single one moved for a weapon, though Colbert continued screaming—for help, she guessed by the high, desperate pitch, though she didn’t comprehend a word of it.
Trahaearn shoved him toward the zombie cage. Inside, the thing raged and reached through the bars, filthy fingers only inches from Colbert’s throat.
“Who bought the weapon?”
Colbert screamed and babbled, but he must not have given the answer. Trahaearn pushed the man closer to the zombie’s grasping claws. Long bleeding furrows opened on Colbert’s neck.
“Who bought it?”
This time, Colbert’s frenzied babbling held a placating note. Mina didn’t understand it, but Scarsdale’s reaction to the man’s answer was clear.
“Fuck,” he spat.
Trahaearn’s shoulders had gone rigid, and Mina realized he was deciding whether to throw Colbert closer to the cage, anyway. She couldn’t let him. Although the man might deserve it, a diseased Colbert would endanger everyone.
After an endless second, he pulled the man away from the zombie’s claws and drew a revolver. In low French, Trahaearn asked another question. Colbert answered, sobbing. Trahaearn nodded, and Mina almost jumped out of her skin when he suddenly fired at the zombie. Then into the second zombie’s cage, and another, until only the animals were left, wild-eyed and panicked by the noise.
Trahaearn glanced over his shoulder at Scarsdale. “Do you want him?”
“To pay for Brimstone?” Scarsdale shook his head. “He’s too pathetic. I’ll wait for Hunt.”
That seemed to satisfy Trahaearn. Pushing Colbert to his knees, he booted the man into a small empty cage and locked it. He looked to the workers watching them with flat eyes. “You’ll make more money selling these items than you’ll ever earn from him—and he’s too much of a coward to take revenge.”
The men looked to each other. By the time Trahaearn reached the corridor, they were already gathering up items, breaking down crates. On his knees within the cage, Colbert began shouting. No one stopped.
Mina was glad when the chamber door closed behind them. “Will he be let out?”
“These men will let the animals out before they will him,” Trahaearn said. “But he’ll eventually be found.”
Satisfaction stamped Scarsdale’s features. “And everyone will know he’s a coward. He’ll never hold on to anything again.”
The duke nodded. “He’ll pay.”
Outside the entrance, the quarter still burned. They had a few moments of relative quiet between the building and the gates. Mina didn’t waste them.
“Who bought the weapon?”
Trahaearn’s jaw tightened. “The Black Guard.”
Shock held her silent almost until they reached the gate. Jasper Evans had said the weapon’s price began at twenty-five thousand livre. That kind of money couldn’t have come just from the sale of slaves. There must have been other sources. Many other sources, each contributing enormous amounts . . . and the Black Guard must be much bigger and more powerful that she’d imagined.
“Did he know where they took it?”
“It’s on a ship. It is a ship—Endeavour, an old English collier. The engines and electrical generators that the weapon needs were too big for an airship, and too big to transfer to another vessel. So he sold the whole damn thing.”
“Where is it headed?” But Mina feared she knew. At least one member of the Black Guard wanted to kill buggers. And they’d purchased a weapon designed to destroy nanoagents. A sick dread rose through her chest. “England?”
He met her eyes. The set of his mouth was grim. “Yes.”
Mina shot Scarsdale with an opium dart as he boarded the platform. She helped Trahaearn stow the unconscious bounder in his cabin, then returned above decks to meet with Yasmeen.
“Is the English fleet in the harbor? We have to tell them about the ship.”
The aviator captain looked from Mina to Trahaearn. When he nodded, Yasmeen shook her head. “The fleet has gone. My runners reported that they weighed anchor yesterday.”
Just as Baxter had told them. The fleet had been scheduled to return to England. But it wouldn’t be difficult to catch up to them.
Lady Corsair’s engines fired. Yasmeen raised her brows toward Trahaearn. “Where to now, captain?”
“South,” Trahaearn said. “I’ll be damned if Hunt sees another sunset on the Terror.”
South . . . while the Black Guard took the device to England. “No,” Mina said. “We can’t. We have to fly north.”
Yasmeen paused with her cigarillo halfway to her mouth, lips parted. She glanced at Trahaearn.
His face had set. Taking Mina’s hand, he pulled her along with him to the bow. Should she be glad he didn’t drag her by the hair? Would she suffer a lashing for contradicting him? She was too heart-sick to care.
