Shadowmaster. Susan Krinard

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      There was another, just as chilling, possibility. Phoenix had heard the very unsubtle threats leveled at Brita by The Preacher’s representative. What if one of his followers, or a whole crew of them, had caught Sammael somewhere alone?

      She banged on the door for a good minute before it swung open with a loud creak. Standing in the doorway was a small, wiry man she hadn’t met.

      “Brita said to check up on you,” the man said, gazing at her with pointed curiosity.

      “Where is she?”

      “Busy. You need the bathroom or something?”

      “I want to talk to Brita,” she said, trying to balance the tone of her voice between worried concern and stubborn insistence.

      “She ain’t available. I’ll tell her you asked after her when she’s free.” He began to close the door, but Phoenix wedged her boot in the crack.

      “What’s your name?” she asked.

      “Repo.”

      “Where’s Sammael?” she asked. “Did something happen to him?”

      “Why do you think that?”

      “I’ve heard a lot of arguing, but not his voice.”

      Repo shrugged.

      “He didn’t return with your crew, did he?”

      “That ain’t none of your business. It ain’t smart to pry into stuff that ain’t your business, not in the Fringe.”

      “It’s my business when he’s the one who’s supposed to get me out of the city.”

      “He’s Boss. He can do what he wants, and he don’t report to nobody. If your info checks out, he’ll keep his word.”

      The door groaned as Repo closed it behind him. Phoenix hardly noticed.

      If your info checks out, the man had said. So Brita had been lying about Sammael already knowing that Phoenix had been telling the “truth” about her information.

      But why? Just to throw Phoenix off her guard even more? Someone’s voice—a man’s—rose above the others Phoenix could hear in another part of the building.

      Sammael’s. He was back. Safe.

      Finding her way to the bed, Phoenix sat down heavily. She felt as if she had won a sudden and unexpected reprieve from some terrible punishment, and yet she was ashamed. Ashamed that she’d cared about Sammael’s welfare, not just about losing her chance to learn the nature of his connection to Drakon.

      Ashamed that she could imagine his fingers pushing her hair back as tenderly as he had the boy’s, speaking to her just as gently.

      Could she make him care for her? Not simply desire her, but care in a way that he wouldn’t want her to leave his side until his work was done?

      No. She had to concentrate on what she knew was real...the sexual desire he refused to act on for reasons of his own. If it was weakness he feared, she had to make him believe he was in no danger of falling into a trap by making love to her. If it was her dhampir blood that drew him to her, so much the better. He wouldn’t give himself away by trying to take it, but there still might be a way to use his craving against him.

      If Brita hadn’t already told him that Phoenix was part Opir.

      * * *

      It had been a very close call.

      The crew was nervous, exchanging uneasy whispers, fidgeting, glancing right and left as if they expected Enforcers to burst in on the Hold at any moment.

      That, Drakon thought, wasn’t going to happen. The men and women who’d finished up with the shipment had narrowly escaped the Enforcers, it was true, but they weren’t anywhere near the Hold, and the crew would settle down once they knew they were safe.

      But every moment of the debriefing, as Drakon covered each small error and moment of nearly fatal inattention, he thought of Lark. He had been thinking of her when they had been in the midst of unloading the shipment of produce and hiding it as close to the city Wall as possible, in preparation for bringing it through after the next nightfall made it safer to move the material.

      He’d been thinking of her when they’d run into the Enforcer patrol soon after releasing the fugitive humans. He’d thought of her when he had come so very close to capture—to losing his life, since he was required and intended to die first—after he’d deliberately caught the Enforcers’ attention and led them on what once had been commonly known as a “wild-goose chase.”

      And he’d imagined her body, her warm lips, her welcoming arms as he made it to the Hold just before dawn, half regretting that he had survived. Knowing that she had, at best, offered herself to him only because it was a way of buying her escape from the Enclave.

      Knowing, too, that she might even have been behind the Enforcers’ attack.

      Now, as he discussed the operation with his crew, he could think only of going to her. Brita had moved Lark to new quarters—ignoring Drakon’s express orders to keep her firmly locked up in his room—and had reported that their guest had been very cooperative ever since.

      Perhaps too cooperative.

      Recalling himself to the task at hand, Drakon finished the debriefing. “Go eat and rest,” he said, rising as he dismissed the crew. Brita and most of the others left, but a few lingered.

      “What you gonna do now?” Shank said with a leering glance. “Go check on the client, maybe give her a little personal attention?” He glanced around the table at the others who had remained. “It’s her fault there’re so many Enforcers around, whether they’re really chasing her or she brought them with her.”

      Drakon walked around the table and backhanded the human, sending him flying halfway across the room. It was always a risk to display his more-than-human strength, but he had to keep Shank in line before he encouraged others to defy his Boss.

      When Shank lifted himself off the floor, groaning and swearing, Drakon was standing over him.

      “You can leave now,” he said, “or stay and keep your mouth shut. But if you run and pass on information that can damage this Hold or any of the crew, I will personally hunt you down. Understand?”

      Shank wiped his bloody lip with the back of his hand. “I get it,” he said sullenly.

      For a moment all Drakon could do was stare at the blood on Shank’s mouth. Fresh blood. So long since he’d had it. So easy to take.

      So deadly to his purpose.

      “Sleep,” he told the others, quickly backing away. “I’m sending most of you out tonight to finish the job. Those who don’t want to risk it and forfeit their share of the profit are free to do so.”

      With many glances at the unfortunate Shank, the last of the crew filed out of the meeting room. Drakon spent a good half-hour walking aimlessly through the СКАЧАТЬ