She gasped, less from the sudden weight than from the sense of him against her, one leg between hers.
Her hand slid beneath his shirt with all the practiced grace of a thief. But this time she wanted him to feel her touch, her palms gliding over his ribs and around his back, fingertips digging into his shoulder blades.
“Lila,” he rasped into her ear as the ship righted, swung the other way, and they tumbled back onto the cot. She pulled his body down with hers, and he caught himself on his elbows, hovering over her. His lashes were strands of copper around his black and blue eyes. She’d never noticed before. She reached up and brushed the hair out of his face. It was soft—feathery—where the rest of him was sharp. His cheekbone scraped against her palm. His hips cut into hers. Their bodies sparked against each other, the energy electric across their skin.
“Kell,” she said, the word something between a whisper and a gasp.
And then the door burst open.
Alucard stood in the doorway, soaking wet, as if he’d just been dumped in the sea, or the sea had been dumped over him. “Stop fucking with the ship.”
Kell and Lila stared at him in stunned silence, and then burst into laughter as the door slammed shut.
They fell back against the cot, the laughter trailing off, only to rise again out of the silence full force. Lila laughed until her body ached, and even when she thought she was done, the sound came on like hiccups.
“Hush,” Kell whispered in her hair, and that nearly set her off again as she rolled toward him on the narrow cot, squeezing in so she wouldn’t fall off. He made room, one arm beneath his head and the other wrapped around her waist, pulling her in against him.
He smelled like roses.
She remembered thinking that, the first time they met, and even now, with the salty sea and the damp wood of the ship, she could smell it, the faint, fresh garden scent that was his magic.
“Teach me the words,” she whispered.
“Hm?” he asked sleepily.
“The blood spells.” She propped her head on her hand. “I want to know them.”
Kell sighed in mock exhaustion. “Now?”
“Yes, now.” She rolled onto her back, eyes trained on the wooden ceiling. “What happened in Rosenal—I don’t plan on letting it happen again. Ever.”
Kell lifted himself onto one elbow above her. He looked down at her for a long, searching moment, and then a mischievous grin flickered across his face.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll teach you.”
His copper lashes sank low over his two-toned eyes. “There’s As Travars, to travel between worlds.”
She rolled her eyes. “I know that one.”
He lowered himself a fraction, bringing his lips to her ear.
“And As Tascen,” he continued, breath warm. “To move within a world.”
She felt a shiver of pleasure as his lips brushed her jaw. “And As Hasari,” he murmured. “To heal.”
His mouth found hers, stealing a kiss before he said, “As Staro. To seal.” And she would have let him linger there, but his mouth continued downward.
“As Pyrata.”
A breath against the base of her throat.
“To burn.”
His hands sliding beneath the fabric of her shirt.
“As Anasae.”
A blossom of heat between her breasts.
“To dispel.”
Above her navel.
“As Steno.”
One hand unlacing the ties of her slacks.
“To break.”
Guiding them off.
“As Orense.”
His teeth skimming her hip bone. “To open …”
Kell’s mouth came to rest between her legs, and she arched against him, fingers tangling in his auburn curls as heat rolled through her. Sweat prickled across her skin. She blazed inside, and her breath grew ragged, one hand clenched in the sheets over her head as something like magic rose inside her, a tide that swelled and swelled until she couldn’t hold it in.
“Kell,” she moaned as his kiss deepened. Her whole body trembled with the power, and when she finally let go, it crashed down in a wave at once electric and sublime.
Lila collapsed back against the sheets with something between a laugh and a sigh, the whole cabin buzzing in the aftermath, the sheets singed where she’d gripped them.
Kell rose, fitting himself beside her once again.
“Was that a good enough lesson?” he asked, his own breath still uneven.
Lila grinned, and then rolled on top of him, straddling his waist. His eyes widened, his chest rising and falling beneath her. “Well,” she said, guiding his hands over his head. “Let’s see if I remember it all.”
*
They lay pressed together in the narrow cot, Kell’s arm looped around her. The heat of the moment was gone, replaced by a pleasant, steady warmth. His shirt was open, and she brought her fingertips to the scar over his heart, tracing the circles absently until his eyes drifted shut.
Lila knew she wouldn’t sleep. Not like this, body to body in the bed.
She usually slept with her back to a wall.
Usually slept with a knife on her knee.
Usually slept alone.
But soon, the ship was quiet, the small skiff rocking gently on the current, and Kell’s breathing was low and even, his pulse a lulling beat against her skin, and for the first time in as long as she could remember, Lila fell well, and truly, and soundly, asleep.
V
“Sanct,” muttered Alucard, “it’s getting worse.”
He spit Ilo’s latest batch of dawn coffee over the side of the ship. Jasta called out from the wheel, her words lost on the breeze, and he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked up to see the Going Waters take shape on the horizon.
First only a specter, and then, slowly, a ship.
When he’d first set out for Maris’s infamous vessel, he’d done so expecting to find something like the port of Sasenroche or London’s night market, only set at sea. Is Feras Stras was neither. It was indeed a ship—or rather, several, growing together like coral atop the crisp blue sea. Squares of canvas stretched here and dipped there, turning the network of decks and masts into something that resembled a nest of tents.
The whole thing looked unstable, a house of cards waiting to fall, swaying and bobbing in the winter breeze. It had the worn air of something that had lasted a very long time, that only grew, not torn down and rebuilt by whim or by wind, but added to in layers like paint.
But there was a strange elegance to the madness, an order to the chaos, made more severe by the quiet shrouding the ship. There were no shouts from any of the decks. No layered voices echoing on the breeze. The whole affair sat silently atop the waves, a ramshackle estate bathing in the sun.
It had been nearly two years since Alucard had last seen Maris’s craft, and the sight of it still left him strangely awed.
Bard appeared beside him at the rail.
She let out a low whistle, her eyes wide with the same hungry light.
A low boat was already drawn up beside the floating market, and as the Ghost slowed, Alucard could make out a man, skeletal thin and leathered by the sun and the sea, being escorted from Maris’s ship.
“Wait!” he was saying. “I paid my due. Let me keep looking. I’ll find something else!”
But the men on his arms seemed oblivious to his pleas and protestations as they heaved him bodily overboard. He fell several feet before landing on the deck of his own small craft, groaning in pain.
“A word of advice,” said Alucard lightly. “When Maris says leave, you leave.”
“Don’t worry,” said Bard. “I’ll be on my best behavior.”
It wasn’t a comforting notion. As far as he could see, she only had one kind of behavior, and it usually ended with several dead bodies.