He bristled like a man unaccustomed to losing an argument.
“You can’t hold my supposed truth over my head like a dangling carrot.” She curtsied her skirt to him. “As I said, I’m not a farm donkey. I won’t follow just because you lead. No matter how big your carrot.”
He lifted an eyebrow as he shot her that enigmatic half grin.
She closed her eyes in horror as the double entendre caught up to her mind long after her mouth finished. He must have one hell of a big carrot from the size of the rest of him. She opened her eyes and looked right at the table where she’d be able to see his leather-clad crotch, if only that pesky ivory tablecloth didn’t block the view.
Pushing back from the table, he gave her a clear line of sight and gave his hips a minor but suggestive thrust. “No matter how enticing, how big, my carrot, you won’t consider a trade?”
A flush crept across her face as she tore her gaze away and turned her back to him. “I’m not making another deal with the devil.”
“Devil? I’ve fallen from the grace of being called a bastard.” His voice rolled raw and powerful as a landslide.
“Tell me your name, and I’d gladly—”
“Find a way to abuse it in a vulgar fashion the likes of which I’ve never heard.” He chuckled. “No deal, Mary.”
“Fine, Co-man-dur.”
“See what I mean?”
She grinned but still didn’t turn to face him. She didn’t need to. She knew what his angular face would look like. How big and strong and aggressive his body looked encased in that hot red silk and smoldering black leather. It was just her damned luck to end up captive to the sexiest devil in the Void.
“Yeah-huh. No more deals.”
Chapter Six
Michael watched Mary march out of the solarium with her head held high. Her attitude amazed him. Knowing herself—good, bad and ugly—allowed her to walk away from him without a backward glance. What did a name or a birthday matter?
Even clad in an ill-fitting dress, she radiated pride. Bind her naked in chains, and she’d still maintain her self-respect, not to mention fight.
With a glance at the mess she’d left behind, he turned his attention to the stack of morning reports, trying not to dwell on what it would be like to have his baffling bandit naked, in chains and at his utter mercy, because she already was. With a snap of his fingers, he could have her so offered to him.
“And then what? Rape her? Smell that horrific stench of terror reeking from every last bit of her beautiful flesh?”
Michael took a long drink of his orange juice. The citrus wiped the smell-memory from his mind. He’d never raped a woman, never wanted to, but he’d smelled what it did to them. Rape left one of the worst emotional scents he’d ever encountered. Such a powerful odor clung to a woman long after the original event. Mary did not have that damnable stench. Not only would he not inflict it on her, but also he found himself wanting to protect her from ever experiencing such abuse.
He thought he’d found a vulnerable spot when he accidentally stumbled on her parentage. She wanted to know with a desperation he could smell, yet she refused to trade information. And money couldn’t buy her secrets from her, but seduction? Well, she showed promise there. Win or lose, he had no reservations about trying.
Over the long years of building his empire, he’d seduced plenty of women. He had closets of dresses that were tossed at his feet, some never even put on at all, like the one Mary wore. But she knew he tried to mock her with the expensive dress and turned the tables on him. He’d almost laughed when she kept using the dress as a napkin to wipe her face during breakfast.
Despite his subtle digs, she kept her back straight and her mind focused. All the while, she hungered for him. He knew she did, because he could read the edges of her scent.
Desire rolled from her in mixed floral high notes with a shock of citrus, tempered by dark compost, the edges of genuine fear. Fear and desire, tandem. For the man she knew only as Commander. She tried to hide her confusion, but the pheromones of her tall, slender body betrayed her.
With his nose, his mouth, he could read subtle chemical changes in humans. Lies and lust, hate and fear; everything took a definable scent in his mind and a tang in his mouth. So rare, his talent did not have a common name, so he created one:
Emotichemical perceptionist.
Mary hit him in complex and conflicting waves. Just as he’d made progress defining one scent, she altered course, often with screeching turns. Like a flitterfly darting, her emotional scent shifted between fear and desire.
