The Scarlet Empress (14 page)

Amusement flickered in his eyes. “They do not.”

“See? I’d be pretty stupid to run away. Mongolia isn’t exactly the center of the world.”

“Close enough,” he said.

“You almost sound as if you believe that.”

One of his brows lifted in that familiar, imperious, holier-than-thou expression so at odds with his
Scorpion King
exterior. “I do.”

Shaking her head, she wrapped her hand around the leads. “I’ll walk the horses.”

He didn’t let go. His big leather-clad hand gripped the leads next to her bare one, chapped from the cold.

“You still don’t trust me,” she said.

“I have my reasons.”

She wasn’t sure what she saw in his eyes, but whatever those reasons were, they were big ones.

He reached across with his other hand and gently pried her fingers from the leads. Then he nodded, as if dismissing her, and resumed his trek through the grass.

Leaving her staring after him, he led the horses away through tall dried grasses. She’d never met anyone so self-assured, so serenely arrogant. So full of himself! Rather than repelling her, though, he fascinated her. All great fighter pilots possessed a deep-down, unshakable sense of confidence; there was no time for doubt in war.
That same self-possession and unflinching self-assurance she strove for in herself she sensed in the Rim Rider. Or it could just be an enormous ego begging for a little deflation. It wouldn’t take long to tell.

She shambled after him. “Y’all don’t mind if I come along?”

He cast a questioning glance in her direction. “ ‘Y’all’?” He said it just as she had, all drawled out and Southern.

“It means ‘you all.’ You and the horses.” She rubbed her butt. “I think I need to be walked as much as they do.”

He said nothing. She took that as a yes.

Kublai’s boots made even thuds on the hard ground, a counterpoint to her lighter, irregular steps. In silence they walked the horses around the meadow, letting them cool down before finally bringing them to the stream to drink.

Cam crouched at the edge of the water and dipped her fingers in. “This is like ice.” She shook the drops from her skin and tucked her hand under her arm to warm it. “But if this is Mongolia in the middle of winter, something’s not quite right with the weather. It’s much warmer than I would have guessed. Is this normal?”

“It’s actually somewhat colder than usual.”

“Really? What happened while I was gone. Global warming?”

“There was a definite climatic shift toward warmer weather since your day. There’s been some reversal, though, of late, in the last twenty-five years or so. Welcome news, because of the coastal cities lost to the rising seas.”

Cam stared down at the clear water running over pebbles
on the bottom. “I’m not sure if I’m ready to hear about all the changes in the world. I feel enough of an outsider as it is. But I have to. I have to know, or I’ll be lost. I’ve spent enough months in the dark.”

“I can tell you all that you feel comfortable learning this afternoon on the ride.”

She smiled up at him. “Thank you.”

He remained stone-faced.

She stood, wiping her hands on her pants. “How many days is it going to take to get to Beijing?”

“Three.”

“That’s all?”

“On the other side of this range, transportation awaits us that will take us to the capital.”

“So we’re not going to enter the city gates on these magnificent animals? Too bad.” She smoothed her palm over the stallion’s flank. “It’d be quite an entrance. These horses are gorgeous.”

“Yes, they are. They’re a breed exclusive to my country. Hansians are found nowhere else.” His tone had warmed dramatically. She’d stumbled upon his passion, she thought.

“I know horses. Grew up around them. Thoroughbreds. We didn’t actually keep them on our property—my father was in the army and we had to move around a lot—but most of the relatives on my mother’s side were involved with racing. We went back to Georgia every summer.” She stroked her hand down the gleaming flank of Kublai’s stallion. “Those were the best days. . . .” She realized she’d been rambling. This Rider didn’t give a damn about her childhood summer vacations.

“Go on,” he coaxed gruffly.

Startled, she swung her gaze around. It was tough to tell his expression with the dark swirls of snakes obscuring his face, but his eyes held no derision. “About your horses—their heads and ears look Arabian. I know it can’t be true. Arabians are small, and these horses are enormous.”

“Hansians have the speed and size of Thoroughbreds, the heft of Clydesdales, the brains of quarter horses, and the beauty of Arabians.”