But when he touched her, his hand was gentle, cupping her jaw. “And your brother?”
“Don’t ask me that.” She fought to keep her voice from breaking. Andrew might be alive. But if that weapon reached England, the rest of her family wouldn’t be. “Please don’t. That device will kill everyone within a two hundred mile radius. And it’ll be so easy. They’ll sail up the Thames. Then London will be gone. Almost all of England. Do you care?”
Did he at all? Or did he just care for the Terror? For his possessions.
“I care.”
“And you’re not lying?” She couldn’t tell. And hoping he spoke true wouldn’t make it so.
“No. Trust me.” His thumb smoothed over her cheek. “But even if you don’t believe it, Mina—my people are in London, too. You believe I care about that? That I’d take care of them?”
Swallowing past the ache in her throat, Mina nodded.
“All right. Now, listen. If Hunt weighed anchor two days ago, Lady Corsair will catch up to him within a day. And Marco’s Terror is a fine ship. Fast. We’ll find her, we’ll head north, and we’ll overtake Endeavour.”
“And we’d still be four days behind.”
“I’ll catch her. I’ll have her before she sees Europe—and she’s behind the fleet, who’ll give us the firepower we need. As soon as we’ve found the Terror, Yasmeen can scout ahead and find Endeavour , then fly on north to warn the fleet. But we’ll find the Terror and your brother first.”
Indecision warred through her, feeling as if it might tear her apart. She wanted to believe that it would happen as he said. Oh, how she wanted it. But to gamble so much? She didn’t know.
“Trust me, Mina. I know these waters. I know my ship. And I know what an old collier like Endeavour can do. She’s wide-bottomed, heavy, and square-rigged. This time of year, the winds from the east will favor fore-and-aft sails, and the Terror’s canvas is rigged to run. We’ll catch her. Trust me.”
Did she? She must. With a shuddering breath and a nod, she said, “All right, then. South.”
He kissed her. As if that were a signal to Yasmeen, bells rang around them. The propellers began to spin, thrusting the airship forward.
Trahaearn lifted his head. “We’ll spend tomorrow searching the water, and we’ll find them, Mina. So come with me now, to sleep. We can’t look for them if we can’t keep our eyes open.”
Sleep wouldn’t come. Mina lay against Trahaearn’s chest, listening to the slow, heavy beat of his heart. She’d returned to her stateroom nothing like she’d left it. Then, she’d been content, warm. The day they’d spent here had been punctuated by fear as he’d taken her close to orgasm, over and over—but there hadn’t been frustration. Just need, and laughter, and then she’d dozed in his arms through the heat of the afternoon.
Now, it was almost just as hot, and she couldn’t doze. And instead of contentment, terror lurked close. She could only think of Andrew, on a ship with zombies and a cruel master in Hunt. Could only think of Endeavour bringing death closer and closer to everything she knew and loved and had sworn to protect.
She spoke into the dark. “What if we miss seeing the Terror in the night?”
“Yasmeen won’t.”
He sounded so certain of it. If Mina had been standing over a dead body, she might have spoken with as much confidence. She knew her job. Now she had to trust that he knew his.
Trust me.
He’d been right, all those days ago, when he’d said that she’d lived beneath the Horde for too long. It was difficult to trust that someone with the power to hurt her would choose not to.
But there were those she did trust: her family, and the friends she’d come to know. Did she know him well enough?
He held her now. And though he knew her emotions were in turmoil, he wasn’t taking advantage of her; he was taking care of her. She couldn’t understand all that drove him, but Mina knew that for certain: He took care of what was his.
She was his. Maybe not always. For now. And so she turned to him.
Resting, Trahaearn had closed his eyes, but at her movement he opened them. His steady gaze met hers—patient, but not indifferent. His hunger burned, a man who’d wait for a taste of what lay before him . . . but anticipating every bite.
Mina slipped her leg over his abdomen until she lay atop him, her thighs alongside his flanks. He met her kiss, letting her lead but not letting her go, his hands delving into her hair. Coils of heat began to wind through her. She drew away before they screwed deep.
His face sharp with need, Trahaearn watched her again. When she moved off the bed, he sat up, his stomach flexing. “Mina—”
“Where are the sheaths?”