“Mary, Mary, quite contrary.”
In many ways, Mary echoed Kraft: strong, focused and determined. In other ways, not so much. Where Kraft used her wit with a subtle grace, Mary swung her wit like a sledgehammer, smashing the tender parts of his psyche. Mary struck with verbal furor until she landed a painful blow, then hit the same spot repeatedly until he lashed back.
And he thought seducing Mary would be easy. Nothing about her came easy or simple or even obvious. Working to untangle her secret would command his full attention, all his skills, and would likely result in the loss of his own secret.
“How would she behave if she knew who I am?”
He pondered it while he sipped his coffee. With a sigh, he gazed out the flexiglass to the lush green surrounding the waterfall in the aviary. Often, he came here to center himself, but he couldn’t find inner peace today.
Who am I?
Mary informed him he was a little boy in a man’s body who thought only of himself. He was a ruthless, royal and smug bastard. At one time, he’d actually named his planet Prime Bastard, because everyone called him a bastard within five minutes of introduction; however, Duster beleaguered the name.
“I don’t want to go around introducing myself as Duster Jennings, Master-of-Arms to Prime Bastard. Any lady worth her salt will run screaming the other direction.”
When he refused to budge, Duster offered a challenging puzzle. Michael had to solve the three-dimensional crossword in the allotted time, or Duster would get to name the planet.
“Windmere.”
Michael made a deal and, even though he regretted the outcome, he didn’t go back on his word. When he’d asked Duster to explain the name, he refused and said, “Got the naming, not the explaining.”
With enough pomp and circumstance to gag a thousand elves, he swore in Duster Jennings as Master-of-Arms to Windmere.
What’s in a name?
Remarkably Average Mary. Whoever pinned that name on her should be hauled up against the nearest wall and slapped. It was so wrong in so many ways he wouldn’t know where to start. He felt the same anger over Windmere. Stupid, poofy name wouldn’t intimidate anyone.
“I am Michael Parker, Commander of Windmere.” He rolled his eyes at how lame it sounded. Lifting his chest, he bellowed, “I am Michael Parker, Commander of Prime Bastard.” He smiled. “Now that would strike fear in someone’s heart.”
His thoughts turned again to Remarkably Average Mary. After a comment by the bounty hunter, his guards re-dubbed her Scary Mary. Michael wouldn’t go that far, but she didn’t seem average at anything he’d seen. Her physical, verbal and mental skills were off the charts. Her scent was so complex to be almost unreadable but for the fringes: hard-edge compost fear and floral citrus desire.
Anxiety pulsed through him, dancing along his nerves as desire raced with it. A powerful fusion he was not familiar with. Rarely did he find his wants thwarted. If he couldn’t buy something, he took it. But for Mary. He couldn’t buy her and wouldn’t take her.
“So what choice does that leave me?”
Seduce her.
He left the solarium with the stack of morning reports gripped in his fist. He didn’t often sit and contemplate his life. He didn’t enjoy the view it gave him of himself. Mary had indeed held a mirror up to him. The longer he looked, the less he saw of details about himself he liked.
Chapter Seven
Twice,
Mary had to ask House for directions to get back to her room after breakfast.
She regretted dumping real coffee on the floor, but she needed Commander to get the point—it didn’t matter what was on that stupid piece of paper, she wouldn’t have believed it anyway.
He’d struck a nerve, though. She’d been obsessed with finding out the truth of her parents since the age of twelve. Five years ago, a new obsession filled her, yet the need to know her parents still simmered in the back of her mind.
She considered telling him what he wanted to know but didn’t think he would let her go even if she did.
Escape paramount in her mind, she set out to examine everything in her bedroom. Exquisite dresses in all colors and sizes, reeking of a hundred individual perfumes, stuffed both walk-in closets. As she checked them for any potential weapons, she wondered why he kept them. Maybe they were trophies. Perhaps he’d kept one dress for each of his victims. If he had, he’d been a very busy man and probably didn’t have time for anything else.
