Queen of the Sky Frontier - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Eden stepped gratefully into her own cabin aboard the Cacafuego. Here the cold sunlight was transformed to warmth as it beamed through the wide windows, casting a golden shine over her bed and the ranked weapons on the wall. Swords, bayonets, and knives glittered in the light beside the tattered remains of Captain Dire's battle flag.

Belial came in behind her, as if he belonged here - which he in fact did, as this had been his cabin until she'd taken it from him, though he slept in here often enough as it was. He closed the door and unbuckled his swordbelt, hung it on a peg. "You don't want me to break in the new recruits? I've experience of this sort of thing."

Eden smiled, unbuckling her own belt. There were times when the sword and pistol weighed heavy on her. She looked down and saw blood on her boots and found it strange she was still not accustomed to it. After nearly six months of bloodshed and violence, she still hated the sight of blood.

"No," she said, sitting on the bed and laying her belt on the chest at the foot. "I will need them cowed. Zenobia will do that better than you. Besides, if I'm to take that ship, we'll split crews - half the old crew, half new men. You can have the rest and you'll have all the time you need to manage them."

She tugged at her boot and he came over, took her foot in his hands and pulled it off himself. Eden smiled and leaned back on her hands, held her other leg up for him to reach. "I'll need to rename that ship though. Something more piratical."

"Bad luck to rename a ship," he said, pulling off her other boot.

"Unless you re-christen it with blood," she said. "Wine was always a poor approximation."

"So," Belial said, trailing his hand up her calf, feeling the skin under her breeches. "I am to be capitan again?"

She laughed. "Two ships are better than one, don't you think? This ship was always too small for both of us."

"There are times I found that true," he said. He leaned over her, her legs to either side of him as he bent down and kissed her. His finger traced the thin scar up her left cheek, the scar he himself had given her. "Other times it seemed. . . cozy." His fingers moved down her shirt, flicking her buttons open. "You would trust me out of your sight?"

"For now, our purposes are in accord," Eden murmured against his mouth. "We both want to rule the Brethren, but first they must be united. Until we reach the day they are, I can trust you completely."

"Sometimes I think you need to be a bit more cynical, little paraisa," he said, sliding her shirt open to reveal her small breasts.

"You know what I need," she said. "Now give it to me."

With a low growl he pinned her down, pulled her shirt from her body and nipped at her chin, making her gasp. He reached for the bedpost and took down the stout iron slave collar fixed to the supple chain Eden chose herself. With his rough strength he rolled her onto her belly and held her down. He brushed her hair away from her neck almost tenderly, kissed the skin of her nape.

The collar was cold against her skin as he slid it into place and snapped the hasp shut, imprisoning her. His weight held her down, and no trick or ruse would dislodge him. He straddled her thighs and she felt his cock hard against her ass, straining inside his breeches. He breathed in her ear and she let out a long sigh, feeling herself go pliant and electric, alive to every sensation.

He turned the leash twice around his fist and she shivered. "You remember the first time I took you?" he breathed in her ear.

"Yes," she moaned, squirming uncontrollably.

"I said I would keep you as a pet, chained to the post of my bed." He jerked the chain and she yelped, panting hard already. Battle always whetted her desire. "I still mean to do so," he growled and she shuddered.

His hand reached around and unbuttoned her breeches, pulled them roughly down her legs until she was naked under him, feeling small and deliciously helpless. His free hand roamed over her skin, his calluses hard and rough on her tender back and flanks. His fingers slipped between her thighs and she arched and gasped when he pushed two fingers inside her. She hadn't felt her own wetness until he invaded her and then she did feel it, her juices running down her thighs, tickling as they went.

Eden pushed her hips up, raising herself for him, eyes closed as she panted for breath. Belial yanked the chain and she cried out, arched up with her head lifted and her ass hiked as high as she could manage. "You like that don't you?"

"Yes. Yes oh God." She knotted her fists in the sheet, wriggled her hips against him feverishly. He would not fuck her until she came on his fingers, as per her own orders, and just now she hated herself for that.

"Yes what esclava?" He yanked the chain again, making the slave collar bite hard against her neck and she whimpered.

"Yes I want to be your slave," she panted, wanting to say it louder but unable to catch her breath.

He drove his fingers hard inside her, digging against the sensitive spot she could never reach herself. The sound of his fingers churning in her wetness was obscene, the smell of her own desire making her burn with the humiliation of it. Her toes curled as she rubbed her ankles together, bit her lip and shuddered.

"Want to be?" Belial said, his voice rough. "Or you are?"

"I am," she whimpered, unable to help herself, past caring. "I'm your slave ah!" She let out a half-scream as her climax hit her, hard and twisting in her belly. She sagged but he held her up with the collar, restricting her breath, making her struggle and wheeze for air as she jerked and shivered through her pleasure.

He pushed her facedown in the sheet and she felt his weight shift as he undid his own breeches. His cock brushed her thigh, and then he shifted again and slid into her, hard and deep and all of him. She felt the little trickle of her juices forced out of her and down her leg, the little hard bead of the gold ring in his cock as he slid into her, drew back, then slid in again.

She moaned long and languid, arching to push her hips up against him, take him all. He had his fist on the bed next to her face, the chain from her leash wrapped around it as he pumped in and out of her. He was so much bigger and heavier than her, his strokes jolted right to her shoulders, forced the breath out of her.

He knew what she wanted, took her hard without a pause, grabbed her hair and pulled her back against him. Eden bit the sheet and made an awful sound through her teeth as she came again, felt fresh wetness spill down her thighs. Belial's breathing was hard and raw, his strokes losing rhythm, and then he buried himself and grunted. She gasped as she felt him throb inside her, spilling in her depths. She worked her hips against him, savoring each pulse of his cock until there were no more, and he leaned over her, catching his breath.

