Fic: "Enslaved" (J/E - NC-17 - 3/4)
Jun. 1st, 2011 07:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dwgmChapter One, Chapter Two, and...
The five travelers reached the house of Rafi Kasim by noon on the following day. It was built over another oasis that was well supplied with fresh water, and Elizabeth, though she’d seen many great houses in her life, thought that perhaps she had never seen one as lovely as this, a contained paradise surrounded by the wide horizons and stark simplicity of the desert. The gardens before the house were extensive, ordered, yet varied and shimmering with color under the hot sun, and at the back there were green fields under cultivation that stretched away and away. The dwelling itself was very beautiful, of pale pink and white stone, with graceful towers and filigreed carvings similar to those they’d seen on the buildings in Landara.
“It is called the House of Shade,” Aziz told them. “It is said that a hundred slaves are needed to care for it, exacting work and very demanding.”
Elizabeth nodded, the beauty of the place fading in light of this reality.
But as they rode onto the property, down the wide lane that ran through the gardens and up to the house, she saw no one working and it transpired that Rafi Kasim’s slaves were given several hours to rest in the hottest part of the day.
“It’d kill them, else,” said Jack, “and slaves are expensive – even those that aren’t trained concubines.”
Elizabeth stiffened, for she’d been quite appalled when, in a moment of passion the previous night, Jack had revealed precisely what he’d paid to Abu M’ad for her person. But the teasing grin he threw her now, and the clear memory of his subsequent words then -- “…worth every penny, by all the saints… my God… Elizabeth! ”—his last utterance before being reduced to babbling incoherence – soothed her sensibilities and she merely tossed her head at him, and then, perforce, returned his grin.
*
Rafi Kasim greeted his visitors with curiosity, but with great good humor, too, after reading the impressive letter of introduction signed by the Sultan of Landara, once his father’s master. “Zarif of the Thousand Jewels, I welcome you as a friend of the sultan’s, you and your company, too – particularly your lovely concubine. She is truly a jewel herself, I do not wonder that you choose to keep her by you as you travel and trade.”
Zarif made appropriate thanks, his intelligent eyes sparking, and he bowed with such elegance that Rafi Kasim, who was both taller and, unfortunately, much broader in girth, felt clumsy and slow in comparison. He didn’t hold this against Zarif, however.
Rafi Kasim continued, “You have done me a great kindness, riding all the way to my humble home from Landara. You will show me the treasures you have brought, but you must also allow me to show you my estate, after which we will break bread together – my cooks are renowned far and wide. We keep the old customs in this house, which prohibit the presence of women at table, but be assured your lady will be well cared for. She will be a guest in my seraglio, and my wives and my own concubines will see that she is prepared to come to you when you retire to your rooms. A night deprived of the taste of such honey would surely be unthinkable.”
Zarif agreed to this with a chuckle, and exchanged a glance with the woman, whose eyes flashed before she lowered them in submission.
Rafi Kasim shifted upon his chair as he allowed his imagination to play lasciviously upon the couple before him. Zarif was a fortunate man. “She has great spirit, I see. But doubtless you are wise in the ways of recalling her to modesty and obedience.”
Zarif said, “Alas, lord, she is as froward as she is beautiful, which is often the case with women of the barbarous lands north of the great sea. Perhaps you will deign to advise me, for it is evident your own household is conducted in a manner both efficient and harmonious.”
Rafi Kasim nodded, and smiled at the way Zarif’s woman held herself so straight and stiff. Ah, he would give much to have the schooling of that one! He said, “It shall be so. The wise man seeks instruction when the opportunity arises. And the wise woman, as well. I shall command my women to counsel your lady, that she may please you all the more.” He clapped his hands together, and two handmaidens appeared almost instantly. Rafi Kasim said to them, “Conduct this lady to my wives, that they may entertain her as a guest and instruct her as another who belongs body and soul to her lord.”
