Liberation's Vow (Robotics Faction #3)

by Wendy Lynn Clark

  He blocked her path. “That can be arranged.”

  “You know her exact location?”

  “I’ve already told you she’s off-planet.”

  “And we both know you’re a brazen liar.”

  His nostrils flared. The air crackled with unspoken words. Arguments half discarded.

  Her robot screamed in her ears.

  He reached out to stroke her cheek.

  She jerked out of reach.

  A half smile touched his face. “I’m an excellent liar. Someday, you’ll appreciate that.”

  “The only thing I value is the truth.”

  “Me too.”

  “Then give us her location before she corrupts anyone else.”

  His head tipped. “Oh, I don’t know. A grand adventuress fighting the monolith of the Faction warms the cockles of my heart. I’ve always admired the swashbuckler type.”

  She indicated his hands, always venturing into interdict space between them. “Stealing seems to be second nature to you.”

  His lazy smile disguised his fury. “Nonsense. Why steal when everything I desire is thrust at me for free?”

  Her robot counseled calm. This is not the fight you want.

  True. True, and yet not true. She balled her fists. “What did she promise you? How did she pay you off?”

  His smile widened. He leaned forward.

  You don’t care if he touches you, her robot reminded her. He’s only human.

  “She promised me a hundred million lives,” he tapped her on the nose, “and she paid me off with a video chat. Happy?”

  His simple teasing touch rocked through her. His answer, though laced with the truth as he believed it, did not make her happy. And yet it did. His touch did.

  No.

  What was she doing? Baiting him led to fighting, and yet, the only thing that would scratch her itch was him. Big, irritating, sexy him.

  Sexy? her robot queried.

  She half shook the wrong thought away. Of course, the governor cultivated his sex appeal. Politics required magnetic attraction. Her succumbing to it was the problem.

  “I assume you’ve kept me safe from the street sweeper,” he said.

  The irritation surged. “Yes, I’ve been actually working.”

  A brow raised. “I’ve been working too.”

  “Oh? But your bed is empty. All a wasted effort.” She stepped to the side to pick up the dripping vase.

  He paced her, blocking her against the wall. An arm raised over her head, hemming her in. “The night is young. And there’s still one uninvited guest left.”

  “I’m an employee.”

  “And a robot.”

  She licked her lips.

  His gaze dropped to her as though magnetized.

  Her ability to manipulate him surged power through her. For once, her robot and she were in agreement. She did want to manipulate him. Not to force the rogue’s location from him, but to watch him writhe, soaked in pleasure, while he brought her to the point of ecstasy and beyond.

  Everything she had imagined taking place between him and the guests tonight, but which, for whatever reason, hadn’t.

  She wanted that.

  Do it, her robot said.

  “I can see it, you know,” he said. The words came from a dark place deep inside. “You’re not as emotionless as you’d like us to believe.”

  Ice crystallized in her veins. “Us?”

  He blinked.

  She had caught him. “Are you talking with the rogue about me?”

  He blinked again, and his mouth formed words. Lies, all lies. Whatever he was about to say, lies.

  “Sir,” his household staff chimed from the door monitor. “A Madam Joensen, the widow of your late head of security, Mr. Joensen, has arrived for comfort.”

  The door monitor showed a busty woman in a skimpy dress designed to accentuate her secondary sex characteristics.

  He read the body language as clearly as Resa. Probably faster, too. He had more experience with it.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and scrubbed his face. “Let her in.”

  “Sir.”

  The ice sharpened, pinching Resa’s lips. “Looks like your bed won’t be empty after all.”

  He dropped his hand. “Her husband died yesterday—”

  “And she’s going to make the most of it.” She tossed the broken vase pieces at the reprocessor, slicing her fingers on the broken glass, and strode for the window without pausing to heal herself.

  He limped after her. “Where are you going?”

  “The garden walls.” She climbed out.

  His shoulders slumped with exhaustion. “Some security officer you are.”

  Which was why she leaned back in the window from overhead, startling him to jump. “Yes, some security officer I am because anyone in a chameleon suit could climb into your window and I will secure your complex from an obvious stealth attack.”

  His sexy, irritable mouth dropped open.

  She lifted one almost-healed finger. “Pay your other security officers to watch you seduce a willing woman.”

  “That’s not—”

  “If I’m taking charge of your life, we’re both coming out the other side alive.”

  Chapter Five

  Aris ushered Joensen’s busty widow into his public bedroom.

  Her appreciative gaze hungrily cataloged the extravagances he used to woo and awe his targets. As the widow of his trusted friend—trusted, he emphasized, continuing the argument over Joensen’s faithful service with Resa in his head—he owed his widow whatever comfort she most desired.

  Resa should have stayed to see how he worked. Or perhaps he wanted to make her jealous. Something about her acerbic tone when she claimed not to care about other women told him exactly how much she did care.

  And, the widow was a soft, squishy, lovely woman who drank in everything he provided and asked for more. She wore the type of nightdress he most enjoyed, a scarlet frilled teddy that accentuated her generous curves and matched her smoky eyes and rouged lips.

