“I still think she poses a danger.” Duster’s voice sounded clear as day over Michael’s new wrist com.
“We’ll see you at base.” Michael cut the link as he entered the back of the shuttle.
Lost in thought, Mary sat on one of the couches with her broken leg elevated. He took a deep sniff to read her scent, but he stopped when all he got was a nose full of his own whisky-and-beer-drenched body.
“You okay?”
She swung her leg to the floor, close as she could get to a fighting stance. “I’m fine.”
Without waiting for her to argue, he scooped her up into his arms and strode to the bridge of Whisper. He settled her into the copilot seat and dropped into the pilot chair.
“Okay, truth time.”
She sighed as if she’d forgotten how to argue. “What do you want to know?”
He hated the resignation in her voice and despised himself for being part of the cause. “I don’t want to interrogate you. I thought you might want to interrogate me.” Offering her a tentative grin, he let it slide right into a frown when she looked everywhere but directly at him.
“Why would I?” She shrugged. “Like I said, truth is such a fickle thing. One man’s truth is another man’s lie. It doesn’t really matter anymore. I’ve been chasing the truth like it’s some kind of holy grail. Turns out the truth is nothing but a rusty old iron cup.”
He’d never seen her like this—defeated, resigned, quietly accepting. Had Emmet broken her spirit?
“What did Emmet tell you?” Michael leaned forward to read her scent, but he couldn’t because of his own stench. Instead, he tried to glean information from her body language. Her pine-green silk outfit was stained and wrinkled. Her hair hung in limp strands around her blank face, her once proud posture was slightly slumped, and she wouldn’t meet his gaze. Worst of all, her snappy, sassy comments dried up.
“He told me a bunch of things that don’t matter anymore.” She shrugged again, as if she didn’t care, but he knew she did. She spun the copilot chair around in slow circles. “Like a wheel always turning, life goes on.”
Whatever Emmet told her didn’t bother her as much as what he’d done to her. Michael knew the full truth of it by her refusal to even glance at him. Feeling lower than a subterranean slime-weasel, he worried that the void inside him would never again know the light of her friendship, let alone anything else.
“I never meant to trick you.” He tried to get her to look at him, but she wouldn’t, preferring to continue her spin.
“Okay.” Her voice sounded bored, indifferent.
“You don’t believe me.” Her rejection hurt more than he’d thought possible.
“Okay.” Mary said it exactly as she had before.
“Stop.” He grabbed the arms of the chair to prevent her from spinning. “I’ll tell you the truth to anything you want to know.”
“Like I said, truth is such a fickle thing.” Her voice sounded emotionless and dry as the desert sands of Windmere. He missed her smart mouth and the defiant gleam in her eyes. More than anything, he wanted his feisty and argumentative Mary back.
“I’ll take truth serum if you want me to.”
She finally looked up, and he caught her gaze. A spark of something close to her old spirit rekindled when she laughed.
“Fine.” Bold as brass and twice as blinding, she looked right at him. “Why did you make me call you Commander and berate me for wanting you and thinking of Overlord when that’s who you are?” Direct, to the point, she didn’t pull any punches.
“I wanted you to want me, just the man, Michael Parker. Not some overblown hero I could never live up to.” He shook his head. “I’m not a hero, Mary. I hurt plenty of people while building Windmere.”
She frowned. “Hurt people how?”
He took a deep breath, durosteeling his resolve. “For six months, I smuggled humans as a slaver. That’s what I did before I started smuggling books.” Admitting to the worst of his past filled him with a curious relief. When Mary didn’t say anything for a long time, he feared she would reject him and hate him. Panic surged when he thought he had saved her only to lose her again, not because of tricking her, but for the horror of who he really was. “I’ve done everything I can to make up for my actions, but nothing will change the fact that I was a slaver.” He wanted to give her a laundry list of what he’d done to atone, but he feared it would do no good. Nothing would change the truth of what he once was.
