26. Chapter Twenty-Six

"We have to go!" Rahmi yelled, holding his cutlass above his head. Blood streamed from his hairline to his jaw. Though, whether that was from the si"lat"s blood dripping from his blade or an injury of his own, Kalia wasn"t sure. "We"re out of time!"

The tide was still rolling in with no indication that it had begun to slow. The passage back to the ship was flooded.

They were completely and utterly trapped.

Kalia was tired, so tired, as she desperately gazed through the archway the si"lat had slithered through. The oasis beyond was already flooded, the water rising above the palm trees that grew in the cavern. It yawned above them, the blue sky mocking as Kalia"s boots finally left the rock floor. She pressed a weak hand to the ceiling, sputtering against the tide that threatened to drown her where she stood.

"This way!" Rahmi yelled. "We have to get to the si"lat"s lair!"

Kalia needed to swim, but the war with the si"lat stole nearly all of her energy from her. She didn"t bother being careful not to knock her head against the jagged stone above her. The water covered the wide archway now, the slats of sunlight from the cracks in the ceiling doing little to illuminate the passage. Blood swirled from the dead si"lat below her, dyeing the water a deep shade of red. "How?" Kalia croaked back, her voice barely rising above the thunderous roar of the sea.

Rahmi"s eyes darted around before landing where his feet kicked to keep him afloat. He looked up at her, his jaw set in determination. "Do you trust me?"

"I— what?"

"You have to trust me, ruehi," Rahmi said. There were mere inches left in the passage, and Kalia had to angle her head to keep her mouth and nose above the water.

Her neighbor, a close family friend, had said those very words to her when he caught her using her power as a small child. You have to trust me. He had given her family over to the guards instead. But now…there wasn"t any time. She could put her life in Rahmi"s hands, or she could accept her death.

Terror flared to life inside of her, a mindless entity that she had no control over. Kalia chose not to focus on it. Instead, she centered on the flecks of amber brown in his eyes, the curve of his nose, and the curl of his wet hair. Her swallow was thick. And, finally, despite the hesitation screaming inside of her, she nodded.

Rahmi wasted no time as he grabbed her hand, tugging her toward the oasis.

"What are you—" Kalia began to ask, but she was able to suck in one final deep breath before the captain dragged her beneath the surface.

The roaring of the sea calmed to a muffle, the brine painfully stinging the minor cuts on her head from where she had scraped it against the ceiling. Swirling bubbles and salt and the current pulled her in one direction in the cavern and then the other. Still, Rahmi"s hand remained tightly bound with hers.

He kicked downward, and Kalia spotted the si"lat through the rippling waters, the orb still secured around her neck. Rahmi tugged her through the cavern"s opening before he turned up, hurried strokes and kicks surging them toward the glittering surface.

Kalia"s boots were heavy and saturated, but she championed her legs further despite her exhaustion. Her clothes threatened to drag her down, but Rahmi"s steady guidance kept her from sinking to the bottom. Her lungs had just begun to prickle, a heavy sensation settling onto her chest when she broke through the top of the water with a gulping gasp for fresh air.

Rahmi"s breaths were heaving. She watched as he shook the locks of loose hair from his eyes, dragging a hand down his face to clean the droplets from his lashes.

"You—you—" Kalia began, but the words failed her. He had undoubtedly saved her, just like he said he would. Something in her heart shook loose, a freeing lightness she hadn"t felt in a long time.

"We"ll get the NightWatcher during low tide. Right now, we have to find somewhere to rest. We can"t spend all our energy keeping us afloat," Rahmi said, ignoring her gaze as he looked around. "There"s got to be an opening, ah— there it is."

Kalia glanced in the direction of his stare. The oasis was a natural sinkhole in the limestone cliffs, where the cavern system"s ceiling collapsed long ago. Curtains of stalactites hung from the edge of the opening, in stark contrast to the stone against the bright, blue sky. Greenery decorated the walls, vegetation that dipped its long vines into the water.

He had already begun to swim away from her, and she quickly followed, rippling the surface that had already started to settle.

"How long is high tide?" Kalia asked as they reached an opening in the wall where the rising tides and battering winds had carved a small cave.

Rahmi sunk beneath the water, and, with a pinch of surprise, Kalia felt his hand under the sole of her boot, pitching her out of the sea and into the cave. She quickly planted her hands onto the rock and rolled into the cave, water sluicing from her shirt and dripping into pools at her feet. Rahmi followed on her heels, dropping his cutlass onto the cave floor before pushing himself out of the tidewater.

Kalia stared out at the flooded oasis, where the sea had covered the tide pools and palm trees completely.

