Captain and a Corset by Mary Wine

she had privacy—for the moment at least. Tears stung her eyes. She wiped them away and turned on the water to the bathtub to cover any sound she might make. She didn’t have time to cry. Hadn’t had the time, really, for a very long time. More tears eased down her cheeks in spite of her resolve to maintain her composure. She decided to focus on the task at hand, which brought Bion to mind. In order to ignore the rogue, she’d quite often focused on the task at hand.
    Maybe that had been a foolish waste of an opportunity.
    She looked around the bathroom, seeking any form of escape, but there was none—only the door she’d entered through. Dread knotted her belly as she undressed and stepped into the bath. She might well have lost her opportunity to choose her first lover.
    A day ago, she’d have chastised herself for thinking about Bion in such a way, but it was amazing the way opinion changed when freedom of choice no longer rested in her hands. She’d always expected to be formally courted and won by a man her father would happily shake hands with before granting them his blessing.
    Bion was a devilish rouge who stormed her defenses; he wasn’t the courting type.
    But she had trembled in his embrace. For a moment, she allowed herself to relive the experience. Never once had she believed a kiss might affect her so deeply. It was frightening in its intensity but wildly enticing for the very same reason. There was something deep inside her that blossomed at the idea of being so completely out of control.
    She trembled as she realized the harsh reality facing her. Cooperating with her captors would place her on Bion’s enemy list. The man was ferocious when it came to battling the Helikeians.
    Yet she had no idea how to escape, and that unleashed a flood of despair that left her sitting on the side of the tub long after her hair had dried.
    ***
    “Mind where you’re leading me. We’ll end up shanghaied for sure.”
    A waterfront prostitute flung the words at her would-be customer when he tried to tug her down a dark alley. The man shrugged and pressed her against the wall right where they were. There was a rustle as her skirts were raised, but she didn’t protest.
    Bion peered out from beneath the brim of his hat, missing none of the details of the scene before him. In this section of town, a man was wise to keep his guard up. But all around him, men were eagerly spending their pay on cheap liquor. As their wits dulled, prostitutes moved closer to relieve the men of more of their coin.
    Tonight, Bion sought the women employed by the boarding masters. They didn’t demand coin first, but took their intoxicated victims down the alleys to where they might be sold into service aboard airships. It wasn’t always women who lured the unsuspecting men to their doom. Crooked barkeepers or boarding-house owners all joined the enterprise.
    There was a shortage of men willing to labor aboard ships and risk dying before setting foot on land again.
    Helikeians were just as desperate for labor for their sky vessels as the seafaring community was for their ships. The men who made up the crews of the Helikeian airships faced brutal masters and the added bonus of being told the only way out was death. The Order had no intention of allowing men to escape and warn the general population of the ships sailing the skies. They were little more than pirates that stole men for their crews as easily as they did cargo from defeated ships.
    “Here now, love, come have a drink with me.”
    Bion turned to look at a woman who had one foot propped on the top of a small barrel. Her skirt was hiked to afford him a generous view of her calf and knee.
    “I’ll not bore you; you have my word on that,” she said.
    “Is that so?” Bion stepped closer to her, pressing up against her body as he laid his hand over her left breast.
    “Here now.” She laughed as she pushed him away. “The least you can do is buy me a drink before we get on to what