Burning Up (35 page)

Tension hardened the body pressing into hers, and he pulled away. Wary, she turned to look at him.

His eyes were closed, his jaw clenched, his scars starkly white against his skin. Then he was striding for the door, pausing at the threshold. “Fix it and I’ll take you back to Fool’s Cove. If you refuse, you’ll never leave this ship.”

He issued the rough threat without looking back. A moment later, he was gone.

Ivy stared at the empty doorway. He was absolutely and utterly
mad
. Her heart pounding, she looked to the tank, then at the plans. She picked up a pencil.

To return home, she needed to begin thinking like a madman.

FIVE

T
he ship’s bell woke her. Silently, Ivy opened her eyes to the dark. Mad Machen’s heart beat steadily beneath her cheek, his arm a solid brace of heat between her back and cheek, his arm a solid brace of heat between her back and the cold bulkhead, his hand lightly resting at her waist. She’d curled into him during the night until she almost lay completely on top of him, all but straddling his left thigh.

She didn’t move. The hard length against her hip told her that even if he hadn’t roused yet, his body had. She closed her eyes again, pretending to sleep.

The previous day, she’d taken her meals in the smithy and worked until he’d come for her. Without a word, he’d taken her hand and led her to his cabin. She’d watched the stars while he washed and undressed, and he’d accepted her coin without comment. Their silence had been a swelling pressure that had grown as he followed her into the bed, but one she’d been unwilling to break, for reasons she couldn’t define.

Ivy didn’t want to break it now, either, but this time she could identify the reason: her body wanted his.

She’d felt this before—the hollow ache between her legs, the tightening of her nipples, the urge to crawl on top of another human and feed the hunger. It wasn’t a memory she liked to revisit. Only a few months before the end of the Horde occupation, she’d been cleaning a factory’s chimney when a rare Frenzy had struck. The two members of her sweeper team who were supposed to haul her out of the chimney had fallen on each other. For hours, she’d listened to their grunts and moans, compelled to join them—but trapped within the narrow pipe.

As terrifying as that had been, the alternative could have been worse. A good number of the women she’d known had gotten with child during the Frenzy. And although her hunger for Mad Machen originated from within her instead of from a radio signal, succumbing to it carried the same risk. She barely scraped by in Fool’s Cove. How would she support a child? Netta would undoubtedly help, just as Ivy would her if their situations were reversed . . . but if Ivy had any choice in the matter, she wouldn’t put that burden on her friend. Two years ago, when she’d offered Mad Machen her virginity, her desperation had outweighed any other fear. She couldn’t take a similar risk now simply because her body
wanted
.

And she couldn’t let Mad Machen take her simply because he wanted, too.

His chest rose and fell on a great sigh. So he
was
awake. Perhaps staring up into the dark, thinking whatever mad thoughts occupied his brain.

Or thinking of her. Ivy remained limp as he lifted his hand from her waist. His fingers stroked softly through her hair, and a light touch against her crown might have been a kiss. Turning onto his side, he began to ease away from her, his thigh moving deeper between hers as he rolled her gently onto her back. His erection brushed her hip and he froze, his breath hissing between his teeth.

Unable to continue pretending, she lifted her head from the pillow. A short groan escaped him, and she stilled when his big hand cupped her cheek.

“Ivy.” Her name sounded low and rough.

What could she say? Ivy wet her lips. “Captain Machen.”

“Eben.”

Her stomach turned over, a frightening little flip. “I prefer ‘Mad.’ ”

Judging by his voice, she thought he might have grinned. “Go back to sleep. There’s nothing to do on a ship when it’s dark.” He paused, and amended, “That’s not true. There is something, but you paid me not to do it.”

Mad Machen must have felt her smile against his hand. He answered with a deep laugh.

After a moment, he said, “Before you head into the smithy, come topside. Your arms are strong enough to keep you safe climbing into the rigging. You’ll enjoy the view from the crow’s nest.”

This, after threatening that she’d never leave his ship? She couldn’t make sense of him—but she didn’t want to pass up his offer.

