Read Online Lust Plague (Steamwork Chronicles) by Cari Silverwood - Free Book Online

here.”
    “Just being prudent. I don’t fancy being someone’s main course.” Any movement, any at all, might be a zomb. Dark corners…a coop full of startled, flapping chickens, and at the far wall, hay stacked in bales.
    “Aha. A great many deadly chickens.” She squeezed past.
    But she had waited for him to clear the barn.
    “It’s polite to say thank you.” He spotted it. “Damn.”
    “Yes. Damn. For once I agree.”
    Kaysana circled the gleaming vehicle in the center of the barn, leaned in over the low door to check out the dashboard inside. Half-in, half-out of the cabin and the gold metal and white canvas roof meant she had to lean down low. The shirt rode up.
    A steam cycle. Tapering three seater, two seats side by side at the back. Three-wheeler. Polished ebony timber, glass, and brass. Chromed, sweeping exhaust tails. Someone had loved this beauty. The front hood bulged out sexily—black shiny molded timber. The hood ornament was a golden dolphin sitting up on its tail, balancing a large ball on its nose.
    But…he eyed Kaysana and the half-moons of her bottom showing below the edge of the shirt, then the cycle, and knew just what he was going to do come morning. God, if she didn’t come out of there quick, he might just break their agreement.

Chapter Seven
    Sleeping wasn’t easy. Every time she roused and sat up to check the barn, Sten was already awake. The fourth time, he spoke.
    “If you don’t go to damn sleep and stop waking me, I’ll come over there and do something you’ll regret.”
    “I’ll regret? Hmph.” She moved on the makeshift bed, trying to get comfy on the straw and the two burlap sacks. The chunk missing from the roof let her see moonlit wisps of clouds sift across the blue-black sky. Where would her ship be right now? Her crew?
    “You thinking of your people up there?”
    His voice startled her.
    “Won’t hurt no one to tell me that, you know. Is there someone special?”
    She frowned. No. It wouldn’t hurt, but it seemed inappropriate. Talking was alluring, though. It’d ease her heart and the acid squirming in her stomach. She got up on her elbow, found him in the darkness, his shoulder and head silhouetted against the wall. The long gleam in front of him would be the shotgun. It was good to see the man…the frankenstruct, had some sense. And he hadn’t made another move on her, just like he’d promised.
    “I was thinking of them.” She wasn’t going to mention Ling. Her awful memory of his blood and flesh blowing out his back after she’d pulled the trigger…too raw to share. “Especially of Emily.”
    “The young lady outside the gym door? Pigtails? She got off the ship, far as I know. I sent her to the landing bay with two others. Since a gyro was gone when I got back, least some of them made it off.”
    “Oh. Good.” She shut her eyes, counted to ten. “Thank you.” Second time she’d said that to him. It pained her to do so, but the surge of relief at knowing he’d helped her crew made thanking him worth it. Emily especially somehow touched her heart. Her youth, maybe?
    In the past, nothing had affected her like this. It was new and weird, this feeling, like finding a tooth where none had been before. She didn’t like it. A captain should be aloof.
    “So you weren’t fucking anyone?”
    The air in the barn boiled. “My gods. Having you around is like walking with a burr in my shoe. No, but then no one on my ship fucks . You are so foul of mouth. I would appreciate it if you kept that word to yourself in future.”
    “No one fucks? Must be fucking boring, then.”
    She pressed her lips firmly together, refusing to reply to his taunt.
    “Guess that plants me right in the middle of low-life territory, then?”
    “Absolutely.”
    “Thought so. Point made. You judge people on goddamned flimsy reasons, Kaysana. People use different words—you condemn them. Frankenstruct—condemned. Guilty. Done with.”
    “I do not. I judge people by many