3
" You do sleight of hand, too?” I asked her.
“No, I play his assistant. Hand him things on stage so the performance goes smoothly, with no gaps in the action and movement. It’s the best way to get through a talent show without having an actual talent.”
What a brilliant idea. “Don’t happen to need any more assistants, do you?” I looked at Doran and hoped desperation was beaming out of my eyes.
“Back off, Shield,” Lydia growled. “He’s my ticket through the Festival.”
“And,” Karish tugged on my hair. “You’re doing something with me.”
“We never agreed to that,” I protested.
“We’re agreeing now.”
High-handed bastard. “Neither of us have any talent.” Which was a pretty pathetic state of affairs.
“You must be able to do something,” said Lydia.
“You’d be stunned by the level of my ineptitude. "
― , The Hero Strikes Back (Hero, #2)
4
" The first hint that something was going on, was learning that Mother wanted to eat in the private dining room that evening.
The second was when she bullied me into wearing one of my new gowns, one she consented to my requisition despite it being premade and off the shelf, because, as she said, it suited me so very well.
Still, I didn’t step wise to the plan until after we had been served appetizers and wine in the private dining room. There was a knock on the door. One of the serving maids answered.
And Erin walked in.
My mother was a dead woman.
I plastered a smile on my face. “Erin! Come in!” A dead woman. A dead, dead, dead, dead woman. I was going to kill her. Slowly. A lot.
Erin grinned, and I had to admit that my heart did skip a beat. “Dunleavy, you look lovely!”
“Thank you, Erin. I’m so glad you could come.” My mother was taller than I, but I could reach her throat. That was all I really needed.
“Holder Mallorough, I’m so glad you could join us this evening!”
I looked at my mother.
Who refused to look at me. “Oh, no. I was only keeping Lee company while she waited. I have an engagement with the Yings, and I’m going to be late.”
I gaped at her, the significance of her words hitting me hard. Then I shut my mouth. Because I had to be wrong. She wouldn’t dare.
She rose from the table and crossed the room to stand by Erin. “I must say you are looking particularly handsome tonight, Erin.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“It is so nice to see young people who know how to dress.”
Then she looked at me.
“Have a good evening.”
She did dare. She was going to leave. She’d set this dinner up, without telling me, and now she was deserting me. I couldn’t believe it.
Erin opened the door for her. She stepped out. I sat in my chair and wallowed in the moment of feeling stunned...
Damn that woman. And all right, so I couldn’t actually strangle her. I wasn’t sure I was strong enough. But we had to have a talk. A long screaming serious one. No more soft shoes. "
― , The Hero Strikes Back (Hero, #2)
5
" I’m sorry you had to lie to that fisher,” Karish muttered.
So was I. I was committed to the story now, and there was no backing out of it. I was going to have nightmares about everyone finding out that we’d been blowing windless. But it was done. “I didn’t have to lie. I wasn’t lying. We are working on it, remember? This was part of the deal.”
He looked at me. “You felt you were lying to him, and with you that’s all that counts.”
I shrugged. “Then I’ll just have to get over my delicate sensibilities, won’t I? And you’ll have to figure out some way to fix things.”
He grunted. “Lucky me.”
I almost winced. That had been careless, and thoughtless, and stupid. Let’s just pile a bit more pressure on him, shall we?
I widened my eyes at him, though the effect may have been ruined by the scarves wrapped around my face. “But Taro,” I said in a lilting voice, “You’re my hero.”
He groaned.
I swallowed down a laugh. “You’re everyone’s hero.”
“Shut up, Lee.”
“The Darling of the Triple S.”
“That wasn’t my fault!”
That made me pause for a moment. That wasn’t his fault? What exactly did that mean? “The hope of High Scape.”
“Will you stop?”
“Defeater of the evil Stevan Creol and favorite of the Empress Constia.” I was kind of getting into this. He squirmed so well.
“I swear if you don’t stop I’ll . . .”
“What?” I challenged him.
“Do something you don’t like,” he muttered.
As threats went, that was a little weak. “Like what?
From the way his eyes crinkled up I knew he was grinning behind the wraps around his face. And didn’t that send a thread of alarm through me?“I am walking you to the Lion,” he told me. “Where I will turn you over to your mother. Let her deal with her impossible, wayward, disrespectful child.” And once more he had me by the hand and was leading me down the street.
As punishments went, that was rather disappointing. "
― , The Hero Strikes Back (Hero, #2)
7
" Go home, Karish.” I didn’t want him hanging around while I was being so pathetic.
“What?” The word was sharp. It hurt my ears.
“Go home. Or wherever. You don’t need to wait here.”
“I’m not leaving you alone here,” he snapped.
“I’m in a hospital, Kar—Taro. I’m perfectly fine.”
“Just shut up, Lee.” He sat beside me and pulled me nice and close. I couldn’t help sighing at the pleasure of it. “And keep your eyes open.”
“You might have some thought to my pride.”
“Right now I couldn’t care less about your pride, not when it’s making you stupid.”
“You do stupid things for pride all the time.”
“I’m allowed. I’m a Source. You’re a Shield. You’re supposed to know better.”
“What utter tripe.”
“You know, Lee, sometimes your eloquence just overwhelms me.”
“Oh, shut up. "
― , The Hero Strikes Back (Hero, #2)
11
" Would you feel better if I lie beside you until you go to sleep?”
I nodded. Carefully. No dignity, no pride.
He stretched out beside me and put an arm around my waist and gathered me close. It felt so-o-o-o nice. Except . . . “You’re—”
“What?”
