by Susan Grant
Ty rested his hands on her hips and kissed the side of her throat. “Want more?” Her skin was hot, damp, and tasted like her.
“Mmm,” she murmured again, this time at the feel of his mouth. “What other candy do you have?”
His chuckle was low and deep. “Why don’t you come with me, little girl, and find out for yourself?” Taking her head in his hands, he kissed her.
“No one tried to kill us,” Bree said later as she snuggled next to Ty in bed. Empty bags of chips and candy littered the night tables.
He gathered her close, grinning. “You damn near did, though.”
Dressed in bathrobes, they cuddled in the big feather bed in the ranch’s master suite—in Ax Armstrong’s bed, Bree thought, unable to wrap her mind around the absurdity of it all.
The Interweb remained down. On the entertainment monitors was local news: sporadic, pieced-together rebel broadcasts that popped up and were quickly taken down in favor of UCE-run propaganda. “Rebel forces following the Voice of Freedom’s urging are gathering in huge numbers at the sight of the old capital.” The man who read the news resembled a bus driver more than a carefully coiffed anchorman. “Minutemen, local militia, and continental army regulars, contact your local leaders for further instructions. . . .”
A new image appeared, overriding the guy reading the news. It was Beauchamp, the UCE president. He sat behind a desk in what Bree recognized as the Unity Office.
“I hate that man. . . .” Bree clutched her robe to her chest as if she could contain the thundering beats of her heart. Ty rubbed her back.
“Greetings, my fellow colonists. I come to you with a plea for help in our darkest hour. There are those among us who would bring our great nation to its knees, forsaking peace for irresponsible violence. Have confidence that your leaders have the situation under control. Troops are being sent to reinforce the blockade around an uprising at the old capital.”
“They set up a blockade,” Bree said with dismay. She closed her eyes. “I don’t know if I’m ready to hear that lives have been lost because of what I’ve set in motion.”
Ty gathered her close. “Death before tyrrany,” he reminded her.
“We need to join them, Ty—to join them at the capital. We can’t stay here where it’s safe.”
“I know. . . .” He kissed the top of her head. “We’ll have tonight. Tomorrow we’ll return.”
“I ask you tonight to remain in your homes,” Beauchamp went on. “For your safety and those around you, observe the curfew at all times. All attempts at movement into the old capital will be seen as hostile. Supreme Commander Armstrong is standing by with the full power of our ground forces to quell the aggression.”
“If my father moves his army in, it’ll be a bloodbath,” Ty said grimly. “We need to get other nations involved in this. The Euro-African consortium.”
“Better yet, the Kingdom of Asia. They’re the true power.”
“Run by a man who won’t lift a pinkie finger to do anything past his own borders, who hates the UCE as much as the UCE hates him.”
“I know the last time I saw him I zapped him with a neuron fryer. I don’t expect him to be friendly to someone who escaped him and was hostile. But,” she sighed, “if only Kyber would agree to help. Think of what France’s participation did for the colonists in the American Revolution.”
“That would place Prince Kyber in the role of Lafayette,” Ty said dryly.
“It’s not that far-fetched.” God knew this revolution needed a Lafayette, the young Frenchman who left behind a comfortable life as a noble to fight for Gen. George Washington. “I know what you think of him, but Kyber’s a good man—under all that ego. He has principles.”
“Only as they relate directly to his personal well being.”
Bree shook her head. “He’d do it. I know he would, given the right motivation.” She had no idea what that motivation might be, but she sure as hell hoped it found him before time ran out.
Chapter Twenty-two
The eyes blinked. The lungs breathed. The heart beat. It was a nervous system on autopilot, Kyber thought, watching his father from where he sat next to the emperor’s bed.
Coma or not, it sounds to me like he’s still leading this kingdom.
Cam’s words had angered him. Then, as the night wore on, tossing and turning alone in his enormous bed, he had found that her words began to haunt him. It had reached a point where it was impossible to stay away. He had to come here to find out the truth.
