“You are not laughing,” he murmured, drawing her closer.

“How can I? You sold your watch to buy combs for my hair, and I cut off my hair and sold it to buy a chain for your watch.” She sighed. “Don’t take that literally, it’s an analogy. Something two other misguided lovers did in an O. Henry story.”

“‘Gift of the Magi.’” He nodded. “I know it well.”

“So do I, and yet we both made the same mistake anyway.” She looked up at him. “I know we have a couple million things to talk about, and then there’s the emeralds and Lucan and Sam and saving the world, but I need a break. You wanted me to spend the night with you in Paradise. Is that offer still good?”

“Oh, yes.” He drew her to her feet, and led her back to the navcom, where he put in a new set of coordinates. “If you’ll cast off, I’ll see to the sails.”

“We’re actually sailing to Paradise?” She’d thought he’d used the word as a euphemism for making love.

Jamys caught her around the waist, lifting her up for his kiss. “Wait and see.”

Chapter 16

Werren watched the cage containing Samantha Brown being lowered by the crane. “Has the master returned?”

“Not yet.” Clemens, the first mate, made a pushing gesture above his head for the crane operator to stop the winch. Beneath their feet the shouting continued, joined now by a furious rattling sound. “She stays in the cage until he does.”

His scent had gone sour with the stink of fear, something Werren found fascinating. “She cannot go anywhere, and if she tries to hurt someone, the men will kill her.” Unless she kills them first.

“You’d better go talk to her,” Clemens said. “Explain how we do things, and what Dutch expects from her.”

“I have no authority to speak for the master in his absence.” Werren regarded him. “I believe that is your place, Mr. Clemens.”

“Don’t play your mind-fucking games with me, whore.” He gave her a push toward the stairs. “Tell her how it’s going to be. Otherwise she’ll be hanging from the mast in shreds at dawn.”

As Werren descended the narrow staircase, she considered using her gift once more to disguise herself. Altering physical appearance was the most difficult illusion to maintain, however, as movements and speech constantly demanded thousands of tiny adjustments of the facade. Places and things required much less of her gift, usually no more than a single flick of thought. In this instance, however, her actual appearance might be more effective in convincing the lady to listen.

Werren found Samantha kicking at the base of the cage with her boots, alternating left and right as she worked at creating a gap between the bars. The scent of blood and copper made Werren’s stomach clench, and she saw the raw wounds the detective had inflicted on her wrists while trying unsuccessfully to free them from the manacles.

“If you will stand still,” she said, causing Samantha to do precisely that, “I will remove the shackles.”

“Go to hell, you fucking bitch.” She resumed kicking the bars.

“I regret deceiving you as I did,” Werren said, raising her voice to be heard over the racket. “I had no other choice but to carry out my master’s commands.”

“You can drop the pathetic human act now,” Samantha said, wedging her boot against one bar and trying to push it out with no success. “I know you’re Kyn.”

“Like you,” Werren said. “But you are of this time. How did your master change you without killing you?”

Narrow hazel eyes glittered. “Let me out of here and I’ll tell you all about me, my master, and our secrets.”

She sounded pleasant, even sincere, but Werren knew better. “Dutch will have all of his secrets once he brings him under his control. You cannot escape. The men will not permit it, and when you try, they will hurt us both.”

Samantha stopped kicking. “Do you really believe I give a rat’s ass what happens to you?”

“No. Not now, not when you’re this angry. But I can explain myself, my lady. Once you hear what has been done to me and the others, you will understand how desperate our situation is.” Despair made her go to the cage and grip the bars. “Please, allow me to—”

A bloody hand shot out and gripped her by the throat, cutting off her voice. “Open the fucking cage. Now.”

“I cannot.” Werren felt the other woman’s nails stabbing into her flesh, drawing blood, and her gift exploded out of her, transforming her into a snarling beast.

Samantha held on. “Sorry, no sale this time, sister.” She tightened her grip. “Drop the illusion, or I’ll rip your throat out.”

Werren forced back the roiling power pouring out of her and resumed her honest appearance. “What do you want, my lady? You hurt me, but I am like you. A prisoner.”