Mary didn’t say anything as she looked down at the floor.
“Do you hate me?” He didn’t want to admit how much her answer mattered. If she could forgive him for his past, maybe he could forgive himself.
“For being a slaver? No. Who am I to condemn anyone when I’m a bandit?” She laughed with a bitter edge. “A sneaky bandit who liberated goods for a cause that turned out to be a figment of my imagination.”
“That’s different.” He couldn’t believe she accepted the horrible truth so quickly, but he didn’t want to dwell on it if she didn’t.
“Because of how little I stole, or why?” She laughed and spun her chair again. “In the end, your cause is no better or worse than mine. Just different.”
He grabbed the chair, forcing her to look at him. “I never, ever wanted to hurt you.”
Mary grew quiet and still, considering him with an intense gaze that drilled right into his heart. He couldn’t tell if she believed him or not. He would try to read her scent but didn’t bother. Nothing would get through the liquor stench.
“Tell me how you got arrested.”
“You told me about rowdy drunks on payday Friday, so I went to the tavern, drank a bit, spilled more on me—”
“Yeah-huh.” She wrinkled her nose. “You smell like a brewery.”
With a chuckle, he touched his filthy shirt. “Believe me, I know. Anyway, I let myself get caught cheating at cards. The deputies took care of the rest.” He smiled at her, quite proud of how well his plan worked.
“How did you know I was in the prison?”
He tapped his old wrist com encircling her wrist. “Thank the divine force in the Void you didn’t take this off.”
“I lost the key, or I would have left it in the ship.” She looked at his wrist. “I see you got another one.”
He nodded down at the newly designed wrist com. “You are so damn clever. Putting your bracelet on me with a dab of plastimirror caused all kinds of problems with security. House wouldn’t even let me voice override. How did you know your trick would work?”
“I didn’t.” She flashed a wicked smile, breathed on her nails and rubbed them briskly across her chest. “Good guess, though, huh?”
“Very good. You’ve got a real knack.” She had a real knack for a lot of things, and he wanted to kiss her more than anything. He leaned forward.
She frowned and pulled away. “Who beat up Emmet?”
Michael leaned back in the pilot chair. “Probably the IWOG officers who came to check on you.”
“Check on me?” Her eyes narrowed, and she crossed her arms.
“That’s why the IWOG was sniffing around Taiga. Your father is an IWOG officer, and he put you there for safekeeping. Those officers who came were making sure you were okay. When they came, and Emmet couldn’t tell them where you were, they beat him up.” She probably didn’t realize that was why Emmet told her to stay out of sight of the IWOG visitors. Why he encouraged her to hate and avoid them. With her out of contact, Emmet could tell them anything, and they’d never know how brutally and viciously he tormented her. But one glance into her wary eyes told him that Mary had figured out exactly what Emmet had done and why.
“Do you know who my father is?” Her voice sounded small, as if she were a thousand miles away, and very afraid of the answer he might give.
“Not yet. He’s covered himself well.” Even with his considerable resources, he’d had no luck.
“You can stop looking.” Her eyes had a hard, cold edge as she glanced out to the
Void.
“You’re frightening me.” He reached out and grabbed her shoulders, giving her a little shake. “Are you giving up?”
“No.” She scowled out at the black. “My father didn’t want me. Emmet called having to rear me payment prison. Given that, I don’t think my father is someone I want to know. An IWOG officer.” Revulsion made her shudder beneath his hands. “I don’t want to know him. I don’t want him to know me. I want to just disappear and move on.”
She shrugged away his touch. All at once she looked fragile, but the fierce set of her gaze and that pointed thrust of her chin made it clear she had not been defeated. If anything, what she’d survived had only made her stronger and more determined.
“To where, to what?” He had to grip the armrests of his chair to keep from touching her again. He wanted to pull her into his arms and tell her he would not abandon her, that he would always love her, and he would do anything in his power to keep her safe.
