Richelle Mead - Gameboard of the Gods

She grinned, feeling high from both the fight and a sudden and unexpected physical attraction. Every man she’d met today paled beside this one.

“We have to stick together, right?” She nodded toward his jacket.

“Together…” He looked down, as though noticing his coat for the first time, and then finally recovered himself. “Yes, of course. Of course.” He turned his attention back to her and smiled, his confidence growing by leaps and bounds. “Do I get to know your name? Or are you going to vanish into the night and just leave me with a sweet memory?”

His smile was nice. Really nice. After growing up almost exclusively around blond hair and pale complexions, Mae had grown to love and crave darker looks. This man had typically plebeian tanned skin and black hair and the kind of features that came from three generations of ethnic mixing. A shadow of facial hair covered his jaw, giving him a sort of roguish appeal. It could have been from neglecting shaving, but there was a meticulousness to the rest of him that made her think it was probably there by design. A flush of new endorphins swept her as she took all of him in…the knowing eyes, the chiseled features. He was already dangerous enough, and that smile just sealed the deal.

She held out her hand. “Mae Koskinen.”

He took it and then hesitated. “I’m…Huan Korokov.” His hand was warm, and he continued holding hers as his dark gaze wrapped around her, in a way that was both intimate and provocative. “Nordic?”

She couldn’t hide her surprise. It was hard enough for Gemmans to distinguish her caste from all the other blond ones, and the EA had no comparable frame of reference. “How’d you know?”

He seemed very pleased with himself. “I know a Valkyrie when I see one.” He finally released her hand but stayed close. “What I don’t know is how a beautiful one came to save me. Are you military? Or just an avid self-defense fan?”

“Both.” She chose not to mention she was a prætorian. It unnerved people, even Gemmans and Easterners, and she didn’t want to undo the mood that had settled around them. Simply admitting to being a castal woman in the military was already odd enough, and she tried to gloss it over with the first moderately plausible story she could think of that would diminish her role. “I’m just here for a little while as research support to our military attaché.”

Too late, she realized acknowledging a connection to Gemman diplomats might not have been a good idea. If he was part of an EA delegation, he could have connections that would undo her lie. She tensed, waiting for him to ask if she knew so-and-so, but he let the matter go and simply said, “They’re training support staff pretty well these days.”

“They wouldn’t send us to the provinces if they didn’t,” she pointed out.

He gave the unconscious men one last curious look and then seemed to accept her story—or at least not feel like questioning it. Before he could say anything else, a streak of lightning cut the sky, followed instantly by deafening thunder and a downpour. Both of them moved toward the doorway and the shelter of the building, not that it did much good. Within seconds, Mae’s hair and dress were soaked. He glanced at the door and grimaced.

“You want to go somewhere else and get a drink? By which I mean, my place,” he added quickly. “No more of these dives. I’m sure you’ve had a lot of fun dodging fumbling provincial advances.”

“Sure,” she said. Maybe going off with a guy she’d just met would have been dangerous for most women, but Mae wasn’t most women. Besides, her gut told her he was safe, or at least safer than anyone else she was likely to run into tonight, and Cornelia had told her to take as long as she needed to deliver the message.

He led Mae back through the crowded club and out to the street. Those lined up to get inside were huddled against the building, trying to protect their party clothes as best they could from the rain. The sprawling apartment she was led to was only a few blocks away and was actually above another of Cristobal’s nightclubs. That club was in full swing too, and they could faintly hear music below them when they entered the apartment. The music faded to a dull beat as her companion shut the door.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s one of the downsides of this place. I can put on something else to cover it—unless you play.” He gestured toward a dusty piano on the far side of the living room and took off his coat, revealing a wine-stained shirt underneath.

Mae walked over to the piano. “You don’t?”

“Nope. Came with the place. Be right back.”

He disappeared down a hallway, and Mae sat down at the bench. She played a few lines of Danse Macabre and then let her hand drop as it began to shake from the implant’s metabolism. Her brief experience with Panamanian décor, at both the hotel and the club, hadn’t been pleasant, but this place was decorated almost as tastefully as something she’d find back home. Neutral colors. Fabrics that looked expensive without being gaudy.

He returned wearing a clean shirt and tossed her a towel. She did what she could to pat herself dry and then moved over to the living room’s brown leather couch. Two empty wineglasses sat on the coffee table, and he knelt in front of a nearby cabinet. “All I’ve got are Argentinian reds,” he told her. “They drink that stuff like water here, but it’s pretty good.”

“That’s fine.” The wine made no difference. The implant regarded alcohol as a toxin and metabolized it quickly, making it nearly impossible for prætorians to get drunk.

He filled their glasses and then settled beside her on the couch, wincing slightly as he shifted. “Another glamorous day in Panama. Nothing broken, at least.”

“Why were they after you?” she asked. Her hands were still trembling, and she kept them tucked into her lap to avoid attention.

“I beat them at poker,” he said quickly. “Not that it matters. Those young ones have so much to prove around here that it doesn’t take much. If you see where they come from, you can almost understand and feel bad for them. Almost.”

He didn’t elaborate on what work had brought him to Panama, and she assumed it was something government related that was none of her business. In fact, as the evening progressed, he spoke very little about the EA at all. He had plenty of funny Panamanian stories to share but seemed most interested in hearing her talk about the RUNA.

“You could just visit, you know,” she teased at one point, after he’d quizzed her extensively about the latest happenings in Vancouver. They were more than halfway through the wine. “Find me, and I’ll show you around.”

“Ever been out to Vancouver Island?” He looked astonished when she shook her head. “It’s gorgeous. And in the middle, there’s this observatory from before the Decline. They’ve restored it, and you can go out there and stand on the hill and feel like you’re in the center of the galaxy.” He spread his hands out. “Stars everywhere. And so quiet. Not many places are that quiet anymore.”

Mae wasn’t one for fantasies, but she could suddenly picture it and found herself taken with the idea of some starry escapade with a guy she’d just met. “Then you’ll have to show me.”

He gave her that heart-pounding smile, though it was tinged with a little wistfulness. “I’d like that, but…I’m pretty busy here. I don’t get home—or anywhere—very often.”

“Diplomacy’s hard work, huh?” She nodded toward the jacket he’d tossed aside.

“I suppose,” he said in amusement. “I don’t really think of what I do as diplomacy, though. Mostly I read people and figure out puzzles.”

“Are you any good at it?” He was right about the wine. It was excellent. Too bad she couldn’t experience the full effect.