Destiny's Lovers (27 page)

Grimacing at the need to bring more water
onto an already drenched boat, she dipped a bucket over the side to
fill it. Once she had it on board, she plunged her left arm into
the icy water. After a while the ache in her wrist lessened. She
wasn’t certain whether the salty water had actually helped or
whether the injured part was just numbed by cold, but she didn’t
care which it was. She took her arm out of the bucket and rested it
across her lap. She felt with her foot for the fish spear, pulling
it closer in case she needed it again. Then she sat staring into
the empty blackness.

She wasn’t afraid any more. She hoped never
to meet another sea monster, but her abject, unreasoning terror of
the creatures was gone. She had dared to fight two of them, had
injured both and caused the death of one. The sea monsters were not
immortal, not impervious to all attacks. Even a single fish spear
could serve as a weapon against them in determined hands. She had
proven that. She might not be a telepath, but she was a valiant
warrior. She had saved Reid.

She straightened her shoulders and sat a
little taller, feeling as though a great weight had dropped from
her heart. She felt free, capable of facing any challenge. She
wished Tamat could know. Tamat would be proud of her.

Shortly after sunrise the clouds dissipated.
Janina searched the horizon, eager to find land. There was nothing
but calm, purple-blue sea, broken here and there by small white
waves. The air was much warmer than it had been the day before, but
she could tell by the position of the early morning sun that the
boat was headed in the wrong direction, back toward the polar
regions. She struggled with the damaged rudder and with the single
sail Reid had left raised, but she lacked his ability to make the
boat obey her wishes. Nothing she did had any noticeable effect on
their course.

The noise of her efforts must have wakened
Reid, for he stuck a tousled head through the hatch, then climbed
into the cockpit. When he crossed the deck to her, Janina saw that
he was limping.

“Sea water helped my wrist,” she said,
assuming he was suffering from the effects of the sea monster’s
tentacles. “You might want to soak your ankle and leg.”

“I will have a chance to do that at once,” he
replied, leaning over the stern and reaching down to test the
rudder. He pulled out a handful of wood fragments. “We have to
repair this while the sea is calm. The rail is splintered, too, but
that is an easier repair.”

“You should eat first,” she advised,
wondering if the solar heating unit would still work. If it did,
and if the flour was unspoiled, she could heat water for hot dhia
and make some bread.

“Later. Come with me. You can’t do anything
here, so we may as well drift for a while.” He paused in the galley
to set the solar unit on recharge and pick up a few tools. Then he
led the way to the hold. The supplies they had stored there were
awash, but Reid seemed unconcerned about that. Wooden planking ran
down the center of the hold, forming a short walkway that made it
possible to get to the stored items. Reid knelt and began sawing
across one of the planks. When he had finished, he reached below
and hammered upward on it for a while until the portion of wood
came loose. This he gave to Janina to hold while he searched among
the coils of rope piled in one cargo bay.

“This will do nicely.” He had selected a thin
line, and this he carried back to the stern of the boat. While
Janina watched, he used another tool to shape the plank into a
crude imitation of the rudder.

“You will have to help me,” he said, removing
tunic and trousers. “Take off your clothing, Janina.”

She did not hesitate. She stripped off her
own damp clothing and spread the garments with Reid’s on the
forward deck to dry in the sun until they needed them again. Then
she followed him down the ladder and into the water. She was
concerned that the sea monsters might return, but she no longer
felt the paralyzing horror she had once known at the mere thought
of those huge creatures. If they came back, she and Reid would
fight them off as best they could, but she would not waste time
speculating about something that might not happen. For the present,
she owed Reid all her attention so they could lash the wooden board
he had prepared onto the damaged rudder. They worked together,
treading water, Janina holding the board in place against the
original rudder while Reid wound the rope around and around both,
binding them together.

