Deadly Games (9 page)

Mancrest grunted, set the wine bottle down,
and headed for a door that presumably led to a kitchen.

“Plates, too,” Amaranthe suggested.

Sicarius detached himself from the wall to
follow.

Mancrest paused and stared at him. “Unless
you know where I left my corkscrew, I don’t need your help.”

Sicarius followed him into the kitchen
anyway, probably thinking Mancrest might have a pistol or two on
the premises. If she ever did go out with a man for
non-work-related reasons, she would have to figure out a way to
leave Sicarius home. Of course, if he’d ever deign to take her out
for non-work-related reasons, that would suffice as well.

Amaranthe laid out Maldynado’s food choices,
trying to arrange the bread and pastries in such a way that one
might not immediately notice their battered state. Given what these
groceries had gone through to arrive here, she was happy nothing
was poisoned with varnish.

She had forgotten Maldynado stashed a
newspaper in a bag, too, and she glanced over it. Mancrest did have
an article on the front page. Apparently the winners of each of the
events in the Imperial Games would be invited to dinner with the
emperor.

“Wish I could enter,” she muttered. With all
the training the team did, she was more fit than she had ever been.
Though she had never been tall enough to have a chance at the
sprints, where the long-legged women excelled, she had won medals
for the middle- and long-distance races as a junior. Unfortunately,
any race she ran these days would end with enforcers taking her
into custody—or worse.

A crash sounded in the other room—a big
one.

Amaranthe lunged around the table, a vision
of Sicarius mashing Mancrest with a meat cleaver stampeding into
her head. She shoved the swinging door open. A drawer lay on the
floor beside a butcher-block island; cutlery and silverware
scattered the travertine tiles. One wicked serrated knife had
somehow struck a cabinet door with such force that it protruded
from the wood, handle still quivering.

Sicarius had Mancrest bent over the island,
his cheek smashed into the butcher block, his arm chicken-winged
behind his back, fingers jerked up so high he could have braided
his own hair, were it long enough. Maldynado would have had an
innuendo-laden comment about the men’s positioning. Amaranthe only
propped her hands on her hips and said, “Problem?”

“No,” Sicarius said.

“Yes!” Mancrest cried. “I was just trying to
get silverware out.”

“Is it possible you’re being a touch jumpy?”
Amaranthe asked Sicarius.

He kicked something on the floor behind the
island. An ivory-handled pistol skidded across the tiles and bumped
against the fallen drawer.

Amaranthe picked it up. The hammer was
cocked. She lifted the frizzen, and powder poured out of the
pan.

“I forgot it was there,” Mancrest said, voice
muffled by the fact his cheek was still mashed against the butcher
block.

“Really?” Amaranthe asked, prepared to give
him the benefit of the doubt.

Mancrest hesitated. “No.”

Given the situation, his honesty surprised
her, however belated.

“Care to tell us where the rest of the loaded
firearms in your flat are?” she asked.

“Not really,” Mancrest said.

“Then I guess Sicarius will have to follow
you around all night, hovering over your shoulder while you eat.
Breathing down your neck. Sharing your salad. Hogging your
croutons.”

That might have drawn a snort from Sicarius
had they been alone, but with someone else present, he gave no
hints of emotion, and she could not guess what he was thinking.
Probably that he did not want to be there. Perhaps that he would
like to finish grinding Mancrest’s face into the island.

“Do you actually think I’m going to sit down
and dine with you?” Mancrest asked.

“Standing is an option, if you wish,”
Amaranthe said. “Where are the other firearms? I’ll be more
comfortable eating and chatting with you, knowing it’s unlikely
you’ll be able to shoot me between courses.”

“Parlor room desk drawer,” Mancrest said,
“and in the latrine above the washout.”

“Thank you. I’ll...did you say latrine?”

“A man feels particularly vulnerable with his
trousers around his ankles.” Mancrest tried to pull his arm free—a
futile attempt. “Would you mind calling off your attack dog? I
can’t feel the blood in my fingers.”

Amaranthe nodded at Sicarius. “Want to go
check on those firearms?”

He did not move.

“Or I could check,” she said. “Let him
wriggle his fingers, will you?”

