The Claiming

by Imogen Keeper

  Honestly, that was the first thing about Sanger that fit since the moment she’d found out he was the Boss. The first thing that felt true.

  She curled into him, careful not to bump her wrist against anything. She should maybe feel uncomfortable, being naked around a man she’d wanted dead a couple hours ago, but she couldn’t work up the energy.

  “You called yourself husband of the dead. Father of the dead.”

  He drew in a long slow breath.

  “Why?”

  Sanger’s rough hand settled on hers, threaded his fingers through hers, his calloused thumb stroking along her skin, like he was gearing up for something big. “Manivietto made a deal with the Reggio of the Roq in Tamminia. They profited from the continued wars with Argentus. They were older men. They didn’t usually go to battle. But when the Reggio’s bastard son, the commander of his troops started balking at the constant senseless death of his troops, they got mad. And when he refused to keep fighting, it got personal. They went in…” Sanger stopped for a minute, then rolled to face her. “They waited until I was visiting one of my holdings. They went in themselves, with a bunch of their personal guard, and slaughtered my wives and children.”

  His voice had been so bland as he described it. She’d known it was coming, but still. It was what he didn’t say that was the worst. He’d been talking about his wives, his children, imagining them calling out for him, and having only silence for an answer as they died.

  “I’m so sorry, Sanger.”

  He made a face, the kind people make when they’re saying keep your worthless and meaningless sorry.

  “So that’s what you’re after? Revenge?”

  He nodded. “Just like you.”

  She threaded her fingers through his. “Just like me.”

  They were quiet for a long time. No secrets between them for the first time. He knew who she was. She knew who he was. He was a man who’d suffered. So much pain and loss. Self-doubt, self-hate. Just like her, he’d probably blamed himself a thousand ways, thought up a thousand reasons he should have died so they could have lived.

  Like her, he probably spent half his time wishing he were dead, too.

  “It’s not your fault they died.”

  His hand tightened, but he didn’t answer.

  “Manivietto was always an asshole. Even as a kid,” she said after a while. “I can help you. I wasn’t lying about that. I could show you where the sensors are. Where you can hide as you climb the hill. I can get you and your men right to the edge of the seraglio’s garden. No guards go there. You can enter there unseen.”

  Sanger lifted a brow. “You’re not going anywhere near there.”

  She got ready to argue, but he cut her off.

  “You have a tracker, Tessa.”

  She touched the tiny bump under her skin.

  “They can’t read them underground. You’re safe down here. But you can’t go above.”

  “Cut it out of me then.”

  His hand tightened on hers. “It’s too close to your spinal column. It’s not worth the risk.”

  “But you could arrange to make a trade. Send me back to him. I’ll be inside his house.” She pushed toward him, getting her face right in his, forcing him to look at her. See her. “I could kill him in his sleep, Sanger. End his reign.”

  He sucked in a breath, his jaw turning back to granite. His gaze slid past hers. “It’s not safe. He’s dangerous, Tessa. Just give me a couple more days. The chip will be meaningless then.”

  She started to argue. He held up a hand. “But you can draw a map for me. You can look over the satellite images with Shane.”

  “Code for stay-out-of-the-way-like-a-good-felana,” she grumbled, trying to pull her hand away.

  “I need to know you’re safe, Tessa. I can’t…I can’t go through it again.”

  She wanted to ask about his wives. Ask if any of them lived on the streets, stayed in hiding for years, knew how to ram their hand into a junkies’ nose, or steal food, but one look at him said it was a waste of time. Instead, she yanked her hand away from him.

  “Don’t make me tie you up down here.”

  It was her turn to clamp her teeth together. Her molars gnashed against one another.

  “Tessa?”

  “What?” It came out cranky and extra-rude but she couldn’t work herself up enough to care.

  “I’ve been working for the last three years to get enough guns inside Didgermmion city walls to arm all my men. Tonight, we will have enough guns to arm every single one of my soldiers. In a few more days, this will all be over. Then you won’t have to stay down here. I just need you trust me.”

  She tugged her arm from over her eyes and stared up at the glow on the cavern’s ceiling above.

  “What happens tonight?”

  “Tonight, my brother will deliver two thousand guns to a customs agent who is going to allow them inside the border. By tomorrow evening, they will be distributed across the entire country.”

  “And after that…”

  He licked his lips. “War.”

  All the more reason it made sense to let her handle it. She could move in while he was sleeping. Silent in the night. He wouldn’t even see her coming. But Sanger was past reason. “And then?”

  His eyes widened, and her heart sank.

  The thing that burned in her gut wasn’t the resolve on his face though, it was the shadow that passed behind his eyes as he said the word. Like her, he was willing to die for his cause. Not just willing, eager. Because he didn’t know. He’d never thought about after. Not even for her. He might care for her, but not enough.

  34

  bonfires big enough

  to see from space

  SANGER STOOD in the doorway. Tessa was out of the bed, sitting on the edge of the river, her feet dangling over it, a fresh white bandage wrapped around her wrist and across her thumb. The green light reflected back from the rushing river, writhed across her face.

