The Coldest Sea Page 13

  “Maggie, there’s something I have to ask you,” he said.

  “What?” She’d propped herself up to watch him undress, but his tone told her he wasn’t flirting or deliciously prolonging the anticipation.

  His gaze moved over her body, not with open desire now but as if he was trying to memorize her. “Chances are, I won’t see you again after tomorrow.” His voice was quieter too. “If you go back home and find out you’re pregnant—well, you’ll have to decide what to do. But promise me that if you do have our child, you’ll take good care of him. Or her.”

  Maggie sat up straight, indignation tensing her spine. Why did he always persist in thinking the worst of her? She wasn’t sure she wanted to have a child yet—she’d cross that bridge when she came to it—but if she did, she’d starve before she left her baby on a doorstep.

  “Of course I will.” She yanked the blankets up so violently she was surprised they didn’t rip. “What the hell do you take me for?”

  Vinsen held up a hand. “I want to be sure. Especially if you marry whatever-his-name-is, and you already have someone else’s child…”

  He didn’t finish, and his eyes were more remote than his voice; he didn’t seem to be seeing her any longer. Maggie’s anger drained away.

  “Did that happen?” she said.

  Alertness flashed back into his face. “What do you mean?”

  “Did your wife marry someone else, and—”

  “No. I mean, yes, she did remarry, but we never had children.”

  “Oh.” She didn’t understand the intensity in either his demeanor or his request, but there was no harm in setting his mind at ease, even if he was the worst cynic she’d ever met. “Well, if I have a child, whoever I marry will have to deal with it, that’s all. Don’t worry.”

  She hoped he would reward her for the reassurance by continuing to take his clothes off, but instead he tilted his head slightly, as if to get a better view of her from another angle. Self-consciously, she pulled the blanket to her throat. The corner of his mouth went up, and if there was something resigned about the half-smile, there was also more warmth in it than she’d seen in his face a few moments ago.

  “I’m curious,” he said. “How many lovers have you had besides that one?”

  Maggie caught herself before her mouth could drop open again. Really, what concern was that of his? She hadn’t asked him to count up the number of women he’d had in the past, and a man with his looks, in his position? What was the old saying—a girl in every port?

  Come to think about it, that would be a lot of girls. Dozens.

  “Dozens,” she said.

  “I suppose ‘hundreds’ would have been implausible. So it was just the one?”

  “Enough about me.” She stared a challenge at him. “Your turn.”

  He raised a brow. “Other than my former wife? Four others.”

  “In five years? Isn’t there some saying about a girl in every port?”

  “There’s also one about a port in every girl, but I don’t need to dock each time I see a harbor. And you’re hardly in a position to criticize numbers.”

  Despite the retort, his mouth twitched as though he was trying to suppress a grin, and Maggie chuckled. It occurred to her that Anthny would have considered the conversation ribald, not appropriate for someone aspiring to the ranks of the Council of Eyes and Voices, but it seemed just fine for her and Vinsen.

  “Were you fond of any of them?” she said.

  He shrugged. “They weren’t prostitutes, if that’s what you’re wondering. I liked them well enough, and I knew they’d never expect anything more of me.”

  Well, he certainly knew that about her, since she couldn’t expect him to survive, much less make any promises to her. Not that she needed any. After all, she wasn’t in love with him. But she liked him more and more, and she wanted him all over again.

  She let the blanket fall, then lay back on the pillows and held up her arms in a wordless wanting. He was in them at once, clothed though he was, his body warm and solid on top of her. Impossible to feel cold, let alone afraid, when he lay between her and the rest of the world.

  She lifted her face, but evaded his kiss just long enough to take his lower lip between hers and suck softly. He shuddered, fitting their mouths together in a demand she couldn’t deny, then grazed her tongue with his teeth. Panting, she worked her arms between them to finish undoing his coat.

