Page 46 of The Demons in the Deep: Extended Edition
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Flay really wants to keep your other form a secret,” Mai said. “What if someone sees you? What if you get tangled in a net? What if there are more monsters, or sharks—”
Her fingers were trembling, and she couldn’t keep them still.
Rake carefully folded his clawed hands over hers. “I survived the swim from Kiken Island to here. I will be careful.”
The intimacy of the gesture unnerved Mai, and she pulled away. “Do what you like.”
She hurried away, quick steps carrying her back to the inn, where she fled to her room and lay on the bed awhile, trying to purge her mind of males.
After a while, once she’d regained some clarity, she rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling.
Did those tentacled monsters really have something to do with the Meridian Games? Rake seemed to suspect they did, and it made sense, if they were new to the lagoon. Someone might have lured them there to wait until the day of the Race, when they’d be unleashed on the contestants. Of course it was just as likely that the creatures had wandered in on their own and taken up residence.
However, if they were part of the contest, the danger Flay would face during the Race was significantly higher. Mai needed to know what the creatures were. She needed to understand them better in order to help Flay avoid them or defend against them.
There was one person who might have the information she wanted.
Mai had heard Flay refer to Feral’s ship, theAscendant, though he more frequently called it theAss End, in a tone of utter scorn. After sketching five of her best weapon designs, she dressed in clean, dry clothes and walked along the pier, asking about theAscendantuntil she found someone who knew where it was berthed—at the private dock near the Magnate’s shipping offices.
Walking there took her longer than she’d expected, and when she arrived she saw a group of four people being led inside the Magnate’s building. They were all shapes, ages, and colors, but each one wore a thick metal collar, and all four collars were chained together.
Slaves.
Mai remembered Feral’s words—how he viewed himself as an apex predator, a perception he’d probably gained from his father. To him and to the Magnate, people were no different than livestock or goods or raw materials. They were like objects, tools, or crops. They were hunted and harvested, claimed and corralled, bought and sold. A disgusting perspective that Mai abhorred, that made her hate herself for what she was about to do.
She approached the gangplank of Feral’s ship cautiously, feeling far too small and inexperienced to be bargaining with the Prime Captain of the Magnate’s fleet. She was out of her depth in more ways than one. But this might be the only way to help Flay win, the only way to keep the entire crew of theWind’s Favorout of those slave collars.
How could Flay eventhinkabout taking Kestra to the gardens at a time like this? He should be working tirelessly to win. Unless he’d already given up. Maybe somewhere beneath that ineffable cheer of his lay the dread certainty that he would lose, and that he should make the most of his free time with Kestra before they were separated forever.
Or maybe he was far too confident in Mai’s ability to help him triumph. If that was the case, she certainly couldn’t handle such pressure alone. She needed whatever secrets Feral could offer about the first round.
TheAscendantwas as striking as its master, and rather more dreadful. At twice the size of theWind’s Favor, its lines were harsher, and instead of being coated withasthoreshielding, its hull bore a coating of bones, closely fitted into a kind of morbid mosaic. The ship was designed, not for speed, but for inspiring terror in those who spied its approach.
Mai walked up the plank to the deck with what she hoped were the confident steps of a woman who had business there. The few crewmen working aboard eyed her sidelong, but no one approached her at first.
Several cages chained to the deck caught her attention, and she shuddered, imagining the innocents taken forcibly from their homes and confined there. Guns lined the railing, interspersed with barrels and crates, all neatly arranged and tied down. In fact, everything aboard ship testified to the nature of the captain—demanding and tireless, devoted to maintaining the impeccable magnificence of his home at sea.
Mai wandered a bit farther along the deck, toward a dark doorway that seemed to lead below. But a figure intercepted her—a tall man with olive skin and a short black beard, the top edge of which was shaved into perfectly symmetrical points, like a series of waves along his cheeks.
“What’s your business here, miss?” he asked.
“I’ve come to see the Prime Captain,” said Mai. “He and I have business to discuss.”
“Ah, you must be the designer of weapons!” The man smiled. “He told me to look out for you. I am Allan, first mate to the Captain and manager of theAscendant. You’re in luck—the Captain has just returned, and he’s in his cabin. If you’ll come with me, please.”
“So you’re the one who keeps all this in shape?” Mai asked as she followed him across the deck.
“Indeed.” He rapped on a thick wooden door, decorated with the skull of some horrific creature Mai couldn’t identify. “Captain Feral! It’s the weapons-designer to see you, sir.”
The weapons-designer. Mai liked it better than “tinker.” Still, it did not encompass all that she was. She could make weapons, yes, but she preferred fabricating other things.
“Come in,” said Feral’s deep voice from inside the cabin.
When Allan pushed open the door with an encouraging smile, Mai entered.
Feral had both windows open, and his cabin was flooded with sea air and late-afternoon light. He stood in that light, his bare back toward her. An old scar horizontally bisected his spine, and layers of muscle bulged and rippled above it. His black hair was swept forward over one shoulder.
He turned, presenting Mai with a vision of his naked chest. She had never seen so much solid, deeply defined muscle on a man. Her face began to feel hot.
