Siren Ch. 06

"I hope your impression of me has improved for the next time. It was a little far off for the men to draw the conclusion you had intended."

Kenna's stomach dropped at his words but she tried desperately to keep that off her face. It was stupid of her, she who had survived so much, acting so impulsively. But she could not ignore the challenge as he had hers, and she spoke in his voice. "Aye, I've spent the better part of two weeks planning an escape through the magic of song."

Roland raised his brow and nodded, a look of quiet respect at her skill. But it was off, she could hear it. There was something different in the way her consonants resonated from her tongue to her palate. She frowned, the delivery of her words a perfect distraction from their content. They were too soft, her tongue too lazy to make them sound right. And her 's' was too long to follow his clipped delivery.

She tilted her tongue against the hard bone at the roof of her mouth, trying out his accent again in a hard 't' sound. She stopped abruptly and sealed her lips. The tightness in her face at her discovery lasted only a second but he saw it. He always did.

"Have you figured it out, Kenna?" His voice was low and dangerous in her ears. She peeked up at him. How did he read her so completely? Even her father had been fooled when she wished him to be. Why could she not manage it with Roland?

She raised her head and looked back at him, taking in the slope of his nose and the angles of his jaw, both telling a different story now. She had speculated to herself of his origins, tucked away safely in her little space, imagining him being born out of a pit of snakes or sent from the fires of hell out into the ocean to trap her and drag her back with him. In some ways, this revelation was somewhat less surprising. "You were raised amongst nobility." She tried to say it like he would, confident in the discovery. But it emerged a question.

His lips curled at one side but too subtly to be considered a smile or smirk. He looked at her for a long time before he spoke. "I was." But he said no more, invited no response and yet he did not move or lift his eyes from hers. She did not feel that he was trying to intimidate her to silence but she could not decipher what he felt, or if he wished to continue speaking of it. Not for the first time she wished desperately that she was as astute as he.

It had been a fair while since she'd looked at him in the face for more than a moment. While she attempted to employ some of her faculties to interpreting his responses, the rest were busy ignoring the ache at her core that increased in urgency with his proximity. His skin was more sun-weathered than any other Englishmen on board which meant his blood was not pure, though his black hair and darker skin could not hide the patrician features now that the possibility existed; he had not just been raised by nobility, he was born of them.

"Your father." She said it softly, unsure if he wished her to continue down this line of thought. She was prepared to abandon it all, save it for when she could disappear into the crawl space and contemplate it in private.

Instead Roland inclined his head ever so slightly, inviting her to continue.

"Your mother was not English. Italian, perhaps?" His face remained still. She had figured it out but worried at insulting him, but his expression held no tolerance for her polite attempts to sidestep his less-desirable heritage. "A gypsy." Again his head dipped slightly.

There could be many reasons why the illegitimate son of a noble and a gypsy would end up with an upper-class accent he couldn't entirely disguise, but she could only think of one that made sense to her. "Your father must have loved your mother very much to raise you with all the trappings of the son of a lord."

Roland's face betrayed nothing, or perhaps the lack of expression spoke volumes. Kenna stilled, feeling she'd made some blunder and should no longer continue. Roland's stare burned through her and she tried desperately not to squirm in her seat. Finally he lifted his gaze and turned his head, his eyes focused far beyond the walls of the ship. Kenna stayed quiet, waiting, praying she hadn't made her situation worse somehow.

"I don't believe you ever learned why Captain Dougray attacked your ship." She jumped when he finally spoke, the thoughtful tone more surprising than the words themselves.

"I understood it had something to do with an old grudge against Captain Jenkins, did it not?" The change of topic was a relief, even if it was to speak of a man she had killed. It was clear to her that he had not simply abandoned the first line of questioning, and the potential connection between the two excited the wheels in her head. Kenna looked at him intently now that he had taken his eyes from her. He was tired, the weeks of endless work were beginning to wear on him. Her reaction to that realization troubled her in that it was not pure triumph or grim satisfaction at his troubles.

