The Devil's Concubine (The Devil of Ponong series #1) (16 page)

Or she could drag out the conversation by
only hinting at answers.

He cast a glance at his door, then turned
back to her. It was only a little gesture. It might not have meant anything.
But she gave no indication she’d seen it, only saying, “It would be a pity if
the documents were stored improperly or filed incorrectly. It could take
forever to find the information.”

“I’ll find the time. The more I learn about
you, the more I want to know. For example, why you accept as normal what would
horrify the average person.”

“More flattery, Mister Zul? You’ve made it
clear how you feel about me and the Devil, which makes me wonder why you’re
taking such great pains to be nice now.”

“Because you know where the Ravidians are,
and what they’re up to. And you’re going to tell me.”

They had a business agreement, which meant
that no matter how he treated her, he’d get what he’d bargained for. But she
wasn’t about to tell him that. She crossed her arms. “Not until I get some
food.” That would buy LiHoun another half hour, maybe.

Kyam went to the typhoon shutters that led
out to his veranda. “Wait here. I’ll ask one of the neighbor boys to run out to
the café around the corner.”

“While you’re at it, ask them if they saw who
ransacked your apartment.”

He paused at the door. “No need. I know who did it, and so do you.”

Kyam
pushed his
mosquito net to the far side of his bed and set the bowls of
food on the bedspread. He reclined at one end, propped on an elbow, and chewed
a slice of pan bread dipped into fragrant pork stew. QuiTai sat at the other
end. Steam curled out of a tamtuk when she cracked it open. The purplish dough,
made from jikal root, and the sweet, heavily-spiced pork tucked inside smelled
like dinner at her grandmother’s home. She dipped it into a tart sauce and bit.

“So good.” She sighed with satisfaction.

“FalLoun makes the best tamtuks, although I
like PhaChiu’s dipping sauce more.”

“I never would have suspected you of being
such a connoisseur of Ponongese cuisine, Mister Zul. You’ve gone native.”

Days before, that same comment had angered
him. Now, he popped a delicate morsel of rice-paper-wrapped fish into his mouth
and grinned. “Back when I was an active agent, I traveled the continent. Some
countries, you wonder how their people can stand to eat the food.”

“I love the Ingosolians, their culture, their
passion for art, their spirit, but would it kill them to use a little spice? I’ve
never tasted anything so bland,” QuiTai lamented.

“Except their wine. It’s strong enough to
make rum blush.”

Her appetite suddenly gone, QuiTai put down
the piece of pan bread she’d torn off the small loaf.

“You’re thinking of Jezereet again.”

“I made it through almost the whole day
without crying.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “If I keep busy... I’ve had
enough food. Let’s go.” She wiped her hands.

“Not so fast.”

“You were in a hurry this morning.”

“But you weren’t an hour ago.”

He noticed far too much. She didn’t even try
to deny it, although he seemed to be waiting for her to explain.

“I was hungry. Now I’m not.”

The farwriter dinged. Kyam ambled over to the
machine with a tamtuk clenched between his teeth.

“So many messages. What are you Thampurians
chattering about?”

“You know Thampurians. We love our protocol.”
He spun the tuner dials. “All this chitchat back and forth is a bunch of
flowery formality.” He frowned at the readout for a while before angrily
jamming his fingers down on a series of keys. Then, as with the other messages
that had come in, he immediately burned the paper over his cooking fire.

The Thampurians might have been all about
formalities, but Kyam’s responses to the incoming messages were fifty or sixty
keystrokes at most, and his mouth set into a grim frown as he typed them. Something
didn’t feel right. She’d been stalling, but now it was clear that he was too. It
made her uneasy.

“Why don’t I give you some privacy? I’m sure
your superiors would feel better if I weren’t sitting in the same room as your
farwriter.”

Kyam pulled his chair over to the bed,
effectively blocking her. “You said the Ravidian crates never made it into
Levapur. You suggested the harbor master helped load them onto his brother’s
skiff. That means we’ll have to sail wherever it is you think the Ravidians
took them. I know my way around a sail, but you probably don’t, which means I
need to rest before we get under way.”

She didn’t like feeling trapped by him. He
was jumpy, and it unnerved her: as if the barometer were falling and a storm
hovered out at sea, ready to unleash its fury.

