Only when she indulged in the fantasy of Overlord did she worry about the presentation of her body. In cold creek water, she would shave her legs in anticipation of lying that night, alone in her narrow bed, with the thought of Overlord above her, pressing her down. He would pin her, take her, ravish her. Just the thought of giving herself up to his aggression made her shiver, even under the warm water flowing over her naked body.
“What the hell am I doing?” She yanked her hand from between her thighs and cast an embarrassed gaze around the frosted glass shower stall. She couldn’t trust House about cameras in here. It was one thing to let Commander watch her shower, quite another to let him watch her do that.
Wrapping herself in a fluffy white towel, she stepped from the shower to find her pile of clothing gone. A slew of expletives passed her lips until she saw a shimmering dress hanging from the back of the bathroom door. Her comment to Commander from last night, that she wouldn’t be surprised to see him in a dress, came rushing back to her.
As she considered the garment, she wondered if it belonged to his last captive, Kraft. When she’d poked that spot last night, he’d withdrawn just enough to alert her to a painful sensitivity. To use Kraft as an effective weapon to keep him off-guard, she had to find out more about her, but first things first.
She put on the green silk and velvet. The fancy dress hung too big on her slender frame and she looked like a little girl playing dress up. Her tiny breasts didn’t come close to filling the generous bodice. Perhaps his plan to seduce her included reminding her of how unattractive she was, all tall and skinny, freshly shaved legs or not.
No doubt he wanted the elegant dress to unbalance her, and for a moment, it did. Straightening her shoulders, she lifted her chin. He was in for a big surprise if he thought this pathetic ploy would work. She’d wear the damn dress until it hung off her in rags.
“House, where’s Commander?”
“Commander requests your presence in the solarium.”
Following directions, she turned down hallways and passed ornate parlors stuffed so completely with riches she wouldn’t know where to start stealing. Hell, if she started, she feared she’d never be able to stop. He had so many fine things. One object d’art could buy hundreds of weapons.
House directed her to the most beautiful room she’d ever seen. Floor-to-ceiling panels of sparkling clear glass highlighted a fabricated waterfall decked in lush green plants and trees. Brightly plumed birds darted back and forth, alighting on branches, grooming themselves, then flittering out of sight. She stood in a room adjacent to a gigantic glass birdcage. At a table covered in rich ivory linen and more gold-plated china sat Commander with his back to the view.
Spoiled bastard.
“I trust you slept well.” He set aside a stack of papers and appraised her with glittering eyes.
She pointed to a monitor on the far wall that was within his line of sight. “I trust you enjoyed the show.”
He smirked. “I have better things to do than watch you bathe.”
“But you know I took a shower.” The fact that he bothered to deny the obvious infuriated her.
“Your hair is wet.” He sidestepped her accusation neatly. With a tsk and a shake of his head, he looked her over. “That dress doesn’t fit you.”
“I think something this fancy would suit you better.” She curtsied. “Does it belong to the last woman you held captive?” She cast her gaze down to her frail breasts against the promise of her bodice. Even if she gained thirty pounds, the bodice offered a promise her body could never fulfill. “Kraft, your last captive, obviously had a much taller frame and a bigger bust than mine. But I wonder if she was any more thrilled with captivity than I am.” Shot in the dark, but it must have been a good one, because he clenched his jaw. A sure sign her pointed barb wounded. “I’m sure I’m not the first, since a man of your”—she looked him over from head to toe—“dubious qualities, must find attracting a woman of her own free will impossible.”
His eyes blazed, but he said nothing.
“I find it fitting that you have to drag women into your den by way of a Runner, and not just any Runner, but the notorious Never-Fail Nash. What’s your nickname? Can’t-Get-Any Commander? Or perhaps—”
“Sheathe your claws, my clever bandit.” He yanked his napkin from the table and flicked it open. “I don’t think it would take much to get you out of that frock.”
“Why get me out of it when all you have to do is lift my skirt?” She reached down to her hem and gathered handfuls of material.
