Lost at Sea Bk. 02 Ch. 14

"How do you do that?" she asked, amazed.

"Do what?," Quinn asked.

"Stay still with the ship trying to throw us around," she said as though it should have been obvious.

"I feel the flow of the sea and do not fight it," Quinn explained.

"That doesn't make any sense," Doctor Kalfou scoffed.

"And yet it is true," Quinn said with a small shrug.

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From high in the rigging, Lace saw a moment in time captured by quick ripple of sheet lightning lighting up the clouds above them. At the prow Danica North and Mister Lynch stood next to each other. Danica had a spyglass in her hand. Lynch leaned on a rifle that was as tall as he was. Doctor Kalfou and Quinn speaking to Mister Reeve on the main deck. Sailors all around hauling ropes and helping reposition the sails to cut the force of the winds. The Captain, resolutely manning the helm. Colin Strong standing next to her, ready to lend his strength to the wheel if she needed it. Behind her, the witch Bella, naked in the rain, clad only in the markings of her craft, sitting in a complex circle and beginning her work. Across from her, with the mizzenmast between them, was Will Sterling, sitting at a makeshift desk and looking over his shoulder at the churning black seas. Behind the Kestrel, bearing down on them, much closer than Lace had expected, was a black ship with dirty, shredded sails. It was close enough now that she could make out the tiny shapes of crew on her deck. She only had a moment to take a look at the ship, but she was an experienced enough sailor that the wrongness of it struck her immediately. None of the ship's crew were moving.

Then everything was black again. The afterimage from the lightning hung in his eyes.

"Captain, they're gaining fast!" Will called out.

"How long?!" Belita called back.

"No idea! Their speed keeps changing! I can't measure it!" Will yelled.

"How far to the island!?" Belita shouted back.

Danica called something from the prow, but it was lost in the roar of the ocean and the howling winds. Reeve echoed it. "Rocks, dead ahead!"

"Aye, rocks!" the captain answered, confirming she'd heard.

"Keep them to our starboard! That's the edge of the reef!" Will called.

"Rigging, tack to port! Keep an eye on those rocks!" The captain shouted.

"Aye! Tacking to port!" Lace echoed from above. "Swabs, mainsail angle to portside!"

Reeve barked orders to the swabs. They hauled the lines to help the riggers reposition the sails, and held them in place. "Tie those lines off with slip knots! Make sure they'll come free with a good tug, but don't let go of the lines!" Reeve bellowed to the swabs on deck. This wasn't the first ship chase the big bosun had been through. When the sails were adjusted to where the captain wanted Reeve knew the most important part of his job was to make sure the crew didn't waste unnecessary energy holding onto the sail ropes and fighting the wind. Exhausted crews made fatal mistakes. "Stand down, but stay ready!"

The Kestrel shifted course. Ahead, a jagged cluster of rocks came into view at the edge of the lantern's beam. The waves crashing against the stones sent up huge sprays that glowed in the light. Around it they curved, rocking and lifting with the waves. The winds were in their favor at first, keeping them well clear and not trying to dash them into the stones, but then the island loomed at the edge of the light. The winds were pushing them right toward the beach.

"Tack starboard!" the captain shouted.

"Aye, tacking starboard," came Lace's answering call. The riggers and the swabs once again canted the sails, this time to try to fight against the direction of the wind. This was a much harder thing to pull off. It required that the sails be precisely placed so that they were almost parallel to the direction of the wind. It was a redirection of the force, rather than simply riding it.

The Captain and Colin were hauling on the rudder with everything they had to turn the nose of the ship away from the island shore. The Kestrel slowly reoriented herself again. The winds started hitting the ship from the broad side, shoving her sideways toward the beach. The looming rocks passed their starboard side and the seas immediately became calmer.

"Alright, we're inside the reef!" Will shouted. "Keep the island to port, and watch the surface of the water on our starboard! The reef is pretty shallow here, so it breaks the waves. The seas shouldn't be as rough as we come around the island, but we're risking running aground on both sides!"

"Aye!" Belita called. "We're inna good place now! I dinna think the other ship can catch us here! There's not enough room tae come up on our broad side. If we drop sail right as we come out the other side of the reef channel, it might give us enough of a speed boost tae keep ahead of them a while longer!"

