Seduce Me in Flames (19 page)

Eirie watched with intent eyes as Balkin paced the length of the private receiving room over and over again. She was silent, had been for the past half hour as he worked his mind around the issues he faced. So far there had been no reports that the princess was alive. But then again, there were no reports on who had tried to help her escape either. However, Eirie was not going to be fooled. Curta had been positive that the rightful heir of Allay yet lived. And although Curta’s predictions were far from clear and perfect, she was rarely blatantly wrong. Still, Eirie had to act on the supposition that Ambrea was drowned and dead until she heard a report otherwise, just as Balkin was doing. Balkin was not a believer in the conjurer crafts. If he knew Eirie was motivated by them, he would dismiss her in disgust and would not listen to anything she had to say. But at the moment he wasn’t aware of any predictions or magic at play, so she had to behave as if any advice she gave was based on the information at hand. Besides, Curta had been very specific. The Princess of Allay would no longer exist in three days’ time.

“You must raise yourself to the emperor’s seat,” Eirie said at last. “You cannot show indecision. You must act with confidence and strength. Announce your coronation to all Allay. You are the rightful heir and you must
not show that you have any doubts about it. You must not give them room to think about the whys and wherefores. Tell them what to think. Demand their obedience and acquiescence in this. Give them a powerful taste of the hand that will guide them until the day you die and, if the Being should grace us, pass your glorious seat on to our children and their children to come.”

Balkin’s pacing slowed as she spoke until finally he came to a complete halt. He was looking at her with no little wonder and surprise.

“Now you speak of children? You who, for all these years, denied me them because you were too vain a bitch to risk ruining your figure?”

She smiled, slowly getting to her feet, lifting her shoulders in a proud and perfect posture that she knew best displayed the charms of her body. Her silken gown breathed and swept against her curves as she moved with careful deliberation toward him. She knew that when she stood as close to him as she did that her perfume would wrap around his senses; the concoction was one of Curta’s genius creations. It sought out a male’s libido with purpose, aroused his senses and stimulated his hormones. Old or young, any man within her sphere would be aroused by her mere presence. She considered it a perfect enhancement to her already undeniable allure. The men of the court called her bewitching, the women seethed with jealousy as their supposedly loyal lovers were beckoned to her side and found themselves flirting with her. Some even put hands on her, cornered her, chased her down even though they knew that, should Balkin catch them touching her, they would forfeit their lives. Although Balkin took pleasure in watching other men covet her, and took power in the benefits that her flirtations could extract from the rich nobles, he was viciously jealous if he thought it was going too far.

“My love,” she said softly as she raised her hands to
his chest and rubbed them over him with warmth and intimacy, absorbing the virile contours of the muscles beneath. Balkin was no weak bureaucrat. He was a man of vital strength who engaged in hard, violent sports that accentuated his prowess as a warrior. It was another reason why she had preferred to pursue his potential over that of his more indolent brother. “The face of the world has changed, and I must change with it. I was free to decide if I wished to give a man a child or not. But I am not free to decide if I should give a country desperately needed heirs. It is my duty to see to the continuation of your line.”

“Orders. Duty. Demands. I become emperor and suddenly I have these powers over you and you say you will obey all of my wishes. All of my desires.” He reached out to grasp her around both her upper arms, giving her a little shake. “I could not coax you to do it out of love for me, but now … now I can force you to my will. And you think this gives me pleasure? To know that as a mere man I could not win your obedience? That this mere man was not good enough for you?”

This was dangerous ground, but Eirie was not afraid.

“Don’t be foolish,” she whispered gently, lifting her fingers to touch his mouth. She knew even the smallest of her caresses drove him to distraction. “I have always loved you with all my heart, and I always will, whether you are emperor or the lowliest of peasants. I will be by your side every moment of every day for the rest of your life. You are everything to me, and you always have been. The only change is that I asked your indulgence before in my little vanities. My … preferences. But I no longer have the right to ask those indulgences of you. Nor should you continue to give them to me. You and I are going to bring Allay into a new era, a place of prosperity for this realm and order for its people. Together
we are going to give birth to your dynasty. Allay will be ours forever. It will belong to our blood forever.”