  Nothing like the hard, capable, mouth-watering robot whose quiet curves drew his fingers like a magnet.

  Fuck.

  As they toured the gardens together, the widow toyed with her necklace and yawned.

  A woman would never leave his chambers bored. He pasted on his most charming smile. “That vintage pendant suits you. It enhances your decollete.”

  She brightened. “It’s new.”

  “Like your outfit,” he smiled, regurgitating their earlier topics, “and the shoes. Another wine?”

  “Sure.” She lifted her jewel-crusted platform heels. “I found them in Jo-Jo’s things. I know he meant for me to have them, but he won’t be resurrected until after my birthday.” Her laugh tinkled. “Hope he remembers buying them for me.”

  Aris lifted his full glass to hers and clinked. “To a brave man who fearlessly sacrificed his life for his duty.”

  She drank.

  He sipped.

  She leaned deep into the couch, sprawled out with an inviting gap. Her nightdress parted to reveal shapely thighs.

  He wondered how Resa would look in that outfit. First, she would sit primly on the edge, ready to spring away if he so much as turned in her direction. Second, she would—

  No. He was not fantasizing about a robot when a flesh-and-blood woman offered herself as a delectable morsel to him.

  He must be tired.

  She finished the wine and smiled, glassy-eyed, toward the ceiling. “I haven’t been single for a decade. And now I am for a week. Or two.” She raised her brows. “You know what I’m thinking?”

  Her watery smile knew all about him. His reputation for pleasure. And now, it was her turn.

  She patted the seat. “Come over here.”

  He seated himself beside her, his arm automatically finding its place around her body. She was warm and flesh and comfort. Feminine, and flush, and delightful. He stroked her soft hair and her softer cheek. She l
eaned into his touch, heavy and nicely scented.

  His lower half, usually up for any performance no matter what the circumstance, remained frustratingly lax.

  He really must be tired.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked, drawing it out.

  Resa’s image wouldn’t leave him. That was the other problem. Frustrating and irritating and disapproving. Who cared if she disapproved? Why should he care?

  He didn’t. Of course he didn’t. Why should anyone else?

  “I could go for one thing right now,” she purred and dropped her hand to his lap.

  Nothing.

  Fine. His cock cut through the bullshit in his mind. He wouldn’t be pleasuring any woman until he got Resa off his mind.

  “Ah.” He lifted the widow’s hand and quickly helped her to rise. “You deserve another piece of jewelry. On behalf of your deceased husband, for your birthday.”

  Her fuzzy confusion cleared. The voracious underside returned to her red smile. “Oh yes. Another birthday present.”

  She removed her jewelry to try on the mounds of artful stones and fabulous decorations in his family jewel boxes, examining herself in the mirror, pouting and preening. “Jo-Jo’s not going to know what hit him.”

  The shock painting her husband’s face when the bullets burst out his chest haunted Aris. Joensen was one of the few who knew how deeply Aris cared for his half sisters. He had even helped in the beginning when Aris sought to find out what had happened to them, and where they had gone into hiding.

  Speaking of his half sisters, the widow was examining his old MAC necklace. Silver letters outlined the famous old studio, but it held a secret meaning for him.

  “Not that one.” He tugged it out of her fingers and hid it away. “It’s far too common.”

  She bit her lip. “Hardly anyone has MAC merchandise anymore.”

  “Choose something unforgettable. Like your husband.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You just don’t want to part with it.” She dug into the jewelry, a smile tugging her lips.

  If she only knew.

  The initials also spelled Mercury-Aris-Cressida. In his last fit of generosity before abandoning his half sisters to their fate, he found a pristine matched set for them all to share—one for himself, one for Mercury, and one for Cressida.

  A real man would have fought for his family. A real man would have forced his powerful father to intercede on their behalf and whisked them away to safety together. A real man would have done something, anything, to stop the threat.

  Instead, Aris had been relieved.

  His half sisters had been threatened with death, and he had given them fancy necklaces and felt relieved. At the time Cressida had been marked for death, he’d been torn between attending an elite academy far from home and an acceptable academy nearby. Ambition fought with his heart, and the tragedy made his choice easier. Instead of staying nearby and using his connections to force his powerful relatives to act, he had gone on his way, collecting favors and saving everything for himself.

  Compounding his guilt now was his memory of the callous idiot he had been then. He thought nobody died anymore. The risk wasn’t real. No one could truly hurt a member of the Antiata family.

  He had missed most of the tragedy. While he’d been away taking an entrance exam for the elite academy, their parents had received the warning of Cressida’s danger. Mercury had been volunteered for illegal identity-changing surgery. If her surgery had been successful, Cressida would have received it as well, and they would have been able to remain together in hiding, virtually safe from the Robotics Faction.

  Instead, Mercury developed a rare allergy to the surgical materials and dropped into a coma. While she was unconscious and her parents were scrambling for an alternative, an assassin began to hunt Cressida, and her parents were forced to flee with one child immediately, leaving their other child heartbreakingly behind.

  Aris had been too late to bid good-bye to Cressida, but he had seen Mercury in the hospital healing tank, still unconscious. That had almost disturbed his ridiculous belief that no one would really die. The doctors assured him she would eventually recover and awaken, and he happily believed them. It eased his conscience when he left.

