The Scarlet Empress

by Susan Grant

  “You . . . left someone behind.”

  “I left a lot of people behind.”

  “Family, I know. But what of a husband?”

  She shook her head. “I wasn’t married.”

  “Never?”

  “No. Not that I was against it. I hadn’t found the right guy yet.”

  “No lover?” he asked, his hands hard at work. Did he sound hopeful, or was it only her imagination?

  “I had a boyfriend, yes.”

  Cam followed Kublai’s gaze to the hand she’d brought without realizing it to the base of her throat. “He gave me a necklace,” she said quietly, not believing she was telling this man all the things she’d previously kept private, even from nosy Zhurihe. “It was a pearl on a chain. I picked up a habit of twirling it.” The sad part was that the air force had probably emptied her locker once they realized she was missing and likely killed in action, and given the necklace to her family. Or maybe even back to Matt. “Even now, after all these months, I find myself reaching for it though it’s long lost. I think it’s an unconscious need to grasp something familiar. Does that make sense? Wanting to hold on to something you wish wasn’t gone. Like trying to scratch an itch on a limb long since amputated.”

  Kublai’s hands had all but stopped moving. “From time to time, I still look up from reading the sports news to debate the merits of a favorite team with my father. I find myself speaking before I remember he isn’t there. As for the loss of your lover, I am sorry.”

  Cam lowered her hand. “Matt wasn’t the love of my life, Kublai. He was only the man I was dating when I was shot down.” Matt had been a sweetie, a nice guy. He was a flight surgeon, a military doctor, but as an officer, the major hadn’t been on the fast track. When she’d brought him home to test the waters, she could see the disapproval in her mother’s eyes. Matt wouldn’t ever be a general like her father; nor would he ever fly. “I liked him.” A like that had slowly been turning to love. “But fate pretty much ended the relationship before it had the chance to play out.”

  She thought of Bree next. She couldn’t help it. “I had a friend, though. A very close friend. I think, of everyone outside my immediate family, I miss her the most. I wish . . .” She took a breath to steady herself. “I wish I knew what happened to her.” She pressed one hand to her mouth. “Oh, God. I’m sorry. I think she’s probably dead, and I’m having a hard time with it.”

  Kublai stared down at her, as if taken aback by the depth of her grief. Except for his father, and the brother from whom he was estranged, he’d mentioned no attachments. No women. No wife or lovers—or girlfriends; he’d told her that flat-out. She’d bet he was one of those men who hated putting down roots, a man who avoided commitments and making promises, because he knew he was true to his word and didn’t want to owe anyone anything. If she had to guess, she’d say that Kublai preferred total freedom—from women, from everything. No wonder he was attracted to the life of a Rim Rider, traversing the borderlands on the back of a horse, like the marshals of the Old West. Once they got to Beijing, she’d probably never see him again.

  Disappointment bubbled up inside her. She quashed it. It was just as well they went their separate ways. She had a friend to find, and he . . . well, Kublai had the Rim to patrol. Outside of sappy Saturday-afternoon made-fortelevision movies, men like that never changed, and damned if she’d be the one to try “fixing” him. She didn’t view men as projects. Men were people who came into her life because they added to it. The relationship either worked or it didn’t, and if it didn’t you moved on.

  Except when fate forced your hand.

  Her fingers traced over the hollow between her collarbones. Matt’s necklace. She forced away her hand—she hoped for the last time. Matt was a part of her life that was over now. Her attraction to Kublai proved that she was ready to move on.

  Kublai’s hands were back to massaging her legs. “I’m sorry for the loss of your friend,” he offered awkwardly.

  She made fists in the dirt. “It should have been me. Not her.”

  “It’s always worse to be the last one standing.”

  She recognized the pain behind that statement. Her eyes lifted to his, so black in the dark night. “Relax,” he ordered gently. “Every time I upset you with my crude attempts to comfort, your muscles harden like rocks.”

