The Deepest Ocean (Eden Series) (12 page)

The men called out the songs they wanted to hear—“Hunting the Blue” and “The Descent” and “A Heart in Port”—but when Alyster glanced up, his sharp gaze fell on Darok at once and he grinned.
You damn well better not embarrass me,
Darok thought.

“Something we haven’t heard before.” Alyster swept a hand over the strings.

I’ll raise up a house on the edge of the water,

You’ll light a warm fire, the wind held at bay.

The wise men tell tales, that the sea had a daughter,

Who left the deep ocean, which waits for the day

When skies split asunder and stars fall like rain,

She’ll go down to the sea, to Atlantis again.

Darok wondered if there was a message of some sort in the song for him, but Yerena listened intently until the last note. “Didn’t you hear songs in Whetstone?” he asked as Alyster played the first rousing chords of “The Descent” and the men stamped the deck.

“There wasn’t time to learn such things.”

But you learned to sew beautifully,
Darok thought. So practical skills that could be carried out in private were fine, and what was prohibited was anything that could be construed as social or frivolous or both. Which one would sex be considered?

That was assuming Yerena knew about such matters, because he could well believe Seawatch had raised her in cold, sterile ignorance of what men and women did together. And the last thing he wanted was to seduce a complete innocent. He would feel like a cradle-robber if she looked frightened and protested that it would never fit, though somehow he couldn’t imagine Yerena swooning, whether she was a virgin or not.

“Let’s have supper in my quarters,” he said.

Yerena shook her head. “Thank you, but I’m not hungry.” She met his eyes. “And I shouldn’t get used to what I won’t have in Whetstone.”

Then don’t go back to Whetstone
, Darok almost said. He stopped himself just in time. Whatever else Seawatch had done to her, it had also given her a home of sorts, security and a place in the world. He couldn’t expect her to value those less than a few nights of pleasure.

“Maybe Whetstone needs to change, then,” he said.

Her brows went up. “If I said anything like that to my instructors, they’d think I was drunk.” She began to walk back to the hatch. “And have you tried to change an entire guild’s laws and customs and beliefs?”

“No.” Darok unhooked a lantern to light them down the hatchway and stopped when they were at the foot of the steps. “But when a crab grows too big for its shell, it finds one that fits better. It doesn’t try to shrink so it can stay in the old shell.”

Yerena folded her arms, jaw setting in a stubborn way. “And if it doesn’t find a new shell, it gets eaten.”

“True.” Darok rested the lantern on the steps. “It’s up to the crab to decide whether to take that risk.”

For a moment she said nothing, but then her lips twitched. “No one’s compared me to a crab before.”

Darok grinned. “If it helps, I think you’re a lot prettier than most crabs.”

She laughed, and Darok drew his breath in. He hadn’t known until then how the warmth and lightness of laughter could change her face. The reflections of fire danced in her eyes, and the relaxation of her usual control made her mouth so different, lovely and sensually shaped. He only realized he had stepped forward when her lips parted in surprise, and he only knew he was holding her when he felt the softness of clean linen and the taut muscles of her arm beneath his hand. But he knew exactly what he was doing when he bent his head and covered her half-opened mouth with his own.

She made a startled sound, but her lips didn’t close. Darok took full advantage of that and kissed her hard, claiming her mouth with his tongue. In the back of his mind, his saner self warned him not to go too fast, but her lips were soft under his and her mouth sweeter than any forbidden fruit. He managed to gentle the kiss, stroking her tongue with his as he willed her to respond.

Slowly, tensely, her free hand touched his shoulder, then slid up around his neck. Slender fingers sank into his hair, and the touch sent a hot prickling tremor through his skin. With a whimper low in her throat, she tilted her head and kissed him back.

Darok’s senses were swimming when he lifted his head with an effort and looked down at her face. Her lips were full and moist, still open as she caught her breath, and he hardened at the sight. Wrapping an arm around her waist, he pulled her against him and bent to kiss the pulse pounding in her throat.

“Darok—” The word was a gasp, and he wanted to hear it again, wanted to hear it as he drove into her. He bit her throat just hard enough to wring a moan from her, then gently licked the mark he had made and blew on it. Yerena’s body swayed, her knees buckling, and Darok pushed her up against the wall as he lifted his head to kiss her again.

“No.” She let go of his hair. “Stop.”

His blood was thudding in his ears, but the words came through louder than if she had screamed them. He released her and stepped away, trying to bring himself under some semblance of control. Yerena sagged as though the solidity of wood behind her shoulders was the only thing that kept her off the floor, but he didn’t dare offer her a hand. Looking at her was arousing enough without feeling her skin against his again. He glanced at the open hatchway, but to his relief no one was in sight.

“I—” She drew her knuckles across her mouth, and although she was trembling, her breathing became slow and level, as it had done on the night they had clung together in the strait. “We shouldn’t have done that.”

Darok had never apologized for kissing a woman and didn’t intend to start, though he wished he had taken it a little slower and gentler. Perhaps he’d scared her, especially if all that was out of her experience.

“Have you ever done this before?” he said.

Yerena blinked. “Yes.”

“More than once?”

“Of course. With more than one man. Whetstone isn’t some kind of temple where maidens are kept preserved like moths in amber, you know.”

“Oh.” At least she had some knowledge of what he wanted, but he found himself wondering about the men she’d been with, and whether she had cared about them. He told himself to stop, because her past—especially that part of it—was really none of his concern.

“Have you ever done it before?” Yerena said.

“Of course I…” He saw the teasing look in her eyes and grinned, half in amusement and half in relief that she’d recovered so fast. “Very funny. Well, if you’ve been to bed with men already, what’s wrong with us kissing? Didn’t you like it?”

All the animation left her face with the finality of a curtain falling. She adjusted the collar of her dress and smoothed the creases where he had gripped her arm.

