Princess at Sea (21 page)

“Contessa?” I whispered, lurching to follow her. “It's generally customary that the rescued not harass the rescuer but swallows any insults in the spirit of the moment.”

Her narrow face went worried in the moonlight. “Oh . . .”

The soft glint of steel showed as Jeck put his knife away. “You're free? Why the devil are you still sitting here?”

“Alex,” Contessa breathed, her head turning to their shelter. “We need to cut Alex free.”

A bump leaning against a tree moved. “Here, Contessa,” Alex said out of the dark, and Contessa hiked her skirts up and pushed past Jeck. The relief in her was obvious when she stopped before him, the white of her dress tumbling as she ran her hands over him to make sure his exertions hadn't pulled any mending tears.

Following, I tripped on a root and staggered. I reached for a tree, skinning my palm. Pain raced down my right leg, reverberating back up to my shoulder. I panted through the hurt and said nothing. Jeck paused and looked back. “I'm fine,” I said. “Do you have Duncan?”

“Your thief? No. He's one of them.”

Contessa turned, the white shadow of her dress giving away her position. “He's only pretending so he would be in a better position to get us free.”

My lips parted. She had just told me she didn't trust him. Her eyes in the moonlight flicked to mine, and she shrugged. As I held a tree for balance and waited for the pain to lessen, Jeck pressed into motion. “What about Duncan?” I said, my voice bordering on the unsafe.

The captain of the Misdev guards came to a respectful halt before Alex, and the prince took Contessa's arm. “If you would, sir, please assist Queen Contessa to that tree? I'll be with you directly and show you the way to the boat.”

Alex nodded. “This way, Contessa,” he murmured. “Watch the roots. Here, let me help you with your dress; you've snagged it.”

She glanced back at me once for reassurance, then went with Alex, her mouth shut and her arm supporting him rather than the other way around.

Jeck waited until I hobbled the few steps between us. “You softened her to him?” he said, his low voice almost unheard. “I'm doubly impressed.”

For a moment, I could do nothing but stare, my mouth hanging open.
A second compliment?
Then I shook myself. “Duncan is coming with us.”

The shadow of his head shifted back and forth. “No. I'm here for them only.”

I looked past him to the white shimmer of Contessa, the only giveaway that they were nearby. “We aren't leaving him behind.”

Jeck scoffed deep in his throat. “I'm not going to tiptoe through an enemy camp to find a thief.”

“You chull!” I exclaimed softly, my cheeks warming. “He isn't a thief. He's a cheat, and he helped keep us alive by pretending to join them. I'd be dead if it weren't for him.”

“I'd be willing to wager it was his idea to put you with that punta.”

His voice had a hint of challenge, and my breath caught as I fumbled for words, finally saying, “He didn't know what it was. And he kept them from burying me alive after it bit me.”

Jeck's lips pressed together as if I had confirmed something he already knew, making me even more angry. “I'm not going back for him,” he said.

“You and your damned game,” I whispered, heart pounding and very aware of the royals just out of earshot. “Don't you think of anything or anyone else? Ever? Is that all you live for?” My knees shook from my weakened state, but I wouldn't back down.

“The game is why I'm still alive—apprentice. And you have no right to talk. Do you think I don't know you're going to lie to your master about the extent of your damage so you can stay in the game, risking your life to continue it?”

My heart pounded that he could see through me so easily. He didn't move, but somehow he changed, becoming threatening as his bangs shifted about his eyes. He wasn't much older than me, but he was nearly twice my weight and held twice the wisdom of venom that I had.

Tucking my hair behind my ear, I took a step back, frightened. “Give me your knife,” I demanded. “I'll get him if you think rescuing him is beyond you.”

It wasn't an insult, but it was close. “No.”

“You can't tell me what I can and can't do, Captain,” I said, frustration mixing with my worry for Duncan.
What would they do to him if they found us gone?

“I don't care what you do,” Jeck said. “But I'm not giving you a knife. If they catch you with it, they'll know someone else is on the island and come looking that much sooner.”

“Don't send me in there unprotected!” I said harshly.