She looked down at the dress he gave her. Had it been Kraft’s? Since it smelled brand spanking new, she didn’t think so. Did he think she would cast it off to him as another offering at his feet like all the rest?
“Not in this lifetime, pal.” Even at gunpoint, she wouldn’t surrender her ill-fitting frock. “I’ll wear this damn dress till it can stand at attention in the corner.”
Mary owned one homespun brown dress with a tatted lace collar. From a book, she learned how to tat, and made the collar to wear on her dress for church services. The delicate lace she’d slaved over for months wouldn’t help her dress to look more than a cleaning rag amongst the finery before her.
She blinked back tears at a sudden insight. She knew she’d still look ridiculous even if the dress she wore fit. Slap all the fancies in the world on a stick, and it was still just a stick. She looked as silly as a scarecrow trying to be elegant.
If she ever met Overlord, he’d barely notice her before he moved on. His gaze would fall on a woman who looked, smelled and acted like a woman. Someone fashionable and slinky, not a scuffed-up tomboy like her.
Refusing to be bogged down by silly thoughts she couldn’t do anything about, she turned her gaze around the room.
Against the far wall, across from the gigantic bed, there stood a huge three-mirrored vanity. She settled herself on the padded bench and lifted each of the decorative bottles. Potions and perfumes, trappings of beautiful women. Sniffing them all with a dubious nose, ignoring her reflection in the mirrors, she had no idea what to do with them. They wouldn’t make effective weapons. Not a one smelled caustic like she imagined acid would.
One smelled like lilac, another like amber resin mixed with those drooping, white forest flowers, still another smelled like glue. The most decorative bottle reeked worse than a musk-squirrel. She recapped the fragile glass and waved her hand around to dispel the nasty scent of a good animal gone bad.
A gem-encrusted platinum compact caught her eye.
Unable to stop herself, she darted her gaze around for the cameras as she picked it up. Not only beautiful, but the compact was worth a shipload of weapons. Vowing to find a way to steal the precious item, she flipped it open and found dark red powder on one side and a mirror on the other. It was a weird-looking mirror. She poked it. Plastimirror oozed to the top of the vanity.
Liquid, moldable mirror.
Feigning disinterest, she noted its properties, then deliberately ignored the metal once she stuffed it back into the compact, which she had to damn near pry out of her hands. If she swiped nothing else, she had to steal that compact.
Plastimirror.
Not a weapon by any stretch, but potentially useful. Mary kept it in mind as she opened every drawer in the room. Empty. Didn’t even have dust in them. A similar search of the bathroom didn’t turn up anything useful, and no matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t find the cameras.
“House, tell me where the cameras are.”
“No,” House said in a clipped tone that wasn’t at all like the lush suck-up voice House used with Commander.
“Worth a shot.” Mary glanced at the corners of her bedroom but couldn’t see a break in any of the decorative molding.
“Commander informed me you would ask.”
Knowing it pointless to ask House any of the burning questions in her mind, such as Commander’s name, or her location, Mary left her bedroom and went to the grand ballroom.
Morning sunlight beyond the massive bank of windows cast the fresco-laden ceiling in muted light. Pastel swirls of mythical beasts marched across the fifty-foot-high ceiling and halfway down the walls.
Methodically making her way around the room and the clusters of tables and chairs, she opened the few drawers she found. Empty. Not that she expected to find anything, but they were so conspicuously empty she knew he knew she would look through them.
“House, show me the library.”
“The library is outside your parameter.”
“Big surprise.” She thought a library would be the most logical place to find personal papers that might reveal who Commander was, or where he held her captive.
“Commander left a book for you.”
“Where?”
House directed her to a battered paperback, hidden among the cushions of a burgundy velvet fainting couch.
