13. Chapter Thirteen

Gods, he needed this.

Rahmi glanced down through lust-filled, hooded eyes to see the crown of Cora"s head, her dark locks tied back in a knot. She moaned, the sound vibrating his cock.

Cora looked up at him from her kneeled position on the rug, her cheeks hollowed and her lips shining as they pistoned around him. Rahmi grabbed the back of her head, forcing her deeper. It only made her moan louder. Gods, yes. Today had been a bitch. He needed this.

"What are you doing?" The sharp voice was undoubtedly Alaric"s as it echoed through the passage leading to Rahmi"s private quarters. "Stop with the bears—" There was a soft chuckle, a mocking one that Rahmi had more than enough of in the last few hours. "You can"t go in there. The captain is busy."

The sudden set of voices made Cora jolt, and she began to turn her head to glance at the closed door, but Rahmi intercepted her. Placing two fingers onto her cheek, he guided her mouth back to his cock. She happily obliged, though her gaze remained wary and unsure.

"Eyes on me," he commanded, tipping his head back. "What goes on in my office is none of your concern."

Cora"s replying smirk promised filthy things, and she took him even deeper than she had a moment before. This time, it was Rahmi who let out a groan of satisfaction. He imagined sinking into her heat, thrusting into her until she cried out…screamed his name… It had been some time since he took Cora to his bed. He half-wondered if he should pick her up and sling her onto the mattress now.

"You can"t—"

Footsteps stormed down the hallway just before the door swung open, the brass knob banging loudly against the opposite side of the wall. Rahmi"s head whipped up, his hand remaining on Cora"s cheek to keep her in place. She lapped at his cock, her tongue swirling around the tip. She hadn"t seemed to notice who entered the room.

Kalia"s brow rose in surprise, her eyes darting down to Cora, to Rahmi"s exposed cock, and then back up to his face. Where he would have expected any other woman to turn away in embarrassment, Kalia merely leaned against the door framing and crossed her arms over her chest, watching intently. She had changed since leaving the brig, the wool skirts and stays doing her figure no favors. She still managed to wear it like armor.

Cora moaned again.

"Well, well, well," Kalia said, pushing herself off the framing and sauntering forward. "Isn"t this a delight?" The gleam in her eye was gleeful, bordering menacing.

Cora pulled herself off Rahmi"s cock with a soft pop, her eyes widening. Cora narrowed her focus onto Kalia, leveling her with a territorial stare that Rahmi knew Kalia had no interest in staking a claim to. Rahmi cursed under his breath. What he didn"t need right now was this. He jumped as Cora planted her lips back onto him, sucking with a renewed enthusiasm that was quickly nearing pain.

"Do you need some tips?" Kalia asked as she reached Cora, a hand lifting to stroke the woman"s hair. Rahmi watched Cora shiver, her skin unexpectedly pebbling. "I would be happy to oblige." She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, her lips parting as that gleeful gleam turned lethal once more at the sight of his half-hard cock. "Seems you may have lost his interest. May I suggest—"

"Just ignore her, Cora," Rahmi began to say, though he trailed off with a grunt as Cora"s teeth scraped over his shaft. "She"s just pissed that she"s been outwitted, and there"s nowhere for her to go now that she"s on my ship."

Rahmi tipped his head back once more. He could do this, even with Kalia in the room. He just needed to focus. Cora. Cora"s cunt. Cora"s wet heat around his—

A startling vision panged to the forefront of his mind. He opened his eyes to find himself still in his private cabin, but something was…decidedly wrong. The colors were too bright, the edges of his furniture blurring enough that they appeared fuzzy against the backdrop of the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the wake of his ship. His eyes threatened to roll to the back of his head as another full draw on his cock nearly made him come right then. He glanced down, expecting to find Cora looking up through her thick lashes at him. Instead, he saw—

"A troll?" Rahmi asked, placing his hands on the thorned, green shoulders of the creature and forcing it from his dick. It grinned up at him, toothless and heady. It tried to scramble forward, shuffling noisily through its snout-like nose as Rahmi took several steps back. He shot an annoyed glare at Kalia, who had fixed an innocent expression on her face. "Get out of my head, ruehi." She had some fucking nerve. And the largest set of balls he had ever seen.