"Or it might rip our mast off!" Will called.

"Aye, we'll need some luck!" Belita grinned over her shoulder. "Bella, whatever you're going tae do, now is the time. "

Bella dropped a small hammer back into her satchel and ran her fingers over the horseshoe she'd just nailed to the deck. "I'm ready."

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On the other side of the mirror, the sounds of the shouting was muffled by the winds and the ocean. Janie, Tonya and Caine could make out what Will and Bella were saying, but pretty much everything else was lost to them.

They were distracted anyway.

"Holy shit," Tonya said, staring as Caine. She had just pulled his tunic off, but had already forgotten she was holding it in her hands.

Caine's body was covered in scars. Long, narrow lines, diamond shaped punctures and jagged tears were everywhere, overlapping in many places. He also had the most overly defined muscles either of the women had ever seen. Every part of him was corded. He reminded Janie of the statues in the Grand Cathedral of the martyred warriors.

"Get it over with," Caine said, slowly turning around so they could see more closely.

"What happened to you?" Tonya asked.

"Swords, mostly. And spears. A few axes. Arrows, knives. Rocks. Some teeth. Oh, and a bit of fire. That's the worst," Caine shrugged.

"Who... are you?" Janie asked. It was the only thing she could think to ask.

"Just a soldier who managed to stay alive," Caine said.

Tonya tentatively reached out to touch him. "Can I?" Caine nodded. Her hand brushed down the length of a scar that started at his shoulder, ran across his collar bone, and ended in the middle of his chest. "This looks like it should have killed you."

"I got lucky," Caine said, trying to dismiss their concern. "Look, I really don't like being the center of attention like this, and we have work to do."

Tonya let out a breath and laughed. "Right. Work." She tossed Caine's tunic to Janie and started drawing a sigil on his chest. He stopped her.

"What's this for?" Caine asked, guarded.

"It's a transfer sigil. It will let us move the energy we gather into the mirror," Tonya explained.

Janie caught the shirt without thinking about it, then set it aside, still watching with a combination of amazement, horror and arousal, her eyes exploring Caine's impressive but terribly scarred body while Tonya convinced him to let her draw on him.

"Alright," he said after a moment's hesitation. "I don't know if this will work, but we can try it."

"I've never seen it not work?" Tonya reassured him. "As long as you can imagine the transfer happening, it will do the rest. It's supposed to be something that anyone can do, even if they don't know anything else about spellbinding." She quickly finished the sigil. "Just be careful not to smudge it."

She ran her hands down his hard stomach but Caine stopped her hands as she started pulling his belt free. "Wait." Caine looked over to Janie. "You sure you're comfortable with this?"

Janie nodded. "Just... pretend I'm not here."

"That doesn't seem right," Caine shook his head. "You and I don't have to do anything together, but I doubt we will be able to ignore each other. Seems like it would be uncomfortable to try."

"It's ok. I... like watching. I even like being watched. Seems only fair. Just don't push for more than that, alright?" Janie said a bit shyly.

"I would never," Caine said with a small, reassuring smile.

"You two are adorable!" Tonya grinned. She tossed Janie the grease-stick, then yanked Caine's pants downward like a magician revealing what was hidden behind the curtain. Caine's legs were just as scarred as the rest of him, but Tonya wasn;t really paying attention to them. She took a gentle grip on his manhood. He wasn't hard at all, but he quickly started to respond to her touch. "Looks like you managed to avoid getting scarred where it counts."

Caine actually chuckled. "I guess I'm more careful with some parts of my body than others."

"Lucky me," Tonya grinned and dropped to her knees.

Janie felt her cheeks redden as Tonya engulfed Caine's hardening cock. She bit her lip and stared, feeling herself responding too. Caine was a very attractive man, even with all the scars. He wasn't particularly handsome. His proportions would have been a dream come true for a sculptor, but his features were best described as rough. Still, he had a competent and self assured presence to him. He was clearly dangerous, but in a way that was reassuring rather than threatening. She still didn't want to have sex with him, but she was already enjoying watching.

His eyes closed in pleasure and he rested one hand on the back of Tonya's head. She had to back off as he hardened fully. Soon she could only take about half of him in her mouth.

