To his credit, Damon lasted for ten full minutes before deciding to attempt to spy on them. It was too tempting, at least against the backdrop of spending the rest of his night staring out into the blank, starlit ocean.
He slowed the ship to a stop and quietly released the anchor on the main deck. On a whim, he took his boots off to silence his footsteps, knowing that his aesta was wise enough to his ways to listen for his approach.
He crept below decks as stealthily as he could, coming to a stop next to the door leading to the baths. They’d left it partially open, perhaps for the steam to better circulate, and Damon spent a minute waiting and listening, picking his opportunity to sneak a glimpse.
“If Telsius is still anything like it was when Kastet and I last passed through the city, it will be a wonderful place to spend a few days,” said Vel. “Though the ship is comfortable, in its own right.”
“I suspect we’ll only be there for a night,” said Malon. “We need to see this journey through without dallying.”
“Oh, come on, aesta,” said Vel. “After all we’ve been through, I feel as though we deserve to have some fun. I would love to do some shopping, see if their dresses are in style, or, more likely, mock them for being behind on the trends.”
“Not all of us will have the opportunity to tour the city,” said Lilian.
There was a pause that, despite being awkward, also gave Damon an opening. He kept low, flat on his stomach, in fact, as he slid forward to let his eyes peer through the partially cracked door.
There was a lot of steam, and a lot of gorgeous, naked, female flesh. Vel was washing her hair, pulling her fingers through a single wet lock of dark gold. Malon was soaping her full breasts, the suds turning her nipples into vague hints of pink. Lilian had a razor and was carefully shaving the hair from her legs. Ria was sitting on the edge of the large bath with only her feet submerged, still wearing a towel.
“A day and a night in Telsius is likely all we can spare,” said Malon. “No doubt it will be enough for you to wet your shopping fancy, seta.”
“When you phrase it like that, it sounds like an unseemly habit.” Vel wrung her hair out, rising above the water far enough for her perky tits to drip with water. “In some ways, this is part of the career I’ve chosen. I have to stay abreast of the trends, not just in Silke, but everywhere I travel.”
“So pointless,” muttered Ria. “You speak of clothing, not life or death.”
Ria took off her towel and set it aside, revealing a body that perfectly strode the line between powerful and sexy. Her tan lines were visible, but less pronounced than Damon remembered, though perhaps it was a trick of the lighting. He imagined her sunbathing out in the open, where anyone could see, evening out her tan for his sake, as much as her own.
She let out a blissful sigh as she entered the warm water, though her sense of contentment only lasted for a moment. She narrowed her gaze at Malon, moving to put what she considered to be adequate distance between herself and the other woman, wary even in the bath.
“I think the whole point of going on this journey to dampen the Ocean Klykia, or whatever, is to move the world toward a point where not everything is about life and death, Ria,” said Vel.
She tilted backward, letting her hair sink into the water, firm breasts poking up like two matching hills. Damon blinked, moving from intrigue and arousal toward a state more resembling subtle torture. He could have any of the women on the ship almost any night… except for this one, with them all together and eagerly getting clean.
His eyes shifted back toward his aesta, who dropped low in the water to rinse off the suds coating her body and rose up, naked and curvaceous and womanly, and as it happened, staring straight at him. She turned sideways, ruining his view while still holding that chastising eye contact, and made a small shooing gesture with her hand.
The game was up, and Malon had no doubt spared Damon the ire of the rest of his companions. He committed the image of all of them together, naked and sopping wet, to his eternal memory and silently headed for the stairs.
He felt a little ridiculous walking onto the main deck with an erection he could have used to carve stone, but nobody was around, and it was his ship. The thought echoed strangely in his head as he noticed something dangling from the outer railing that he sure hadn’t been there before.
He froze in place, watching in disbelief as a man stepped out from behind the corner of the main cabin and bent over to help another man climb up and over the railing. The ship was being boarded. Presumably, they were under attack.
He reached for his myrblade, fingers grasping and finding nothing. He hadn’t been carrying it on him, pointless as it had seemed on a ship that had, up until a few seconds ago, felt like an impenetrable fortress. Damon cracked his knuckles, figuring he’d just have to make do with his hands, for now.
“If I’d known we were expecting guests, I would have asked my aesta to make you up some tea,” he called, striding over to the men. The line had sounded better in his head, more subtly threatening, but he rolled with it.
“It is not too late, my friend,” replied one of the men, speaking Merinian with a rolling sea accent. “Why don’t all of us sit down and have tea and discuss what we can do for one another?”
It was hard to see much of him by the light of night, but he was tall, with long hair, beefy arms, and sun-worn skin. He wore an open vest and baggy trousers, with no shortage of knives stuffed into belts and bandoliers across his person.
The man glanced left, away from the grappling hook. Damon followed his gaze and spotted another group, making their number at least seven in total. Not too many for him to handle, but more than enough to be a nuisance.
“Invite the rest of your friends over here,” said Damon. “Let’s have that chat. There’s no need for us to make this more difficult than it needs to be.”
“Oh, we will, friend,” said the man. “But first, you should give us a tour of this grand ship! It caught our eye from so far off. Even more so when we saw that you were the only able body aboard.”
“I can think of a few people who would take serious offence at that.” Damon smiled, watching the other men draw closer, letting them surround him. It would make things easier to have them in a clump.
