Soldier of Fortune (2nd ed)

by Kathleen McClure

  Much like Celia herself.

  Even the bed was a showcase. A sea of red silk nesting inside the frame of what Gideon was sure was Adidan ebony.

  Not very patriotic, he thought, studying the intricately carved headboard.

  On the far side of the room, Celia had lit a final lamp, this one on a small writing desk, and was now drawing the thick (red) curtains over a tall window.

  Keepers forbid any of the neighbors wake and spy a strange man bleeding all over the brocade.

  To his left, he saw Ronan crouch before the fireplace, where he set his lighter to the pile of tinder already laid beneath the kindling. Once it caught, he moved to a finely carved breakfront, where he withdrew a blown glass decanter and goblet, both of which he carried in his good hand to one of the fanciful tables where Celia was waiting. At her nod, Ronan unstoppered the decanter and commenced to pour.

  The liqueur, Gideon noted with a sort of weary amusement, was of a red deeper than that of the bed’s silk, but lighter than that of the velvet curtains.

  He looked at Celia, who lifted the glass, sampled it, and smiled her approval.

  “One hates to ask,” he said, then asked, “but why am I here?” And where’s your husband?

  “That is a question,” she said, setting the glass down.

  For no reason he could fathom, her use of that particular phrase started an itch in Gideon’s brain.

  Before he could scratch it, Rey gave him a nudge towards one of the fanciful chairs, a burgundy cushioned number with an ornately carved slat back. Ronan joined them and shoved Gideon into the chair, making sure his hands looped over the back.

  Not optimal, he told himself, but if Rey turns the gun away for even a second—

  It won’t matter, his self cut in, because Ronan had just produced a short length of rope from a trunk at the foot of the bed, then he took over the gun while his sister used the rope to fix Gideon’s bound hands to the back of the chair, proving they weren’t as careless as Gideon was hoping.

  He waited for Rey to move off and counted to ten before beginning to test the bindings. What he found was both the rope and the chair slats were sturdier than they looked.

  Still, with patience and pressure, a lot could change. He started applying both now, slowly and quietly, flexing and stretching his wrists before his hands, already numb, lost all function, turned black, and fell off, rendering any escape attempt moot.

  Aren’t you being a little over dramatic? He asked himself.

  Have you seen where we are? His self replied.

  Either unaware of, or unconcerned with, her prisoner’s internal debate, Celia shed the fur coat to reveal a dress as red and (he bet) as slippery as the coverlet on that bed.

  A sheath of silk with a thigh-high slash, it didn’t so much cling to her curves as promise to, pausing over various bits of female anatomy until a turn, a step, a twist, caused it to ripple away and onto new territory.

  As far as Gideon could tell, there was nothing holding it in place but a slender strap over one shoulder, and that strap little more than a prayer away from releasing its tenuous hold.

  Sure enough, as she turned towards him, the slender twist of fabric began to slide, leaving the impression that all it would take was one sharp tug (or a more fervent prayer), and it would give up the fight.

  “Um,” Gideon said.

  “A moment.” Celia draped the coat over the back of a fainting couch where the silver of the fur set off the (of course) red of the fabric, then looked to the twins. “You will leave us,” she told them.

  The twins looked at each other, then at Celia. “Madame,” Rey said, “are you certain?”

  “Certain my order was an order?” Celia asked, “Very. You may wait in the hall for Nahmin’s signal.”

  Signal? Gideon wondered. He remained silent while the reluctant mercenaries exited the room, then looked at Celia. “Signal?” he asked.

  But this question she ignored altogether.

  In lieu of response, she returned to the little table, picked up the goblet, and crossed the carpet to where he sat. “I imagine you’ll be thirsty,” she said.

  In response, he spat a gob of bloody saliva onto the rug. Her mouth quirked in the shadow of a smile.

  “I could drink,” he said.

  Holding his gaze, she leaned close, closer, and held the goblet to his lips.

  From the glass, the scent of raspberries and alcohol rose to mingle seductively with the spice of her perfume.

