Dark Stranger

by Susan Sizemore

  “I know you don’t want to escape Doc’s Den of Iniquity, darling,” Maria interrupted. “But there are rumors flying and tension in the air and even though all the buzz is about you, you’re the diplomat and you need to talk to people.”

  Zoe considered this while Maria paused for breath. Her gut twisted with the fear she’d forgotten while in Doc’s bed.

  “Rumors?” she asked. The jolt of fear finally jerked her attention completely away from memories of Raven’s sexual prowess. “About me? What about me?”

  “There’re stories going around that you’re somebody important. Cauley keeps saying he knows you from somewhere and how you look familiar, and other people are starting to say that, yeah, you look like—well, like someone famous. And since you’re from New Byzant and your family works for the government and—”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Zoe said, knowing exactly what Maria meant. “Or what Cauley’s talking about.”

  “That’s what I figured. I’ve told everyone that you look like just another pretty Greek girl to me.”

  Zoe smiled. “Because all we Greek girls are pretty.”

  Maria nodded. “Damn straight.”

  “I’ll talk to Cauley,” Zoe said. She stretched and rubbed the back of her neck. There was a bruise there, too. Where hadn’t her vampire nipped her recently? “But I can’t talk to anybody until I get cleaned up first.”

  “You do look excessively well used. Can you walk?”

  Zoe blushed. “I’ll meet you in the plaza in a few minutes,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster.

  Zoe was certainly used to having people look at her. So she pretended not to notice how swiftly activity in the plaza came to a halt as soon as she stepped out of the infirmary. She was used to stares and excited silence, but this time her shell of confidence was assaulted by unfamiliar, soul-grinding embarrassment because these stares were not from strangers. These were people she counted as her friends. They were her family sharing this underground hell.

  “Oh, dear, this is going to be hard,” she whispered as she prepared to move forward.

  Everard was at her side before she could take a step. He put his hand on her elbow, full of concern. “Feeling better?”

  Better than what? she wondered. Then she realized that her chief bodyguard was giving her the option of pretending that her three cycles of marathon sex had actually been a spot of bed rest for some ailment in the infirmary.

  She smiled gratefully at him. “Much better, thanks.”

  The tough and terrible Everard blushed like a teenager. She let him put his arm through hers as they strolled into the plaza.

  She faced down the blatant staring until the crowd broke on her calm regard. The soccer game resumed, the choir returned to singing, which drowned out Adams as he began a harangue, and the marines dropped down and began doing push-ups. Zoe took in all this familiar activity with benign pleasure. Maybe they were prisoners in a dark, dank hole in the ground, but the people in it made her feel at home. These survivors and friends were a blessing to her, and to each other.

  “It’s good to be back,” she said, even though the craving for Matthias Raven still burned in her skin, her bones, and her soul. Life was not all sex, no matter how magnificent the sex was.

  “Good to have you back,” Everard answered. “Especially since we need your help.”

  Concern shot through her. “On what?”

  “You’re heading the Olympic Committee. We took a vote and it was a unanimous decision that you should organize the upcoming games.”

  “Games. Olympic games. Here?”

  He nodded.

  “Let me get this straight—it’s been decided by a unanimous vote, at a meeting I didn’t attend, that I am supposed to organize some sort of POW variation of the Olympics?”

  Everard couldn’t possibly know, or guess, that she’d been involved in the opening ceremony for the Games performed at the ruins of ancient Olympia. She’d dressed up like an ancient priestess and taken part in the lighting of the Olympic Flame every four years since she was a kid.

  There were always media holos shown of that ceremony. Everard couldn’t possibly remember her as one of the anonymous white-draped officiants. Could he?

  Everard nodded at her question. “Right. We gave you the job of organizing the games because you’re Greek.”

  “Maria’s Greek.”

  “Yeah, but she’s busier than you are, being a hall officer.”

  “I’m busy, too.”