She turned toward the bureau. His things had been brought in from the cabin he and Scarsdale had shared, but she had no idea where something like that would be stowed.
After a silence, his answer came from a voice gone low and rough. “In the wardrobe. On the shelf.”
Nerves made her fumble with the wardrobe’s door, but she finally opened it. No mistaking the purpose of the small ebony box tucked behind her pants and stockings; the black wood was inlaid with carved ivory figures that would have put roses in the cheeks of a Manhattan City miss. Clutching it tightly to conceal the unsteadiness of her hands, Mina brought it to the bed and stopped beside it. Wearing only his drawers, Trahaearn was sitting up with his back against the headboard. Not making a move toward her.
Letting her take control, she realized. He’d done so earlier that day, too—urged her to touch herself, to take control of her need, to be its source. But this would be taking control of him. Would it be difficult for him? How many women had straddled him, used him? Mina didn’t want to be one of them. Not to prove something.
He didn’t miss her hesitation. “What is it that you’re thinking?”
If she told him, he’d say that it wouldn’t matter. That it wouldn’t affect him. Lie or not, she wouldn’t know—but she didn’t want to use him, anyway. And so she gave him motive, not truth.
“Earlier today, when we were . . . I didn’t want to panic. So when it became too much, I tried to stop feeling everything.”
“That didn’t work.” Amusement deepened his voice. “Not when my tongue was inside you.”
Her face warmed. No, it hadn’t worked. She’d felt that. Could still feel it, the memory moving through her like liquid heat. “I thought now that I’d just take you inside me. Because that’s what I want. When you’re touching me, I ache. And I thought: I could have you before I feel too much, before I ache . . . before I panic.”
“You can have me like that, Mina. But you wouldn’t enjoy having me inside you without needing it, too.”
“Yes. I know.” Despite the panic, so much pleasure came from that ache, that need. Without it, she might as well be sitting on her billy club, or using the contraptions sold by the Blacksmith. Feeling lost, she stared down at him, her fingers tracing the ivory carvings. “I couldn’t fight the Horde then. So I tried to fight what they were making me feel. And I still am—except I’m fighting myself instead of them. I don’t want to.”
His dark gaze searched her face. “Then fight me.”
“What?”
“You couldn’t fight the Horde, so you fought what they did to you.” With a predatory smile, he rose from the bed. He slowly stalked her. “But I’m making you feel it now. So fight me, instead. Hit me, push me away. But don’t stop yourself from feeling. Let that happen.”
Uncertain, Mina backed toward the wardrobe. “I don’t want to fight you.”
“But you do anyway, because you’re trapped into fighting yourself. So you panic and push me away. This time, you’ll control it from the first.”
“And immediately fail. You wouldn’t force me. As soon as I hit you, you’d stop.”
“No. I often trade one need for another. You need to fight; you need to be fucked. You panic now because you couldn’t fight during the Frenzy. Maybe you’ll separate them, put that panic where it belongs when you fight me. If you can do that, Mina, I’ll take anything that you lay on me. Because I need to fuck you, but more than that—I need to see that you’re not afraid. And even if you hit me, I’ll know you want me inside you. So I’d only stop if you’re truly afraid.”
He was right. It wouldn’t be force, no matter how hard she pushed him away. “If I’m fighting you, how would you know if I’m truly afraid?”
“Use the Horde language.”
She frowned her displeasure. “I never speak that.”
“Then I’ll know it’s real.”
Real. And inescapable, these emotions. Mina stared at him, the ebony box clutched over her heart like a shield. “From the very first, I knew you’d be dangerous to me. I should have run.”
“I’d have caught you.” He did, swinging her up and letting her feel him, thick and hard against her belly. When she gasped, he said, “I can still just put my cock inside you.”
Laughing, she shook her head. Far too late for that. She was already aching for him, a need that burned hotter as his lips took hers. His tongue stroked and she moaned, kissing him deeper. Trahaearn’s arms tightened around her waist. Without lifting his head, he carried her to the bedside and set her feet on the floor. With efficient tugs, he stripped the nightshirt over her shoulders, down her hips.
He took the ebony box and tossed it onto the mattress. “Lie back and spread your legs.”