Jeck glanced over his shoulder to the white shadow of Contessa's dress. “I'm not sending you anywhere. You want your cheat? Go. I'm not your master to tell you you're being a stupid woman, thinking with your heart instead of your head. I saved your life once because it would have been a foolish waste and it didn't cost me anything. But this?” His dark eyes narrowed, barely visible in the moonlight. “I'm not helping you in this. Our games mesh. They're not the same.”

“Common decency,” I insisted, embarrassed to be arguing with him after the reminder that he saved my life, “not foolishness. And I'm not asking for your help. I'll get him by myself and catch up with you. Where's the dinghy?”

Jeck paused in thought. Slowly he rocked back. “I won't wait. If you're dead set on this, go to the west side of the island. The
Sandpiper
will be off the beach in about ten minutes.”

“Fine.” My breath was fast and shallow. I had told him I didn't need his help, and here I was, unable to stand up without pain. “Could you at least give me a dart? They already found them on me so they won't think anything of it.”

He shook his head. “You aren't my apprentice, and you shouldn't even ask me for it. And if you were my apprentice, I wouldn't. You should be dead from the toxin as you stand there. One more might tip you over the edge.”

He turned to leave, and I reached out, grasping his uniform's coat sleeve and stopping him dead in his tracks. Jeck turned. He looked at my hand on his arm, and I pulled it away, wanting to hide it and feeling as if I'd made a mistake. “Jeck,” I pleaded, thinking of Duncan, “you can't just leave him here. They'll kill him when they find us gone.”

“You want him? You get him,” was all he said, then pushed himself into motion. His steps were soundless, and he vanished so quickly into the dark vegetation that I wondered if he was using his magic to stay unseen. There was a glimmer of gold on his coat sleeve when he pointed the way to Alex, and the swirl of white as Contessa turned.

“Tess?” she called softly, worry heavy in her voice, and I waved at her.

“Go with Captain Jeck,” I whispered. “I'm getting Duncan.”

“But you're not well,” she protested. “Captain Jeck? You get him. Tess can escort us to the boat.”

I glanced at Jeck thinking that she was exactly right, then grabbed my filthy skirts and slogged forward. “You and Alex are more important,” I said as I came even with them, and Jeck's face went impassive. “He'll see to your safety.”
As long as it fits in with his game,
I added bitterly in my thoughts.

“Come on, Contessa,” Alex urged. “Every moment counts.”

Contessa hesitated, her breath held as she balanced. I'd seen that look on her before. It was the same one she wore when Thadd begged her to leave me to face Alex's brother alone, buying them time to shinny down a rope from my old rooms and escape. She had left that time, but I knew she had never forgiven herself.

“Please, Contessa,” I whispered, and she dropped her head.

“Don't be long,” she said. Clearly upset, she turned and helped Alex down the narrow path. I watched them, both relieved and afraid. I could do this alone. I didn't need Jeck's help.

Jeck's dark eyes watched me for a long moment. He took a breath as if to say something, then spun to follow Alex and Contessa. The white of her dress blended into the moonlight, then they were gone.

I steadied myself with a slow breath and headed to the camp, finding myself reaching for my nonexistent dart and topknot. My hair, I realized, was all over the place. Contessa had tried to comb through it today, but I had made her stop as every snarl she found sent waves of hurt to my toes. I had to be a sight, stumbling through the brush with my curls about my ears, my dress ripped and torn, and no shoes. I hadn't seen anything but drinking water for days.

I am concerned about how I look?
I thought, as my toes curled into the cold, grass-rimmed expanse of sand at the edge of the clearing. Pulse pounding, I scanned the unmoving bumps. To walk among them searching for Duncan seemed more frightening than being pushed into the pit with the punta. My head turned to where I had last seen Contessa and Alex.
Maybe Jeck was right.

Swallowing, I turned to the camp with stinking bodies of men sprawled everywhere. The collective breathing and soft sounds of sleep gave the impression of a living beast. I had walked the halls of the palace unnoticed using my venom-induced skills. I could do the same here.

