“What?”
It’s a bug, she mouthed silently. But I don’t know if it’s dead or just damaged.
He gestured his confusion.
A listening device, she explained, still not making a sound. She was very pale. Turner probably wants to confirm that I’m CrystalTiger. It’s cheap and easy for somebody in his celebrity-watching business to do.
Turner. That greedy, thrice-damned spawn of Chaos’s gray gods! He’d rip his heart out and roast it! He’d tear him apart with two teams of sacred oxen—no, four! How dare he try to eavesdrop on the most beautiful lady in the world!
She blinked at him, clearly not following his lapse into the cruder forms of Torhtremer soldier talk, then shrugged. “Come on. We’ve got to clean up both rooms.”
The music next door surged into keening bagpipes, underlain by brutal drumming.
They found the other bugs easily enough but she blessedly allowed him to pluck them out of the wall. He dropped them into the wastebasket and raised an eyebrow at her. “Where to?”
“The trash chute, if we can reach it unnoticed. He’s probably bugged the hall, as well.”
A few minutes and several back corridors later, she led him to a small, ill-smelling room. She opened a panel in the wall and he listened with great satisfaction to those three invaders go rattling to their doom far below. Their destruction would not permanently deter Turner but should serve as a warning that his lady was not entirely unprotected.
Back at their room, Danae stared at the quiet normalcy of the tidy bed and her jumbled belongings. Tears welled up in her eyes but didn’t spill.
She pressed her hands to her mouth and rocked herself, shaking slightly.
Alekhsiy wrapped his arms around her. Thrice-damned coward, to have sent such loathsome surrogates instead of coming himself.
“Everything looks so calm,” she muttered.
“Can you rest here? Do you want to ask for another room?”
“No, I’ll be fine. He made his money on the Internet, selling software to find things. There’s no place I can go where he couldn’t track me down.” She roused herself enough to smile at him. “Hey, this is where we killed the little beasts. We’re better off staying here, especially since we’ve got good neighbors. Larissa won’t let him take over her room and we’d know in an instant if he booted out the partygoers on the other side, to eavesdrop from there.”
“True.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead and reluctantly let her start making tea. It seemed to be her way of healing both herself and the person she fetched it for.
“Do you know what destroyed them?” he asked, trying to sound relaxed. He needed to understand their enemy in order to protect her.
“It’s so far-fetched.” She sighed and looked up at him over her box of tea bags.
“Try me.”
She hesitated unhappily.
He longed to kiss her until her mouth turned upward, but not yet. “If he will invade your room, what else will he do? Where will he stop?”
“This is madness.” She almost slammed the box to the floor but her eyes were completely sane when she looked at him. “Are you wearing an anti-scrying spell? Something that would stop an enemy from spying on you?”
Why was she asking such an elementary question?
“Yes, of course. It’s part of every general’s armor.”
“Well, there you are.” She sank onto the bed as if her legs had no strength. “Your spell’s magic worked just as well here as it would in Torhtremer. But it acted according to Earth’s laws. The bugs shorted out, giving us an ozone smell and slightly scorched plastic.”
“Why is that so difficult for you to believe?” Her explanation made perfect sense for him.
“Because up until now, I could pretend you were just a really sexy dude that I was shacking up with for GriffinCon! Sexier than usual and much better mannered but still basically here today and gone tomorrow.”
A festival love, good for a few nights pleasure and no more. Pain barreled into his stomach and exploded in his heart, carving away any hope he’d mean as much to his little dancer as she did to him.
He forced himself back under control. The threat here was bigger than anything to him alone.
“Danae . . .”
She pulled her hair out of its tight queue and shook it loose. How much longer would he be able to run his fingers through it? The amulet would yank him back to Torhtremer once it was fully recharged.
“And now I must think about this crackpot billionaire who wants me to write a book for him. I’ll have to talk to him tomorrow and explain why I agree with Sanderson.”
“There’s more at stake than that, sweeting.”
“What do you mean?” She spun to face him, her fingers poised at her tunic’s throat.
“You never asked me what happened after Tajzyk’s Gorge, Danae.”
“I don’t want to know.” She started unbuttoning but he caught her hand. That was the last reaction he’d expected.
“Why not?” he demanded.
“Because if I knew, I might be tempted to write something that would change your future. If you’ve got a happily ever after going with the Dark Warrior dead and Azherbhai banished, then you should enjoy it,” she responded fiercely, her green eyes boring into his. “You have more than earned it, after what that bitch Corinne Carson dumped on you.”
His throat tightened. Blessed Horned Goddess, please give my lady joy after I am gone.
He kissed her forehead in thanks and tried yet again to memorize her scent. She sniffed and held on to his hands.
“Mykhayl killed the Dark Warrior—”
“Thought so!”
“But Azherbhai hasn’t disappeared.”
“Oh shit, is he still causing trouble in Torhtremer?”
“Yes.” Alekhsiy’s mouth quirked reluctantly at her description.
“What about his catalyst? He needs one to be really nasty.”
“He doesn’t have one on Torhtremer—and hasn’t been united with him yet.”
Danae rubbed her thumb over his knuckles, her gaze abstracted. “Potential catalysts are rare, even for the Imperial Terrapin?”