“Are you worried you’ll conceive?” He wished he had thought to bring some lambskin sheaths.

“That won’t happen. But, Darok…” She breathed in deeply, then sighed. “You’re not in Seawatch.”

Seawatch
. So that was what mattered most—and probably always would. He felt his mouth tighten as he picked up the lantern and turned to leave.

Yerena reached one hand out, then dropped it quickly. “Please, hear me out. I grew up in Whetstone, so I couldn’t have bedded men who weren’t in Seawatch even if I’d wanted to. And those are the kind of men I’m used to.”

Men who wouldn’t do anything unexpected, wouldn’t tease her out of her shell. Darok had no qualms about contending with other men for a woman like Yerena, but it was frustrating to know he couldn’t measure up now, because he couldn’t be a Seawatch operative.

“You’re not in Whetstone any more, Yerena,” he said. “Unless you want to be. Is there some rule about not letting any man who isn’t in Seawatch touch you?”

“Not a prohibition, exactly, but there are certain ways of doing things.” Yerena cleared her throat and looked embarrassed, but went on. “I mean, when I first started having a, a woman’s needs, my mentor noticed and we discussed the appropriate methods of satisfying those needs.”

Unity save us
. Their kiss had been hot, sweet and spontaneous, but what she was talking about sounded cold, methodical and businesslike—and the most effective mood-killer he could imagine. Clever of Seawatch. Rather than trying to suppress its operatives’ natural desires, it wrote those into the rulebook as well.

“Tell me, how did you decide which men to sleep with?” he asked.

“My mentor recommended them.”

“Are you serious? You bedded the men your mentor wanted you to bed?”

“What’s wrong with that?” Yerena said defensively.

Darok shook his head. “Where to start? At best it’s like having a third person in the room to make sure you’re doing everything right. At worst it sounds like your mentor was your pimp.”

Yerena glared at him, her hands clenching at her sides. “How dare you insult her like that? She’s more experienced than I am, so why shouldn’t I have listened to her? And she had only my best interests in mind. She chose Kovirs who lived up to all our standards.”

“Yes, and I’ll bet they were cool and calm and obedient, the perfect—” He stopped himself saying
slaves
just in time. “Wait a minute. What are Kovirs?” It wasn’t a word he was familiar with.

She frowned, clearly puzzled at the sudden change in topic. “Kovir is a name for male trainees, like Yerena for females.”

“What?” No, he couldn’t have understood correctly. “Are all the girls in that place called Yerena?”

“Well, yes. Until they earn their skillnames, like Fin Caller.”

Darok opened his mouth, realized he had no idea what to say, and closed it again. In his mind, all he saw was a row of girls younger than his sisters or his cousins, girls with the same military-straight posture and the same drab grey clothes, the same minds and names. A single person reflected over and over again in a dozen mirrors. Children with their families and personalities and individuality burned away like dross in a forge, leaving nothing but talent that Seawatch could shape into future Weapons of Denalay.

“What’s your real name?” he said.

Yerena’s eyes turned flat, her lips compressing. “That is my real name, Captain.”

Darok guessed he had asked for that, but she couldn’t be completely indifferent to the fact that she couldn’t even have her own name until she earned one
.
He tried to think of a better way to approach the matter.

“If you could use either Yerena or the name your parents gave you,” he said, “if Seawatch didn’t care either way…would you?”

The spark of anger died out of her face, and for a long moment she didn’t reply. “The girl my parents named wasn’t the same person as the girl Seawatch took in,” she said finally. “I started a different life on the day I came to Whetstone, so it seems right to have a different name.”

Rather like getting married
.
Except far more irrevocable
. Seawatch had an entire bag of tricks when it came to chaining her to them—isolating her from her family, not paying her, giving her another name—

“That explains the tattoo,” he said without thinking.

“What do you mean?” As if of its own volition, her left hand stole up to her face to touch the delicate, black-tinted skin beneath her eye.

Darok could have kicked himself, but there was no backing out now…and he’d always preferred a hard truth to a pretty lie. He sat down on a hatchway step, propping the sole of his boot on the edge of the step and resting his elbow on his updrawn knee. The lantern hung from his finger, swaying a little, and in its glow Yerena’s shadow trailed behind her like another cloak.

“If a Seawatch operative wanted to live her life on her own terms,” he said to the golden flame trapped in the glass, “she might leave and settle down anywhere. Denalay is a large land and Lady Lisabe is right when she says we have more freedom than people anywhere else in Eden. But if that operative had something marking her as belonging to Seawatch, something physical that couldn’t be erased—”

“That’s enough.” Yerena lowered her hand.

“—people might not treat her differently, but Seawatch would find it that much easier to track her down—”

“I said that’s enough!” Her throat worked as she swallowed, but when she spoke again her voice was as calm as always and a great deal colder.

“All this?” she said. “All we’ve talked about? A man who was part of Seawatch would know it already, and he wouldn’t try to make me believe there was something wrong with it. He would agree with me. We would never quarrel.”

That’s it.
Darok got to his feet, shadows wheeling and dancing as the lantern jolted.

“No, you wouldn’t,” he said quietly. “And a man who was part of Seawatch would never like seeing you in bright colors. He would never make you laugh. He would never even touch you unless Seawatch approved of it. If that’s what you want, it’s waiting for you in Whetstone. If you want to be kissed and stripped and fucked all night…you know where my cabin is.”

Chapter Six

Done with the Chart

Force of habit made Yerena get out of her bunk, light the oil lamp and retrieve her watersuit, which had been hung up to dry. She knew it was well before dawn, the best time to leave if she wanted to avoid seeing Darok. She also knew that with their current course into the heart of the Iron Ocean, she had to start scouting ahead. There was no choice about it.