"Six hours or so," Rahmi finally answered, tearing off the scarf that covered his hair to wring the excess water onto the floor. "And that"s if we get lucky that the si"lat"s sisters don"t return from their hunt in the meantime."

Kalia swallowed, glancing back at Rahmi, who had stripped his tunic over his head and laid it flat against the sliver of afternoon light that warmed the stone. Corded muscle, built from centuries of working on the sea, and sun-kissed skin covered his core. She looked away just as her mouth dried.

No, she would not do this.Her ears strained as she tried to hear any indication that the si"lat sisters swam just under the surface, quieting her still-labored breathing to listen for the swish of a scaled tail or the scrape of talons against the rock. The cavern was silent, save for the lapping of water against the cliff walls and the occasional brush of the vines against stone.

"And we better hope the si"lat sisters don"t return while we"re here," Rahmi"s voice echoed from deeper in the cave, his tone light despite the worry that still punctuated it.

Kalia turned around to ask why, but the reason was evident as soon as her gaze dropped to what lay at Rahmi"s feet. Piles of bones littered the cave, fractured skulls and dried sinew, all etched with the gouge marks that matched those terrible fangs of the si"lat. Rats and fish and birds and a few that looked uncomfortably human, each bearing the same clue that they had been subjected to a horrifically messy death.

She tasted the rising fear in the back of her throat as she took slow steps toward Rahmi, as though she couldn"t help the draw of her body to his. The heat of his skin sunk into hers as she stopped next to him, staring down at the bones. She had seen piles of dead bodies before, most of them gray and mottled from days in the sun following their executions. For a brief moment, she wondered if this was all that was left of her mother and brother, both having been buried in the desert sands outside of the city walls.

"You should remove your clothing as well," Rahmi said through the silence, kicking his boots off and leaving them against the cave wall. "To dry, I mean. Once the sun sinks below the cavern"s opening, the wetness against your skin will reduce your ability to maintain your body temperature. At best, you"ll catch a cold."

Kalia opened her mouth to debate the truth of his statement, knowing that one didn"t get sick that way, but stopped herself. He was padding away from her, his bare feet whispering against the stone floor and the muscles of his back and shoulders rolling with every step. Seeing him like this, the casual way he bent down to flip his tunic over, how he scraped his hair from his brow…it was intimate.

She suddenly felt at odds with herself, witnessing something that she shouldn"t be and unable to tear herself away. She inhaled a breath, allowing it to fill her chest before slowly letting it out. Lifting her gaze from Rahmi"s back, her cheeks flushed when she realized he had been watching her over his broad shoulder, his eyes shadowed with something unreadable.

"What are you thinking about, ruehi?" Rahmi asked softly. He slowly walked back toward her as though he were afraid spooking her would send her scurrying back into the water behind him. His feet rasped against the stone, just another reminder that he was half-dressed and looking as though he wanted the same from her.

"I"m glad you"re not dead," Kalia whispered as he approached, halting just shy of a collision. "Would have been a shame to have the opportunity taken from me."

Rahmi huffed a laugh as he reached toward her, his fingers delicately grabbing the hem of her tunic. He untucked it from the waistband of her breeches, and she grew feverish from the mere graze of his fingertips against her hips. "I"m glad you"re not dead, too. Would have been a shame to return to the ship without you."

Kalia"s gasp hitched in her throat as his hands covered her waist, the rough callouses biting and scraping at her too-tight skin. His touch was unhurried and methodical, unyieldingly concise. Just like him. His hands inched up, pulling the hem of her shirt with them, but his eyes never left hers. Not even for a second. He was waiting— for a confirmation, for a denial, Kalia didn"t know.

"You don"t want this," she reminded him quietly. "I"m a mistake in the long lines of the ones you"ve already made."

Rahmi"s hands wrapped around her back, fingers dancing along her skin. "And you were going to forget the moment it was—" He stopped, his hands motionless along her flesh. Kalia closed her eyes. She knew what he found there. He had known they were there, but she was sure he had never seen them for himself.

Kalia managed to still even further as he rounded her body, pulling the tunic further up her shoulders. She had never been more aware of her scars until that moment. She had never felt them pull at her skin so tightly, had never so badly wanted to erase those crisscrossed lines from her back. There was a reason she never let other men see her undressed. The ugly comments that followed were a knife that pierced her heart.

Rahmi"s breath seemed to slow, though Kalia realized it had only gone shallow. "Who did this to you?" The question wasn"t a question but a surprising command. An angry one, at that. The orders that he spouted usually ground on her. She seemed to be okay with this one.

