Edge of Control: (Viking Dystopian Romance) (28 page)

“Then she
stepped in front of me,
” one nasally voiced woman said, with great drama—“and
pressed herself
against him.”

“She
touched
him?” asked a breathy voice in return. As if she’d never heard anything so appalling in all her days.

“And
not with her hands,
” Nasally said, significantly.

“No,”
gasped Breathy.

Eiryn wanted to murder them both in cold blood. Her palms itched to close around the handle of a blade or the nearest blunt object—anything to make them stop talking.

Instead, she simply stepped over the threshold and walked swiftly inside as if she belonged there. She took a quick visual sweep of the room as she went. It was large and astonishingly lush, like every other part of this overfed place. There was a huge window on the far end that looked out over the party in the courtyard below and the crowded streets beyond the gates. Sumptuous fabrics and deluxe stonework with a level of detail Eiryn had never seen before adorned every surface, from the intricate trio of chandeliers that dominated the ceiling to the deep, burgundy carpeting beneath her feet that seemed to clutch at her as she walked over it. The room was set up into individual seating areas, collections of couches and tables here and there, enough to cater to a whole pack of royal compliants. But there were only two on offer.

Nasally and Breathy stood before a couch so delicate and overwrought that Eiryn doubted it could hold the weight of a single brother without snapping in half. Including herself. Each woman wore a great, gleaming, strapless dress in a different metallic shade that cascaded down to her feet like metal waterfalls. The dresses made them both glitter maniacally, reflecting dizzying light from the chandeliers above every time they took a breath.

The one in the copper dress was tall and very skinny, with her dark hair slicked up off her forehead, then left to tumble down, oddly unslicked, to brush against her exposed shoulder blades. She wore thick black junk around her eyes that made her dark eyelashes look long and thick, and there were hints of powder on her dark-hued cheekbones. Next to her, the one in the silver dress was built round and soft, with a peachy glow to her pale skin that again, Eiryn thought was as much powder as anything else. Her light brown hair was slicked back into a severe ponytail that made her look like some kind of balloon on a string.

They looked like idiots playing bizarre dress-up games.

“You look like princesses,” Eiryn said softly as she walked straight to them. She sensed movement behind her and tossed a glance over her shoulder in unnecessary confirmation that it was Riordan in the arched entry. Because of course it was. No one could possibly get past him.

“What?” asked Breathy, her silver dress blinding as she shook for no reason. Or then again, maybe she was looking at the huge and ferocious man suddenly looming there in the doorway. “Wait, is that—?”

“Of course we’re
princesses—
” Nasally exclaimed, her face already crumpling into a frown that looked a little too comfortable, as if, given time, she’d live forever with that expression on her face.

But it was clear neither one of them recognized the threat coming directly at them, because Eiryn was on them, then, and neither over-shiny female did a single thing to offer a defense. Another bummer. Because it was obvious to Eiryn that attacking two fluttery princesses outright would be nothing short of cruelty, no matter the bloodlust pumping inside her, urging her to create a little carnage. It was beneath her, really, to engage with two women she could snap into pieces without so much as breaking a sweat.

She approached it like a surgical strike. She tried to be kind. She lashed out with her left fist and hit silvery Breathy in the solar plexus, hard enough to make the soft woman crumple over and gasp for breath, but not hard enough to do any lasting damage. While she was trying to breathe, Eiryn hauled skinny, coppery Nasally to her and choked her out. It took about three seconds and was almost silent. That meant that just as Breathy looked as if she might try to breathe normally again, Eiryn took her out with a little love tap to the temple. Using her palm, because these women weren’t her enemies. They weren’t any kind of opponents. They were hapless weaklings in overly colorful dresses who happened to be standing in the wrong place right when Eiryn needed to pretend she was one of them. She didn’t need to break any bones or kill them.

Honor forbade it. But that meant it was so easy it was no pleasure at all. Two pulled punches and a laughably easy choke. And just like that there was a pile of gleaming princesses on the pretty little couch.

Eiryn scowled down at them.

“I’m not doing that weird shit to my hair,” she muttered grumpily, then looked back over her shoulder.

