Susan Krinard - Shadowmaster

He continued on by one of the many hidden pathways he and his crew had devised over the past year, frequently doubling back to make certain they weren’t being followed. Dawn was beginning to break when they finally negotiated the last obstacles and entered the Hold.

The building didn’t stand out from the other half-collapsed structures throughout the Fringe, but there were traps set at every possible entrance, and guards at every boarded window. The widely spaced lights were flickering and dim. The common rooms, mess and meeting room were protected by many external walls, like a castle keep. No one could reach Drakon and his crew without the use of explosives. Like so many other of the black-market items Drakon and the other Bosses dealt in, those were hard to come by.

Repo was crouched right outside the inner door. He sprang to his feet and stared at the woman in astonishment.

“You brought her?” he asked.

“No questions now.” Drakon pulled Lark through the maze of corridors, passing the occasional crew member without pausing for explanation, and took her straight to his private quarters.

“Sit,” he said, half-pushing her down on his narrow bed.

She probed the firm surface with her hands. “Where am I?”

“Where no one else will bother us.”

She tensed, and he knew immediately what she was thinking. “I am not The Preacher,” he said. “I have no intention of molesting you. But I can’t protect you until I get more information.”

“Protect me from whom?” she asked, turning her head slowly as if to take in any sounds that might help her get her bearings. “I thought you were the Boss here.”

“Most of my crew have the option of going elsewhere if I seem too soft.”

She turned her face toward him as if she would be staring if he could see her eyes, and he realized he’d just admitted something to her he wouldn’t say to anyone but Brita.

“Soft because you agreed to help me?” she asked.

“I haven’t agreed yet.”

“But they won’t be happy with what you’ve done. Would one of them challenge you?”

It was too late to retreat from the subject now, and he still had complete power over her in spite of her troubling insight. “You seem to know a great deal about the Fringe for a Cit,” he said.

Cocking her head, she smiled. It was a particularly lovely and enticing smile. “You’re unexpectedly honest and well-spoken for a condemned criminal,” she said.

Drakon pulled the room’s single chair close to the bed. “You work for the government,” he said, a statement of fact.

Her smile faded. “I did.”

“You’re on the run from your own kind, and yet you’ve somehow convinced yourself that only the ignorant and deceitful have been deported?”

When she didn’t answer, he pressed on. “Why are you running?”

“Do you think I could get some water?” she asked. “I haven’t had anything to drink in a while.”

Her sudden change of tone put Drakon even more on his guard. “I’ll have to tie you up.”

“I won’t resist.”

Far from trusting her, Drakon removed a heavy pair of shackles and short chain from a locked drawer. “Get up and turn around,” he said.

She obeyed without protest, and Drakon bound her hands together behind her. “Members of my crew are scattered everywhere throughout the Hold,” he said. “If you attempt to escape, they will almost certainly kill you.”

Chapter 3

“Your orders?” Lark said, resuming her seat on the bed after Drakon had her shackles in place.

“No one will take the risk of letting you escape.”

“I came here willingly, didn’t I?”

Drakon didn’t bother to answer. He went out into the corridor—where, as expected, Repo was keeping watch—and sent the man for water. When Repo returned, he was obviously near bursting with questions.

“Be patient,” Drakon said. “Find out what the others are saying, and report back to me.”

“Yes, Boss.” Repo hurried off, and Drakon went back into his room. He undid the shackles and handed Lark the slightly cracked glass, which she drained quickly.

“More?” he asked.

“Not now, thanks.” She ran the back of her hand across her lips...those full, enticing lips. Drakon swallowed. He wondered just how much she’d be willing to trade for her safety.

And felt no better than the other Bosses, whom he despised.

“Then let’s get back to the essentials,” he said. “Who are you?”

“I told you,” she said. “My name is Lark.”

“Lark what?”

“What difference does it make?”

“You do realize that you are completely in my power?”

“Ooh, scary,” she said, her mouth twisting into an ironic smile. “Have you ever read the pre-war literature known as ‘comic books?’”

Drakon froze, caught one of the thousands of memories he had managed to bury deep in his mind since his deportation. A little boy, laughing in delight because his father had managed to buy him a very rare bound edition of The Iron Corps for Christmas. It hadn’t been black market, but Drakon—the man he had been then—had saved up a portion of many months’ salary to buy it, even though Mark had still been a little too young to understand all the words.

“I know of them,” he said coldly.

“Then I don’t have to explain.” She shifted her weight, and even that slight movement brought his attention back to her body and the aching hardness that refused to be banished even by a firm act of will.

It’s the blood, he told himself. Like fine wine, human blood came in many vintages.

And he’d never smelled anything so rich and sweet. He wanted it, badly. But he knew his reaction now was fueled as much by hunger as inconvenient lust.

He would have to access his stores very soon. They had been going down more quickly than he’d expected and would need to be replenished, not a task he could entrust to any member of his crew. “Lark,” he said, pushing his hunger aside. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

She pulled a few strands of her dark hair out of the blindfold. “I’ve been branded a traitor by the government.”

“Why?” he asked.

She plucked at the blouse of her torn uniform. “I was an Admin. Very low clearance. I came across confidential information I wasn’t supposed to be able to access. Someone found out, and—”

“What kind of information?” he interrupted.

“Let’s just say that it would be more than a little embarrassing for the higher-ups, and possibly make trouble for certain parties involved in the election.”

Suddenly, Drakon was interested in Lark for more than her blood, her beauty and her spirit. “And what?” he prompted.

“They regard any breach very seriously. Rather than take a chance I might use it, they trumped up charges against me and were going to have me executed. I was able to—”

“Executed?” he interrupted. “Not deported?”

“They don’t deport traitors,” Lark said, a grim set to her mouth.

“And are you one?”

She suggested he do something anatomically impossible. Drakon let it pass. Whatever she’d discovered, it couldn’t just be “embarrassing for the higher-ups.” Drakon knew well enough that the Enclave government could be as ruthless as the Citadel’s Council, and would sooner kill than take the slightest chance of a security risk.

“So you think you’ll be safer out of the city,” he said.

Her blindfold shifted, suggesting eyes widening in astonishment. “Wouldn’t you, if you didn’t have such a good thing going here?”

He leaned over the bed. “What do you know of my business?”

Her body quivered as if it recognized the threat of a predator. “Only what I saw, back there. What you told me. And what everyone knows about the Fringe.”