“You seem like a reasonable man.” The chatty pirate set a hand on Damon’s shoulder. “Let’s head inside together. We will come to understand each other, yes?”
“I think there are quicker ways for us to understand each other.” Damon gripped the man’s wrist tight in his hand and, with a breath of wickedly cold air, began to freeze a shell of ice down the length of his arm.
It took several seconds for the pirate to realize what was happening, or perhaps just to let himself believe it. He tried to reach for one of his knives, but it seemed that his now frozen arm was the one attached to his dominant hand, and the attempt bore no fruit.
“He’s a… sorcerer, or something!” barked the man. “Kill him! Kill him, quick!”
The next nearest pirate came at Damon, swinging a thick cutlass that glinted in the moonlight. He ducked, dodging the slash, and unleased a diagonal stomp that drew a painful popping noise from the man’s knee. He went down screaming. Damon borrowed his sword.
“Here!” screamed the partially frozen pirate. “Over here!”
Two more men sprinted toward them, footsteps pounding confidently across the wooden deck. The others were nowhere to be seen, and Damon hissed a curse under his breath as he realized they’d likely made it to the lower levels. Malon and the others would be vulnerable in the bath if they were caught by surprise. He needed to get down there, fast.
The man with the frozen hand tried to swipe at his face with his left hand. Damon flipped him around and slashed at the backs of his ankles, pushing him down. He spun around in time to catch the edge of one of the new arrival’s swords. The other attacked right after, and Damon had to concentrate on their movements, two against one.
He had more than just a sword, however. He leapt back, giving himself some room to work with, and dropped to one knee. The pirates had tracked a small amount of water with their boots, and carefully, without damaging the deck, Damon used it to freeze all four of the men nearest to him securely in place.
They struggled, sounding more confused than concerned at first. He walked up to the two who were still uninjured, standing just out of range of their swords and smiling at their pathetic attempts to slash at him.
“Throw down your weapons,” he said.
“Or what?” snapped one of them, barely understandable from his accent.
Damon smiled wider and turned his head sideways a little. The ice rose higher, creeping up their legs, carrying that chilling implication. The men threw down their swords, and Damon quickly kicked them through the gaps in the railing, into the ocean.
He’d didn’t unfreeze them, and in fact, added to the ice restraints to make sure they’d stay put while he went down to check on the others. It was hard to keep from thinking that he’d taken too long with the fight, gotten rusty and slow with his methods. Malon and the others might be in serious danger, or worse.
He sprinted all the way down to the bottom level, hearing the sound of commotion as he headed for the baths. The door was open, but he didn’t rush through it, as complete chaos was underway on the other side.
His female companions were still as naked as they’d been when he’d indulged his curiosity earlier. Ria had one of the men by the hair and was dunking his head forcefully in the bath water. Malon’s eyes and crest were both vivid with crimson, and she’d pinned one of the men against the wall with her power.
Lilian was feeding off one of them with a gleeful look in her dark eyes, blood spilling over from her lips and into the soapy water. The one was limp in her grasp, mouth moving in a wordless shout.
Vel was… well, she had a wet towel and was snapping and brandishing it at each of the defeated men in turn, angry if not scary. All eyes turned toward Damon as he entered, holding up a hand and feigning an attempt at modesty by averting his gaze.
“There were more of them on deck,” he said. “I managed to—”
“Damon!” Vel threw herself onto him, hugging tight, followed immediately after by Malon and Ria.
“Solas!” said Malon, pressing her nude bosom against his shoulder. “We were so worried! We thought you might have been caught off guard, and…”
“I knew you could handle them, husband,” said Ria, kissing his lips and nuzzling her cheek into his. “Still, it is good to know you are unharmed. You are unharmed, yes?”
“Not a scratch on me,” he said, feeling the effect of their still very naked presence on his lower body.
Lilian had finished feeding and she wiped her mouth off as she eyed the pirates, all of whom were still alive, though with no fight left in them whatsoever.
Over the course of the next few minutes, Malon and the others got dressed and helped Damon herd the raiding party back onto deck. They found their ship, a dingy, single-sailed thing, anchored near enough to The Reunion for the men to have been able to climb aboard without swimming.
Damon climbed down onto it to slash the sail before propelling himself back onto deck with an ice pillar. One by one, they forced the pirates down onto their sabotaged craft, which seemed like enough of a punishment. Ria argued for executing them, but even she decided that it wouldn’t be necessary if the men were left without means to give pursuit.
“You will see us again!” snarled the chatty pirate, baring his teeth. “We serve the Endless King. He will come for us, and we will come for you.”
Damon turned and seized the man by the neck. He started to freeze another ice shell, this one creeping over the man’s chin and mouth, inching toward his nostrils.
“I’ll be here,” he said. “Not hard to find on a ship like this. If there is a next time, I’ll be looking for you first. Do you know what it’s like to suffocate in ice? Would you like to find out?”
The man shook his head so hard that his neck made a small popping noise. Damon slammed his hands into the man’s shoulders, sending him tumbling over the railing and down into the water below to join the rest of his crew.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Vel.
“Agreed,” he said, putting a hand around her waist. “We’ll drop anchor once they’re far out of sight behind us.”