Closing my eyes, I forced my hand from my shoulder and took three slow breaths. To remain unseen was very different from sensing emotions from animals, and because of how Kavenlow had taught me this skill—disguising it as countless games of hide-and-seek—it was very nebulous and I was never sure it was working when I tried to do it intentionally. But Kavenlow said that was the nature of the magic and to trust in myself.

Settled, I reached my thoughts out to touch my magic.

My breath hissed in. Dizziness came from everywhere and nowhere at all. Gasping, I dropped to my knees. My eyes were wide but unseeing as I fought to keep from passing out. I fell forward, one hand on my shoulder, the other clutching at the cold sand.

“God help me,” I panted. Holding my shoulder, I hunched into a kneeling huddle, the tingles of pain my fingers made pressing into healing flesh breaking through the numbness. Slowly the black rim edging my sight faded to leave me shaken.
What, by the Heavens, happened?
Trembling, I looked past my hair to the sleeping men. They hadn't heard me.

It's the bite, I decided, recognizing the sensations of an overdose of venom. Toxin was spilling into my veins, coming from my healing wound. It coursed through me as if I had been bitten an hour ago, not two days. It wasn't my residual levels I was drawing on, it was fresh venom.

A wash of anxiety took me as I knelt in the shadows, a worry that had nothing to do with the men surrounding me. Jeck had said he fixed the toxin in my tissues as he healed my wound, preventing an overdose of venom from killing me. Apparently it wasn't fixed permanently, but subject to being pulled out when I tried to work my magic, sort of like loosening the bandage.

One hand on my shoulder, the other on a tree so I wouldn't fall over, I waited for my body to absorb the venom. My knees shook, and my fingers tingled. I swallowed, trying to find enough spit.
It's just working its way out,
I thought.

Nothing had changed. It might take a little longer to get rid of it, but then everything would be as it was before. Kavenlow would be peeved, but he would wait while the punta venom worked its way out of my tissues. And time would cleanse the excessive residual toxin from me, bringing my levels back to a level where I could safely be a player.

Just a matter of time,
I thought, my heart pounding when I pulled myself up from the sand. I could do this without magic.

Feeling ill and weak, I scanned the drunken, sleeping men. Duncan was likely to be on the outskirts as the newest member and not well liked.
It's his own fault,
I thought while I edged around them, keeping to the shadows where I could. He won at cards and dice too often to make friends. It had been the same on the
Sandpiper.
He never seemed to fit in. Just like me.

Carefully, I edged to a bedroll set well back from the fire. As I had thought, it was Duncan, his long face slack in slumber. His stubble had grown into a decent beard, and it made him look older. I crouched beside him, taking in his brow pinched in a worried dream.
And he cares for me
, I thought as I found a stick to prod him awake. What did that mean to him?

Well out of arm's reach, I pushed on his knee. His breathing shifted only slightly as his eyes flashed open. Never moving, he stared up at the fronds over his head. Slowly his gaze rove over the night, though his head never did. His eyes fell upon me, and they widened. “Tess,” his lips moved, but not a sound came from them.

Smiling, I put a finger to his mouth. My legs ached, and I slowly fell to kneel.

His gaze dropped to my ankle, reddened and showing a trickle of blood where I had nicked it. Easing himself up, his blanket fell to show he was sleeping in his clothes. A lump filled my throat when his hand fell upon my left shoulder and he pulled me closer.

“I knew you would find a way to escape,” he whispered in my ear to send a wash of feeling through me. “You're the smartest woman I've met, Tess. God help me, how could I not love you?”

My throat closed, and I made my eyes wide, refusing to cry. Jeck thought I was foolish, and Duncan thought I was smart. Managing a smile, I rose, beckoning him to follow.

Duncan got to his feet, soundless over the wind in the treetops that failed to reach us below. His hand slipped into mine at the edge of the brush. It was warm and solid, and I unhesitatingly led him farther into the dark. “It gets better,” I said as soon as it was prudent. “Captain Jeck is here. He's going to meet us with Alex and Contessa on the west beach.”