Seduce Me in Flames (35 page)

All of Ambrea’s courage washed away in that single act of aggression. She reeled back in time to those endless cycles spent under his boot heel, facing down his rage, her life hanging in the balance. Rush saw it all in her face in that instant. But as quickly as Balkin had pulled at her, Rush was seizing him around his throat, hard up under his jaw and yanking him several inches upward. Balkin released Ambrea even as Rush used his own body to move her away and out of any further reach. Balkin was startled to feel someone lay hands on him, but he didn’t waste time pulling a weapon—a short knife that Rush realized had been far too close to Ambrea just moments ago. The knife slashed at Rush’s face,
and he had to let go of Balkin to block him and keep the sharp blade from gouging a path through his throat.

Ambrea fell back at Rush’s body check, Suna’s quick presence at her back keeping her from spilling onto the floor. She watched as Balkin spent no time regrouping. He lunged for Rush with a vicious roar of fury, the man a great wall of muscle and darkness that suddenly seemed on par with Rush’s towering strength. Ambrea felt her heart leap into her throat as Balkin’s blade and fist slammed into Rush’s chest. Only the Tarian’s lastminute turn of his body and the swift catch of his hand forced the blade to glance aside rather than sink deep into his flesh. But the power of Balkin’s strike still set Rush back a step, still kept him on the defensive. He was armed, Ambrea knew, in several places. She had seen as much as he had stripped before her, peeling away all those layers of pure soldier and still leaving behind an extraordinary warrior even in his naked skin.

But Balkin was in a rage, savagely attacking, yet with the deadly grace of a skill honed sharply over the many cycles of his life. He was a good twenty cycles older than Rush, but it didn’t show. Except perhaps in his hand-to-hand skill and the relentless way he tried to sink his blade into Rush’s skin.

Then it happened. He got under Rush’s guard and metal sank into flesh, the blade finding a home in Rush’s left shoulder. When Balkin pulled back with a victorious shout, a brilliant crimson shower of blood arced off the blade, the momentum of it splattering across Ambrea’s face. Shocked and afraid, she reached up to touch the wet warmth of it.

“Suna! Get your mistress clear!” Rush roared out the command even as he lunged for Balkin, tackling him down to the ground so hard that they both skidded over the smooth tile flooring until they reached the bamboo runner leading up to Ambrea’s throne. The runner protected
the beautiful carpet beneath from the wear and tear of court traffic.

Suna was pulling on Ambrea, saying something to her, but she shrugged off her companion, unable to allow herself to leave when Rush was fighting for his life and for hers. Ambrea was aware of growing shouts from her so-called respectable nobles and courtiers.

“Kill him!”

“It’s about time someone did something about him!”

The bloodthirsty commands were everywhere at once, or so it seemed to her. She couldn’t tell whom they were rooting for or whom they were against. But she did notice that the Imperial Guard stood where they were, making no move to help either man.

She realized it was because this was the real tipping point. Blood-born heirs and official rights meant nothing to them. In the end it came down to who was going to be stronger in a down-and-dirty dogfight. In the end it was going to be about who had the real power in that room, the dictatorial Allayan who had held his country in fearful bondage for so long, or the strangely altruistic Allayan princess and her Tarian champion.

“Come, my lady queen, you must get to safety,” a soft voice suddenly urged her, a gentle hand touching her arm. Ambrea looked dazedly into the eyes of the Lady Eirie, a kind noblewoman who had been lately steadily guiding Ambrea and Suna in the finer points of courtly etiquettes and royal expectations.

“Yes, please,” Suna spoke up as well. “If Balkin should try and turn on you—”

“I have no fear of that,” Ambrea said quietly, the understanding putting renewed strength into her backbone. “Rush will never let him touch me again.”

“But your man is wounded already,” Lady Eirie said. “As he bleeds he weakens. Balkin is mad with rage. Madam, I fear for you!”

“I do not,” Ambrea said with sudden and decisive strength. “And I will not leave this room and let them think this savagery is acceptable in my court. I will not leave Rush to win this battle alone.”