Kalia canted her head, an icy look passing over her innocent expression. "It would be so easy to kill you in here."

Rahmi stepped forward, nearly trodding on the troll in the process, and raked a hand toward Kalia. All he got was a fistful of salty air. It was so real.

"You"re going to take me back to shore," Kalia said from across the room with a quiet fury, leaning a casual shoulder against the window. The sun beamed through the glass panes, lighting an ethereal glow around her silhouette. "And you"re going to let me return home. You and your crew have had your laugh."

Rahmi dug into the recesses of his memory and ripped it away from her. She let out a pointed gasp as they both fell into a darkness of his own making.

Rahmi opened his eyes, staring toward the ceiling. He was back in reality, everything around him distinctly clearer and crisper. He sat up, shaking the dizziness from his mind. It had been a long time since anyone had gotten the jump on him, and he was going to make sure it didn"t happen again. He sat up, glaring toward the woman who had collapsed near the windows, her silky sheet of hair fanned above her head.

"Don"t fuck with me," Rahmi growled as he stood, reaching over to his bed to snatch the pair of breeches he had absent-mindedly thrown there. "Go," he spat to Cora.

She didn"t need telling twice. At least one person in the room listened to him.

"It"s easiest when you"re distracted," Kalia said, any trace of that menacing smirk fading from her lips. It was replaced with a tight glare, her jaw ticking with the effort to swallow back whatever it was she wanted to say. She pushed herself up, smoothing out her skirt with an easy brush of her hand. "And I"m sure I"ll have another go at you soon." She paused to slide her gaze down to his cock, now limp and hanging precariously between his thighs. "It won"t take me long."

The djinn was reckless…an unchecked force for evil that Rahmi hadn"t quite expected. He knew better now. There was a wicked, dangerous storm lurking just under her skin. He might not be able to fight her how he was accustomed to, but he reveled in the challenge of figuring out what made her tick. This was a game he could play, a game he could win.

Rahmi tugged his breeches on, tying the laces into place. His eyes never left hers, brown boring into green. "And what if I refuse?" he asked, changing his demeanor to swagger toward her. She blinked, her brow knitting just enough to tell him that he had successfully caught her off guard and wrestled that control away from her if even just an inch. He was within a breath of her now, and he watched her hair flutter with every puff of air from between his lips. "What if I keep you on this ship of mine? Force you to do my bidding? What then, djinn?"

Rahmi had backed her into a corner, and he knew by the cold flash of her eyes and the flare of her nostrils that she was not used to her back being against a wall. She reached between them, her fingers dipping into the folds of her thick skirts. Her hand withdrew, a brass embossed letter opener pointed at him, one that he knew had been snagged from his desk in his office. He was going to have to lock every damn door on this ship if she was going to keep finding things to use as weapons against him.

Kalia pressed the knifelike tip into his sternum, and he felt the prick of it against his flesh. "I don"t think you understand your position, captain."

Rahmi could feel his stare melt into one of glassy annoyance. He opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it and stopped himself short. His shoulders stiffened with the effort to remain quiet, and he found himself counting to ten if only to keep from wringing her neck. He even calculated how pissed she may get if he tossed her in the brig again. He briefly wondered if it would be worth the trouble.

That is until a growing, overly confident smile replaced the sneer that had taken residence on her face. "That"s a good boy," she crooned, a simmering satisfaction clouding the air.

Rahmi decided to remain quiet, instead allowing his actions to speak for themselves. He lurched forward and impaled himself on the letter opener, burying the dull blade to the handle. Brass scraped against bone, and he barely managed to stifle the grimace of pain, but seeing her mouth fall open and hearing her shaky, shallow breathing was victory enough.

