Unbound (6 page)

Of course, the way he looked tempted her to throw caution out the airlock . . . although if last night wasn’t a dream, she’d done that already.

Heat washed through her at the thought. He’d had his hands on her, used his mouth to bring her to orgasm . . . and unless he’d mounted her while she’d slept, he’d left her alone. She squirmed experimentally. Her inner thighs felt tender, but there was none of the ache that came with a man’s penetration; the effect of a pleasure wand was different. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or piqued. She’d been naked—and he hadn’t been tempted?!

Focus on business, Asrial.
He’d asked a question. “This is the
Castel
.”

“Castel?” He leaned forward, wrinkles forming across his brow, as though he were willing her to say more. From his reaction, her answer didn’t mean anything to him. His shoulders bunched as his arms tensed across his knees. It was an awkward position, one that didn’t allow him to rise quickly. Almost defensive.

“That’s the name of my ship. I’m headed for Eskarion. If you want to go elsewhere, you’re out of luck.” She took heart at his posture. The narrow confines of her cabin didn’t lend itself to evasion. If he decided to grapple, she was in trouble unless she found her stunner.

“Eskarion?” Confusion deepened the furrows of his brow.

Frustration roiled in her stomach at his deliberate obtuseness—and it had to be deliberate. He couldn’t be that clueless. With Maj void of sentient life, that meant he had to have shipped in. He’d gotten to the planet somehow and probably been abandoned there—or jumped ship.

At least there were two things she could be certain of: he wasn’t a pirate who’d forced his way past the
Castel
’s security while she slept, and he wasn’t a djinn from children’s tales, whatever he might claim.

She ignored the inconsistencies in his appearance to focus on the most important aspect—unless she was willing to space Romir, she could do nothing about him until she docked at a station. In which case, her time would be better spent getting to Eskarion. The
Castel
should be far enough outsystem to Jump. The sooner she started, the sooner they’d arrive.

But there lay another problem.

“I need to get up.” She didn’t want him to watch her dress. A rather silly sentiment when he’d already watched her sleep—naked—but that was when she’d thought him a figment of her imagination.

Despite his awkward pose, he got to his feet in a single, fluid motion, as if he were in a low grav zone. No stiffness. No pushing off the deck or off his knees. Then, before she realized what he intended, he’d put his hands under her elbows and raised her off the bed, onto her feet . . . and so very close to him.

He stood more than a head taller than her, his shoulders that much wider. She hadn’t really noticed it last night, but he was no slack-bodied grounder. From the scars on his arms, those corded muscles had seen hard use. He generated so much masculine heat that she felt wrapped in warmth, as if he were touching her all over.

More conscious than ever of her nudity, Asrial clutched her pillow to her torso, a fragile shield he could so easily wrench away. “I meant—
Out!
I have to dress.”

Romir jerked back, understanding and belated embarrassment flashing across his face. At least he wasn’t that lost to propriety.

Without him doing anything, the door slid open.

How . . . ?
She stared at the door, now closed with her stowaway on the other side, then shook her head impatiently. There was work to be done.

She scrambled into some clothes quickly, half worried what he might be up to out of her sight. But only half. She couldn’t think of a plausible reason for a pirate to sit by her bunk, waiting for her to wake up, instead of taking over the
Castel
. If he were after her ship or her cargo, he’d have had an easier time if he hadn’t delayed. Besides, he hadn’t threatened her in any way, not even a hint.

Once dressed, she felt ready to face the wild storm the Spirit of space had dropped upon her.

Asrial’s next view of her stowaway sent a shiver of awareness zinging through her nerves. It had been some time since she’d had a lover, but he bore his undress with an unselfconscious air of pride that wasn’t without basis.

Romir stood in the middle of the corridor, his back to her, his head moving side to side restlessly. His shoulders filled her view, precisely at eye level. From this angle, their breadth looked more imposing, stretching like wings beyond that gorgeous fall of black hair. The arc and rays of dark blue on the ball of his left shoulder only added to her impression of toughness. But without the bright silver wariness of his eyes to distract her, she noticed the definition of his muscles, a leanness to his body. Not starved, but not unfamiliar with short rations, either.

Asrial fought down the urge to feed him up. She wasn’t here to mother him. In fact, she might have to make a detour to replenish if he ate a lot. She’d planned on doing so when she got to Eskarion, but she wouldn’t be able to stretch her supplies that far with two to feed.

Still, she couldn’t prevent a question as she paused by his side. “Did you spend the night on the floor?”

Had he been in her cabin the whole time, or had he used one of the bunks in the other cabins? She didn’t know which she preferred: that he’d watched her sleep or having him enter her cabin—twice—without her waking.

Romir continued to look around, as though starved for sight. Even the plain walls merited long stares, particularly the access panels to the control runs—the latter gave her a twinge of concern. No good could come from that look, especially if he was truly as clueless as he acted. “I have no need for sleep.”

If he was going to be cryptic, she had more important things to do. So long as he stayed where she could see him, she wouldn’t have to worry about him fooling around with the
Castel
’s innards.

 

 

Asrial had called
it a ship. But from the sparseness of the threads of power Romir sensed beyond the walls, it was not a sailing ship nor an airship.
A starship?
If what lay outside was the abyss between worlds, then perhaps it was a starship.

The wonder of voyaging through that vastness held him silent—that and the realization that he was far from any Mugheli vyzier. A distance that could not be spanned by a single person’s will. Could he be truly free of his hated masters?

He followed Asrial down the corridor. With her back to him, he was free from observation to feast his eyes on this unusual woman. She walked lightly, balanced on her feet, almost dancing, but there was a tension about her shoulders, like a warrior’s readiness. She wore her hair shorter than had the women that remained in his tattered memory. And yet she exuded this air of refinement, of delicate beauty. As though . . .

