Chapter Eight
Nick got ‘lost’ and found rooms crowded with hammocks, storage rooms, a med bay where Anna was treating injured sailors—Nick ducked out before being spotted—a kitchen, and then he’d stumbled upon the livestock.
There were birds that looked somewhat like chickens, if chickens were half the size and a few generations closer to dinosaurs.
They had fluffy black feathers like Silkies, little mohawks atop their heads, stumpy, scaled legs and disproportionally huge eyes. But the oddest part of all was attached to their back-ends: a scaled tail, pencil thin and three times the length of their body.
Nick sat on the straw ground to watch them, not minding the animal smell. A few laid eggs, clearly not bothered by his presence. He found a sack of seeds stored in the room and threw out titbits, seeing how close he could lure them.
Kit burst into the room, a panicked look in his eyes.
His gaze swept over Nick roughly, suspiciously, but it was relief that settled over his expression.
Several hard breaths gave way to softer ones as Kit steadied himself.
He looked over Nick’s pilfered sack of seeds and the half a dozen birds he’d lured into grabbing distance.
“What are you doing?” Kit asked.
Nick gestured to the birds. “I’ve never seen these before.”
Kit’s eyebrows shot up. “Chickens?”
It irritated Nick that the word—whatever it was—translated to chicken. Because they weren’t chickens, and that clued Nick in that the symbol on his arm wasn’t completely accurate in its translations.
“Cousins of yours?” Nick asked.
Kit’s tail lashed, black as the dinosaur chickens, and they all squawked and scattered. He fixed his bright eyes on Nick, his jaw tightening.
Nick fought a smile as he climbed to his feet. “Just a joke,” he said.
Kit’s tail was still lashing as Nick approached. “I’m assuming you want me for something?”
“Anna is going to examine you before dinner. If the pain has eased, she’ll give you a smaller dose of painkillers.”
“Right. That’s this way, isn’t it?” Nick meandered his way to the med bay, recalling the path he’d taken to find it the first time. He walked slowly to get on Kit’s nerves, but when he glanced back to see if that worked, Kit was looking worriedly at Nick’s hip, concern in his eyes, not anger.
“How old are you?” Nick asked.
“Twenty.”
Nick stopped so abruptly Kit bumped into him. He stared hard at Kit’s face, but there was no hint of any deception. Kit was twenty? He was the same age as Nick, and breaking into villas, abducting people? And against his will, Nick was thinking about Desre. About Kit’s fear of her.
“How long have you worked for Desre?”
That blank look Nick was growing to hate crossed Kit’s face. “Since I was a boy and my parents died. Ten, I believe. And you must call her Lady Desre.”
“And what is she?”
“A noble.”
“I mean, what type of monster, with her eyes black like that? I think one of Vi’s students had the same –”
Kit’s eyes flashed a warning. His hand shot out, catching Nick’s forearm in a bruising grip.
“Do not call Lady Desre a monster.” Kit’s tail struck the wall of the hall with a thump.
A passing sailor yelped in surprise, and after a glance at the two of them, he scuttled quickly away. Kit’s gloves creaked.
“I won’t,” Nick said.
Kit’s chest heaved. If Nick thought that Kit was offended by him calling Desre a monster, he’d have pushed. But Nick wasn’t stupid; this reaction wasn’t ‘offence’.
“My name is Nick.”
Kit stared at him, his body seemingly frozen in alarm.
Nick gave him another second, then tugged.
Kit’s eyes flicked down, and upset flashed across his face.
He released Nick’s arm with a wounded noise.
“I apologise. I hurt you again. But you cannot say such things about Lady Desre. If it gets back to her, you will be punished. She has cut out tongues for less.”
Nick wondered if Kit had been the blade used to inflict those punishments. If he got this upset for squeezing Nick’s arm, what state was he in after doing something worse?
Kit stared at Nick’s arm. The shirt’s sleeve hid the skin beneath. It was likely reddened, but Nick doubted it was any worse than that.
“It’s not sore,” Nick said.
Kit’s blue eyes rose slowly to Nick’s face. There was a nervous flutter in the muscles of his cheek, followed by a hard swallow. Kit released a long breath, and his lashing tail settled.
“I like your name.”
◆◆◆
Nick sat at the ‘kids’ table with Kit, who supervised that everyone ate enough, and when Kit determined they hadn’t, he sent a child running to get another loaf of bread to split between them all.