The handmaidens bowed, and gently but firmly drew Zarif’s concubine from the room.
*
Elizabeth seethed as she followed the handmaidens through the cool hallways of the House of Shade. Instruct her, indeed. She’d had enough of that sort of instruction in the House of Pearls, and so she would tell Jack if he dared to tease her. Her cheeks warmed at the thought, and suddenly she realized she missed him already, and it would be many hours, perhaps, before they were reunited, with a very long night ahead if all went as they hoped.
In the meantime she had a part to play, and when the door to the seraglio was opened to her escorts and the three of them went inside, she looked about at the women with great curiosity.
One of the handmaidens gave an introduction. “O honored wives and admirable concubines of your lord, Rafi Kasim, he sends you greetings and bid you welcome this visitor from afar, who is of barbarian decent but has the privilege of serving the illustrious Zarif of the Thousand Jewels, a merchant of great esteem, enjoying the favor of the Sultan of Landara. While your lord extends to Zarif all due hospitality, he asks you to do the same for this lady, and also to advise her in the right and proper conduct expected of a woman belonging body and soul to her lord.”
A woman older than most of the others, and dressed in beautiful robes, came forward and bowed. “It shall be done. So say I, Alima, first wife of Rafi Kasim.”
The handmaidens bowed as well, and withdrew, and Elizabeth was on her own.
*
Having introduced herself, and in turn learning that Beth was the name of their visitor, Alima smiled at the anticipation pervading the seraglio at the barbarian woman’s advent.
Rafi Kasim’s youngest wife, Nahid, caught at Alima’s sleeve in her excitement. “Do you think our lord will be inspired by her beauty? Will he come to us, or even perhaps send for one of us?”
Alima smiled at this little sister who was so anxious to bear a child and thereby increase her status among the women. Nahid had only lain with Rafi Kasim once, on the night she was wed to him, but when the girl had lamented the next morning that he had taken precautions to preclude any chance she would become a mother, Alima had admonished her and advised her to be patient. “For though you are now in all truth his wife, your form is barely ripe, and to be brought to bed of a child too soon can be dangerous. Our husband is wise in his care for you, though it seems an evil fate to you just now.”
Nahid had taken Alima’s advice, and her disappointment and longing were hidden beneath a smiling exterior for many months. But just in the last week their husband had noticed his youngest wife once more, remarking that the promising bud had now come to full bloom. He had not yet ordered that she be brought to him, but the girl’s hopes had risen as on the wings of birds.
Alima said now, “Come and sit, Nahid and Beth, and any of you that wish to be instructed in the ways of pleasing a man, and so increase one’s own pleasure.”
The barbarian woman looked somewhat skeptical, but she came and sat with Alima on the stone bench near the bathing pool and folded her hands modestly enough. Nahid and several of the younger concubines sat on pillows at Alima’s feet.
“First of all,” Alima said to Beth, “I must tell you that we rejoice that you have come to the House of Shade for we are hopeful that our husband will be stirred by observing your congress with Zarif of the Thousand Jewels this night and will serve us with the utmost vigor.”
“Observe? He means to watch us?” Beth looked astounded – Alima might even have said appalled.
“Yes, indeed,” said Alima, with a slight frown. “Surely you have heard of such things?”
Beth grew very pink and stiff. “No! I mean… no. It isn’t done in my country, not at all. And I’m not certain Zarif would be able to… to perform under such circumstances.”
“Truly?” Alima was most dismayed. “Then I beg you will not tell him, Beth! We look forward to the pleasure of lying with Rafi Kasim, but beyond that, we long for more children, that they may strengthen his love and tie him to us all the more firmly. Two of our number are with child now due to such circumstances.” Alima waved a hand toward Sadiyah and Wid, who lay naked and content on the other side of the pool, their golden bodies being massaged and oiled, their impending motherhood evident.
