The Scarlet Empress

by Susan Grant

  Bree called out above the noise of laughter and conversation, “I don’t think you realize how serious my enemies are about taking me out of the equation.”

  “Bah! I am used to fending off the UCE.” The pirate lord’s mouth thinned disdainfully. Since the Pirate Wars, that long and bloody crackdown on sea terrorism, there had been no love lost between the inhabitants of the Raft Cities and the UCE.

  “Those were pirate hunters.”

  “I know.” Ahmed exchanged a brief glance with Ty that was dark with shared memories.

  “This won’t be a frontal assault. There’ll be highly trained Special Forces trained in covert operations. And Prince Kyber has every reason to come after me, too. Not only did I leave without his permission, I sprang Ty out of jail—the son of his mortal enemy!”

  Ahmed’s youngest daughter let out a sigh. “Prince Kyber . . .”

  Until now, the teenager had appeared somewhat bored by the conversation. One mention of Prince Kyber, though, and she’d thrown her hair behind one shoulder with a tinkling of jewelry, her eyes wide and begging for gossip. Few knew much about the secretive and isolationist Kingdom of Asia, making everyone hungry for details about the man who ruled it with an iron fist in his comatose father’s place. “He is said to be as brutal as he is handsome. Is it true?”

  Actually, Kyber was too hot-looking for his own good, but Bree decided to let pass the opportunity for that remark. “The prince is brutal with those he considers enemies. I don’t deny that. I saw how he treated Ty and others who he believed were a threat to his kingdom. But to me, he showed only kindness.” In a self-absorbed, overbearing sort of way. “I’m grateful for his care. It was topnotch. If not for his physicians, my recovery from the biostasis would have taken much longer.”

  Ahmed’s daughter sighed again. No doubt she found the entire idea of a stay in the dictator’s palace romantic. Maybe Bree would have, too, if the killings in the wake of her escape weren’t so fresh in her mind that she could still smell the blood: the rebel chauffeur shot driving them to New Seoul, the assassin in the bedroom. . . .

  Bree made fists on the table. A fat raindrop splashed onto the knuckle of her right hand. “The fact is, it doesn’t matter how kind Prince Kyber was to me then. I doubt he will be now. I made him look like an idiot. The ruler of the Kingdom of Asia! I left him lying out cold in a sleazy hotel room in a bad part of town.”

  Admiration sparkled in Ahmed’s dark eyes. “Yes. Many wish to see you dead, Banzai Maguire.”

  “Yeah.” She swallowed. “With cause. All the more reason for Ty and me to get under way in the morning, and—”

  “Enough!” Ahmed sliced his hand through the air. A few stray drops of ale glittered on his lips, which he dashed away with the back of his hand. “No one can get within ten kilometers of this raft without my knowing.”

  “He’s right, Bree.”

  She swiveled on Ty. “You’re siding with him?”

  “I’m not discounting your worries, but you’re exhausted. I am, too.” He rubbed her back. “We’ll revisit this in the morning. Things will look better after a good night’s sleep.”

  And some great sex. She saw that particular guarantee reflected in his eyes.

  She shut her mouth. Boy, she could be bought cheap, couldn’t she? She stared down at her plate of freshfarmed seafood and bioengineered tropical fruit. You sure fell down the rabbit hole, Banzai, baby.

  Stabbing at a piece of flaky fish, she stifled a snort. Fell? She didn’t think so. Maybe that plucky little blond kid from Alice in Wonderland fell down the rabbit hole into her adventures, but the word wasn’t anywhere strong enough or descriptive enough to convey what had happened to her: Once upon a time, she was Bree Ann Maguire, daughter of an auto mechanic and a stay-at-home mom, a small-town tomboy with a keen sense of competition and a heart full of patriotism, a kid who’d dreamed of following in her Marine Corps grandfather’s footsteps and who had done so, winning an appointment to the U.S. Air Force Academy and then a slot flying F-16 fighter jets. And now? She was a fugitive dining al fresco on a supersized houseboat roughly 170 years after her twenty-eighth birthday, with two pirates, a pair of wives, three daughters, and a navy commando for company.