Riordan crossed his arms and propped himself up against the arched entryway. He shook his head, his gaze on the unconscious women in their metallic heap. “I don’t know how you could possibly make your hair do that even if you felt like it.”

Eiryn sighed, because there was no time to stand here and debate the mystery of princess hair, a conversation she thought might go on for some time.

“I’m hoping the dress alone will be so blinding that I can bluff my way into wherever the bishop is.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Riordan shifted his attention back to the hallway. “And if it doesn’t work, we’ll get to him another way. He’s a priest. What’s he going to do? Pray at us?”

“Says the man who won’t be wearing a shiny, blinding carburetor masquerading as a dress.”

Riordan let out that low laugh. The one she liked best. The one she kept imagining was only for her. Because she was an idiot. Again.

“The carburetor will be too big for you. Try the weird copper one.”

Eiryn gritted her teeth at the thought of actually wearing either bizarre get up and reached down to rearrange the princesses on the couch before her. She eyed the bony one, finding her dress fastening on the side of the copper bodice and opening it up. Then it was easy enough to tug it down toward the floor and off her body. She learned a few things about princesses while she did it. First, they didn’t bind their breasts. Or this one didn’t. And furthermore, this one had removed every last speck of hair from her pussy. Personal preference or one of those strangely specific compliant rules for the care and maintenance of aristocratic pussy-for-hire? She supposed she’d never know.

When she’d freed the dress from Nasally’s feet, she sighed again. She held the headache-bright dress up against her own chest, hoping fervently it wouldn’t fit. But it wasn’t that far off, sadly. She tossed it on the arm of the elegant couch, then got on with it, sweeping her T-shirt up and over her head and letting it drop on the floor. Because the princess wasn’t wearing any binding and she was nothing if not thorough in her commitment to passing for various compliant women, she unwrapped herself and dropped her length of wool, too. Then she reached over to grab the dress again, and that was when she heard it.

Soft. Sharp.

But undeniably an intake of breath.

Which meant someone was in this room with them.

Eiryn went on instant high alert. She did another visual sweep of the room even as she crouched down to pull her dagger from her boot. As she stood again, she felt more than heard Riordan move in behind her.

She was headed for the window and the set of heavy, brocaded curtains that hung on either side of it even as Riordan called it out.

“The window,” he barked, all the laughter gone from his voice.

But before she could get to the window, the heavy curtain beside it rippled and a woman stepped out from behind it.

Another princess, clearly. Or maybe
the
princess, if there was such a thing.

The woman standing there, framed by the window and the richly patterned curtains, was one of the most beautiful creatures Eiryn had ever seen and that included the almost supernaturally pretty Maud. She had soft brown skin and melting dark eyes shot through with gold that canted slightly upward in the corners. Her lashes looked long and thick without any dark crap all over them. She had lush, full lips, a straight, elegant nose, and the kind of cheekbones that suggested she might actually be a queen in her spare time. Her hair was cut short in a way that reminded Eiryn of Maud again, though this woman’s was dark black, straight, and slicked close to her head. Her dress was pure gold. It shimmered down the length of her lovely, soft, and obviously pampered body, making her seem to gleam from within rather than reflect the light from around her like the others.

“Please don’t kill me,” the princess said, in a voice that was neither breathy nor nasal. If anything, she sounded calm, which made another alarm go off inside Eiryn.

Those compelling dark gold eyes widened as the woman took in Riordan and didn’t get any less wide when she looked back to Eiryn. She swallowed. Then she dropped her gaze to the intricate web of tattoos that spanned Eiryn’s side, a map of battles won and enemies her blade had claimed. The story of who she was, stamped deep into her skin.

This princess’s voice was hushed. “You’re raiders, aren’t you?”

The shock of that went through Eiryn like a bolt of lightning. Beside her, she felt Riordan tense.

“I didn’t know women could be raiders.” The princess hazarded a smile, as pretty as the rest of her, which suddenly and oddly made Eiryn feel like a great, lumbering beast in comparison. It only added to her burning desire to add this creature to her pile of princesses. Then the gold woman laughed slightly, as if she wasn’t three seconds away from pain and a few hours of forced oblivion. “Not that it matters. What are you doing
here
? I thought I’d have to sell myself to the bandits to find you.”