But Beth still looked uncertain, until Nahid spoke up. “Lady, he will not stay long, a half hour, or an hour at most! And then he will be ours – mine, perhaps, for the rest of the night! Oh, please! Can you not forget this little thing, this trifling detail, thinking only of your lord’s pleasure and your own.”
Beth hesitated, but then nodded. “Very well. I shall do my best,” she told them, and there was a strange light in her eyes.
Alima smiled and said to the foreigner, “Listen, then, and I shall tell you something of men and some of the ways one can bring them – and oneself – to bliss.”
*
The handmaidens came for Elizabeth when the moon rose over the distant mountains, and she walked between them, her whole being poised on the brink. It seemed that if she and Jack were successful in inspiring their host, the lecherous Rafi Kasim would retire to the ministrations of his ladies, who would keep him occupied until the rosy dawn, from what said ladies had told her. They’d also implied that such occasions were as something of a holiday for the remainder of the household, though how far they’d let down their guard remained to be seen.
And would she and Jack be able to find her crew, release them, and get away? There were so many things that could go wrong, so many factors to take into account…
But the other half of her was taken up with her bodily needs. She’d been thoroughly awash in mental and physical sensuality during the course of the long afternoon and evening – Alima’s matter-of-fact yet erotic tales and truisms, the sight of so much naked or lightly-veiled femininity, the musky perfumes, the tepid water of the bath, the smooth oils kneaded into her flesh... there was rouge adorning her nipples again, and it had been brushed feather light over her buttocks and over the smooth mound at the apex of her thighs. There was no drug involved, but she felt swollen, aching with pure, raw need, for which there was but one cure.
They came finally to the door of the apartments she and Jack been allotted, and Elizabeth walked in, saw him standing there, freshly bathed, barbered and robed, his smile gold and white at the sight of her, and she could only go to him and fall into his embrace, rejoicing in the touch of his lips upon hers.
Presently he ran kisses up her cheek and murmured provocatively, “Did they teach you well, then, love? Are you now modest and biddable as the day is long?”
A gurgle of laughter escaped her, but she kept her voice low as she replied, “I fear I may never be biddable, and as for modesty, neither I nor you can afford it tonight. Listen…”
She told him, adjuring him to continue caressing, to refrain from looking about him suspiciously. “Can you do it? It’s like playing a part, and I’ve seen you do that often enough.”
But he said, “Oh, I can do it, done it before, darling, and I have to say it adds a certain piquancy to know one is performing for a hidden eye—“
“You’ve done such a thing? When?” she demanded, quite forgetting her own part.
“Hush,” he said, giving her rouged backside a pinch. “I’ve done a great many things I haven’t told you about, trust me on that.”
“When we get out of this safely you’ll tell me everything.”
“If we do, I’ll tell you some of it,” he temporized. “But now we’ll give old Rafi a show, for I know where Tai Huang and the others are and if we can take care of the guards we’ll be set.”
He took charge then, slowly stripping her clothing off, discarding his own garment, quite unashamed. He teased and tempted, so completely distracting her that she soon dismissed the eye of Rafi Kasim as unimportant, and presently, when they reached the bed that had been prepared for them, forgot it entirely.
His eyes were ablaze as he watched her, writhing beneath his touch, forbidding her to touch him – not yet, love, not yet, I won’t last, upon my soul – and finally, finally he allowed her to spread her legs, slipped his hands firm beneath her hips, and put his mouth to her sex. She jerked, giving a shriek, then settled herself as best she could, gripping the bedclothes hard, convulsively, her back arching, trying desperately to still herself, to allow the delicious agony to build and build and… oh my God…
For long moments she was lost. Lost, until she could bear no more.
And then he was there, climbing up to cover her and she cried out as the long curved shaft she’d longed to caress slid hard and deep into her still-pulsing body. His name was a whispered moan on her lips until his own mouth stopped the sound, his tongue entering to taste her, to allow her to taste him, to taste her own essence combined with his. She trembled, soft beneath him, until the slow even strokes made her arch and gasp.
