Author's note: this has a rather complicated backstory. The story takes place in a world of swashbucklery and magic. Rischa Vale was a pirate captain, one of few females in a misogynistic part of the world to manage this. She had been fostered by a famous pirate, and had won the esteem of her men through courage and hard work. One day, a man named Mika Arago lead a mutiny and cast her off ship.
While near death in her dinghy, dehydrated and starving, Rischa receives the blessing of the sun god and is invested with his power. She becomes, in essence, a demigod, with the ability to draw upon certain magics (particularly thrall-type charismatic magics).
It is in Lorris when she sees her ship, the Raptor, once again; when she seeks out the owner, it seems that an infamous pirate called the Red Jack (something of a roguish folk hero) has come into possession of the ship.
Little does our heroine know that the Red Jack is Mika Arago in disguise, and that he is part of a conspiracy that requires the world to think the Red Jack is in control of the Raptor (the conspiracy involves his father, a noble, who is working to bring various pirates under his own control). Mika's mother was a sea-goddess, so he, like Rischa, can manipulate some degree of magical energy.
If this all sounds convoluted and cheesy just read the damn smut. All you need to know is that a fair amount of dramatic irony is at work here (Rischa doesn't know he's either Mika or a half-god, and Mika doesn't know she's now a magic-wielding demigod), and that both these characters are literally headfucking each other with magic.
I. Mika
His first thought, her boot toe flickering lightly over his calf beneath the table: Truly, truly, she'd whore herself for this ship?
And his second thought: gods and dragons, I hope so.
She's changed somehow since the last time he saw her. That time she was in a leaky dinghy, getting smaller as the wind carried her own ship away from her. His orders had been to kill her and take the ship, but he hadn't been able to bring himself to do it. The girl was simply too much--at nineteen, a captain with the respect of her men, men who still thought women were all fishwives and whores. He still doesn't know how she pulled that off. It was hardly fair; he'd undone all her hard work, he'd uttered the words "just a wench" to her crew, he'd twisted his tongue with the tiny bit of magic he had and they'd agreed. They overtook her on the prow, though she fought like the half-mad Sea Wolf she'd once followed.
Even from where he stood on the ship far above he could see her violent shaking. He thought she was scared.
"Dear girl, it was nothing personal," he'd called down, waving cheerfully.
"Believe you me, me lad," she'd called back, "it will be very personal when I slit you neck to navel." Her coat had fallen open, her blouse torn in the fray. He suspected one of the men had done it on purpose to get a peek at the captain's goods. Not that he could blame him. Though nearly six feet tall and smoothly muscled, Captain Vale had perfect breasts, a round hard ass. Nothing like the Teà that might as well be men, and nothing like the twittering fools he knew from court. She was a contradiction in terms, a woman behaving like a man who still insisted on being a woman. And even he couldn't help but peer down at the smooth bronze curve exposed from the torn shirt.
She wasn't shaking in fear. She was shaking in rage. That was when he knew he would see her again.
And now, she sits across the table in front of him. Her clothes are fresh, a naval-blue jacket piped in red with the arms torn off, a pair of high black boots. Her long cerulean hair hangs loose around her shoulders, pouring from under a grimy black bandana. It's obvious she's been traveling--the dust on her boots, the sheen of sweat on her skin, but she still draws the eye irrevocably. Back in the harbor, when he saw her staring at the ship, he had thought the game was up. Her eyes had flashed around the Lorris crowd, searching for the man she knew had taken it.
But when the dashing and legendary Red Jack stepped forward to claim the ship (inwardly quailing, half-expecting her to see through the mask, magic though it is), her face lit up. She stared up at him, and between his ridiculous lie ("This old ship? I bought it in the Archipelago. From a rather cocky young bluff, name of...Arago? Aragon? Something like that.") and the opportunity to grab the ear of a man she'd heard tales of probably since she was in swaddling, she'd been eager to believe him. And so off to the tavern together, this unbelievably beautiful pirate captain without a crew or a ship, and the genteel Red Jack, also known as Mika Arago, the man who had stolen them both from her.
