Gambit (22 page)

“I
am
capable of looking after myself.”

“Above all else, trust me.”

Chae willed her mind and body silent. His soft words speared her, but she didn’t want to have that conversation. As he’d said, she had to focus. They were about to go up against an insane emperor. And with Daned’s body hard against hers in the darkness, his warm scent adding fire to the already wild thrum of her blood, she didn’t need more distraction. “Your men.” She murmured the words aloud.

The guards slunk along the shadowed wall as they had, the soft whine of their weapons breaking the silence. Daned tensed, blocking her from their view with his body. She pulled in a breath, held it and ignored the growing ache in her chest. Shit, she couldn’t see anything around the solid mass of his body. He knew the men, she could feel it in the press of his thoughts. What she didn’t know was whether it was good or bad.

“Corryn Adda.”

Kynon’s whip-thin candidate, his representative at Ladaia-prime. All right it was bad. Very bad. Why had she expected anything else?

“His Imperial Majesty awaits you.”

Men shuffled, boots clanking over worn stone and the increased hum and lock of weapons forced Chae to wince. So much for being empress. But hell, it was better than fucking nine skanky princes. Yes, there was always a positive side to a gun in her back.

Corryn grabbed Daned’s arm and shoved him forward, through the open doors of the throne room. Chae was pulled along with him, Daned keeping her close to his body. Clouds of dust caught on the long streams of sunlight breaking through the arches of the vast room.

The sharp scent of scorched meat burned her nostrils. Chae swallowed bile, the reek taking her back too many years to a slaughter in one of Jobal’s caustic-angel dens. Daned was right. Kynon had vaporized his enemies. It seemed emperors were just as fucked up as low-life dealers.

“He can’t control the sunder-seld.” Daned’s voice burned with anger. “Do you really want him to take us back to the Host?”

“Have respect for your emperor.”

Before Chae could react, the butt of gun cracked between Daned’s shoulder blades and it dropped him to his knees with a low groan. Anger shot through Chae in a hot wave and she lunged for Corryn. He caught her arms in bony fingers and jerked her down to the floor.

“That goes for you too,
Majesty.
”

Kynon tapped the arm of the throne in a slow, irritatingly smug rhythm. “Leave her next to her pet, Corryn.” A thin smile touched his lips. “It’ll be a joy to watch him kill her.”

A chill ran through her blood, but she willed down her fear. The bastard on the throne wouldn’t see it. She had faith in Daned. Trusted him. Corryn dragged her across the short stretch of stone to the line of five silent princes. Each man knelt with his hands secured behind his back. More than one bore dark bruises, torn robes and streaks of dried blood. Kynon had been having his fun.

“No witty comeback, Captain Beyon?”

The new emperor waved his hand to Corryn, who kicked Daned forward. He fell to the stone beside Odgar with a grunt. The prince cast a glance down his nose, but didn’t move to help him. Daned lay there, still and unmoving, his mind shuttered and silent.

Chae didn’t try to touch his thoughts. She hoped to hell that was what he meant by staying silent because she wanted to shriek at Kynon. Anger and fresh fear twisted in her gut and she glared at the man who had taken her throne.

He relaxed back into the block of carved crystal and let out a slow sigh. “Are you feeling precious about Daned Traern? The senior Ara flesh-pet. He’s a toy. Nothing more.” He smirked. “They breed them like cattle. A sport to see who turns out the prettiest.”

Chae ignored him. “How did you do this?”

Kynon’s gaze flicked to Corryn and he cuffed her. Her head snapped to the side. Pain burst hot under her jaw, ballooned behind her eyes, and the copper taste of blood filled her mouth.

She spat, spraying the stones red, and grunted as a guard pinched cuffs around her wrists. “You planned this.”

Corryn raised his fist again, the blur of it in corner of her eye, and Chae flinched from another blow…that never came.

Kynon had lifted his hand. “I did.”

“You broke out of the cells and just…sat on the throne.”

He looked at his nails before his dark gaze fixed on her again. “I have to thank you for your hard work. The arch would have vaporized me.”

Chae frowned. He couldn’t have planned it from the beginning. He’d wanted the sunder-seld on Ladaia-prime. Had planned for that moment, not this. Something had happened to give him the chance to take the throne. “So now what?”

