blood.”
Before he could even offer her one of the glasses, she took it, and swallowed its contents in one gulp. Closing her eyes, she exhaled a low, fiery breath, and gave a delicate shudder. Then held out her glass.
He considered, then discarded, the idea of warning her about the vodka’s potency. He had no plans to take advantage of an inebriated woman, but she was an adult, and if she wanted to get drunk, he wouldn’t play disapproving nursemaid. So he filled her glass again.
At least this time she didn’t immediately bolt down the vodka. She studied her drink.
“Every culture has its fermented beverages,” she said, swirling the vodka around in her glass. “One of the first things any civilization does is find a way to create a drinkable intoxicant. Egyptians and the Babylonians had beer. The Chinese fermented rice and honey. But many of the earliest uses of alcohol were spiritual. A way of gaining a higher consciousness, connecting with the gods.”
He tossed back his vodka, letting the cold burn all the way down to his belly.
When she finished her second glass of the spirit, he said, “You’re not searching for God right now.”
“But I prayed to Him only a few minutes ago.” She set her glass down and began to move restlessly through his stateroom. Observant as she was, he had no doubt she took in every detail, from the naval-issue desk to the rows of bladed weapons mounted on the bulkhead, taken from armories and ships from around the globe. His belongings were scattered through the cabin: pairs of boots, empty bottles, a half-assembled clockwork dirigible he never got around to completing. She saw all of this.
Picked him apart.
He saw what she did. A scattered man. Who moved restlessly from one diversion to the other, without any real sense of purpose.
He’d had purpose once. And threw it away. Because of a moment of temptation offered to him by someone he’d thought a friend, an ally. No, more than a friend and ally—a brother. Who should he hate more—the one who tempted him, or himself, for giving in? It seemed he had enough hatred for both.
“You handled yourself well enough,” he said. “Didn’t scream or faint.”
“But I did almost fall overboard.”
Despite her dismissal, he’d spoken honestly. For someone who’d never been in the middle of an airship battle, she’d kept her wits. Fear hadn’t paralyzed her. A surprise. But then, she’d also walked into one of Palermo’s most dangerous taverns to find him. And she was heading right into the teeth of peril in order to help her parents. Not precisely a sheltered academic, this Daphne Carlisle. Not precisely anything he could easily define.
And that interested him.
“Still getting your air legs,” he said.
She smiled at that, a little curl of a smile. “ Air legs. It’s a new world up here. With its own customs and language.”
“So long as you only record it up here.” He tapped his temple.
Folding her arms across her chest, she leaned against the table. “You seem awfully concerned about that.”
“Secrecy is a rogue Man O’ War’s best weapon.”
“Here I thought a Man O’ War was himself a weapon and needed nothing else. Or,” she added, tilting her head and studying him, “your insistence on secrecy hides something else. Such as the reason why you went rogue. Why there are no photographs of family members or loved ones in your stateroom. Unless you keep them hidden somewhere. In a locked drawer, perhaps.”
He poured himself another drink and swallowed it down. Maybe this was why he seldom interacted with women of exceptional intelligence.
Like a needle she was, Daphne Carlisle, digging and jabbing, searching out the splinters beneath his skin, but leaving him raw and bleeding in the process.
He was a Man O’ War. Metal and flesh. Science at its most advanced. It took far more than one intriguing woman’s questions to wound him.
Easy enough to show her how little she or her speculation could
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