“Jack!” she whispered, helpless, her eyes suddenly wide.
“Once more, love,” he said, breathless, against her mouth, and when she moaned again and wrapped her entire being tight around him he went on, a muttered litany of encouragement, praise, and then blasphemy.
She knew he was close, and drew it out as much as she could, for both their sakes, feeling a joyful power over him as he began to lose control. But his end spurred her own, they struggled together, wild for a moment, and then both cried out as they were overtaken, overcome.
*
They slept. The lamp had burned out by the time they woke together, and both were startled and then angry that they had wasted precious time. But as they dressed, Jack’s anger subsided, he was drawn to her, remembering…
He came over to where she was struggling with the complicated garments. “Let me help,” he said.
She stilled as his hands worked, carefully arranging. So lovely, his mind whispered, seeing her now, straight and calm, deadly and so very alive; seeing her as she’d been before, maddened by his touch, drowning him in wonder. She’d wept with joy at the last: he could see streaks of salt still on her cheek, faint but clear in the moonlight.
He finished and took her by the shoulders. “Lizzie,” he said, “Listen to me. If it looks like we’re caught, you’ll get out, fast as you can, do you understand?” Unbearable to think of her in Rafi Kasim’s power…
But to his surprise an expression of fury transformed her and she threw off his hands. “I will not! How dare you…” She seemed momentarily bereft of words. But then she hissed, “I did that once before, Jack Sparrow, and by God I’ll never do so again.”
He stared for a moment and then realized she meant the Kraken. “That was different—“
“Never again! ” And she shoved at his chest to emphasize her words.
He scowled at her, for there was no time to argue and suddenly he, too, was furious, Stripped of his insouciance, he snarled, “Bloody, buggering… you infernal… this is what comes of love! ”
But she grinned fiercely, her teeth very white in the dim light, and answered him in kind: “Yes, Jack Sparrow, it bloody buggering is. ”
On to Chapter Four: Flight to the Sea
The five travelers reached the house of Rafi Kasim by noon on the following day. It was built over another oasis that was well supplied with fresh water, and Elizabeth, though she’d seen many great houses in her life, thought that perhaps she had never seen one as lovely as this, a contained paradise surrounded by the wide horizons and stark simplicity of the desert. The gardens before the house were extensive, ordered, yet varied and shimmering with color under the hot sun, and at the back there were green fields under cultivation that stretched away and away. The dwelling itself was very beautiful, of pale pink and white stone, with graceful towers and filigreed carvings similar to those they’d seen on the buildings in Landara.
“It is called the House of Shade,” Aziz told them. “It is said that a hundred slaves are needed to care for it, exacting work and very demanding.”
Elizabeth nodded, the beauty of the place fading in light of this reality.
But as they rode onto the property, down the wide lane that ran through the gardens and up to the house, she saw no one working and it transpired that Rafi Kasim’s slaves were given several hours to rest in the hottest part of the day.
“It’d kill them, else,” said Jack, “and slaves are expensive – even those that aren’t trained concubines.”
Elizabeth stiffened, for she’d been quite appalled when, in a moment of passion the previous night, Jack had revealed precisely what he’d paid to Abu M’ad for her person. But the teasing grin he threw her now, and the clear memory of his subsequent words then -- “…worth every penny, by all the saints… my God… Elizabeth! ”—his last utterance before being reduced to babbling incoherence – soothed her sensibilities and she merely tossed her head at him, and then, perforce, returned his grin.
*
Rafi Kasim greeted his visitors with curiosity, but with great good humor, too, after reading the impressive letter of introduction signed by the Sultan of Landara, once his father’s master. “Zarif of the Thousand Jewels, I welcome you as a friend of the sultan’s, you and your company, too – particularly your lovely concubine. She is truly a jewel herself, I do not wonder that you choose to keep her by you as you travel and trade.”
