Hidden Trump (Bite Back 2) (36 page)

“I won’t tell anyone.”

Behind the long, low sofa, there were mirrored picture windows looking out toward the Country Club. The sofa and matching chairs in cream leather stood around a walnut coffee table. There were small, subdued spotlights playing over artwork on the walls: tall, abstract paintings and carved Polynesian masks. The main lighting was beautiful, all golden glows bouncing off the ceiling and walls.

We sipped in silence for a minute. Which Bian was I going to have to deal with now?

“You’ve been a very bad girl,” said Bian. “The Warders blame you for causing an escalation in tensions.” She got a printout from a pocket and read from it. “‘The situation in Denver has become increasingly tense. All parties are urged to desist from provocation and show the utmost restraint in the period leading up to the Assembly.’”

“Is that a joke?”

“No. They’ve put in a formal request for you to be held at Haven till the Assembly.” She blew on her tea and peered down into it. “They’ve asked me to bring you in.”

I ground my jaw in frustration. I couldn’t fight Bian, and Skylur had specifically excluded her from the list of people I could tell about our plan for distracting Matlal. It had been derailed by the Warders and his own security constraints.

But I really didn’t want to be herded in, especially not at the request of the group who should have been keeping Matlal off me. And I had a date with Jen, even if it was a business meeting. And it was unfair. And…

“I’m not the one doing the escalating,” I said. “I’m being chased by Matlal.”

“And if he turns around and says you’re chasing his associate, so he’s only responding?”

“With twenty Athanate all the way from Mexico? And what’s that about associates? He’s claiming Hoben is kin, or whatever it is he calls his slaves?”

“
Marai
is the Basilikos name for humans,” Bian said, idly passing her fingers through the steam from her tea. “It means unclaimed cattle.
Toru
if they’re claimed by a Basilikos House.” She took another sip of tea. “Round-eye, I’m on your side, but we both need to be aware of what they will use to argue their point.” She swiveled around, folding her legs underneath her on the sofa and leaning forwards. “Now, did you get to meet Arvinder?”

The Diakon had come out, and somehow seemed just as brittle as the Leopard to me.

“Yeah. I’ve got Basilikos all wrong. Theokos is just sweet and Arvinder would like me to be his best friend.”

Bian snorted. She ran her fingers tiredly through her horsetail hair.

“Offered me a house and staff and devotees, too,” I said.

Bian raised an eyebrow. “Are you feeling unappreciated?”

She seemed unsurprised by Arvinder’s offer, as if she and Skylur had known he would be making an offer of some kind. But there was something challenging in her tone…had they not quite trusted me to turn it down? Was that why she’d been pushing at me lately, trying to find out how I felt about her and Diana, Alex and Jen? Testing my strongest motivators—loyalty and friendship, or money and self-interest? Was it all a setup between them to see what I’d do? Thinking like this was making my head spin.

“I’m not complaining. But Arvinder knows how to make his offer appealing, especially when he added in some business deals for Jen.” I shook my head. “I’m not that tempted. But he wasn’t doing this just to pull one over on Skylur for fun. He’s after my Blood, just like Matlal.”

Bian didn’t appear to have heard that—she was staring into the distance, lost in thought. Abruptly she put her cup aside, frowning. “Why don’t you want to come into Haven?” she said. “What’s the real reason?”

I sighed. “Bian, we’ve been through this.”

“No, we haven’t,” she said. “You just say you won’t. You haven’t said why.”

She moved like a cat to straddle my legs and sit on my thighs. She stared intently at me. “I could just tie you up and bring you in,” she said. Her tongue touched her upper lip. “Actually, I think I’d like you tied up.”

Shit. Was this teasing, or the real thing? How could I tell? And how could I bail out?

“Scared?” she said.

I kept my breathing slow and easy, concentrating on being calm.

“Hmm,” she said. “Clever, Round-eye. So calm.”

I checked her out. Her eyes. They didn’t have that hard, glittering look that meant a hungry Athanate. The pupils were wide enough, but she was staring at my lips rather than my throat. Definitely not Diakon Bian and not playing. This was for real. But I guessed I was safe enough as long as I could keep my panties on, and I’d had a lot of practice at that over the last couple of years. Admittedly, not quite like this.

