Steel Dominance (11 page)

“Hell! What is that?”

“You have bare feet. Stay over here.” Dankyo bundled her onto the bed, then strode to the door, his hand already whisking a large revolver out from under his coat. As he held the door half closed, he frowned at her. “Remember. Stay. This will lock. I’ll be back.”

No shots were fired in the next few minutes. She listened, knees clasped to her body while she perched on the bed’s edge. Down below someone shouted, and perhaps men were running, but nothing worse than that. The noises subsided. The voices sounded calmer.

She wrinkled her nose at the shard still sticking from her wall, then chewed on her thumbnail while she came to a decision.

“No way am I staying here to be shish-kebabed by the next stray bit of whatever-the-hell that is.” This room seemed as perilous as anywhere in this foreign place, but Dankyo…despite all his dangerous airs, something about him said, safety.

Clothes, though—where were they?
She fished under the bed for some shoes, then got up to look. If she could find some clothes that would also hide her face, she’d go find him.

Chapter Ten

All the people she encountered were far more interested in picking up debris than watching her. Careful to keep herself as inconspicuous as possible, she peered into a few rooms. Finally she found him inside a shed on the south side of the courtyard their room overlooked. Smoke still wafted through the double doors that had been slid open to their stoppers. Something within clanked and chugged like an ill-balanced steam engine. She slipped inside, making sure she didn’t impale herself on any of the metal debris strewn across the concrete floor.

Quiet as a mouse
. She grinned. In the black tights and long black hooded shirt she’d found in the wardrobe, she might be a sleek and deadly ninja. She tugged off the hood.

A row of funnel-shaped voltaic lights dangled from the high ceiling, casting yellow tones over the timber workbenches and eliciting glints from the bronze and steel contraptions parked on the floor.

The most remarkable was an eight-feet-high man in verdigris green and gold. Chunky yet warlike, she thought. A standing replica of the Clockwork Warrior. The spiked head had been knocked crooked, and metal showed raw and twisted in the center where a nose might be expected. Above his back, steam hissed from torn pipes as round as her wrist. The machinery noises came from within his body.

The engine sounds stopped, and more steam gushed from his joints and wounded metal.

“Sofia.” A quiet word, but she jumped. Dankyo had seen her, and he moved toward her, as purposeful as an ironclad in full battle array. His pale shirt was streaked with black, and his face bore smudges as if he’d wiped his hand across his forehead.

Behind him a lean, gray-haired man poked energetically at the hissing steel statue using a wrench and a long screwdriver. A pair of strap-on binocular eyeglasses were tipped up on his forehead.

Dankyo’s eyes…
oops
. Mean as a wolf on a mission. She took a step back. Didn’t take much for this man to turn her into a quivering mess—half anxious, half aroused.

“What—” she began.

“You left. I said to stay. And you’re out by yourself? A slave without her Master?”

Her temper fired up. “I’m disguised! I never said I’d—” The words she meant to say vanished when he grabbed her collar between finger and thumb and stared down at her.

“Sofia. I had reasons. I always have reasons.”

She bit her lip, and peeked around him but barely had time to see the other man was paying them no notice.

A tug on the collar, and Dankyo’s hand on her chin brought her back. “Me, Sofia. Don’t look at Henry.”

His voice dropped into a barely there rumble that made her toes curl. “Later I’ll attend to this properly. I think your ass needs some reminding to stay where I tell it to.”

“What? My
ass
needs reminding?”

He nodded. “Precisely. I did say I’d reinforce my decisions with pain if I had to.”

The words sank into her like a sizzling stone to the bottom of a lake and stayed there bubbling, rippling outward, keeping her still. What was he planning? He released the collar.

Blinking, stunned, and still processing the echoes of nervousness and desire running crazily up and down her body, she watched him turn and walk back to Henry. Her feet couldn’t seem to move.

Do I go, or stay? Do the wrong thing and, and… God, what an arrogant asshole
. But he’d left her one hundred feet high in the clouds, wondering what his hand would feel like on her backside.

She sucked in her first breath for ages. The room quivered into focus.

When he put his hand behind his back and crooked his finger, beckoning, relief freed her. She stepped forward.