“Correct.”
“So he’d have to hunt one down, which must have pissed him off. Served him right, too, after all the hell he’s caused.”
She affectionately kissed Alekhsiy’s wrist, warming his heart. He’d build what memories of joy he could, while he was here. He waited patiently for her to find the answer.
“Is his intended catalyst here on Earth?” She stared at him. “The one guy who can summon Azherbhai into existence and make all of his magic come to life.”
“Aye, sweetheart.”
“Boris Turner.” Her fingers had turned chilly around his.
“I’ve come to do whatever is necessary to stop him from joining the Imperial Terrapin.”
“You can’t stop him—he’s obsessed with Azherbhai! He used to be a three-hundred-pound pudgy jerk. Now he’s super fit and one the world’s top experts with a sword or spear.”
“Or staff?”
“Or that,” she agreed promptly. “He pays big sponsorship money to Cons, just so he can show off his likeness to the Dark Warrior.”
Alekhsiy’s breath rattled in his throat. Her eyes locked with his.
“The height and the body type—he looks like the Dark Warrior, doesn’t he? Stocky but very fit.” She pulled herself away from him and began to pace.
Alekhsiy nodded grimly, reluctantly admiring her skill at dodging the room’s disarray.
“Those fighting skills and his obsession . . . Oh hell, he would make a great catalyst, wouldn’t he?”
Alekhsiy nodded again, watching her pace back and forth.
“But even if I thought Turner would be a good target, he’d still need to somehow go to Torhtremer. And your amulet is the only way to travel there, right?”
“Correct,” Alekhsiy agreed. He started to consider her argument from every possible angle.
“Except that if he somehow kidnaps you, after I’m gone”—oh, hellish hour—“and forces you to create a story, everything you’re worried about will take place in Torhtremer.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, darling. I wouldn’t do it.”
He needed to make her take the threat seriously. If Azherbhai believed Turner was a suitable catalyst, then his depths of depravity had to be very deep. “What if he threatened Nora or Larissa?”
“He wouldn’t dare.” Her denial came a little slower.
“Or attacked Evan or Colin?”
“Oh, no!” Her eyes changed to pure gold, glittering with horror.
“My lady, you are a sorceress. Everything you have written for me to do, I have done—and I have enjoyed, thanks be to the gods.”
“I could never let anything else happen, Alekhsiy, even if he harmed somebody I loved.” A single tear gleamed on her cheek. “To hurt you, or Mykhayl, or Yevgheniy, or . . . ? No. I don’t think I could even set pen to paper, I’d be so consumed by thoughts of the agony someone I knew was suffering.” Her lip trembled. “I swear to you that I couldn’t write such horror. It would self-destruct, be null and void—a spell that died ugly and ill-formed without drawing breath.”
He caught her against him and cuddled her. She wrapped her arms around him and clung to him as if he were the only stability in a chaotic world. She was so small yet so strong, like the finest steel from his father’s forge. Her trembling was more heartbreaking than seeing a named dagger shatter without warning during a duel.
“We have to believe that Turner will eventually see reason and give up.” She sniffled and straightened up.
“Why?” He cocked an eye at her, genuinely curious.
“Hollywood failed to create the seventh book and he can’t begin to offer the same prestige they can.”
“But he is willing to pay more money, is he not?”
“Exactly. Readers would always think a billionaire had dictated a plot so ridiculous, only millions of dollars could get it published. They wouldn’t want to read it, let alone spend money to buy it.”
“Authors can strut more if they imagined everything on their own, which the movie would let them.” Truly, bards on the other side of the void lived by a different set of rules.
She nodded, shoving her hands through her hair until it fell forward over her face. “I just hope he figures that out fast. I hate giving up my kung fu summer camp, but I’ll go straight back to Manhattan if that’s what it takes to keep everyone safe.”
Return to Manhattan and the golden pool of light where she’d dance, never to be touched by him again.
He pinned a merry smile on his face. “Then let us prepare for bed, my lady. The dawn comes early, bringing your practice time.”
Danae eyed him, wondering what had brought on that hideous excuse for a grin. Of course, coming face-to-face with twenty-first-century espionage would be a rude shock for anybody, even if they didn’t come from a world of dragons and wizards.
“May I help you get undressed?” That should distract him—and her. They were both doing too much thinking.
He shot a surprised glance at her, having already almost finished removing his leather braces. “My gear is complicated,” he warned her.
She hooted at him, her first true laugh since entering her room.
“And just who do you think you’re talking to, big boy, hmm? Some silly virgin who’s never seen cold steel or chain mail? Not somebody who’s been hanging around the stuff since she was born. Ooh, horrors!” She shielded her eyes with her sleeve and promptly scratched her nose with the glittering gold embroidery of her High King’s personal guard’s uniform. “Ouch!”
She rubbed her face and looked at her fingers. If she’d gotten any blood on it, Larissa would have her hide.
Alekhsiy chuckled.
She glared at him, daring him to say anything unkind.
He cleared his throat with a distinct effort. “Sergeant,” he began.
She blinked at him. Sergeant? Oh yeah, right, that was the rank Larissa had assigned to the costume.