As always, Eden felt a little pall of shame afterward - the things she said, the things he said because she told him to, the way she craved it. In the moment, it was like a switch she could never quite press hard enough, but after she always felt ashamed. It was less, now, than it had been. Less but still there.

Belial drew out of her, gentle, his hand warm on her naked back. She sighed and rolled onto her flank, the collar biting into her neck. She undid the hasp and he took it off her, set it aside, the chain puddling beside it. Belial lay back next to her, his pants still around his thighs and his cock shiny as it lay across his thigh. She remembered how terrifyingly huge it had once looked to her. She wanted to stroke it but refrained, knowing that he did not like to be touched after.

They both started as the door was booted open and Zenobia came striding in from the outer cabin, trailing chilly air with her. Her buffalo robe was draped over her shoulders, parted in front to show off her naked, rounded belly. She put her hands to her hips and looked them both over. "Are you through with your games now? We have important things to decide now and I am tired of listening to you squeak, ratoncita."

Eden sat up and scooted back so she could lean against the pillows heaped at the head. "What is on your mind, beast? Are the crews seen to?"

"En verdad," the tiger-woman said. She prowled the room, threw her robe over a chair and flopped down in it. She was a big woman, all long legs and bunched shoulder muscles, her tits jutting out even more heroically than usual due to her condition. "I have them divided up." She looked at Belial, gestured. "You are going to trust this cabron with his own ship again?"

Belial scoffed. "You wound me tigresa, after all the fine times we have had." He shook his cock at her and she sneered.

"Don't shake your carajo at me you bribon. It is because of that I am like this now." She swatted her enlarged belly.

Belial laughed, pulled his pants up and sat on the edge of the bed. His hair was coming loose from the ribbon and he untied it, set to pulling it back tight. "Let us be fair, that could be anyone's pepita sprouting in there. Is there a man on my crew you haven't boarded?"

"Vete la Mierda, you prick. Who else here would have the strength in their cojones to take root in me?" Zenobia took a bottle of rum from the cabinet and drank. "Damn Laclos to the abismo, he told me I would never carry a child, and I was glad enough for that."

"Laclos was wrong about many things," Eden said, not taking her friend's ranting seriously. "He said you were uncontrollable, that you would go mad." She shrugged. "All the others like me went mad and had to be killed. So far, I do not seem to be insane."

"You are not pregnant either," Zenobia pointed out.

"No. Praetorius said I would not be able to bear children." She was quiet, looked down at herself and touched her flat belly. "Perhaps he was right."

Zenobia adjusted herself in the chair, hung her leg over the arm. "Eh, well, the little cagada had better be born with his cock in his hand and a thirst for good bebida or he's no son of mine." She took another drink. "Where do we sail? More hunting?"

Eden shook her head. "Time we headed West again, we've been out here too long, and we can't afford to be boxed in." She gestured. "That ship changes things."

"Because it is new?" Belial said. He shrugged. "The man could have been wealthy, bought it himself."

Eden shook her head again. "No, he had a gold tooth and his accent was New England shoreline. He was no rich man, he had a backer who paid for the ship on promise of a share. The privateers are getting better funded, and that will mean the end of ships like this one." She patted the headboard.

Belial snorted. "Their crews are still shit."

"Yes, but the very act of hunting down and killing them weeds out the weak ones," Eden said. "If we keep pressure on them, they will keep improving until they are good enough. It's only a matter of time." She was silent for a moment, and they both watched her without speaking. They knew the look on her face meant she was making some kind of calculation with that Experimental brain of hers.

"No," she said, as if to herself. "We need a new approach. New tactics. I have to see what will come next."

"Back to El Dorado?" Belial said.

Eden nodded. "For you, yes. Zenobia and I will stop at Bagdad first and pick up Theo and Sally. But I want you to go direct. Let them think I have lost my hold over you, and then see who offers you what."

He smiled. "You want to see who you have to worry about?"

"I want to know who's in play," Eden said, her gaze still faraway. "I can't know the game if I can't see all the pieces. The city is a pile of volatile alliances and marriages of convenience. The fools just want to get to the top of the pile, they don't understand what's happening."

"Neither do I," Zenobia said. "Gladly, I have you for that."

Eden smiled and then her gaze focused on Belial. "Keep listening for news of Captain Black. He's going to be trouble, him and his Renegades. He has friends among the Brethren still, and all those who slunk back to us after Dire's fall would love to see me humbled."

"You should keep an eye out for him," Belial said. "He will not be content to skulk and plot forever, he will come after you."

"You are worried he will find me while you're not here?" Eden laughed and poked him with her foot. "This new ship will make that less of a concern. The Polaris is faster, but the Magister-class is fast enough, and much more well-armored, with more guns. If he comes upon us so much the better, because in that ship I will cut him to pieces."

"What are you going to name it?" Zenobia said. "It needs a new name."

"What is it named now?" Eden said. "I never looked."

"Hanover," Zenobia snorted. "Some kind of name, sounds like a town instead of a ship."

"It is a town," Eden said. "In Pennsylvania, not far from where I grew up. But you're right, it will never do for a pirate ship." She thought a moment, then smiled. "I think I shall call her the Warlock. I like the sound of it." She poked Belial again with her foot. "I'll need my things moved aboard, and my standard."

He stood up, shirtless and looking maddeningly good, scars crisscrossing his muscular back. He finished tying his hair ribbon, turned and bowed half-mockingly. "By your command, Captain Kane."

Continued in Chapter 4

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