  “Your attempts are not crude. They’re charming. You’re not upsetting me. You’re helping me. And yes, I miss my friend. Terribly. I’m hoping to find her or some word of her in the capital.”

  He was silent for a time as he worked the kinks out of her quads. “She isn’t there.”

  It took a moment to realize what he’d told her. “W-what?”

  He met her incredulous stare. “Banzai Maguire,” he enunciated, “is not in the capital.”

  He’d said it! She no longer had to keep Bree secret. “Is she alive? Where is she now? Is she okay? Does she know I’m alive? When can I see her?” In the midst of her torrent of questions Cam started to sit up, and he eased her back down.

  Kublai appeared to regret having said anything at all. “I don’t know. No one knows.”

  “Knows what?” Cam felt ready to explode.

  “Her whereabouts. Her condition. It’s been weeks since she left.”

  A shudder ran through her. She’d thought knowing would be worse. It wasn’t. This was worse. “She left?”

  “She ran away. The prince did all he could to try to bring her back, but she wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “Why?” Cam’s voice cracked. “Bree always listens to common sense.”

  Kublai’s hands tightened around her legs. “Not when it comes to you, it seems.”

  Cam’s composure all but gave out. “She left to find me . . . ?” Just as you wanted to search for her.

  Cam laid her head down and stared up at the stars. She was shaking, she realized, from fear and from joy. Bree was seen alive! And, thanks to this Rim Rider, she now had some real leads to follow once she got to the palace. The prince would help her contact Bree, let her friend know she was safe and in the capital, and they’d be reunited.

  She’d have her friend back, someone from her own time who knew and understood her. Her best friend.

  Life had suddenly taken a very good turn.

  Closing her eyes, Cam gave entirely in to the pleasure of Kublai’s hands. A delicious shiver coursed through her as his palms stroked up the long length of her legs and back again. There had been men in her past, good men, yet she never recalled feeling anything like this. Not when they touched her, not even in that first giddy kiss.

  In the months since waking, she hadn’t really thought of being with a man. First there was the grief, and then the relentless pain. But Kublai from the beginning had reminded her that she was a woman.

  She came from a long line of proud Southern belles who understood that femininity didn’t cancel out strength. Her craving for a man’s strong body in no way made her weak. Quite the opposite, in fact. The exhilaration of her attraction to Kublai made her feel as if she could do anything. Like throwing inhibition to the wind.

  Kublai’s fingers worked down her inner thigh to her knee and back again. The massage had done wonders for her muscles, but frankly, she wasn’t thinking about them anymore. Other, more intimate aches demanded attention.

  Only the presence of Nazeem kept her from grabbing Kublai by the shoulders and pulling him down to her to kiss his lights out.

  His lights? If he kissed her, she’d probably last all of one second before combusting.

  “Do you feel well?”

  Sighing, she stretched her arms over her head. “Amazingly well.” Kublai’s voice was the kind you wanted to hear from your pillow at night. The perfect bedroom voice.

  “You look flushed,” he told her. His thumbs were doing something incredible a few inches above her knees, moving higher by the second. “I’m concerned about a fever.”

  “I am a little warm,” she agreed, breathless. Warm? Shoot. She wa
s burning up. She forced a laugh. “It’s getting a little hot out here.” In Mongolia. In the winter.

  His hands stopped, his eyes turning darker still. He knew exactly what she meant. His eyes didn’t leave hers as he propped himself on his hands and leaned over her, his hair soft and falling all around them. She wasn’t sure what to read on his face—temptation, gladness, doubt, maybe a little craziness, too. She knew all about that craziness. By now she was half out of her mind. “Let me see,” he murmured in that rumbling baritone.

  He brought a hand to her forehead to check for fever. She closed her eyes to savor the touch; she couldn’t help it. His hand slid to her cheek and stopped there.

  She leaned into his warm palm and felt him hesitate. Did he finally comprehend his effect on her?

  Now he’d probably withdraw his hand and inform her in a medically businesslike way that she wasn’t, in fact, running a fever.