“I kill princes.” He nodded to a guard behind her and the distinctive clunk of an Ar-20 filled the silence.

Chae willed herself to breathe steadily and not to look at Daned, who still lay in a heap on the stones. His skin had paled and only the wisps of his breath in the cold room said he was still breathing.

Shit, she
was
looking. Her gaze jerked up and caught one of the princes. She blinked. Their silence suddenly made sense. A resin plug sealed each one of their mouths. Every man strained to speak, each one of their faces blotched with sweat and blood. Chae’s heart pounded. Did she or Daned count as a prince in Kynon’s warped worldview?

The Ar-20 clunked, there was a flare of harsh white light and the weapon released its narrow-beamed load.

One of the princes burst into a cloud of steam and dust. Panicked, the others struggled, twisting, fighting the binds that held them. With a wave of Kynon’s skinny fingers, the guards laid into the princes with fists, boots and gun butts.

Chae closed her eyes and willed herself not to listen. This had all happened before. Men had wanted Jobal’s network of dens and wanted to take them by fear. She’d been a lot younger, a child kneeling beside her mother, yet the bitter taste of fear was just the same. But Jobal had been dead fourteen years and wouldn’t mount a rescue of his people this day. No, she had to stay calm and wait for her moment. Whatever the hell her moment might be.

The cool winds in the throne room wrapped around her. Hot grains of the vaporized man landed on her hair, pinpricked her skin, seared her lips and eyelashes and shot fire into her lungs. She wanted to gag, but that’d be a mistake. She didn’t want to inhale any more of him.

Shit. Sleeping with the nine—now four—skanky princes suddenly seemed a much better prospect.

The sound of fists and gun butts impacting bone and flesh stopped. Chae let out a slow breath and risked opening one eye. Some princes were struggling to remain upright, others had slumped to the floor, their blood leaking in dark pools across the crystal. Kynon simply tapped the arm of the black crystal throne, a thin smile slicing his mouth.

Chae didn’t question why she’d avoided a beating. She couldn’t. Kynon would wave his bony fingers and the guards would work her over too.

“Who should be next?” Kynon sat forward again, his body almost thrumming with nervous energy. His hands had clenched to bloodless fists. Why wasn’t he joining in? He wanted it. It was there in the manic gleam of his eyes…but his bony arse didn’t break contact with the throne. Excited heat lanced through her fear and she willed a wall over her thoughts. Was he stuck to the chair because he
had
to be? He broke contact and however he was dominating the sunder-seld vanished?

So her plan was to get him to stand up. Not exactly a stunning plan, but she seemed to be the only one even halfway conscious. Her gaze dropped to Daned. She’d nose-dived him into a planet and he’d survived. A crack to his spine was minor. Wasn’t it?

Chae ignored that new fear and straightened her shoulders. “You bought my friend, Majesty. The Samekh, Aleph-Nun.”

“Make her stand.”

Meaty fingers dug into her shoulder and hauled her up. Chae willed her body to ignore the agony…but it didn’t actually work. Hot stabs of pain dug into her collarbone. He’d cracked it. “How long have you watched me?”

“Majesty…” Kynon rolled the word around, seemingly enjoying it. “You? I made certain to have all outer-Ladaians monitored. How that was achieved I left to others.”

His disinterest twisted her gut but she kept down her anger. Was she the first person to call him majesty? Well, the first person who’d used the title voluntarily. He still wasn’t gagging her. And her mouth could get her out of a scrape. Sometimes.

He pointed, a negligent flick of his index finger and the whine of weapons increased again. Chae breathed, even as her heart pounded and sweat coated her spine. A second later, light seared and there was a dull
whoomph
and another prince burst into dust. Hastily she shut her eyes and focused inward as the flecks and cinders of burnt man filled the air. Fuck. Kynon was already starting to point again.

Chae gritted her teeth and pain swelled in her jaw. “What does the Host feel like, Majesty?”

Kynon’s attention snapped to her and his fingers curled into a fist. The whine of the Ar-20s died around her. “The Host?”

The familiar shiver rippled through her and she caught the slight tremor shaking his hand and forearm. Would a man about to control the Host still feel its effects? Shit, she really did know nothing. “It’s what you want for us, Majesty.”