  That didn’t equate to “falling,” in her opinion. Not even close. When it came to the proverbial rabbit hole, she’d been sucked in, chewed up, and spit out—facedown and headfirst.

  Conversation continued, Bree listening more than contributing; she wanted to learn as much as she could about the people willing to risk so much to shelter her. And Ty . . . he seemed happy. He needed this. She realized this was the first time she’d seen him in a social setting. He was warm, easygoing, a teller of colorful war stories. She’d expected him to be more reserved, but that wasn’t the case at all, as it wasn’t with her. He opened up to the people he trusted, and she took that as a good sign.

  The group consumed their food with gusto, the ale, too. And finally the rains arrived.

  A nanobarrier—an invisible shield formed by microscopic computers—kept them dry, but the air flowed freely though it, thick with moisture and electricity.

  “The dinner has ended,” Ahmed announced. He turned to Bree and addressed her in a tone that told her he knew she remained unhappy about the presence of his family. “We will revisit all open issues in the morn. After we have had our rest.”

  “Which will happen only after I scour every cubic centimeter of our quarters for assassins,” Ty said, folding his napkin next to his empty plate.

  “Intruders?” Ahmed appeared indignant. “Impossible.”

  “And any security breaches.”

  The pirate growled. “I’ll eat the heart of anyone who dares try.” Delicately, he shelled the last of the tender prawns and directed a sharp glance at Cino. “But to make you feel better, Cino will inspect the guest quarters.”

  “Done,” Cino said.

  “Do it again,” Ty demanded.

  Ahmed hesitated, appearing to change his mind about something. He threw down his napkin on the table and stood. “I will go with you.” To a tropical symphony of rain and thunder, everyone exchanged good-nights.

  Bree went with the men, walking along a twisting path through a grove of palms. Here the rain fell freely, warm and soaking. The trees did little to shelter her from the downpour. She wanted to lift her face to it; she wanted to lift her arms high and let it wash away all the tension, all the fear. She wanted the rain to make it all better again.

  Right. And all she had to do was click her combat boots together and she’d be home again.

  Ahmed and Cino split up when they reached the guesthouse, one walking the grounds, the other checking the inside. Ty backed them up. In any other circumstances, three battle-hardened warriors prowling an area that couldn’t be more than fifteen hundred square feet would be overkill. With three attempts on her life in as many weeks, Bree figured it was probably okay to have too much of a good thing.

  The men finished up and joined her just inside the guesthouse. The pirate lord aimed a sharp, questioning frown in Cino’s direction. “Everything is good?”

  The man squared his shoulders. “All is as it should be.”

  “No one can ask for more than that,” Bree admitted.

  Ahmed acknowledged her gratitude with a slight dip of his head. Ty saluted the men and closed the door behind them, then walked over to the bed and sat heavily on the edge of the mattress. First he dropped his head in his hands and scrubbed his fingers through his wet hair. Then, one by one, he took off and stored his weapons in the quick and efficient way that marked a man as a career soldier.

  Bree lifted the strap of her automatic rifle over her head and leaned it against the wall near the bed. “It’s gotten to the point that I feel naked without this.”

  “Not naked enough.”

  Grinning, she turned around. Ty had stretched out on the bed. His loose-fitting pants rode low on his waist. “Yeah?”

  He wedged his hands behind his head
. “Yeah.”

  A heated stare went back and forth between them.

  Anticipation shimmered through her. They’d waited a long time for this. With one tug, she pulled out the band holding her hair in a ponytail and shook her head. Heavy and wet, the black-brown strands swung around her shoulders.

  Dripping, she stepped toward the bed. “Wait,” Ty said. “The fryer. Get rid of it.”

  “Picky, picky.” To the floor dropped a belt laden with the neuron fryer and other assorted futuristic devices designed to debilitate and kill.

  “And the dagger.”

  “That? It’s just a little knife.”

  “Drop it.”

  “Yes, sir.” Grinning, she discarded the dagger and its scabbard with a stripper’s flourish. Then she brought her hands to the hem of her shirt.

  “No.”

  She quirked a disbelieving brow. “No?”