It took a moment to clear the lump from her throat, but he never covered her. Never shied away from the truth that lay there. "The madam knew what she wanted," Kalia answered simply. "And what she wanted was a child who never talked back." She opened her eyes to stare into the oasis, the water lapping gently against the stone walls. She focused on it and willed it to calm her.

Rahmi made a noise that she couldn"t discern. "Why answer to her? She— you—" He paused to sigh, and his fingertips traced the thickest one that spanned her flesh. "You"re powerful, ruehi."

"I was young," Kalia replied, not quite allowing the bite to stray from her tone. "I was afraid of her. Of who she knew and what she could do. I was brought to the bordello to influence the men who came, to force them into choosing a woman and spending their coin. I was never— I didn"t—"

Rahmi was quiet for a long minute, long enough that she had to glance over her shoulder to see if he was still standing there. His eyes were glossed, cast in shadows created by the marching sun. She was afraid to look into them, sure that she didn"t want to know what was lying there—pity, sadness, or —worse yet—kindness.

She drew up the ounce of courage that remained and lifted her gaze. She found understanding, she found empathy, but she also found rage. And darkness.

"I don"t look at these and see a scared child," Rahmi nearly spat, though she knew the anger wasn"t directed at her. "I see resilience. I see strength. And I see a cavern of cleverness that only the survivors of this world can bear."

Then he did something Kalia never expected. He bent down and pressed his lips on every puckered scar. He kissed each one of them as though he savored the feeling of his flesh against hers, as though he could heal each one if only he kept going. Her eyes closed again, but it wasn"t out of fear this time.

Rahmi"s lips came free of her back, and the delicate touch of his hands evolved into something that resembled fiery need. She twisted around in his arms, winding a hand around the back of his head to pull him down toward her. Mouth met mouth. Tongue danced against tongue. Heat and pleasure and roaming hands swirled together in a sensual game that she was desperate to play with him.

Kalia knew they were emotionally incompatible on the best of days and lethally so on the worst. Yet, she was finding it harder and harder to stay away.

"Let me touch you," Rahmi murmured, his words fanning against the shell of her ear. One of his hands gripped her hair, the other slid to her lower back and pulled her against him. His hard cock pressed against her belly. "Let me taste you." The words weren"t a command or an order but a plead.

Kalia said nothing as she reached between them to grip the hem of her still-soaked shirt, pulling it over her head before letting it fall to the floor with a loud splat. Her hands found the crook of his neck, her bare breasts scrapped against his chest. Rahmi"s tongue licked a path from her ear down to the base of her throat, nipping at the hollow of her collarbones before moving down to swirl a lazy circle around her nipple.

"Please," Kalia said breathily as his fingers hooked into the waistband of her sea-sopped breeches. She didn"t even know what she was begging for, just that he would do it.

Rahmi"s chuckle ghosted against her abdomen as he slowly pulled the breeches over her hips, exposing her legs to the stinging cool air. Kalia didn"t care, not as her fingers threaded in his hair and not as he planted open-mouthed kisses down her thigh. He lifted one foot before the other, pulling the breeches from around her ankles and discarding them haphazardly on top of the tunic.

"Beautiful," he murmured as he looked up the length of her body, their eyes connecting between the valley of her breasts. "So fucking beautiful."

Kalia moaned as his hands moved up her legs, as his fingers slid into the slit between her thighs. By the groan he made at the back of his throat, she knew that he found her wet. Her head tipped back, her hair brushing against her shoulders. Everything was too sensitive, everything too tight. She nearly found herself rubbing her thighs together just for the friction.

Rahmi tugged her down as he collapsed onto his back, pulling her down until she was straddling his hips, her sex against his taut core. Gods, he felt good now. How would he feel in a few minutes? She was desperate to know. Sliding against the stone floor, Rahmi shifted further down until her knees bracketed his head, his mouth positioned directly below the meeting of her thighs.

His arms threaded around her waist, her breath coming in sharp pants as he spread her knees further, forcing her down onto his face. She shuddered as he blew against her and went molten when he did it again. One hand reached up to tweak her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, a predator playing with his prey. Kalia looked down at him to find his darkened eyes peering up at her.

Rahmi was male arrogance, dominant and unforgiving. And it was when his tongue first swiped against her sex, his fingers digging into the flesh of her hips to yank her closer to him, that she knew he was controlled and yet wildly raw. And, gods, it was Rahmi.

