Seduce Me in Flames (21 page)

“Don’t fret, my lord,” she soothed him, reaching to run her hands over his broad shoulders. “We will yet win the day from her. Just think of it as a new game. And the prize will be all the sweeter this time.”

Balkin’s dark eyes fixed on hers and the corner of his hard lips lifted in a small smile.

“Indeed. It’s only a shame she will be such a lacking opponent.”

Rush toyed with the VidPad on the conference table, flipping the handheld piece of technology over and over again very slowly and methodically, steadily watching it as it fell over, turned, fell over again. Bronse stood in the doorway of the conference room watching his munitions expert, fascinated by this brooding side of him. Ender was not known for emotional preoccupations. The soldier was two-dimensional when it came down to it. He liked to work, liked to blow things up, liked to sleep, and liked to eat. The most emotional he ever seemed to get was in his unwavering loyalty to the squad. So, Bronse had to assume that Ender’s disturbance was connected to the latter issue.

“Justice is fine, you know,” he spoke up, assuming that Ender was guilting himself about her injuries. “Jet tidied her up. She’s already in the training hall yelling at Kith.”

“That’s good,” he said quietly.

Now Bronse was doubly intrigued. If it wasn’t Justice, what was eating at the big Tarian? More important, how would the Special Active team leader get him to open up about it? Should he bother or should he leave Rush to his own devices?

The thing was, when you worked on a team as specialized and as high-intensity dangerous as theirs was,
one member’s problems became the entire team’s problem. Bronse had never been the type of leader who stuck his head in the sand and left his team members to their own devices, or the whole of their well-being to the professional circuit of psyche services and doctors they had at their fingertips. There was always a need for those doctors in a posttraumatic venue, and they were good at what they did, but Ender wasn’t suffering from trauma or a mental breakdown. He was just moody. And he had been ever since they’d landed in the bay of the IM station.

“Mind if I ask you something?” Bronse said, moving into the room more fully and grabbing the chair across the table from Ender. He turned it backward and straddled it, crossing his arms over the back as he trained a steady gaze on his man.

Ender’s response was rote. The rise and fall of one big shoulder.

“How the hell did you manage to avoid getting seared by that two-forty shot? I could swear you took it right in the gut.”

Ender’s fingers went still, the VidPad balancing for a moment. The hesitation lasted a fraction of an instant, but it grabbed all of Bronse’s attention.
Curious
.

“Guess I’m faster than I look,” the arms master said with another shrug. “It was close, though. I felt the heat.”

“I’m sure you did. Rush, I read your report. I know you’ve been debriefed, but I can’t help feeling there’s something you aren’t disclosing.”

Ender sat up straighter, turning so his body directly faced Bronse’s. It was as much of a defensive stance as Bronse had ever seen from a man who was still sitting down.

“I don’t know what you mean. I’ve told you everything there is to know.” The VidPad began to tap rapidly
against the tabletop. “I’m just a little … I’m going over things in my head, trying to figure out what I should have done, could have done differently.”

Rush did not disclose to his boss that he was talking about that damned kiss. He was utterly baffled by his own behavior. He’d shut himself off from those kinds of needs, from anything resembling desire. He knew well enough the danger it would pose to anyone who might be the object of that desire. There was so much about this power of his that could easily slip out of his control if he wasn’t careful. What had happened with Ambrea was full proof of that. Sure, she was fine. But he knew she had avoided the physician when she’d come on board so he wouldn’t see the burn on her back that very clearly looked like two handprints. She didn’t want to be put in the position of having to explain it, so she was letting herself heal the old-fashioned way. The harder way. The more uncomfortable way. Just to protect him.

That kind of chapped his ass. The whole stupid thing chapped his ass. If only he could figure out what the hell had gotten into him, then maybe he could figure out how to avoid it in the future.

“Rush, you’re being too hard on yourself,” Bronse said. “And I don’t know why, to be honest. Regardless of what happened or didn’t, what could have been avoided or not, you did what you usually do. You won the day. Tomorrow the princess will regain the throne of Allay and we will move on to the next mission. And on that mission you will do what you usually do. You will win the day.”

And therein lay the next thing on his mind. Tomorrow they were going to put Ambrea on top of her country, like an ornament meant to swing and sparkle for all to see, as if that would mean anything. But the cold, hard fact remained that she had no idea what she was doing, that she was being let loose in a box full of Hutha lions.
One day in that court and she’d be easily torn to shreds. And no matter how much he told himself it wasn’t his problem, he couldn’t ignore the overwhelming sick feeling that had taken hold of his gut. It was as though every instinct in his body was screaming at him to protect her. But why?

“It’s not my job to protect her,” he muttered aloud.

He realized he’d spoken into the room only when Commander Chapel suddenly sat up straight.

“Justice can take care of herself,” Bronse fished carefully.

Rush flicked a wry gaze at his commanding officer.

“I think we both know I’m not worried about Justice. Jus could kick my ass coming and going if she was pressed to it.”

The commander lifted a brow in agreement, his periwinkle eyes shining with amusement and no small amount of pride. Bronse took great satisfaction in the capability of his crew, be they straight soldiers or Chosen Ones. He was well versed in their strengths and their shortcomings.

“So we’re talking about the princess.”

“But it’s not my problem, right? She’ll have some kind of personal guard or something. And she’s managed to survive this long.”

“I think the empress of Allay chooses her personal guard for herself. Usually from the Imperial Guard.”

“Those corrupt little fuckers?” Rush ejected, his entire body going tight and tense. “And they were all probably handpicked by her uncle, or officers raised up by her uncle. She can’t trust any of them!”

Bronse watched as Rush pushed away from the table and out of his seat. He began to pace in his agitation, rubbing his fingertips over the shimmering blond spikes of his hair.