  He didn’t.

  His fingers slid under her jaw, putting gentle pressure there until she tipped up her chin and opened her eyes. He leaned over her, his lips hovering inches from hers, his face shadowed. She helped close the distance by lifting her chin a fraction more.

  His mouth was a breath away now, so close now that she could almost taste him, could almost feel the softness of his lips, the scrape of his beard, almost invisible in the swirls of the tattoo. He slid his fingers into her hair. His breath whispered against the corner of her mouth. She sighed, her body reacting instantly with an explosion of tingles. “Nazeem,” she murmured.

  “Nazeem?” His mouth gave a very unhappy twist. He pushed up on his arms. “No, it’s Kublai. But I can summon Nazeem to take my place if you like.”

  “You idiot,” she whispered. “I was going to ask if he was asleep, so when I kissed you I’d know he wasn’t watching.”

  “When you kissed me . . .” Kublai looked stunned.

  “Um. Isn’t that what we were fixing to do?”

  He sat back on his haunches and shoved a hand through his hair. “What was I thinking?”

  “I wouldn’t speak for knowing your mind, but it sure as sugar looked like what I was thinking.”

  He spread a hand as if about to explain, then dropped it.

  “Kublai . . . with nothing to say?” she teased. “I don’t believe it.” She propped herself up on an elbow. “Let me guess. Your job description forbids fraternization with the bounty.”

  “That’s it.” For a second she thought he was going to snap his fingers. “Prince Kyber forbids any interaction between us. He . . . ah . . . he doesn’t want it.”

  She lifted her brows. “He micromanages to that extent—who rides on your horse, and whom you kiss?”

  “Such as it is.” To Kublai’s credit, he looked very unhappy about the situation.

  “Massages are okay, though.”

  “Why, of course—if needed for the continued good health of the bounty.”

  “Why do I have the feeling you made that rule up?”

  A corner of his mouth lifted in a wry twist. “Because already you know me better than most.”

  “Not nearly as well as I’d like,” she countered in a quiet voice.

  He reached down and smoothed her hair away from her upturned face, stroking her, his large hand surprisingly smooth. “You always say what you think. . . .”

  “You don’t, though.”

  His smile turned rueful. “It’s complicated.”

  “You’re married?”

  “No.” He frowned. “God, no.”

  Well, his thoughts on matrimony couldn’t have been clearer, she thought with an inner smirk. “It’s just complicated, though.”

  “Yes.”

  Rolling her eyes, she shook her head. “It’s always complicated. Everyone likes to say that, but I don’t buy it. You open your mouth and words come out—what’s so complicated about that?”

  “Lie down, Cam.”

  “Don’t get my hopes up again, you tease.”

  At that he tossed his head back and let out a delighted laugh. It was contagious. When they’d quieted to chuckles, Kublai pointed to her bedroll imperiously, as if he were a king. “Lie down.”

  “Only if you join me.”

  “That’s the entire point.”

  She flashed a victorious smile and stretched out on the sleeping mat. She realized how drained her body was when she barely had the strength to roll onto her side.

  Kublai settled next to her before she had the chance to grow cold. He moved close behind her, laying a heavy arm over her hips. She inched her butt backward until she’d made solid contact. Even with leather serving as a barrier, he couldn’t hide the fact that he was every bit as affected by her as she was by him. A delicious shiver coursed through her as he began to rub the back of her neck, working his way ever so slowly down to the hem of her shirt, where he slipped his hand under the garment, pressing and kneading over the fabric of her computercontrolled underclothes.

  “Feel good, pretty one?” His breath felt hot against her ear.

  “Mmm. Very.”

  It didn’t take long for fatigue to overwhelm her.

  Kublai’s touch became lighter and lighter. Then, just as she drifted off, she felt the press of his lips to the top of her head.

  He’d kissed her! But he’d waited until he thought she was asleep. Well, she wouldn’t ruin it for him by revealing she’d noticed.