  “But the Asi are being quiet, and Doc says we ought to leave them alone.”

  She didn’t agree, but she’d take that up with Doc. She decided to ignore any Olympics discussion for the moment as well.

  “Where’s Cauley?” she asked as Mischa and Siler approached.

  Before he could answer Mischa hurried forward and took her other arm. “Can we talk?” He pulled her away from Everard. “Alone.”

  37

  She gave Everard a puzzled look and shrugged. “Sure,” she said to the techs.

  They hustled her away before Everard could object. The three of them ended up standing close to the choir, in order to cover the conversation, she supposed.

  Mischa leaned close and whispered, “Where’d you get it?”

  Siler held out the chip she’d given the techs. “This is reengineered Wolasere technology, isn’t it?”

  She stared at the tiny device in his palm. “Is it?”

  “I suspected it was when you asked us to fix it,” Siler went on. “Now I’m pretty sure. What’s a diplomatic aide doing with something as high on the classified list as this? You are a diplomat, right?”

  She couldn’t very well answer that. And it was all her own fault if her secret identity as Zoe Pappas was unraveling, wasn’t it?

  “Are you a spy?” Mischa asked.

  “No.”

  “Not that you’d tell us if you were.”

  “Did you fix it?” she asked them.

  They shook their heads.

  “We couldn’t even figure out where to start,” Mischa said.

  “We even tried hitting it with a rock,” Siler said. “Which is how we found out that the mechanism is self-repairing.”

  “But it still doesn’t work,” Mischa added.

  Zoe’s heart sank and her last hope of rescue faded.

  But before she could say anything else, she was grabbed harshly by the shoulder and spun around. Anger assaulted her empathic senses.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing with Doc!” Barb Langly shouted. Barb shook with fury, her eyes were wild. “He’s mine!”

  “The hell he is!” Zoe shouted back without thinking. Possessive fury shot through her, overwhelming her awareness of Barb’s emotions. The double effect left her dizzy.

  Barb slapped her.

  “Girl fight!” someone shouted.

  A crowd gathered around them even as Zoe got herself under control. She resisted the urge to find out who’d yelled the archaic term that brought everyone running and concentrated on the other woman. She made an even greater effort to stay still and not strike back at the other woman.

  “He isn’t mine, Barb,” she said calmly, although her soul shouted that was a lie. “He isn’t yours, either. Calm down. Be reasonable.”

  Barb wasn’t having any of Zoe’s soothing words. There was madness in her stare that was frightening. She stepped back and balled her fists, breathing hard. “You’ve wanted him since the moment you got down here. I’ve watched you. I know what you’ve been doing, always there beside him, making him depend on you. You want him all to yourself.”

  Zoe wasn’t going to deny it. “What I want doesn’t make any difference. Doc doesn’t believe in exclusive relationships.”

  She managed to say it, even though the words came out through gritted teeth. She hated it—but she had to accept this truth. And get the other woman to accept it as well. Damn, but there were times when she hated being a diplomat, and a
pragmatist, and the goddamned heir to the throne! If she wasn’t all those things, she’d fight to make Matthias Raven completely and totally her own.

  Her soothing words didn’t do any good. Barb’s scream of rage echoed around the plaza as she lunged toward Zoe.

  Zoe put the other woman on the ground without thinking. While she could ignore a slap, she was too well trained not to react to such an obviously dangerous attack. Jazoan had been able to take her by surprise but Barb Langly didn’t have a chance against her.

  Zoe didn’t hurt her. She just knocked Barb down and stepped away as a buzz of surprise went through the watching crowd.

  “Nice moves,” a marine sergeant commented.

  Zoe didn’t look at anyone. She hated violence, she hated hurting anyone in any way. She turned away from Barb as the woman sat up and the crowd parted to let her by. She was desperate to get back to the privacy of the infirmary, but she wouldn’t let herself run.

