Chapter 22
22
Marcelis
I laid there on Toorin’s chest, catching my breath, our sweat sticking our skin together. Toorin pulled out, eliciting a groan as zips and zaps of pleasure shot to my spent dick.
Though he held me to him with an arm around my waist, I rose on one elbow and inspected the skin at the base of his neck. I skimmed a finger across the indents my teeth made. “Sorry about that.”
Toorin chuckled, a low, earthy, contented sound. “I’m not.”
He nipped at the corner of my jaw and gave one of my ass cheeks a good squeeze before slapping it. “We should get cleaned up.”
I dropped my forehead to his shoulder. “Do we have to?”
“Your cum is drying on my chest.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
He laughed and placed a smacking kiss on my forehead. “I fucking lo—”
He cut himself off.
“What were you about to say?”
Shaking his head, Toorin said, “Nothing.”
I thought he was about to say something else. Something that no one had ever said to me before.
I eased away, trying not to let the disappointment show. The stickiness tugged at our skin before we pulled free. We both stood. Toorin took a rag and filled the basin from the jug of water on the far side of the counter, away from his charts.
I held out my hand for the wet rag. He shook his head. “That’s my job.”
Toorin might not have said that he loved me, but—like we had talked about before—I felt it in his touch, in the reverent way that he washed every inch of my body. The water ran down my skin in rivulets, rolling off the slightly curved deck at my feet and spilling through tiny scuppers in the corner of the cabin.
Gooseflesh erupted on my skin, more from his gentleness than the cold. The lantern flickered as the camel oil ran low, the warm light dancing across the peaks and valleys of Toorin’s torso.
I took the cloth from him, rinsed it, and treated him to the same careful, caring ministrations he’d shown me. I don’t think I’d ever felt that level of solicitude or consideration he’d shown me. It showed me what I’d been missing my entire life. Something I never wanted to be without again.
I hoped that through my touch, I reflected even a fraction of that back to him. He deserved to feel like someone would catch him when he fell.
When I finished, he tossed the rag onto the wet floor and tugged me to him, his fingers looping around the back of my neck, his thumbs caressing the line of my jaw. He pressed his forehead to mine, and we breathed each other in. I knew he was standing there in front of me, flesh and bone and blood, but with all that lay before us, I sensed that I’d already lost him.
My eyes misted, and I had to blink Toorin into focus.
His hand tightened on the back of my neck. “We’re going to get through this.”
“You can’t know that.” The words were out. My greatest fear… standing there. As stark and naked as we were.
“The stars wouldn’t have brought you to me only to take you away again,” he said.
“You have much trust in the stars.”
“When they’re all you have to guide you at night, you learn to trust them.”
A beautiful sentiment, if not fanciful. But tonight, I’d leave him to his fancy and pretend the stars were divine. That they had our backs the way we had each other’s.
Toorin led me back to his bed, tucking me under the thin layer of bedding, our bodies damp. I curled up into him, my ear over his heart. The constant vibration, the whir in my ear, brought me comfort. His fingers painted small circles on my flank, drawing me closer and closer to sleep.
I jerked awake. “Sorry.” I tried to sit up, but Toorin’s arm tightened around me.
“You have nothing to be sorry for. Go to sleep.”
I worked my way to one elbow and shook my head as if that would clear the cobwebs. It didn’t. “My job is to stay awake while you sleep. To—”
“Shhh.” He pulled me into his chest again. “Sleep. I have no plans to die tonight.”
He nestled in closer, his body heat keeping me warm in the now chilly cabin. I closed my eyes for a moment. I only needed…
I jerked awake again with a snort that drew a chuckle from Toorin’s lips. He’d already dressed, the lantern long burned out. At my feet, the cabin door lay open, and the faintest glow of the rising sun streamed through.
“Morning,” he said with a thick voice he hadn’t cleared of sleep.
With a stretch and a yawn, I said, “What are you doing?”
“Watching you sleep.”
I curled my arm under my head. “You should have woken me. If you’d di—”
“I didn’t die.”
“Because the stars said you wouldn’t?” I was all for hanging onto hope… with both hands, if we had to, but all that talk… he couldn’t think that—
“Not exactly.” He didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t press, probably because I wanted to live in his fantasy world and suspend my disbelief for an hour or two at least.
