The Scarlet Empress

by Susan Grant

  Kublai almost rose up from the table. “How did you learn that?”

  Cam leveled him with a steady gaze. “My sources are confidential.”

  “Sources? What sources?”

  “No one who’s trying to hurt anyone, okay? She’s a palace staffer who picked up on a little gossip, that’s all. God, Kublai, you’re so loyal to the crown, sometimes it feels like I’m talking to the prince himself.”

  Kublai picked up his glass of beer, downing half of it at once. “I shall take that as a compliment.”

  “Shoot, you even resemble him.”

  Kublai gulped more beer.

  She compared and contrasted his tattooed features with the portraits she’d seen throughout the palace. Every time she gazed up at the larger-than-life paintings—of a grayeyed prince dressed in royal regalia, stiffly posed with his parents and brother in the gardens, sitting happily astride a magnificent Hansian—she thought of the Rim Rider. “So, how’s Beast, your gorgeous horse?”

  “He doesn’t care to be confined to the city. He’s more than ready to ride out again.”

  “A little like his rider, I bet.”

  Kublai’s expression softened. “A little, yes.” He seemed to have forgotten what unease her mentions of the prince had caused.

  “Well, he’s an amazing animal. Give him an apple for me next time you ride him. I miss him. It must have been all those days I spent on his back. All that power between my legs. No euphemism intended.”

  Kublai’s mouth spread in a smile. “Too bad.”

  She laughed, a soft, wicked laugh. “Let’s talk power between the legs, then. I need the distraction. I’m a woman, so I don’t have the body parts you do—”

  “Thank the good Lord,” Kublai said, throwing a glance to heaven.

  “—but the concept is still valid. Take horses and jets, for instance—lots of similarities. You ride, and I fly.” She sighed. “I meant that in the past tense. I flew.”

  “You’ll never stop being a pilot, as I will never stop being a horseman. It’s ingrained in us. It is part of who we are.”

  “I like to think that, too. But I read that modern warcraft are spacecraft. They don’t fly in the atmosphere very often, like the one I saw in Mongolia, because they’re not tactically efficient there. I’m an air-to-air pilot. If that doesn’t make me obsolete, then what does?”

  Something flashed in Kublai’s eyes. He pushed aside his empty glass to check her bruised wrist. The skin was reddened but it wasn’t throbbing anymore. He discarded the ice pack and threw a money card on the table, pulling her to her feet by her good hand. She laughed as he tugged her along. “Where are we going?”

  “The Royal Museum. I have a surprise for you.”

  “A plane! You’re going to show me a plane in a museum. Is this supposed to make me feel that I’m not outdated, outmoded, and outgunned? Tell me it’s not a biplane. I didn’t fly those, you know.”

  “Stop guessing or I won’t take you.”

  She laughed at his gravity. “I used to have patience for surprises. I don’t now. I guess it’s been so long since anyone surprised me . . . with a good surprise.”

  “This will be a good surprise,” he assured her.

  Hands clasped, they walked quickly through the rainslick nighttime streets. The TV walls of the buildings splashed garish color across the pavement. “But won’t the museum be closed? It’s late.”

  “A minor technicality.”

  “Great. All I need is to get arrested my first week in Beijing.”

  “You won’t be arrested. Trust me.”

  “Connections, Rim Rider?”

  “You could call them that.”

  The museum building loomed ahead. It was shaped like a giant diamond. Opalescent, it glowed from within. Cam was skeptical. “How are we going to get in if it’s closed?”

  “You said you are a gymnast, yes?”

  “I was.”

  He shrugged as he brought her around back. “That’s all the skills you’ll need.”

  She made a face. “That leaves it wide-open.”

  “Have faith,” he said. “The effort will be worth it.”

  Lack of confidence had never been one of Kublai’s traits.

  On the back lawn, he crouched down on the wet grass. “Here is where we must sneak.”

  “Oh, great.”

  “Follow me.”

  They scurried, bent over, to one of the opaque facets of the diamond. Now that she was closer, she could see handgrips leading all the way to the roof, a good fifty feet above their heads. “You’re kidding, Kublai.”

