The Pale Waters (#1 Reclaimed Souls) (7 page)

“Privileges? I am not
owned
by
Roland. In fact, the man has no claims upon me whatsoever except
for my work, and for that, I need to leave for a few hours.”

“Do you even know
how
to leave the
Palace Skyscraper?” Cat’s expression says it all:
I got you
there, didn’t I?

Hm. Yes, this is a problem. I do not even
know how to find my room again, much less the front door, but
something she said last night comes to mind.

“You mentioned that the tropical gardens are
opened to the public, yes? Well, I’ll find the way out through a
public
visitor entrance.”

Cat’s eyes narrow and her pink mouth bunches
up slightly. I expect her to hiss at me like an angry cat. Her
tablet beeps just as someone pounds on the door to my lab.

“Roland is here,” Cat announces
unnecessarily.

“Good. You can relay my request to him.
Also, I need money.” I cross my arms across my chest. Neither of us
move.

The knocking continues, and the booms echo
throughout my lab.

“Only you can open the door, Rahda.”

“He can wait a moment. How much money do you
have on you?” Given that she’s wearing a sheer fabriskin and I do
not see any sort of currency pouch on her, I doubt she can give me
what I need.

“Only peasants discuss money. It is vulgar
and insulting. If permission is given, I will issue a Palace
voucher.”

I roll my eyes.

“Open the goddamn door, Rahda,” Roland yells
from the other side.

“A Palace voucher is worthless where I’m
going,” I say in response to Cat’s statement.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Cat
says quietly. “All of this is highly irregular.” She looks again at
the six stacks of the former research assistants’ work. I am
nothing like them, her gaze seems to say. Her tablet beeps again,
and its glow brightens her lovely face. “He isn’t happy.” Cat,
however, doesn’t seem unhappy. She’s curious. She’s wondering. And
she knows that I am not to be trusted.

I feel the same about her.

Moving around her, I reach for the door, and
it glides open before I touch it. It knows my intent, I think, just
as Roland’s hulking shadow lingers there in the dimly lit hallway.
The light from my lab reaches his chest as he barks an order to his
chief of staff.

“Cat, out!”

As Cat leaves, her long fingers brush up
against mine and she presses something cold into my hand, and as
gentle as a whisper, she disappears through the doorway. The moment
she’s through the threshold, the lights go out, the room pitches in
darkness, and Roland steps in.

***

He is inches away as the door hisses
shut.

His breathing is ragged, and I can almost
feel the anger radiating from him.
Did he run here?

I rub the object Cat shoved into my hand: a
coin, a silver ten bedallion coin. Enough currency to buy a dozen
of what I need from Dorni’s shoppe. I drop it into my trouser
pocket as Roland finds his voice.

“You cannot leave the Palace—”

“You have no right to detain me. I am
not
your prisoner,” I say, poking a finger into his chest.
“Do you or do you not want a working prototype by five o’clock this
afternoon?”

He doesn’t answer immediately, but then he
says, “You should have asked me, not my chief of staff.” His voice
is lower, warmer.

Roland moves closer, and everything inside
of me wants to jump on him and devour him. Even his anger is sexy.
I breathe him in.

“I will go about my business in the method I
feel is best, Roland. Your chief of staff was here. You were not.
End of story. But if that is your only objection, only show me the
way out.”

“It’s no longer safe in the city, Rahda,” he
says in low timbered notes. “Dear Goddess,” he mutters out loud,
mostly to himself, before he utters desperately, “You’re not safe
around
me
.”

Then, like a possessed man, Roland’s hands
are on me and it literally feels like his fingers are burning a
hole right through me.

His lips crash into mine and I, equally as
possessed, kiss him hungrily. I bite his lips. I suck on his
tongue. All I know, feel, see, hear is Roland Rexus. His heat
matches my own and I swear that in any minute, I’ll erupt, burn up,
and take him with me in a cloud of smoke.

He pushes me against an empty table, scoops
me up, and deposits my bottom there. His delicious erection presses
firmly against the inside of my leg. Wrapping my legs around him, I
pull him into me.

