Overlord: The Fringe, Book 2 (7 page)

She considered that option as she watched him take a sip from his cup.

“You wouldn’t get far, wouldn’t have long, but you’d give the short remainder of your life to read this scrap of paper.” He picked it up and held it tantalizingly out of reach.

She ignored the extravagant coffee to sip from her water goblet. “So now the game
is
information.”

“Quid pro quo,” he tossed off with a smug grin, as if she wouldn’t know Latin.

She made her voice country-simple. “Sumpen’ for sumpen’.”

His eyebrows rose with surprise, pleasure, then intrigue.

She dropped the twang from her voice. “You think I’m an uneducated peasant.”

“Not anymore.”

“I tell you what you want to know, and you tell me what you
think
I want to know.” She cast him a sly grin. “You are as subtle as a cow pie in the church collection plate.”

He considered the report with a puzzled frown. “This report indicates you are of average intelligence, yet you display remarkable insight.” When his eyes met hers, the golden-brown depths glowed with challenge.

Twenty years of physical fighting, at least the same amount mastering the art of verbal sparring, made him a formidable opponent.
He’s no Overlord, but he does have a compelling quality.
Almost as soon as the thought crossed her mind, she dismissed it. She would gain nothing thinking that way.

“Cunning, challenging.” She lifted the too big bodice of her dress and wiped her mouth. “By the same measure, you are condescending, conceited, capricious and a shade shy of cruel.” She nodded to the report by his plate. “If you’ll look closer, it should state that I am Remarkably Average Mary No-last-name.”

His gaze dropped to the report.

“Ha! Made you look.”

Dagger-filled, his gaze settled on her. “Remarkably Average Mary No-last-name.” He tossed the paper at her feet. “It sums you up. In more ways than you think.”

Clearly, he expected her to lunge for the report, like a hound at his master’s table scrap.

“This is what I think of your report.” She took her cup of steaming coffee and poured it over the folded paper. Splashes of expensive hot brown liquid splattered off the white onto the blond hardwood floor. She dribbled her entire cup on his report, then dumped cream and sugar on it as well. She looked up, made sure he watched her, stood and tromped her bare foot on the whole mess with a satisfying squish.

“Take your report, twirl it tight and stuff it.” She sat, wiped her foot off on the crisp linen tablecloth and stood again. “I’m not giving you a damn thing.”

Head held high, she marched to the doorway and turned back. “Do yourself a favor—cut me loose.” She shook her head at him as if reproving a child. “You can’t buy me, you can’t entice me and, in case you missed it, you can’t manipulate me with information, either.”

Commander sat at the table, his coffee cup paused halfway to his mouth, as if stunned speechless.

“You think that piece of paper gives you the heads-up on me?” She laughed as she tapped her finger against her head. “If you take it as gospel, what folks in Pine Glenn are inclined to say, you’re fooling yourself. And you have my permission to do so.”

He considered her with that stripping gaze. “Sounds like you don’t know what the truth about yourself is.”

“After everything hurled at me, nasty names and comments pointed, you think I should take
your
word for the truth?” She cast him an incredulous glare. “With my pathetic, parentless childhood, don’t you think I’ve met my share of taunting bullies?”

He pulled back just a fraction, and she knew she’d surprised him again.

“Take that mess on the floor and say it’s the truth, the whole truth and nothing but.” She nodded to the sodden mess. “Do you think if it came from your hand I would believe it?”

He considered the mess, then her. “You wouldn’t take my word as backing to your own name. Not that you know your own name.”

He wanted the comment to hurt. And it did. But she refused to let it show. “Great.” She uttered a self-deprecating laugh. “I don’t know my name
or
yours. Shouldn’t that make us even?”

He bristled like a man unaccustomed to losing an argument.

“You can’t hold my supposed truth over my head like a dangling carrot.” She curtsied her skirt to him. “As I said, I’m not a farm donkey. I won’t follow just because you lead. No matter how big your carrot.”

He lifted an eyebrow as he shot her that enigmatic half grin.

She closed her eyes in horror as the double entendre caught up to her mind long after her mouth finished. He must have one hell of a big carrot from the size of the rest of him. She opened her eyes and looked right at the table where she’d be able to see his leather-clad crotch, if only that pesky ivory tablecloth didn’t block the view.