His lips curled into a sardonic smile.

“If I didn’t know you for the avaricious, spoiled thing you are, I might believe your passionate, beautiful speeches, Eirie. You might love me now, but if I were that lowly peasant, you would have nothing to do with me.”

“Untrue,” she scolded him. Indeed, she would be by his side every moment of every day of his life. But she could guarantee that she would cut his throat in his sleep rather than allow herself to be dragged into the muck of mediocrity. Still, she had little fear of that happening now. “You wound me to think me so shallow. I freely admit to my vanities and even my ambition. After all, aren’t these the things you love about me? But I have never given you any reason to doubt my loyalty to you, Balkin. Everything I have ever done has been to satisfy your needs. I have seduced potentates, hostessed massive pageants to display the wealth of Allay, and spied on the men of your court through my friendships with their women. Do I do this for my pleasure? No. It’s all for you.”

“And what if I decide to make you my concubine, Eirie,” he threatened her in a low, taunting whisper that sent a chill of dread down her spine. Eirie was almost entirely certain of her power over him, but if life had taught her anything, it was that power could change anyone. Even though Balkin was not new to holding an exalted position, he had a cruel streak that could easily be fed by the idea of absolute supremacy. “You could be the first of many, you know. Potentates from all over the Three Worlds will want to give me their daughters for the fucking. They will readily and eagerly give me my dynasty. You will grow old and bored locked away in the House of Concubines.”

“Then be prepared to never know the joys of my body again, Imperial Majesty, because I will cut your cock off at the root and wear it as a hair ornament if you try.”

Balkin threw back his head and laughed. Then he forced a kiss on her, knowing it would infuriate her as her baited temper rose. He gripped her face in the power of a single hand, kissing her hard and long as she struggled to jerk free. He used his other hand to block the knee she tried to jam into his testicles. He pushed away from her, laughing again as she gathered her composure and shot venom at him with her eyes.

“There she is,” he said with amusement. “My meek and obedient bride.” He smiled at her, the expression turning him handsome in her eyes. Eirie had to admit, she was foolishly fond of the man. Especially when he could still surprise her like this and show her he had a dangerously strong backbone. Then again, none of this would be worth it if he were a simple conquest. She would have died of boredom long ago. She counted herself fortunate in many ways. Perhaps she would be a little sad if he ever did fall from grace and position. Luckily, that wasn’t going to happen.

“Play the lord and emperor with any other person in your realm, my great lord,” she said heatedly, “but I will be your equal in all things or I will be nothing to you. I promise you that.”

He nodded slowly, making her heart stutter a beat. She felt everything just within her grasp, so very close, and knew he felt the exact same thing. The only burr was that missing girl. But she refused to let him equivocate over it any longer. It was time for decisive action all around. On his part and on hers. She was either all in or she was packing her bags and finding new game to hunt.

“I will announce the coronation and my acceptance of the imperial seat immediately. And you, my slippery
bitch, will wed me the very instant the crown is against my brow.”

“Gladly, my great lord,” she said softly, bowing her head but never lowering her eyes from his. “A crowning followed by a great wedding ceremony. Such a spectacle has a way of making people forget things like missing heirs and dead boy kings.”

“True. And you will plan it all?”

Eirie smiled.

“Nothing could possibly stop me.”

“And a hearty hello to you, too,” Bronse Chapel said dryly as he looked down on the collection of unconscious and incapacitated men. The men who were still conscious were delirious with pain, foaming at the mouth as they wished for the unconscious bliss their brother guards had found.

Rush had his hands clenched into fists as he stood over the carnage he had wrought. He looked up at the rest of his squad.

“I tried to keep it tight. I knew you were on your way into the fray. None of you got hit?”