My hands get lost in this hair and before I
know it, I’ve pulled his longish locks out of the ribbon at the
base of his neck. I grab a fistful of hair, tilt his head back, and
lick his neck, savoring the different sensations of stubble, raised
scars, and smooth skin against my lips, tongue, and teeth. I want
to explore every inch of him, and I tell him as much.

“Oh, Goddess,” he moans, and his whole body
shivers. His shaking fingers unbutton my shirt, and, at the last
button, he flings it open and a small rush of cold air kisses my
skin.

My stomach does a little flip when touches
my bare skin. This feels right, and then it feels
so
wrong.

“Why are you doing this to me?” I ask. “I
feel like need you like I need oxygen but…” I hesitate. “You must
know that it won’t work out. It feels explosive. Needy. Sinful.
Like you will burn me up.” It feels like I’m cursing my own heart.
You’ve wanted this for so long, Rahda. Why are you backing
out?

“It’s precisely why we should not stop,” he
says urgently in between hungry kisses. “I just want to live for
this moment. But after tonight, things will be different…” His
words trail away.

“Things are already different.” Dear
Goddess, I cannot think straight around him.
I’m totally
compromising the mission.

“You really don’t know, do you?” His voice
is less rushed. In that moment, I get the feeling that he knows
everything about me.

“Know what?” I feel his fingers as he
buttons my shirt. I try to fling his hands away, but he’s holding
on tight.

He hesitates before he says, “That I am
yours, Rahda. You only have to ask, and it is yours.” I’m not
certain, but it feels like he wanted to say something else, like we
were talking about two different things.

“Then show me how to leave the Palace.”
Silence. “I’m leaving with or without your help, Roland.” I step
away and walk to the door. It hisses open. Dim light spills in.

“Wait,” he calls. Regret fills his voice.
Regret and resignation. I’ve missed something, but I don’t know
what. It takes a full minute before he curses under his breath and
says, “I’ll take you wherever you need to go.”

Just as I had hoped. I look down to hide my
smile.

FIFTEEN

“WE’LL TAKE THE LIFTS,” ROLAND SAYS, leading
me in a new direction. I inspect him. He wears an ivory-white
collared shirt, pressed and starched, and coffee-colored trousers
embellished with faded sepia-toned belt, and dark brown boots. The
same brown hair that I ran my fingers through is now tidied up and
secured in a brown ribbon. I stare at his ass and imagine all sorts
of things, most of which involve the both of us being naked,
intertwined, and sweaty. Shaking my head, I dislodge the thought
and try to think straight.

Roland, on the other hand, looks so calm,
reserved, and in control. So very much
unlike
a few minutes
ago.

Our intimate moments are quick affairs;
heated, intense, like a quick-burning fire that extinguishes long
before it needs to. Like one or both of us think too much about
what we are doing and then purposefully halt it.

He leads me through several more basement
hallways and corridors that are more like mazes. After a few
minutes, I hear the telltale hum of the elevator lifts.

Roland checks his wristwatch and then steps
into the next lift.

“Take the lift to the ninth floor. When you
get there, turn left and go up a set of stairs. I’ll leave the door
open.”

“I thought we were leaving the
building.”

He’s almost one floor up before he
responds.

“I can’t exactly go out like this, now can
I? I must get changed. Don’t forget: ninth floor, then take the
stairs to your immediate
left
.”

How hard can it be? Lift. Stairs. Got
it.

“Why can’t I wait for you at the main
door?”

Roland’s reply doesn’t reach me, but his
laughter does. I step into the next lift carefully. At least this
time, I’m not wearing a fabriskin robe and I do not trip on
anything and I rise uneventfully. But on the next floor, something
catches my eye. A small gold and red tube, butted against a
crumbling brick wall, and instantly I jump from the lift, land on
both feet. I look around to see if anyone notices me, but there’s
no one around to be noticed by. Not even service robots.

I pick up the lipstick and shove it in a
pocket. It must have landed here last night without the servicebot
finding it. I didn’t even know it was missing, which tells me more
than I’m willing to admit to.

My attraction to Roland is blinding me to
the real reason I’m here. I could easily put on the coral lipstick,
kiss Roland, and allow my lips to poison him.