I wished I knew where Diana was. Right here would be handy, to keep Bian in check.

She leaned forward, putting an arm on either side of my head and resting her hands on the back of the sofa. That brought her face just inches from mine. I smelled her copper and spice scent and felt the warmth of her skin like winter sun.

She came closer, until our noses almost touched. “It doesn’t make you nervous when I get in your face?”

I laughed, a little abruptly. “I was a sergeant in the army, Bian. I got in peoples’ faces for a living.”

“Interesting job,” she said. “How come I can’t smell fear, Sergeant Amber?”

“I’m not scared of you. I respect you for what you are. You would scare me, if you weren’t just trying to shock me.”

“That’s nice. That you’re not scared, I mean.” She smiled lazily. “And why is your heart beating so fast, Sergeant Amber?”

She took my right hand and studied it with a little smile playing on her lips.

“Do you like me?” she said, looking up at me. Still no fangs.

“Despite the fact that you’re well on the way to being the most irritating person in the world, yeah, I like you.” I pushed her back a little. “But not like that.”

“Oh?” She crossed her hands, grabbed the hem of her sweatshirt and stretched her arms above her head, lifting it off in one silky smooth movement. She wasn’t wearing a bra. I’d wondered how far the leopard spots went. Faded out about where her breasts started to rise.

She leaned forward again. Unsure quite where to push, I didn’t do anything in time. She settled her face into the crook of my neck with a sigh.

I slipped my arms around her while my heart and brain raced frantically. I needed to do something quickly because I could feel my own Athanate and wolf responses starting to run. My jaw relaxed. All it needed was for me to brush her hair aside and kiss her neck. My Athanate would know what to do next. I could feel my fangs ready to manifest. Her lips pressed their own hot message against my throat.

“Stop, please. We can’t,” I managed to whisper.

“It’s all right, I won’t bite,” she murmured.

“Bian, no.”

She raised her head, her face puzzled. “I’m mainlining your pheromones, Amber. Don’t try and tell me you don’t want it.”

“I won’t try to lie to you Bian.” I swallowed. “My body does. My heart doesn’t, and that means I don’t.”

“I don’t believe you.” She angled her face in to kiss.

I got up in a hurry. I managed to twist, so Bian landed on the sofa rather than on the floor, but her look couldn’t have been any more outraged. And this was definitely not Leopard or Diakon now.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she yelled.

“What do you mean, what’s wrong with me? I said no. I mean no.”

“Do you? Your body says different. I mean what I say, body and soul.”

“And you’ve never thought about how you say it? You’ve gone crazy on me. I can’t tell whether you’re teasing or serious. I can’t tell who you are from one minute to the next.”

She jumped off the sofa and jabbed me in the chest. “I’m hard to read? You’re the one who changed.”

“You mean I’ve gotten wary? Couldn’t be anything to do with there being a spy at Haven, could it? The spy that everyone says is my imagination?”

“You were the one who said it could be just someone putting two and two together!”

“That was before I heard that Basilikos have enough information to do research on my Blood. That’s got to be details that people wouldn’t just happen to overhear. Where did they get that sort of detail from? Skylur? Diana? Your team?” My anger was blotting out my reason. “You?”

Bian looked as if I’d slapped her. And I wasn’t finished. I jabbed her right back in the chest.

“I made a call to Skylur’s secure cell this afternoon, left a message. I might as well have shouted out my position using a bullhorn. Matlal’s team were there six minutes later. Tell me, who has access to Skylur’s cell and yours?”

Bian grabbed my hands. She was quicker and stronger than me. The realization that I might have just told the spy I was on to her was like a bucket of cold water over my anger. But it was pain and not rage that shouted at me.

“It’s not me!” she protested. “If there is a spy and not even Skylur can tell who it is, how am I supposed to?”

She pushed me hard against the wall.

“And he starts issuing orders for you to come into Haven, passing them through my team, but not backing it up when you ignore them,” she hissed. “Do you think I’m stupid? Don’t try that affiliate independence shit on me either. You have no idea what leeway it gives you. You’re running a smokescreen for him. Fine. Where does that leave me? What if I do something that exposes it?”