There was no need to ask. If they had, they’d be in equally bad shape as the four suffering guards were. Five, counting the idiot who had thought he could distract him with a knife in his ribs. To tell the truth, if he hadn’t been the impervious freak that he was, that energy blast to his face would have probably popped his head off from the inside out, like a kernel of kick corn in a pressure popper. And it was his own damn fault. He’d let himself get distracted with minutiae.

His gaze fell to immediately counting heads, and he was relieved to see everyone accounted for. But the relief lasted barely a second when he saw Justice. She looked as though someone had tried to cut her head off.

“Holy hell, Jus, what the fuck?”

“Eh, you should see the other guy,” she said blithely. “Oh wait, here he is.” She withdrew her dirty, bloodied blade, spinning the haft against her palm before putting it back in its sheath.

“Damn right,” he said grimly with a nod. And that was all the fuss she would allow from any of them, so he accepted the fact that she was on her own two feet and under her own power. “Sir, we best get through this barrier and to the ship as soon as possible. Between the sounds of firefighting and me throwing one of these guys into the resonance field, we’re bound to spark attention.”

“Let’s go. Is your principal still alive?”

“Last I checked. She’s hunkered down on the other side of that quoia.”

The group moved up to the boundary and Rush reached down to pull Ambrea out of hiding. She was starting to get that look in her eyes, something he often saw in battle-shocked people who weren’t used to the violence of fighting or war and yet found themselves thrust in the middle of it. He felt compelled to hold her, to comfort her, but he knew he had to shake that feeling. Especially in front of the others. Just the same, he touched his thumb to the swell of her high cheekbone and briefly shaped it with a stroke.

“Still with me?” he asked.

“More than ever,” she assured him cryptically.

Still, her visible regrouping made him smile a little.

“Good girl,” he said. He grabbed his pack and retrieved the pair of aerosol cans strapped to the outside of it. He faced the resonance boundary—energy designed to repulse intruders combined with solid whey stone that was a good ten feet high. Dropping the pack onto the ground, he tossed the second can to his free hand and gave them both a good shaking to mix the contents. Then he aimed and sprayed with the left-hand
canister. The contents were blue, leaving a vivid path as Rush painted an ovoid shape onto the wall. The droplets passed right through the resonance barrier, allowing him to easily tag the stone. That was a trick of the mixture. Normally the barrier would repel all liquids, just so vandals couldn’t do what Rush was doing right then. Once he was satisfied with the first can, he quickly followed with the second, a brilliant pink paint that helped him track perfectly on top of the blue as the colors mixed into a vivid purple.

“Why aren’t you people running away?” he asked dryly.

Bronse was already pulling the princess out of range, but he wasn’t hurried. He knew, as did Rush, how much time it would take for the two mixtures to interact with each other.

As soon as he finished, Rush stuffed the cans into his pack and hurried after the retreating squad. He checked his timepiece and mentally calculated how much time there was before …

The explosion was fairly significant, sending a huge dispersal of debris everywhere. The squad ducked and dodged the hailstorm of shattered stone.

“All right, let’s go!” Rush called as soon as most of the mess had settled. He didn’t want to waste any more time in that forest. It was clear that the Imperial Guard knew they were there and also clear that they suspected what they were doing there. With so many enforcements in the area, there was no time to spare.

Rush swept an arm around Ambrea and hauled her over the brush and debris with a ground-devouring stride. The resonance field needed a solid surface to run continuously. By destroying the wall, Rush had disrupted the flow of the repulsor field. The hole he had created was perfect, and they could see straight through to the airfield. There were hundreds of ships parked on
the tarmac, rows and rows of them stretching for miles, curving around an assortment of buildings and refueling stations. There was ground crew everywhere, and all of those nearby were scrambling for safety and hiding from the unknown source of destruction. It wouldn’t be the first time a ship had blown up on the field for some reason or a fuel station blew up as it accidentally got caught in a low-flying ship’s wash thanks to an inexperienced pilot.

Still, it wasn’t so frequent an occurrence that they were able to quickly shake off their fear. The Special Active squad took advantage of that and raced onto the field with their precious cargo.