Chapter Fourteen
The faint crackle of parchment invaded her slumber. Mina stirred, squinting through heavy lids. Faint light marked the coming dawn. Still too early, and she was too content, lying on her side with Rhys behind her, in the crater his body made of the mattress. She closed her eyes again, searching for sleep, but welcomed the rough hands stroking her side, her bottom, lifting her leg up and back over a heavy thigh.
“Are you all right, Mina? Or sore?”
“Mmmm” was all that she could manage.
She was still only half awake when he pushed inside her.
Gasping, she opened her eyes—and was rolled onto her stomach. Rhys came over her, his knees wide between her spread legs. With an unyielding grip, he dragged her up by her hips, her bottom angled up and her weight on her knees and chest. His palms flattened in the mattress above her shoulders.
His voice was low and rough in her ear. “I was a gentleman. I only took a little.”
Not a little, though just the head of his cock was inside her; it felt like a small fist. Trembling, Mina twisted her hands in the sheets. She understood this. He’d been a gentleman before, letting her take him.
Now he was taking her.
“I’m waiting.” His whiskered jaw scraped her neck, was followed by a quick, sharp bite. “As soon as you’re wet . . . God, Mina.”
With a single deep stroke, he buried his cock to the hilt. Devastating pleasure exploded beneath her skin, and Mina screamed into the sheet. He filled her completely, his cods pushing tight up against her most sensitive flesh. She gripped his forearms, straining on either side of her head and caging her in, preventing her from jolting forward with each powerful thrust. His heavy sac buffeted her clitoris with each annihilating stroke, until she was writhing and crying out, and still he pounded into her. Then his hand moved to her sex, callused fingers stroking, and she shattered, tears hot against her cheeks. Her name tore from him in a harsh, exultant groan. He gripped her hips and slammed forward, as if stamping his mark on her flesh.
Mina shuddered again as he came, but his release didn’t let her go. No. He had her. He’d plundered, and laid waste to her every defense.
Not a gentleman, but the pirate captain, His Bastard Grace, the Iron Duke. It didn’t matter which.
He knew exactly what he was about.
Mina didn’t seem to regret being with him. When Rhys had woken, certain that she’d try to pull away, he’d been driven by the need to take her again. But he hadn’t been able to go easy on her. After he’d fucked her so roughly, he expected hesitation, uncertainty . . . but there was none. Over breakfast, she interrogated his politics in a way that told him just as much about hers, and fascinated him with every word until he had to have her again, making a feast of her body on the small table.
He’d never needed anything as much as he needed her. Self-preservation warned him to push her away. He couldn’t stand the thought of it, only wanted to bring her in closer. But if she didn’t come to need him in return, then away or close, it wouldn’t matter—either one would destroy him.
And she didn’t regret shagging him, but he didn’t think she needed him yet, either. At least she’d come around to liking him a bit.
She sat with him in the bow, sharing a spyglass between them while they searched the sea for the Terror. The wind made it difficult to talk, but he didn’t mind. When she faced away from him, he liked looking at the curve of her cheek and the thin stripe of skin between her armor and her jaw. A few strands of her black hair had come loose from the severe roll at her nape and escaped the goggles’ strap, flicking against his face and neck. Last night, this morning, he’d had her hair unbound and spilling everywhere: over the backs of his hands as he’d held her waist, watching it part over her shoulders as he’d driven his cock into her. Tonight it’d be the Terror. He’d never had a woman in his cabin, but there was no question that she belonged with him—and when he wasn’t looking through the spyglass at the endless blue, he was imagining all of the ways he’d have her.
Not long after noon, he saw her stiffen with the telescope to her eye, no longer sweeping the horizon. Without a word, he took it from her. Hot triumph shot through him. There she was. Marco’s Terror. Just the masts were visible, but he knew their shape. He could have stood blindfolded on a pier, and recognized her sound when she sailed past him.
Mina watched his face, waiting for confirmation. When he nodded, she waved to Yasmeen. A bell rang behind him, but he didn’t look around, keeping the spyglass trained on the masts.
