Steel Dominance (19 page)

Dankyo
. She panted, dazed, and gripped his hand to steady herself.

“You have her? Need another hand? No? Make sure she doesn’t fall. Such a beautiful woman you have there, sir.” The stranger’s voice seemed background noise only.

Dankyo held her to his chest and said ever so quietly to her ear. “Now I’m going to make you come, my lady. Unless…”

Unless?
She swallowed, considered his words for a few seconds to understand them, then nodded. Whatever he wanted to do to her, she desired it also. Her body screamed for release.

They strapped her to the frame with the Y at the bottom. The curve of the padded back meant she couldn’t see her lower body. It also left her head and hands at a man’s chest level.

“Hold her wrists to the padding please, Agrif.”

Why, she wondered.
I’m already fastened here
. Then Agrif went behind her, and she looked up at him. With his large frame just there, standing over her, then the heavy immovable press of his hands on her wrists… The knowledge of her helplessness hit her. She sank like a stone to the bottom of a pond.

To her front, Dankyo eyed her, stern, male, and now she was his to pleasure. He came closer, between her legs. As if he owned them, he ran his palm slowly over her nipples. His callouses were rough, yet she sucked in air and arched, unable to control her longing.

“Not much longer, little one. I like this distraction your Master has devised.” The stranger smiled down at her. “I think he means you to remember this time, though.”

She shuddered and pulled against his hold. Nothing. Her ankles had some give, but not where Agrif pinned her wrists in the circle of his fist. Another shudder took her, and her slit moistened further.

Finger sliding dead center down her belly, then onto her mound, Dankyo went to his knees, lowered his head. Now she couldn’t see him at all and could only feel. Like the lightest feather, his tongue touched her clit.

Molten heat traveled lightning speed up her body, spreading. She writhed, pressing forward, but his tongue kept dabbing, circling, torturing.

He stopped. “Her nipples too, sir.”

“With pleasure.” Agrif used his free hand to shift aside the diamante strands. He pulled on her left nipple until it ached in time with the beat of blood through her clit. “Let me try the other.” The deep rumble of his voice penetrated her. Pain built as he tweaked harder, and pinched and pulled. Both nipples were on fire, and she whimpered.

“Now,” Agrif directed.

Dankyo slid his fingers between her folds, slipping into her wet pussy, up, up, higher, until he touched that place inside that lit her up in an instant. Thighs straining forward, her wrists turning in Agrif’s hard hold, she gasped and sobbed. Though she wanted to come, ever so desperately wanted, the presence of the stranger kept her from the brink. Her gasps and pants turned into squeals. Her whole body writhed in the unyielding grip of the device.

“If you don’t get her there, soon she’ll combust.” The amusement in Agrif’s voice seemed so distant.

“I know. Hold her down more.”

The fingers inside her stroked faster, flicking across the intense spot. At the same time Dankyo released the clamp, then sucked her clit into his mouth. He hummed and licked at her. Agrif leaned over her, laid the full weight of his forearm over her chest and his head in the angle of her neck.

“We have you. Come, woman.” The low vibrations of his command, the glorious soft wetness below, then a final long swipe of Dankyo’s tongue over her swollen nub… Ecstasy grabbed her and threw her into a roaring tumult. Whiteness, pleasure, bliss, poured over her, through her, and into every inch of her body, shaking her loose from her place in reality.

As if she were raised from some underwater sleep, sound slowly returned. The lub dub of her laboring heart and the rhythmic gasp and pant of her breathing welcomed her back.

As he released the cuffs, Dankyo kissed her. She curled into him when he sat. Then he simply patted her while he whispered nothing words in her ear. The world reasserted itself—sounds, smells, her place in it, and the harsh touch of Dankyo’s suit on the bare skin of her ass. After leaving for a moment, the stranger came close and talked a while. She listened but barely understood.

“The assassin of the ambassador was not us. Look to someone closer to the emperor-bey.”

“The Heraklos?”

“Likely, very likely.”

“Why?”

“We don’t know. Perhaps he was sent to discredit them. But remember this. History is just that, history. We no longer want war. Business is good. Let the zealots have their play—it keeps our minorities happy. We will do anything for peace. Anything.”