  Never mind that she did awake, it had been to the face of a stranger. His mother’s uncle, a former mercenary, took Mercury with the sole purpose to keep her away from the rest of the family. And his sweet, social, snuggly sister had been forced to grow up all alone.

  He could have prevented that. Aris could have prevented all of it.

  He had chosen not to.

  Until now.

  He wondered if they still had the necklaces.

  “How about this?” Joensen’s widow held a plain locket against her neck and evaluated herself in the mirror. “I suppose it’s common too?”

  He sidled alongside her and revealed the portraits of the first governor and her husband. “Only two were ever made.”

  “Hmph. You couldn’t prove it by me.” She dropped the locket back in the box.

  He was about to wax poetically about the love affair of the first governor—he loved family history—when the impact of her words struck him.

  Only two lockets were ever made, and both resided under family lock and key.

  Resa’s accusation surged into his mind. Joensen was in the best position to sabotage him. And someone in his security team collaborated with a traitor in his secretarial pool.

  No. He refused to believe it.

  He casually faced Joensen’s widow. “So you have seen another?”

  “So many.”

  He slid his hand up the woman’s spine, watching her arch into him like a purring cat. “I’d love to hear about it.”

  She closed her eyes and turned to him, red lips parted in anticipation. “Yes?”

  “I’m quite the collector. I like to know when imposters are selling knock-offs.”

  Her eyes flashed open. “It certainly wasn’t a knock-off. That plain old thing? Who would knock that off?”

  He shared her laughter. “Indeed.”

  She leaned in again, puckering for a kiss.

  He pressed a finger to her lips. “So I would love to know where you saw the other one.”

  She blinked. “Hmm?”

  “Where you saw this?”

  As though realizing her mistake, her eyes widened and she leaned back. “Oh, um, somewhere recent. I can’t remember.”

  “Try.”

  She laughed and waved. Apparently she wasn’t as drunk as she had led him to believe. “Oh, I’m probably wrong. I’m in the mood for another drink. Shall we have another drink? I’ll pick out a piece of jewelry later.”

  Perhaps she had new clothes and shoes because her family had suddenly come into a large amount of money.

  Perhaps Joensen had been nervous all week because he had accepted a bribe.

  Perhaps he leapt out of the vehicle first not because he was fighting to protect his long-standing friend, but because he was expecting the attack that he had helped to coordinate.

  His widow took Aris’s lax hand. “You can’t believe anything I say. I’m a grieving widow and my head is all confused. I’m not even supposed to be here. Jo-Jo would be so mad if he knew.”

  Aris started to reassure her. His usual self would offer her more wine, tease her out of her slip, and seduce the information from her trembling lips. It was easy. It was familiar. It kept the informant from guessing his manipulation.

  Resa’s disapproval floated before his face.

  Fuck.

  He removed her grasping hands and locked them in his gentlest grasp. “Out of respect for the man I once considered a friend, I can’t offer for you to spend the night.”

  Her mask slipped. “I never wanted to anyway.”

  Sure.

  Well, if he was going to do this the hard way, at least he had an indestructible robot assassin on his side. Until she got what she wanted, of course, and permanently killed him.

&n
bsp; He smiled at the widow who looked exactly like she wanted to kill him herself right now. “Before you go, would you care to tell me which of my cousins let you into my uncle’s jewelry box?”

  Resa raced across the moonlit dome, footage of the tryst playing in a portion of her brain directly from his security console. As the couple closed in at the jewelry box for what was surely going to become their first kiss, she switched the input from full color to infrared.

  You’re missing detail, her robot chastised her. You can barely make out what’s going on.

  She seriously doubted Aris was sharing the location of the rogue with the widow. Especially with his tongue down her throat.

  Perhaps this is how they are passing information.

  But they weren’t androids, and even a cursory review of the data proved that wrong. The security head betrayed Aris. His widow pursued Aris as a sex object. Perhaps the security head betrayed Aris because of his widow. By the way she pawed through Aris’s things, she obviously had expensive tastes.

  Unlike Resa.

  You complain as though you want to kiss him.

  Resa ran faster, striving to erase the wrong desires before her robot could catch them, striving to lose herself in patterns and reflections. Five moons circled this, the seventh planetoid. This one should really be called Seven Planets, not Seven Stars. The stars had something to do with poetry and history. She thought it was dumb and didn’t understand it.

  She also thought she was dumb, and she accepted her robot’s assessment that she didn’t understand her reactions.

  Aris’s lifestyle disgusted her.

  As when she had read the files and interpolated her assignment, as when she had reviewed Aris’s character and determined it would be no great loss to the worlds if he should unfortunately die, she now had to face the ridiculous life he daily led and revisit her original conclusion.

  He toyed with people and broke hearts. He flashed wealth in the faces of those exposed to a lower class of poverty and used that patina of money to manipulate the guests he sought only for ego-building aggrandizement. He seduced anyone, drank anything, ate far too much, and slept even more.

  And women flocked to him. Even the ones who should be grieving for their dead husbands.