Shadowmaster. Susan Krinard

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СКАЧАТЬ have been making plans to escape and return to Aegis.

      But not yet. Not quite yet. She was in too good a position to give it up now. Even though Aegis wouldn’t know how far she’d already come, they’d follow through with their part of the plan by continuing the search for the “fugitive.” And when she finally did return, she’d have plenty to give them.

      Now the Daysider’s silence was heavy, as if his mind was focused on weighty matters...as well it should be. But she knew he was thinking of other, more personal subjects, as well, not the least of which was her body.

      She’d been well aware of his arousal; it had been impossible not to be, given the impressive size of his package. She could still smell his desire for her like a heady perfume, even though she could no longer see the way his pale gray eyes followed every slight move of her body.

      She’d planned to keep him from realizing that she knew what he was as long as possible, and prevent him from finding out what she was, until she had no other choice but to consciously make use of her true nature. But if part of his nearly instantaneous and obviously powerful attraction to her was due to the scent of her part-dhampir blood, she had no idea how long her secret could last.

      “Lark,” he said.

      She almost—almost—forgot to respond to her alias.

      “Was the information you plan to sell to me the reason your government believed you’d betray them?” he asked, resuming their conversation as if there had never been a break. “Or was it something else?”

      Phoenix thought through her cover story. There was still something about her claims he wasn’t buying.

      “Okay,” she said with a shrug. “I found some...stuff that I thought might bring in a little extra income. They don’t pay us govrats that much, you know. Not at my clearance level.”

      “What stuff?” he asked, his husky baritone sending unwelcome shivers down her spine.

      “Just a little persuasion,” she said. “A politician who’d rather not have anyone know he keeps a little something on the side.”

      He snorted. “And they caught you?”

      “They only found out at the last minute who did it.”

      “And you were stupid enough to risk so much without taking sufficient precautions.”

      “Maybe I needed the money fast.”

      “Why?”

      “Do I have to tell you my life story to get you to help me?”

      “You’ll have to provide a lot more than that if you want our help.”

      “Isn’t that what this conversation is all about?”

      The chair he was sitting on creaked, and she turned her head to follow the sound of his progress around the small room.

      “It isn’t only the Enforcers who are chasing you,” he said. “Not if you’ve been declared a traitor. Traitors are the ones who might reveal things to the bloodsuckers that could bring the Enclave down.”

      “And you think I—” She gulped in a breath. “I don’t have that kind of information. And everyone knows the Nightsiders are evil monsters. Why would any Cit pass Enclave secrets on to those who would only enslave her?”

      “Aegis must think you have those kinds of secrets,” he said. “They could be sweeping the Fringe in an hour.”

      “I didn’t access Aegis files! I can’t even get near them!”

      His weight—his heat, his warmth, his maleness—settled beside her on the bed. “Are you telling me the truth?” he asked, very softly.

      “I—” For a moment she forgot what she was about to say, enveloped in the blatant desire emanating from him.

      “It would be safer for me to turn you in,” he said. “Anonymously, of course.”

      “You wouldn’t do that.”

      His breath sighed very close to her lips. “You don’t know what I’m capable of,” he said.

      “You warned me about The Preacher, even before he—”

      “Maybe my motives weren’t very different from his.”

      “Didn’t you say you wouldn’t molest me?”

      “I wouldn’t take any woman against her will.”

      But the rough purr in his voice told her exactly what he meant by will. She’d been prepared for this. She’d been ready to offer her body in payment for what she had to have, regarding it as no more than part of her mission.

      The problem was that her body was responding to his nearness, his potent masculinity, as powerfully as he was reacting to her. And her mind was refusing to think of using that body as just a tool in a war for the Enclave’s survival. Her nerves hummed in response to the aura of sheer sexual need that surrounded him, and she realized that she had somehow developed a very personal, visceral interest in her “savior.”

      Her enemy.

      “Before we go any further,” she said, “would you mind telling me your name?”

      Her question broke the spell. “Sammael,” he said, slight annoyance in his voice.

      “That sounds familiar,” she said.

      “An archangel,” he said. “Some call him the ‘Angel of Death.’”

      “Now you’re trying to scare me again.”

      “Perhaps my bark is worse than my bite.”

      She nearly burst into highly inappropriate laughter. “Is that what the other Bosses say?”

      “Ask the ones who tried to invade my turf.”

      “Very reassuring. Okay, about that information. It could make it a lot easier for you crimin... Your smugglers to establish better contacts and get access to valuable goods outside the Fringe. And I do have a way for you to check on it before you commit yourself.”

      “What is it?”

      “I want your word that you won’t kill me as soon as I tell you.”

      He laughed, a sound that would have been pleasant under other circumstances. “That shouldn’t be a problem,” he said, running his warm, calloused hand down her arm, his skin caressing where it brushed over the hole in her uniform blouse.

      Oh, God, she thought, feeling all the heat in her body rushing to a very precise location between her thighs. “Until you...until you have a good reason to believe me,” she stammered, “you’ll continue to wonder if what I’m offering is worth your help. Just give me a chance to...prove myself.”

      “And what will you do once you’re free of the Enclave?”

      Phoenix found СКАЧАТЬ