  “The clothes I’ll remove myself.” His smile was distinctly male. Swaying her hips, she came to bed. He reached for her and pulled her down the rest of the way.

  “Hey—unfair advantage,” she pretended to protest, almost giggling as he kissed his way down her neck. “I’m unarmed.”

  He rolled her onto her back. “Don’t worry. I’ve got you covered.”

  Their lips met hungrily, canceling out their laughter.

  Ty kissed her as if he couldn’t get enough. Well, that made two of them. If Ty was good with his hands, he was even better with his tongue. Sometimes they’d lie on the deck of the boat and kiss, just kiss, for what seemed like hours—long, lazy, languid kisses. But not tonight. There was an urgency she couldn’t quite decipher. A stronger need.

  Playfulness changed to sharp desire when his warm, work-worn hands slid under her shirt and over her bare skin. Those amazing hands smoothed up and over her rib cage to her breasts, which seemed hot-wired to her more private parts, firing off sensations that made her catch her breath. Then, when he bent over her and didthings with his mouth that made her forget all about his hands, she moaned, bunching her fingers in his hair.

  “Do it again, Sleeping Beauty. That little sigh you make. When I’m inside you, it drives me crazy. You drive me crazy, Bree.” He made her tremble again with the feel of his fingers trailing down her belly. Her muscles contracted. He noticed, smiling wickedly with his eyes as that dangerous hand moved lower. He focused on her pleasure then, and brought her to a climax before she took another dozen panting breaths.

  She grabbed his wrist before he could do it again. Their eyes locked. Under her fingers, his pulse beat hard and determined. “My God, Ty . . .”

  “Finished already, Maguire?” he teased. “You’d better catch your breath. I plan to accomplish a lot more than that.”

  Still gasping, she laughed. How could he make her so happy when so much else was wrong?

  Because he’s the one. The one you’ve waited for.

  Yeah. He was. The weeks alone with him on the speedboat had confirmed what her heart had told her from the beginning.

  She reached up and ran a finger along his cheek, her laughing smile melting slowly into one of wonder. “Well, I love a soldier with a plan.” He turned his head and kissed her fingertip. Heart pounding, she cupped his hard jaw in her palms. “And . . . I think I love this soldier.”

  It took less than a heartbeat for Ty’s expression to change dramatically. She dashed the back of her hand across her eyes. “Damn you for making me cry.”

  “Nothing else seems to have been able to.”

  “Except you,” she whispered.

  His eyes had turned so vividly blue that she thought he might cry himself. Her throat ached with his open emotion. If she’d had any doubts left about his feelings for her, whether they were genuine or based on long-ago fantasies, they were erased in that moment. With that one look, she knew she’d captured his heart. I’ve thought of you since I was ten, he’d admitted the first time they made love. I kept your picture in a place of honor for all the years I lived at home. I went to Harvard and then to medical school for a year. When the war started, I joined up. But I never forgot you. . . .

  It was the most amazing story. Hearing him tell it to her that night when they were hiding out in New Seoul had made her feel even more displaced in time. For once, though, she hadn’t minded.

  A sweet shiver went through her at the caress of Ty’s fingertips on the underside of her jaw. “When this is over, I want to marry you.”

  Her heart almost jumped out of her chest. She would have liked to say something in reply, but her vocal cords didn’t seem to be working.

  Say yes, you idiot! The laughing rebuke came in her friend Cam’s voice. Bree’s thoughts rewound to that day in Life Support when she and Cam had dressed for their last mission. The subject of men had come up. It wasn’t the first time the saucy Southern belle had accused her of serial dating, of trading men in whenever they started to get too close. Admit it, Maguire. You’re afraid, Cam had teased that day in her usual refrain. Afraid to let a man get too close. Then she’d turned away to finish preparing for the mission, a familiar prove-me-wrong expression on her face.

  It was the last time they ever saw each other.

  And now there was Ty, sweet, incredible Ty. Cam, I want to make a future with this man.

  If they survived long enough to try.

  Ty took her silence as uncertainty. “I love you, Bree. I loved the legend, and now I love the woman. As for marriage, you don’t have to answer yet. I only wanted to make my intentions known. In case . . .” He stopped himself. “I wanted to make my intentions known, that’s all.”