His eyes widened as if she’d made him a surprising offer.
She quashed any hope he might have gotten. “I noticed your generous gift didn’t come with any underclothes.” Flouncing into a chair opposite him, she batted her lashes. “Not that a pair of panties would hold a wolf like you at bay.”
His smile looked forced. “I must find a way to keep your mouth occupied with something other than speech.”
“Be careful what you stick in my mouth, Co-man-dur.” She tucked a strand of wet hair behind her ear to hide a rush of embarrassing attraction. “I’m sure Nash told you I have a strong inclination to bite.” Chomping her teeth, she looked down at the gray bracelet on her wrist. “Baka or no, I’d be willing to sacrifice myself to protect all the other women in the Void.”
“How noble of you,” he said dryly.
“I’m no martyr to the cause, but if I were, it’s better than what you are.” She rudely plunked her elbows on the table.
“I’m probably going to regret this, but what am I?”
“A little boy in a man’s body who thinks only of himself.” She looked around the extravagant solarium. “Fancy digs for a mama’s boy.”
He shot her a glare of pure venom.
“You best me physically, not verbally.” She crossed her arms and met his gaze straight on.
He leaned back in his chair. “You thought you could traipse off with 5K of my goods without consequence.”
“Had the aim of my knee been better, I would have.” She took a sip of water as she flashed him a knowing smile.
“For well over a year, I assumed you were a man.” His gaze made a lazy drop from her face, all along her body, down to her bare toes. “I didn’t know my wily bandit was female until you were ushered into my office.” His gaze wandered up to her face, and he shot her an enigmatic half grin. “Imagine my shocked delight.”
His confession rendered her speechless. She assumed he knew who she was all along and toyed with her, treating her like she would live up to her nickname. A blinding flash of insight told her that he knew as little of her as she knew of him.
“What would you have done if I were a man?”
“I would have questioned you. If you didn’t answer, I would have drugged you, tortured you and then shot you.” His voice held no emotion at all and his stripping gaze never wavered.
She gulped. “For 5K? That’s nothing to you.”
“Indeed. But you taunted me for over a year before I hired a triple-platinum Runner to stop you.” He lifted his hands to indicate the bounty around them. “Welcome to my world, Mary. Grind it in my face all you want that I hired someone to get you here. Yet, here you are, on my planet. Subject to my rule.”
He sat back and sipped from a glass of the brightest orange juice she’d ever seen. At least ten real, squeezed, filtered oranges—fruit almost more valuable than gold—filled his glass.
She bristled. Another full glass sat before her plate.
Crossing her arms, she tilted back in her chair. “We’ve established that my captivity isn’t about money. Granted, you have a lot, so stop stuffing it up my nose every second, or I’m apt to start stealing it. Now that’s satisfied, let’s move on. This is about power, control and a walloping dose of ego. Your ego, not mine.”
“What this is about is a woman known as Remarkably Average Mary, ringleader of a network of bandits that has a knack for stealing my goods. Not just once, not just twice, but aga
in and again, ad nauseam. Swiping just little bits at a time, you went unnoticed for four years. This is about me putting an end to your scheme, whatever it may be.”
She settled her chair back on all four legs. “My scheme to what? Annoy you like a no-see-um? Buzz around your face until you swat me? Christ in a sidecar, what planet is this?” When he didn’t answer, she leaned close. “I’m nothing to you. Your pocket change is more than my yearly income. I think you just didn’t have anyone else to play with.”
“You play the game of bandit.” His hands caught hers. “Once captured, you now claim it counts less because what you took doesn’t count much.”
Twisting her arms, she freed herself from the shocking heat of his touch. “How much does what I did count?”
He raised his juice glass for a long sip. “Put a price tag on your own head. What do you think you owe me?”
She refused to negotiate damages. “It sounds to me, more and more, to be nothing but simple curiosity on your part. Whatsa matter, little rich boy, have you lost interest in your house full of toys? Do you have to look up from the contemplation of your navel to find a novel pursuit?”