“If the Ravidians have accomplices in
Levapur, they might know by now that we found the harbor master’s body. They could
be moving their operations.”

“So you’ve known all along where they are.”

“I never said that I didn’t have a good
guess.”

“Has anyone told you that you don’t play
fair?” He leaned across her knees to dip another piece of bread into the stew.

“I wasn’t aware we were playing, Mister Zul.”

“Let me try a direct question. Do you know
what the Ravidians are up to?”

“That’s where my ideas get a bit hazy. It’s a
lot of speculation.”

“I’ll take your speculation over most people’s
facts. We dropped an interesting conversation earlier today. You were about to
lecture me on medusozoa. So, the Ravidians smuggled sea wasps onto this island…
how’s your hand, by the way?”

“It twinges from time to time, unless I
forget and use it. Then it hurts quite a bit.”

“That will fade over time. Now, the
medusozoa.”

QuiTai had no problem telling him a bit more.
It would hold his interest and keep him looking the direction she wanted him to
focus on.

“This story is meat for your rice. The green
light medusozoa are native to this island and will only grow here. You can’t
even raise them on other islands in the Ponong archipelago. Plenty have tried. Because
of this quirk of nature, my people perfected the methods for farming green
light medusozoa. Then the blue light ones were imported here to increase our
profitability as a colony. Right? But the blue lights won’t live in the
plantation terraces because they need ocean water and fish to survive, whereas
the green lights feed off the bioluminescent algae in their own bodies. So we
invented the tide pool hatcheries for the blue lights. Are you with me so far?”

Kyam nodded. Then, although it was clear he
was listening, he stood to put the farwriter back into the trunk, and began to
pick up his scattered paintings.

“And what is a sea wasp?” she asked.

“A type of jelly. A medusozoa.”

“Are they a forbidden import?”

Kyam shrugged as he cleared the bowls from
the bed. “Who would ship them anywhere? You only make laws against things you
can imagine someone doing, and I doubt anyone foresaw Ravidians importing sea
wasps. It’s insane. And why in the world –”

“So the only reason to go to the expense of
smuggling would be to make sure that the government back in Thampur doesn’t
find out they’ve been brought to Ponong.”

But I plan to find out if the
colonial government knew.

She said, “Then the crates were taken from
the harbor on a skiff to where, Mister Zul?”

He glanced toward his window as if he could
see them. “A tide pool plantation. On the leeward side of the island!”

“Very good. Where they can be farmed just
like blue light medusozoa.”

Of course the Ravidians hadn’t taken over one
of the leeward plantations. But it was close enough to the truth to suffice for
now. She’d tell Kyam what she really thought after they’d wasted some more time
checking the plantations on Ponong. That was as much head start as she could give
for LiHoun without being obvious.

She said, “You said that the Ravidians are
far ahead of the Thampurians in medusozoa technology.
 
I’m going outside my area of expertise here and into yours.
Why would anyone want quick, easy access to a steady supply of sea wasps?”

Kyam shoved his bangs out of his eyes as he
sank back onto the bed. She could see the amazement in his face as he came to
the same conclusion she had on the skiff. Then his brows drew together as if he
doubted his intuition. A fleeting moment later his eyes widened.

Dawning horror hushed his voice when he
finally believed it enough to say out loud. “The Ravidians weaponized the sea
wasps.”

She held up her scarred hand. “One sting is
enough to stop you in your tracks. Two or three can kill. And now they’re going
to mass produce them in farm pools.”

“Weaponized sea wasps. I thought they were up
to something, but this is huge.” Stunned by the scope of the vision, he rubbed
his chin.

Petrof would have told her that she imagined
things. He would have ignored her warnings. Yet this Thampurian colonist, scion
of the thirteen families, treated her with respect. When he got angry, he didn’t
grab her throat. He listened to her. It was sad that over the past two days,
her biggest enemy on the island had drawn closer to her than any other ally. If
only she could leave Petrof and form some sort of alliance with Kyam.

But Petrof would never let her leave him. His
pride wouldn’t let him lose one of his possessions. As if she were a
possession. Petrof didn’t own her. She owned herself.

Kyam jumped to his feet and paced the room.
She’d never seen him so animated. “Yes! They won’t be able to dismiss this back
in Thampur. I’ll get my –” Not another word could have passed through his
tightly pressed lips. A bright grin spread over his face though as he plopped
down beside her.