Danger in the Dark.
The battered cover showed a woman, much like Mary herself, with brown hair, brown eyes and shabby brown clothes, surrounded by a vague, shadowy figure. Did the woman run from the murky danger behind her, or toward it? Unable to tell from the torrid artwork, she flipped open the cover. After a few ripped out pages, she found:
Fear and desire own me as I run.
She considered the opening sentence with a chill. The words could be her own, and the thought raised the hair along the back of her neck.
“Are you enjoying the book?”
It flew from her hands as she shot to her feet and into a fighting stance.
Commander stood six feet away with a sardonic smile on his face.
Gasping as if caught sleeping during school, she let fly a string of expletives.
He plucked the book off the floor. “I find the cover art fascinating, don’t you?”
She relaxed her posture but refused to speak.
“Does she run from or embrace that shadow?” He held the book out to her.
Mary looked at the book, then at him. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“I wouldn’t want to ruin the story for you.”
When she still refused to take the paperback, he tossed it on the couch. “I think you’ll find the story…enlightening.”
“Okay, I give. What game is this?”
“Game?” he asked with insincere, baffled eyes. “I thought you might enjoy reading as opposed to dumping food on the floor.”
“Coffee isn’t food. It’s an indulgence of spoiled rich boys.”
“A minor point. I prefer my coffee in cups rather than on the floor.”
“Fine. If you’ll keep your reports to yourself, I’ll refrain from any more messes.”
“Will you read the book?” His gaze offered a challenge as he picked up and presented the paperback to her again.
“I’ll read it.” She yanked the book out of his hand. “Do you want a written book report, or can I give it to you orally?” As soon as she said the words, she wanted to take them back.
“I think I’d like the oral rendition very much.” His eyes twinkled with devilish delight.
She clamped down hard on a string of expletives. “Are you a randy thirteen-year-old boy trapped in a man’s body?”
Personification of innocence, he shrugged. “I merely answered your question.”
She considered the book more closely. Black ink covered up parts of the cover, and someone had ripped out the first few pages. “Why isn’t an author listed?”
“Some authors prefer anonymity.”
“Yeah-huh. Authors like yo
u, perhaps.”
“I’m flattered, but I didn’t write it. That book was written hundreds of years ago.”
The cover felt like well-worn fabric, but the inner pages were crisp and the spine unbent. “This isn’t hundreds of years old.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“You just said—”
“That the book was written long ago, not printed. Do you know anything about books?”
“I guess not.” A thought dawned. “Is this what you do all day besides prance around your big house like a fancy boy?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ll make you a deal.”
“Are we gonna fight again? I should warn you, even decked in this stupid dress, I’ve rested, and you might find—”
He lifted his hand. “If you will stop needling me, I’ll stop—”
“What?” She put her hands on her hips. “You’ll stop grinding your obscene wealth in my face? How about you let me go?”
“How about you stop acting like a child, and I’ll refrain from treating you like one?” He spoke through gritted teeth.
She had been acting like a spoiled brat, antagonizing him for no other reason than, well, she could. He allowed himself to be antagonized, and it amused her to upset him. Passion filled him when he got angry, and she liked that for some strange reason, but she didn’t want to push him too far.
“Fine. I’ll stop teasing you if you stop teasing me.” She thought they sounded like a couple of two-year-olds.
“How am I teasing you?” One brow lifted over his intense gaze.
“Knock off the lewd comments.”
“Agreed.” He bowed formally. “If you knock off the rude ones.”
“Deal.”
She accepted his offered hand. Big and strong, his hand swallowed hers. His flesh was hot and enticing, but without calluses. Her hands were hardened from cutting her own firewood, dragging buckets of water from the creek, maintaining two gardens, and filing the endless courthouse paperwork. A scathing remark formed in her mind, but she swallowed the slur in light of their truce.
Overlord: The Fringe, Book 2 Page 6