"Indeed. Jenkins was Dougray's commanding officer in the Royal Navy. I won't bore you with my rendition of the tale. Dougray had a knack for it and I could not do it justice. Suffice it to say that Jenkins made an error during his watch and when he was brought in to answer for it, he blamed Dougray, who being a simple sailor was not to be believed and was set to be punished. Jenkins chose the penalty and meted it out himself." Roland's eyes slid back to hers, holding her there. "He was flogged before the crew." Kenna took a breath, the skin on her back seemed to tighten. "It's impossible to say if Dougray was telling us the truth of the matter but he bore scars which no lie could exaggerate."

Kenna looked away, and felt a dreadful confusion settle into her chest. The scars on her own back grew heavy, her awareness of them fully engaged. For a moment she felt a flash of sympathy and guilt for the man she'd killed, whose face she still saw in her dreams as he died over and over again. But he had been a murderer, not just of the man who scarred him but of everyone on that ship and who knew how many before. The feeling of his hands on her, the evil intent in his eyes, No, she could not pity or excuse him. This deviation from Roland's original conversation was no longer welcome.

"I fail to see the connection between Captain Dougray's motivations and your parentage." She stiffened her posture as she spoke, the lack of proper garments having allowed her to sit without her back rigidly straight.

"Do you know why Captain Dougray met his end in his pursuit of Jenkins?" Roland was staring at her but she refused to meet his eye, even if he did spare her the address of blame that was her due.

"No, I do not," she said, no longer trying to guess and play his games. She wanted to be done with this line of questioning and never speak of it again.

"Because he could not accept that the world did not care what happened to him." She did not gape as she wished to, but kept silent to allow this newest turn of the conversation. "He could not live without imagining that his pain should be avenged, that the injustice had to be answered for. And he stirred the men to feel the same, to join in his quest for vengeance." She glanced up at him only to get caught in his intense eyes. "The world does not care about injustice and pain. It will blithely continue despite all the wrongs visited upon us, and to imagine we deserve differently is to invite foolish choices and grave disappointment." He leaned forward, resting his chin on his fist as he held her there. "Do you know who taught me that?"

The answer was obvious, but the implications were terrible. "Your mother," she whispered.

"Indeed." His voice held no anger and she could not understand why. "My father educated me, kept me as he did in one of his many estates, because of an agreement he made with my mother. She had been difficult for him to control until he got her with child, and so he took the opportunity when it presented itself. But these types of things can only last for so long. My mother waited until I was old enough that I would not starve when he turned me out. When I was thirteen she took her own life to escape whatever he had inflicted on her for all those years." Kenna once again felt the dismay of pitying a man who deserved nothing but her ardent hatred.

Roland continued, his tone no more emotional than it had been before. "She could not tolerate a world that would leave her so, a family that abandoned her when she lay dying, the doctor who brought her back to health as a farmer nurses his prize cattle, the man who purchased her and kept her with him always so she could have no sanctuary from his desires." Roland spoke these horrors as though they had not occurred to the woman who birthed him. "And so she left it, and in doing, condemned her child to be abandoned. Dougray could not let his injuries go unanswered in an indifferent world. You, Mistress Bell, suffer the same sickness." Kenna stared at him wide eyed to hear herself brought into these tales of woe. "You believe the world should not allow the things that have happened to you, that are happening now, to occur. It has not dawned upon you that the cruelty you suffer is nothing unique, it simply is. I have accepted this truth—all that has befallen me was not done to me, the wrongs I have borne were not part of a transactional cycle which must be met with payment or vengeance. I am not owed anything for my pain and neither are you. The sooner you accept this, the more likely it is you will survive."

Kenna stared at him, at a loss for what to say. Her instincts rejected every word he spoke. Of course there had to be some kind of justice in the world, retribution for sins and crimes committed. The very notion of civilization was based on the agreement between men that they owed each other actions and behaviors which would not arouse anarchy. When that was trespassed against, the guilty party must be held accountable. This was justice, in its divine and earthly forms.