  It was, he had to admit, a heady mix.

  With his eyes locked on hers, he opened his mouth just enough to let in a trickle of the liqueur. When it proved to be only liqueur, he took a swallow, then another, and another.

  She held the glass steady, and when he’d drunk it dry she withdrew the goblet and brushed her fingers over his lower lip, bringing a stray drop of the liquid to her tongue, much as Doc had done with a drop of sweat in the Morton yard, only days before.

  “What,” he asked, forcing himself to stay in the present, “is happening here?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” She set the glass aside, on another of the ridiculous little tables, and draped herself over his lap as casually as she’d draped her fur on the couch. “I want you.”

  His head tilted. “I’m almost sure there are easier ways to get a man’s attention.”

  “I tried those ways,” she reminded him, running her fingers down his face, over his throat, down to the collar of his coat, “seven years ago. You didn’t pay any attention.”

  He had to admit, she’d gotten his attention, now.

  “You kept the coat,” she noted, parting it so she could reach the buttons in his shirt.

  “Why,” he began, then cleared his throat which was, despite the liqueur, suddenly quite dry. “Why is everyone surprised by that?”

  “Not surprised,” she corrected him, humming in satisfaction as she loosed the top button. “Impressed.”

  “Impressed?”

  “That you don’t blame the Corps for what happened to you.”

  The second button slid free.

  “Why,” he asked, as she continued to the next button, “would I blame the Corps for something your husband did?”

  “Not everyone would have such a clear view of the matter.”

  “Not that clear,” Gideon said, while his wrists continued to slowly twist and pull at the rope. “For instance, I always wondered why your husband believed we’d had a thing.”

  “Oh, Jessup never believed we had a thing.”

  Despite the fire, Gideon felt cold at the memory of Rand’s final words to him.

  You should never have touched her.

  “Then…“

  “He believes you assaulted me,” she said, pressing her lips to the newly exposed flesh.

  “And why,” Gideon asked with (he believed) remarkable calm, “would he think that?”

  “Because that’s what I told him.” She looked up with a smile. “I even had some very impressive bruises to show him as proof. You were quite the brute, you know.”

  Gideon’s wrists wrenched so violently the skin tore but his voice remained steady as he again asked,“Why?”

  “You know, you’re quite fit for someone living on prison rations,” she said, ignoring the question of the day as her fingers danced over his collarbone.

  Gideon chose not to respond.

  Or rather, he couldn’t find a response when the combination of fury, hate, and desire were setting off more sparks than Ronan’s shock stick.

  “That said,” she paused over a particularly vibrant bruise, “you also look like someone has been using you for target practice.” She pressed her lips to the insulted flesh.

  “Maybe because several someones have,” he said, not even trying to disguise the hoarseness, this time. “As I’m sure you recall. If you were so interested in… this… why let Rey use me as her punching bag?”

  “Why do you think?”

  “You like to see men bleed?”

&
nbsp; Another smile. “Sometimes,” she admitted. “But in this case, Rey was very unhappy with the way you treated her brother—”

  “Her brother who was attacking me at the time?”

  “—and I promised her a chance at retribution,” she continued, over his comment. She shifted her hips over his lap, and smiled at his non-verbal response. “Not that she seems to have done any permanent damage.”

  “Tell that to my spleen.”

  “Poor Gideon.” She tilted his chin up and pressed her lips to the pulse point under his jaw.

  He closed his eyes, willing himself not to respond.

  Given the lapful of silk-draped Celia, this was rather the equivalent of stopping a mammoth stampede with a pea-shooter.

  Even so, she seemed to sense his reluctance, and leaned back, her expression a shimmering mix of desire, confusion and, he thought, hurt. “Is something wrong?”

  “Is something wrong?” he echoed, using even that minute shred of physical space to remember who she was and what she’d done. “Where to begin? Oh, wait, I know where to begin—the lie you told that got my company killed? Or how about with the six years in Morton I served because of it? Or the fact your pet mercenaries abducted me, tossed me in your carriage, and beat the comb out of me in front of you with your permission. And that was after your butler almost drowned me.”

