A Sinister Game

A Sinister Game

By Heather Killough-Walden

Copyright © 2009

In a world ruled by Game Leaders, a dark and dangerous man proposes a wager....

“If you can escape me for seven rounds, Victoria – if you can keep from being taken off of the board for that long, I will admit defeat and step down as Gray leader. But if I find you," he let the words sink in. "And if I capture you….” His voice trailed off just as his gaze trailed over her lips, her throat, her breasts.

His green eyes locked on hers again and she felt she would die right there at that table.

“Then you’ll join me. You'll give yourself to me for one night.” His smile was the devil’s promise. “This is the wager.”

But this is a game far more complicated and far more deadly th
an either of them anticipated. As t
he
real
world unfolds around them, what they thought they knew becomes obsolete, and the rules are ruthlessly changed... in this SINister game.

A word from the a
uthor:

Many of my readers will remember this book as The Game, one of the first books I was ever brave enough to release as a stumbling, scared-to-death indie author back when indie authors were actually a new thing.
After leaving The Game
up on Amazon for a short time, I
turned around and
unpublished it. I’d just signed on with a print publisher, and through the rigorous and ruthless editing
process an author undergoes
via print publishing
, I learned a few tricks, rec
ognized my “mistakes” in my
earlier manuscripts, and pulled a few of them in for re-vamping. The Game was one of them.

However, in my to-d
o limbo pile The Gam
e sat. Book after new book and
series after new series was created while The Game remained unpublished and gathering dust. Finally,
several
years later, I’d received so many requests for a re-release, I decided it would be a good idea to
perhaps
give the book another shot.

I put aside the seven other novel
s I was working on (and am working on again) and popped the cover, so to speak. What I found inside created a dichotomy of reactions within me.

On the one hand, it was raw and untamed and unedited, and the point of
view jumped from person to person within a scene, giving the reader a broad range of emotional input. On the other hand – it was raw and untamed and unedited, and the point of view jumped from person to person within a scene, giving the reader a broad range of emotional input.

It was a print publisher’s nightmare. I recognized that in every page.
Nothing is more frightening to a print editor than a gorgeous diamond in the very rough. An outright chunk of coal can be ignored. A polished gem can simply be published. But a diamond in the rough requires loads of work, hence the nightmare.

A
t the same time
,
the original manuscript
possessed a kind of power
in its virginity. It was sort of like a white page that had not yet seen red ink, or a fallen snow
before trampling
.

I was torn. I had a choice to make: Tear
madly
through it and put it back together in the cookie cutter framework of most print novels (I say “most” because there are a few novels
printed
outside of this mold
, such as the award-winning
“The Girl Who Could Fly
”) or leave its foundation intact and merely fix the minor things?

As you’ll see when you read
Sinister
, I settled somewhere
in-between
…. Well, more on the heavily edited side, but I did manage to stop somewhere short of plastic surgery.

The points of view
, I kept diverse and plentiful
. This ads depth and three-dimensionality to the book.
A few of the minor plotlines, I altered, but t
he adventure, I allowed to unfold in its entirety. The characters, I maintained in their diversity. The grammar, spelling, unnecessary text and
so forth, I
of course
corrected.

In the end, I
do
hope tha
t I did the manuscript justice – and that you thoroughly enjoy my efforts.


Warmest wishes,

-
       
Heather

(P.S
. See if you can find the small cross-over between A Sinister Game and Death’s Angel. *wink*)

With thanks to Mary Moritz, for her help.

Chapter One

That was too
close.
It had been
so hard this time.

Victor Black
was break
ing her
down
l
ittle by little, Game after G
ame.

If she
’d had any sense
at all
she would have turned her
self over to Game Control and allo
wed someone else to take over her team. But she
couldn’t do that. They were
her
team.
She
had trained them from the very beginning.
They
depended on her and
in return
,
she needed them. Her team was
her
purpose, h
er
very
reason fo
r being. If she
stepped d
own as Red Command, what would she do next? Where would she
even
go? What
in the world
would she
become?

No.
She
shivered at the thought.
I won’t back down.
He will not win.

“He’s getting to you, isn’t he
?
”

Victoria
spun
in her chair
from the control center monitor to face the source of the voic
e behind her
. Max stood in the doorway, his large frame eating up most of the light coming from the othe
r room. He was gazing down at her
with blue eyes as trouble
d as stormy skies.

He knows,
she
thought.
She suddenly wondered if every member of her
team knew.
Probably. Hell
, I
traine
d them to be observant, didn’t I?

“Yes,” she replied, simply. She
hated to admi
t it, e
specially to Max. But sh
e had never lied to them,
and she
wasn’t about to start now.

“You’re
not thinking of
resign
ing
, are you?”
h
e asked next, and the anxiety in his handsome features kicked up a notch.

She
stared hard at him. “I wasn’t planning on it. Not yet
anyway
.”

He seemed to relax a bit. Then he came into the room and sat down
at the command seat next to hers
.
Victoria
watched as the muscles beneath his t-shirt rippled with his movements. It was a well-t
rained body, toned and strong. She
couldn’t help but admire it.

If he noticed her
watching him, he
had the grace not to
let it show
.
He turned those blue eyes on her again and pinned her to her
chair with them.
“
You’re do
ing fine, you know. You aren’t the second place
Competition leader for nothing,” he said.

That was Max,
always at her back and trying to take care of her.

“Thanks,” she sighed. She
didn’t know what else to say. It was embarrassing as hell that Blac
k had come as close as he had.

Victor Black was t
he Game leader of the Gray T
eam and had been for as long as anyone could remember. It was this span of time, this eternity of leadership
,
that made Bl
ack as powerful as he was. He grew more powerful
every day.

Victoria
was
the Game leader for
the Reds:
Victoria Red.

Victor Black.

Their real names had been erased, along with their previous identities, the moment each of them had been chosen to lead a team
on the Field
.

But unlike Black, Victoria
had
onl
y been in
charge of her team for a decade,
since she
was fifteen
and Game Control had noticed her innate
talents during one of their required
school aptitude exams.

As they did with all promising
Game players, they “acquired” her, gave her a new and fitting name, and placed her in charge of her
own team, t
he
Reds. Victoria
had stepped up to the honor and proven herself time and again.
The
Reds were currently
in second place on the Field.

Being a successful Game leader had its advantages.
At twenty-five,
she
was just reaching
maturity. At around twenty-five to thirty, Game players ceased aging.

Black had been Gray l
eader for hundreds of years.
He’d stopped aging long ago and
looked no older than thirty.

Victoria frowned as she pictured the man now. His
eyes
were older.
T
here was always something in a person’s
eyes that could not be held in the check of time
.
Knowledge
could always be glimpsed there, through the windows of a person’s soul
.

Victor Black’s
jade green
gaze was
replete with
experience and secrets untold. No one on
the Field was older
.

As Red leader,
and hence
leader of the second most powerful team on the Fi
eld, it was Victoria’s
job to prepare the Reds
for
Black’s attacks, for the Gray T
eam’s assaults
,
and for whatever plans their incredibly intelligent, frustratingly clever leader might be hatching.
The Grays would attempt to take over a quadrant of the Field, and the Reds would thwart them and take it for themselves. On and on this went, until the final team was defeated and another, new team would take its place to challenge the winner.