The Terror’s canvas was furled. In this low wind and calm water, she’d need to be under full sail to move at any speed. Had they dropped anchor? No reason to in this stretch of water, unless they were tethered to an airship.
Frowning, he searched the sky for Josephine. No sign of the skyrunner against the thin clouds, and they didn’t provide enough cover to hide in. He turned to Yasmeen, gestured for her to cut the engines. They’d sail in, quiet. Lady Corsair didn’t need the propellers to catch an anchored ship.
He saw Yasmeen’s brow furrow as she lowered the spyglass, and he shook his head when she cast him an inquiring glance. He couldn’t explain why the Terror wasn’t under full sail. And he didn’t want to mention them and worry Mina yet.
But soon enough, he didn’t need to say anything. Josephine came into view, her white balloon almost completely deflated and floating next to the Terror. She’d been tethered, and something had brought her down. Wooden wreckage floated nearby, but the bulk of the skyrunner was still under the balloon.
Mina’s mouth dropped open. “Is that the airship?”
“Yes.”
“But how . . . ?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why is the Terror still tethered . . . and not moving.” She seemed to realize the significance of the furled sails. “Have they stopped to salvage the airship?”
Rhys shook his head. “We’d see crew.”
“Deserted.” Mina sucked in a breath, peering intently at the Terror ’s empty deck. “Just like the Dame’s fort.”
“Including zombies,” he said. “We’ll see soon enough if they broke out of their cages. Hunt wouldn’t have kept them in the hold. He’d have wanted an eye on them all the time.”
And Hunt would like seeing their effect on his crew all the time.
“If they broke the locks, is there somewhere for the crew to go?”
“The cargo hold. The interior of the Terror’s hull is reinforced with steel ribs and plates.” Unlike kraken, whose tentacles damaged the timbers and could pull the ship so far off keel that she capsized, megalodons rammed their armored bodies into the hull and ripped up the rudder and wood with their massive jaws. “I added more to the entry of the hold to keep the cargo secure, too. The crew could wait there.”
“For how long? They wouldn’t have food or water.”
Not long, but that wouldn’t matter here. “At most, they’ve been down there a day.”
Nodding, she handed him the spyglass. He trained the lens on the decks. Goddammit. “Three cages are sitting on the foredeck. One is open.”
Mina rubbed her arms, as if a chill shivered through her. She looked to the floating wreck. “Could the zombie have gotten onto the airship?”
“It couldn’t puncture the envelope.” Steel mesh strengthened the balloon’s airtight fabric. Even someone armed with a sharp knife would have difficulty stabbing through it; a zombie’s ragged fingernails would just scrape off.
It must have been a puncture; a burn would have meant the whole thing blowing. But even a puncture wouldn’t usually cause this much damage, unless an enormous hole had been ripped through the envelope. Usually, a puncture meant a slow leak, which wouldn’t have left that wreckage. Rhys could climb up Lady Corsair’s balloon with a harpoon in hand, and it’d take hours before she slowly settled onto the water.
His guess was that Josephine had been wrecked while tethered to the Terror—and in the confusion on board, the zombie’s cage had taken a knock, and the lock broken. But he’d find out for certain after descending to the Terror’s decks.
He stood, slinging on a shoulder harness. Next to him, Mina began checking her weapons.
“Not you,” he said.
“But—”
“No. Cover me with a rifle, if you want. But you’re not heading down with us. I won’t risk it.”
Her lips firmed and jaw tightened, as if she wanted to argue. She must have realized it wouldn’t do any good. He’d have Yasmeen’s aviators lock her in Lady Corsair’s hold rather than let her step foot on his ship before he secured it.
Finally, she nodded. “I’ll cover you.”
When Scarsdale came up from his cabin, he was white-faced, but fighting through the fear. Rhys knew it wouldn’t happen again, but this time was for Hunt.
He waited until the bounder shrugged into his harness. Scarsdale preferred swords over machetes, but they both backed up their weapons with guns that would finish any job. “Ready, then?”
At Scarsdale’s nod, the aviators dropped two ropes over the side to dangle above the Terror’s quarterdeck. Rhys kissed Mina hard and threw himself over, slowing just enough that he wouldn’t slam into the boards. Scarsdale landed lightly beside him.