“Your what?”

He chuckled. “I may admire you, but I still
don’t trust you enough to give you leverage. Just be content that this is of
vital importance to me.”

Me.
Not the Thampurians. He wasn’t as exacting
about his word choice as she was, but she sensed that was a telling slip. And her
loyalties were slipping too.

He might not trust her, but he was giddy
enough to grab her hand and press his lips to the back of it. The warmth of his
touch traveled up her arm as he held her hand a moment too long.

She wanted him. Forget the Ravidians, the Devil,
everyone else. Intense desire pushed aside every reason she had to stay away
from him. Sex with him would be such a delicious mistake.

Looking Kyam in the eye, she leaned close to
him. He didn’t pull away, but he didn’t encourage her either. Maybe he was
still trying to protect her? Maybe he worried about what the Devil might do.
That was her problem, not his.

“I was thinking, Kyam…” She caressed his face
and kissed him.

He placed a gentle hand over hers and said
against her mouth, “Now is not the time, Lady QuiTai.”

He was rejecting her? But then she heard the
footsteps on the stairs, and the hushed voices. Someone pounded on the door. “Colonel
Zul!”

She looked at him, shocked. Kyam spread his
hands in apology.

All the hatred she’d ever felt for him rushed
back into her heart. She’d been a fool. The humiliation set her temper aflame.
Kyam had betrayed her. Why was she so surprised?

QuiTai bolted for the veranda. A soldier
blocked her way. She backed into the room as he came at her. Kyam opened his
door to three more waiting soldiers.

QuiTai recognized Major Voorus, head of the
elite colonial military force. One of the bullies. His silver epaulets dripped
fringe. She’d seen him before, at a distance, but until now she’d never noticed
how closely he resembled Kyam. Same face shape, same nose, same build. They
could have been brothers.

“Have you made the arrests, Major Voorus?” Kyam
asked.

“Yes, Colonel.” Voorus obviously disliked
reporting to Kyam; QuiTai wondered if it was personal, or a matter of jurisdiction.
Soldiers and intelligence services could be jealous of their territory, or so
she’d heard. She tried to keep away from both as much as possible.

“We picked up the werewolves in a tavern near
the town square. They were slobbering drunk. We had no problem bringing them in.”

QuiTai swallowed a gasp. The werewolves? So
all this time, Kyam had really been after the Devil. He’d only stumbled on the
Ravidian’s plot because of her. If the Thampurians hung the werewolves on some
trumped-up charge, Petrof would lose his enforcers – she was sure that’s
what Kyam planned. But the werewolves were only a small part of the Devil’s
syndicate. The true heart of it was her people, and Kyam couldn’t begin to
imagine the scope of the network she controlled.

She fought down her panic and fury. She had
to stay in control of her emotions.

Did he have Petrof? That was the question. He’d
hinted that he knew the Devil was a werewolf, but he couldn’t know which one
for sure. Maybe he was expecting her reaction to confirm his suspicions. She
refused to give him that information. No matter what, she would show no
curiosity about these wolves.

“Then it’s time we headed to the harbor,”
Kyam told the soldiers. He pointed to QuiTai. “Until I say so, your prime
directive is to protect her. But under the circumstances, consider her hostile.
Extremely hostile.” He half-bowed to her. “You weave a wonderful story from
wisps of fact, Lady QuiTai. But it isn’t proof.”

~ ~ ~

Kyam led the way through town. QuiTai, surrounded by four
rude soldiers, followed. If Kyam had any respect for her dignity, he would take
quiet streets; instead, he marched her through the marketplace. Voorus kept
trying to grab her arm. Every time she yanked away from his touch, the other
soldiers laughed.

The usual loud clash
of voices quieted as they walked past the stalls. People stared. Stubbornly,
she lifted her chin and looked straight ahead. If the crowd thought she was in
disgrace, they were wrong. Kyam was the one who had acted dishonorably. She’d
given him exactly what he’d bargained for, and in return, he’d had her arrested:
He called it protection, but she wasn’t fooled.

Kyam and the
soldiers paused at the road leading to the harbor. “Keep a sharp eye out, men.
There are lots of places at the switchbacks to stage an ambush,” Kyam said.