Nick watched the child race to the front of the line and, though he was too far away to hear the conversation, expressions and tail gestures told of an argument.
The cook looked over at their table with a scowl, only to be met by Kit’s hard, unimpressed stare.
The kit returned with a loaf of bread and butter and cheese. This was told with a raised chin and a preen. Kit returned a compliment that sent the child into a crow’s nest of delight.
Nick learned another thing about the translation symbol on his arm; it struggled when more than one person was talking.
He understood every word at the start of the meal when Kit went from child to child asking for a ‘duties’ report.
When the reporting was over and the kits all talked among themselves, a score of young voices rising all at once, every single one became incomprehensible.
Nick thought he might have been addressed once or twice, but whenever he glanced up and found little faces looking at him expectantly, he heard only a foreign language he couldn’t understand. When he didn’t respond, expectant expressions turned disappointed.
Kit walked Nick back to his room after the meal, tail slashing side to side in irritation. A firm scowl was in place when they reached the familiar room. “You can at least answer them; they had no say in your abduction.”
A knot formed in Nick’s throat, a wave of guilt rising within. He hadn’t intentionally not answered them. He itched to explain his behaviour and only just caught himself before asking Kit to apologise on his behalf. “Is this day two or three? I can’t remember.”
Kit made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. His tail thumped hard against the wall. “Two,” Kit replied, aggrieved.
It had been Friday the night of the party. Saturday. Sunday. Tomorrow would be Monday. Even if Adonis showed up right this second to rescue him, Nick wouldn’t have time to get his assignment done for class. Nick looked aimlessly around the room before sliding into the nearest chair.
“Can you make tea?” Nick asked.
Kit grumbled something under his breath that Nick didn’t catch, but he set about brewing the bitter tea. By the time he was offering Nick a cup, he was met with wary glances in lieu of the grumbling.
“What?”
“The chickens provide food for everyone. Harming them would not stop our journey, nor would it slow us down to replace them.”
Nick wondered if the symbol was making errors. “What?”
Kit’s tail twitched in agitation. “They are not actually my cousins. Harming them –”
“Kit,” Nick interrupted, “I’m not going to harm the chickens.”
Kit’s fingers tightened on his own cup of bitter tea. Neither of them had taken a sip.
“Maybe the last person you abducted took out his anger on the chickens, but I have no intention of hurting innocent animals,” Nick said, offended.
What had given him the impression that he’d do that?
Sure, he’d often got talks about his temper growing up.
Unlike Laurence, who would never hurt a fly, Nick had been in schoolyard scraps since he’d turned thirteen—but justified scraps.
The first was because a former best friend made a remark about Laurence, implying he was gay because Trevor was a soft-hearted dad.
Nick had beaten the snot out of him then and there.
Kit slid into the chair opposite Nick, setting his tea down between them.
“I have never abducted anyone before,” he admitted.
Nick resisted a very hearty, I can tell, Mr I-casually-left-the-razor-sharp-shaving-knife-out.
“I am usually sent on trading missions. I have my own ship. My own crew—more than are on this ship. The children I brought have no family to care for them, and no source of food in Aridia.” He cast his eyes to the small porthole providing a perfect glimpse of the setting orange sun.
“I thought we were coming to ask for aid, not to take it by force.”
“Aid with what?”
Kit’s gaze flicked from the setting sun to Nick. His shoulders tensed subtly.
“Why can’t you tell me?” Nick asked instead.
Kit’s head bowed just enough to break eye contact. “I was instructed not to speak of it to anyone.”
The tone of Kit’s voice had Nick certain that the order came from Desre.
Nick leaned back in his seat, really, really thinking about the dynamics of this ship.
He was meant to be in the brig; instead he was being housed in Kit’s room—a room far finer than any other on board.
There had been no attempt to limit his movements, and Kit’s behaviour was…
odd. Nick idly fingered the small cut on the underside of his jaw, feeling the rasp of growing-in scruff.
“I’d like to shave,” Nick said.
There was an immediate growl rumbling out of Kit. But. But. There was an embarrassed note in it.
Nick quashed a grin. “Supervise me. I promise not to try anything and hand it right over afterwards, but I would really appreciate getting to clean this up.”
Through the embarrassed rumble came a curt, “Fine.”