  She was still naked. When she lifted a foot, water droplets glimmered and sprayed from her toes to splash the wall opposite.

  “You’ll be here when I get back?”

  “Yes.” She kicked harder. The fungus on the wall across the river darkened. Never idle, Tessa. She was only ever still when she slept.

  “Promise?”

  Her face spun away from the water, brows drawn low. “Yes.”

  He laughed. “Last time I left you naked somewhere, you disappeared, and ended up in custody of the Polizei with a tracker in your neck.”

  She shrugged, hands out, palms up. “This time, I’m right where I want to be.”

  Something about that rang false to him. “Naked and waiting? That doesn’t sound like you.”

  “I’m naked because I like to be. I’m waiting…because you’ve give me no choice.”

  He hesitated. Something was off in her reaction, a warning somehow.

  “You could still change your mind, Sanger. Bring me up, let Manivietto take me up to his dome. I’m strong enough to kill him. You know I am.”

  She certainly thought she was, but how easy had it been to smack the knife from her hand in the alley that first night they met. And again in his house, when they’d both been out of their minds with heat and rut. “It’s not safe.”

  Her already-sharp jaw got even sharper, but she slid a half-smile his way. “I respect what you’re doing Sanger. You’re a good man.”

  He felt that all the way to his toes. It was as close as she got to a compliment. It meant more because she didn’t shower him with praise. This wasn’t a woman who respected easily, if anything she was the opposite. You had to earn her trust, earn her respect.

  “Even if you’ve got your head stuck in your ass.”

  The laugh surprised him, took him aback.

  “Why do you laugh when I’m rude?” She kicked the water again, sucking her cheek into her teeth like she was trying to hide how much the question mattered to her.

  “It’s my favorite thing about yo
u.”

  “Being rude?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  His lower lip pushed out as he thought about it. “You just say what you’re thinking. I like that. Most people aren’t like that.”

  “I know.” She touched her head like she was thinking about saying something. “So you like me when I’m rude. It turns you on when I hit you. So you’re saying I should be rude more often.”

  “If it’s just you being you? Then yes.”

  Her mouth quivered, and her gaze slide away. This was when he should tell her cared about her. That she mattered to him, but somehow, saying the words aloud felt like opening his chest and handing over his heart. The last time he did that, it ended badly.

  He sucked in a breath, took one long lingering look at her face, imprinted it across his soul, and said, “I’ll be back.”

  She flashed a grin that didn’t quite ring true and, with her motions a little awkward because of the bandaged wrist, tied her hair up into a bun the size of a cuvara fruit. “You’d better.”

  He took in one last breath, absorbing the scent of her.

  He passed Shane in the main room. He was playing cards with a few other soldiers. They all stood when they saw Sanger.

  He greeted them, then asked Shane for a private word.

  They stepped a bit away. “Tessa’s still in there.”

  Shane nodded.

  “Keep her safe.”

  Shane’s lips curled into a smile. “You know she pulled my own knife on me?”

  “Sounds like her.”

  “You taking Freysa?”

  “Yeah. Are the explosives in place?”

  Shane nodded. “One hundred bonfires big enough to see from space.”

  “That’s the point.” That explosion would be the signal to Tor, to Argentus, to his own armies.

  Sanger lifted his chin in goodbye and walked down the hallway toward the ladder to the upper level.

  35

  can’t you swim?

  TESSA HELD still, head tilted, ear to the door that had just clicked closed behind Sanger.

  He hadn’t engaged the lock.

  But he may as well have. An army of soldiers sat on the other side of the door, and no way in hell would they shrug it off if she strolled past them.

  He was shutting her out of his plans, refusing to use her knowledge, and her relationship with Manivietto to the detriment of all.

  She could stop this war.

  She checked the knot of hair on top of her head. It held.

  She waited on her perch, hovering three feet above the river sliding by underneath her. It wasn’t a fast river. She could out-swim it, if she absolutely had to.

  She’d had a long time to study it, a mild current of maybe two or three miles per hour. She couldn’t tell how deep it was, the water itself was clear and dark, a rippling mirror that reflected back the swirls of glowing green that covered the walls and ceiling above. It was fresh water, though, that much was clear from the crisp, clean scent of it. It wasn’t a sewage system.

  The most interesting thing about the river was the ladder, a rusted-out warped-up mess of twisted metal.

  Did every room in this tunnel have them? How far to the nearest room? She’d tried leaning out but hadn’t been able to tell.

  She glanced back at the door. Still closed.

  She pictured Sanger on the other side of the door, walking toward his illicit deliver, and then she slipped into the river.

  Fuck, it was cold. Her skin instantly rose with goosebumps under the water, her nipples going so tight it felt like they might pop off.

  She swam with the river, keeping her head and wrist above water.

  This was a risk, but a calculated one.

  She’d seen a bit of the tunnel system when Shane brought her here, enough to know there were ladders leading up to points all over the city. So, she kept her hand on the left side of the tunnel the water ran through, and sure enough, she hit a ladder about a hundred yards down. It was much like the one in Sanger’s room, twisted and gnarled, but when she pulled on it, it held. She climbed up, clumsy with just the one hand functional.