He listened, holding his machetes at ready. Beneath the hisses and wild growls of the zombies in the cages, he only heard the hull creaking with the gentle rock of the waves, the slap of water against the Terror’s sides. All else was quiet.
God, it felt good to have these decks beneath his feet again.
“They’ve been keeping her tidy,” Scarsdale said.
For the most part. There was some recent slipshod work, but they’d been short on crew—might be even shorter now. Rhys hoped to hell they had enough men left to sail back, or they’d be making another stop at the Ivory Market.
All was still quiet as he made his way to the foredeck—but that would soon change. Drawing his revolver, he shot the zombies in their cages. Only one had escaped, but that didn’t mean there was only one zombie left. Their bite took time to kill a bugger, but not all of the crew would have nanoagents. And as soon as a bugger died, he’d turn into one. A zombie tearing a man’s neck out had a way of hurrying that death along.
The gunfire brought more noise. Garbled hisses. Running feet. Five or six of them, all below decks. So they’d chased the crew down there, but probably weren’t clever enough to know the way back up.
He returned amidships and stood over the ladder leading below. “Lantern?”
Scarsdale had already taken one from the posts and sparked the lighter. Rhys didn’t bother with the ladder. He dropped through the hatch, landing heavily on the next deck. Nothing came at him from the dim passageways or from behind the launch. The captain’s cabin lay aft. Scarsdale followed him with the lantern, but he didn’t need it for the cabin. Sunlight streamed through the gallery windows.
The navy had kept his desk and his table. Everything else was new—and a mess. Christ. Hunt was a pig. Clothes piled on the trunks, wet and torn papers strewn across the deck. He’d burn the fucking bed before he took Mina on it.
He called out, listened for any human response. Nothing. He turned back toward the passageway.
Wood splintered behind him. He pivoted, machete ready, and caught a glimpse of Hunt, wild-eyed and naked, wielding a pistol. Scarsdale’s blunderbuss boomed. Hunt’s chest caved in. He staggered and dropped.
“Hiding in the goddamn privy.” Scarsdale shook his head and reloaded. “I wish I’d killed him in there.”
If Scarsdale hadn’t, diseased nanoagents would have. Rhys eyed the scratches on the man’s face, the chunks of flesh missing from his arm. “Had he already turned?”
Hunt’s eyes popped open. He lurched up to sitting. Rhys leapt out of Scarsdale’s way. The bounder fired again, took off the top of the bastard’s skull.
Ears ringing, Rhys watched Hunt drop back to the deck. “We run into any more, you shoot it in the head the first time.”
Scarsdale grinned. “But now, I killed him twice.”
Probably still not as many times as Hunt deserved. They cleared the rest of the deck, moved farther below. On the tables off the galley, that morning’s breakfast still filled the tin plates.
“They left in a hurry. I’ve never seen a sailor run from a table without taking the bread to eat on the way.” Scarsdale checked the mugs. “Or throwing back the last of his grog. And I say, with all of this shooting, your inspector is probably mad with worry by now.”
His inspector. “Quickly, then.”
Later, Rhys would make up a better story than Scarsdale standing over a ladder and banging a pair of pots together, with Rhys shooting the zombies as soon as they appeared on the deck below. He’d say that a few chased him along dark passageways, that a few more jumped out of storerooms. But in truth, the day he ran scared on the Terror was the day he’d hand her over to Dorchester and the Admiralty. Both the crew trapped in the hold and the Terror herself deserved a better captain than one that cowered in a privy—or one that cowered anywhere else on the ship.
The decks clear, he and Scarsdale made their way below. The crew had blocked access to the cargo hold from the inside. Pounding on the door, Rhys raised his voice and ordered them open. They did, and his gaze met shocked faces, a disbelieving crew—and a look deeper into the hold confirmed that most of them had survived.
The cheers began, one hundred and twenty men stomping their feet. In colder waters, that would risk bringing a megalodon or a kraken, but he allowed them this. He looked the crew over, counting eight boys that might have been Mina’s brother.