Zarif made appropriate thanks, his intelligent eyes sparking, and he bowed with such elegance that Rafi Kasim, who was both taller and, unfortunately, much broader in girth, felt clumsy and slow in comparison. He didn’t hold this against Zarif, however.
Rafi Kasim continued, “You have done me a great kindness, riding all the way to my humble home from Landara. You will show me the treasures you have brought, but you must also allow me to show you my estate, after which we will break bread together – my cooks are renowned far and wide. We keep the old customs in this house, which prohibit the presence of women at table, but be assured your lady will be well cared for. She will be a guest in my seraglio, and my wives and my own concubines will see that she is prepared to come to you when you retire to your rooms. A night deprived of the taste of such honey would surely be unthinkable.”
Zarif agreed to this with a chuckle, and exchanged a glance with the woman, whose eyes flashed before she lowered them in submission.
Rafi Kasim shifted upon his chair as he allowed his imagination to play lasciviously upon the couple before him. Zarif was a fortunate man. “She has great spirit, I see. But doubtless you are wise in the ways of recalling her to modesty and obedience.”
Zarif said, “Alas, lord, she is as froward as she is beautiful, which is often the case with women of the barbarous lands north of the great sea. Perhaps you will deign to advise me, for it is evident your own household is conducted in a manner both efficient and harmonious.”
Rafi Kasim nodded, and smiled at the way Zarif’s woman held herself so straight and stiff. Ah, he would give much to have the schooling of that one! He said, “It shall be so. The wise man seeks instruction when the opportunity arises. And the wise woman, as well. I shall command my women to counsel your lady, that she may please you all the more.” He clapped his hands together, and two handmaidens appeared almost instantly. Rafi Kasim said to them, “Conduct this lady to my wives, that they may entertain her as a guest and instruct her as another who belongs body and soul to her lord.”
The handmaidens bowed, and gently but firmly drew Zarif’s concubine from the room.
*
Elizabeth seethed as she followed the handmaidens through the cool hallways of the House of Shade. Instruct her, indeed. She’d had enough of that sort of instruction in the House of Pearls, and so she would tell Jack if he dared to tease her. Her cheeks warmed at the thought, and suddenly she realized she missed him already, and it would be many hours, perhaps, before they were reunited, with a very long night ahead if all went as they hoped.
In the meantime she had a part to play, and when the door to the seraglio was opened to her escorts and the three of them went inside, she looked about at the women with great curiosity.
One of the handmaidens gave an introduction. “O honored wives and admirable concubines of your lord, Rafi Kasim, he sends you greetings and bid you welcome this visitor from afar, who is of barbarian decent but has the privilege of serving the illustrious Zarif of the Thousand Jewels, a merchant of great esteem, enjoying the favor of the Sultan of Landara. While your lord extends to Zarif all due hospitality, he asks you to do the same for this lady, and also to advise her in the right and proper conduct expected of a woman belonging body and soul to her lord.”
A woman older than most of the others, and dressed in beautiful robes, came forward and bowed. “It shall be done. So say I, Alima, first wife of Rafi Kasim.”
The handmaidens bowed as well, and withdrew, and Elizabeth was on her own.
*
Having introduced herself, and in turn learning that Beth was the name of their visitor, Alima smiled at the anticipation pervading the seraglio at the barbarian woman’s advent.
Rafi Kasim’s youngest wife, Nahid, caught at Alima’s sleeve in her excitement. “Do you think our lord will be inspired by her beauty? Will he come to us, or even perhaps send for one of us?”
Alima smiled at this little sister who was so anxious to bear a child and thereby increase her status among the women. Nahid had only lain with Rafi Kasim once, on the night she was wed to him, but when the girl had lamented the next morning that he had taken precautions to preclude any chance she would become a mother, Alima had admonished her and advised her to be patient. “For though you are now in all truth his wife, your form is barely ripe, and to be brought to bed of a child too soon can be dangerous. Our husband is wise in his care for you, though it seems an evil fate to you just now.”