Eiryn lowered her dagger. She bent to tuck it back in her boot and when she rose she folded her arms beneath her breasts as if she wasn’t standing there, half-naked, while a gloriously shimmering golden creature
glittered
there in front of her, like the physical representation of all the delirious femininity Eiryn would never, ever possess. Then again, this female had obviously never laid eyes on a woman warrior before, so maybe they were even.

Still, she was afraid that if she looked at Riordan to gauge his reaction to all the feminine perfection before them, she would be forced to carve out his kidneys with her bare hands.

A feeling she opted not to analyze too closely.

“Who the hell are you?” Riordan growled, sounding like he might deserve to keep his kidneys. For the moment.

Eiryn still didn’t spare him a glance. She knew better than most that seemingly unthreatening women could actually be the most lethal creatures in any given room. Especially when they didn’t look it.

“And why were you hiding?” She cocked her head slightly as she tried to read the glowing golden vision before her. “Were you spying on us?”

“I’m Kathlyn,” the princess said. “My father is King Athenian.” When neither Riordan nor Eiryn reacted to that name, she blinked, as if that was unusual. She nodded toward the heap of princesses on the couch. “I’ve known Portia and Dhina my whole life and believe me, you’d hide from them too.” She eyed Eiryn, then. “Well, you don’t have to, of course. You’re the only person I’ve ever met who could shut them up.”

“Why would you be looking for raiders?” Eiryn asked, keeping her attention where it belonged. “Most people—smart people—run the other way. Do you have a death wish?”

Kathlyn’s smile did not reach her eyes. “I’m King Athenian’s only daughter,” she said. “A death wish would be redundant.”

“None of this matters,” Riordan muttered darkly. “Exciting as it is to find princesses hidden in the furniture.”

Eiryn moved toward Kathlyn, her hand already curving into a fist. To her credit, the princess didn’t back away or cringe. She only stood there in that same elegant way, her head up and her hands at her sides, practically offering herself as a target. Eiryn couldn’t have said why that tugged at her.

“I need to tell you about my father,” she said, her voice still calm, though there was an undercurrent of a certain urgency. “Then, by all means, knock me out all you like.”

Eiryn shook her head. “We have daddy issues of our own. What do we want with yours?”

“My father is the most powerful of the western kings,” the princess said, as if they should care deeply about that. “His territory spans most of the Great Basin, for a start.”

“I’ll make sure to congratulate him the next time I see him.” Riordan started moving toward the door, stopping only to swipe the copper dress up off the floor. With a muttered
head’s up,
he threw it over to Eiryn, who reached up and snatched it out of the air.

“You don’t need that dress,” Kathlyn told her. Still so calmly, as if there was no pressure or threat here. Or, Eiryn corrected herself, if she was used to both. “I can take you to the bishop, if you’re sure you really want that. He stays in his confessional until midnight.”

“Start talking,” Eiryn suggested softly. “You have about two minutes before I drop you.”

She stepped into the copper dress and pulled it up over her jeans and boots, then over her breasts. The material was cool inside and out, and slippery. She couldn’t say she liked the feel of it against her skin, like plastic. She kept her eyes on Kathlyn as she fought to zip it up, her toned muscles a little wider and more solid than the skinny woman’s frame.

“My father is a man of many obsessions,” Kathlyn said while Eiryn dressed. “He calls them hobbies. Or wars. Bishop Seph is just one of the influential leaders of the western highlands he likes to keep in his pocket in case another obsession hits him.”

Eiryn went still at that, and she didn’t have to look to know that Riordan had, too.

The princess looked from Eiryn to Riordan, then pressed on. “He’s been particularly obsessed with finding a certain vagabond family for years. He claimed they stole an artifact from him and he wanted it back.”

“What artifact?” Eiryn asked.

“Some old tablet.” Kathlyn laced her fingers together in front of her. “Every time the bishop would come to pay his annual respects after the June solstice, my father would rant and rave about the indignity of having to chase these people across the drowned Earth. By which I mean he sent hired men. He certainly didn’t do it himself.”