Her lips parted. Anticipation slipped through her like rivulets of fire. She sank back onto the mattress and let her knees fall wide open.
His gaze was hot and amused. “That’s not fighting me.”
“I know,” she said on a laugh, feeling light and breathless—and panic very far away. She didn’t know why it was. Maybe because she trusted him. Maybe by knowing that she could fight him, she didn’t need to. Mina couldn’t be certain. But she wouldn’t fight the ease with which she could offer herself to him.
“Good.” He braced his hands beside her hips, and bent his head between her legs. “Because I want this.”
He covered her sex all at once, open-mouthed and hungry. Mina cried out, stiffening, and let herself feel it all. Each hot lick. The scratch of his jaw against her inner thighs, and his hoarse groans of pleasure. His grip on her knee as he pushed her open wider, his fingers tightening as he savored her flesh. Her hips writhed. The flick of his tongue whipped her into a frenzy, and she screamed, clawing the sheets, letting it shatter through her.
When she came back together and looked down, Trahaearn was staring up at her with astonishment. It slowly transformed into heated intent.
He moved up, kissing her belly, her nipples, her jaw. Settling beside her, he cupped his hand between her thighs, his middle finger sliding through her wet folds. His gaze on her face, he pushed inside her. Bigger, thicker than his tongue—and unyielding. Mina bit her lip, moving against him, trying to ease the pain of his intrusion.
He closed his eyes. “You’re tight. Gripping me. I’ll hurt you.”
Yes. But she couldn’t avoid that. And if they did it right, she’d only hurt the once. With a deep breath, she tried to focus past the need. Not denying it. Trying to separate it from the coming pain.
“Mina, I can feel . . . you’re still a virgin.”
“No.” She’d been with Felicity. “But I’m still intact—and if you rupture my hymen now, it’ll be easier for me than with your penis. But we’ll have to wait afterward, or the nanoagents will heal me, and I’ll tear again when I take you inside.”
Whether her dispassionate speech amused him, she couldn’t tell. He looked at her for a long moment before nodding. Mina braced herself, trying not to tremble as he slipped another finger inside. Swiftly, he scissored them apart. Stiffening against the tearing pain, she fought not to cry. He murmured an apology and kissed her temple before resting his forehead against hers, his fingers still inside her.
The pain faded to a faint stinging, and the intrusion of his fingers became an intriguing fullness. Mina wanted to move on him, to squeeze tighter around him, but forced herself to wait. She cast her mind about for a distraction.
“Once, I assisted my father on a surgical visit—a woman whose husband finished so quickly that she always healed afterward. So she tried to rupture her hymen with a candlestick and then wait, so that it wouldn’t tear every time. But the candlestick was metal—pewter, I think—and the bugs treated it like a prosthetic tool. And so when she bled, they began grafting the candlestick inside of her, and she couldn’t pull it out.”
Trahaearn’s big body was shaking against her. The corners of his mouth were tight, as if he were struggling hard not to laugh. He lifted his head.
“This is what you think of when you’re with me?”
She grinned, and then he dove and his mouth captured her nipple. She arched up with a gasp. Oh, blue heavens. Biting her lip, her hands fisting in linen, she turned her head to the side. The box of sheaths lay beside her, and on its face, a woman of ivory knelt in front of a man.
Imagining the same with Trahaearn came easily. “Would you like me to do that to you?”
Releasing her nipple, he moved to her right breast. “Do what?”
“Like shown in this picture—I could shag you with my mouth.”
He lifted his head, eyes narrowing on the image. “Yes. Later.”
Pleased, she turned the box over, and had to tell him, “This one shows a woman with two men. We could invite Scarsdale in later, too.”
“No good. I’d hate to kill him for ignoring you.”
“Oh, and this one has two women . . . on a box for male sheaths.” She frowned. “How odd. What use would a sheath have then?”
Laughing against her neck, Trahaearn didn’t—or couldn’t—answer.
“I could ask Yasmeen to join me,” Mina suggested. “But I suppose she bites.”
With a sudden growl, Trahaearn snatched the box and pulled out a handful of square parchment envelopes before tossing it aside.
“That box gives you too many ideas that don’t include me.” He dropped the sheaths to the mattress. His gaze returned to her face, and his fingers pumped gently inside her. Her laugh became a gasp. No pain now. Only pleasure, only need. “Are you all right, then?”