Am I turning into an obedient little puppy dog? Never, surely?

Henry glanced at her, then circled the warrior replica, tapping with his screwdriver. “It’s a local metallurgy fault. Won’t happen again, sir. Once I sort this out. Just have to locate the faults. You know me. But, my word, amazing the way the trajectory of the fragments was so
even
. Straight as a ruler. Head height.” He pointed out the door. “
Pow!
If I hadn’t ducked…”

“Perhaps
pow
, but once those bits ricocheted off things, they went everywhere. A piece of him is stuck in my bedroom wall. And is he disarmed now? No more surprises?” Dankyo asked.

“No more.” Henry reached up and waggled a metal key that hung on a lanyard around his neck. “This is the disarm key.”

Dankyo enclosed her hand in his and drew her close. “Henry, this is Sofia.”

“Welcome! Welcome!” He grinned at her and shook her free hand in a manic way. “You’re the one here to solve the tomb puzzle. Yes?”

“Yes. I am. He’s a good copy.” She nodded at the metal man—anything to distract her from the way Dankyo was playing with her fingertips. Wherever he touched seemed to pulse with energy as if every nerve thrummed to life just so she could
feel
. It had been like this with her first boyfriend. But Dankyo wasn’t that, was he? This was merely a dalliance. A meeting of two people lusting after what the other could provide.

“A good copy? Was, maybe. Before he exploded. So you can solve the mystery?”

“I think I can.”

Dankyo squeezed her hand. “She’s a little overoptimistic.”

“Am not. Maybe a great lummox like you would find it difficult to solve, but it’s a piece of cake for me.”

“Great lummox?” He growled.

“Uh.” Oops again. “Small lummox?” she squeaked. This was the day for her ass to suffer, it seemed.

When Henry resumed poking at and tinging the metal, the sounds burrowed into her head and…
clicked.

An idea seized her. “I think I can help you, Henry.” Though Dankyo didn’t let go of her left hand, she stooped to grab a second screwdriver from the tool box at her feet. Then she rose and did some tapping of her own.

Henry waggled his eyebrows at her. “Say again?”

“Look. Hear that?” She reached up to hit a spot on the metal warrior’s neck. Henry cocked his head. “That duller
ting
is where the faults are.”

“Oh! Oh, yes!” He applied his own screwdriver, making a series of plinking sounds. “Terrible! And wonderful. I can use this method. Not precise, though. Needs refining, but thank you so very
very
much! Will save much time. Say…are you two?” Henry’s gaze flitted from her to Dankyo and back. From a back pocket of his overalls, he sneaked out a measuring tape.

“No. We’re not—” she started. Then stopped, wondering what he’d really meant.

But already Henry seemed intent on measuring her height before he switched rapidly to gauge leg, then arm length.

“Whatever are you—” When he snagged her wrist, she tugged it from his grasp.

“My word,” Henry muttered, scratching his eyebrow with the stiff end of the tape. “Remarkable. Most women are of different dimensions. Less up top.” He made vague circular motions with both hands while absentmindedly eyeing her breasts. “Still, I like challenges.”

What the hell?
She shuffled back.
Is he quite mad?

“Henry. Not now.” With those few words Dankyo halted Henry’s pursuit of her measurements. “We have an invitation to the palace. You’re coming too. Get whatever you need. Get yourself fed and cleaned up. Eleven sharp.”

“Sure. Sure.” He nodded like an overwound clockwork marionette. “I’ll be ready. I have some weaponry to show.”

“Good. Now, is that your office? I need to use it.” Dankyo indicated a door at the far corner of the workshop, past a stack of crates.

“Yes. Of course. Be my guest. I’ll trust you to lock up. The Hellene traders in the compound here are terribly nosy. Steal anything, they will.”

“Come, Sofia.”

She hadn’t much choice with Dankyo tucking her arm into his and walking toward the office like a man out for a stroll with his sweetheart.

Nervous about his intent, she fumbled for something to say. “Why are we going in there?” No answer. “Are you serious about taking this Henry before the emperor-bey. Is he likely to explode anything? The man seems dangerous.”

