Hot Zone

by Cindy Dees

  After a murmured word of thanks to the servant for her help, Tessa took a deep breath and stepped out into the hallway. The feast wasn’t hard to find. She just followed the stream of gaudily clad nobles streaming toward the celebration. The bath mistress hadn’t been wrong. Wind was in the air of something big tonight, and it didn’t take psychic powers to sense the assemblage buzzing with anticipation.

  Thankfully, Tessa was seated in an obscure corner of the gigantic hall, as befitted her status as a minor noble. Still, she stood out like a sore thumb, a pale blue icicle in the midst of a thousand bright butterflies.

  Her table companions turned out to be two married couples and a Persian army officer of some kind. Thankfully, the officer was much more interested in ogling the male servants in the room than in looking down her dress.

  She would have loved to talk tactics and strategy with her peer from ancient times but dared not go there. And anyway, he got drunk so quickly she wouldn’t have garnered much useful information from him.

  Emperor Xerxes’s grand entrance was a spectacle she would never forget. Slave girls threw flower petals at his feet. Horns blared. A hundred guards lined the emperor’s path, forming an arch of scimitars with a precision that would have made a modern drill team sigh with envy. And then came two dozen kings and queens, promenading down the archway and taking their places just beyond, kneeling on cushions and bowing down until their foreheads touched the floor.

  Finally, the great one himself arrived. Tessa got a good look at him before she bowed, along with everyone else in the room. He was a handsome man, actually, with dark curls, a hawk nose and intelligent eyes. He wasn’t Greek-coin beautiful, but he wore imperial power with regal ease.

  As she took her seat to await the meal, Tessa pondered the difference between his power and Rustam’s. Xerxes’s was the charisma of a supremely confident political and military leader. Rustam’s energy, on the other hand, swirled around him like a living thing—of him and yet not of him—an essence he controlled but did not entirely own. Even though his power originated within him, it was larger than him, in the same way that a child could spring from its parents’ loins, and yet eventually surpass its parents.

  Rustam’s personal charisma was every bit as aggressive and confident as Xerxes’s was; he just contained it more carefully. It was if he didn’t want the world at large to notice it. She’d only gotten a full grasp of it herself when he’d kissed her.

  How was it that a sorcerer-slave from what she knew as modern-day Turkey could match the force of personality of one of the most powerful men in history?

  As if her thoughts conjured him into existence, she suddenly caught sight of Rustam across the hall. He wore yet another skimpy towel low on his hips, held in place with an elaborately jeweled belt. Tessa knew now that the brief skirt was the garment of a slave, yet somehow he wore his with all the panache of a prince.

  A veritable army of servants marched out of a half-dozen tunnels around the room, loaded down with massive platters of food. Although the slave attending her table looked at her as if she was crazy when she asked how recently the ox and lambs had been slaughtered, she wasn’t about to risk a serious case of food poisoning on spoiled meat right before her journey.

  She was relieved to find out the animals had been butchered last night and roasted throughout today. Although the spices on the meat were somewhat strong for her taste, all in all, the meal was tasty. A theme of honey and fruit and savory spices like cinnamon and saffron dominated.

  She only sipped at her wine, particularly after her army officer escort mentioned casually that “herbs” were mixed into it to increase its intoxicating effects. She did not need to get wasted tonight of all nights! Goblets were hoisted all over the room, emptied, and refilled steadily.

  In short order, the party was on.

  Music started up, wine flowed and dancing girls and boys performed. Clothes came loose, people started to pair up—or group up, as the case might be—and the tone of the feast went from PG to X-rated in no time flat.

  The guests had seriously let their hair down and were well into whatever state of revelry they preferred when Xerxes stood up across the room. Someone bellowed for quiet and then a deafening fanfare of horns—more nasal and reedy than trumpets, but easily as loud—blasted the room into silence.

  He announced, loudly enough for his voice to penetrate every corner of the hall, “I have consulted with my generals and my priests. The army is prepared, and the omens are ripe. Tomorrow we march on Athens!”