She snapped hastily to attention. “Sir!”
That was the correct way to do it, wasn’t it? She never did a LARP at Cons and she’d never been asked to dance a military role. Or did they salute differently in the Torhtremer movies?
Alekhsiy thumped himself on the arms and broke into howls of laughter. She crossed her eyes at him and stuck out her tongue. He laughed harder and she joined in, well aware their mirth was at least half reaction to their earlier terror.
“So remind me,” she cooed, when they could both speak again, “just how do you salute in Torhtremer?”
He thumped his right fist against his left shoulder, which was remarkably hard to do when she was seated on his lap.
“Shit.” She pursed her lips. “Obviously I haven’t watched the movies in far too long.”
“But your expression . . .” He choked and she eyed him in mock suspicion. “Sweeting, sergeants don’t customarily look at their general in such total surprise.”
“I’ll bet they do, especially when the general says they don’t know how to get him dressed or undressed. Just who do you think really runs an army, hmm? Not the generals, surely. Of course I can manage your wardrobe.”
“All of my weapons, too?” He raised an elegant eyebrow.
“You bet.” She nodded firmly. Did he think she’d been so crazed with lust last night she’d completely forgotten everything he’d done? Well, quite possibly but she had learned a few things elsewhere. After all, she was a theatrical professional and she knew costumes.
“If you have to give me any clues, then I’ll have to pay a forfeit,” she added.
“Such as?”
“I don’t know; you’re the one with the temple sex games.”
“Suck my rod down your throat?”
She should probably pretend that would be a hardship. She flickered a glance at him from beneath her lowered brows. “If you give advice just to insist on a penalty later, I’ll cry foul,” she warned.
“Agreed.” His voice sounded stern but his cock was definitely an eager ridge under his mail.
Her uniform featured a knee-length, close-fitting, emerald-green silk jacket, brocaded with golden tiger designs. The ornately cut collar and sleeves were further embellished with gold embroidery showing her supposed rank and battle decorations. A narrow black belt carried a reproduction Torhtremer dagger, courtesy of Kyle. Black silk breeches and black boots with very ornate tassels completed her outfit.
She extracted herself from his lap and circled him, considering the best place to start. Next door, they’d changed the playlist to a set of Celtic ballads, sweet and lyrical.
“Do you plan to remove your boots?” he inquired. His voice’s seeming casualness was belied by his fingers’ restless drumming on his knee.
“Do you want me to—sir?”
He choked and surged to his feet, a hungry glitter in his eyes. “A better viewpoint may help you, sergeant.”
“Thank you, sir,” she answered demurely.
Sword first, then dagger, not boots. She set to work on the buckles.
“I’m glad you’re no longer openly displaying your axe, sir,” she remarked to distract him from her fingers’ clumsiness. How could she be fumbling so much now when she’d only just started and there were so many layers left to go?
“Why shouldn’t I?” He planted his feet a little wider apart and looked down at her.
“Most here don’t carry three weapons. They use only axe and dagger, or sword and dagger.”
“They’ll expect me to fight with a sword.”
“Probably.” Weapons and their harness gone, she knelt to take off his leather ankle boots.
“I’m looking forward to seeing their different styles of fighting,” he commented and ran his fingers through her hair.
“Mm-hmm
.” Her scalp tingled and she leaned her head against his leg for a moment. Oh my, that felt good. Almost as sweet as his presence.
He stroked her again and she had to force herself to move away, lest every cell in her body turn boneless.
She unpinned his cross-tied indigo garters and swiftly unwrapped them, humming softly to herself as she neatly wound the yards of cloth into a ball.
“You’ve done this before,” Alekhsiy commented.
“My eldest brother had a Robin Hood obsession, which included that kind of clothes. It was a toss-up for a while whether the family would wear Star Wars or Robin Hood to GriffinCon.” For once, it didn’t hurt to talk about them, not with Alekhsiy still gently massaging her.
His trouser legs ballooned away from his legs, far fuller above his knees than at his ankle, having been carefully pleated into those garters. They were made from a wonderfully lustrous silk shantung, finer than the best suit James Bond ever got to wear. It was obviously a lot easier getting Alekhsiy out of his clothes than into them, especially if tidiness was desired.
He smelled wonderfully masculine, too, of sandalwood and a little sweat.
She rubbed his calf, kneading out any aches from a long day on narrow metal chairs and edging through crowds. Big men like him should be striding through courtyards and swimming under waterfalls.
“Lovely.” He sighed and relaxed into her touch, his hand resting gently on her head.
Poor darling. How many people gave him simple relaxation without asking for anything more? She continued to work on him, first one calf and then the other, using the skills she’d learned through years surmounting the demands on a dancer’s body. She eased up his thighs, staying gentle and free-flowing. He needed healing and to bring the earth’s energy into him.
She could almost sense where a knot would be, or an old scar, before she found it. She couldn’t do as much as she’d like to. She wasn’t a trained masseuse, and this wasn’t the best position. But she could help.
And in that room, her fingers flowed instinctively along his muscles and tendons. Even their breathing matched, aided more than hindered by the faint music from next door.
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