Ambasadora (Book 1 of Ambasadora) (30 page)

How did all this happen?

To David’s right the doctors
worked on Kenon, to his left they covered Trala’s body.

He eyeballed Rainer. The
contractor spoke in hushed tones to the Embassy investigators. David knew Soli
would never go to Rainer for help. Contractors wielded manipulation better than
they did cenders.

David stopped the doctors
wheeling Soli out to the transport to ask where they were taking her.

“The Embassy hospital,”
the one closest to David said.

Rainer stepped in front of David
and motioned the doctors out the door. “She’ll be treated for her trauma
and distress at the psychiatric facility. I’m taking care of the arrangements
myself.”

David didn’t like the sound of
that.

Rainer slipped past Mari as she
paced in the entryway. She hadn’t spoken to David since the Embassy
investigators had arrived. He still didn’t know what she and Kenon were doing
here in the first place. She was either avoiding him because he lied or because
she lied.

She strode past David without
making eye contact and went to Kenon’s side.

“Can you get the bandages
any
tighter
?” Kenon asked the doctor. “I already can’t breathe
very well.”

“Are you okay?” Mari
asked him.

Kenon pulled in a labored breath
as the doctor adjusted his bandage once more. “A little dizzy. Can’t
really catch my breath.”

He held up his white jacket, a
bloody hole in its side showed where the cender shot had brushed him. “And
a little queasy. You just can’t get workmanship like this anymore.”

Mari laughed between tears and
gave Kenon a kiss on his cheek. “I’m so sorry I convinced you to come with
me.” She looked at David, shame showing on her face.

“Don’t give it a thought. I
wanted to see Soli’s home anyway.” Kenon leaned in close and whispered,
“For comparisons, you know?” He pulled a face and rubbed his left
arm.

“What is it?” Mari
asked.

“My arm keeps going
numb.”

David squatted beside Kenon and
Mari. “Maybe from the electrical discharge of the cender. I’ve known it to
happen.”

Rainer reappeared in the room.
“We can head back to the ship.”

“What about me?” Kenon
asked. “Shouldn’t I be going to the hospital, too?” His tone sounded
panicked. “I was just shot!”

The doctor next to him said,
“Your vitals show elevated blood pressure and a slightly irregular
heartbeat, but that’s consistent with this sort of trauma. I’ve applied menders
under your bandages, so the small second degree burn from the cender flash
should heal in a few hours. You’re welcome to visit the medical center, though.”
The doctor looked to Rainer for confirmation on this last suggestion.

Rainer didn’t hide his disdain
for Kenon’s whining. “Do we need to carry you there on a stretcher?”

“I’m not that fragile.”
Kenon smiled, then his face went pale. “But heading to the hospital seems
like the cautious thing to do.”

“We’ll go with you,”
David said. He and Geir helped Kenon to his feet.

Kenon’s body began to convulse
and his eyes rolled back in his head.

David and Geir lowered him to the
floor.

Kenon clutched at his chest and
squeezed his eyes shut. His breathing became ragged. A foul smell permeated
the air. The doctors jostled David and Geir out of the way.

“Cardiac arrest,” one
of them yelled.

The other tore Kenon’s shirt open
and attached a defibrillator to his bare chest, then positioned an automatic
breather over his nose and mouth. The defibrillator shrieked. Kenon’s body
convulsed with the pulse of electricity forced through his heart. Then the
breather inflated and deflated his lungs, causing his chest to rise and fall,
but in an abnormal rhythm. The doctors worked frantically and shouted vitals to
each other after each pulse and breath.

Mari buried her face in David’s
jacket and sobbed. Geir watched in shock.

Minutes rolled by. Instead of
hopeful anticipation, the shriek from the defibrillator became horrifying and
maddening, like a threnody played over and over.

The doctors called out Kenon’s
vitals one last time and confirmed what David already knew, Kenon was dead.

“I’m sorry,” the doctor
closest to David said. “He’s gone.”

Rainer called for another bag.

Mari pulled away from David in
hysterics. “What do you mean
he’s gone
? He’s dead?” She looked
into Kenon’s staring eyes, searching for proof the doctors were wrong.

Geir turned away, his shoulders
quivering.