His smug smile vanished. “Little orphan Mary, lashing out in anger.” He sounded almost compassionate. “It doesn’t surprise me that you behave the way you do. Without your parents to rear you and guide you, your guttersnipe behavior seems a natural extension of your pathetic childhood.”
His countermove shocked her, but she refused to let it show. She clapped her hands together in mocking applause. “Very good, Co-man-dur. What’s next? Nasty comments about my appearance or scathing remarks about my intelligence?” She lifted a silver cover off a platter to see what was beneath and found scrambled eggs. She helped herself to some. “Either way, you’re gonna have to do better. I have very thick skin.”
“Considering your parentage, it’s not surprising.” He plucked a single piece of paper out of the stack by his plate.
She paused, a fork full of fluffy, golden scrambled eggs halfway between her mouth and the plate.
“Have I struck a nerve, Mary?”
Belying her shock, she completed the motion, chewing as she eyed the report in his large, tan hand. What did it say about her parents? Had he uncovered the truth, or was he just screwing with her? “You don’t know spit about me.”
“Five ten, one thirty, brown hair, brown eyes.”
“Your report says that?” She ate another bite of eggs and wiped her mouth with the bodice of her dress. “Hope you didn’t pay much for it, since all you had to do was look at me.” Chewing another mouthful of the fluffiest, tastiest scrambled eggs in the Void, she shook her head. “If that’s the best you can do, you really suck at this.”
“This?” He raised one eyebrow quizzically.
“The tit-for-tat information game.” She winked at him. “So far you’ve tried force, threats, money, seduction, and now you attempt to trade in information.”
He laughed. “You turned twenty-five last month.”
She held his gaze and forced herself not to blink. “Good guess.” As if dismissing him, she turned her attention to her plate.
“Thanks for the confirmation.”
When she glanced up, he shot her that quirky half grin.
“But that’s a sore spot, isn’t it? Your birthday?”
She continued to look at him with no change in her expression. Taking another big bite of her scrambled eggs with deliberate disdain, she realized he probed for her soft spots, and she refused to give him any more ammo.
“The mayor of Taiga, Emmet Courtland, and his wife, the now deceased Joan, found you on their doorstep twenty-five years ago. They, and subsequently you, have no idea where or when you were actually born.”
She wanted to yank the report right out of his hands. “It doesn’t really matter. A birthday is just another day. It only matters when it stops coming.” To distract herself, she lifted another silver cover and found broiled ham. She served herself some and smiled up at him. “So, how old are you?”
“This isn’t about me.” He picked up and perused the stack of reports. He looked uncomfortable with the sudden shift in the conversation, and she sensed age issues. She found this information immensely interesting and added the ammunition to her growing arsenal.
“Well, since I can’t hire someone to do my thinking for me, I’ll have to do it myself.” She touched her tongue to her lips. “Judging by your lines, your restless nature, your slowing physical reactions, I’ll bet forty looms large. Isn’t that the age when most men hit crisis?”
The stack of reports hit the table hard enough to splash orange juice onto the linen cloth. “You’ve got a nasty streak a fathom wide.”
Gleeful at hitting her mark, she saluted him with her dripping glass of orange juice. “A fathom wide and a thousand fathoms deep. Your pathetic barbs can’t breach it.”
“Really?” He glanced at the report again. “I think I’ve hit the wall.”
“Of resistance.”
“No, my clever bandit, I hit the wall around you.”
“Yeah-huh. Good luck trying to climb it.”
“It’ll fall.” He served himself some food with sure, cultured and practiced movements, as if a thousand times he’d enjoyed breakfast from his silver platters.
“What a smug bastard you are.”
“Ruthless bastard, royal bastard, smug bastard—you seem obsessed with my parentage.” He poured his gold-rimmed china cup full of coffee and filled hers without bothering to ask. “Rather telling, don’t you think?”