Tonya had seen a lot of cocks. Caine's was around average length, but was nicely girthy. He'd never been circumcised, which Tonya preferred slightly. There was something fun about the reveal of the head as she pulled the foreskin back.

Janie had never seen an uncircumcised penis. Both Thomas and Will were circumcised, as were most Imperial Mainlanders. Janie had thought Caine came from the mainland too, but now she wasn't so sure. As Tonya slowly pulled on his shaft and revealed the head of his cock, Janie's brows rose. The mechanics of the whole process probably shouldn't have been surprising to her, but they were.

Then his hard cock was in Tonya's mouth again. The pretty young apprentice bobbed enthusiastically, making satisfied noises in her throat. Caine groaned. Janie's hand ran up the front of her stomach and squeezed her breast through her bustier. She shivered a little with anticipation and pleasure, then went shock still as Caine turned his head and met her eyes. She knew he might be watching her. She was watching him right then. Still, something about the unexpected eye contact surprised her. Embarrassment flushed through her as he caught her playing with her breast. He gave her a small, knowing smile, then turned his attention back to Tonya.

Her arousal thundered through her. Then confusion. Why had Caine catching her playing with her breast been exciting? There was an element of shame to it, and she certainly didn't like that. Or did she? She knew there was nothing to be ashamed of. Not really. If Tonya and Caine were comfortable with her watching them, why should she feel any kind of embarrassment at the idea of them watching her while she watched them? No, that wasn't it. It was being caught reacting to watching them. It was the fact that Caine knew that watching them was turning her on. Still though, that wasn't wrong. There was no shame in that. It hadn't been long since she'd been forced to confront it, but she'd already made peace in her mind with the fact that she was a voyeur. So where was this sense of embarrassment coming from? And why did it excite her?

As she continued to watch Tonya's energetic blowjob, Janie turned her Magistrate training inward. She picked apart her own reactions, feelings, motivations. She applied her ability to understand people's reactions to herself. It was always harder to turn that skill inward. Internalized justifications and deflections were natural, and sometimes hard to see for what they were. As she traveled down the many branches of her internal self-analysis, she glanced at the mirror.

Bella was kneeling in the rain, lit from above by the lantern hung from the mast. The only thing she wore was her red headscarf to hold her hair back. Her body was covered in painted sigils. The rain ran down her naked form in rivulets. Her arms were spread wide and her eyes were closed, and she was mouthing quiet words that Janie couldn't hear. She was wild and untamed, and achingly beautiful.

Behind Bella, Janie could see Captain Vex's back. Her blue coat was flapping wildly in the wind, but she herself was rooted in place, unmovable in spite of the heavy winds and the tossing of the ship's deck. She stood undaunted at the ship's wheel, shouting orders and steering the ship through the narrow channel between an island beach and a reef.

These were women at the height of their own power. Unchallenged. Confident. Janie admired them both and wished she could be more like them. She glanced to Tonya with a small smile and admitted to herself that she wished she could be more like the brazen young apprentice too. Tonya was shameless in a way that Janie thought of as brave.

Tonya stood up with a saucy look in her eyes and sat back on the small round table. She rolled her body back until her legs were raised and she was leaning back on her elbows.

"I want that thick cock inside me," she grinned.

Caine raised an eyebrow and surprised her by putting his hands on the backs of her raised thighs, rolling her back even further, and kneeling down to put his entire mouth on her bare womanhood.

Womanhood? Janie squeezed her thighs together as she listened to Tonya gasp with surprise and then roll her head back in pleasure. Womanhood seemed like a word her mother would use. It was... proper. There it was. The introspection she'd been working through about the connection between her embarrassment and arousal snapped into crystal focus.

"Oh, fuck yes!" Tonya groaned. "Lick my clit, old man," she put her hands on the back of Caine's shaved head and pulled his mouth harder between her legs. He raised his eyes to look up her body and give her a challenging stare. Then he did something that made Tonya's whole body go stiff. Her legs straightened and her back arched. "Fuuuuck! Oh fuck me," she practically snarled.

There was nothing proper about this. Janie couldn't help but laugh. Tonya rolled her head and looked at her. Janie covered her mouth, but it was too late.

"He really knows what he's doing," the young apprentice grinned. "You sure you don't want a turn?"

Janie shook her head, but bit her lip. She was frustrated, but she was enjoying it. "I'll focus on the ritual part."