"Do you like how you feel when my tongue is against you?" Rahmi asked, stoking another low moan from Kalia that echoed off the stone walls. His tongue swirled again, dipping inside of her before he sucked on her clit. "When I taste you?" He groaned again, lifting his head to curl his tongue against her front wall. "Fuck, Kalia, you"re delicious."

Kalia reached down to touch herself, to run her forefinger along her clit, but he grabbed her wrist with the hand that had been cupping her breast. "Do your best to make me come then," she said, quirking a brow toward him. "I won"t make it so easy this time."

Rahmi"s eyes flashed at the pose of her challenge, and his question came out as a growl when he asked, "Did you think about my fingers inside of you? Did you make yourself come wishing it was me?"

Kalia watched his fingers brush against her clit, play on her belly, circle her nipple. He was mapping her body, studying it to learn exactly what made her moan and mewl and grind against him. His tongue licked her again, this time slow and methodical. "Would you like it if I did?" The words tumbled out of her.

She could picture the savage smirk that curved against her sex just by the crinkle at the corners of his eyes. It sent a shock of pleasure barreling up her spine. Kalia leaned back to brace her hands against the tops of his thighs, the angle allowing her to sink further onto his mouth, keeping him from replying. From the way he devoured her, he didn"t seem to mind.

The pleasure in her core built and built as she rolled her sex against his tongue, as he sucked and licked and panted against her. And it was just as that pleasure was on the verge of tipping into oblivion when he grabbed her waist and flipped them over, careful to keep her from crashing against the stone.

Rahmi"s eyes flashed wide as her knees fell open, inviting and pleading. Kalia propped herself onto her elbows to watch and challenge him, but his stare remained on her. "I"ve thought about nothing except how you would feel," he said, slowly tugging on the strings that held his breeches in place. "For weeks now. It"s driven me to the brink of madness. And still?" He paused as his breeches fell from his hips, his cock springing free. Her pulse thrummed with anticipation as he wrapped a hand around the thick shaft, pumping it twice while watching her with a predator"s intent. "I"m going to hold myself back so I can ruin you. Again and again and again."

Kalia bit her lip to keep from moaning, and his gaze lifted to her face, his eyes darting around to graph the pleasure he undoubtedly found etched there. He knelt between her thighs, just enough that her hips cradled his, and traced a path through her opening with the tip of his cock.

"Don"t be gentle," Kalia said, reaching forward to pinch his chin with her forefinger and thumb. "Don"t be—"

A moaning cry cut off her words as Rahmi thrust into her, spreading her and filling her in a melding pinch of pleasure and pain. Her back bowed from the stone at the toe-curling feel of him. He roughly slid his length back until he was almost free of her, white-hot lust burning the depths of his brown eyes, before pistoning into her again. His mouth met hers, and Kalia tasted the saltiness on her tongue.

The kiss was taunting and primal. Kalia raised her hand to thread her fingers through his hair, tugging his head back until he moaned with his mix of pain and pleasure. She raggedly inhaled as he picked up speed, thrusting into her with steadfast and merciless rolls of his hips.

"I"ve done terrible things in my life," Rahmi panted when he tore his lips away from hers, reaching down to grip one hip while pressing the rough pad of his thumb against her clit. He watched where they met with rapt attention, plunging into her again and again. The gleam in his eye spurred her on and spiraled within her until it threatened to consume her whole. "But my biggest feat will be knowing that I"ve fucked you so well that no one else will compare. That you"ll only think of me when another man is inside of you."

That pressure began to build again, harder and more intense this time. "Don"t come," she said to him, feeling him thicken inside of her. "Don"t think about the way I feel or—" Her jab came to a choked cry as that blistering pressure finally released, sending carnal waves crashing through every taut muscle of her body. It took minutes, perhaps even years, for her body to come down. But when she finally did, her slick body was limp and boneless, dripping sweat onto the cave floor.

"That"s my good girl," Rahmi said as he stilled, his thumb still tracing lazy circles around her clit. Another wave of pleasure crested through her, stoking a moan that echoed off the stone. "Come for me, ruehi."

Rahmi pulled out of her, replacing his cock with his tongue, licking up the release she had glistening there. Kalia mewled, the over-sensitivity of his tongue against her, causing her to jump. She grabbed a chunk of his hair, pulling it to the point that she thought she would cause him pain. He only chuckled, his laugh fanning against her sex before he nipped her inner thigh. She could only imagine how throbbing his cock was, how he hadn"t come quite yet.

"Did you think we were finished?" Rahmi asked her, flipping her onto her front. He plunged two fingers inside of her, and Kalia"s eyes rolled into the back of her head. "I want you ruined. And that"s where I"ll have you."