She let her eyes sweep over him. He was a pirate, an agent of chaos. His existence was a challenge to that contract. Of course he would reject it, but that did not make it less true for her and everyone else not on this ship. Thus reassured, she dismissed his argument and settled herself firmly back in her own understanding.

He betrayed none of his thoughts to her. If he knew how roundly she had shredded his philosophy, he did not let it show. Instead he beckoned her with a curl of his fingers newly liberated from the weight of his chin. She hesitated, feeling the threat of his unspoken order, as if he could wring from her physically what she refused to compromise on mentally.

She stood, her back ramrod straight and she moved as though surrounded by yards of fabric. She would not simply give up on everything she knew of the world, the truths she believed in, just because some pirate was bedding her against her will. Let him believe whatever blasphemy he used to excuse his existence. She would not be taken in.

She came within reaching distance of him and stopped, her head high, hands folded before her.

"Do you know how I know your upbringing was similar to mine?" He said, his voice low. Kenna did not look to him to give him the satisfaction of confirmation but once again she felt a stab of frustration that he had managed to see through her carefully curated disguises. Unlike him, she had altered her speech flawlessly to reflect her adopted station in life. "It is because you don't believe me, because you cling to what you think you deserve never realizing that time has marched past and no one remembers whatever your family was anymore. No one is looking to restore you to any former life, and what is more, you don't warrant it. The natural cycle has given and taken with no concern towards you, and it will continue to do so long after we are all dead and gone."

Kenna did not know when she had lowered her eyes to his but by the end of his speech she was looking down towards his upturned face, drawn to the low purr of his voice which made even his nonsense seem palatable.

He raised his hand towards her hands. Kenna found herself a step backwards before she could think; the tightness in her neck and averted gaze told her she'd flinched as he reached for her. Her heart sped up; she hadn't meant to do any such thing. Surely he wouldn't be angry at what was merely habit. She quickly stepped back towards him, fingers shaking as she came back to where his hand hung in the air expectantly.

The large palms slid over her wrists and encircled one with his strong fingers. He tugged her gently until she came to sit on his lap, her posture still stiff and her nerves fraying as she tried in vain to calm herself.

"I have no interest in your pain, Kenna." He brushed the hair from her cheek, and she just managed to hold herself still when his hand appeared in her line of vision.

Could that be? Her heart raced even as he settled her more firmly against his body. It was true he had never struck her but she had been terrorized in this very room, on this very table. She had seen it in his eyes when he had her, how closely he watched her face in her darkest moments. She looked down at her hands, realizing only then she was twining her fingers nervously. "You like my fear, I've seen it. And pain is just another tool to instill the desired reaction from me." She could not look him in the eye from this close.

"I appreciate your fear only in as much as I can elicit the opposite reaction almost as swiftly." His hands pulled her shirt from the breeches and slid underneath the fabric to stroke her skin. "I get to watch as it melts away even as you try to fight to keep it, until all that is left is pleasure." His hand crept to her side, the slide of his fingertips against her sensitive skin leaving tiny bumps in their wake.

"How can you do this," she steeled herself to continue, "after all you've told me of your mother's fate?" His hand never stopped, the other cupping her knee and sliding up the outside of her thigh.

"Therein lies the heart of it," Roland whispered, his breath against her neck far too gentle a caress. "If the world is just," he punctuated his thought with a feather light kiss at the neckline of her shirt, "then I would have learned a valuable lesson on how to treat others, that actions like those of my fathers were wrong and deserved a definitive and righteous reaction." He continued up the sensitive side of her neck, his kisses sending jolts of sensation across her body. "But if I am right then there is no reprisal, either against him, or echoed in my own understanding of the civil contract." How could he speak of such things now? Kenna gasped as his lips found the angle of her jaw, the feeling radiating in creeping prickles across her scalp, in the tightening of her nipples and the pulsing heat that churned in her core.