Say anything you want about borders and isolation and hundred-year-old wars, but I think the real emperor lives in a back wing of this palace.
Kyber turned his hands over in a rare gesture of helplessness. “I need your advice, Father.”
The room was silent but for the gentle breaths of the comatose emperor.
“The world is knocking at our door. Do I answer? Or do I leave it closed?”
Something urged Kyber’s gaze to the night table. On it, the empress had arranged the items his father had most cared about in life: a gold pistol, assorted holophoto images, an egg-sized emerald . . . and an ancient-looking book with pages edged in gold. Curious, Kyber drew it onto his lap, opening it. A Bible. His father had been a practicing Catholic, and so discovering the Bible didn’t surprise him. What did was what he found on the bookmarked page: Luke 12:47–48. “ ‘From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required, and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded,’ ” he murmured. They were nearly the exact words Cam had recited only hours before.
He lowered his head and closed his eyes. Responsibility. Duty. It had been important to his father; that, he knew. And all Kyber had done was flee it. When your father became incapacitated and it all came crashing down around you, you weren’t ready for it.
Was he now?
He knew the answer to the question he’d never dared ask. He knew because of how he’d lived his life since becoming acting emperor. His father would never recover. Kyber had avoided marriage because he wasn’t ready to become full-fledged emperor. To have an empress of his own would solidify his taking of the throne. The throne he hadn’t wanted. Yet.
Kyber fell to his knees at the bedside, his hand clasping his father’s cool, frail one. “I have failed you not in my actions but in my inaction. I was a boy who wasn’t ready to become a man. I’ve been humiliated into seeing this, Father. Shamed into taking responsibility. This means accepting not only my role as ruling monarch in your place, but taking our kingdom’s rightful place in the world.” He was careful to use a tone of respect. “We’ve grown too comfortable behind the walls of isolation. Comfort breeds complacency. While life has stayed relatively stable in our land, the world has changed. Instead of ignoring it, why not have a hand in fixing it? Responsibility means accepting my role—and our country’s role—in world affairs. And that I vow to do.” As well as accepting responsibility in all the other areas of his life as a man.
Cam, he thought. Yes, pretty one, you.
He gazed down at the fallen emperor’s slack face, once so full of life. “You were my hero, Father. You always will be. If I prove to be half the leader you were, I’ll know I have succeeded. Not by following in your footsteps, but by making my own.”
He stopped himself at the almost imperceptible squeeze of his father’s fingers. The doctors had told him his sire didn’t show enough brain activity to be able to listen, let alone communicate. But Kyber was certain the man had just squeezed his hand. A glitch in the autonomic nervous system? Perhaps. A blessing given? Kyber could only hope.
Emotion pressing behind his eyes, Kyber stood, gently replacing his father’s hand atop the bedsheets. The king is dead. Long live the king. “Change of command,” he murmured.
Then, buoyed by a sense of destiny, he left the chamber.
In the smoky presidential briefing room, two men sat, arguing. “My back’s to the wall, Aaron,” Beauchamp told his general. “We need a distraction for our
beleaguered land.”
Armstrong spread his hands. “But start a war with Asia in order to create a diversion? That’s like blowing up your house in order to kill a termite. We need our strength and attention here, on this front.”
Beauchamp grumbled. “I disagree.”
“I ask you again, let me see if I can first break the spirit of the rebellion. Clear me to march on the troublemakers massing at the old capital. I’ll employ conventional ground forces for maximum effect and minimal collateral damage—after all, you’ll be stuck rebuilding it all when I’m through.”
The president appeared torn. “This is what I wanted to avoid. All along I’ve been against using force against our own people.”
Beauchamp didn’t mind killing his people as long as he wasn’t the one doing it; he’d have happily seen them die in a foreign war. “If my plan works, you won’t have to take on the Kingdom of Asia, which would all but drain our coffers, not to mention cost countless lives.”