Silence. He’d gone.

Next Henry’s voice sounded. Still she stayed quiet on Dankyo’s lap. Until he asked her to get up, she wanted to stay where she lay.

“So, did your sale go well, then?”

“Yes, sir. Fire Annie’s going to take a small shipment of everything.”

“Good. Tell me. How is your copy of the warrior coming along?”

“It’s never going to be a proper weapon. I can’t get the internal decision making working. In a battle there are too many things happening. He’ll make a great present for the Emp, though.”

“The emperor-bey? I had thought him too dangerous for that.”

“Nope. You wait. I’ll show you. He’s going to be a regular warrior clock.”

Whatever was a warrior clock? Her professional curiosity stirred.

“Perhaps. Later, though, Henry. Leave us, please.”

“’Course, sir.”

He stepped away, and the door slapped closed.

The room seemed empty of others. She sighed and lifted her head, blinked up at Dankyo’s brown eyes.

“Happy, my lady?”

She nodded, then rested her head against him to hear his heart. So male, so right. She never wanted to move again.

Chapter Seventeen

On the way back to the river’s edge, when Dankyo stopped to purchase something at a small café, she waited on the welcome mat. Across the way, on a deserted island of decking, was a stall where a bald Byzantine man sat cross-legged on a rug. He was using tools on a toy metal car. She ventured over, her four black-suited guards checking the vicinity and suspiciously eyeing those passing by as if they might sprout guns or horns.

When they were going to Fire Annie’s, she’d seen this bald man raising a tool and doing an odd salute as if he knew Dankyo.

Only a yard past the man’s spot was one of the pools of open water where the walkways hadn’t covered the river. A duck cruised through water weeds, leaving a trail of ripples before it swam out of sight between the pontoons.

A basket of blue and red marching toy soldiers made Sofia smile. She picked one up, but the movement of its legs made him slip from her fingers. He hit the timber guard rail beside the water and flipped up into the air, spinning, reflecting glints of light. His destination—straight into the water.

“Oh.” She gasped, but there was no time to catch him.

A golden something whirred past, zipped its head out through the guard rails, and snapped up the toy soldier.

Next second, she had a…a metal dog sitting at her feet with the toy in its mouth. Dog? No. Cat? Porcupine? She took in the many finger-length blunt spines around its neck and the struts and greenish brass plates making up the clockwork creature’s body. What in the Lord’s name was it?

It panted at her, unrolled a foot-long silver segmented tongue, and dropped the soldier at her feet. The clock-dog collapsed onto its two forelegs and rolled its purple glass eyes. Balls of voltaic electricity spun about inside the glass.

“How quaint,” she murmured.

How did it function? Was it…thinking? Surely not? There was something strangely familiar about much of its construction. Tentatively she reached out and stroked its head. Long segmented rods knitted together to make the skin. As she touched it, they raised up here and there in writhing spines that waved an inch in the air before nestling back into place on the skin.

The bald man clicked his teeth together, then spoke. “I made him from the clockies I scavenged. And some other bits and pieces. I call him a clockie dog. He looks like one, don’t you think?”

The clockie dog whirred at her, then nudged the toy soldier closer to her with its nose, and then even closer with its silver tongue. Absentmindedly she picked up the toy man by one leg.

Weird and cute but from the clockies? All those long metal rods making up its skin were clockie legs. Like a spidery, doggy…thing.

“Yuck.” She straightened, wrinkled her nose. “How does he think?”

The thing twisted its head one way, then the other. Then eyed the toy again.

“Ahh, his thinking is secret. Big secret. He wants to play catch and fetch with you.”

“He does?” Even weirder.

“Sofia!” Dankyo took her arm, shot the bald man a frown, then pulled her with him as he strode away. “What were you doing? Don’t ever do that again. Here, in Byzantium, there are dangers you do not appreciate.”

The sudden criticism left her hurt. She’d thought talking to a man with all her guards watching would be safe.

A boy in cream shorts and ragged top sprinted through the guards, spun between her and another, and then was off again. When a guard snagged his sleeve, he twisted from his shirt and slipped loose. Now bare-chested, the boy tumbled free. He vanished into the thick, milling crowd.