Amaranthe trotted through the rooms, wanting
to find the weapons and come back to rescue Mancrest before lack of
circulation lost him any digits. She found the pistols and returned
to the dining room. Mancrest sat in a seat—not the head of the
table—with Sicarius at his back, arms crossed over chest in one of
his typical poses. Amaranthe handed Sicarius the pistols, which he
unloaded, then tossed into a corner.

She slipped into an upholstered seat at the
head of the table, a throne of a chair that made her feel slight.
The hand-carved feet resembled cougar paws and the rest of the
detailing also evoked a predatory feline feel. None of this man’s
furnishings had been produced in a factory or by anyone other than
a master woodworker.

Mancrest, arms also crossed over his chest,
glowered at her, and Amaranthe wondered how much force had been
involved in seating him.

A gold-and-silver corkscrew rested on the
table by the wine. She opened the bottle and poured two
glasses.

“Your dog isn’t drinking?” Mancrest
asked.

Amaranthe fought to keep a scowl off her
face. While she could understand Mancrest being irked with
Sicarius, her instinct was to come to his defense. She doubted the
barbs would bother him, but they bothered her. “Sicarius is my
partner in our endeavors. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t belittle,
dehumanize, or otherwise deride him. Given the stories you’ve
printed about him, I believe he’s showing admirable restraint in
not killing you.”

“He’s a cowar—assassin, and I’ve done nothing
but print the truth.”

Hm, maybe that correction was a sign of
progress. Or maybe he was gentlemanly enough not to purposely
irritate a woman.

“At least one of the stories you’ve printed
is an untruth,” Amaranthe said. “We did not kidnap the emperor last
winter. In fact, we saved his life.”

Mancrest snorted. “I interviewed witnesses
that say you were there and that Sicarius had an axe over the
emperor’s head when the guards stormed in.”

“He was lifting the axe to cut the chains
binding Emperor Sespian to a dispensary of molten ore, a situation
set up by Larocka Myll and Arbitan Losk, the former heads of the
Forge organization. You’ve heard of them, I trust?”

Mancrest’s face grew as hard to read as
Sicarius’s. Since he was not scoffing, she decided to press on.

“Arbitan was a Nurian masquerading as a
Turgonian businessman, and he was the creator of the monster that
was killing people all over town last winter. That was little more
than a distraction, though, so he could plot against the emperor.
And he almost succeeded. Sicarius saved Sespian’s life.”

Mancrest snorted. “Oh, please.”

Ah, there was the scoff.

“We also thwarted Forge’s attempt to pollute
the city water a couple of months ago,” Amaranthe said. “That
epidemic you wrote about as well.”

“You’re claiming that, too?” Mancrest
laughed. “The entire army went up there.
They
handled
that.”

“They cleaned up after we did all the work,
including killing a half a dozen makarovi that had butchered
everyone in the dam.”

Amaranthe stood before Mancrest could voice
another statement of disbelief. She untucked her blouse and
displayed the scars on her abdomen. Showing unfamiliar men—or
any
men—her midsection was not something she did often, and
the wounds were not exactly unquestionable evidence that her story
was true, but she figured it might prove worth it. His eyebrows
flew up and his mouth sagged open. The reaction did not leave her
with the triumphant feeling she had expected; rather it reminded
her that she would have ugly scars for life. Though she might be
focused on her goals and was not usually one to worry about vanity,
no woman wanted a man to be horrified when she showed some skin.
She tucked her blouse back in.

“Of course, if my plan had been better
thought-out, I might not have been mauled, but fortunately I had
talented people to dig me out of trouble.” She smiled at Sicarius
and caught him staring at her abdomen.

He lifted his gaze to meet her eyes, and for
once she was glad she could not read his face. She could not
imagine the long look being for anything other than pity or perhaps
guilt over not having kept her from that fate, and she did not want
either from him. Ancestors knew that whole debacle had been a
result of her questionable-at-best scheme, one he had tried to talk
her out of, and she had nobody to blame but herself.