  Zoe didn’t expect Barb to come after her. But she heard her and spun around as Barb rushed wildly forward. Zoe’s first kick took Barb in the stomach. The second landed in the same spot a second later when Barb remained on her feet. This time when she went down, Barb Langly didn’t get back up.

  Zoe dropped to her knees beside Barb to make sure she was okay.

  “Maybe you really could have ripped out my liver,” Everard said thoughtfully as he bent down beside her.

  Alwyn pushed through the crowd, and Zoe and Everard got out of his way so he could run a medpad over the unconscious woman.

  He let out a great sigh of relief. “She’ll be fi—”

  “What the holy hell is going on here?”

  The roar of Matthias Raven’s deep voice filled the plaza. Everyone automatically snapped to attention, including Zoe. She found herself staring into the withering glare of a furious Marine general. She wanted to slink away and hide, but she was the one who had to answer his question.

  “I was fighting, sir,” she answered tonelessly.

  The spark of contemptuous fury in his dark eyes nearly ignited her. The shame of what she’d done poured through Zoe. She wanted to explain, but she had no right to. This sort of behavior was not to be tolerated within the Imperial services. There was no excuse.

  “You are aware of the regulations, aren’t you, Lieutenant?” he asked.

  She was all too aware of the depth of meaning in his cold tone.

  Zoe bit her tongue on the longing to claim that Barb had started it. So what? She had no business finishing it. Provocation didn’t change the rules.

  “Yes, sir,” she answered.

  Raven’s gaze flicked to Barb. Alwyn had picked her up and was holding her in his arms.

  “She’s unconscious and bruised,” the nurse reported. “Nothing serious, sir.”

  “Langly started it—” Everard began.

  Doc easily stared him down.

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “Take Langly to the infirmary.” Raven’s attention returned to Zoe. “You’re confined to quarters until further notice, Pappas.”

  He turned around to follow Alwyn out of the plaza. Zoe looked after him for a moment, bitterly wondering whether her “quarters” meant the hole in the wall she’d been assigned or Doc Raven’s bedroom.

  38

  “You’re mad at me, aren’t you?”

  Zoe jumped when Raven came up silently behind her in the dark corridor, but she didn’t turn around. “Of course I’m not angry with you.”

  “Then why have you been avoiding me?”

  “You confined me to quarters.”

  “For three cycles. It’s been a whole cycle since you got out. You should have at least reported to me after your release.”

  His pouting almost charmed her, but her attitude remained stiff. “I reported to my hall officer, as regulations required. You did not send for me, General. Being healthy, I had no reason to visit the infirmary.”

  She stiffened when he put his hands on her shoulders. Her head went up. “You do not have permission to touch us.”

  She didn’t use the Imperial “we” very often and it did no good this time. Matthias ignored her commanding tone and began to massage her tense shoulders. His deep chuckle rumbled through her senses. She told herself she hadn’t been cold before he touched her, that his warmth wasn’t permeating her now.

  His breath brushed across her ear. “I’d be angry if my boyfriend locked me up.”

  “I was not aware that you had a boyfriend.”

  She jumped when his tongue touched her earlobe. “Gotcha, Zoe.”

  She smiled.

  Damn it! He’d gotten her to make a personal comment. She was still smiling when he turned her to face him.

  “I’ve missed you,” he said. They gazed into each other’s eyes. “What are you doing in this corridor?” he asked when she didn’t speak.

  “I am avoiding you.”

  “Not possible and you know it. What are you really doing here?”

  She gave in. “I’m setting up a course for the marathon for the camp Olympics,” she told him.

  “You’re going through with organizing games? Everard is just trying to keep you occupied with that.”

  “I know, but the competition will be good for everybody. People need to keep busy. But there’s more than human organization that needs to be done. The Asi and Denthera really have to understand what we’re up to, maybe even be invited to participate,” she added. “And the Kril have to be convinced there’s no danger in what we’re doing, of course. We don’t want aliens being suspicious of what they don’t understand.”