  The fungus lit this new space well. It was a room similar to Sanger’s, with clean concrete floors, a spartan bed with white bedding, a shelf for storing clothes and personal items, probably belonging to one of his men.

  She climbed up, peeking her head over the concrete lip and shivering as water dripped down her skin and evaporated in the cool air of the tunnel.

  In her bare feet, dripping water in her wake, she walked on tiptoes to the door, snagging a shirt from the shelf as she passed it.

  Ear to the door, she strained for noise but heard nothing.

  Fuck luck, right? This was how she was going to stop this war. With a muttered curse, she tugged the shirt over her head.

  The noise the hinge made as she pushed it open sounded like a scream to her, but after a few seconds, no one came to investigate.

  Laughter, glasses hitting a table somewhere in the distance, told her she was a good way from the main area the soldiers hung out in. To the right, the main area. She went left, down the endless hallway.

  Eventually, she found a ladder. She climbed it and found herself in yet another tunnel. She wandered that, careful to watch where she put her bare feet, and eventually, she found yet another ladder.

  She followed that and found herself in a warehouse.

  She needed to get the explosive from Jonan’s hidey-hole, move it some place closer.

  She crept to the door to look outside and get her bearings.

  She was just behind the Night Market in one of the abandoned buildings, she recognized the back of a restaurant by the labels on their dumpsters, but something was off. The normal noise of the Night Market, the hovers coming and going, venders shouting, customers haggling was absent. Even the sky overhead seemed darker than normal, lacking the refracted lights from the market.

  She shivered. It felt off. But it didn’t matter. She had to do this.

  Even if Manivietto had one of his goons staring at a tracker screen constantly, just waiting for hers to activate, they’d still have to get to her, which meant she had at least twenty minutes. Five for them to get approval from Manivietto, get to a hover, and fifteen for them to fly from his dome to here.

  Jonan’s hidey-hole was in the fourth arondi, about five minutes away. She had time. Just.

  She ran, grimacing at her bare feet on the truly disgusting streets, to the back of a municipal solar harvesting facility. The panels set up a hum of their own.

  There was a control box seven rungs up one of the ladders of a pylon that supported the solar collectors. The control box had an empty cavity at the back, a fact she knew because Jonan had once explained to her that it was the kind of place junkies used to make deals.

  She’d put the explosive here when she ran from Sanger…yesterday. Time was passing too fast and too slow at the same time.

  She needed it closer to the exit to the tunnels. Because next time she came out, she wouldn’t have time to make the detour. Next time, she had to run straight to the aerie.

  No way in hell she was going to let Sanger walk into Manivietto’s house and face that monster and all his guards.

  She just had to reach her hand into that dark hole with her good hand, hope there wouldn’t be any bugs or slime back there, and find…there it was. The small, familiar cube settling in her palm, abnormally cool in the humid night air. She palmed it, turned and ran.

  When she sauntered into the main room an hour later, still wearing the stolen shirt, she took some satisfaction in the dropping of the bald-guy’s jaw. Shane. She knew his name now.

  He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who made big expressions often. Theatricality didn’t seem to part of his repertoire. So, when his jaw dropped and his toothpick fell down onto his chest, she knew she’d succeeded in surprising him. Fun.

  He uncrossed his booted feet where they’d been propped on the table
in front of him.

  They hit the floor. Loudly. First one. Then the other. Thunk. Thunk.

  “Where you been, Lady Boss?”

  She grinned, because really, she’d never get tired of being called Lady Boss. She’d been the enslaved sister of the High Consular of the whole damned country, she’d been a starving street-rat, she’d been a captive felana under a Prime who outweighed her three times over. She’d never been a boss. She cocked out a hip to add a little jaunt to the grin. “In the river.”

  Every single head in the place zeroed in on her.

  She smiled, feeling positively saucy. “What? Can’t you swim?”

  36

  she was hiding these

  MANIVIETTO called for Briella again. This time is was early morning. The heat was lessening, but she’d decided not to let him know that. His interest seemed to have waned slightly for having a drooling, panting, confused, clumsy woman lusting after him, and he’d taken to fucking his own wives the last couple nights.

  She’d also managed to convince a some of the servants to help her, so all-in-all, today felt like a win.

  Her new world: blow the mechanic in the garage while everyone else was having lunch, and sleep easy; pretend to be a mouth-breathing fool and escape mental torture and rape.

  Good times.

  She crawled to his office. The skin of her knees was raw from all the crawling. And under the raw skin were bruises from all the time spent on her knees.

  For a while, she’d wondered why he brought her into these meetings with his number two, and then she’d quit wondering, because she’d figured it out. Manivietto didn’t like to own things and not show them off to the world. Yet there wasn’t anyone he could trust to show off his kidnapped Argenti slave, except his assistant whose hands were just as dirty of slavery and human trafficking.

  Humiliating her was probably an adjacent positive.

  He didn’t see her as a person. She, like his wives and sisters and mother and aunts, was just an extension of him, a decoration, a display of wealth, status, power.

  Which was good.