“I don’t know yet. It’s a big old Void out there.” She pointed out the window. “I seem to have a knack for banditry. Maybe I’ll do that.”
“Not if I have a say in it.” He found the thought of watching her walk away unbearable, and the thought of her in danger from a criminal lifestyle intolerable.
“Well, you don’t.” She lifted her chin dismissively.
He wanted to tell her that he loved her, but he feared he’d only make matters worse. He sensed in her a determination to find her own way in the Void without anyone looming over her shoulder.
“Come and work for me.” He had no idea where the words came from. Desperation, perhaps, he thought, because he would say anything to get her to return to Windmere.
She rolled her eyes and laughed, the first real laugh he’d heard from her. “As what? The house cripple?”
“With your skills? I’m thinking security. Since you seem to have a knack for breaking my security systems, I imagine you could also help improve them.”
Michael offered her a job and a place to start over, but what of Michael himself? He didn’t say he loved her. Didn’t say he wanted to be with her. Captor and captive became boss and employee. Her disappointment stung.
“Will I have my own money, my own place to live?” she asked, as if seriously considering his offer. She had so much to think about she felt swamped. Her head ached from the stress of the last few days, and her stomach flip-flopped from lack of food and the horrible stench they both gave off.
“If that’s what you want.” He shrugged with a dismissive air, as if it didn’t matter one whit to him where she lived or what she did, but she knew he was faking. Earlier, he’d been angry when she said she wanted to live as a bandit. He did care, but for some reason, he didn’t want her to know how much, and she wondered why.
Despite his disheveled state, he was still gorgeous, and she felt a bit foolish for thinking she could ever hold the attention of a man so legendary. She thought of all those dresses in his closets, and she wondered how many of those women thought they could be the one and only. Unwilling to follow in their delusional ranks, she kept her attention on practical matters.
“You’re not taking me back to keep me as a prisoner, are you?” She said the words with no expression, but she held her breath waiting for his response.
“No.” He maintained eye contact, but the golden-brown depths gave away the exact opposite of what he said.
Not fully trusting her newfound intuitive awareness, she narrowed her eyes. “If I wanted to leave, you’d let me go?” She swung the chair again, back and forth, watching his face as she deliberately opened herself up to the feel of him.
He clenched his jaw. “Yes. If you wanted to.”
Again, she felt the opposite of what he said. If she landed on Windmere, he would do everything in his power to keep her there no matter what he said, or what she wanted.
“I’ll think about it,” she offered evenly.
“Mary, I—” He cut himself off with a sigh. “I hope you’ll stay on Windmere. Whether you want to work for me or not.”
That, she believed. With a casual shrug, she said, “Might be a nice place to hang until I can get this cast off.” She lifted her gaze to his. “I have one last question for you.”
“Anything.” He spread his hands wide.
“What do you want from me?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“I don’t want anything from you.” As soon as Michael spoke, he took his words right back. “No, that isn’t true. I want everything from you. I want to be with you, Mary.”
“Why?” Suspicion darkened her gaze.
Holding back his true intentions would only drive her further away. He had to overcome not only his betrayal but also her lifetime of betrayal, and he didn’t think he could, but he would try. Even if he got hurt in the process, Michael vowed for once in his life to be vulnerable. When he struggled to put his feelings into words, Mary grabbed the back of her chair and wobbled to her feet.
“You’re brewing up quite a lie for me, aren’t you?” She shook her head and gave a derisive laugh. “You just keep playing me, and I just keep letting you. Well, not anymore. I’m done being tricked.” She turned as if to storm off, but her cast prevented her from doing much more than hobbling a few steps.
“I’m not playing you.” Using her unsteadiness against her, he pulled her resisting body into his lap. “I’m thinking of what you asked me. If you want an off-the-top-of-my-head answer, I’d say I want you on my world, in my bed, as part of my life. I want you to be my friend, lover, companion—” wife. He stopped short of that final confession.