Before long they were out of the water again,
standing in the stern, shivering in the bright sunlight and looking
at each other. Around Janina’s left wrist was a wide, angry red
welt. Reid had similar marks on his right knee and left ankle. Each
of them showed many bruises, both recent and old. Reid had the
beginning of a rough, dark beard, and Janina’s long hair was matted
and tangled.

“We are certainly no beauties,” Reid said,
touching her bare shoulder lightly. “We need a quiet harbor with
fresh water, where we can dry out and rest for a day or two before
we go on.”

“First we have to find land,” she
replied.

“At this time of year, the sun is low in the
sky because it is moving southward,” Reid said, squinting upward.
“We will keep it on our starboard side. Eventually, we should come
closer to land.”

“Eventually.” She put her arms around him and
felt his instant response.

“Thank you for everything you did yesterday,
and for your help today,” he murmured, his face pressed to her
damp, salty hair. “You saved my life, Janina.

“You are freezing,” he said a moment later.
“Come below. Let’s see if we can find some dry clothes.”

There was nothing that was not wet. Even the
thin mattresses on the bunks were sodden.

“Can we move them on deck?” Janina asked.
“Will they dry in the sun?”

“It’s worth trying,” Reid replied.

Together they dragged the mattresses out and
spread them across the roof of the cabin, along with blankets,
pillows, and a few pieces of clothing.

“This boat looks like a sailing laundry,”
Reid said, laughing.

“The clothes I laid out before we fixed the
rudder are almost dry,” Janina said, lifting Reid’s tunic. “We can
put them on again.”

“Not yet.” Reid took his tunic from Janina
and placed it on the deck on top of hers. “For just a little while,
let me love you. There were moments yesterday when I thought we
would never hold each other again.”

He knelt on the deck, pulling Janina down to
him. They lay upon their still-damp clothing, naked bodies
stretched out in the sun. Reid’s hand brushed her hair back from
her face, then caressed her cheek, traced the pure line of her
throat and shoulder, and came to rest upon one breast. Suddenly
Janina wasn’t cold any more. When his mouth and hands had teased
her breasts to aching fullness, warmth exploded inside her. She
touched him, too, wanting to warm him, feeling his hard muscles
beneath her searching hands.

There was a difference in this loving. She
was no longer an inexperienced girl, terrified by her inner rears
and the perils of their journey. She had fought the worst of her
fears and overcome them. She was now a woman who knew what she
wanted from her mate. She felt no shyness at all about kissing him
with growing fervor, or about reaching down to handle him boldly.
She laughed in delight at his ecstatic groans, and climbed atop him
with no invitation, using his body freely, joyfully allowing him to
use hers in return. Still laughing, she let him roll her over until
they were perilously close to falling into the sea.

“There was a time,” he whispered, his deep
voice husky with love, “when you never laughed. I thought then that
I would never hear that sound.”

“Oh, Reid.” She looked up into his beloved
face, almost a silhouette against the purple-blue sky, and saw him
laughing down at her. Then his mouth covered hers and they gave
themselves to each other completely, Janina reveling in his hard,
assertive masculinity, Reid treasuring her deeply receptive
femininity. It seemed he could not get enough of her, for he stayed
with her, taking her to repeated heights of pleasure before
allowing his own release. Even then, he held her tightly in his
arms, rolling them away from the edge of the deck, back onto their
crumpled damp clothing to rest there in relative safety.

Janina felt the sun on her back and Reid’s
warm chest beneath her cheek and knew utter contentment. This was
where she wanted to be; with Reid, in his arms. No danger was too
great to face, no journey too long, if the effort made would keep
them together.

His hands stroked down her back. She pressed
herself closer to him, enjoying the pressure against her thigh as
he became aroused again.

“Once more before we stop,” he whispered
harshly. “It’s the danger that does this, that makes me so hungry
for you. I need you, Janina.”

“I thought it was because I’m irresistible,”
she teased, sliding a hand down between them to catch at him.

“You are,” he said in a choked voice. “I love
you with all my heart.”

“Then stay as you are and this time let me
give you pleasure, to show you how much I love you.”