  He propped himself up on his elbows to let her, but it wasn’t easy to concentrate even on such a simple task when he moved his legs between hers, spreading her thighs easily. Through the heavy cloth of his trousers, she felt his erection press against her belly. Involuntarily she squirmed, but that only seemed to make him harder.

  “So there’s that hot stone you mentioned,” she said.

  His hoarse release of breath was the shadow of a laugh, and he sat up to toss his coat away. Wishing she could rip all his clothes off at once, she let her gaze travel up the long lines of his body, all in black now, making his eyes look like glacier ice. Except no ice had ever smoldered so hotly.

  He pulled his shirt over his head, unbuttoned his trousers and stripped them off. In the candlelight, his bare skin looked burnished like one of his own carvings, except none of those showed marks of ill use. Maggie sat up, crumpling the blanket under her palms. Scars were another thing she wasn’t used to, because Anthny didn’t have any.

  But they didn’t matter either. She pulled the blankets aside for him. His fingers came up to clasp her chin lightly, lifting her face for him, and his mouth was gentle too. He kissed the corners of her lips before coaxing her mouth open, not that he needed to be persuasive. A hot thrill went through her, and she made a sound of need, utterly wordless, a soft mmm against his mouth. A rough purr in his throat echoed it, and he leaned into her, pushing her down to the bunk.

  So much of him, she thought through a swimming haze. No amount of heavy clothes could have hidden his height or the span of his shoulders, but she hadn’t known how good his body felt, lean and hard-muscled against the softness of her skin. And yet she was in control for the first time. She made him shudder when she drew her nails down his back to the hollow of his spine, and she wrung a gasp out of him when she bit his shoulder. His heart thudded against her breast.

  He moved lower and grazed her nipple with his tongue. A stab of need made her arch up, but when he sucked gently, it sent soft prickling waves through her. Whimpering, she buried her hands in his hair. His weight pinned her down, but she couldn’t stop her hips pressing up to him, her thighs tensing as the restless, urgent heat between them grew. He found her other nipple and closed his mouth over it, this time greedily, a hard steady tugging that made her groan.

  “Now,” he said, and moved between her legs, pushing them farther apart. She felt the head of his erection touch her and jolted. He stilled, his gaze searching her face as if to make certain she was ready.

  Then he entered her in one smooth thrust. She cried out, her nails sinking into his shoulders, but it wasn’t a sound of pain. Only shock at the way he filled her, swift and easily because she was so wet from his mouth. Without moving, he put his chin against her shoulder and his mouth to her ear. His unshaven cheek was rough beside her throat, but as if to make up for it, the kiss was the barest touch, a whisper of warm breath in her ear that made her shiver.

  “Put your legs around me, Maggie,” he said.

  She didn’t think she could move so much as a toe; all of her was focused on his cock inside her. Thick and hot and stretching her, yet there was no discomfort, as if she had been made for him. As if there could only be pleasure when they were joined together, connected so intimately that she had nothing hidden from him.

  Her thighs twitching involuntarily, she bent her knees. Slowly wrapping her legs around his hips made her feel as though he was sinking deeper into her, and his breath came
from between his teeth. His chest, slickened with sweat, stroked against her nipples as he began to move.

  Each slow strong push brought his cock rubbing her swollen, pulsing flesh before he sank into her, and she arched, rising with him, hearing him whisper her name as she did so. The need that filled her turned fever-hot, so out of control that she writhed and clawed at him, gasping, and the pleasure hit her so hard she couldn’t even cry out. Beyond the roaring of blood in her ears as she shuddered through an endless climax, she felt Vinsen thrust into her, riding her fiercely, hard and fast as if he had lost all control too, lost everything in her.

  Then he stilled, shaking, and buried his face in her shoulder as heat spilled deep within her.

  The flares behind her eyelids faded like fireworks sinking out of the sky. He withdrew, pressing a last kiss to the pulsepoint behind her ear before he moved just enough that all his weight wasn’t on her. His breathing was soft, and before she let her eyelids open languidly, she knew he was asleep.