Kneeling beside the bunk, he palmed the back of my head, the new growth not nearly so stubbly anymore. I’d have to get Juniper to help me shave it again now that I had confidence she wouldn’t use her blade to slit my throat.
“I liked waking up with you asleep beside me.”
“I should have—”
“I told you, I don’t plan on dying anytime soon.”
I wished I shared his optimism. After living under my sire’s thumb for so many years, I knew better. And I had that sourness in my gut telling me not to take my time with Toorin for granted.
“Wait. I’m going with you.”
Toorin leaned against the door jamb, not even hiding how his gaze skimmed my body, sending tingles up and down my spine, remembering his touch and all the bliss we brought each other.
“Look what you’ve done to me.” I stopped with my trousers at the top of my thighs, my cock already at half-mast.
“I could help you out with that.”
I tugged the trousers up, glad for the extra room Toorin’s trousers provided. “We don’t have time.”
“Pity.” Toorin shoved off the jamb and turned to go.
I followed a few minutes later, the heat rushing to my cheeks when everyone in the galley glanced up as I stepped in. Could they tell why I was so far behind Toorin?
He sat across from the galley door. Darwin and Lyric had a pot boiling on the hob, the heat hitting me as I entered, even with both portholes and the door open.
Across from Toorin sat Bodie and Juniper. He didn’t look at me, but Juniper leaned across him and did.
Toorin scooted over, and I slipped in beside him. Darwin handed me a steaming cup of water. It wasn’t the same as coffee, but at least it would warm my belly.
“How’s your chest?” Bodie asked Toorin.
“Fine,” he said, too fast and not meeting Bodie’s eye.
The heat rushed up my face. All that we’d done the night before, Toorin had made it sound like his chest wasn’t bad. Now, I questioned that.
“Let me see.” It was Bodie’s turn to sound like the captain.
Toorin stilled, then met Bodies hard gaze with one of his own. “I don’t need a nursemaid.”
Bodie raised one stubborn brow. A brow that said nothing would get done that day until Toorin proved he wasn’t severely injured.
Motioning with his hand, Bodie said, “Off with it.”
Toorin grumbled. Or was that more of a growl? I moved his hot mug aside as he struggled to get the shirt over his head in the tight confines of the galley booth.
Darwin came over with a lantern to see the bruising better. I knew his chest was bruised. I’d seen it in the dim light the night before, but that hadn’t prepared me for what I saw.
There came a chorus of fucks , and buggers .
A gasp escaped my lips before I even knew it was coming. Toorin linked our fingers and kissed the back of my hand, holding our joined hands to his chest. I didn’t move. The rest of the galley fell silent.
It was no secret that I spent my nights with Toorin and that something brewed between us, but I don’t think they knew exactly how serious it had become so quickly.
Bodie frowned at our joined hands. The type of frown that dimmed some of the light Toorin’s touch had given me. “What’s that?”
I expected the red to creep up Toorin’s cheeks the way it did mine. I expected him not to meet Bodie’s assessing gaze or to be unable to find the words.
None of that happened.
“We’re together,” he said. The words simple yet clear.
“Duh,” Lyric said. “Sound travels on the IP. Every bloody lass and bloke in the settlement knows that after last night.”
Juniper turned her mug in her hand. “I used to be able to hide my head under my pillows to block out most of it. Maybe I should have gone with Metta.”
Toorin kicked her under the table. It must not have been hard because she barely flinched. “Be nice.”
Then, the mock distaste fell from her face. “Don’t tell anybody,” she said in a whisper that carried throughout the galley, “but I’m happy for you two.”
“Aye,” Darwin and Lyric said.
Which left Bodie, who remained silent.
“Bloody thrilled,” he said in a way that said he was anything but. He scooted out of the booth and stormed out onto the deck.
I tried to pull away and follow him, but Toorin wouldn’t let go of my hand. “Leave him be. Nothing any one of us can say will change his mind.”
“I thought he was starting to like me.”
“He does. I think. He’s too stubborn to admit it. Give him time.”
Lyric served up breakfast. More hardtack and some old dried strips of fish that should have been thrown overboard, but it was food, so we ate it without complaint. Hopefully, we’d be able to resupply in the settlement.