When she nodded, his hand dropped from her cheek and he swung over the bed rail. His right foot clanked heavily against the deck. She still needed to adjust his pneumatic valve . . . but perhaps she’d wait until she had no more money to bargain with.

Only six coins left.

She rolled onto his part of the mattress, into the warmth left by his body. The memory of his hard thigh between hers wouldn’t let her be. Clutching the blanket to her sensitive breasts, she squeezed her legs together until she shook.

I
vy didn’t just enjoy the crow’s nest—she loved it. She remained on the small platform for as long as she could stomach the swaying, using Teppers’s biperspic lenses that brought the horizon to within an arm’s length. She watched pods of whales, searched for icebergs and Megs. She held the lenses for so long that her sunburn formed white goggles around her eyes, and only left after she extracted a promise from Teppers that he’d show her how to skylark.

Her bugs had just healed the burn when she returned the next morning—and Teppers fulfilled his promise. She slid down the backstays from the top of the main mast to the poop deck, laughing wildly as she skimmed above Mad Machen’s head. His grin when he met her at the quarterdeck flipped her stomach over.

He showed her every part of the ship, and gave her leave to explore on her own. She met the Lusitanian cooks, a husband and wife team whose passionate screams in Portuguese during their fights and lovemaking were legendary among the sailors. She learned that Duckie’s name was Tom Cooper, and he’d gotten the nickname after shooting up six inches in as many months, and that the recurring red mark across his forehead came from his habit of running full tilt through the low-beamed decks. She discovered the ship’s blacksmith had remained in Wales when the bosun approached her for help fixing a broken pulley in the rigging. She spent half of an afternoon with Leveque, the engine master, and though she couldn’t understand a word of his French his love for the machine made perfect sense.

She didn’t know the languages half the crew spoke. French and Portuguese were the trade languages, and she understood a few words, but the men from the New World also spoke Dutch, Spanish, Arabic, and the Liberé that gave Barker his musical accent. On a ship only a hundred and fifty feet long, she saw more of the world than she’d known before—and realized how much she hadn’t yet seen.

And she’d never laughed so often. Had never felt as free. Yet she had to keep reminding herself that freedom was an illusion.

Every day, she came closer to building a monster. She dunked her arm into the tank and watched the squid attack her metal skin, imagining a mast or a person. The claws at the end of his tentacles couldn’t bite into her arm. Wood and flesh wouldn’t be so resilient. Yet Ivy used what she learned to improve the plans.

She wanted to believe that, despite what Mad Machen had said, the machine wouldn’t be used to terrorize and destroy ships. She wanted to believe that the Blacksmith’s involvement meant his intentions were good. But as brilliant as her mentor was, and despite the debt she’d always owe him for taking her into his guild, she knew the Blacksmith could be ruthless when someone crossed him—and there was much about him she didn’t know. If the price was right, he might have agreed to help.

And every night, she slept next to Mad Machen, her body aching . . . and one denier poorer.

E
ben braced himself before entering the smithy. The past few days, she’d left this small cabin sporting a surly temper. He thought that meant she’d been making progress on the kraken. If her ideas failed, surely Ivy would be pleased.

Still, she wouldn’t be pleased to see
him
.

The previous night, when he’d come into his cabin, she’d been sitting at the window. She hadn’t been looking at the stars, but the two coins glinting in her palm. She’d quickly put one away, and given him the other—not quite hiding her fear.

After tonight, she’d have no more coins left, but he wasn’t certain if she was afraid that he’d force her . . . or because she wanted him. A few times, he’d caught her looking at him with heat in her eyes, and he didn’t think it was anger. When her nipples pebbled under her thin shirt, he didn’t always think it was the cold. He thought she might ache as much as he did—but he didn’t know.

Not knowing was tearing him apart.

He stepped inside. Though a gas lamp burned brightly on the worktable, she wasn’t sitting in front of it. Her expression clouded, she crouched in front of the squid tank, her hands braced against the glass and fingers drumming. Her silvery nails pinged with each beat.

Without glancing at him, she snapped, “Say what you’ve come to say. Then leave me be.”

Anger fired through his veins. In front of his crew or not,
no one
dismissed him on his ship. Closing the door, he stepped toward her—and forced himself to stop. She still hadn’t looked at him. Temper darkened her sharp features, her soft lips in a thin line, her green eyes stormy as she focused on something within the tank.

