A Hero for the Empire: The Dragon's Bidding, Book 1

by Christina Westcott

  “What made you change your mind?” Fitz felt certain she already knew the answer.

  “Wolf.” Ransahov made eye contact. “He told me he’d kick my ass from here to the Andromeda Galaxy if I didn’t take the throne.” Her laughter died as she realized Fitz hadn’t joined in her amusement. “He pointed out that the only way I could protect Baldark would be to make it a part of the Empire and oversee its development myself. Far too many people know about this world now. I don’t think we can keep it secret much longer. At least I’ll be in a position to see that the Baldarkii receive all the benefits of advanced technology, while being spared its less desirable aspects.”

  Fitz folded her arms across her chest. “How is that any different from what I told you?”

  “I know, Commander, but I had no idea who you were. You seemed like some starry-eyed kid who believed all that fairytale propaganda about me.”

  “And you couldn’t risk me finding out you were a fraud,” Fitz said. “It never was you, was it? It was Wolf all along, he was the strategist, the tactician, and he just let you take all the credit. It was going so well until you bought into your own hype and drove him away, thinking you could be the hero all by yourself. Then it fell apart. By the time you realized that, you’d driven such a wedge between the two of you that he wouldn’t come back. From then on, there was nowhere for you to go but down. That’s what was behind your emotional breakdown.”

  Ransahov stared at a blank spot on the wall for several minutes, then returned to pacing. “Commander, I’ll admit I’m often blinded by my own enthusiasm, I’m impetuous and sometimes a little hot-headed…okay, perhaps more than a little, but there’s one thing I can do. That’s inspire people, motivate them. I can make them believe in a cause, make them want to strive for something better, to follow me against terrible odds…”

  “A trait you have in common with all the great megalomaniacs of history,” Fitz interjected.

  Ransahov stopped, studying her. “You’re right. That’s why I need the best people around me, guiding me, keeping me moving in the right direction.”

  “Then why did you demote Maks Kiernan? You won’t find a better man to run the military.”

  “He’s agreed to be First Admiral of the Fleet. I plan to return the Empire to its original tripartite form of government. The military and domestic Triumvirs will share power with me. Kiernan had no desire to play political games, so he chose to stay where he was. I can assure you it is a change in title only.”

  “And Wolf will be your military Triumvir?”

  “Of course, he’s the best man for the job. He’s experienced at keeping me in line and—as he informed me—he’s already decked one Emperor, so it’s no big deal if he has to do it again.”

  Ransahov’s laughter sounded hollow. Her fingers drifted upward, but she forced her hand down, clasping her fingers together in front of her. “I’m not naive enough to think this is going to be simple. Ashcraft is coherent enough—just barely—to arrange a transfer of power that the Senate won’t contest, but he’s had years to stuff his government with supporters, cronies and blood suckers who are draining the Empire dry to line their own pockets. Change won’t be easy. Nor quick. I suspect we’re in for a long and nasty stretch of in-fighting, double dealing and back-stabbing. If not outright warfare. Yig knows, I’ll do everything I can to avoid a civil war.”

  Ransahov strolled over to the processer. “Would you like a cup of coffee, Commander?”

  Startled by the sudden shift in the conversation, Fitz sputtered, “No, ma’am. I can get that myself.”

  “Your doctor ordered you to rest. I’ll get it.”

  “Ma’am, perspective Emperors don’t get coffee for lowly commanders.”

  The red-haired woman placed a mug emblazoned with the Gold Dragons’ logo on the night table and perched on the edge of the bed. “What about a friend, Fitz? Can I get a cup of coffee for a friend?”

  To hide her confusion, Fitz grabbed the cup and took a healthy gulp…and almost choked. The liquid was hot and liberally dosed with sugar and cream. Not what she expected, but it tasted wonderful. “I don’t know, ma’am. Why?”

  “I have a job for you, if you’re interested.”

  “Security on a mining platform out on the galactic rim?”

  Ransahov smiled. “No, Fitz. I want you to head my Imperial Protection Detail. You’ll be in charge of the Praetorian Guard and have complete control of palace security. And I want you to be my conscience. You seem to have become inoculated against my mythology. I need someone like you who’ll stand up and tell me when I’ve gone off the rails and what I need to do about it. I need a friend I can trust. Could you do that for me?”

  “Do I have the right to slug you like Wolf does?”

  “We’ll negotiate that point.” Both women laughed, truly laughed.

  Ransahov rose. “I should be heading to sickbay before Doc Ski comes looking for me. She tells me this is actually a rather minor procedure, but I’ve always been a bit of a baby when it came to surgeries.”

  As she reached the end of the bed, she stopped. A hand rose toward her face, but she stilled the movement, opting instead to wrap her arms around her chest.

  “Fitz, when I asked Wolf to be my Triumvir he agreed…but with one nonnegotiable stipulation.” She seemed unaware of her hand brushing up and down the fabric of her jacket’s sleeve. “He made it very clear to me that there could never be anything between the two of us again and if I couldn’t agree to that, he would walk away. The love we had before is dead. He was gentleman enough not to say I killed it. All we can share now is a friendship, a few pleasant memories…”

  “And a son,” Fitz said.