Juniper swallowed the last of her fish with a grimace, her eyes drifting back to Toorin’s bruised chest.
The colors ranged from blue to black. You could almost see the individual blows one after the other after the other. As painful as it was to look at, it had to hurt worse.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you so hard. I was scared that—”
“Stop,” Toorin said, with a softness in his voice I hadn’t expected but should have. “You saved my life. This bruise is nothing. Understand?”
She nodded, though I wasn’t convinced she believed him. Then she sat up straighter. “I’m going with you.”
She wasn’t asking. I schooled my smile.
“It’s better if Bodie and I go,” Toorin said as if he had much say in whether she went or not. “Besides, Darwin and Lyric need help mending the sail.”
“I can’t sew. And you need salve for that bruise.”
“We can’t spend our time in the settlement worrying about you. You need to stay here and—”
Juniper laughed. “Fuck your worry. Who was the one who got you and Bodie back to the Lark? Who found your medicine? Who kept you from dying? I was surviving well enough on my own before you two came along. I can look after myself.”
“Fuck me. Fine. You can go. But if you’re not at the dinghy when it’s time to leave, we’ll leave you there.”
Smiling, Juniper held out her hand for him to shake, knowing full well his threats were idle.
Toorin
We beached the dinghy in a sandy area not too far from the settlement. It didn’t have a wharf like Toonu, but that didn’t stop this place from doing a good trade based on the number of other boats that had moored nearby during the night and early this morning.
Bodie and I had been here before, but it had been a while. Not much had changed, it seemed. The buildings were little more than ramshackle huts held together with spit and hope.
“Two hours,” I called to Juniper, who’d started for the main road as soon as her feet hit the sand. She had her blade at her side and a couple of marginal chips that I’d given her that should be more than plenty for her to get the salve she wanted.
At least Metta hadn’t found my other stash of chips. Otherwise, we would have been well and truly fucked.
She turned toward me, walking backward as she glanced at the sun. I’d never leave her in the village, but Bodie and I didn’t want to have to chase her down when it was time to go.
“Aye, Captain.” The insubordinate salute she threw me would have had her tossed off most boats—and rightfully so—but inwardly, I smiled.
Bodie hadn’t said much since he’d stormed out of the galley in a huff. I didn’t have time to coddle him. He’d get over Marc and me being together eventually. However, he’d make life miserable until then.
We trudged up the steep bank to a series of jagged steps carved into the hillside. As much as I hated leaving Marc on the Lark, knowing that his sire had men looking for him, I couldn’t take the chance that someone would recognize him, even this far from Toonu.
When we got to the top of the uneven stairs, we stopped to catch our breath, our balance already affected by the past days on the water, the land tilting on its own before settling again.
We went to the market area first. It would take peddlers most of the time we had to gather all the supplies we needed and carry them to the dinghy. In the meantime, we could hopefully source fabric for the sail. I wasn’t holding my breath, but sometimes chips talked.
We paid a small handful of chips to the woman selling staples such as flour, coffee, spices, mead, and other foodstuffs we’d need if we didn’t want to rely on whatever we could catch. I’d done business with her in the past and paid her extra to keep one of her people on the bank with our goods until we returned.
Cloth came next. A man on the outskirts of the fringe sold cloth, and we headed there. Past the shacks and the encampment of people who couldn’t afford that. If they were lucky, they had someone to stay with their belongings while they worked or searched for food. If they weren’t, their belongings sat in the sun and the rain for anyone to steal.
Out here, sand and dust covered everything in a fine layer, coloring everything, including the people, in the same deep red color as the dirt. It got on your skin, in your clothes, in your cracks and crevices. It even worked its way between your teeth.
The man we were looking for had a hut near the banks of a creek made with what materials he could find, which was little more than clay, mud, and the straggly grass growing near the banks of the creek.
“Linus,” I called out as we approached the hut's open doorway. We knew better than to walk up to someone’s door without announcing ourselves. The last thing Bodie or I needed was a blade jammed in our bellies.
The wind blowing off the IP carried my voice, but it wasn’t strong enough to keep the flies away. I swatted at the small swarm that buzzed around us.
“Oi,” Bodie hollered louder when no one appeared in the doorway. He turned to me. “Maybe he’s not here.”