“Funny, but I don’t see your cage anywhere.” She dug her strong fingers in deeper. “Who are you? The truth this time.”

“No one of importance.” Werren tasted her own blood on her tongue, and with it the temptation to goad Samantha into killing her. She was so weary of the nightmare of her existence, and death would be her only release. The women she left behind, however, would suffer—including this one, who had yet to understand the horror that awaited her. “My name is Werren Reed, and I have been a prisoner here for a very long time.”

“Why? What did you do?”

The same two questions she had been asking ever since Dutch had taken her. “My master purchased me from my mother’s employer. I have been his slave ever since.”

The hand tightened. “Slavery isn’t legal.”

“It was when he took me,” Werren said simply. “He kept me in his bed for weeks, using me for sex and slowly draining me of my blood. I prayed for death, my lady.”

Something flickered in Samantha’s angry eyes. “You’re still breathing.”

“Not by any choice of my own. When I died from the blood loss, I thought, ‘At last, it is finished. I am free of him.’” She curled her fingers around one bar. “I woke up in a cage much like this one, naked, helpless, hopeless, and there I stayed.”

“You’re breaking my heart.” Despite the harsh tone she used, some of the pressure of her hold eased. “You said there were others. Did he buy them, or did he let you out the cage to grab them for him?”

“In the beginning he did not know how I had been changed. He dragged me out of the cage to service him and the crew.” She didn’t care to think on those wretched years of her existence. “When I fought them—and I did fight, lady, every time—he would punish me until I blacked out. The master’s punishments were terrible, but no matter what he did, I never died again.”

Samantha shook her head. “He had to know you were Kyn.”

“He did not know what he was,” Werren pointed out. “None of us did. And so I would wake up tied to a cot with some grunting, sweating sailor atop me, my wounds healed. When the men were satisfied, the master put me back in the cage. I was left there to starve for weeks, sometimes months.”

“So you saved your own ass by becoming his partner and getting other women for him?” Samantha shook her. “You think that makes it okay?”

“I am not his partner. I am his possession.” Werren touched her snarled hair. “This is my latest punishment for speaking out of turn. I’m not permitted to wash myself or comb my hair until the master says I may again. If he is pleased when he returns, he may allow me a bucket of water and a sliver of soap. That will be my reward for capturing you, my lady: permission to bathe.”

A powerful stream of seawater blasted down into the cage, knocking Samantha off her feet and freeing Werren from her hold. She staggered back to see the fire hose Clemens was using on the detective.

She wanted to shout at him to stop, but that would only make him angrier, so she went to the cage and released the shackles around the detective’s wrists.

“Let me out of here,” Samantha shouted, only to be knocked to the floor of the cage.

“Keep your head down, and your mouth shut,” Werren called above the sound of the water.

The first mate hosed the detective for another minute before he shut off the spray. “Take her to the others and have them school her,” he shouted down in a tight, ugly voice. “We leave in ten minutes.”

She nodded, and waited until he disappeared from sight before she went to the cage and crouched down. Reaching in, she helped Samantha into a sitting position.

Seawater dripped from the hair hanging in the detective’s furious eyes. “Is that how you take a bath?”

“Only when they are angry.” She propped her shoulder against the bars and studied her hands, which looked cleaner than they had for days. “I’d rather have the bucket. The salt makes me itch.”

“Stop talking to me like we’re friends.” The other woman checked the raw, torn wounds circling her wrists, watching the edges shrinking before she eyed Werren. “He said you’re leaving. He meant you with him.”

“Yes.” Only one more trip, and it would be finished. “It will not take long.”

“I don’t care,” Samantha said. “How many humans will he leave behind to guard me?”

“Twenty. Each of them knows what you are, and how to hurt you,” she warned. “If you approach any of them, they will kill you.”

She wiped the water from her eyes. “Then why bother to kidnap me?” Before Werren could answer, she sat up with a jerk. “Lucan. He did this to get to him. Does he have any idea what Lucan will do to him when he finds out?”

“Of course he does.” Werren stood up. “But he will not allow it. Nothing and no one can harm Dutch. He can make anyone do as he pleases. When he finds the treasure that was stolen from him, he says he will become the most powerful man in the world.”