"Oh, right! I should be doing that too," Tonya said. She closed her eyes and started to concentrate on converting her pleasure into an internal reservoir of power. "Don't stop, old man."

Janie tossed off her sheer black shawl and looked down the valley of her own breasts. Her ivory bustier exposed more than enough of her chest to draw the transfer sigil. She just had to get it right. Last time Tonya had drawn it. This time she was going to have to do it herself. It didn't seem that hard. She was well practiced at carving wards into stone and wood.

She quickly drew a circle on her chest and immediately knew she'd gotten it wrong. It wasn't centered, and one side was flatter than the other. She pursed her lips in frustration, wiped it away and started again. How had Tonya drawn it? She'd started with dots. "To measure," she said quietly to herself, suddenly understanding the method behind the way Tonya had done things.

She quickly dotted out a cross shaped framework, carefully connected them with arcs, and was fairly well satisfied. Now came the hard part. She looked at Tonya's chest. Her small breasts were shaking as her body trembled. Both of her hands were behind her knees, pulling her hips up and her legs wide apart. Her head was off the edge of the small table, rolled back with her short hair hanging toward the ground. "Fuck, fuck, fuck..." she chanted like a mantra.

Janie realized she was going to have to get closer to get a good enough look at the sigil to copy it and had a moment of anxious panic. Then defiance ran through her. She walked forward as confidently as she could. The room wasn't large, so it was really only a few steps, but they felt like leagues. She found herself at Tonya's shoulder, looking down at the shuddering apprentice's chest. Caine glanced up at her from between her legs and gave her a questioning eyebrow.

"Ignore me," she said, embarrassed again under his gaze. He made an affirming noise and dropped his eyes down again to focus on Tonya's pleasure. Tonya gasped. Her head snapped up and she looked at Janie.

"Decided to join us?" she asked hopefully.

"I needed to see the transfer sigil," Janie explained.

"Damn," Tonya tisked. She tilted her shoulders to hide the sigil and gave Janie a playfully defiant look.

"Oh come now," Janie said, exasperated. "We don't have time!"

"Then you should speed things up," Tonya smirked.

"What do you want?" Janie asked, playing along for the moment.

"I want you to join us," Tonya said, her eyes full of promise and lust.

"We already talked about that. Caine and I aren't going to be... doing anything together," Janie said firmly.

"But you can both do things with me..." Tonya looked like a cat with canary feathers sticking out of its mouth.

Janie was a bit surprised, but gave the apprentice a level stare, saying nothing.

"We have to work fast, right?" Tonya bargained. "And we need as much energy as we can muster? Seems like a bad idea to leave you out."

Janie had to admit Tonya had a point. They had no idea how much energy Bella needed, but it seemed like a lot. They needed as much as they could get, quickly. Was she actually adverse to the idea of sex with Tonya? No. Clearly not. They'd already been together when they'd charged the mirror the first time. That was with Will and Bella though, which made the whole situation much different. Their presence always made Janie more comfortable trying new things. The apprentice witch had many of the same qualities as Bella, which Janie certainly found attractive, but this wasn't the same. Tonya was pushy in a way that Janie felt naturally resistant to.

She didn't like feeling coerced, and Caine's presence made her even less comfortable. She knew she and Will didn't have any kind of claim on each other, but she knew she wasn't interested in other men. That was a self-imposed limitation, but it was still valid. How far did it go? Was she comfortable with the idea of Caine seeing her naked? Surprisingly, the idea didn't bother her. She felt like she could trust him. She was naturally shy about revealing her body, but she'd spent days now wearing practically nothing around men she didn't even know. Clearly her standards of modesty weren't what they used to be. What about sex? She was already watching Tonya and Caine together. She was already involved, even if it was peripherally so far. If she decide to accept Tonya's advances, Caine would be inches away at times. Was that too close? They might not be having sex with each other, but they would certainly be having sex with the same person, together. That did sound somewhat exciting, but...

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"What do ye mean, gone!" Captain Vex shouted.

"Not behind us anymore!" Will called. There had been two lightning flashes. He'd checked to be sure. The tattered back ship was nowhere to be seen. "They didn't follow us into the channel!"

"Good!" Vex called back. "That should give us a big lead back when we come out the other side!"