  This announcement was greeted with a loud and protracted outburst of crazed cheering. It felt strange to Tessa to sit there, knowing the disappointments and ultimate failures that lay before this wildly enthusiastic assemblage. She was witnessing the last great moment of the Persian Empire before the beginning of its centuries-long decline. A chill chattered across her skin.

  She felt his gaze upon her without even having to look up. But she did, anyway. Rustam nodded soberly at her across the heads of the screaming crowd.

  He looked as if he, too, had an inkling of what lay ahead. Not surprising. He was extremely intelligent and probably knew as well as anyone that the Greeks would not go down without a desperate fight. He’d said as much earlier when they’d been up on that mountain.

  The room finally settled enough for Xerxes to continue. “We will crush these upstart Greeks and their ridiculous notions, and I shall finally fulfill the vow I made to my father to conquer the Peloponnese. May the might and glory of my empire shine over all the world, that the one god, the great god, Ahura Mazda, shall know my name and honor me in his sacred halls.”

  Tessa swore under her breath. She had run out of time. She had to get out of here—and soon—if she was going to avoid getting trapped on this side of the Thermopylae Pass for who knew how long.

  Every day she spent in this time was another day she risked a slip-up or discovery as a fraud. The faster she found that medallion piece and got her happy self back home, the better.

  A male servant startled her just then, hesitantly touching the hem of her gown. She looked down, silently appalled at how slaves were expected to grovel.

  “My lady?” he murmured. “Her Majesty, Queen Artemesia, orders you to attend her.”

  Disaster, thy name is Artemesia. Tessa sighed. “Lead on, MacDuff.”

  “Mac—who?”

  “Never mind. Just take me to her most spectacular and munificent majesty.”

  For just an instant, the man’s eyes glinted with humor. And then he scuttled off with her in tow, her feet dragging toward she knew not what. But her gut told her this would not be fun.

  Six

  There was nothing quite like having to step over a naked couple having grunting, sweaty sex to get where you were going, Tessa observed wryly. Of course, the sight that greeted her when she got to Artemesia’s table was eminently worse. A young man was barely visible under the table, his head buried between the queen’s widespread legs, while Rustam stood behind her chair, fondling her uncovered breasts. At least he had the good grace to looked bored out of his mind.

  Artemesia’s eyes were more arrogant than usual, swimming with lust and, oddly enough, power. A vague haze of red seemed to cling to the woman. Or maybe it was just the brilliant scarlet of the queen’s dress playing tricks on Tessa’s eyes. Except it looked as if Rustam’s hands were manipulating the shimmering haze, swirling it across Artemesia’s skin. And every time one of those eddies erupted, the woman arched into his hands and moaned.

  Weird.

  An unwilling, but undeniably visceral, response vibrated low in Tessa’s core. She didn’t think of herself as a voyeur, but it was really hard to be surrounded by all this sex and not react to it a little. Okay, a lot. She wished Rustam’s hands were playing across her skin like that, and she was the one moaning in response. Sheesh. Stop that!

  “Ahh, our naive little foreigner,” Artemesia purred. “Do you disapprove of our…entertainments?”

  “
Certainly not,” Tessa answered smoothly. Please let Artemesia believe her! “I particularly like your notion of what constitutes a pair. Where I come from, one plus one usually equals two.”

  Artemesia chuckled. “Why stop at one lover if two is better? Or three? Or ten?”

  Ten? Tessa couldn’t help but gape.

  Artemesia’s laughter turned into a wavering moan of orgasm as the young man did something under the table that Tessa really didn’t want to know about.

  She glanced up at Rustam. “Will you be finished here soon?” she asked lightly.

  His eyes went as black and hard as obsidian. He shook his head a single time. Whether he was furious with her or with the woman writhing under his hands, Tessa had no idea.

  She looked down at Artemesia, who seemed all but unconscious in the throes of a major orgasm.