Kublai’s Hansian, Beast, lifted its head. Water dripping from its lips, it swung its nose around and nuzzled Kublai’s boot, then his hand. He murmured something soft to the horse, treating the animal with clear affection and respect, the horse responding in kind.

The horse moved on to graze. They followed. “Now I wish I’d brought you a horse of your own,” he remarked.

“And knowing you and your trust issues, you’d have tethered me to yours.”

“This is true.”

His certainty made her smirk. She shook her head. “It still would have been riding. I sure missed it. I never had time for it anymore. I was either flying or stationed overseas, or both. I should have made the time.” She stopped before she became too maudlin.

“Ah, but you rode the wind, yes?”

“Say again?”

“The wind. You flew. A different kid of creature, yes, but still a thrill nonetheless. Or so I surmise. I’ve never flown a fighter craft. In truth, I haven’t wanted to. Something about the tight confines . . .” He cringed. Was Kublai claustrophobic? It might explain why he loved being out here in the wide-open spaces. “But I can well
understand why someone would yearn to fly. And I admire those who do it.”

His compliment startled her. She narrowed her eyes at him, expecting his comment to turn into another jab, but as with their conversation about the horses, his interest seemed genuine. “And you miss the flying,” he continued in his stiff, Rim Rider way. “Yes?”

“Yes.” The wall she’d erected around her emotions threatened to come crashing down. But she’d managed to hold it together after describing her family’s love of horses and those long summers in Georgia; she could do the same while talking about the F-16. Swallowing, she cleared her throat and nodded. “Nothing matched flying the Viper. Nothing.”

Kublai’s dark eyes flashed. “The Viper? This was the designation of the craft you flew? The viper is the symbol of the royal family.”

She took in the snakes coiled on his face. “What a coincidence.” She stored the fact away. She’d need the emperor’s aid to find Bree. Any common ground would help her cause.

A cold wind swooped down from the nearby hills, rustling the dry grasses. Kyber gathered up the horses and they trekked back to where Nazeem waited. “We’ll be traversing the mountains this afternoon,” he told her.

“They told me there’s nothing but chaos beyond those mountains. Gangs and mercenaries.”

“They told you wrong.”

In the new and less threatening atmosphere of their tenuous détente, she admitted, “I always wanted to see what was beyond the mountains. Only I didn’t picture doing it quite like this.”

A smile played at the edges of Kublai’s mouth. He helped her up into the saddle and pulled himself up after her. He wrapped his arm around her waist and said in her ear, “I can show you many more things previously unknown to you.”

“I doubt that.”

“Such is the naïveté of the inexperienced.”

She choked out an outraged laugh. This morning they’d been ready to kill each other. A minute ago they’d been carving out a tentative peace. Now they were flirting. And yet all day this repartee, this heat, had never been far below the surface. She wasn’t sure what to make of it. Was this just his personality? Or was the flirtation, the natural and friendly opposition, hinting at a desire for more physical forms of interaction—was it something they brought out in each other?

Maybe she didn’t want to know. All she had to do was get through the next three days. After everything else she’d been through, how hard could that be?

Daylight this time of year was short in the far north. Darkness had already consumed the forest when, after an all-day ride, Kyber decided that enough distance had been placed between the American and the farm to warrant making camp.

A generous fire crackled. Nikolai busied himself preparing the meal, something the prince had once admitted in secret that he thoroughly enjoyed. A pot of curry stew made in the palace kitchens hung over the flames. It bubbled, filling the quiet air with its fragrance.

With two mugs of hot coffee, Kyber made his way to where he’d left Scarlet. She sat propped up against a tree, her arms wrapped around her bent legs as she stared somewhere he couldn’t see.

He crouched down in front of her. She didn’t look at him, but her fingers flexed. “Thanks again for the medicine,” she said. “It’s a miracle.”

“It’s called science, Scarlet.”

She made a sound of agreement and her eyes shifted to him. “Cam,” she reminded him. “That’s my name. Scarlet’s my fighter-pilot call sign.”

He thought of all the weeks he’d called Bree Maguire “Banzai” and she’d never once corrected him.

“Cam is short for Cameron,” she offered helpfully when he didn’t reply.

“I guessed that.”

