Page 70 of The Demons in the Deep: Extended Edition
Feral did not try to kiss her again, not while they waited for the dinghy, and not when they reached theAscendantand set sail for Stragnoag.
Mai stood at the railing, refusing to look at or speak to anyone—until Feral came to her side, reached into the huge pocket of his greatcoat, and drew out a scrap of lace and fabric, hooked on a finger. “A friend of mine was spying on my little brother for me last night, and he found these.”
Her underwear. The pair she’d left behind in the warehouse.
Her eyes widened, and she grabbed for them, but Feral grinned and jerked them back, out of her reach. “So theyareyours. At first I thought they might belong to Flay’s slut. Too small for her fine ass, though. Butyou—I thought you were a virgin, little scientist. Unused to a man’s attention. Innocent. Oblivious when you’re being seduced.”
“You shouldn’t be spying on people, or stealing what doesn’t belong to you.”
“‘Shouldn’t’ is not part of my vocabulary, love.” Feral gripped the back of her neck suddenly, pulling her in, speaking low and terse. “Who was it? Some grubby member of Flay’s crew?”
“None of your business,” hissed Mai.
“Perhaps not. But it’s good to know you can drop your knickers when the occasion calls for it.”
Mai spit at him.
Feral let her go and wiped the froth off his cheek with the cuff of his coat. “Allan!” he called, and the first mate hurried over. “Take our prize below to the brig until we reach port. A little time in the stink and the bilge should cool her temper.”
“Any place away from you will be a delight,” Mai threw over her shoulder as Allan led her away.
“Come on then,” said Allan genially. “I’ll put you in our cleanest cell. And I’ll get you a blanket or a cloak—you’re wearing next to nothing.” He clicked his tongue reproachfully.
“What I’d like to know is how I got into these clothes in the first place, and who took me from the inn,” Mai said.
“Oh, the Magnate has handlers who take care of that—servants and such. They’re very respectful, and usually allow a friend of the subject to observe or assist. No disrespect is intended, but the element of surprise must be preserved. All runners must begin from the same point of sudden waking and disorientation. It’s only fair.”
“And the Magnate is all about fairness,” Mai grumbled.
Allan ushered her into a musty-smelling cell—three wooden walls and a gate of metal bars. “I’ll be right back with a few things to make you comfortable.”
When they finally reached the checkpoint back at Stragnoag and Mai was brought out of the brig, she discovered, to her great satisfaction, that her tactics had delayed Feral’s crew just long enough. Not only was Flay’s group back already, but they had come in third in the Hunt, while theAscendant’s crew was tenth in the rankings.
Only one round of the Meridian Games remained—the Brawl.
THE BRAWL
19
On the day Mai was taken for the Hunt, Rake woke in the room he was sharing with Jazadri, oblivious to what had happened. When he came down to the inn’s common room, Kestra and a few other crew members were there, talking quietly in low tones. Kestra told Rake how Mai had been drugged, dressed, and carried away.
“Flay and his hunting party have already left to prepare for their own part of the Hunt,” she said. “Rake, don’t look like that—they won’t hurt her. She’ll be all right—”
But Rake stalked away, caught in a kind of broken, helpless panic that soon transformed into reckless rage. He went to the warehouse, hauled open the side of the building, and plunged into the sea in his mer-male form, careless of whether or not he was seen.
He streaked through the water toward the string of islands where the Hunt usually took place. Flay had pointed it out on a map once—two dozen specks of land, uninhabited, owned by his father and used each year for the Games.
Halfway there, Rake had realized he was being foolish. As Kestra had said, Mai wasn’t going to be killed, only caught. And there was no way he could search all twenty-four islands before she was tracked down and returned to the port. If Rake attempted a clumsy rescue, he would only draw attention to himself and wreck the Magnate’s Games, which might bring harm to his friends.
So Rake turned back. But he hated the idea of Mai being frightened, grabbed, and dragged along by strangers—hated it so fiercely that he allowed his teeth to emerge, let his jaws unhinge, and tore into a nearby tide-shark, a slow, plump creature drifting in the current. Rake ripped through the center of the creature’s body, splitting it into two bleeding halves. The act of slicing the flesh and gulping down the chunks was strangely soothing.
When Mai was finally returned to them that evening, she needed to rest and recover. Rake left her in Kestra’s hands, because he did not know how to care for someone who had endured such an experience—and because his attentions might have revealed the secret he and Mai held between them.
Mai wanted to keep their connection quiet until after the Meridian Games were over. He understood why. There was too much at stake already, too many emotions tangled up with the event.
So he kept his distance, not only that night, but for days. He did his combat training with the crew for hours every day. When he wasn’t training, he slipped into the ocean and hunted in the open water beyond the bay, devouring whatever tempted his appetite at the time. He rested, too, in the limpid current, between beds of colorful anemones, while the endless parade of beautiful sea life rippled past him. Never would he tire of watching it all, of reveling in the sheer abundance of the ocean.
When he floated alone in the underwater beauty, he thought of Jewel, and how the boy would marvel at everything. Mai would marvel, too. She would squeal and want to scribble notes in one of her books of empty pages.
