Chapter 52 #2
Sir Roger stood in the sand next to the deckhand, a hand shading his eyes against the slant of a sunbeam. “Miss Millie? You good?”
“Yeah, I—”
She’d lingered in one place too long. The rope was damp beneath her hands, and the moment she reached to untie the ribbon, her anchoring hand slipped.
Millie screamed as she slid six feet before every muscle tightened. First there was heat, blooming in between her thighs and across her hands, then pain. It was so raw, so visceral, and Millie sank her teeth into her bottom lip to keep from bawling.
The lantern clattered to the stone step, the glass shattering and the flame guttering out.
“Millie,” Jax shouted.
“Piss and plagues,” she cursed, forcing the pain into anger. It was the only thing that could save her now suspended thirty feet above the ground with shredded hands.
“There will be none of that,” Bradley said sharply. He stood precariously close to the edge of the abyss, arm half-outstretched, their spat forgotten. “How bad is it?”
As much as it hurt to maintain her grip on the rope, she didn’t dare unclench even a finger to show him. Millie shook her head. “Stew meat,” she forced out. Her stomach roiled at the imagery. “I c-can’t move.”
She cursed again, shut her eyes, and sucked in a deep breath. It is not skill that often wins the day, came Sir Roger’s phantom voice, but endurance. Nine times out of ten, it is the fighter who can move that survives the fight.
Her fight wasn’t against a living opponent, but a rope and a thirty-foot drop.
She had to move, despite the pain, despite the fear, or she would surely fall.
Could she survive? Maybe. Could she die?
Also maybe. She wasn’t a juggernaut barbarian like Ivar the Bane who could walk off a hundred-foot fall.
Injury was definitely certain, and with no healer, death might eventually claim her in the end.
Crone’s Crooked Tits it will.
While she was no acrobat like Jax, she had watched his rope antics with as much discernment as enjoyment. And what she had learned between all the cheering and clapping, was that you didn’t need your hands to descend a rope.
Mutineer Millie gritted her teeth and clamped down with her right hand, the one that least resembled stew meat.
With a sob, she forced the fingers of her left hand to unclench, unstick, and, quick as a blink, she wrapped her arm around the rope.
Tucked it up into her armpit. She wouldn’t be inverting herself and trusting only her legs to slow her descent to the sand like Jax often did.
She would slide slowly, the rope snaking around her body.
And she would make it. Whimpering the whole way, but transformation was an ugly business.
Just as she was about to begin what promised to be an agonizing experience akin to a bikini wax from a novice with shaky hands, the tower shook.
“Millie!” Dirk shoved a yellow eye against the nearest porthole window. “Bradley!”
The nearby masonry cracked and groaned as the dragon’s claws anchored him to the tower.
Crumbs of stone and grains of sand sprinkled against his scales as he cocked his head this way and that in an attempt to see more than a sliver of the tower’s insides.
Sunlight striped the rope that dangled in the center of the open stairwell, and that rope swayed from side to side with far more gusto than the wind whispering through the windows could ever achieve.
“Mildred Angelique Tisane,” he barked.
“I’m alright,” Millie said. “Stop your fussing. You’re shaking the whole tower and me along with it! Crone’s Crooked Tits, the rope wasn’t spinning before.”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry. What are you doing?”
“Trying not to fall. Or vomit. Now stop distracting me!”
“Hold on. I think I can buffet you with a wind.”
“You think?”
“I’m not exactly in the best position to be manipulating wind or rain right now,” he whisper-hissed. “But maybe if I can stick a claw in through here . . . Yes! Rats, now I can’t see—”
“I’ve got it,” Bradley said brusquely.
The rope rotated Millie into view of the apprentice. His robe, boots, and socks were all in a disorganized heap a few stairs above him. Fink perched upon the bundle, guarding Bradley’s spectacles.
She blinked, squeezing the unhelpful tears from her eyes. “What are you doing?”
“I’m coming to get you.”
“Why?”
After how he’d reacted to her likening him to Viscount Saltreave, she figured he’d be happy to see her drop.
“Because I’m nothing like that yellow-bellied farce of a sealord. If someone’s in trouble, I will help them.”
“How?”
His bare feet rasped against the stone as he backed up all the way to the wall. The evening sunlight slanted against his bare arms and calves, burnishing his tan skin golden. His blue eyes burned with confident surety.
“I’m going to jump, Tula, and when I do, I need you to relax. I’m going to pluck you off that rope and we’re going to land right over there.” He pointed, and Millie glanced down and to her right at the landing interrupting the spiral staircase.
“You’re insane.”
“That’s never been diagnosed.”
Despite the precarious situation she was in, Millie snorted a laugh.
“Just relax,” he reminded her, bracing the heel of his rear foot against the wall for an explosive start.
“No, don’t,” she said quickly. “I need to do th—” She cried out as she slipped another few feet. Confound it! She needed to concentrate.
“One . . . two . . . th—”
“I’ve got you, Miss Millie,” said a voice directly below her.
“Jax!”
His smile was all roguish confidence, but the hand he placed on her foot was reassuring.
“What are you doing?” Bradley sputtered.
“Helping my student.”
In a slinky maneuver that underscored the deckhand’s raw strength, Jax used just his arms to climb the rope around Millie until he was half a body-length above her. He wrapped his legs under her armpits, hooked his ankles, and squeezed.
“Huh,” he mused, “I didn’t know ladyfolk could sweat this much. Y’all been deceiving us, making us think you’re dainty and whatnot.”
She glared up at him, but his smile only broadened. He added a wink that tore a ragged laugh from her throat.
Jax returned to business. “Let go of the rope, miss. I’m going to be our hands and you’re going to be our feet. It won’t be pretty, and I might fart on you, but we’ll get down as easy as a song. Remember how we descend ropes?”
“Slow controlled slide,” she answered. “And I’ll bite you if you fart on me.” It would hurt, too, since her face was only inches above his crotch.
He waggled his eyebrows. “Ooo, promise?”
“You’re wicked, Jaxson Sloop.”
“Blame the valet, sweetheart. He’s the one who keeps feeding us beans.” Jax swept Bradley a lazy salute. “See ya at the bottom.”
“Don’t you dare drop my princess,” Dirk seethed. “Millie, I’ll see you upstairs when you’re safe. Or I’m coming down there and eating someone.”
Jax didn’t even flinch at the threat. “Alright, miss, together now.”
Millie loosened the tension in her thighs but kept the rope snug between her feet. Jax lowered them down hand by hand. The muscles in his arms bulged under the extra weight, but the confident smile never wavered.
“Tuck your butt in and push down on my thighs with your arms. Thatta girl.”
Sir Roger, Sir Beauregard, and Duncan cheered when they reached the bottom. Millie collapsed on the sand in an undignified heap, and of course Jax performed one of his acrobatic dismounts, flipping and landing with legs straight as a pin and his arms up to receive the praise due him.
“Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here for the foreseeable future!”
Laughing, he bent to help Millie to her feet. And was shouldered out of the way.
Jax stumbled back, hands lifted in apology, as Bradley appeared, grabbed Millie’s elbows, and hoisted her upright.
“Gently,” she admonished. Millie hunched over to assuage the fire that shot through every muscle. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
She made the mistake of looking down at her hands, then promptly pitched forward and vomited into the sand.