Rhys barked over the noise. “Andrew Wentworth! Are you present?”
There. As silence fell over the crew, a white-haired, gangly boy froze in place. Eyes wide, he called out, “Aye, captain.”
“You will join me on the quarterdeck, Mr. Wentworth.”
Brows rose. Heads turned. Pink to his ears, Wentworth said, “Yes, sir.”
With a sharp nod, Rhys cast his gaze over the others. “I want every able-bodied man on deck, and the Terror cleaned up and ready to sail within an hour. Those zombies that were crew will be prepared for burial. The others—including Hunt—I want tossed over the side before I climb above decks. Warrant officers and mates, you’d best be ready to report on status and crew in the wardroom in half an hour.” He wanted to know what the hell had happened on this ship—and to Josephine. “Haul to.”
Men began filing out of the hold. Some navy, some new. Rhys recognized more than a few of them from his crew.
He stopped one. The engine master had been with him during the mutiny, though he’d been a ship’s blacksmith, then. Almost twenty years on the Terror, and he had the leathered skin and steel prosthetic arm to show for it.
“Still with her, Mr. Smiegel? How’s her engine?”
The old man straightened shoulders that were all but permanently stooped from ducking beneath low decks. “She still has the finest engine that’s never fired, captain.”
“You’ve taken care of her.”
“That we have, and she’s taken good care of us in return.” His eyes gleamed with emotion. “And we knew you’d come for us, sir. Even those navy boys knew it.”
Rhys had to grin at that. Still his ship, even in the eyes of a naval crew. And as soon as they returned to London, she’d be his by law again, too. No chance in hell was the Royal Navy going to keep her.
Smiegel hesitated. Recognizing that the man was reluctant to speak out of turn, Rhys nodded for him to say his piece.
“If you’ve come aboard, then you must have . . . Has the kraken gone, sir?”
“Kraken?” The echo came from behind him. Scarsdale stared at the old man, his face pale. Rhys could feel the blood draining from his own, his gut tightening with dread. “Not in these waters.”
No, not in these waters. Not that Rhys had ever seen. And the sea around the Terror had been clear. But something had brought that airship down . . . and could have been hidden under it, using the balloon for shade. God.
He turned and sprinted for the ladders.
Too much time had passed since the last round of gunfire. Several minutes, at least.
Her fingers clenched on the rifle, Mina stared down though the Terror’s web of crisscrossing lines and timbers, willing Rhys to return. The ship’s upper deck remained empty. All was quiet, until a deep rolling rumble sounded, as if hundreds of horses trotted across a wooden bridge.
What was that? She looked at the aviators, saw their puzzled expressions. Frowning, Yasmeen left the quarterdeck, approaching the rail.
Mina glanced back down, then to Josephine when movement under the deflated balloon caught her eye. Beside her, an aviator called out, “Captain!”
Yasmeen joined them, bracing her forearms against the gunwale and looking over. Between the Terror and the airship wreckage, a dark shadow was gliding deep beneath the water. A big dark shadow. The captain’s face stilled, her lips parting. Horror, Mina recognized.
“Captain?” she said, her heart pounding.
“It should be too warm,” Yasmeen murmured. “It must have been carried up on the cold current that runs northward along the coast, maybe hit a storm . . .” She shook her head. “I’ve never seen one so far north.”
Oh, blue heavens. The giant armored sea creatures the Horde had created were well known to inhabit the colder waters: the megalodon sharks in the north and south, and the kraken in the south. But not so close to the equator.
The shadow became a shape, a bulbous head and thick tentacles, a monstrous iron-plated cephalopod. The two arms trailing behind were longer than the Terror.
“No,” Mina whispered. But denial wouldn’t make it true.
“They just need to keep quiet and sail out of here,” Yasmeen said. She looked along the rail. “Mr. Pessinger, please fire up the engines and the generator.”
For the rail cannon, Mina realized. “Can we lower the platform?”
Yasmeen nodded to the floating wreckage. “That’s probably what they did. With their engines firing.”
As Lady Corsair’s engines would need to be in order for the generators to power the rail gun. And the noise would have attracted the kraken . . . which had destroyed the skyrunner.