  “Ready?” he asked, his eyes alive with mischief.

  Cam looked up at the roof. Well, this couldn’t be worse than anything else that had happened to her, and it sure took her mind off the horrible evening. “Ready.”

  They clambered up the diamond. At the top they were treated to a stunning view of the city—including the palace. “Beautiful,” she murmured. “It looks like a jeweled sand castle.”

  “On a bejeweled beach.” For once he didn’t sound boastful. He truly loved this city, and it showed quite frankly in his face.

  He went to work breaking and entering. After slipping a blade from his pants and counting a specific number of facets, he found the seam he needed. With the pointed tip of the blade, he followed the line down and around the facet.

  “Isn’t this wired with alarms?”

  “Not this facet.”

  “You’ve done this before.”

  His gleaming smile was her answer. Carefully he lifted the facet and placed the heavy piece so that it lined up with the intact facet below. “Let’s go.”

  To the tune of Mission Impossible playing in her head, she followed the Rim Rider though the opening. They dropped to a catwalk below, shimmying to a ladder that took them down to the ground floor. “Alarms?”

  “Disabled.”

  “How?”

  “If I tell you, pretty one, I will have to kill you.”

  She laughed. “Don’t tell me then. I want to see whatever it is you’re going to show me.”

  He took her by the hand and led her through a maze of rooms filled with treasures until he found the room he wanted. Before he’d allow her inside, he slipped behind her and covered her eyes with his hands. “Are you ready?”

  “Ready.”

  “Really ready?”

  “Kublai!”

  He dropped his hands. Cam stared at the incredible sight: a mint-condition F-16 Viper.

  “I thought you would like to see it,” he said.

  She shook her head, rendered speechless by the fighter, silver and sleek.

  “I ride and you fly,” he murmured. “I have told you much about the Hansian breed. Now it’s your turn to tell me about the Viper.”

  Awed, she walked up to the jet. Coming up on her toes, she brushed her fingers across the fuselage. “It’s real. . . .”

  “Would you like to go inside?”

  She brought her hand to her chest. “Be still, my heart.”

  He waved at the ladder hanging on the side of the jet, a climb she had made countless times. She grabbed hold of the rail with both hands and pulled herself up into the cockpit, slipping down into the seat. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”

  Kublai watched her from the top of the ladder, his pleasure evident, despite the tattoo that so often masked subtler expressions. Cam ran her fingers over the controls. Then she jerked her hand back. “The lights in the instruments are on.” She swerved to meet Kublai’s gaze. “There’s power?”

  He nodded. “You could even start the engine, but I wouldn’t recommend it. In the room behind us, there’s a display of ancient tapestries.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “Of course. Korean tapestries, dating back to—”

  “I mean about the engine starting! It’s nearly a two-hundred-year-old airplane, Kublai.”

  “The fossil-fuel cells have been replaced with a nuclear drive, but other than that
and a few other changes, it is as fully functional as it was when you flew it.”

  “I could have, you know—I could have flown this very one.” Cam savored the sensation of being in the cockpit again, one hand resting lightly on the stick, her other on the throttles.

  “What aircraft, as an opponent in a dogfight, was the toughest challenger?”

  “Hmm.” She slid her fingers around the connectors where her oxygen hose and G suit plug-in would have fitted. “It’s hard to pick any one aircraft as the toughest challenger. A mediocre aircraft flown by a great pilot will almost always defeat a great aircraft flown by a mediocre pilot. But if I had to pick a couple, I’d say the F-18 and the F-15, the Hornet and the Eagle.”

  “Have you flown any other jets besides this one?”

  “Only in pilot training. I’ve had chances to fly in the F-15, F-18, and F-14. Nothing equaled the Viper, though.” Quietly, she admitted, “What I wouldn’t give to fly it now.”

  “I know,” Kublai said, even quieter.

  Cam turned. “Thank you. For doing this for me. For bringing the memories back—good memories. I feel lost sometimes.”