  Breezily, Tessa said, “Well, Your Majesty, I hate to interrupt your multiple orgasms. You go on and have fun now. And thanks so much for the invitation to the party. This has been most…educational.”

  The queen didn’t look to be in any condition to prevent anyone from leaving her royal presence at the moment. Frankly, Tessa doubted the keening woman remembered her own name at the moment.

  Rustam opened his mouth as if to say something as Tessa turned to leave. She paused momentarily, one eyebrow raised in question.

  But then he shook his head again and gestured with a jerk of his chin toward the door. Right. As if he was in any position to order her around!

  And on that wry note, she turned to leave what she sincerely hoped would be her last orgy at the imperial court of the king of kings, ruler of the Medes and Achemens, of Ethiopia and India and all between, His Glorious Majesty, Emperor Xerxes of Parsa.

  As she neared an exit, a pair of jostling, laughing young men closed in on her.

  “Aww, you’re not leaving are you, Lady of Snow?”

  “We have yet to even learn your name, fair one! Do not so callously abandon us without satisfying our curiosity.”

  “I’m afraid your parties wear me out. I don’t have the stamina for this sort of thing.”

  The youths laughed. “It takes practice. Lots and lots of practice.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’ll leave you to it, then. I really am tired. Maybe tomorrow night I’ll last a little longer.”

  A shadow passed across the taller one’s face and he retorted sourly, “No feast tomorrow. The emperor says it’s not seemly to celebrate while our foot soldiers are fighting for the glory of the empire.”

  She had to go with Xerxes on that one. The idea of partying hearty at the officers’ club while her troops put their lives on the line was blasphemous to her.

  “Let us give you safe escort back to your quarters, fair princess.”

  She glanced over her shoulder, seeking a glimpse of Rustam. If anyone was going to escort her back to her room, she had assumed it would be him. After all, he was crazily possessive of her and didn’t seem to want to share her.

  But at the moment, his dark head was buried in Artemesia’s neck. That woman was still going at it? Dang. It almost made a modern girl feel a wee bit inadequate.

  Tessa turned her attention back to the eager puppies beside her. “If you want to walk me back to my room, that’s fine. Just so long as you understand there’ll be no invitation to come in, and no hanky-panky.”

  “What’s this hanky-panky?” the short one asked. “It sounds fun.”

  Tessa swept her hand wide to encompass the hall. “This is hanky-panky.”

  The youths laughed and she sighed in relief as they stepped out into a colonnaded hall. It wasn’t just the quiet that was welcome; it was the cessation of sensory overload. Even her skin felt relief from the buzzing, heavily sexual vibrations that had jangled across it in the feasting hall.

  “This way, my lady.”

  “But my room is that way.”

  “This is a shortcut. Trust me.”

  In her military career, she’d learned two incontrovertible truths. One was that shortcuts were never short. And two, if someone told you to trust them, you never, ever should.

  She stopped dead in her tracks. “I’m tired and just want to go to my room and sleep. Go back to the party. I’m done for the night.”

  “I don’t think so,” one of them said, abruptly unfriendly. The two young men grabbed her by her elbows.

  Two on one, she’d have eaten these guys for lunch, but out of nowhere, six more young men materialized, surrounding her like a pack of dogs. She looked over their heads for the nearest guard.

  “Guard!” she called. “I need you to escort me back to my quarters. Now.”

  The man started to take a step forward, but then his eyes widened. He took a look at the group surrounding her, and pointedly turned his back to face the other way, his spine rigid.

  Dammit.

  Gotta get them talking. Distract them. Buy time. Maybe someone else would come out and interrupt the ugly direction this was going.

  “Who are you, anyway?” she asked conversationally. “I gather you all know each other.”

  The youths seemed startled that she showed no fear, but actually stopped hustling her off toward the shadows behind a pillar to introduce themselves. From what she gathered, they were young princes for the most part, sons of Xerxes’s top advisors and military commanders. No wonder the guard had turned his back.