"That"s the second time you"ve come at me with a blade," Rahmi said, taking a step closer to her as he reached up to wrench the letter opener from his chest. Kalia stood her ground, though he didn"t miss the tremble of her shoulders. "It isn"t going to happen again." He let the opener clatter to the ground, the sound dulled against the rug.

A measure of resolve darkened her eyes, and, for a long minute, Rahmi thought the shock had won. In the next breath, Kalia tilted her chin up to better look at him, and her initial surprise had been swept away by determination.

"You"re a specter, a curse." She didn"t pose it as a question. "Turns out I have heard of you after all. Rumors of your existence have traveled with the sailors for as long as I was at the bordello." She huffed a laugh. "I didn"t think they were true."

The casual hint in her tone took him by surprise. Most people were drowning in their fear at the near mention of him. He had hoped that she would as well.

"Are you scared of me now, ruehi?" Rahmi asked, taking one final step forward. It was enough to close the gap between them that his chest brushed against hers when he took his next deep breath. "You should be. I"ve been collecting souls for centuries now. It"s only a matter of time before I also claim yours."

"I"ve met many monsters," Kalia replied, side-stepping him and aiming for the cabin door. "You"re going to have to try harder than that." That shit-eating smirk reappeared, and she threw it over her shoulder at him. "And all I"ll be able to think about now is the mighty cursed captain with the troll on its knees before him. You might want to get your cock checked the next time we port. You never know what types of diseases are carried these days. I"m sure you would be very unhappy if it fell off."

Rahmi watched her closely, attempting to find any crack in her hard-owned veneer. She had shut himself off to him, and rightfully so. It still didn"t edge away the frustration that bit at him. "I ordered you onto my ship for a reason," he shot at her back. She paused, placing a hand on the door frame. "Or has your curiosity disappeared with your need for the last word?"

Kalia tapped a red-painted fingernail against the wood. "Why?"

Dark clouds had begun to gather on the horizon, casting the sun in shadow and smearing the sky in a gray sheen. Footsteps made their way down the narrow hall and stopped nearly halfway to Rahmi"s cabin before turning around and creeping away. Muffled shouts echoed from the deck, the faraway hauling of ropes against sails drumming a rhythmic beat into the charged, heavy air. A storm was coming. Rahmi was sure of it.

He crossed the room, navigating around the locked chest at the foot of his bed and the well-used armchair, where an overturned book was perched on the seat. He placed a hand on the door above her head and pushed it closed. It clicked into place, dousing them in silence. "I"m hunting for a gemstone that a djinn can power. You"re going to help me find it."

Kalia stilled for a moment before spinning on the balls of her feet, the scent of nutmeg and cinnamon on the phantom breeze she created. "That"s presumptuous of you. I have no interest."

"You"re going to tell me where to find it."

"You would get further in life if you weren"t so demanding." She leaned against the door, hooking one ankle over the other.

"I"ve gotten this far in life being demanding. There"s no reason for me to stop now." It was an effort, and a concentrated one, not to throttle her. He needed her, as much as that thought pained him more than the self-inflicted stab wound that throbbed in his chest. Rahmi listened to the soft tsk of her nail scratching against the wood pattern of the door. "This is non-negotiable, ruehi. If you disagree, you will be on this ship for a very long time. I have time to wait. You, on the other hand—" He trailed off and was pleased to see that she was smart enough not to argue immediately. Thank fucking Liddros for that.

And as though Kalia could read his mind, her lips twitched upward. She weighed his stare. "How do you think you would fare as a beetle, captain?" she purred. "Do you think your men would listen to you then?"

Rahmi"s growl of displeasure was drowned out by the turn of a knob and the squeaking of a door. Kalia had reached behind her back, peeling the door open. She slipped from the room before he had time to reply, and he told himself he had let her go. She might be venom incarnate, but he would survive her. He remembered what Alaric had said when he arrived with her in tow back to his ship. How she had been trying to help the others, how she had put herself directly in the middle of the conflict.

She was certainly obstinate, but he would break her of it.

A wry, involuntary smile split Rahmi"s lips. An idea sparked. And he knew what he had to do.