  Without remembering to pull the blankets up around them, so she did that, smoothing the worn wool over his shoulder with a protective tenderness that surprised her. Disconcerted her a little too, because the last thing she needed was to fall in love with another man she couldn’t have.

  It didn’t matter. He’d be gone the next day, she’d likely never see him again if he planned to track a Bleakhavener through an iceberg, and she knew herself. Of all her family, she was the most practical, and she wouldn’t spend her life pining for him.

  Though she’d remember this night for a long time. The insides of her thighs felt sore where his stubble had scraped her, but tiny ripples of pleasure still ran through her. She felt exhausted and sweaty and very, very good.

  Vinsen lay with one arm resting across her, so she couldn’t have moved away if she’d wanted to, but she could reach the candlesticks on the shelf above the bed. She raised her arm and her fingers brushed something cold and metallic.

  Curious, she felt around until she caught a chain and brought it down to see what it was. A watch, with a beautiful design of vine leaves engraved in its silver cover. She flipped it open to check the time.

  Later than she had expected. The hands moved on the dial with uncaring precision, wiping the seconds and hours away, and she closed the cover so she wouldn’t have to hear the soft ticking any longer. She put out the flames, settled into Vinsen’s arms and closed her eyes.

  Chapter Eight

  Crevasse

  “Maggie, wake up.”

  Vinsen’s hand on her shoulder was gentler than his tone, but both together shook her out of sleep. Disoriented, Maggie sat up, raising her hands to her head out of habit before she remembered she no longer had a lot of hair to push back.

  Vinsen was fully dressed, though he hadn’t shaved. She expected a beard might help keep him warm, but she hadn’t been prepared for how much more masculine it made him look, harsh and rough-edged. Then she met his eyes and knew at once something was wrong.

  “I need you to think carefully,” he said. “Did you see—no, wait. What happened in this room yesterday that seemed at all out of the ordinary?”

  Maggie blinked. She wanted to cover herself, which was silly given that he’d seen her naked. “Other than…”

  “Other than that,” Vinsen said impatiently.

  “Nothing.”

  “Think carefully.”

  “I heard you the first time, Vinsen.” It was an effort to move when he watched her so closely, but she pulled the blankets up around her shoulders and felt a little better. “What exactly is going on?”

  There was a pause as if he considered how much to tell her, and then the taut line of his shoulders slumped a fraction. He pulled the pocket watch off the shelf so it hung in midair like a pendulum, swaying from his thumb and forefinger.

  “I heard this ticking,” he said. “It hasn’t worked since—since it got waterlogged some time ago. When my ship capsized.”

  “Oh.” She understood his not wanting to be reminded of that, but she wouldn’t have leaped to the conclusion that something was wrong. Maybe the last of the water had finally evaporated.

  Vinsen dropped the watch back on the shelf as if it was a scorpion he’d held by the tail. “And do you remember the horse carving I was looking at last night, the one rearing up? When I carved it, it stood on all fours.”

  Maggie didn’t know what to make of that. She looked around the cabin, wondering if anything else had changed.

  Vinsen shook his head. “I’ve searched already. Though I had to stop when I found myself wondering whether there had always been a chip in the water pitcher.”

  Magic—or the Faith, if that was what Bleakhaveners called it—had been frightening enough in its grand gestures like freezing the surface of the lake, but the tiny changes disturbed her almost as much. Especially if those drove people crazy; given time, the Bleakhaveners might have sowed paranoia and suspicion on the ship, making the crew crumble from the inside.

  Given time. If Ruay had been right about people starving on the iceberg, they didn’t have much of that left.

  The warm contentment of their lovemaking was further away than a memory now. She swallowed and made herself speak calmly.

  “What do you want me to do?” she said. “Other than getting dressed, I mean.” She felt far too vulnerable without her clothes.