  The youths laughed. But it wasn’t a pleasant sound of amusement.

  She had to get her back to a wall. As close to the banquet hall as she could manage. Maybe someone would hear her cry for help and come out to investigate. Or maybe not. She recalled the young woman who’d screamed right after Tessa arrived. No one had rushed out to help her. Apparently gang-raping slave girls was socially acceptable around here. Slave girls…

  As several hands grabbed at her, she drew herself up to her full height and said sharply, “Unhand me. I am a princess and you have no right to touch me. I’ll have you up on charges before Xerxes for this. And when the emperor loses the trade and food imports he’s going to get from my country, he’ll be furious. After all, he’s got an army to feed. He’ll string every last one of you up by your thumbs and flay you alive.”

  That gave a few of the least drunk of them pause, but unfortunately, didn’t faze the rest. Why, oh, why had she left her dagger in her room?

  Her shoulder blades bumped into uneven stone. A column. Not ideal for protecting her back, but better than nothing. She tried one last time. “Gentlemen, I’m going to tell you this once and once only. I am not some helpless female you can bully around and intimidate. I am giving you fair warning that I will do whatever it takes to defend myself. Don’t do this. Go find yourself some woman who’s willing. Leave me alone.”

  Apparently, that served as an unspoken signal for the young men to rush her. Cursing under her breath, she whipped her foot out in a knee-high sweep. The move was illegal in martial arts tournaments precisely because of the damage it could cause. She clocked the closest guy on the outside of his knee, and he went down, swearing vilely.

  The other youths checked, startled. But then a feral gleam entered their collective gazes. “Ahh. A fighter,” one of them crowed. “I like ’em with spirit. More fun when you break ’em to be ridden.”

  Panic climbed the back of her throat. This was not going down well. Not well at all. She was way outnumbered, and nobody was coming to help her. Grim realization that she might lose, and that these men might rape her, washed over her.

  Her cuff. She needed to get out of here. Except her mission would be a failure, and someone else would have to come right back and pick up where she’d left off—without the benefit of her psychic skill at locating objects. Given that the medallion piece seemed to be on the move and no longer at court, her ability was vital to this mission’s success. But rape? That was emphatically not part of the job description.

  What if she blinked out of existence before the very eyes of this group? What stories would that cause? Wha
t superstitions would she start? Would she damage this culture—or more to the point, leave a modern fingerprint upon it?

  Normally, Tessa didn’t hesitate in making a decision, but she truly didn’t know what to do. On one hand, she really, really didn’t want to be attacked. On the other hand, the future of mankind might rest upon her sticking with this mission.

  She needed to get away from these assailants for just a second or two before she used the cuff. They were drunk enough that she ought to be able to duck around the column and activate it before they realized what had happened.

  Hands grabbed at her, too many to swat away this time, buzzing around her as persistent as angry wasps. Dammit, she hated to fail.

  Rising fear at the back of her throat reminded her that this was no joke, though. She could die. But then, she’d known all along that she could die on this mission. She fingered the pouch at her waist. Should she go ahead and use the cuff now?

  Unbidden, a vision of Athena Carswell and Beverly Ashton flashed through her head. Both were formidable women, and both were counting on her. They believed she could handle whatever came at her on this mission. It was why she’d been hand-selected and intensively trained for this.

  So be it. She would confront these drunks and figure out a way to get away from them before she had to use the cuff.

  Meanwhile, these ancient twerps wanted a fight? Then a fight they would get. More than they bargained for. Without warning, she sucker punched the nearest guy as hard as she could, right in the nose. Blood spouted, and he doubled over swearing.

  “Bitch!” someone shouted.

  And then they jumped her. It all turned into a flailing jumble of arms and legs and flying fists and painful yanks at her hair. Her gauzy blue dress ripped—frankly, she wouldn’t mind if they tore it off of her, as it kept wrapping inconveniently around her legs. Someone punched her solidly in the right eye, nearly knocking her down. Must stay on her feet. Once she went down, she would be lost.