  “Actually, he’s the valet.”

  “I sit corrected.”

  She sighed, stroked his hair. “Does it help to know Nahmin was very sorry about how the morph incident turned out?”

  “Oddly, no.”

  “Do at least try to be fair.” She retrieved the goblet and rose from his lap with a businesslike briskness at odds with the erotic teasing of moments ago. “After all, who eats their dinner in the bathtub?” she asked, crossing back to the table where the decanter had been set.

  “People who are dirty and hungry at the same time,” he suggested. “Or who don’t expect their soup to be drugged.”

  “A point.” She unstoppered the flask, turning away while she refilled the glass. “Would it help to know I’m sorry?”

  “It’d help a lot more if I weren’t tied to this chair.”

  “If you weren’t tied to that chair, you’d have been gone before we had the chance to talk and, as you might have guessed from the extremes I’ve taken to get you here…” She gave a little shrug that had her gown’s one strap edging just a hitch closer to the point of no return, “I very much want to have a little talk.”

  The glass full, she now took it and herself to the chaise, where she sat down and crossed her legs in the way of women who expect those legs to be watched.

  Gideon watched (prison—six years), but even as the red silk parted to tease glimpses of those ivory thighs, alarms shrilled in the back of his mind because this, this slow slide to seduction, was how all his troubles had begun.

  28

  It had been overcast and threatening snow, and, as Walsie said—repeatedly—colder than a penguin’s patoot the night Gideon and his Dirty Dozen made their way past the ever-moving Coalition lines to rescue General Rand’s wife, left behind during a rushed evac.

  The colonel and nine of his company were closing on the point of Celia Rand’s last contact, while Lt. Fehr and the other two remained to guard the maglev engine that was to be their exit strategy, should all go well.

  If all didn’t go well, Gideon had been assured no exit strategy would be required.

  He and his company could damn well stay behind the lines if they didn’t return with General Rand’s wife.

  “I have eyes on the CP,” Gideon said, lowering his telescope and deactivating the night vision, lest unfriendly eyes be roaming this particular bombed-out quarter of the Upper Allianz base.

  “If it’d been anyone but a General’s wife left behind, they’d be planning the funeral, by now,” Walsie muttered from where he was watching Gideon’s seven.

  “Not now, Walsie,” Gideon murmured, then looked up, to where Sgt. Mulowa was perched atop a slightly higher pile of the broken wall Gideon had been propping his ‘scope on. “Any movement?”

  “Not—wait.” Her left hand automatically clenched in a fist, and every member of the team flattened against the nearest available surface.

  Gideon risked a glance over the ruined barracks house in which they’d gathered, and was pleased with the near invisibility of his team. He looked back up at Mulowa, her face a shadow amongst the shadows, and waited.

  Her left fist opened, spreading to show all five fingers and then, after a beat, closed all but two.

  She waited again, then pointed in the direction of the command post which they believed the asset, Celia Rand, was using as a safe house.

  Apparently, it was not safe anymore.

  Gideon raised his own fist high long enough for the company to note, flashing five fingers once. He then pointed once to himself before following this up with a circling motion of that finger around his head.

  He didn’t have to look back to know that, when he broke cover to circle around the back of the CP, five of his company would follow.

  Behind, Mulowa and the three remaining corpsmen spread out to provide cover fire, should it become necessary.

  Less than fifteen minutes, and one explosion, later, cover fire became very, very necessary as, besides the seven Mulowa had spied entering the command post, there turned out to have been another six soldiers in the uniform of Midas approaching the target from the east, all of whom opened fire the second Gideon’s crystal det had blown open the rear door of the command post, forcing Gideon and the other five to dive for the nearest cover.

  In Gideon’s case the nearest cover had been the radio room of the post which, interestingly, already held four people—three hostiles, and the woman now at Gideon’s side.