  “I know. I’ve been there.” The way he looked at her gave her chills.

  “The loss of your father,” she murmured. He nodded. She lifted her arm to cup his face in her palm. “You know what it’s like to have to keep going.”

  “When all you want to do is lie down and wallow in self-pity. To be honest, I don’t know if I’ve come through it all stronger, or only colder.”

  She shook her head. “Oh, no. Not colder. Wary, yes; I see that in you. But you’re not cold, Kublai. You’re anything but.”

  It seemed as though he wanted to say something but stopped himself.

  “It’s those complications, right?” she teased.

  He was already halfway down the ladder before she finished the sentence. She hoisted herself over the edge of the cockpit and climbed down after him.

  He took her hand. “We’d better go.”

  “Not yet.” Coming up on her toes, she caught his face between her hands and placed a tender kiss on his mouth. Kublai froze. She meant to pull away and let him recover, but she couldn’t, not quite yet. Again she brushed her lips over his, tasting him as she’d long wanted to, feeling the firm softness of his lips, the sandpaper roughness where he’d shaved. “Is this so horrible, Kublai? Is this so bad? Come on; the prince isn’t watching.”

  “Not so. It was all captured by the security cameras. He’ll be watching it in the morn.”

  She jerked back, her gaze going to the ceiling.

  “Kidding,” he said. Then, to her shock, he drew her back to him. “If you call that a kiss . . .”

  He folded her in his arms and took over where they’d left off, tasting and tugging on her lips, as if fighting the temptation to kiss her fully, yet drawing inexorably closer to doing it until, finally, something seemed to give way.

  The instant his tongue slipped between her parted lips, the kiss went from tentative first taste to explosive decompression. Desire scorched through her. Kublai was rough enough to take her breath away, gentle enough to let her know he was aware he held a lady in his arms.

  Mercy, what a kiss. She put her whole heart into it. She never did anything halfway, never held back, and she certainly didn’t hold anything in reserve now.

  It seemed to her that Kublai could tell, too. He gave a drawn-out groan, his arms molding her to his body. It had to be the most luscious kiss she’d experienced—ever. And it didn’t surprise her. She’d wanted to kiss Kublai for too long to have been mistaken about what he could do with that mouth of his.

  They moved apart only after the choices had narrowed to stay conscious or keep on kissing and end up on a hospital ventilator. Breathless, she made fists in the fabric of his shirt. “Yowee,” she said, grinning.

  He chuckled, his hands running up and down her back. She searched his face and saw nothing but happiness there. No regrets, no reservations. Sobering, she ran a hand over his thick, clean hair. “You can tell a lot about the nature of a man by the behavior of his horse,” she murmured. “And by the way he kisses.”

  “The same can be said about the nature of a woman.” He took her chin between his fingers and touched his lips to hers in a tender, lingering kiss. His uneven breaths told her just how hard he worked to hold back from doing more. Shuddering with some inner effort, he drew her into a powerful hug.

  “We’re done for tonight, aren’t we?” she mumbled against his chest. Did he hear the disappointment in her voice?

  She pushed away. “Make it easy on me, Kublai. Tell me to get lost.”

  “Never!”

  “It would be better than this. When you turn on the affection, it makes me think you want me, too. And then it’s this again. On and off. I feel like I’m forcing you into something you don’t want. Tell me to go away, and I won’t bother you anymore.”

  He caught her hand and pressed it to his lips; it was a gesture she’d expect more from a nobleman than a bounty hunter who trolled the wilderness. It reminded her how much she didn’t know about him. And that there was a good chance she never would. “I do want this, Cam. I do want you.” His dark eyes were on fire, giving her no cause to doubt him.

  “Then prove it,” she whispered. “Or forget about it.”

  “I want you to know who I am before we make love. And to be honest, I don’t know quite how to make that happen.”

  “How hard can that be? Just be yourself, and I’ll get to know you.” He got that distressed look again. She smiled. “You’re so old-fashioned, Kublai. Such a gentleman.”