  “There’s not much you can do, but that would be a start.” Vinsen went to the door. “I’ll talk to Ruay, but I’ll be going ahead with the plan whatever she says. I’ve had a bellyful of Bleakhavener magic, and we can’t afford to just sit here anyway.”

  “Vinsen, wait!” Maggie said. “Should I lock the door?”

  He hesitated. “Your choice. I don’t know if a bolted door makes any difference to magic. And if the source of that magic is in these rooms—”

  He didn’t need to finish; she might not be able to unbolt the door fast enough to get out. She nodded jerkily and he was gone, the sound of his footfalls fading to silence.

  The room felt cool despite the blankets. Maggie’s skin was pebbled with gooseflesh, but she made herself get up and wash in cold seawater from the jug. Then she dressed completely. Even if a hot breakfast had been served, she had no appetite, so she made the bed instead. It was an effort not to look at everything, searching for changes.

  She had to distract herself. Music would cover up the small subtle sounds of things moving of their own accord, but if Bleakhavener magic was that powerful, her playing would make no difference. So she sat in a corner of the dining room, a wall touching each shoulder as she took her flute out of its case. Taking a deep breath, she began to play.

  She hadn’t got through more than a few bars before a whisper began to underlie the notes. As if a spider crawled up through the hollow of the flute. She jerked the mouthpiece away, but when she held the flute at a careful distance and shook it gently, nothing fell out.

  Irritation took over; she was going beyond paranoia at this point. “Stop acting like a stupid child,” she said aloud, and imagined Vinsen in the room, listening to her.

  That helped. If a spider still hid inside, it sang with the flute now, and skeins of unseen silk emerged, weaving themselves around her to keep her warm. She no longer felt afraid at all.

  She continued to play.

  Vinsen went straight to the storeroom where he’d ordered Ruay confined. A deckhand was stationed on duty outside as usual, but Joama was waiting too, and Ruay was not just untied but dressed. Her head came up sharply and he read the look in her eyes: had he been toying with her, returning her clothes and saying she could leave? Was she going to be taken back to the hold?

  He would have liked to use that advantage, but he was too much on edge to play games. “This Faith of yours,” he said to her, “can it restart a pocket watch?”

  Her face was blank. “What’s a pocket watch?” />
  “Can it mend something that was broken?”

  Ruay nodded warily. “Though I don’t see why.”

  “Tell me how it works.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “You know I can’t do that, and I’m not going to either risk a punch or insult your intelligence by making up something.”

  Vinsen set his teeth. “Then tell me this much. If the Faith could freeze the lake around us, why is it restarting a watch and changing the shape of a carving? To frighten us?”

  “I don’t know. I—we have no interest in scaring you.”

  “It would be to your advantage to demoralize us.”

  Her blaze darkened, which made it more striking on the pallid skin. “We don’t use the Faith for parlor tricks and sleight of hand. That would be an insult to the peop—we just don’t.”

  An insult to the people? How could that possibly be insulting to the people they’d left behind in Bleakhaven, people who probably had no idea what their friends or family had done? Perhaps it was the mere idea that their precious Faith might be comparable in any way to mere magic.

  “Then why is this happening?” he said in frustration.

  “I don’t know!” She raised her voice too, and far away, the dog begin to howl. Joama shifted her weight from one foot to another, and he knew she was trying to tell him the interrogation wasn’t accomplishing anything.

  He tried one last time. “You’re using the Faith against us, am I right?”

  Ruay’s lips barely moved but the words were audible enough. “You’ve never been more correct in your life.”

  “So is it possible someone among you doesn’t agree with using the Faith to attack us, and is trying to help us with the Faith somehow?”

  She actually smiled, and he had the impression that under any other circumstances, she would have had a good laugh. “No.”

  “Then if all of you are hellbent on our destruction,” he said softly, “and if the Faith, the mindless instrument of that destruction, is responsible for things like changing the shape of a carving, there’s only one conclusion. That you’re not as much in control of the Faith as you think you are.”