  “If you don’t mind my saying so, Madame,” Gideon said, taking aim at the Midasian who’d just planted an arrow in his right bicep, “you’re not exactly dressed for the occasion.”

  As he spoke, the enemy soldier fell, but not to Gideon’s rifle. He was dropped by a plasma bolt to the chest from Celia Rand’s pistol.

  Gideon thought the look of betrayal on the Midasian’s face as he collapsed was odd, but perhaps the dead man had been as appalled by Madame’s choice of combat wear as Gideon.

  She looked away from the fallen enemy, already dismissing his existence. “Is this really the time to critique my choice of clothing?”

  “Not so much the clothing as the color.” He ducked another flurry of enemy fire—plasma along with the arrows—from both his and the enemy forces, and tugged her around the frozen carcasses of several dead horses to the shelter of the tipped-over supply wagon.

  He looked at his charge, with her black, black hair, and pale, pale skin—and then there was the coat. “Oddly, red is a very easy color to spot in winter,” he said, indicating the high-collared, ankle-length, blood-hued garment.

  He didn’t comment about the way it was tailored to draw a man’s eye to every curve.

  Focus, he reminded himself.

  Beyond their hiding place, the sounds of weapons’ fire slowed up, then stopped.

  “Be assured, the next time I’m left behind by our own troops, I’ll be certain to raid Corps Stores.” Her breath fogged the air as she whispered into the fresh quiet. Her expression was about as chill as the temperature, until she noticed the arrow sticking out of Gideon’s arm and her already pale face went deathly white. “You’ve been shot,” she announced the obvious, one hand tentatively reaching for the offending arrow, before Gideon shifted out of her reach.

  “Not the first time,” he told her, then raised his rifle at the sound of boots crunching through the snow.

  Madame Rand bit her lip and clutched at his left (unshot) arm, which unfortunately got in the way of aim.

  Before he could shake the woman off, Nbo Mulowa’s face peered around the corner, blotting out the first falling flakes of snow.

  “We’re in the clear, Co
lonel, but we should bug out before any more Midasians arrive,” she said, then looked at the woman on his arm. “This her?”

  “Her?” Madame’s eyes narrowed.

  “Yup,” Gideon said, stepping between them.

  “Nice coat,” Mulowa noted.

  “We’ve covered that,” Gideon muttered, slinging the rifle over his unshot arm and starting out into the thickening snow.

  “Wait!” Madame Rand ordered, then added an impetuous foot stomp when both colonel and sergeant ignored her.

  “I. Said. Wait!” She dashed around in front of Gideon, and then glared at Mulowa.“No one is going anywhere until the colonel’s arm has been tended.”

  Sgt. Mulowa looked at the civilian, then to her colonel. “Sir?”

  Gideon felt the twitching that always happened in his jaw when he was trying not to swear. Then he shook his head, handed his rifle to the sergeant, and, taking a deep breath, shoved the arrow the rest of the way through his bicep. Over Madame Rand’s musical little shriek, he snapped off the fletching, and reached back to pull the shaft the rest of the way through. “Mind?” he asked, grasping at the fluttery (red) bit of scarf she wore over her hair.

  “What? Oh,” she shook the frippery free. “No, but—let me do it,” and commenced to bind Gideon’s wound with surprisingly capable fingers.

  In fact, from that point on, Celia Rand seemed to shuck the role of pampered wife, which should have been a relief. And would have, he thought, but for her unwillingness to let Gideon out of her sight and, more disturbingly, his inability to think of anything but what might be going on under that coat whenever she was near.

  29

  In the over-warm, over-decorated bedroom, Gideon stared at Celia and wondered…

  If he and Celia had never met—if Commander Radesh had sent some other company to exfiltrate Rand’s wife—how different would his life have been?

  Because if Gideon hadn’t been the one to recover Celia back in the day, Celia would not have developed an unhealthy obsession for Gideon (a term that seemed over the top until Gideon remembered he was tied to a chair in the woman’s bedroom).