Page 1 of Tell No Tales
Prologue
Klaus
Six Months Before the Events in Take No Prisoners
The death weaver was as beautiful as he was terrifying. That wouldn't bode well for Klaus. He'd heard his name before. His best friend Niall had whispered it after lights out at the orphanage. Vadim this. Vadim that. Vadim had been the villain in Niall's stories since the white-haired murderer had deposited him on their doorstep and paid a hefty sum for his care.
It was something altogether different to see Vadim in Landale again, after all these years. Time had been kind to him. It had diminished the scar over his left eye, giving him a distinguished and worldly look. He'd been places and seen things Klaus could only imagine. Granted, some of those things had sharp edges, leaving other scars on the V of skin visible at the neck of Vadim's tunic. He had an arrow divot high on his chest, a thin scar from a blade along his breastbone, and a thicker one across his throat. How had he survived?
Klaus swallowed hard and extended his hand when his fellow seeker, Brigham, introduced them. "This is the seeker I was telling you about. He's got special orders from General Coryn."
Klaus shivered at the memory. After Coryn had given him his orders, Brigham had pulled him aside to whisper in his ear. "Avoid that one. I've tried to get him into bed. He doesn't play, and he might kill you."
Klaus wanted to rise to Brigham's unspoken challenge, to seduce the death weaver, but he also had a healthy appreciation for life, thanks to his constant battle with his own body to stay alive. He also had a better read on Vadim than Brigham did. Part of the man's aura was … missing. He had the black aura of a death weaver, but he had a pale green void above that, as wide again as the black but transparent.
Gods, Klaus had been misinterpreting balanced weavers all this time, thinking their color combinations were his eyesight going. Vadim should have been balanced, like the storm caller Klaus had once seen at the docks. There was something off about him, as though someone had stolen his essence.
After waving goodbye to Brigham, faking a smile, and making a lewd gesture with his hand behind his back, Klaus grabbed his bags from the dock. "Where am I supposed to bunk?" he asked Vadim as he followed him up the gangplank ontoImperial Fool, the largest naval ship he'd ever seen docked in Landale.
"Sails in the hold with the rest of the crew?" The way Vadim phrased it as a question gave Klaus hope.
"No, please. I can't sleep in a sail."
"The other option is a cabin. We only have two. The other's occupied by my first and second mates."
Klaus tried to hide an involuntary shiver. He'd met Vadim's mates. They were assholes who would pass Klaus between them until there was nothing left of him.
"I'll do anything for a bunk," Klaus said, adding some sultry inflection to his tone. "With you, if you'd like."
Vadim turned on him so abruptly, he fell backward on his ass on the hard decking.
"Not with me. I prefer a sail. My cabin doesn't have a bunk." Vadim offered his gloved hand and pulled Klaus to his feet. "I'll have our earth weaver make you one."
"With the crew?"
Vadim must have sensed Klaus's distress, because he sighed. "No. In my cabin. There's room, and they gave me a tough time about refusing it in the first place. Said I might want a place to interrogate prisoners or some bullshit. They think I do bloodletting like a fucking healer."
Klaus grinned at the swear word. Captain Vadim was human, even if he was a powerful death weaver.
By the time they returned from recruiting ten air and six earth weavers for Coryn's secret project, the bunk was complete, and it was time to set sail. One of the off-duty air weavers tried to snag Klaus's arm as he passed, but a sharp whistle stopped him in his tracks. "He stays."
"We don't get to take the seeker to bed with us?" Another man asked.
Klaus hugged his arms to his chest to hide how much he was shaking. He'd been at the air weavers' whims before, tossed from man to man until they were all sated, and then they rolled him into a soiled sail bed to hold him until they were ready for him again. Klaus hadn't been claustrophobic before General Coryn had recruited him into her navy, but he sure as fuck was now.
"The seeker has his own bed."
The air weavers glanced at each other as though they were prepared to follow Klaus to his bunk and steal him from it.
"With me." Vadim offered his gloved hand to Klaus. He was a fool to take it, but he didn't dare show the men any hesitation, lest they recognize the farce.
He was grateful for the size of the captain's cabin. Vadim's sail hung along the opposite wall from the bunk. Between them, the captain's table and benches were built into the floor. Klaus was also reassured by the size of the bunk, a single. That night, true to his word, Vadim slept in the sail bed and left Klaus blessedly alone.
It was everything Klaus had ever dreamed of. A bed of his own in a room with only one other person. A blanket, though scratchy, to himself. Once Vadim began to snore softly, he slipped out of his clothes, folded them neatly so they'd be ready to wear the next day, and slid under the blanket again.
Though he tried, sleep wouldn't come. Vadim continued to snore in his bunk, oblivious to Klaus's discomfort. He hadn't been this alone since before his mother died. How was he supposed to sleep with only one other breathing pattern to keep him company? The walls were so thin in the brothels, he could always hear at least five other people in various states of wakefulness throughout the night.
He'd been in the hold with the sailors on the other two trips he'd taken to Stony Eel Island. This trip would be different if they were to encounter pirates. Longer between ports. Klaus was grateful for Vadim's goodwill. Still, Klaus couldn't get the man out of his mind. What would it be like to bed a death weaver so strong he couldn't remove his gloves for fear he would drain everyone nearby of consciousness?