“Mari.” David reached
for her hand. She pulled away. “He was just fine! What happened? What did you
do to him?”

“He had a weak heart,”
the doctor said. “It was a genetic defect.”

“How?” Mari looked to
David for answers he didn’t have.

“The heart defect stays off
the report,” David said.

“Impossible.” The other
doctor said, snapping his attention to Rainer.

David snatched the doctor off his
feet and pushed him into the wall behind him.

“Don’t!” Mari yelled.
“Please don’t.” She pulled at David’s arm.

He let the doctor go and stepped
away.

“I want him brought up on
charges for assault,” the doctor said to Rainer.

“Genetic tradition meant
everything to Kenon,” David said. “He was one of the few citizens I
knew who believed in the system enough to make it work for him and his family.
Don’t let his lineage be tarnished.”

Rainer considered for a moment.
“Make the report read that Kenon Brudger died of wounds sustained while
protecting a fellow citizen.”

Then to David, “It will add
bravery and altruism to his line. I don’t know how well his amours and heirs
will appreciate it, though. Some Socialites still think altruism is a
defect.”

David balked, though Rainer might
be right. “They’ll know he died a good man. Not all of us will be able to
say that.”

The doctor looked nervous, but
showed Rainer the report before he sent it off from his reporter. “What
about the assault charges?”

“No charges. Everyone’s just
a little tense given the situation.” Rainer put a hand to his cender to
squelch any arguments.

David almost told him he didn’t
need any more favors, but realized what did it matter when the first one surely
came with a hefty price. In his experience, contractors only helped others for
their own substantial gain. He hoped he could afford being in debt to Rainer
Varden.

“How big is this
place?” From Sara’s vantage in the sky box she counted at least six
levels. Beyond that, the dizzying darkness stole her vision.

She didn’t expect a response.
Sean was in the shower finally getting to clean up after listening to her
babble, then bringing back clothes and something to eat. He’d apologized for
the little blue slip dress she now wore, saying it was the most modest piece he
could find. She liked it. The skinny straps and little slits up the side made
it less binding than the gowns she’d been wearing since becoming an ambasadora.

“I can breathe, for
once.” Sara often talked to herself, a habit she picked up at Palomin as a
way to ground her to reality. Hearing her own voice reminded her that she was
still Sara Mendoza, no matter how much of her identity they tried to strip from
her. But, thanks to Faya’s drugs, Sara took more out of that modification cell
than herself.

She glanced at the small black
vial sitting on the table by the suite’s entryway. Sean had brought the drug
back with him, too. She recognized the shimmering liquid as dew drops, a
recreational aphrodisiac, but Sean said in this concentration they became
powerful neuro-stims, strong enough to help her separate emotion from her
terrible memories.

All she had to do was fabricate
new memories to layer over the bad ones. The possibilities were endless, any
experience she wanted—a cruise on the Kimberly River, walking the gardens at
Wright’s Landing, dancing under a living, breathing volcano. Sean said he would
guide her through it. She picked up the vial, wondering if it were that simple,
and worrying that she wouldn’t be able to pretend hard enough to make it work.

She needed a real experience to
make her forget the horror of Palomin. She picked up Sean’s new shirt lying on
the table, wanting to smell it, but knowing she’d be disappointed that it
didn’t have his scent yet. Thinking of how its softness would soon lie against
his skin sent little shivers through her fingertips. Just that small sensation
felt better than a fake holiday.

She removed the vial’s lid. A few
drops of the black fluid remained on its flat crystal surface. Touching it against
her lip, she tested its taste with a brush of her tongue. Its pleasing sweetness
reminded her more of flowers than fruit. She tipped her head back and let the
rest slide down her throat.

Sean came around the corner from
the bathroom. “Have you seen my shirt?”

His short hair looked darker from
being wet, and rumpled, like he’d just taken a towel to it. He stood there in
only a pair of pants and looked around the suite. His torso and arms were
muscled, but not bulky like David’s nor sculpted to detail like Chen’s. The
natural leanness of Sean’s body aroused her.

“You left it here.” She
walked toward him, his shirt in one hand, the empty vial in her other. “I
decided on a new memory,” she said.

“Good. I’ll talk you through
it.” He reached for his shirt.