The president took a hearty hit of his cigar. His face practically disappeared behind a cloud of smoke. “All right,” he said grudgingly. “I clear you to march on the old capital. But if in the space of two days you are not successful, the UCE will take steps to launch an attack on the Kingdom of Asia. It’s not as daunting as it sounds, Aaron, if we first soften the target.” He gazed at the glowing tip of his cigar before glancing up. “Beginning with their king, courtesy of the dependable Minister Hong.”
After hours of wandering outside in the gardens, where she’d found the solitude she needed for planning and soul searching, Cam returned to her bedroom in the palace to find the most beautiful bouquet waiting for her. Kublai, was her first thought. Then: There is no Kublai.
And she doubted she’d left Kyber in the flower-giving frame of mind.
Besides, not enough time had elapsed between her leaving the prince and these flowers arriving. She found a card amongst the flowers. The small rectangle glowed as soon as her fingers touched it, like a tiny TV screen. A face appeared. Minister Hong!
Stay away from him. Don’t listen to him. He’s not to be believed.
Zhurihe’s warning seemed at odds with the charming and apologetic gentleman on the card. “Cameron,” Hong said. “I owe you an apology as well as my thanks for chasing down our little rock thrower.” His smile faded. “Beware the deceit you find in the palace. It exists to undermine Prince Kyber and all of us in the cabinet. Terrorists, all. No matter how kind they seem, stay away. Any association with them will drag you into the mire of their activities. There is only one way to affect change, and that is through legislation and laws.”
Stay away from him. Don’t listen to him. He’s not to be believed. Zhurihe’s warning kept coming back to haunt her.
Hong smiled. “As I said earlier this evening, I would like to get to know you better. Dinner, perhaps?” The minister smiled. Then his image gave a small bow before signing off.
Cam became aware of a presence in the room with her. Gasping, she spun around. A slack-jawed Park clone had brought a tray of tea and small snacks, and was arranging it on a low lacquered table in her sitting room. She had yet to get used to the way palace servants came and went and never knocked. “We’ve got a few things to talk about, missy.” Cam marched toward her.
Nervously, the girl regarded Cam. Her eyes were dead. There was no fire in them. This was not Zhurihe.
“Sorry.” Cam’s heart was beating hard. She swallowed. “I thought you were Joo-Eun.”
“ I’m Joo-Eun.”
Cam’s head jerked around at the sound of the soft voice near the door. Zhurihe stood there. “Why did you run away from me in the alley?” Cam demanded. “It’s getting really irritating, having to chase you down.”
“Kublai came. I knew he might recognize me.”
“Did you come here to apologize, too? That seems to be the theme for tonight.” Well, princes excluded. “Those flowers are from Hong. What did you bring me?”
Cam had intended sarcasm, but Zhurihe replied frankly, “A warning.”
“What—to stay away from Hong? You did that already.”
The girl walked up to her and took her hand as she had so many times during Cam’s recovery. “I paid that boy to throw rocks at Hong in order to protect you from him. He wants you to develop fond feelings for him so that he can turn you against the prince.”
“I would never let myself be used like that.”
“Trust no one. Only your heart.”
The way she said it told Cam the clone knew about her and Kyber. “What else, Zhurihe?” The girl seemed ready to explode with something unsaid.
“Bree has escaped. I know where she is, and what you can do to help her.”
Chapter Twenty-three
“And so it begins,” Bree murmured. The heli-jet sped toward a white-domed building rising out of miles of marshland. So many thousands of colonists were in those marshy fields that the land itself was hidden by their bodies. They’d erected scaffolding around the dome of the old Capitol building.
Ty and Bree landed and joined the group of militia leaders at the top. Looking down, Bree surveyed the crowds below, her hands clasped behind her back.
“Banzai Maguire!”
A voice emanated from her left pants pocket. She pulled out the torn-off collar from her old prison garb. “It’s the Shadow Voice,” she alerted Ty. “The Voice of Freedom.”