With a soft moan, she lifted her hips and pushed against his hand. He bent and kissed her, openmouthed and hot, his tongue thrusting and his fingers moving deep inside her until she was wet and aching, her breaths coming in ragged pants. His lips left her then, and she shook her head, trying to draw him down to her again. Resisting, he sat back on his heels, knees spread and digging into the mattress.
Hands lowering to his waist, he began loosening his drawers. His gaze moved from her face to the spill of sheaths beside her.
“Do you want to put it on me?”
She did. Heart pounding, Mina picked up the crinkling parchment and broke the red wax seal. Inside, the lambskin sheath was thin and pliable—and slippery, prepared with light oil.
And his cock was nothing like a billy club. Though thick and blunt, his smooth, heated skin felt delicate under her hands. He guided her, showed her how the sheath worked, groaning as she rolled it down over his length. Small strings secured the sheath at the base of his shaft, above the full hang of his cods. Mina’s knuckles pressed into the heavy sac as she fastened the ties, and she looked up as he hissed an indrawn breath.
“Too tight?”
“No.” He spoke through gritted teeth. “Come here now.”
With his hands beneath her bottom, he hefted her against his chest until she was spread wide against him, sitting almost cross-legged around him. Her inner thighs clenched his sides, feeling the hard muscle over his ribs. She twined her arms around his neck, her face just above level with his. His kiss was soft and slow as he lowered her, until the thick tip of him lodged against her entrance.
Shuddering, she broke the kiss. “Now. Please, now.”
Trahaearn didn’t have to move. He slowly released her weight and pressure built just inside her. Mina whimpered and tried to swivel her hips, tried to ease it. But it only grew, pushing deeper and deeper. Gasping, she looked down. Inside her. He was inside her. But only half his length. She wanted him all.
But his hands were at her lower back now, supporting her without holding her up. Her weight wasn’t enough. And she didn’t have any leverage.
She kissed his mouth, his jaw. “Help me. Help me take you in.”
“Mina.” Her name was strained, raw. His big hands covered her hips and pressed down. A wild noise broke from her. She buried her face in his throat, feeling nothing but his thick length embedded deep within, the wide stretch of her thighs, the burning knot in between. She’d die if she moved.
She’d die if she didn’t.
A shiver ran over her skin when his hands smoothed up her spine. His arm tightened around her waist. With a harsh groan, he rocked upward and the thrust pushed through her like a wave. Mina’s head fell back, her hands clutching at his shoulders, and suddenly she was moving all over, rubbing that burning knot against his ridged abdomen until his hair-roughened skin was as wet and slick as hers. She looked down between them, watching the thick slide of his cock into her—two pieces that shouldn’t have fit but worked together beautifully.
And it was ratcheting her tighter again, a need so big that it frightened, but she felt no terror this time. Just Trahaearn—Rhys—his strength and his relentless driving thrusts. Watching her, she knew, for any hint of fear. Holding back his need for hers, until she shuddered and cried out, her inner muscles convulsing around him.
A guttural moan tore from his chest and he stroked hard, deep—and then held utterly still. Almost sobbing with the pleasure of it, she felt the pulse of his flesh, and the answering clench of her own.
Chest heaving, Mina lay her head against his shoulder. Still inside her, Rhys laid her back on the mattress and came down over her, his weight on his elbows and knees. He rocked slowly into her, watching her face.
“Again, Mina.”
She’d thought she was done. But with each leisurely stroke she was rising, softly, gently, until the orgasm crested through her. Rhys finished her off with a kiss before leaving the bed and dragging off the sheath.
When he returned and lay down, Mina rolled against his side, feeling slightly giddy—almost drunk with triumph, with pleasure, with contentment.
“You didn’t fight me,” he said, stroking his hand over her hair.
“I didn’t need to.” Though she didn’t know why. Perhaps trust. Perhaps more.
But the thought of that “more” was too frightening to dwell on now. Heartache lay in that direction. London lay in that direction.
“You inspired me,” she said instead. “You didn’t have to fight when you destroyed the Horde. So I decided to make your tower explode.”
His stroking fingers stilled. He seemed speechless, then laughed and pulled her over to lie atop his broad chest.
And it was there that she slept.