  “Yes, a son I hope he can be proud of.” Ransahov noticed her restless fingers and calmed them. “He loves you, Fitz. I’ve never seen the man so crazy in love.”

  Fitz’s heart performed barrel rolls inside her ribcage.

  “A word of advice. Don’t be stupid like me. Don’t hurt him, don’t treat his heart like your own personal punching bag, because if you do, I’ll see to it that you get to enjoy a very long tour of duty on that mining platform at the ass-end of the galaxy. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Fitz said, trying not to grin like a buffoon. A frisson of joy wreathed her mind, a joy so fierce she knew it couldn’t be hers alone.

  “Bosss Laaady.”

  Jumper bounded through the door, hurdling in her direction. The cat’s substantial bulk slammed into her chest, knocking a grunt out of her. She hugged the licking, squirming ball of fur.

  Running footsteps warned her seconds before Wolf charged into the room. He’d stopped only long enough to strip off his gear and still wore the armorcloth underwear that went under a power suit.

  “Wolf…” Ari started toward him, but he placed his hands on her shoulders, turned her and shoved her out the door. He closed and locked it behind her.

  “You can’t do that to a prospective Emperor.” Fitz tried not to laugh.

  “I just did.” He perched on the edge of the bed, tangling his fingers in her hair, pulling her close. The first touch of his lips on hers was soft, tentative, as if afraid he might break her. Then their kiss deepened.

  Inside her head, that wordless choir reverberated, a deeper voice now added to the melody and together their song swelled into a magnificent symphony. Far too soon for Fitz, he broke the kiss.

  “I was afraid I’d lost you and had never shown you how much I loved you,” he whispered.

  “I love her, too. But, Boss, you’re crushing me.” Jumper struggled between them.

  Wolf leaned back, glowering at the cat. “Then I suggest you leave. I noticed the galley’s processor had fish and chips on the menu. Why don’t you take your little friend and check that out?”

  Faydra waited patiently by the door, her slender tail wrapped demurely around he
r front paws. She wore a red collar and, gleaming against the pale fur of her throat, Fitz noticed a golden medallion that read 127.

  Jumper hopped down, trotted to the door and unlocked it. “Come on, Babe. Let me show you some good eats.”

  “Remember to lock it behind you,” Wolf called to the departing cats.

  “I think the universe is looking at an explosion in the number of bob-tailed cats in the near future,” he told Fitz.

  “Jumper and Faydra? You’re kidding me. I thought he was a confirmed bachelor.”

  “If that cat is offering to share his food with a calico, it’s serious.”

  Fitz wrapped her hand around the thick blond braid and pulled him closer. A millennia later, he pulled back to catch his breath.

  “I came here directly from the field command site. I’m dirty and I probably don’t smell too good. I should take a shower before this progresses much further.”

  She twisted a lock of golden hair around her fingers. “Ever since I met you, I’ve had this thing about taking a shower with you.”

  His eyebrows climbed up his forehead. “Really? We’ll just have to continue that tradition.”

  But she didn’t let him fulfill her fantasy, not right away. When she finally released his lips, he said, “It’s all gone now, Kimber—the pain, the TKS, everything. You’re one of us now.”

  “You made me a Lazzinair? But how?”

  He put a finger over his lips to silence her.

  “You said I couldn’t cheat death, but I found a way—for you. I couldn’t bear to think about a future without you.”

  “Then I’m…we’re immortal?” The word stuck in Fitz’s throat.

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure anyone does. This thing inside us may have a fixed life span, and when it ceases to exist, we die along with it. I can only promise you, I’ll be beside you for as long as you’ll have me.”

  “Eternity. With me.” She laughed. “Sure you can handle that, soldier?”

  “I’m willing to give it a try if you are.” Wolf stood, threw back her covers and lifted her into his arms. “I think it’s time we did something about your shower fantasy.”

  Fitz ran her tongue up the cleft in his chin until she reached his lips. “I think I’m already living all my fantasies.”

  Including two she never dared dream that she could have.

  A future and this glorious man to share it.

  About the Author

  As long as she can remember, Christina Westcott has had imaginary people living in her head. Cyborgs, mercenaries, wizards, dragons and cats. Lots of cats—shape-shifting cats, talking cats and telepathic cats. After continual nagging from this bizarre cast of characters inside her, Chris decided to turn them loose on the world in her science fiction and fantasy stories. She’s been an inveterate collector of not only books and cats, but of experiences, riding in rodeos, driving racecars and flying airplanes. All good experience for becoming a writer.

  She lives in sunny Southwest Florida where she delights in telling all her friends “up north” the local temperature in the middle of January and she proudly wears the moniker Crazy Cat Lady.

  You can catch her on her website at www.christinawestcottauthor.com or at www.facebook.com/chriswestcott33.

  She may learn to live for love…if vengeance doesn’t kill her first.

  Unacceptable Risk

  © 2011 Jeanette Grey

  Plix spends her lonely, gritty life trying to solve the mysteries her father left behind. Armed with a variety of cybernetic enhancements and a talent for getting into places she shouldn’t be, she searches for clues to his murder—and who’s responsible for poisoning her city.