She tossed it on the bed and let
the vial drop to the tile floor with a clink. His gaze never left hers. She
eased her arms around his neck to whisper in his ear, “I’m tired of talking.”

With barely a brush of her lips,
she traced a trail along his jaw to his neck. When she found a spot that
smelled strongly of him, she ran the tip of her tongue over it. She could feel
his pulse quickening under her mouth. Up until now, she had only guessed at his
attraction for her.

He slid his hands down the silky
slip, then cupped her thighs and lifted her so she could wrap her legs around
him. She could feel his arousal, even through the heavy fabric of his pants.

Wanting to relive that feeling
from their first kiss, she moved slowly. He followed her lead, but coaxed her
lips apart with his. She played the tip of her tongue across his bottom lip,
then drew away slightly, teasing him. He pulled her back into the kiss, but she
kept up their game. Each time their lips met, heat and pressure pooled between
her legs, and her bio-lights pulsed a little brighter. Sean noticed their glow
and became more aggressive, pressing her into a deep kiss and swirling his
tongue into her mouth. When her tongue met his, he squeezed her thighs in
impatience.

By the time he carried her to the
bed, her every nerve sizzled in awareness of where he touched her, with his
hands, his mouth, his skin, the small swath of stubble coming back to his jaw
and chin. The softness of the bed contrasted with his body. She reached for the
button on his pants, then unzipped them. When she tried to push them down his
hips, he nudged her hands away and pushed her slip up past her belly. Some of
the rough spots on his fingertips caught at the silk.

He bent over to kiss the softness
above her belly button. She shivered, and not just from the sensation. A
nervous excitement rose up inside her, as though it were her first time.

In a way that sentiment was true.

No one had caressed
this
body, this reconstructed shell that she didn’t recognize at times. Sean’s touch
made Sara feel comfortable in her own skin. Whether he knew it or not, he helped
her to reclaim ownership of herself because this moment was only for them to
share. Not Simon nor Faya nor Rainer could take that from her.

She reached for his pants again,
but he pushed the slip up over her breasts and slid it up her arms until it
reached her wrists. Instead of pulling it the rest of the way off, he trapped
both of her wrists in the tangled silk and held them there with one of his
hands, showing he could play his own games.

His free hand stroked one of her
breasts with a feather touch as his stare roved over her nude body, then came
to rest on the brightening swirl of purple lights on her arm. Drawing his
fingers down her arm made the bio-lights pulse into a different pattern. A
swipe of his thumb across her nipple sent them flashing brighter. Sean gave a
little growl and swept each fingertip slowly against her stiff nipple to make
the lights pulse faster. The raw yearning in his eyes excited her. A breathy
sigh escaped her lips, drawing his attention back to her mouth. He kissed her,
but only briefly before his lips danced down her neck and continued between her
breasts. He had turned the tables on her seduction of him. She liked that he
challenged her for control, especially the way he commanded a response from
her. When he looked up into her eyes as his lips tugged at her nipple, a quick
flush warmed her skin. He was winning this round, but, as soon as he let go of
her wrists, she let him know it wouldn’t be so easy. When he came in for
another kiss, she held him back with a hand on his chest while the other tugged
at his pants.

Sean gave her his shy smile, and
it warmed her like the sun shining down into her heart. He stood up and slid
his pants off, but kept his shorts on. She enjoyed this playful side to him. He
headed for the bed again, but she placed her foot against his chest to stop him
and nodded toward his shorts. He slid those off, too, then kissed the arch of
her foot, sending tremors through her limbs. She stared at his naked form, a
little timid in anticipation.

His lips continued down the
inside of her leg. He kept eye contact with her through each painfully slow
kiss, making her body tense and squirm. When he reached her inner thigh, the
thought of where his line of kisses would end nearly brought her to climax. It
had been a long time since a man had tasted her. The pressure of his tongue on
her stole her breath and made her arch her back in response. His lips and tongue
moved over her in a circular pattern, working her clitoris until she lifted her
hips completely off the bed. She grabbed handfuls of his short hair as the
pressure built between her legs. Her bio-lights glowed brighter than she’d ever
seen them, the erotic visual putting her over the edge. She whimpered as she
came, but Sean was just getting started.