  I do believe he likes you. That small kiss proved that Kublai’s on-again-off-again behavior had nothing to do with Prince Kyber, and everything to do with his confusion about her. Growing up in a house full of men, she’d learned a few things along the way. Kublai displayed all the symptoms of “like”—the mood swings, the cold shoulder immediately after reaching a level of intimacy that violated his comfort level, the inordinate amount of time spent looking at her mouth.

  Would she see him again after they reached the capital?

  Kublai, she had the feeling, would say no. He’d make up some convenient rule.

  If he did, she’d figure out a way around it.

  Never underestimate Cameron Tucker. It was her last thought before sheer exhaustion swept her away.

  The next morning it was time to make the switch from horseback to something called a magcar. Soon after dawn, they broke through the woods near the road it used: a furrow lined with silver coils.

  Kublai jumped down from the horse first. As always, he caught Cam around the waist and lowered her to the ground. Their eyes met, held. Last night was great, she tried to tell him without speaking. The massage was on the surface a simple act, yet one that somehow had felt like a prelude to something more, something better. Maybe she would have found out if she hadn’t fallen asleep.

  If you hadn’t tucked me in my bedroll before going off to sleep in your own bed, gentleman that you are, Kublai.

  He averted his gaze and briskly moved her out of his way.

  Arms folded over her chest, she watched him stalk off to Nazeem. He hadn’t said more than a couple of syllables to her all morning. It was the “morning after” syndrome, except, technically, it wasn’t really an “after.” Nothing had happened. Damn it.

  “Hurry along, Cam. We don’t want you lost in the woods after three days of riding.” Nazeem’s voice jerked her out of her thoughts. Waiting for her to catch up, he smiled kindly before joining Kublai, who had just taken down the nanoshield: high-tech, computer-generated masking device that had camouflaged the Rim Riders’ sleek, gunmetal-gray vehicle.

  “Wow,” she murmured. “That’s some hotshot car.”

  All business, Kublai said, “It will get us where we need to go.”

  “I’m sure it will,” she replied under her breath. It was yet another reminder that the journey was almost over. He was back to being the bounty hunter, and she was back to being the fugitive the king had demanded.

  Something plunked onto Cam’s head, then her shoulder. She lifted her face to the sky. Cold drops stung her face.

  The rain that had held o
ff all day was finally coming down. By the time she approached the magcar, raindrops pattered loudly on the tall, dry grass and scrub and the vehicle’s hood.

  “Open,” Kublai said. The doors slid back, revealing a dark interior. “Inside you’ll be dry,” he advised.

  “Sure. Thanks.” She settled down into a rear passenger seat. There were seat belts and a dashboard. Overhead lights. It was hard not to be homesick; there was more reminding her of her world in this one vehicle than there’d been on the entire farm in Mongolia. Would she feel the same way about Beijing?

  After helping Nazeem stow the horses in a separate rear compartment, Kublai took his place in the driver’s seat and started the magcar. They lurched forward, bumping over the ground to the furrow she’d seen. The gleaming coils were now glowing.

  “Arrays of permanent magnets,” Kublai explained without her having to ask. He always sensed what she was going to say before she said it. “Once on the track, all the magcar has to do is move forward to achieve levitation.”

  “Levitation?” Cool. Cam leaned forward in her seat. The vehicle slid into the furrow with a solid click and rolled over the coils. When it reached the speed of a fast walk, Kublai said, “Here we go,” and the magcar surged forward.

  The acceleration was incredible, and that was speaking from the viewpoint of an F-16 pilot. Next Cam heard the wheels retract. They weren’t riding on the track anymore, but were flying inches above it.

  Flying cars. Magical computers. Now, this was the future of The Jetsons that she’d always imagined.

  The scenery was a blur. Her hands opened and closed restlessly. “Can I have a try? “I may not be able to walk very well, but I bet I can drive just fine.”

  That broke Kublai’s stone-faced silence. “No.”