“I care as much to know the particulars of your conception and birth as I do for my own.” She leveled her gaze. “In case you don’t grasp, the point is, not much.”
“You are an adept liar, Mary.” Swirling real cream and pure white sugar into his black coffee, he looked up. “If that bracelet of Baka didn’t encircle your wrist, you would splash hot coffee in my face, grab this report and flee.”
She considered that option as she watched him take a sip from his cup.
“You wouldn’t get far, wouldn’t have long, but you’d give the short remainder of your life to read this scrap of paper.” He picked it up and held it tantalizingly out of reach.
She ignored the extravagant coffee to sip from her water goblet. “So now the game is information.”
“Quid pro quo,” he tossed off with a smug grin, as if she wouldn’t know Latin.
She made her voice country-simple. “Sumpen’ for sumpen’.”
His eyebrows rose with surprise, pleasure, then intrigue.
She dropped the twang from her voice. “You think I’m an uneducated peasant.”
“Not anymore.”
“I tell you what you want to know, and you tell me what you think I want to know.” She cast him a sly grin. “You are as subtle as a cow pie in the church collection plate.”
He considered the report with a puzzled frown. “This report indicates you are of average intelligence, yet you display remarkable insight.” When his eyes met hers, the golden-brown depths glowed with challenge.
Twenty years of physical fighting, at least the same amount mastering the art of verbal sparring, made him a formidable opponent. He’s no Overlord, but he does have a compelling quality. Almost as soon as the thought crossed her mind, she dismissed it. She would gain nothing thinking that way.
“Cunning, challenging.” She lifted the too big bodice of her dress and wiped her mouth. “By the same measure, you are condescending, conceited, capricious and a shade shy of cruel.” She nodded to the report by his plate. “If you’ll look closer, it should state that I am Remarkably Average Mary No-last-name.”
His gaze dropped to the report.
“Ha! Made you look.”
Dagger-filled, his gaze settled on her. “Remarkably Average Mary No-last-name.” He tossed the paper at her feet. “It sums you up. In more ways than you think.”
Clearly, he expected her to lunge for the report, like a hound at his master’s
table scrap.
“This is what I think of your report.” She took her cup of steaming coffee and poured it over the folded paper. Splashes of expensive hot brown liquid splattered off the white onto the blond hardwood floor. She dribbled her entire cup on his report, then dumped cream and sugar on it as well. She looked up, made sure he watched her, stood and tromped her bare foot on the whole mess with a satisfying squish.
“Take your report, twirl it tight and stuff it.” She sat, wiped her foot off on the crisp linen tablecloth and stood again. “I’m not giving you a damn thing.”
Head held high, she marched to the doorway and turned back. “Do yourself a favor—cut me loose.” She shook her head at him as if reproving a child. “You can’t buy me, you can’t entice me and, in case you missed it, you can’t manipulate me with information, either.”
Commander sat at the table, his coffee cup paused halfway to his mouth, as if stunned speechless.
“You think that piece of paper gives you the heads-up on me?” She laughed as she tapped her finger against her head. “If you take it as gospel, what folks in Pine Glenn are inclined to say, you’re fooling yourself. And you have my permission to do so.”
He considered her with that stripping gaze. “Sounds like you don’t know what the truth about yourself is.”
“After everything hurled at me, nasty names and comments pointed, you think I should take your word for the truth?” She cast him an incredulous glare. “With my pathetic, parentless childhood, don’t you think I’ve met my share of taunting bullies?”
He pulled back just a fraction, and she knew she’d surprised him again.
“Take that mess on the floor and say it’s the truth, the whole truth and nothing but.” She nodded to the sodden mess. “Do you think if it came from your hand I would believe it?”
He considered the mess, then her. “You wouldn’t take my word as backing to your own name. Not that you know your own name.”
He wanted the comment to hurt. And it did. But she refused to let it show. “Great.” She uttered a self-deprecating laugh. “I don’t know my name or yours. Shouldn’t that make us even?”
Overlord: The Fringe, Book 2 Page 5
