Though Del was frequently rough on me with regard to physical aches and pains-not to mention opinions-I'd seen her with enough babies, children, and animals to know what got to her. She was without a doubt the toughest woman I'd ever known in strength of will, mind, and sheer physical gifts, but she was, after all, a woman. She had her soft spots.

The captain was also a woman, and I was certain she had soft spots, too. I just had to find one.

I stood on the deck in the open and commenced loosening up. I did not bite my tongue against grunts of effort, of oaths sworn against stiff, slow muscles, of the favoring of particularly sore areas. I hurt all over. It affected the way I walked, the way I stretched, the way I twisted this way and that. Even the way I stood: within minutes my feet were bleeding. Any other time I'd have shrugged it off, told Del or anyone else I was fine, no problem, nothing I couldn't handle. It's easy to let pride replace truth. Sometimes it's necessary. This time, I thought, it was not.

Understanding Del was the key to this woman, this red-haired, freckled woman who had acquired a ship and eight men, not to mention various weapons and booty. Del had called her a killer: she likely was, although I had yet to see her personally kill anyone. That she'd ordered her crew to run us up on the reef, I knew. Whether she could stick a sword into a man and cut his heart out, I didn't know. Del could. Del had. Del, too, was a killer.

That stopped me for a moment. In mid-stretch I halted, summoned up that thought, that image again. Del in the circle, circumscribed by ritual, by song. Del out of the circle, circumscribed by nothing but her will, her skill, her determination to remain alive.

Hoolies, she'd nearly killed me.

And while I recalled that, put fingers to the misshapen sculpture of scars along my ribs where her sword had cut into me, felt again the pain, the shock, the chilling flame of Boreal eating into flesh and muscle and viscera, the captain came up from behind.

"The reef was cruel," she said.

I glanced sidelong at her, saw red hair knotted back into a haphazard braid, the shine of glass beads and gold at earlobes and throat, the snug fit of the wide belt buckled around a waist I could span with my hands, and the freckled upswell of generous breasts at the droop of her neckline. A thin tunic, rippling in the wind. Baggy leggings tucked into low, heelless boots, but a curve of calf played hide-and-show in a rent. She was worth looking at. No question. And she was looking back.

So. The plan commenced.

"It wasn't the reef that drove us aground." I spread my feet again, bent to touch the deck with flattened palms. I let her see the effort not to show the effort, now that she looked. "Better to say you were cruel."

"So I am." She put a hand on my spine, into the small of my back above the dhoti, and pressed. "Does this hurt?"

I caught my breath, swearing inwardly. If she was that kind of woman… well, it made the plan problematical. To say the least. Maybe even impossible; I had not taken this quirk into consideration.

Queasy again, I straightened, felt the fingers walk up my spine. The hand, without warning, slipped around to the scar tissue, squeezed. "That hurt," she said. "Once."

Beneath that hand, beneath the dead tissue, the bones remembered. So did the softer insides. Indeed, it had hurt. Very much. And now I felt sicker than ever.

"Your feet are bleeding," she observed.

I swallowed tightly. "Forgive me for staining your deck." I waited for her to remove the hand. When she didn't, I removed it for her, lifting it off my ribs. She was close enough for me to consider making a grab for her sword or knife, but I was certain she wanted that. Therefore I decided not to do it. Not yet. Not yet.

"My deck will survive," she said. "Will you? Can you?"

"That depends on the alternative." I took a step away, then turned toward her. "A man will do many things to stay alive."

The skin by her eyes creased. "So will a woman."

"Does that include running other ships aground so they break apart?"

"You may blame your captain for that. His choice was to come about and allow us to take his ship, unharmed; instead, he misjudged and tried the reef."

"You knew he would."

"Other men have not made that mistake. I believed he would choose to let his ship and his crew live." She paused. "And his passengers."

"It makes no sense to lose the cargo, captain."

"No sense," she agreed, "but that is my risk. I throw the dice-" A quick reflexive movement of her right hand. "-and occasionally I lose."

"This time."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. There is no coin of it, that is true. But there are two men and a woman."

"And you already know there is no one to ransom two of us."

A negligent shrug of her left shoulder. "Probably no one will ransom the captain, either. I doubt he is worth much even if he has a wife."

"So much for booty, captain."

"Booty is many things. It shines, it sparkles, it chimes, it spends." She smiled. "It breathes."

This time I hid my reaction. It took everything I had. "Slavers?"

Her eyes, intently clear under sandy lashes tipped in sunbleached gold, were patently amused. "A woman will do many things to stay alive."

I drew in a careful breath. "So will a man."

"Then do it," she suggested. "Do what is necessary."

I turned sharply to walk away from her, thinking it necessary as well as advisable-and nearly walked right into the first mate, whom I had not known was anywhere nearby. Which didn't please me in the least.

Behind me, as I stopped short, I heard the woman laugh softly, saying something in a language I didn't understand. In morning light, the rings piercing the man's eyebrows glinted. He answered her in the same language, but did not take his eyes off my face even as she departed.

I didn't doubt for a moment that had I tried for the woman's weapons at any time, he'd have killed me instantly. That was the point of surrounding yourself with men such as this.

"What are you?" he asked.

Not who. What. Interesting-

And then my belly cramped. Hoolies, but I was getting tired of this. Maybe Del was right. Maybe I had been stung by something in the reef. "I'm a messiah," I answered curtly, in no mood for verbal or physical games.

Teeth gleamed as his lips drew back in a genuine smile. "I thought so."

Of course, at the moment I didn't feel particularly messiahish. After Del's comment about me magicking weapons out of thin air, which of course I couldn't do, I hadn't been precisely cheerful. And now this blue-headed man was playing the same sort of game. With much less right.

He said something then. I didn't understand it; it sounded like the same language he and the captain shared. He watched me closely as he spoke, searching my eyes and face. I couldn't very well prepare to show or not show any kind of response, as I had no idea what he was saying. I just looked back, waiting.

He switched again to accented Southron. "Where were you bound, when we took you?"

"Skandi." I saw no harm in honesty.

Something glinted in his eyes. "ioSkandi."

"Skandi." I shrugged. "That's all I know. Never been there before."

Ring-weighted brows rose consideringly. "Never?"

"Southroner," I answered. "Deep desert. Punja. Bred and born."

"No."

"Yes."

"Skandic." He sounded certain.

"Maybe," I said clearly, curious now as well as irritated. "Depending on what you intend to do with us, we may never find out-"

Without warning he clamped a hand over my right wrist. I felt the strong fingers close like wire, shutting off the blood.

I moved then, used strength and leverage, was free with one quick twist. He did not appear surprised; in fact, he smiled. And nodded, "lo. "