  “You think you’re the person to do this?”

  “Who else?”

  “You are not going near any aliens.” He sighed. “I’ll do that explaining for you, Zoe.”

  “You can help,” she agreed. “You are the authority figure, but I’m the diplomat. I work for a living, sir,” she pointed out before he could argue. “The Empire didn’t spend a fortune educating and equipping me to serve it so that I could spend my time launching ships and cutting ribbons.”

  “I understand that, but this isn’t the time or place for you to do your job. And certainly not over something as inconsequential as athletic games.”

  “Building bridges—” she began, then sighed.

  She was arguing with him just to win and that was stupid and petty and pointless. Or maybe the point was that it felt good to be bitchy with him, but it wouldn’t feel good for long. She was angry at his locking her up, even if she did deserve it.

  “I don’t always deal well with the emotions you bring out in me.”

  He tilted his head to one side and carefully studied her. “What emotions are those?”

  Why did she want to run her hands over his smooth skull and trace the full lines of his lips? She knew exactly why.

  “Volcanic emotions,” she answered.

  Lust. Jealousy. Possessiveness. He could really piss her off, too.

  “Blowing your top occasionally isn’t bad. At least in bed.”

  Zoe wasn’t going to talk about that no matter what his slightest touch was doing to her.

  She put her hands behind her back and glanced past the general’s wide shoulders. “I don’t see Rumi back there. He’s been hiding in the darkness behind me all day. If you’re going to assign me bodyguards, it isn’t wise to relieve them of duty.”

  “I’m all the bodyguard you need. Besides, after Everard failed to stop Barb when she went after you, I’m not so sure I trust him and his crew to really look after you.”

  She frowned up at him. “They’re getting better at it. The best person to train an Imperial security detail would be me, and that wouldn’t be a good idea, would it?”

  “It would be amusing,” he said. “But it might raise some questions.”

  “Indeed. And might I point out, General, that as the commandant of this camp, and the only medical officer, you have quite enough duties to occupy your attention. Sir.”

  �
�Don’t try to—” He stopped and took a deep breath. “You’re trying to get me angry. If you won’t let yourself get angry, don’t try to push me into it. You want me to leave you alone, don’t you?”

  His hands never left her. She didn’t try to step away.

  “It isn’t a matter of what I want. You have your responsibilities, I have mine. We should leave it at that.”

  “You’re right. We’ve discussed this before. I had to see you.”

  “I wanted to see you, too.”

  “Do you think we can keep away from each other?”

  “I don’t know.” She sighed. She had to leave him alone. A craving for his blood didn’t come into it; it was him she longed for. Her need for Matthias Raven was a dangerous addiction. “My head’s spinning with all the complications, Matthias.”

  “You did too much thinking while you were alone. I had to lock you up, and I’m not going to apologize for it.”

  “Of course you did!” she responded. “I’m not angry at General Raven, who responded properly when I screwed up. I’d be furious if you hadn’t. I don’t like it but I do respect your actions. Besides, Cauley doesn’t think you would have dared discipline someone important, so he’s stopped spreading rumors about me.”

  He shook his head. “Civilians are so clueless to think politics are more important than military discipline. At least one good thing came of the incident if he’s leaving you alone. But you’re still mad at me.”

  He looked appealingly like a little boy waiting to be forgiven for some naughty action. She fought against being charmed. “How’s Barb?”

  “I haven’t laid a fang on her, if that’s what you’re asking. She started the fight, so she’s still confined to quarters.”

  Zoe fought through the jealousy that clouded her thoughts at the mention of his fangs on anyone but her. It had been a joke, and the other woman deserved sympathy. “Barb’s mental stability—”

  “I said she was confined, I didn’t say she was in stir. Alwyn’s spending a lot of time with her.”

  “Good.”

  “Why are you mad at me?”