“Sorry. I suppose it’s not that much of a mental leap. Even for a barbarian.” Firelight outlined her profile. Under her eyes were shadows, but her mouth curved in a slight smile.

“Barbarian? Who was the one who employed civility to teach you recent history and the current state of world political affairs all afternoon, eh?”

“Politics told from the narrow perspective of an emperor’s minion.”

He had to laugh; her jibes were so sharp. “How do you know it’s not the truth?”

“You make it sound perfect here. No place is.”

“You have your opinion, Scarlet. . . .”

“The right one, yes. Anyway,” Cam went on, seemingly oblivious to his disbelieving expression—or perhaps fully cognizant of it and enjoying the hell out of goading him, “you did sound educated in your descriptions of the world. Opinionated, biased, yes, but not barbarian-like at all. And it’s Cam. You called me Scarlet again. A minute ago.”

He suppressed a smile as her eyes slid in the direction of his hands. “One of those for me?”

He’d completely forgotten he carried the coffee. He handed one to her. “No ‘sloppy seconds’ this time.”

Her mouth gave a mulish twist as she took the mug,
cradling it in two very feminine hands. Feminine, yes, but he well knew what unladylike things they were capable of doing.

She took a sip. “Mmm. That’s good coffee.”

“I have nothing but the best,” he started to say, fully prepared to regale her with the matchless offerings of his palace kitchens, then clamped his mouth closed. He didn’t want to be Kyber tonight. He wanted to be Kublai.

He liked being Kublai. It gave him a certain freedom of behavior.

He settled on the ground next to Cam. Sipping coffee side by side, they fell into silence. He wouldn’t call it fully companionable, but neither did it have the wariness of their earlier encounters. A day of sharing a saddle and conversation had a way of enforcing familiarity.

She inhaled the fragrance of the coffee and closed her eyes. “Good java,” she repeated. “So I guess you’re not as much of a barbarian as I thought.”

He could see the mischievous tilt to her mouth. “If that’s what it takes to convince you of my civility, I suppose I’ll take the vinegar with the honey.”

“Oh, I never said you were civilized. Just that you weren’t a barbarian.” Her blue eyes twinkled in the firelight. “Civilized equals boring.”

He did a double take. He could read her remark a dozen different ways, but somehow he knew she’d meant it for what it was: flirtation. He caught her gaze and held it. “All men, even the civilized, carry the beast within them.” He lowered his voice until it skated along the mellow edge of pillow talk. “The question is, To what degree? In only the most primal encounters would it become apparent.”

Cam didn’t look unsettled by his suggestive banter. “Hmm. An interesting theory that begs intensive research.” She kept her eyes on him.

“Provided both participants have the stamina,” he warned.

True heat arose between them. He saw the moment she felt it. Her thumbs, he noticed, had stopping rubbing back and forth over the rim of her coffee cup. She noticed him watching her and placed the mug on the ground.

“A barbarian’s hands will always give him away,” she commented.

He couldn’t stop himself from glancing down. She caught him, and he found himself wishing he hadn’t looked. “How is that?”

“The fingernails. That’s how you can tell brutes and barbarians from civilized people. Yours are clean.”

“And yours, dear Cam, are not.”

She brought her hands to her eyes. “Mercy,” she breathed, her speech taking on that delightful accent he’d never heard before meeting her. “Look at all that dirt. What would Mama say, bless her heart?”

“Who’s the barbarian now?” he asked smugly.

“We spent all day on horseback. Unlike me, you wore gloves.”

They returned to sipping coffee, each, he suspected, thinking themselves the victor. “A minute ago you used the turn of phrase ‘taking vinegar with the honey,’ ” she said. “It’s a very Southern figure of speech. As in the Deep South of the United States. Excuse me, the former United States. The UCE now.” She spat out the name as if it tasted bad. “The imperial power that owns everything
below Canada in the west, and the Middle East—how convenient—on the other side. How the U.S. ever agreed to this arrangement is something I can’t comprehend. In Central, do they still call the South the South?”

He shook his head. “My knowledge of the colony of Central doesn’t go to that depth.”

“Well, I hope they do.” She stopped and drank more coffee. Then she studied him, as if pondering his features—not easy, given the tattoo. “And you? You mentioned your people are Scottish and Chinese?”