Astounded, Mina stared at Josephine’s balloon. How could a kraken pluck it out of the sky? “They have that great of a reach?”
“It’s long, no doubt. But if it wraps those tentacles around a cargo platform, it can drag the whole ship down.”
With a shudder, Lady Corsair’s engines started up, huffing and bellowing. The generator whined. Below, a plated form surfaced and dove beneath the Terror. Too quick.
“Mr. Pessinger, do you have a shot?”
“No, sir. Not without hitting the Terror.”
“Fuck.” Yasmeen breathed the curse before shouting, “Mr. Pegg, Ms. Washbourne, mount that rapid-fire gun! Pepper the water over there. See if we can’t draw it away. The rest of you, haul out the harpoons!”
She was shaking her head, even as she called the orders. Catching Mina’s gaze, she said, “Kraken aren’t zombies, investigating every new noise. They fixate.”
Noise from below had them both looking over again. Men were running onto the Terror’s deck. Rhys was with them, sprinting to the side and looking over. He turned. Mina couldn’t hear the shouts over the airship’s engines, but knew he was yelling orders.
“They’ll man the axes,” Yasmeen said, her pointing finger tracing the path of several men racing toward the weapon stations. She nodded to the men climbing into the rigging. “They’ll drop the canvas.”
And sail away. Josephine’s tether line had already been cut from the Terror’s stern. Everyone was in motion, except . . . Mina’s heart leapt. A pale-haired boy stood on the quarterdeck with an axe in hand—Andrew.
The Terror’s bow lurched to the side. Thick tentacles curled up around the front of the ship, just beneath the jutting bowsprit and the figurehead lifting her face to the sky. Armed with axes, men rushed to the foredeck, crowding into the point of the bow. The tentacles were too low for them to strike.
Sick with fear, Mina couldn’t look away. “Can they kill it?”
“Not with that armor. Not unless they’re lucky and get a shot at the eye. They just hope to hurt it enough that it’ll let go.”
“Can we make that shot?”
“It’s impossible at this angle, or anywhere more than ten or twenty feet over the surface. And even if the kraken floated into open water, the rail cannon’s penetration into the water isn’t deep. The best chance is using one of the harpoons.” She gestured to the men lined up along Lady Corsair’s side, each holding a speargun. “They’ll be watching for that chance.”
Mina looked at her rifle. Yasmeen pointed to the quarterdeck.
“You’ll find a harpoon in my weapon chest.”
Even at her fastest, she couldn’t run quickly enough. Mina returned to the rail, speargun ready—and with nothing to shoot. The tentacles crawled up the Terror’s sides, as if an enormous, monstrous hand was taking hold of the ship from below.
Yasmeen was right. They had absolutely no angle. They wouldn’t from any direction, not from this height. And so they waited—for the best, or the worst. And the worst would be dropping ropes and saving who they could.
Or drop a rope now. She turned to Yasmeen. “Why not lower a man on a rope beside the Terror? He’d have a shot.”
“I don’t pay my men enough to commit suicide.”
“Then me,” Mina said. “If the kraken takes hold of the rope, you can cut it. It won’t drag you down.”
“I’m not interested in suicide, either, and Trahaearn would kill me.” She flicked a glance at Mina’s harpoon. “Try to take a shot with that, if you must do something. But you’re not heading down.”
And Yasmeen would physically prevent her, if necessary. Mina remembered Newberry, and the six aviators who’d taken him down. Just three of them could handle Mina . . . unless she didn’t give them the chance.
With determination washing away fear, Mina took her place on the rail, near the ropes Rhys and Scarsdale had used to descend to the Terror. They were coiled up again, but the ends were still secured to the steel anchoring loops embedded in Lady Corsair’s decks. Directly below lay the blue strip of water between the Terror ’s side and the skyrunner’s balloon.
She kept a firm grip on the harpoon. Below, the Terror began to tip sideways, the masts no longer vertical, but swinging toward the water at a sickening angle. The kraken clung to the Terror . . . and its enormous body would slowly be exposed against the ship’s bottom as it keeled over. No choice, then.