She's been playing the coquette, laughing girlishly, begging him to tell her stories of his days on the open sea and quaffing ale as fast as the bartender brings it. Something about her is different. He can't place his finger on it. She reaches across the table to touch his hand, leaning forward so he can see the perfect curve of her breasts. Her eyes, like pretty flashing coins, play over his face. She takes in the ruffled shirt and broad red hat, the brown ponytail and the tattoo, the red spade over his left eye. None of it real. None of it his. Her hand on his hand, her toe dancing farther and farther up his calf, brings a smirk to his lips. Something about her not-knowing appealing too, even beyond the contact and the cleavage. Something about the fact that she has no idea makes him feel as though he owns the poor foolish wench.
"What are you smiling about," she asks, cocking her head. A side of her he never saw, laboring on her crew before the mutiny--this coyness.
"Nothing, lass. Just thinking how you're young enough to be my daughter."
She laughs then, a touch of scorn nestled in her laughter. Her toe keeps running in circles around his shin. The mockery in her voice is playful, but the look in her eyes, sharp and inviting at the same time, made him realize: she is no maiden flirting in her garden, no fan-waving court girl. He doesn't have her, not as he thought, dangling his charisma and her ship just beyond her reach. This woman was dangerous.
It makes him want her even more.
"Don't worry about compromising my virtue," she laughs. Her eyes hold the hint of menace beneath the lure of sex. "There's not too much left of it." She laughs, raises her glass in a mock toast, and throws back another tankard. He can hardly believe how quickly she's going through the ale.
"So tell me," she says, slamming her tankard back down. "What does a girl have to do to get that ship away from you?"
Remember the plan, he thinks to himself. Not just the plan but the Plan--father's plan, father's inheritance, father's connections. Mika has never wanted a thing but to be rich. Rich and immortal, maybe. But suddenly a third thing occurs to him, as her hand disappears beneath the table and brushes his thigh.
He'll have her, on her own ship, and then leave her in port, put her out on another dinghy maybe or maybe even take her with him, though the men wouldn't like it. But he's the captain. Or at least the Red Jack is the captain. Who would say no to the Red Jack bringing a concubine along? Even as his mind wheels through the desperate plan he knows it won't work. This woman will never be anything but a captain on board a ship. He threw her over once, by luck and magic, but those things never hold when you want them to. Which means he has to win this. He has to dominate the little tease with his own teasing. He has to make her beg for it.
Shouldn't be too hard. She wouldn't be the first.
Grinning at her, he grabs her hand beneath the table and squeezes it. Pulling it up sharply to his cock, he tugs her torso forward behind it to whisper in her ear.
"What have you in the way of coin, lass?" The burning on his tongue, as motes flare up, send his words directly to her ear, to her mind. The burning on his groin where her fingers, tense for a moment, relax to cup him.
She looks surprised. Her gold eyes get big and blank for a split second, and then a smile hits them. He wonders, for a moment, if she's god-blood too maybe. He hopes she is. It will make for a much better game.
Regardless, she's enjoying herself.
She squeezes his balls lightly, then pulls her hand away easily, wriggling out of his grasp like a fish. Leaning back in her seat, she watches him through half-closed lids, and for the first time he can see that she's sizing him up. He smiles at her, flagging down the innkeeper for another ale. She doesn't seem to be feeling the drink.
"I'm a poor lass without two bits of jade to rub together. But maybe if you named a price we could work something out."
She starts in on the new glass of ale. Her eyes flit up over the top of her tankard, and that sudden flirting glance makes him lean towards her.
"Ah, I'm not so interested in the friction between
coins
, I'll tell ye true."
She laughs then. "And ye kiss your mother with those lips?"
Oh gods no
. "I perform a wide variety of acts with these lips, lass, and this tongue." Again the flow of magic through his mouth and eyes, the slight tingle of it flowing down his arms. The Red Jack is less comely than Mika Arago, but that doesn't mean the Red Jack can't share Arago's charm.
"Hmm. You certainly do talk a good deal with them." Her eyes are laughing again, her lips touching the edge of the tankard, parting, her throat moving. A beautiful long throat, the color of polished copper.
"Well, perhaps we should go to the
Raptor
