Page 40 of The Demons in the Deep: Extended Edition
In fact, she wouldn’t have woken at all were it not for the faintest of scrapes along her door—a sound she immediately knew to be a single long claw.
Any other girl might have startled and screamed at that slow, intentional sound. But Mai was not like other girls.
She leaped out of bed, heart stuttering, and she threw open the door.
Rake stood there, looking nearly human a blousy white shirt with tight buttoned cuffs around his lean wrists. The stiff collar hid his gills almost entirely. But the edges of his jaw and cheekbones were inhumanly sharp, and his enormous eyes had the liquid depths of the sea in them. Around his throat hung a pair of goggles with tinted lenses to protect his sensitive eyes from the daylight.
His lips stretched, parting in a fearsome grin. Mai rather liked it.
Hello, pretty monster,Mai said in her heart, but aloud she said, “Good morning.”
“Good morning.” His eyes lowered to her body, and she remembered that she was wearing a scanty shift, barely more than gauzy white fluff and a bit of lace. Flay had bought one for Kestra yesterday, and he’d thrown one in for Mai as well, out of politeness. She’d felt so warm and wanton last night that she’d put it on without considering who might see her in it.
“Thorn and thunder,” she gasped. “Come in a moment. I’ll run down to the privy and change.”
“No need,” Rake said, with a sly lift of his lips.
Mai rolled her eyes. “You’ve been around Flay too much already.” She picked up her clothes and raced to the privy. After sponging off, relieving herself, and dressing, she was back. “Food?” she asked.
Rake’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. Into his eyes crawled a glazed hunger. “Yes.” The word hissed slightly through his fangs.
Mai narrowed her eyes. “You probably need saltwater, too. Let’s go to the kitchen of the pub next door. Surely they’ll have some fresh fish and salt to spare for Captain Flay’s champion.”
She slipped her hand into his, but he resisted. “My claws…I could hurt you.”
“Never mind,” she said, and pulled him out the door, along the hall, and down the stairs.
They left the inn by the back door and circled around some waste bins and a low wall to the rear entrance of the pub. Mai knocked and pushed her way inside without waiting for an answer, while Rake reluctantly followed. His shyness gave her courage, and she hailed the first cook she saw. “Hello there! This is Captain Flay’s champion for the Meridian Games, and he requires some raw fish and a pint of saltwater.”
She spoke firmly, boldly, hoping that her confidence would make the kitchen staff comply without question.
The cook to whom she’d spoken looked at Rake uncertainly, but as he opened his mouth, a familiar voice called, “Mai?”
Kestra stood by a table, looking shiny and happy, her forearms coated in flour. She nudged a pleasant-looking woman beside her. “That’s my cousin, and the other one is Flay’s champion.”
“We’ll take care of ’em, dear, never you worry,” said the woman. She ordered a few people around, and moments later Mai and Rake had been gifted the pint of saltwater, a basket of sugary breakfast rolls, and a string of fish, “fresh-caught this morning,” the pleasant woman assured them. “Would you like a table in the pub?”
“No, thank you,” Mai said, knowing Rake’s eating habits could be a little off-putting to those who weren’t used to them. “We’ll eat outside.”
“All right then.” The woman looked Rake over. “He’s a scary one, isn’t he?”
Mai bristled a little. “Not at all.”
She propelled Rake out through the front door of the pub, and they walked across the plaza to the shipyard. Mai chose a tumble of crates, warmed by the morning sun, and they sat there, looking out at the bay and its clusters of ships, large and small, including a few that must have come in yesterday, before the gala.
“I haven’t seen many ships,” she said. “But those three look odd to me. That one is almost scaly, with those green plaques all over the hull. Do you think they belong to the Magnate’s fleet?”
“It’s likely.” A morning breeze caught strands of Rake’s dark blue hair and whisked them across her cheek. The moths in her ribcage began to flutter again.
“What kind of weapons do you think they have?” she asked, swinging her bare feet. She’d forgotten to put shoes on. She often went barefoot at home on Kiken Island and aboard ship. She’d gotten her share of splinters and cuts as a result, but she loved the feeling of wind between her toes.
Rake’s feet were encased in large shoes, and he looked distinctly uncomfortable about it. He kept moving and twisting his feet.
“Take them off,” she suggested. “The shoes.”
He glanced at her. “Humans wear shoes.”
She grinned and lifted her own foot, wiggling her toes. “Not all of us.”