“He’s not. He knows his business. This is the only accident I’ve ever seen as a result of his work.” They’d reached the office door, and Dankyo turned the knob and swung it open. “Ladies first.” With his hand at her back, he propelled her through the door.

A glimpse revealed a paper-bestrewn desk, a chair, blackboard, and battered blue filing cabinets.

She scooted about, to walk in backward. Protecting her rear seemed a good idea. “Now. You have to tell me. What are we doing in here? I should be getting ready to go to the palace.” The edge of the desk bumped her thighs.

Why am I always going backward around Dankyo?
The answer was obvious.
Because he’s dangerous.

“It’s eight. We have a few hours. Ample time. That was a remarkable display of…something, out there. Intelligence? Some sort of genius? But it does not excuse you.” From a coat pocket he removed a single black glove and tugged it on, then adjusted the fingers.

“Um, thank you, but what is that for? It had better not be for what I think it is.”

“It’s for your rear end.”

“Umm.” Watching the gloved hand—the hand that reminded her of a snake about to strike—wasn’t wise when a big man stood between her and the door. Some morsel of self-preservation made her search for an escape route.

“I told you I would expect obedience. You agreed.”

I did? Oh yes
. “Uhh. That was last night, not now.”

“But you also agreed to keep going. Remember? To stop, I need to hear a no. This was an instruction I gave for your own safety, which makes the infraction worse. Anything might have been happening outside. So I need you to say you’re sorry and that next time you will pay me heed. Or tell me no. Not just a temporary no. I want a full ‘I don’t wish to keep this relationship going’ type of no.”

Just like that? The finality of it just plain stopped time. She blinked. An ache spread in the center of her chest. This wasn’t fair.
I only just got used to the idea of being with you, of trying to find out what it is I want. Damn.

“If you say no to me, then I won’t spank you. But I’m still disappointed. I expect better compliance with my orders in future. You did not know the full circumstances here. You might have gotten yourself killed.”

“This—” He what? Oh. So she was wrong no matter what? She halted, feeling half choked and shook her head, suddenly aware of a strain between her eyes. “Not fair.” She stared, frowning, struggling to dam up those stupid tears. “When you said I could say yes or no…I never thought
no
would mean everything stopping.”

Dankyo breathed out long and slow. “It won’t. It doesn’t. Only now and only this time. If you say no, I will step aside and resume my duties as simply your protector. Sofia, I’m not going to hurt you beyond your capacity. I will only punish you if you need it. This is a part of the equation for me, and I think, for you also.” For once there seemed an air of wistfulness to his tone.

He lowered his head a little and leveled a look at her. “Sofia?”

The air seemed to crackle with tension; then her decision thumped into place. The
pull
inside her dissolved, washing away like the last gust of drizzling rain sweeping across a meadow.
For me also?
She wasn’t sure of that, not yet anyway. This whole
thing
seemed like being a newborn babe.
Tiny steps. Try. See. Okay. I can do this.

“Um. You want me to say sorry?” She inhaled and smelled Dankyo. He was so close, so masculine. Damn. This was making her wet, scared…and confused.

He waited.

“Sorry?” she squeaked hopefully. His lips twitched, as if he strained to hold back laughter.

“That’s a start. Do you understand the
why
, though?” This time there was a tiny crease down his forehead.

Ugh
. And then a spark of understanding and empathy came to her. He was worried about her. Maybe not in a deep,
I love you forever
, kind of way, but worried. The realization made her stomach sink. And she guessed she had been stupid. Here he was trying to help her, and she’d messed up.

She bit her lip. “Yes. I think so. And I am sorry.”

“Good.” Such meaning in that one word, for it seemed as final in tone as someone shoving a rock in a doorway to keep it open.

Her heartbeat drummed a tattoo on the inside of her ribs. She shut her eyes, but still she could see his black-gloved hand.
I am scared, and this is insane. But, I do want this
. Without this, without handing him control, they had nothing special.

Her knees quivered.
I’m not scared of the pain. I’m scared of where this might lead
. This was the unknown.

She opened her eyes and found him studying her. His eyes were a gorgeous dark toffee brown—too pretty.
This is the only man who’s ever seen this strange side to my soul.