Nahid had taken Alima’s advice, and her disappointment and longing were hidden beneath a smiling exterior for many months. But just in the last week their husband had noticed his youngest wife once more, remarking that the promising bud had now come to full bloom. He had not yet ordered that she be brought to him, but the girl’s hopes had risen as on the wings of birds.
Alima said now, “Come and sit, Nahid and Beth, and any of you that wish to be instructed in the ways of pleasing a man, and so increase one’s own pleasure.”
The barbarian woman looked somewhat skeptical, but she came and sat with Alima on the stone bench near the bathing pool and folded her hands modestly enough. Nahid and several of the younger concubines sat on pillows at Alima’s feet.
“First of all,” Alima said to Beth, “I must tell you that we rejoice that you have come to the House of Shade for we are hopeful that our husband will be stirred by observing your congress with Zarif of the Thousand Jewels this night and will serve us with the utmost vigor.”
“Observe? He means to watch us?” Beth looked astounded – Alima might even have said appalled.
“Yes, indeed,” said Alima, with a slight frown. “Surely you have heard of such things?”
Beth grew very pink and stiff. “No! I mean… no. It isn’t done in my country, not at all. And I’m not certain Zarif would be able to… to perform under such circumstances.”
“Truly?” Alima was most dismayed. “Then I beg you will not tell him, Beth! We look forward to the pleasure of lying with Rafi Kasim, but beyond that, we long for more children, that they may strengthen his love and tie him to us all the more firmly. Two of our number are with child now due to such circumstances.” Alima waved a hand toward Sadiyah and Wid, who lay naked and content on the other side of the pool, their golden bodies being massaged and oiled, their impending motherhood evident.
But Beth still looked uncertain, until Nahid spoke up. “Lady, he will not stay long, a half hour, or an hour at most! And then he will be ours – mine, perhaps, for the rest of the night! Oh, please! Can you not forget this little thing, this trifling detail, thinking only of your lord’s pleasure and your own.”
Beth hesitated, but then nodded. “Very well. I shall do my best,” she told them, and there was a strange light in her eyes.
Alima smiled and said to the foreigner, “Listen, then, and I shall tell you something of men and some of the ways one can bring them – and oneself – to bliss.”
*
The handmaidens came for Elizabeth when the moon rose over the distant mountains, and she walked between them, her whole being poised on the brink. It seemed that if she and Jack were successful in inspiring their host, the lecherous Rafi Kasim would retire to the ministrations of his ladies, who would keep him occupied until the rosy dawn, from what said ladies had told her. They’d also implied that such occasions were as something of a holiday for the remainder of the household, though how far they’d let down their guard remained to be seen.
And would she and Jack be able to find her crew, release them, and get away? There were so many things that could go wrong, so many factors to take into account…
But the other half of her was taken up with her bodily needs. She’d been thoroughly awash in mental and physical sensuality during the course of the long afternoon and evening – Alima’s matter-of-fact yet erotic tales and truisms, the sight of so much naked or lightly-veiled femininity, the musky perfumes, the tepid water of the bath, the smooth oils kneaded into her flesh... there was rouge adorning her nipples again, and it had been brushed feather light over her buttocks and over the smooth mound at the apex of her thighs. There was no drug involved, but she felt swollen, aching with pure, raw need, for which there was but one cure.
They came finally to the door of the apartments she and Jack been allotted, and Elizabeth walked in, saw him standing there, freshly bathed, barbered and robed, his smile gold and white at the sight of her, and she could only go to him and fall into his embrace, rejoicing in the touch of his lips upon hers.
Presently he ran kisses up her cheek and murmured provocatively, “Did they teach you well, then, love? Are you now modest and biddable as the day is long?”