He glanced inside. The squid and several silvery fish darted about the water. At the bottom, a foot-long metal replica of a kraken lay on its side, its eight segmented arms waving about and tentacles limp, looking as pathetic as a beetle turned upside down.

Eben bit back his laugh, studying her face again. So that was it. She’d been angry at him often enough, but this time it had naught to do with him. He might as well not have even been here for all of the attention she turned his way. And given her dislike for the project, he’d have expected her to crow over her failure, but she was right pissed off that her prototype hadn’t worked.

His practical, careful Ivy apparently had an artist’s temperament.

“I had a friend at university who looked much the same when he couldn’t find a rhyme for his poetry.”

“Like a dying privy louse?”

Eben barked out a laugh. “I was speaking of your expression, not your kraken.”

She snarled. He’d never wanted to kiss her so badly. Deliberately, he added fuel to her fire.

“It couldn’t swim?”

“You’ve got eyes, don’t you? Do you see it swimming about?” Disgusted, she pushed to her feet and dunked her arm into the tank.

His amusement fled. His heart jumped into his throat. Grabbing her waist, he hauled her back.

“Damn it, woman, that squid will . . .” He trailed off, staring at her gray hand dripping water.

The squid would do absolutely nothing to her.

She whipped around and stared at him as if he were a lunatic. Her brows drew together. She opened her mouth, then shook her head, pushing past him. “I can’t reach the bleeding thing unless I stick my head in, anyway.”

Eben turned to watch her. Muttering, she rummaged through shelves, pushing around Kleistian jars, tossing aside small gears and cylinders, and emerging with a coil of copper wire and an influence machine, its glass disks sealed inside a vacuum bell. Setting the machine next to the tank, she pushed up her wet sleeve and began wrapping the wire around her forearm. When she glanced at him, he saw curiosity had replaced her temper.

“You attended a university?”

“Yes.”

A wistful expression softened her features.
Oh, hell.
Something in his chest tightened. He wanted to tell her that he’d hated every moment of society’s rigid confinement and the blasted rules, but compared to the Horde, Manhattan City had been a bastion of freedom. So he only told her, “My parents disapproved of my choice of profession—both surgery and the navy. The only tolerable ship was a passenger ship, and it was best if you owned it.”

“And now you are neither surgeon nor aboard a naval ship. Do they approve of you now?”

“They disowned me.” And he still wasn’t certain whether it had been because he’d remained on Trahaearn’s ship, or because he’d voluntarily infected his body with nanoagents. Belief that the bugs would spread from person to person and eventually change them all into zombies still held strong through much of the New World; his family had been no exception.

“Disowned?” Ivy’s brow had creased.

“They no longer claim me as their son.”

“Oh.” With pursed lips, she looked down at her arm, wrapped from her elbow to her wrist in copper wire. “I suppose I should not like it if my child became a pirate, either.”

He grinned.
Their
child wouldn’t be. “I consider myself a merchant.”

“Do you attack other ships and steal their cargo?”

Unfortunately often.
“Yes.”

“Do you kill people?”

Also too often.
“Yes.”

“Then you’re a Captain Cutthroat,” she said, turning to crouch beside the influence machine. “Come and spin this.”

His instincts bristled at the command. He squashed his first response before it left his mouth. His ankle was too stiff to crouch easily, but he sank slowly to his heels while Ivy attached two clamps to the long trailing wires coming off her arm. She fixed the connecting clamps to the nodes of the influence machine, then pointed to the handle that spun the disks, generating the static charge.

“Spin it fast.”

Somewhat bemused, he began. The wheel clicked, the metal plates attached to the glass disks rotating past the discharge brushes and collection combs. Ivy tapped the fingers of her left and right hands together, as if testing.

“Faster,” she said.

The clicking became a whir. After a moment, her fingertips seemed to stick before she pulled them apart. She flattened the hand of her copper-encircled arm against the front of the tank. The metal kraken inside suddenly tilted and skidded across the bottom. It smacked into the thick glass opposite her palm.