He closed his eyes and a vein jumped in his temple. He stabbed a hand outward, blindly, and Chae crushed her eyes shut, tears burning in her eyes. Fuck. Fuck.
Fuck.
Her skin burned, sharp points of fire stabbing at her cheek and singing her hair. The guard had obliterated the prince beside Odgar. Even if he had been a depraved prince, it twisted her gut that she didn’t know his name.

“The Host will form when the last of the princes is dead.”

The hollow ring to his voice deepened her shiver. There were only two men, Daned and herself left for Kynon to play life or death with…and for some reason she couldn’t work out, he was talking to her. Maybe using the title had caught him. But hell, he didn’t seem to be the same man who’d ordered them dead on Ladaia-prime. And that was an insane comparison to make.

“What will it feel like, Majesty?”

“Majesty, why are you allowing this fifth caste to question you?”

Chae gritted her teeth and willed Corryn to shut the fuck up.

Kynon opened his eyes, a shadow falling over him, and shit, she could almost feel the beginnings of change in him now. A darkness, a loss of soul that seemed to yank at her, wanting to pull her right down with him. “Princes Ewiren or Ara?”

His finger rocked between the two men. Beside her, Odgar straightened his shoulders and his chin lifted. Tears burned behind her eyes as the ancient and unexpected tug of blood and loyalty mourned her prince.

Kynon laughed, something cold and distant. “No, Odgar, it’s not that easy.”

Chae’s heart twisted as the Prince of the House of Ewiren exploded into a cloud of burnt cinders. One more would see them all mindless killers under Kynon’s control. The dark slide of it already crept through her blood, the angry power of black crystal, the influence the princes had formed a barrier to for millennia.

Chae blinked, ash stinging her eyes. She knew that because she was falling into one with her emperor…

“I want you to see how it will end and how it will begin, Odgar.” Kynon snapped his fingers and guards dragged Daned to his feet.

Fear jerked Chae out of her haze. A guard turned his jaw to Kynon, fingers biting into his skin. Daned didn’t react.

“With one prince remaining, I have enough control to allow a demonstration.”

Kynon closed his eyes and gripped the arms of the throne until his fingers grew bloodless. Something pulsed through the air, the taste of it sharp and sour on her tongue, with the strange hint of fennel. It wasn’t reaching for her.

She lurched forward, but the guard’s meaty hand dug into her cracked bone and she let out a cry. Daned pulled his hand free of his guard’s grip. In a blur of movement, Daned had his arm twisted up his back until the shoulder joint gave way with an audible pop. The guard howled and dropped to his knees. Weapons whined around the room with the promise of obliterating him.

Chae fought the pain in her shoulder. He would
not
die. He was hers. She wrenched herself free and stumbled toward him.

Daned gripped her good hand, his touch bursting heat under her skin, changing her fear to relief. He glared at Kynon. “I won’t obey you. Chae Beyon is my empress.” He growled the words, his voice dry and hard. “Stop now, Kynon, or I
will
kill you.”

The emperor’s lips twisted into a thin smile, but he said nothing.

The scent of fennel thickened, cloying the back of her throat and Daned’s fingers tightened through hers. The dark pulse somehow surrounded him, pushing, sinking into his flesh. He groaned, his body shaking. She wanted to hold him, protect him from the push of evil, but her left arm was almost useless and pain seared her mind. But she had to try. She pushed their joined hands to his chest, the fast thud of his heart beating against her fingers.

“Daned!”

His gaze snapped to her and her stomach turned over. A liquid black film coated his eyes, growing and spreading, spilling through his veins in a dark web, killing who he was. His fingers continued to squeeze hers, adding pain to pain.

She gritted her teeth and stabbed her thoughts at his closed mind.
“You said I was supposed to trust you. You don’t belong to this fucked-up prince. You’re mine!”

For a moment, he closed his eyes and she thought she had him, that she’d broken through to who he was. The relief was a warm rush and her knees almost gave way. Hers. He was hers…

Kynon gave a sour laugh that jerked her attention to him. Shit. Stupid move. She had to focus only on Daned, will him to fight the insane emperor’s command. Damn it, she was such a fuckup.

“Daned…”

But he shoved her to her knees and the only man she had ever trusted, the only one she’d ever loved, stared down at her with murder in his eyes. He had become the Host.

Chapter Twelve