  “I know full well what ‘in case’ means. You were going to say, ‘In case one of us doesn’t make it.’ ” She ran her thumb over the curves and hollows of his handsome and suddenly oh-so-serious face. “Do . . . you think it will ever be over?”

  “Yes, Bree, I do.” His conviction put hope in a place deep down inside her where little was left. “You’ll be the spark to set the revolution ablaze. Just a little push and we’ll be there. Beauchamp’s regime will fall, and a democracy will take its place. It’ll happen all at once, the way the Iron Curtain fell centuries ago in Eastern Europe. And then, our mission complete, we’ll slip away into obscurity and”—he patted her on the stomach—“have an enormous squealing brood.”

  She coughed out a laugh, and he joined her, grinning. “Hey, Ty, give me time to get used to ‘brood’ first, before you start throwing out words like ‘squealing’ and ‘enormous.’ ”

  His smile gentled. “We’ll have a life together. I swear it. I’ll do whatever I have to do to make it happen.”

  “It all sounds so optimistic. Maybe too optimistic.”

  “It’s more than a pipe dream, Bree. If it weren’t, I wouldn’t be here with you.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t even want to consider the baggage we’ll bring to this, or how your family will see me.”

  “I don’t know if I have a family anymore.”

  Awkward silence filled the sudden void.

  Bree tried to lighten the mood. “ ‘No fear’ used to be my motto. I can do this. I can. I can marry you, baggage and all.”

  “ We can do this,” he corrected. “We’re in this together. All the way to the finish line.”

  His expression was incredibly tender for such a hardlooking man. “This is meant to be, Bree. We are meant to be. I’ve known it my whole life. Now you have to believe it, too.”

  “Then help me.” She felt her eyes stinging all over again. “I want to believe. . . .”

  He splayed his hand behind her head, lifting her to his mouth before he forced her back down to the pillow with a crushing kiss. Their embrace blazed with hunger, with possession, and the fear neither of them wanted to bring up—that they’d better make every moment count, because neither of them knew how many were left. And when Ty buried himself inside her, she rode the tidal wave that was her response to him, losing herself in the intense, almost rough lovemaking, until nothing mattere
d but Ty and the sensations he roused in her that never failed to make the world fall away.

  Afterward, when they lay dressed in dry, clean clothes in bed—Ty in boxers and her in panties and a T-shirt, ready for a quick escape should it be necessary—Ty held her for a while, kissing her tenderly before he inevitably, dutifully packed several pillows behind his back and settled in for the night in a semisitting position. “You’re not going to sleep?” she asked.

  “I will. After a bit.” He leaned his rifle against the wall by the bed. “You go ahead.”

  She snuggled against him as much as his sentry posture would allow. His stance tonight made him even more remote than his usual habit of rolling onto his side, his face to the door, his body serving as a shield. It would be nice, she mused drowsily, to be able to sleep facing him, or spooned against his stomach, instead of curled up against his broad back. But there were a lot of things that would be nice to have, like anonymity and world peace and rescuing Cam, things she’d best not ponder if she wanted to get any sleep.

  “You’re thinking too hard,” Ty murmured.

  She smiled in the dark. “How’d you know?”

  “I know.”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “Sleep, Bree.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  His teeth shone white in the darkness. Bree had just closed her eyes when she felt Ty jerk away. For a second she wondered if he’d fallen asleep and was dreaming. Then she saw shadows moving just outside the windows.

  Bree’s heart lurched as her senses tried to process what was happening. Intruders? Not again.

  Not here.

  Four huge figures crashed through the front door. Ty fired, but his bullets did nothing to stop them. Wreckers!

  They wore no insignia, no visible rank. Wreckers were cybernetically enhanced mercenaries. That much she knew, thanks to Ty. They were known to soldiers of all sides as hard-core badasses, having earned their nickname when one particularly brazen example bragged on the Interweb about how badly he could “wreck” human bodies.

  Other men appeared behind the wall of wreckers. These arrivals were ragtag—normal, not supersized. And standing dead center in the middle of them was Ahmed’s right-hand man.