Quick, easy, ruthless.

I could even do it now, before we leave the
Palace Skyscraper, but I won’t. I need to communicate with my
mentor. I must ensure nothing has changed.

And maybe you’re lying to yourself. Admit
it, you were happy when you found out the communicator tablet
broke.

I didn’t think I’d have a problem separating
my feelings from the Roland I fell in love with as a girl from the
Roland I’ve been ordered to assassinate.

I step into the next lift and exit at the
ninth floor.

The area is small, and five stairwells
branch out at evenly spaced intervals, much like the spokes of a
bicycle tire, with the lifts being the center. I walk through a
rich mahogany door and enter Roland’s apartment.

Ebony wooden floors and furniture butt up
against creamy white walls. On one small table, I spot a folder
with my name on it, but I leave it alone. I won’t find anything I
don’t already know about myself. Most of it I invented, even the
true parts.

On the far side of the apartment is a large
window covered by thick, embroidered draperies. Only ribbon-like
streaks of gray light pour through, but it’s enough to orient
myself to the room and to nearly fall head over heels for the
space. My own apartment is lush, but it is nothing compared to
Roland’s home. It’s larger, but he uses the space perfectly without
filling it up with needless items. The simplicity of the room
speaks volumes. The man doesn’t like clutter.

“I see you found it,” he says to me from
somewhere to the left. I step forward to investigate where his
voice came from, but I do not answer him immediately. I pass a
mirror-less bathroom, a busy-looking office-like room with dozens
of maps hanging on the walls, his living room with the covered
windows and a working fireplace, and finally into a darkened and
darkly furnished bedroom.

I linger in the doorway. I hear him moving
about, but I cannot see him. Whether this is how he wants it to be
at this moment or how his apartments normally are, I imagine that
he generally moves about in the darkness, or, at the very least,
very dim rooms.

I hear movement, and I sense him before I
can see him. Roland is covered head to toe in a dark brown,
masculine-shaped fabriskin robe. Plain. Unadorned. Ordinary. No one
will question him, especially with the hood over most of his face.
Most of the city’s citizens are similarly garbed, regardless of the
weather or the season.

“You’ll need this.” He gives me a similar,
smaller robe. It is also plain, deep brown, but slightly
embellished with inexpensive-looking turquoise gems and stones at
the hem and cuffs. I layer the fabriskin over my trousers and
button-down shirt, and it fits perfectly. I pull the hood over my
head to match him.

“I swear, is this Palace full of clothes and
robes that will fit me, should I spontaneously decide to try them
all on?”

“You are the same size as my late sister,
Lisbeth.”

“Oh,” I say. His answer is unexpected, and
my attempt at a stupid joke turns into a jab aimed right into
Roland’s heart. “My condolences. I apologize if I sounded like a—”
I swallow hard.

“Jerk?”

“Precisely.”

“All is forgiven. Let us speak no more of
it, then. What is this place you must patronize?”

“It doesn’t have a name. If one doesn’t
know
about it, one doesn’t
need
to know about it.
What’s a name got to do with anything?”

“A most interesting concept. And you know
the way?”

“If you show me how to get out of the Palace
Skyscraper, I’ll lead the way once we are outside.”

Hopefully Dorni is back
, I think.

We walk out of his apartments, the door
locks for him, and Roland takes me out through the back
servant
entrance.

SIXTEEN

WE HIT THE COBBLED STREETS OUTSIDE. With the
city empty, a few vendors stand around listlessly. We are
immediately beseeched with offers of food, sun vitamins, new and
used hydration patches, and, of course, sexual favors.

Declining and stepping around two competing
vendors, we’re barely around a corner when I can hear the two men
fighting over territory.

It’s about noontime, the sky is dim—not too
dark—and thin rays of yellow-gray sunlight trickle down.
Remembering my apprehension last night as I walked through a
deserted city, we now pass under the same arch, out of the inner
city, and I ask Roland why Skyscraper City is empty.

“Black water plague,” he answers with
unease. He doesn’t sound confident in his answer, and my suspicions
are raised. “I evacuated the city weeks ago. But some are coming
back.”