“Nothing.” No need to point out that he was shaking. He probably already knew. And I understood. I’d been a wreck, when he’d been injured and no one was sure he was going to live.
He buried his face in my hair. “You’re all right,” he whispered into my ear. “You’re all right.”
I laid my hand on top of his. “We’re both all right,” I said. “We’re both going to be fine.”
I’d never liked the idea of the bond. It was, I thought, an unnecessary chain. Two professionals shouldn’t need it. And it wasn’t right, to link the life of one person to another so thoroughly. Neither of us were careless with our safety, but accidents happened. One person shouldn’t have to walk around knowing that at any moment they might die because their partner has. It wasn’t right.
And yet . . .
At least he couldn’t leave. No matter what I did wrong, he couldn’t leave. "
― , The Hero Strikes Back (Hero, #2)
15
" Her Grace is coming to High Scape,” Karish said quietly.
I scraped some soap from the bar into the sink. “Who?”
“The Dowager Duchess of Westsea.”
I hesitated a moment. His mother. “Well, it’s been a good while since you’ve seen her.” I handed him a soapy dish.
He snorted. “I’ve gone a good seventeen years without seeing her.”
What could I say to that? “Oh.”
“Apparently she had been on some kind of retreat in the country—”
“Flown Raven is the country,” I muttered.
“City slave,” he said.
“Farm boy,” I shot back.
“I’ve never even seen a farm.”
“Don’t trifle me with details.”
“Anyway,” he continued, but he looked a little less grim, which had been the point of the interruption. “The gossip failed to catch up with her at the rustic chalet where she was meditating or whatever,” he sneered at the word ‘meditating, ’ “and she only recently learned that I had abjured the title.”
“Ah.” I could see where this was going. “Displeased, was she?”
The sound he made might have been a breathy laugh. “Furious. Enraged. Maddened. I fear for the life of the poor servant who handed the letter to her.” He opened a cabinet—the correct one, as it happened—and placed the dish inside. "
― , The Hero Strikes Back (Hero, #2)
17
" Firth and Stone came to relieve us, something I always looked forward to. I loved Firth.
“Karish, my beautiful, my one, my only,” she crowed, as she always did.
Karish, who had risen to his feet as the ladies entered, scooped up Firth’s hand. As he always did. “Claire, my lovely,” he said in a voice as smooth as sanded wood. “It is a treasure to see you, as always.”
“You liar,” she retorted. “You’re such a tease.”
That was a little blunter than usual. Fun to see Karish gape like a fish, though. “I never am,” he protested.
“Sure you are, lad. All heat and promises and just when you get a girl all worked up you slither out of it.”
Karish blushed. I cackled. Stone smirked.
Granted, I wouldn’t want a man as old as Firth drooling all over me, but Karish asked for it. He was something of a slut and wore the reputation almost proudly. From what I understood, Firth was a slut, too, and she’d had many more years to practise it. She knew how to make the elegant, confident, suave Lord Shintaro Karish blush in a way no one else could, and it delighted me every time I saw it. He should have learned to back off by then. On the other hand, he might have forgotten after all that time spent away from High Scape. For certain he beat a hasty retreat out of there, taking me with him.
“Rrrrr,” Karish growled, once I closed the door behind us. “You have too much fun with her.”
Hey, it wasn’t my fault. He’d started it the year before by oozing all over Firth when they met. “I have nothing to do with it.”
“No, you just sit back and laugh.” He sounded almost bitter about it.
“Poor boy.” My feigned sympathy couldn’t have sounded more false. “Can dish it out but you can’t take it.”
He appeared scandalized. “I never behave like that.” He pointed a thumb back over his shoulder at the Stall.
“No, you’re a little more subtle, but give it time.”
He huffed. “I will never act that way.”
“All right.” We’d wait and see. When his looks began to fade a little. In twenty years or so.
“Brat.” He took my hand, and we trudged through the snow back towards the city "
― , The Hero Strikes Back (Hero, #2)
19
" I’m sorry I turned this evening into such a disaster.”
“Hey, stop trying to usurp all the credit. We all did our part to make this evening as uncomfortable as possible.” He smiled, but it was another sad effort. I pulled his head down and kissed his cheek to show him that all—all—was forgiven. “I mean it, Taro. None of us can be proud of our behavior tonight. Don’t be thinking you deserve special punishment. And don’t be too wild tonight. All right? Take care.”
He looked down at me curiously, but I could see he was relaxing a little. The lines of tension about his form were easing slightly. I wasn’t sure why, but it was good to see. “Lee, what do you think I do when I’m not with you?” And he grinned, something closer to his usual self. I could have hugged him.
“I don’t think about it,” I said. Major lie.
“I don’t participate in orgies, you know.”
“Of course not.” Actually, that was a shocker. I would have bet money that he did. Though, really, I didn’t tend to think about it. Much. But what was the point of being the Stallion if you didn’t indulge in indiscriminate sex?
“I don’t smoke drugs.”
“I never thought for a moment that you did.” And that was the honest truth.
“I don’t get smashed and hijack public carriages and get . . . smashed.”
Hell, I never even considered that possibility. People did that? That explained some of the driving I had seen. Was that legal?
He chuckled, the evil bastard. “Take a look in the mirror, gorgeous.”
“Huh?”
“Have a good evening, darling. Pass my apologies on to your mother.” With a wink and a graceful turn he grabbed up his cloak and was out the door.
I pulled in a long breath and blew it out again. What a hellish evening. Should have known that would happen when it turned out I needed so much work to be considered acceptable. Anything you couldn’t do as yourself was likely to blow up in your face. "
― , The Hero Strikes Back (Hero, #2)