  Waking up on a street corner with her brain wiring fried to a crisp, she figures she must have gotten close this time. There’s only one man she trusts to pull her back from the brink: a tuner who can retrieve the evidence hidden deep in the recesses of her mind. A man she dares not let too close to her heart.

  When Edison downloads a secret SynDate schematic from Plix’s burnt-out circuitry, he knows with dreadful finality that nothing—not even the fiery kiss he’s been holding back for years—will stop her from pursuing her quest past the point of insanity.

  All he can do, as he helps her plan her final mission, is ease her pain, watch her back…and hope one of them doesn’t pay with their lives.

  Warning: Contains a heroine intent on kicking ass and taking names, a high-tech dystopia, cybernetic body modifications, and emotionally charged, sensual romance.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Unacceptable Risk:

  Lucien Vicker knew what her father had been up to. Lucien Vicker knew about her.

  She had to go.

  Layers of plans and strategies unfolded in her mind for where she would go next and what she would do. For how she would take her leave. Edison would be angry at her for abandoning her recovery so soon; she knew that he’d wanted another day or two at the very least to make sure everything was functioning correctly. But the most significant damage had been repaired or contained, and she was strong enough, she was sure. If she wasn’t, then she was just going to have to hope Edison would forgive her.

  Another deep pang stilled her as she realized that, even if she had more time, she couldn’t afford to allow him to harbor her any longer.

  She couldn’t come back to him. She couldn’t put him in that kind of risk.

  Blinking back the moisture threatening to blur her vision, Plix pushed herself to make her preparations, calling on the callous efficiency that had gotten her through so many sticky situations in the past. Plugging in the auxiliary data jack, she downloaded everything—all the data Edison had managed to recover—watching as it disappeared from his system, erasing it line by line. Then, without remorse, she ran her most aggressive algorithm to scrub all traces of her presence from his mainframe. All of it.

  Well, almost all.

  She left exactly one file. Masked and encrypted and hidden deep within the parts of his system that only she would think to look in, she knew it would take even Edison a while to find and decode it. But still, she left one piece of herself for him to find.

  In case she didn’t come back.

  When she didn’t come back.

  Plix was just finishing when she heard the sound she’d been waiting for this entire time, footsteps coming down the hall with that familiar echo and that long, loping gait. She swallowed hard and clenched her eyes shut, steeling herself for the goodbyes that had been growing more and more difficult for years now. This one would be the most difficult of all.

  With a silent prayer, Plix wiped the display and slipped the cable from her neck, turning quickly and forcing as neutral of an expression as she could muster. As she did, the door behind her swung open, knuckles rapping gently against plastic in a small warning.

  The sight of Edison’s face, broadly expectant, smiling and open, was nearly enough to crack her resolve and shatter all her plans.

  It only took a moment for everything to shift, though.

  “Hey, sleepyhead, I—” The words had barely left Edison’s mouth before his expression was falling, his features betraying how quickly he understood exactly what was happening.

  Plix could only hope he didn’t grasp the full extent of it. If he did, he would never let her go.

  “What—?” The hurt in his eyes was paralyzing, the sudden defensiveness in his posture striking so stark a contrast to the lazy smile he’d entered with.

  She always hurt him.

  Every single time.

  There wasn’t any point to pretending. “I’m sorry,” she started.

  “No.” Edison shook his head fiercely, his arms crossing as he straightened up to his full height. “You’re not sorry. You’re not sorry at all. If you were, you wouldn’t—”

  “I have to.” Plix couldn’t me
et his eyes anymore. She couldn’t even hold her unaltered hand in front of her, it was shaking so badly.

  “You don’t. You don’t have to,” he said, pleading. “Whatever it is you think you need to do, it can wait.”

  As she fought back the tears that wanted to overflow, she tried to shake her head, tried to move, tried to leave. But she couldn’t. And then there were hands on her shoulders, one rising up to touch her cheek, seeking roughly to tip her head back. When she held firm, her eyes trained intently on the floor, he gave up and simply wrapped his arms around her, pressing her face against his chest.

  He smelled so good.

  “Please, Plix. Please. Just a few more days.”

  She’d already stayed too long. “No,” she said. The sound was muffled by his shirt, every breath and every word pulling more of his scent toward her lungs.

  He pushed her back, and in her surprise, she let her eyes meet his. “Then let me go with you. Let me watch out for you. If you have to do this, we can do it together.”

  She closed her eyes and her fists. “No.”

  “Please—”

  “No.” Sucking in a deep breath, she summoned all her strength to open her eyes and meet his gaze. “You know I have to…that I can’t…”

  When he lifted his hands to cup the sides of her face, she wasn’t prepared for how powerfully that unexpected tenderness would affect her. Usually, he screamed. Sometimes he broke things.

  He never touched her. Not quite like this.

  Maybe he knew after all.

  “Plix, I can’t…I can’t keep doing this.”

  She felt her expression fall, the truth of what she was saying making the words echo with the pain she wanted so desperately to hide. “You won’t have to.”

  For a long moment, their eyes held, and she was left with no doubt as to whether he grasped her meaning.