  “Circumstances can make a man resemble something he is not,” he argued ruefully.

  “Well, I respect that you’re being honest with me.”

  Now he looked truly pained.

  “You okay, Kublai?”

  He opened his mouth to say something, but stopped. Instead he took her hand.

  They retraced their steps to the roof. After replacing the loose facet, they walked back to the street. Kublai seemed filled to bursting with something he wanted to tell her, yet she didn’t have a clue as to what it was.

  They crossed the large, windswept square in front of the palace that was by day filled with adoring subjects hoping for a glimpse of the acting emperor, the prince who’d kept his distance—and his knowledge—from Cam since the day she’d arrived. “I need him, Kublai,” she said in frustration. “I need the prince.”

  The Rim Rider stopped and faced her. A cold, damp wind blew their hair across their eyes. “And he needs you.”

  The intensity in his expression puzzled her. “Will you help me, Kublai? You’re the only one who can. You got me into the museum. Get me into the prince’s area of the castle. Then he’ll have no choice but to see me. And to help—something he’s withheld from me.”

  “He has not withheld his help!” He glanced around and lowered his voice. “He brought you here. He’s given you shelter in the palace.”

  “He has, and I am grateful, but he ignores me. Bree Maguire was here in the palace. I’m her wingman; it’s my job to stay by my flight leader’s side. Whatever information he knows about her whereabouts, I want it.”

  “I don’t think he has anything to tell you.”

  “Then let him at least say as much to my face.”

  The big Rim Rider closed his eyes for a moment, as if struggling with a tremendous decision. Then he brought his lips to her ear and breathed, “I will do it.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered back.

  “And I’ll better the offer, pretty one. Not only will I bring you to the prince’s private chambers; I’ll introduce you to the man himself.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Inside the walls of Fort Powell a battle of wills raged. “Who is the Voice of Freedom? Where are those broadcasts coming from?”

  When Bree didn’t answer the shouted questions, the interrogator pressed his fingertips into the skin of her jaw until he drew out
a gasp. “You’re only making it harder on yourself, Maguire.”

  “I told you—I don’t know who the Voice of Freedom is.”

  “Then maybe you can help us with another matter. He’s been talking to you all along. He’s fanning the flames of revolt in Central, yet somehow he’s remained hidden from us, escaping our most technically advanced traces of his transmissions. How does he do it? How are the broadcasts accomplished? An easy question, Banzai. Answer and we are done here.” He brought his face closer. “Answer me,” he whispered. His breath washed over her mouth and nose, smelling faintly of smoked meat. She twisted away, afraid she’d retch. Shock, pain, and the drugs they gave her kept her skating constantly on the edge of throwing up. How long had she been in this place? Days? Weeks?

  The interrogator squeezed her jaw, forcing her to look at him. “Who is the Voice of Freedom?” he asked for the hundredth time.

  “If I knew the answer, do you think I’d be here?”

  He slapped her. Her head snapped around. Only a small explosion of pain this time. Had she grown so accustomed to being hit, and was her numbness a blessing in disguise?

  “You’re going to die, Maguire.”

  Her chin came up. “Not at your hands.”

  “Overconfidence around here is a mistake. Too bad no one told you that.” His face was so close now that she could see the individual hairs where he’d shaved. When he smiled, his mouth filled her field of vision. “Let’s try a little more time on the cable.”

  Bree’s heart sank. Not again. Please. The broken wrist she’d suffered during the pirate attack had been healed in typically accelerated, twenty-second-century fashion. Though still tender, it wasn’t what made the torture so excruciating; it was the almost-dislocation that hanging from the cable caused her shoulders, a position so agonizing that she never lasted long. God willing, she’d pass out just as quickly as last time.

  “It doesn’t have to be this way, Captain. Declare your allegiance to the UCE, say you’ll be our great nation’s loyal servant. Ask for mercy, and you shall have it.”

  She thought of Ty. I’m fighting for you, babe. For all you wanted and never got to see. “I’ll never ask for lenience from a nation that knows none,” she whispered.