But just as Ambrea was opening her mouth to command the Imperial Guard into action, the whine and percussive force of laser fire sent a bolt across the room, the shot coming close enough to singe the hair of her uncle’s eyebrows. There was the sound of the gun’s shuttle recocking as Justice stepped into sight and aimed the pistol in her hand right at Balkin’s head.

“I hate it when I miss like that,” she ground out between tight teeth.

Balkin was heaving for breath, his face florid with his rage and his exertions in the fight, but he had come to a decisive stop. His blade was clutched in a bloody hand, poised to strike again, frozen in a tableau of unrealized violence.

“Drop the blade,” Justice commanded with a sharpened emphasis on each word.

Now that an outsider had intervened, suddenly everyone seemed to remember protocol and laws and responsibilities to act. The Imperial Guard stepped up to seize the two combatants, dragging them to their feet and then cuffing them before presenting them forward to the empress whom they had mightily offended by acting with unsanctioned violence in her presence. Or that was how the law saw it. And the law was unbiased. It would find Rush equally as responsible for the offense as it would find Balkin because Rush was not an Imperial Guard, and technically only the Imperial Guard could act in physical defense of the empress.

Technically.

And her uncle, being of royal blood and family, was freer than most to put his hands on her. The worst he had done was grab hold of her arm, up to that point.
She had no doubt, as Rush had clearly had no doubt, that he would have gone further. It had been in his expression, in his words, and in every ounce of his aura. But supposition was not fact.

And then if she were to free Rush, a distrusted alien, from all punishment but condemn her uncle, a member of the royal family, it could invite negative public opinion. And public opinion meant everything to her fledgling reign. She would make no progress and get nothing done if her people turned against her. It was bad enough that she had so recently seemed to make a wide-sweeping political decision based on the advice of someone whom so many of them deemed untrustworthy.

Suddenly what had seemed like an impulsive act of violence on her uncle’s part began to feel far more clever and sinister. He had seen an opportunity to force her into a position that he knew she didn’t want to be in, into a position that could very well require her to send them equally to prison, or perhaps send Rush to prison and grant her uncle the special consideration that would be expected when it came to a member of the royal family. Balkin had known he was far more protected, that he could claim he acted in self-defense because no commoner, least of all some Tarian beast, had the right to touch a member of the imperial family without permission. In a single act, her uncle had put her into a position to send away the only thing standing in protection of her, the only person who cared whether she lived or died. All of the Allayan people, all of her soldiers, were numb from the political machinations of these past months. As far as they were concerned, they wouldn’t believe her power and stability until they saw it for themselves.

And yet all she could see, all she could feel right then, was the blood running down Rush’s arm. He was wearing a short-sleeved Skintex shirt, the black material
molded to his body tightly beneath the heavier bulk of the lazily draped shock vest. Now that the Skintex material was saturated, blood ran in a series of crisscrossing rivulets down his arm, some stopping at his elbow before dripping onto the floor, some continuing to meander down to his bound wrist and fingers before dropping into a puddle of their own. Rush was breathing hard, his russet eyes full of fury as they stared at her. He knew as much as she did what was on the line as she stood there presented with an impossible choice. Ambrea had no doubt that the fury she was seeing was self-directed and perhaps a much-thwarted desire to slit her uncle’s throat. Rush was no doubt wishing he’d done exactly that while the opportunity had presented itself, but she was glad he had shown restraint.

Restraint. That was why he had been injured, she suddenly realized. She had never once seen him come so close to being critically wounded, and the only reason she was seeing it now was because he had become aware long before she had what the consequences might be if he drew blood from her uncle. Without his IM uniform to protect him, he would have been executed.

Could have been executed.

But this was not her father’s realm any longer, and she would not continue to live by her father’s rules. She might have to bend a little against her desires and instincts because of traditions and public expectations, but she would not be ruled when it was she who should be ruling instead.