“Naturally, I don’t expect you to take my
word as truth,” Amaranthe said, “for any of these events, but I’d
like to think
The Gazette
, should it be proved to be in
error, would print a retraction.” She gestured to the forgotten
meal and wine. “Shall we dine?”

“Huh?” Mancrest glanced back at Sicarius,
then stared at her.

“Problem?” Amaranthe asked.

“I... When you started talking about those
stories, I assumed you were here to threaten me and force me to
print something more to your liking.” He checked on Sicarius again,
who was doing a good imitation of furniture at the moment. “Or is
that activity still forthcoming?”

“No, I’d rather eat now if you don’t mind.
I’ve had a busy night.” She tore a chunk of bread, admiring the
flaky crust and soft interior—a tasty change from the rice-based
flatbread more common in the empire. A small tin held freshly
smashed peanut butter. It never warmed enough in their satrapy for
peanuts, so the import was a rare treat. She smeared some on the
bread, and her mouth watered in anticipation. Though Maldynado had
nearly walked her into a trap, she could forgive him since his
shopping had proved so thoughtful. She lifted the piece of bread
and offered the traditional before-meal salute, “A warrior’s
health.”

Mancrest had been watching her, and, after
she took a few bites, he prepared a plate for himself.

Amaranthe lifted her bread toward Sicarius.
Though she knew he would not accept the invitation, she would have
felt awkward eating without offering him something. He gave a
single minute head shake.

“You’re not what I expected,” Mancrest
said.

“What’d you expect?”

“Given you’re a rogue enforcer and who you
work with now—” Mancrest jerked a thumb over his shoulder at
Sicarius, “—someone draconian and pugilistic.”

“You think Maldynado would spend time with
someone like that?”

“If that someone had nice breasts, yes.”

Amaranthe chuckled. “Perhaps so. By the way,
did Maldynado tell you who he wanted you to meet, or did you
guess?

“Is he going to be in trouble if you find out
he did tell me?” Mancrest sipped from his glass of wine—he had
apparently decided it was safe to drink—and watched her over the
rim of the glass.

She had a feeling she was being tested. “That
might earn him an extra stair-running session.”

Two vertical lines formed between Mancrest’s
eyebrows. “Stair-running? Like exercise?”

“Yes.”

“If it’ll get him extra work, then maybe I
should say yes.” Mancrest smiled for the first time that night.
“But, no, he just said he knew a nice girl I should meet, someone
who was working too hard and needed to have more fun.” He raised
his eyebrows. “I figured out the rest on my own. People have
noticed who he’s running with these days. His family is vocal in
expressing their disappointment and quick to point out that this
demonstrates why he deserved to be disowned.”

So, they had earned enough notoriety that
everyone who knew Maldynado knew he was a potential avenue to her
and Sicarius. She would have to remember that.

Mancrest sipped his wine. “How do you get
Maldynado to climb stairs? We used to fence together, and he was
always too unambitious to put any serious effort into his
training.”

“We aim to be a fit group. It helps with
defeating the evil doers of the world. At the least, it helps if
you’re fast enough to outrun them. We’re all up well before dawn
for distance work or obstacle courses, and there’s usually weapons
training in the afternoon or evening.”

Mancrest sputtered and almost spilled his
wine. “You can convince Maldynado to get up before dawn?”

Behind him, Sicarius stirred. He pinned
Amaranthe with a hard stare. Not enthused about her sharing
information on when and where they trained? She raised her fingers
and nodded once. He was right. Mancrest was not someone to be
trusted yet.

“I didn’t think even breasts could convince
him to get out of bed before nine,” Mancrest continued, not
noticing her exchange with Sicarius. He did glance at her chest, as
if wondering if something special might be going on down there. Uh
huh. Right.

“That’s not how I motivate the men,”
Amaranthe said dryly. “And I’m sure it would take someone prettier
than I to finagle them into doing things by that method.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Mancrest smiled for the
first time. “You’re pretty enough. I’d like to see you with your
hair down. It looks like you have a few waves that don’t want to be
confined.”

“Uhm. Maybe another time when I’m sure
escaping soldiers and enforcers won’t be a part of the evening
activities.”

Mancrest’s smile widened. “Is that a request
for a second date?”