Was it she that pressed against him so licentiously? Had he not pulled her against him so that she felt his arousal against her hip? Surely she had not shifted so as he spoke. His hand slipped between her legs, coming up against the apex of her thighs and cupping her heat through the cloth. Was it her voice that moaned as he stroked her skin, his other hand dancing over her ribs to the underside of her breast? She felt herself sinking, the fear and nerves melting into the need that unfurled inside her. At least two days had passed since he had touched her, occupied as he'd been, and the gnawing anticipation reared its head now that she was no longer pushing it away.

He stood suddenly and Kenna toppled from his lap into his arms. He pushed her breeches off and settled her on the edge of the table, her legs spread easily for him as he took his place between them. She steadied herself with her hands against the table behind her. His hand found her swollen flesh and wasted no time spreading the cream she offered across her sensitive folds. His other hand slid up her neck, following the trail his kisses had left. His thumb found that sweet spot below the angle of her jaw and she leaned into his touch before she could think to stop.

But she did, her mind catching up, trying to stop what was already too far gone. She stilled her hips which had raised themselves to the stroking of his fingertips, his touch too light for their taste. She pulled her head straight, her neck stiff against his palm. That thumb pressed in, tilting her chin up until her eyes met his, and once again she was caught in his studying gaze.

His fingers slid into her, the walls of her channel clamping down even as she tensed her jaw to keep from moaning again. How shameless she had become. His thumb slid up, circling that bundle of flesh which he manipulated so easily. The path narrowed, a second finger stretched her, his eyes bore into hers, seeing past the fight, past her secrets and lies into that piece of her that desperately needed release. Her body twisted out from her control and she ground down onto his hand. Her lips parted and her back arced, and still he held her gaze.

"That's it, Kenna," his voice ran like fingers down her spine. "This is when your fear and fight vanish." The pressure inside her rose, her eyes watered as she looked up, the tingling sensation running across her skin as it coiled in her core. "This is when I have you." His words reached into her and pulled loose all the gathered sensations, stoking that dark need she could not bring herself to acknowledge. Kenna's eyes drifted shut as her body tensed on his rooting hand. In that darkness she felt the pleasure tear through her body, decimating her once again.

And in that anguished climax, she felt the peace of losing herself. Her body and all violence done to it was left behind as she floated away.

His lips came down on hers, coaxing and gentle. In those brief moments before she came back to herself, she lifted her hands to his cheeks and pulled him in deeper. His hair slipped through her fingers as his tongue ran against hers and she made small, sweet sounds into his mouth. He had her. But the reprieve was short and the reality that she was caressing her captor slid her hands from his neck and down to his chest where she pressed her palms in. Her kiss faded and she pulled away to look up at him.

"Just because one steers the ship, does not make him captain." She spoke around his buried fingers, through the tremors that still ran up her body. "Stoking a person's pleasure cannot mean ownership."

Did she imagine the disappointment in his face as she pulled away? But there was his smirk planted on his tight lips. "Perhaps not, Kenna." His fingers slipped from inside her and he straightened above her, forcing her head to tilt further to watch him. "But your pleasure is a battleground you engage on constantly despite the fact that you always lose. Dominion of property is just a matter of circumstance, and of my ownership of you there can be little doubt, pleasure or no."

Kenna braced herself for his continued assault, forcing her legs to remain open and waiting, inviting no further argument with him. His easy claim to her person pricked her pride, as it always did, but she was still languid from her release and she let it go more easily than her nature should have allowed her to. But Roland did not move to remove his clothing or any more of hers. He stood there, considering her from his great height, his large muscled arms folded across his chest.

The pause in their activities made Kenna self-conscious and she closed her legs and pulled the large shirt down to cover her cooling sex. She did not look up at him but waited for some signal that he was to return to the coupling she had grown accustomed to. Two full days he had not taken his pleasure with her, he had barely been back to the cabin to sleep before leaving to answer some banging knock or warning bell. Her eyes crept up to his face and she saw his usual seriousness but without the glint in his eye as he pursued her, the relish he usually took in forcing her to feel his coerced pleasure.