Pushing back from the table, he gave her a clear line of sight and gave his hips a minor but suggestive thrust. “No matter how enticing, how
big
, my carrot, you won’t consider a trade?”

A flush crept across her face as she tore her gaze away and turned her back to him. “I’m not making another deal with the devil.”

“Devil? I’ve fallen from the grace of being called a bastard.” His voice rolled raw and powerful as a landslide.

“Tell me your name, and I’d gladly—”

“Find a way to abuse it in a vulgar fashion the likes of which I’ve never heard.” He chuckled. “No deal, Mary.”

“Fine, Co-man-dur.”

“See what I mean?”

She grinned but still didn’t turn to face him. She didn’t need to. She knew what his angular face would look like. How big and strong and aggressive his body looked encased in that hot red silk and smoldering black leather. It was just her damned luck to end up captive to the sexiest devil in the Void.

“Yeah-huh. No more deals.”

Chapter Six

Michael watched Mary march out of the solarium with her head held high. Her attitude amazed him. Knowing herself—good, bad and ugly—allowed her to walk away from him without a backward glance. What did a name or a birthday matter?

Even clad in an ill-fitting dress, she radiated pride. Bind her naked in chains, and she’d still maintain her self-respect, not to mention fight.

With a glance at the mess she’d left behind, he turned his attention to the stack of morning reports, trying not to dwell on what it would be like to have his baffling bandit naked, in chains and at his utter mercy, because she already was. With a snap of his fingers, he could have her so offered to him.

“And then what? Rape her? Smell that horrific stench of terror reeking from every last bit of her beautiful flesh?”

Michael took a long drink of his orange juice. The citrus wiped the smell-memory from his mind. He’d never raped a woman, never wanted to, but he’d smelled what it did to them. Rape left one of the worst emotional scents he’d ever encountered. Such a powerful odor clung to a woman long after the original event. Mary did not have that damnable stench. Not only would he not inflict it on her, but also he found himself wanting to protect her from ever experiencing such abuse.

He thought he’d found a vulnerable spot when he accidentally stumbled on her parentage. She wanted to know with a desperation he could smell, yet she refused to trade information. And money couldn’t buy her secrets from her, but seduction? Well, she showed promise there. Win or lose, he had no reservations about trying.

Over the long years of building his empire, he’d seduced plenty of women. He had closets of dresses that were tossed at his feet, some never even put on at all, like the one Mary wore. But she knew he tried to mock her with the expensive dress and turned the tables on him. He’d almost laughed when she kept using the dress as a napkin to wipe her face during breakfast.

Despite his subtle digs, she kept her back straight and her mind focused. All the while, she hungered for him. He knew she did, because he could read the edges of her scent.

Desire rolled from her in mixed floral high notes with a shock of citrus, tempered by dark compost, the edges of genuine fear. Fear and desire, tandem. For the man she knew only as Commander. She tried to hide her confusion, but the pheromones of her tall, slender body betrayed her.

With his nose, his mouth, he could read subtle chemical changes in humans. Lies and lust, hate and fear; everything took a definable scent in his mind and a tang in his mouth. So rare, his talent did not have a common name, so he created one:

Emotichemical perceptionist.

Mary hit him in complex and conflicting waves. Just as he’d made progress defining one scent, she altered course, often with screeching turns. Like a flitterfly darting, her emotional scent shifted between fear and desire.

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary.”

In many ways, Mary echoed Kraft: strong, focused and determined. In other ways, not so much. Where Kraft used her wit with a subtle grace, Mary swung her wit like a sledgehammer, smashing the tender parts of his psyche. Mary struck with verbal furor until she landed a painful blow, then hit the same spot repeatedly until he lashed back.

And he thought seducing Mary would be easy. Nothing about her came easy or simple or even obvious. Working to untangle her secret would command his full attention, all his skills, and would likely result in the loss of his own secret.

“How would she behave if she knew who I am?”

He pondered it while he sipped his coffee. With a sigh, he gazed out the flexiglass to the lush green surrounding the waterfall in the aviary. Often, he came here to center himself, but he couldn’t find inner peace today.

Who am I?