The unthinking emotion was back. Her eyes got that dreamy look that had scared me about David. She was panting and I could see her fangs manifest and disappear repeatedly in her mouth. All the tension in her seemed to be ready to explode into something—violence or biting. I had to stop her, not just for my sake. I knew Skylur would have to impose the death sentence for breaking his ban. There would be no excuses for Bian.

 “I’m Altau head of security, we have a problem and everyone can see that Skylur doesn’t trust me.” Her voice dropped, but stayed sharp as a blade. “How the hell do you think I feel?”

Her body was shivering like a plucked bowstring. Somewhere inside, she knew she had to stop. She was fighting herself. But there was no way I could fight her. If anything, it would make it worse. I had to work with her. I had to cool this down.

“Bad.” I spoke quietly. “If he loses trust in you, Bian, what does that mean for you personally?” I could see her brain working. That’s what stopped David. While she was thinking, her Athanate hunger wasn’t driving her actions. I needed her to think. For both our sakes.

“For me?” A frown creased her brow. “Who cares what it means for me?”

“I do.”

Her eyes flared again, but her grip relaxed a fraction.

She blinked and her breathing slowed. “Even if he believes I betrayed him; even if he locks me away, kills me, he is the only one who can stop us going to war. He’s the only one who can prevent the worst possible thing that could happen to the Athanate.” She let out a slow breath. “And he is the only leader who can deliver Emergence. Against that, what happens to me is nothing.”

I felt the shock of that down into my belly. This wasn’t an Athanate reaction. This was Bian’s stone-hard rational assessment.

“It’s not nothing, Bian. What does Diana say?”

She let my hands go. “She hasn’t called. I can’t reach her. I don’t even know where she is.”

I understood. I didn’t like the sound of that either. In fact, pretty much everything today was ratcheting up the feeling that we were all sliding into a train crash. I needed to keep her thinking.

“Why, Pussycat?” My voice sounded rusty. Very carefully, I put my arms around her. I held her gaze with mine. I mustn’t let her start focusing on my neck. “Why is Emergence so important?”

“Such a question.” She snorted and it almost sounded as if the Leopard was back. “Because I want to come out of the closet.”

I spluttered. “You’re so far out of the freaking closet that—”

“Not that closet, Round-eye. I never got in that closet. I want to come out as Athanate. I want people to know it and accept me for what I am. I want to be able to get close to someone—like this—and when their heart speeds up, I want it to be because they’re excited, not because they’re scared. Even though they know I’m Athanate. Even though they know I drink blood.”

From beneath the armored shell of her sexuality, a different Bian peeped out at me. It was as if we’d been sparring and she’d dropped her guard. Something precious had been handed to me.

It was up to me not to stamp on it. I was good at robust refusals, but this was new.

I didn’t get the chance.

“Who do you trust completely?” she said, abruptly in my face again, lips almost touching mine, body pressed hard against me.

“Diana,” I answered automatically.
With my life. Literally.

She nodded, her eyes locked on me. The pressure came off as she stood back, but she didn’t let go.

“There’s a key in the kitchen to an old Ford downstairs. Leave the Jeep and take it. No one but Diana and I know about it. And come to Haven tomorrow.” Her face was still angry, belying the calm in her words.

“Thank—” I started.

“Trust me,” she said, jerking me off balance. “Trust me. Less than Diana, maybe, but trust me. And keep your freaking gun on you.” She flung me back against the wall and by the time I picked myself up, she had taken her sweatshirt and gone.

Chapter 33

I walked shakily to Manassah, along the side of the golf course. I was early and it was a good way to get my adrenaline overload damped down. But it meant I went in through the patio, and didn’t see the car outside.

They’d seen me, so there was no point in trying to sneak off and come back.

“Agent Ingram, what a surprise,” I said.

“Hey there, honey.” Jen got up and kissed me on the cheek. “My, what a lovely suit.”

I tried to glare at her, but clearly I hadn’t been practicing enough recently and it didn’t work.

“So glad to have caught you, Ms. Farrell. I understand you’re mighty busy at the moment.”

I let the sarcasm slide off, while my little demon reveled in the Texas drawl. Jen brought me a rum, and we settled on the sofa, facing Ingram. Jen looked reasonably relaxed, so I guessed he hadn’t been giving her the third degree.