We looked around. There were people farther down the creek. Several followed a dirt trail to a natural cut in the bank, making it easier to get down to the water.
Then the wind shifted, bringing a cloud of carrion flies and the unmistakable stench of rotting flesh.
“Moon and mars.” Bodie retched, pinching his nostrils.
I tried to breathe through my mouth, only to suck in one of the flies. My stomach heaved as I spit it out. I took hold of Bodie’s shirt, knowing what I’d find around the corner. “You’re coming with me.”
Bodie dug in his heels. “Why do we have to look?”
“Because we can’t spend all day standing outside the hut waiting for someone who won’t be showing up.”
“Couldn’t we take what we need from the hut and leave chips behind to cover it?”
“If he’s alive and not here, I don’t want someone stealing the chips.”
Bodie didn’t budge.
I raised my brows at him and tried to appeal to his sense of decency. “You’re going to make me do this alone?”
Bodie closed his eyes, his head falling back as if calling on all of the universe's protection. Then he blew out a breath and met my gaze. “Fine. But if I throw up, I’m blaming you.”
“I can live with that.”
Bodie trailed behind as we swatted our way through the cloud of flies and approached the backside of the hut. “Ready,” I said before we turned the corner.
“No.”
“On three. One, two—”
Bodie turned the corner before I hit three, and his stomach heaved. He stumbled off to the side, his arms around his middle, as what little food we’d eaten that morning came back up.
I held my breath and turned the corner, unprepared for the sheer number of flies and insects crawling over a bloated body. All but the most determined flies swarmed as soon as I rounded the corner. I raised an arm in front of my face for whatever scant protection that provided.
Behind me, Bodie continued to heave, and I was quickly running out of breath. I had to make sure it was Linus before we took what we needed.
I leaned closer, waving my hand over the man’s face to scare off the remaining flies. Even though his eyes were gone, the jagged scar on his cheek was unmistakable. It was him.
My lungs convulsed, burning for oxygen. I’d seen all I needed to. I spun on my heel and pulled a dry-heaving Bodie upwind of the stench.
“You owe me,” Bodie managed, a hand on his roiling stomach as he straightened.
“Fair.” I hitched my thumb over my shoulder. “Let’s hope no one has robbed the hut of all the cloth.” Even as I said it, I knew it was asking much of the universe.
We eased into the hut, the thick walls holding in the chill from the night before. As our eyes adjusted, what we feared had already happened.
“There’s nothing here.” Bodie approached the makeshift shelves along one wall of the tiny hut.
There were a couple of blobs here and there far back in the dark corners. “What about those?”
We approached slowly, cautiously, as if we expected the blobs to turn into a nest of rats or worse. I didn’t know what was worse and tried not to think about it as I reached into the corner.
“It’s cloth,” I said, sounding nearly as breathless as I’d been when I’d pulled a drowning Marc out of the IP.
“Thank fuck,” Bodie said as he reached for the other.
Stepping out of the hut, we fluffed out the fabric pieces. Both pieces of material were thinner than sailcloth, but considering they’d been balled in the corner of the hut for who knows how long, they might work.
Mentally, I did the calculations. “It’s not going to be enough.”
“Even if we cut it into thin strips to patch the rip, we’ll fall short.”
I thought about what that meant for me and Bodie, who needed to find his remaining kidney. We could sail to the port at Turtle Bay with only the jib, but it could take weeks longer.
Did I have that kind of time?
Did Bodie?
My legs went to rubber, and I sat down before I fell. Sometimes, when Marc and I spent the night wrapped in each other's arms, it could be easy to forget this mortal race against time. But now…
Bodie squatted beside me, his big paw of a hand around the back of my neck. “Then it takes weeks longer.” He sounded like it was possible. Like he believed I could make it that long. He couldn’t possibly know that, but his believing made it possible for me to also believe. “Or…”
I lifted my gaze to his. “Or, what?”
“We could sail down the Dry River. We’d be going with the flow and—”
“Absolutely not. We tried that with my sire. We almost didn’t escape with the Lark or our lives.”
He stood and turned away, his head dropping between his shoulders. “I haven’t forgotten. How could I—” His gaze went up to the stars again, the body of now invisible lights that served him so well night after night as we sailed the IP.