She made a noisy tsk with her tongue, pacing a few short steps across the paths of her uncle and her lover. She was aware of the press of the room behind the two detained men, aware that all eyes were steadily trained on her and waiting for what move she would make next. Would she prove herself a pushover or a tyrant? Was she indeed under the thrall of her Tarian so much that law
and respectful tradition would mean nothing? Was she too weak to stand up to her bully of an uncle? Was she as savage as the rest of her blood who would think nothing of unfairly tormenting or murdering those who crossed her, be they of royal blood or not?

It was enough to paralyze her, and it might have done so if she’d had the time and luxury of indecision.

“Gentlemen, you have behaved very badly,” she scolded them, rather like they were scrapping boys in a schoolyard rather than great offenders of her crown. “This is perhaps why it is long past time for a woman’s touch in this empire. Men are much too hotheaded and bloodthirsty.”

Chuckles jumped through the waiting crowd, popping up here and there in light touches.

“Uncle,” she said standing before him. “This is clearly my fault. I have been remiss in explaining myself to you. So let me make myself resoundingly clear.” She stepped closer to him. “You are never to touch me again. Unless I hold my hand out to you to kiss it or extend my foot to you to hold it, your skin is never again to touch mine, your physical body is never to contact mine. If it does, it will be seen by me and those who protect me as an act of treason. It is only by my large ability to forgive your trespasses against me, and my keen understanding that no one knows the workings of this realm better than you, that I have tolerated your existence in my sphere. Rest assured, however, that once your usefulness to me is ended, you and all who side with you will find themselves banished to the coldest, darkest province in Allay where no one but the Great Being will ever have to set eyes on you again. The last thing my people need is the poison you have readily injected into their lives all of these cycles. And so the farther away you are from any sort of position of power that could potentially hurt them, the happier they and I will be.”

Then she turned to the Tarian before her, her eyes moving slowly over him from head to toe, carefully assessing him for any potential need for immediate care. He looked as powerful as ever, perhaps more so because he was riled up and frustrated. His muscles were bunched around his shoulders and down his arms, tense with his temper and, no doubt, with pain.

“My Tarian friend,” she said strongly, making certain that all of the court heard her, heard the respect with which she addressed him. A respect she would always use toward him. He had brought her so far in so many ways. “I thank you for your quick actions in protecting me. I only regret that I did not make it clearer to all of my people that, regardless of your lack of proper uniform, I have appointed you as Regal General, head of my Imperial Forces.”

Therefore making it perfectly legal for him to act in her defense.

“Forgive me for allowing the misunderstanding. Guards, you will please uncuff him. My uncle as well. But I suggest you remove my uncle from my sight for the remainder of the day.”

Then she turned and walked toward the rear exit of the room.

“General, follow me so my medic can attend your wound,” she said needlessly. It was unlikely that he would let her go anywhere without him.

The travel time to the Allay IM planetside depot was relatively short by most standards, but for Bronse the time it took was interminable. He held Ravenna close as the transport driver whisked them along. With the driver’s attention focused forward, they were as good as alone. And it was a good thing too. Whatever Ravenna had ingested or been affected by was acting like a powerful
aphrodisiac. She couldn’t keep her hands in neutral quarters, and her words were twice as volatile.

“I want to make you hard for me,” she breathed against his cheek. “I want you to hunger for me the way I am hungering for you.”

It would have been a knee-jerk reaction for him to be aroused by her words and actions. It had always been so easy for her to turn him on. But the understanding that she was in danger left him cold inside. What was more, his concern was split in two. He was worried about Justice being alone in the Allay court. He should have waited for relief to arrive before leaving, but if this was poison, he knew that every second would count. And it wasn’t just Ravenna’s life on the line.

“How fares our child?” he asked her softly.

For the first time she stilled, stopped squirming against him, stopped stroking her hands over him. She had straddled his lap at some point and now looked him straight in the face. She tilted her head as if thinking about it for a moment. As a Chosen One with the ability to see the future in short but powerfully clear snippets, she also seemed to have an inner connection to their baby. Or perhaps this was true of all Chosen women. There was no way of knowing because all of their history had been lost in the Nomaadic raid they had fled from. All except the history in the remaining Chosen Ones’ memories.