A gurgle of laughter escaped her, but she kept her voice low as she replied, “I fear I may never be biddable, and as for modesty, neither I nor you can afford it tonight. Listen…”
She told him, adjuring him to continue caressing, to refrain from looking about him suspiciously. “Can you do it? It’s like playing a part, and I’ve seen you do that often enough.”
But he said, “Oh, I can do it, done it before, darling, and I have to say it adds a certain piquancy to know one is performing for a hidden eye—“
“You’ve done such a thing? When?” she demanded, quite forgetting her own part.
“Hush,” he said, giving her rouged backside a pinch. “I’ve done a great many things I haven’t told you about, trust me on that.”
“When we get out of this safely you’ll tell me everything.”
“If we do, I’ll tell you some of it,” he temporized. “But now we’ll give old Rafi a show, for I know where Tai Huang and the others are and if we can take care of the guards we’ll be set.”
He took charge then, slowly stripping her clothing off, discarding his own garment, quite unashamed. He teased and tempted, so completely distracting her that she soon dismissed the eye of Rafi Kasim as unimportant, and presently, when they reached the bed that had been prepared for them, forgot it entirely.
His eyes were ablaze as he watched her, writhing beneath his touch, forbidding her to touch him – not yet, love, not yet, I won’t last, upon my soul – and finally, finally he allowed her to spread her legs, slipped his hands firm beneath her hips, and put his mouth to her sex. She jerked, giving a shriek, then settled herself as best she could, gripping the bedclothes hard, convulsively, her back arching, trying desperately to still herself, to allow the delicious agony to build and build and… oh my God…
For long moments she was lost. Lost, until she could bear no more.
And then he was there, climbing up to cover her and she cried out as the long curved shaft she’d longed to caress slid hard and deep into her still-pulsing body. His name was a whispered moan on her lips until his own mouth stopped the sound, his tongue entering to taste her, to allow her to taste him, to taste her own essence combined with his. She trembled, soft beneath him, until the slow even strokes made her arch and gasp.
“Jack!” she whispered, helpless, her eyes suddenly wide.
“Once more, love,” he said, breathless, against her mouth, and when she moaned again and wrapped her entire being tight around him he went on, a muttered litany of encouragement, praise, and then blasphemy.
She knew he was close, and drew it out as much as she could, for both their sakes, feeling a joyful power over him as he began to lose control. But his end spurred her own, they struggled together, wild for a moment, and then both cried out as they were overtaken, overcome.
*
They slept. The lamp had burned out by the time they woke together, and both were startled and then angry that they had wasted precious time. But as they dressed, Jack’s anger subsided, he was drawn to her, remembering…
He came over to where she was struggling with the complicated garments. “Let me help,” he said.
She stilled as his hands worked, carefully arranging. So lovely, his mind whispered, seeing her now, straight and calm, deadly and so very alive; seeing her as she’d been before, maddened by his touch, drowning him in wonder. She’d wept with joy at the last: he could see streaks of salt still on her cheek, faint but clear in the moonlight.
He finished and took her by the shoulders. “Lizzie,” he said, “Listen to me. If it looks like we’re caught, you’ll get out, fast as you can, do you understand?” Unbearable to think of her in Rafi Kasim’s power…
But to his surprise an expression of fury transformed her and she threw off his hands. “I will not! How dare you…” She seemed momentarily bereft of words. But then she hissed, “I did that once before, Jack Sparrow, and by God I’ll never do so again.”
He stared for a moment and then realized she meant the Kraken. “That was different—“
“Never again! ” And she shoved at his chest to emphasize her words.
He scowled at her, for there was no time to argue and suddenly he, too, was furious, Stripped of his insouciance, he snarled, “Bloody, buggering… you infernal… this is what comes of love! ”
But she grinned fiercely, her teeth very white in the dim light, and answered him in kind: “Yes, Jack Sparrow, it bloody buggering is. ”
On to Chapter Four: Flight to the Sea