Mina grabbed the rope and tossed herself over, sliding rapidly down the line with one hand. Friction burned her palm. Her stomach dropped faster than she did, the wind pulling tears. Shouts from above rang out—and then below. Rhys’s unmistakable voice, roaring an order to stop.
So sorry, Your Grace. It was too late for no.
She stopped ten feet above the water, with not much rope left dangling. The side of the Terror was rising above her, and she was too low to see the decks, the angle too steep. The undulating and constricting tentacles were dark gray and slick, and as thick as a railcar where the arms attached to the body. The undersides were covered with plate-sized suckers, pink flesh that pulsed and contracted against the Terror’s wooden hull in a manner as obscene as it was horrifying.
Near the base of the bulging, armored body, the lidless black eye was big enough to drive a lorry through, and stared at her through the clear water. Seeing her? Mina didn’t know. And she couldn’t wait.
A swipe of her face against her shoulder wiped away the blur of tears. She breathed deep. Hanging on to the rope with her burned and bleeding hand, she looped the dangling end around her foot, creating a sling step that could take her weight, and secured it by trapping the rope end between her sole and her ankle. She would have one shot, and she needed to be steady, needed to remember that the water would distort the angle.
She aimed low and fired.
The speargun pierced the bottom center of the creature’s eye. Black liquid spewed. The tentacles bulged and the ship’s hull shrieked, then the Terror was rolling toward her, bottom crashing back into the sea. Tentacles thrashed the water. Mina reached up, ready to climb, but something struck the rope and whipped her about, ripping the line from her shredded palm.
She fell—and jerked to a halt with a tearing pain through her knee. Mina cried out, dropping the harpoon. Swinging upside down, dangling with her head two feet above the water, she stared at the rope around her foot through a haze of disbelief and pain and tears.
Blessed stars. Slowly, she crunched the muscles in her stomach and began to roll up.
“Mina!”
Rhys’s shout cut through every other noise, made her glance over. The Terror was nearing—Yasmeen must have been bringing the airship closer to its side. Men at the rail were leaning over with fishing gaffs, trying to catch the line and bring her in. Relief burst through her, and turned to horror when she felt the unmistakable sensation of her foot sliding from her boot.
Oh, blue.
She dropped, splashing into the water. Shocking warmth enveloped her, and a strange, swirling silence. The dark shape of the kraken floated below, no longer thrashing or moving. The sun was above. She tried to turn, flipping her hands. She couldn’t swim. But how difficult could it be? Just splashing and kicking.
Her eyes burned. She clawed at the water, kicked her legs though her knee screamed. Her lungs screamed. The sun seemed farther away, the wavering shadow of the airship. She just needed to kick harder.
She couldn’t. She couldn’t.
A dark figure torpedoed through the water. Rhys—who sank like a stone. He grabbed for her, hauled her against him, and the tightness of his grip hurt more than not breathing. They’d both go down, now. He shouldn’t have come for her.
But they were dragged up. Mina’s head broke the surface and she coughed, throwing up water and sucking in more. The cargo platform floated beside them. Rhys shoved her onto it and hauled himself up, dripping all around them. A thick rope circled his waist, attached to what must have been half the Terror’s crew. The platform lifted with a rattle and slowly swung them to the Terror’s rail.
Mina coughed again. Her wet stocking slipped on the deck when she stepped aboard, and her knee collapsed. Rhys caught her. All around her, men were cheering. Not Rhys. His face was dark, forbidding. Above them, the airship’s engines cut off. Quiet suddenly fell as Rhys barked an order to tether Lady Corsair to the Terror’s stern.
Lifting Mina against his chest, he carried her to the quarterdeck and set her down. Bracing her weight on one leg and her hand against the rail, she said, “Don’t let Captain Corsair come down here. She might kill me.”
“I might, too,” Rhys said grimly, but he didn’t—he looked to someone behind her and nodded.
And then Andrew was there. Thin, but strong. Not sick. He threw his arms around her waist. She held him tight.
“If you’re lucky, they will kill you,” he said. “Because that will be nothing compared to what Mother will do when she hears that you lost a good boot.”