Romir shook his head, unable to define the inconsistency. She was a woman of a different world. Such comparisons were foolhardy. He had to be wary. While she was not a vyzier, he could not accept that her intent was benign solely on faith. However much he may wish otherwise, he had lost too much to extend his trust so easily.

Asrial led him to one of the rooms whose purpose he could not divine. There, a pair of seats faced a wall-mounted table embedded with strange devices.

When she sat down, the table before her brightened, its muted lights strengthening as if oil had been added to their fire, subtle weaves responding to her presence. She played her hands across the panel, pressing ciphers without hesitation, moving with the serene confidence of long practice.

More rectangles on the wall sprang to bright life, images appearing as if summoned. They were akin to a scry glass, he realized, though he could not understand what they showed. They looked like stars, but not the ones he vaguely remembered seeing in the night skies.

The sparkles embedded in the walls that so fascinated him shifted, apparently in response to what she was doing at the panel. Such manipulation was something no vyzier or weaver had done. This, more than anything else he had seen in this strange “ship,” assured Romir that Asrial truly was not Mugheli.

“I’m about to Jump.”

Wondering at the warning in her voice, he stayed by the wall, according to Asrial the space a weaver would need to perform a high-level working. While she was not a weaver or a vyzier, her actions hinted at preparations best left undisturbed.

“Sit down and buckle in.” Without looking at him, she snapped a hand to the empty seat beside hers, her manner making it clear she expected instant obedience.

Asrial’s peremptory tone tempted Romir to ignore her order. He had had too many of those, and hers did not carry any compulsion. But when she pulled straps from the sides of her seat, he realized she was simply concerned with safety. Her brusqueness seemed to be a result of distraction, not intention.

He obeyed, copying her actions. He did not need the straps. He could have misted instead, but he suspected this would be an inopportune moment. She acted as though his admission of being djinn had never happened. If he were to mist, the surprise might be dangerous. He did not blame her for her skepticism; he, too, preferred to ignore the truth of his captivity and did not want to dwell on it.

Her hands danced over the panel, altering the patterns of the sparkles, but not in the familiar ways of weavers. The panel’s lights changed, the orange ones shifting to green.

A square with a red ring
flashed
,
flashed
,
flashed
, turned blue. She slapped the square.

The ship lurched. Energies flared around them, the strands warping in a familiar pattern, forming—

Romir stared. If he had breath, he would have lost it. The magnitude of this working! He could sense the weave drawing on that powerful vortex he had seen in the bowels of the ship, vast energies raging against his consciousness as they swept past him into the shining weave . . . and yet he could not feel Asrial manipulating the vortex. No vyzier could hope to accomplish this by himself—not and survive. Only once before had he himself experienced such power.

The next moment, it all became madness. For an endless heartbeat the universe exploded in myriads of colors—too many to count, too many to name, colors he had never imagined. The strands of existence stretched and warped.

Another lurch. The universe resolved itself, and the weave collapsed, unraveling faster than he could follow.

The glass revealed a different set of stars.

Asrial bent her attention to the panel, pressing ciphers as though nothing of significance had happened.

“That was—”

She turned a mild frown to him. “That was Jump.” Clearly she did consider it nothing of significance. After a few more taps, she leaned back and released her straps.

“It is safe now?” He could not forget the madness of the universe exploding around him. It played before his mind’s eye like the fluttering of wind-borne petals, a furious storm of incandescent possibilities whirling free before resolving into a single reality. What sort of world had he been summoned into that she could shrug off such a feat of power?

The question earned him another frown, puzzlement shadowing her brown eyes. “The autopilot’s engaged. Anyway, we can’t Jump any distance until the drive’s coils are fully recharged.”

Romir trailed after
Asrial, feeling as extraneous as a fifth limb, a loose thread dangling from a weave. Purposeless. A strange emotion for one such as he. A djinn had no purpose. It did not matter if a djinn supported the vyzier’s goal. The only reason for their existence was obedience to the master’s will. He had known that even before his capture and enslavement and had thought himself inured to the loss.

No hopes. No dreams. Those were for the fortunate free.

Yet now he felt the lack keenly. Cool air on a shallow wound, not fatal but more painful than a deeper cut. Was this the result of his peculiar freedom? Unbound yet constrained by his prison’s tugging.

Deep in the heart of him, he feared that freedom would not last. The time would come when that line ran out; then he would be drawn back.

Carrying a tablet, Asrial entered the room with his prison, an air of purpose about her. From the ledge, she chose an ostentatious trifle box carved from askeiwood and covered with gold and deep red marjan stones. She examined it with great care, according it more attention than such frippery deserved. Only the soft taps of her stylus on the tablet broke the humming silence. Seeming to have come to some conclusions of her own, she asked him no questions, her lack of curiosity suggesting she had given no credence to his admission to being djinn. She treated him as if he were some hapless stowaway the gods had thrust upon her. If only that were truth.

Unlike in times past when vyziers demanded his attendance, this silence oppressed, weighing on Romir’s spirit like the gray mists of his prison. To be ignored as a matter of habit felt worse than the deliberate malice of his Mugheli masters. Simply watching Asrial did not suffice to keep loneliness at bay. “What are you doing?”

“Logging an inventory of what I got.” She did not look up from her task as she answered, her attention bent entirely on the trifle box. Short, tawny curls clung to high, pale cheekbones, tempting his fingers to do the same.

Her thumb skimmed over the carving in slow, gentle strokes that captured his gaze—such a contrast from her usual purposeful manner. The repetitive motion was hypnotic, stirring formless, nameless urges within him. He could not look away. “For what purpose?”

“My mother’s cousin serves as my agent. He needs a list of what’s available for sale,” she answered absently, her stylus clicking on the tablet.

“For sale?”