“Get under your skin, did she?” Bronse asked his arms master archly.

“No! I just—” He looked over at Bronse and threw away his denial with a nod. “A little bit. She has … strong convictions. I guess it’d be nice to see one of the good people win for a change. Your Great Being knows these worlds could use it.”

“Very true. But like you said, we have our own roles in seeing to that. We can’t be responsible for what happens outside of the job of the moment. Not if we are going to be effective soldiers. We just have to have faith that we’re helping to design the bigger picture. We threw our lot in with the IM because we know they are a worthy organization with a worthy agenda. But in the end we soldiers are only workers in a larger hive of activity. We have to move on. There are perhaps other princes of other countries in need of our talents.”

“I know that.” Rush nodded firmly, as if making up his mind on the matter. “You’re right. We’re both right.”

Rush reached to sweep up the VidPad and gave Bronse a resolute smile.

But Bronse had a feeling that Ender was not quite as convinced of his own directives as he would like to be.

Ravenna sighed softly, turning around in the arms of her lover. She opened her eyes, smiling before she even saw Bronse’s face. But instead of the warmth of periwinkle and his sweet devotion, she found herself staring into the cold, dark eyes of a stranger. His hands shot out and wrapped around her long throat, and he flung himself over her body, throwing all of his significant weight onto her chest, pinning her beneath his powerful frame.

The head priestess of the Chosen Ones tried to gasp for breath, tried to scream. But he was throttling her with a vehemence bordering on mania. The fury in his
eyes and the shuddering throughout his body were punctuated by the savage growl of rage he emitted.

“You stupid, stupid bitch! I’m going to choke you until your eyes explode in your head! Once and for all, I’m going to teach you not to cross me!”

Ravenna reached up for him, clawing at him in panic, desperately trying to figure out who he was, where he had come from. Where was Bronse? What had this maniac done with him? But all that faded away as tendons in her neck popped under the strain of his attack. The small delicate bones in her throat cracked even as she tried to gouge at his eyes.

Suddenly he yanked her up closer to his face, showing her the details of his otherwise handsome features, the marks of his age, the clean and kempt cut of his beard and hair. Reflected in his eyes, she could see herself.

Ravenna woke with a ragged, choking gasp, the violence of it nearly toppling her out of her bed. Her distress woke Bronse in an instant and he grabbed for her, pulling her around to look at him, his warm, loving hands coming to cradle her face.

“What? What is it?”

They had been together for two cycles now. More than long enough for him to know the difference between her waking from a bad dream and waking from a vision. For one, her face was tracked with the tears of her struggle with the attacker. Also, she was inadvertently clawing at her throat, trying to remove hands that were no longer there … That had never actually been there. Still, her visions were as real to her as the beautiful man holding her was.

“It’s all right, baby. Just breathe. You’re here and you’re safe,” he reminded her over and over again until it actually began to sink in. Eventually her hands left her throat and went to clutch at his bare skin. The warmth
of him was even more grounding. Slowly the familiar smell of him surrounded her.

She began to realize she was breathing. Easily.

“Bronse,” she rasped.

“Right here. Waiting for you,” he assured her.

“I need to see your last mission file,” she said, trying not to sound panicked. She knew her mate very well. If he thought she was acting or reacting too emotionally, he would make her pause, make her wait until she had calmed down. But the desperation racing through her blood told her that she didn’t have time to waste. Or at least she didn’t think she did. Regardless of how imminent the danger might be, there was danger and she had to figure out what it was.

The gods knew she didn’t want to keep reliving that particular vision over and over again while she stumbled around in mystery. They were persistent like that. If the forces that guided her abilities thought she was being dense, they’d beat her over the head until she was near dead with it.

His brows lifted at the request. She hadn’t been part of the mission and so had not been briefed on it. Usually an IM soldier not assigned to a mission wouldn’t be briefed, and shouldn’t be. And even though the Chosen Ones had particularly high clearance, it was an odd demand, one that was potentially rife with questions of ethics and protocol.

But that brief moment was all the time Bronse Chapel gave to those potential questions. Ravenna would never ask him about his missions without cause. He reached above the bed, fumbling with one hand for the secured VidPad he kept on the shelf there. His other hand never left her face, his fingers keeping a solid hold on her to reassure her that he was what was real, that he was there for her. No matter what. There was only one thing that could supersede Bronse’s love for the IM and his squad,
and she would never doubt that she was that one thing. Moments like this, small details like that hand on her face, reminded her of that far more than the words he whispered to her so fervently when they made love.

He pulled down the VidPad.

“Lights up,” he commanded. The low, heavily muted lighting they slept to raised up by half. Not quite full strength, but still bright enough to make her flinch. “Great Being, Ravenna,” he swore, his hand sliding to her throat where she had unwittingly raked at her own skin in the throes of the vision. All the while he was thumbing over the VidPad screen, leafing through files as rapidly as he could. “What do you need, baby?”

“Pictures. All the principals surrounding the princess of Allay.” She had known that much about the mission. That he had been sent to retrieve Allay’s rightful heir. She knew this because almost the entire Special Active team had gone with him, and things were talked about easily among the Chosen Ones. In fact, she had been the only one to remain behind.

Ravenna lowered her hand to her belly, anxiously rubbing at the unnoticeable reason why she had come up with an excuse not to be part of that mission. She couldn’t be but six weeks into her gestation, but it was enough to raise a flag on medical equipment if she were scanned or in need of some kind of repair after an injury. That, and ever since she’d realized she was carrying Bronse’s baby she’d been inexplicably terrified of letting it come to some kind of harm. The general rule of thumb in the IM was that they allowed pregnant soldiers to decide for themselves when they wanted to call it quits for active status. With differing species and differing races, and with gestations that followed all kinds of rules and no norms, they couldn’t set a specific guideline.