Then he turned around. His confidence that I could make it the extra weeks seemed to have melted away, revealing a man who feared what the future held. “I’ve seen the bruising on your chest. Do you think you’ll survive another?”
“I’ve survived every one of them.” It wasn’t an answer, but it was all I had.
Bodie paced away, his hands on his hips. For a minute, I thought he’d head straight down to the dinghy and leave me. I know better, but the possibility that I’d finally pushed him too far wasn’t an idle fear.
He stomped back. I didn’t hear everything he said, but I caught stubborn and bloody fool before the rest of his tirade became unintelligible. He yanked the fabric from my hand and folded it and the other into a compact stack that tucked neatly under his arm.
The other hand he held out to me. I took it, and he pulled me into him, wrapping his thick arm around my neck and placing a platonic, smacking kiss on my temple before turning me loose. In my head, I heard the Fuck, you’re frustrating, that had gone unsaid.
Walking toward the heart of the settlement, Bodie spit, getting the bad taste out of his mouth from vomiting. I glanced up at the sun. We had time before we had to meet Juniper.
I pulled Bodie into the first bar I saw, holding back the cloth covering the entrance for him to pass before me. “I figured I owe you this much.”
“Aye.” Bodie commandeered one of the seats near the bar. I took the other. A handful of men sat scattered around, but they paid us no attention. I eyed the fabric fluttering in the doorway while we waited for the barkeep.
“What can I get ye?” the man said when he returned.
I hitched a thumb toward the fabric. “How much for the material?”
He followed my gaze. “You want the door. Are ye mad?”
“More like desperate,” Bodie said. “We’re trying to sail to Turtle Bay, and our mainsail is damaged.”
“Two chips,” the man said without flinching. “Two good ones.” For two good chips, we should have been able to buy half a sail’s worth of material. Not a scrap covering a narrow doorway.
“Deal.” What choice did I have? We gave him our drink order and the two good chips. I hated to part with them. We had camels to source and drovers to hire if we wanted to make it to Mercy in this lifetime.
“Did I hear ye say Turtle Bay?” An old man stood and waddled over. He held up his mug, and I motioned for the barkeep to fill it.
“Aye,” Bodie said.
The old man leaned against the bar. “The port’s rubbish. If the pirates don’t get ye, the wharf rats will.”
By the way he said it, he meant the two-legged kind of wharf rat, not the four. Not that we had much for anyone to take after Metta hit us.
“We don’t have a choice.” I swallowed the mead. It was thin and weak but better than boiled water from the IP.
The old man contemplated that while he swallowed down half his mug. “You going to Mercy?”
“Maybe,” Bodie said, even though most people going to Turtle Bay used it as a stopping-off point to Mercy.
“Go to Dry River. It’ll knock days off ye travel. And I know a camel guy. You pay him extra, he’ll get ye there safe, he will.”
Bodie gave me a look. “See?”
“And sail miles down a river where if you stop, the outliers along the way will attack. No. I’m not putting my people through it.”
The old man laughed. The kind of laugh that said he knew better but didn’t have the time to argue. “Suit yerself.”
He raised his mug to us and went back to his table. I waited for Bodie’s I told you so . It didn’t take long.
“We could make the run down river. We have enough people to watch the helm. We do it in shifts, and we make it to the Dry River port in one piece. The trek across the badlands won’t be nearly as long. That has to account for something.”
I threw back the last of my mead and slammed the mug on the bar louder than I’d intended. All heads turned our way. I waited until they returned to their conversations before I lowered my voice and said, “I’m not willing to sacrifice my crew for me.”
“Don’t you think you should let them decide that for themselves? They’ll do it. For you.”
“I’m not putting them in any more danger than necessary. If we’re going down the Dry River, it will be over my dead body.”
“It just might be,” Bodie mumbled into his mug.
I heard him, but I still said, “What was that?”
“Nothing.”
I motioned to the barkeep, and he refilled our mugs. We could probably drink all afternoon for the price we’d paid for a scrap of fabric, and the barkeep would come out ahead.
We climbed into our mugs of mead, ignoring each other, but no matter how much Brodie brooded, I wasn’t budging on my decision. He might be my partner, but it was my boat.