Everyone standing with her pressed close to hear what the Voice had to say, the force responsible for taking over where she’d left off, bringing over a million militiamen and women to the site of America’s old capitol.
“The Ax is on the move,” it said.
Bree exchanged a worried glance with Ty.
“General Armstrong has gathered a massive conventional force—soldiers, tanks, ground-based weaponry. They’re moving into position all around us.”
“We’re surrounded,” Bree repeated in a whisper. With little in the way of real weapons and soldiers other than their pistols and their hearts, this revolution was comprised of sitting ducks.
Black-clad rebels took positions on the scaffolding encircling the Capitol’s roof. Ex-SEALs and former Special Ops, Ty informed her. With shoulder-launched missiles, they hoped to keep the revolution’s leaders alive as long as possible.
They waited all afternoon for a glimpse of the approaching army. And then they saw it—massive, a dark horde of loyalist soldiers. She was dismayed to see there were so many of them. The crowd below had fallen into tense murmuring. “If his point is to intimidate us,” she muttered. “He’s doing a bang-up job.”
“If my father’s aim was to scare us, he’d be doing more than marching,” Ty argued. “Something else is going on.”
Bree just wished she knew what the hell it was.
Cam stood before the floor-to-ceiling window in her bedroom, her hands clasped together and pressed under her chin. It was late morning in the kingdom, evening in Washington, DC. What would happen when their morning came? Cam didn’t want to think about it, but she had to. Her friend was trapped in the shadow of an advancing army.
And Cam needed her to stay trapped for a little while longer. Sorry, Bree, but that’s the only way this is going to work.
Passion drives the rebellion in Central, Zhurihe had remarked during their conversation. Saving Bree will require tapping into that passion.
But how? Cam had been pondering the question ever since the girl left. A symbol—she needed one to push the boiling emotions in Central to overflowing. And the perfect symbol sat in Kyber’s museum—polished, pretty, and operational: the F-16.
Already, she had the beginnings of a plan, a fantastic plan, but, damn, not yet the details of its execution. Her idea would require penetrating one of the most heavily defended world powers on the planet with an antiquated fighter. She could fly low, under the radar, so to speak. The jet was so old-fashioned that maybe it would escape notice.
Cam shoved her hands through her hair, holding it in two fists
off her forehead. “God, it’ll never work,” she whispered. “It’s insane.” Maybe insane was too kind a word. Did she really think she could penetrate UCE defenses?
People have long underestimated you. Have you now taken over the job?
Cam dropped her hands and stiffened her spine. People had faced worse odds than this, much worse. Especially Bree. If her friend could escape Fort Powell, then Cam could fly over Washington, DC.
To accomplish that, though, she’d need Kyber along for the ride—not physically, but figuratively. He had the power to make her hatching idea happen. Go to him.
The problem was, after their argument she had her doubts he’d talk civilly, let alone help her, but she had to try. Too much was at stake to do otherwise.
Squaring her shoulders, Cam turned away from the window and left her room for Kyber’s. When she entered the corridor, she wanted to walk, walk with the grace and composure taught to her by her mother, but the little girl in her, the unrepentant tomboy who’d stuffed newts in her pockets instead of dandelions, urged her to run.
She arrived at Kyber’s massive double doors breathless. Would he still be sleeping? Would he speak to her?
Do you want to speak to him?
Cam swallowed and pushed aside her qualms. Just as in combat, there was no room for self-doubt now. “I would like to see the Prince,” she told the door guards, who were stationed in the usual spot. The men shook their heads.
“He is not here,” said the first guard.
A rush of desperation chased off her disappointment. “Where can I find him?”
Maybe the bodyguards read the anxiety in her eyes and took pity on her, or maybe they sensed the heart-churning emotions left from her hours making love to their leader. Whatever the reason, one of them answered, “He is in the gymnasium. Shall I escort you there?”