She pushed away from him to kneel, straddling
his thighs. She played with him, teasing, bending forward to nibble
at his nipples, running her hands over his body, caressing his
rigid manhood with a gentle touch that made him moan and gasp. He
offered no resistance, but lay spread out upon the deck with his
eyes closed while she did whatever she wanted. His growing
excitement was evident, but still he let her set the pace. He did
not touch her. He let her do it all.

The astonishing thing was that even without
his usual caresses, her own arousal was rapidly becoming an
unbearable ache. Suddenly, she had to have him inside her. At once.
That instant. She moved forward, raised herself a little, and then
lowered herself onto him. She felt as though she was inside him at
the same time he was inside her. She leaned forward, balancing on
her hands and moving the way Reid moved when he entered her.

He opened his eyes and smiled at her. She
smiled back; she was so happy she could not keep from smiling. It
was beautiful. Incredible. Amazing. Each was part of the other;
they were together in body and heart and mind. She watched his
moment come to him, saw his face shine with joy just before she was
swept away by a climax so rich and fulfilling that she collapsed
onto him in mindless ecstasy and lay there for a long, long time,
sobbing in breathless happiness.

“My love,” Reid murmured over and over again,
“my love, my love…”

* * * * *

They tacked back and forth, progressing only
slowly until Reid accidentally steered the boat into a cold current
that apparently flowed from the polar region toward the equator.
After that, they shivered constantly, and even the wind seemed
colder, but with the help of the sweeping current, they traveled
more rapidly. Halfway through the second day, they sighted land
again. It did not look very welcoming.

“This northern part of the continent is
nothing but mountains and cliffs,” Reid muttered.

Janina said nothing. In growing
disappointment and frustration, she stared at jagged peaks of grey
rock ramming upward in row upon row as far as they could see. There
was no green at all, and when they drew nearer, no beach or inlet
where they could anchor.

“We keep going,” Reid said, answering her
unspoken question.

They rode the current all night. At Reid’s
insistence, Janina slept a little, until she was awakened near dawn
by a howling wind and the sound of breakers crashing upon rocks.
Above all the noise, she heard Reid shouting for her. Tumbling out
of her bunk, she pulled herself up the ladder.

Reid stood at the tiller, holding it with
both hands, trying to control the spinning, wheeling boat.

“The current is pulling us toward the rocks,
and I can’t get out of it,” he shouted. “There must be some kind of
whirlpool or giant eddy ahead. It’s too dark to see anything but
the breaking waves.”

Janina could just discern the white foam
beyond the bow. The wind, and an implacable current, were driving
them forward. Reid struggled with the tiller. Janina leapt to the
sail, following his shouted orders, as they tried to tack away from
the rocks. The boat heeled over, the deck tilting dangerously.

Janina lost her footing. She grabbed at
anything she passed, trying frantically to slow her fall into the
water. For long, agonizing moments she clung to a line. Then a huge
wave smothered her, filling her eyes and nose and mouth with salty
water. The force of the wave tore her hands from the line. She made
a last desperate effort to catch it again before she sank into the
foaming, raging sea.

Reid saw Janina fall overboard. Knowing he
ought to stay with the boat, ought to wait so he could throw her a
line when she came to the surface, understanding what was the
sensible thing to do - even so, he dove in after his love.

He was immediately sucked downward, until he
was so far beneath the surface he thought his lungs would burst.
And still he was dragged deeper. He felt something brush his hand.
He thought it was some sea-plant until his fingers tangled in it
and he knew it was hair.

Janina! He pulled on the strands he held and
felt her limp body brush against him. With his free hand, he caught
her around the waist, but he would not let go of her hair. Not yet,
not until they were both above water. He dared not chance losing
her.

His feet touched the solid rock bottom. He
kicked hard, and then, with incredible speed, he and Janina shot
upward, breaking through the surface of the water in the midst of a
swirling, foaming maelstrom.