Mary informed him he was a little boy in a man’s body who thought only of himself. He was a ruthless, royal and smug bastard. At one time, he’d actually named his planet Prime Bastard, because everyone called him a bastard within five minutes of introduction; however, Duster beleaguered the name.

“I don’t want to go around introducing myself as Duster Jennings, Master-of-Arms to Prime Bastard. Any lady worth her salt will run screaming the other direction.”

When he refused to budge, Duster offered a challenging puzzle. Michael had to solve the three-dimensional crossword in the allotted time, or Duster would get to name the planet.

“Windmere.”

Michael made a deal and, even though he regretted the outcome, he didn’t go back on his word. When he’d asked Duster to explain the name, he refused and said, “Got the naming, not the explaining.”

With enough pomp and circumstance to gag a thousand elves, he swore in Duster Jennings as Master-of-Arms to Windmere.

What’s in a name?

Remarkably Average Mary. Whoever pinned that name on her should be hauled up against the nearest wall and slapped. It was so wrong in so many ways he wouldn’t know where to start. He felt the same anger over Windmere. Stupid, poofy name wouldn’t intimidate anyone.

“I am Michael Parker, Commander of Windmere.” He rolled his eyes at how lame it sounded. Lifting his chest, he bellowed, “I am Michael Parker, Commander of Prime Bastard.” He smiled. “Now
that
would strike fear in someone’s heart.”

His thoughts turned again to Remarkably Average Mary. After a comment by the bounty hunter, his guards re-dubbed her Scary Mary. Michael wouldn’t go that far, but she didn’t seem average at anything he’d seen. Her physical, verbal and mental skills were off the charts. Her scent was so complex to be almost unreadable but for the fringes: hard-edge compost fear and floral citrus desire.

Anxiety pulsed through him, dancing along his nerves as desire raced with it. A powerful fusion he was not familiar with. Rarely did he find his wants thwarted. If he couldn’t buy something, he took it. But for Mary. He couldn’t buy her and wouldn’t take her.

“So what choice does that leave me?”

Seduce her.

He left the solarium with the stack of morning reports gripped in his fist. He didn’t often sit and contemplate his life. He didn’t enjoy the view it gave him of himself. Mary had indeed held a mirror up to him. The longer he looked, the less he saw of details about himself he liked.

Chapter Seven

Twice, Mary had to ask House for directions to get back to her room after breakfast.

She regretted dumping real coffee on the floor, but she needed Commander to get the point—it didn’t matter what was on that stupid piece of paper, she wouldn’t have believed it anyway.

He’d struck a nerve, though. She’d been obsessed with finding out the truth of her parents since the age of twelve. Five years ago, a new obsession filled her, yet the need to know her parents still simmered in the back of her mind.

She considered telling him what he wanted to know but didn’t think he would let her go even if she did.

Escape paramount in her mind, she set out to examine everything in her bedroom. Exquisite dresses in all colors and sizes, reeking of a hundred individual perfumes, stuffed both walk-in closets. As she checked them for any potential weapons, she wondered why he kept them. Maybe they were trophies. Perhaps he’d kept one dress for each of his victims. If he had, he’d been a very busy man and probably didn’t have time for anything else.

She looked down at the dress he gave her. Had it been Kraft’s? Since it smelled brand spanking new, she didn’t think so. Did he think she would cast it off to him as another offering at his feet like all the rest?

“Not in this lifetime, pal.” Even at gunpoint, she wouldn’t surrender her ill-fitting frock. “I’ll wear this damn dress till it can stand at attention in the corner.”

Mary owned one homespun brown dress with a tatted lace collar. From a book, she learned how to tat, and made the collar to wear on her dress for church services. The delicate lace she’d slaved over for months wouldn’t help her dress to look more than a cleaning rag amongst the finery before her.

She blinked back tears at a sudden insight. She knew she’d still look ridiculous even if the dress she wore fit. Slap all the fancies in the world on a stick, and it was still just a stick. She looked as silly as a scarecrow trying to be elegant.

If she ever met Overlord, he’d barely notice her before he moved on. His gaze would fall on a woman who looked, smelled and acted like a woman. Someone fashionable and slinky, not a scuffed-up tomboy like her.