She offered no resistance, no acceptance, so he nuzzled her neck as he pulled her close. Her long, strong and slender body fit perfectly into his embrace.
“You excite me, you vex me, you drive me crazy. You damn near crippled my entire empire single-handedly.” He pressed his lips to her ear. “I fear you, I admire you, I respect you, and I’ll do anything to be with you.” He turned her head and kissed her tightly compressed lips. With soft brushes of his fingertips, he tried to work her mouth open, but she refused. Pulling back a fraction, he whispered to her locked lips, “I’m not playing a game with you. I’m not trying to trick you.”
She closed her eyes tight and shook her head. “You came for Kraft’s ship, not me.”
Relief surged when he realized that’s what bothered her. He hadn’t given even half a second of thought to the ship.
“No.” He cupped her chin. “Look at me.” Reluctantly, she opened her lovely and painfully vulnerable eyes. “I came for you. I don’t care about this morbid shrine anymore. When we get back, it’s gone. I came for you.”
“I don’t believe you.” Her voice cracked.
What she said didn’t surprise him, but it still hurt. He didn’t need to be a reader to understand her fear of someone tricking her again.
“If all I wanted was the ship, I could have taken Whisper and gone on my way. Instead, I got myself arrested. Don’t you recognize the risk that I took?”
He could see her turn his actions around in her mind, looking for holes, looking for the joke. He let her, because she wouldn’t find one. There was no reason for him to do what he did unless he was after her. With a touch to her chin, he focused her gaze on his.
“Even if all I wanted was the shuttle, I could have stolen it and you’d never have even known I was there.” He traced his finger across her still tight lips, trying to work them open. “I could have sent down my guards, but I came for you.” He was desperate to get her to say something.
Her brows lowered as she considered.
“Your whole life, Emmet played one dirty trick on you after another—”
“So did you.”
Michael sighed, relieved that she’d spoken, but she’d not said what he wanted to hear. “I’m sorry you thought I intended to trick you, Mary. I just wanted—I needed to know you wanted me. Not Overlord, or Commander.”
“You ordered me to call you Commander.”
Her eyes blazed.
It was a minor point just now, but at least she was talking to him. “And you called me Co-man-dur enough times to fill the mouths of a thousand elves.” His pointed comment and the lift of his brow made her drop her face to hide a little smirk that darted across her lips. He lifted her chin. “You had no respect for me until I made you.” His gaze fastened on hers. “I had no respect for you until you made me.”
She glanced away, then back, searching his face, for what he wasn’t sure, but she must have found what she was looking for because her tense stance softened.
“I guess as far as reassurance goes, we’re in the same boat.” Brushing her hair back from her face, he kissed her cheek. Relief and pleasure washed through him when she curled a bit closer in his lap. “Women have wanted me only because I’m Overlord. I’m nothing but a score to brag about. Plenty of woman have chased after me because of my money, my fame—”
“Your fabulous body.” Mary rolled her eyes. “What makes you think I’m not one of those women?”
“First of all, you didn’t know.” He cuddled her closer, and when she didn’t resist, the tension in him lessened.
“I didn’t know you were rich? I didn’t know you had a fabulous body?” Casting him a dubious glance, she narrowed her eyes. “What am I? Stupid or blind?”
He lowered his head close to hers. “Is that why you want me? Because I’m rich? Because of my body?”
She leaned closer, until their lips barely touched. “I want you because you do all the things to me you said I do to you.”
Her sudden intensity inflamed him. He wanted to complete the kiss, but he needed her to answer the promise he offered. He held very still as he whispered against her lips, “Such as?”
“You excite me. You frighten me. You confuse me. I’ve never met a man like you.” She closed the distance, kissing him lightly. “You lied to me, but I forgive you, because I think I understand why. I believe you when you say you came for me and not this ship.”
Michael withdrew with a smile. “Tell me more.”
Overlord: The Fringe, Book 2 Page 27
