The Kraken King - Part Four - The Kraken King and the Inevitable Abduction

67 Pages·2014·0.63 MB·English

by  Brook Meljean

Titles by Meljean Brook
The Guardian Series
DEMON ANGEL
DEMON MOON
DEMON NIGHT
DEMON BOUND
DEMON FORGED
DEMON BLOOD
DEMON MARKED
GUARDIAN DEMON
Novels of the Iron Seas
THE IRON DUKE
HEART OF STEEL
RIVETED
MINA WENTWORTH AND THE INVISIBLE CITY
(A Berkley Sensation Special Novella)
TETHERED
(A Berkley Sensation Special Novella)
HERE THERE BE MONSTERS
(A Berkley Sensation Special Novella)
THE KRAKEN KING
Part I: The Kraken King and the Scribbling Spinster Part II: The Kraken King and the Abominable Worm
Part III: The Kraken King and the Fox’s Den
Part IV: The Kraken King and the Inevitable Abduction Anthologies
HOT SPELL
(with Emma Holly, Lora Leigh, and Shiloh Walker)
WILD THING
(with Maggie Shayne, Marjorie M. Liu, and Alyssa Day)
FIRST BLOOD
(with Susan Sizemore, Erin McCarthy, and Chris Marie Green)
MUST LOVE HELLHOUNDS
(with Charlaine Harris, Nalini Singh, and Ilona Andrews)
BURNING UP
(with Angela Knight, Nalini Singh, and Virginia Kantra)
ANGELS OF DARKNESS
(with Nalini Singh, Ilona Andrews, and Sharon Shinn)
ENTHRALLED
(with Lora Leigh, Alyssa Day, and Lucy Monroe)
The Kraken King
Part IV
The Kraken King and the Inevitable Abduction
Meljean Brook
InterMix Books, New York
Contents
Titles by Meljean Brook
Title Page
Copyright
Letter
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Excerpt from Heart of Steel
About the Author
Blackwing
Somewhere over Southwestern Australia, en route to the Red City
May 27
My dear brother,
Happily, I have emerged from the smugglers’ dens relatively
unscathed. Much has changed since we arrived, however. I am no
longer an anonymous traveler. I have been exposed.
Do not fret. I am safe—and not everyone knows who I am.
Helene still does not. Unless word travels on the winds, no one in
the Red City will know, either. My guards are staying in the dens
for a few more days while Cooper’s legs are repaired, but they
will soon follow. In the meantime, I am traveling in the company
of the governor of Krakentown, who has already snapped one
man in half for me. I am certain he can protect me until Mara and
Cooper arrive.
I suppose that if my other letters have reached you, then you
are already on your way to this part of the world, and you’ll
receive this upon your return. But if by happy chance this
message reaches you first, know I am well and that you shouldn’t
bother to come.
Truly. Do not come. If you do, in my next adventure
Archimedes Fox will suffer unimaginable tortures at the hands of
a villain. When a beautiful mercenary finally rescues him, he
shall make very dull comments—and wear an ugly waistcoat, too.
All of my love,
Zenobia
Chapter Thirteen
The flight to the Red City was already better than Zenobia’s previous voyage
aboard an airship—and not just because they hadn’t been attacked by marauders.
At least not yet. After all that had befallen them on this journey, Zenobia
wouldn’t make any bets.
But if any pirates or marauders had nefarious plans for Blackwing and her
passengers, little time remained to carry them out. Though the city wasn’t clearly
visible over the ridge of green hills ahead, the smudge of blue sea on the far
northeast horizon told Zenobia that they would be upon it soon.
Too soon. She’d been so eager for her last airship journey to end. Not this
one.
The polished boards of the observation deck vibrated softly beneath her
feet. She’d spent most of her time here, standing at the large portholes, watching
a narrow thread of the continent unspool ahead. Grasslands had given way to
endless desert scrub, then abruptly to green again. She’d risen in the morning to
see a cloud of dust swirling in the distance like a storm, and as they’d passed
she’d realized it had been stirred beneath the feet of a thousand walking
machines, all marching together. To the south, a city had stood like a monolith,
and around it delicate winged airships had fluttered on the air currents like
butterflies. The night had been hot, almost too hot to breathe, but noon had
brought the sweet scent of rain through the open portholes at the sides of the
ship. She’d been fed melons that had somehow been chilled, and dishes that
were spicy and sour, with meats so rich they’d all but dissolved on her tongue.
Almost everything she’d encountered seemed designed to clutch at her heart and
overwhelm her senses.
Especially the man who stood beside her.
Ariq had hardly left her side. He’d been the last person she’d said good
night to the previous evening, and the first she’d seen upon emerging from her
cabin that morning. That should have annoyed her. There were few people
whose company she could tolerate for more than a couple of hours at a stretch.
But she hadn’t tired of him. Not even for a second.
He’d told her about his visits with the den lords, of how he’d traded a
kraken’s penis for information, and how Lord Jochi had remembered a much
younger Ariq wrestling in a tournament against a butcher.
He’d asked about Fladstrand, and she’d told him of the cold sea and how
the wind had a knife’s edge, of the neighbors who were always peeking through
their windows, and how the ferries always left with more young people than
returned.
He didn’t ask why Polley had attacked her. When others were around to
hear, he still called her Lady Inkslinger instead of Zenobia. And when she
needed to scrawl a reminder in her notebook, or took more time to write out an
idea, he occupied himself until she was done.
She hadn’t kissed him again. Lord knew she’d wanted to. But it was his
turn to take the initiative. There had been too many stops and starts already.
She’d rejected him, and he’d encouraged her. Then the moment she’d given a
thought to pursuing more, he’d put distance between them. So she would not be
the one who kept going to him, and going to him, while he waited for her to
come. They needed to meet halfway.
So now, she waited for him to take that step. She’d waited all through the
night, wondering if he would tap on her cabin door—or simply come in, slide
into her bed, and . . .
She didn’t know.
Well, she knew. She’d read enough. She’d seen scientific woodcuts and
bawdy cartoons depicting all of the positions. Most of her acquaintances
believed her to be a widow, so they weren’t as discreet when speaking about
their husbands. And a woman couldn’t walk along the docks in any town without
overhearing some lewd suggestion or happening across a sailor with his trousers
around his knees. It was all very simple. A man would push his penis inside her
and press passionate kisses to her face and breasts, then grunt and heave over her
until he spent his seed. And if she were lucky—very lucky, according to some of
the wives she’d heard talk about it—she would feel the same rush of pleasure
that she got from rubbing between her legs.
But Zenobia had thought she’d known what kissing was, too.
So until last night, when she’d been waiting in her sweltering cabin and
listening for a tread outside her door, she’d never imagined those passionate
kisses might include the slick thrust of his tongue. She’d never given a thought
to what her hands might do, but now she longed to clutch at his broad shoulders,