“Damn,” Dankyo said quietly.

A shred of something had been crammed into Sofia’s hand. The paper crackled as she slowly uncrumpled it. The black letters on the white background leaped into her head. Nonsensical arrangement. No words. But her logical brain sorted the possible code combinations. No one wrote like that. Nonsense meant something, almost always. Tens of thousands of possibilities rolled past. Flick flick flick.
Ah.

Five yards on, she stopped, mouth gaping as meaning flowered. Then she yanked Dankyo’s sleeve.

“What?” He swung his gaze toward her, then saw the paper. “What?”

“There is a bomb at the toy makers!” She turned as she spoke, and caught sight of the man on his mat. And the toy soldier hung from her pointing hand—she’d not put him back. She let it go. The clockie dog leaped up and grabbed the toy.

Don’t meddle so much
. The last part of the note reverberated in her head.

From somewhere near the bald man, a shrill whistle pierced the air. A sphere of blue voltaic electricity crackled to life in the basket that held the toys.

At her feet, the clockie dog gathered its legs, the toy clutched in its strange gold teeth.

“Bomb!” screamed Dankyo. “Bomb!”

People dropped and threw themselves down.

As Dankyo’s hands grappled at her waist, she dived toward the clockie dog and fastened her fist about one hind leg. Her face, arm, and shoulder hit the decking at the same time as the world erupted, blowing a sizzling wave of writhing blueness toward her, crackling on the nose of the clockie dog and dissipating. A last blue fuzz snapped at the air and then…gone.

Where the man and his stall had been was a burned circle. Melted metal lay among small fires. People climbed to their feet. No one seemed to have died, though a few coughed and staggered. Her ears rang with silence, and then sound filtered back in. The bald man was nowhere to be seen.

“Where?” She pushed herself to her feet. Her dainty clothes were blackened with some fine residue. The clockie dog sprang upright and trotted over to the remains of the stall. Sniffing and whirring, it checked out everything, then sat on its haunches.

Sofia frowned. Did it look lost? “Where is the man?”

“Sofia.” Dankyo dragged her round to face him. “Forget him. We are leaving.”

He gave her no choice. The march back to the limousine was fast and brutal. People who got in the way were elbowed aside. But Sofia had time to think. The note’s message, the salute from the toy maker, the secret meeting at Fire Annie’s—like puzzle clues, they added up. The man had been killed because of something Dankyo, and maybe she, had done.

As the limo door opened and Dankyo gestured for her to enter, the clockie dog walked from beneath her feet, toy man in its mouth. Those odd sizzling purple eyes peered up at her.

“Hey! No!” Dankyo made as if to kick the thing away, but she hoisted it into the car. Metal bits clattered. As the dog slid across the leather seat, limbs sprawling, the toy again dropped from its mouth.

“Sofia, that thing could be dangerous. It is not coming.” He dragged it out by one leg and dumped it on the pavement.

“Oh, Dankyo.” She cocked her head and stared at it while it stared at her. “Please?”

“No. In.”

He pushed her in and slammed the door, then ran around to the other side and opened his door. Quickly, she opened her side and tossed the little soldier back out. The clockie dog slowly picked it up. The toy draped across its mouth like a tiny lifeless man. A long whippy rod on the clockie dog’s rump wagged.

She hadn’t noticed that before. “Oh God. No. You have a tail?”

“Sofia!” Dankyo leaned across and yanked the door shut, then thumped on the divider. “Drive, man!”

They accelerated away.

“Cruel.” She shook her head. Her lower lip trembled. A man had died back there, hadn’t he? And they’d left his poor pet thing behind.

“It’s a made thing. Metal and clockworks. We can’t keep it, dear.” Dankyo laid his hand on her cheek, pulled her into his side, and caressed her. “I’m sorry. It could be another bomb.”

“No. It would have exploded already. But I understand.” She did. But then why did she feel so sad?

The rocking and jarring as the vehicle drove along slowly helped her to unwind. She snuggled into Dankyo, and her mind started ticking through what had happened. “Is he dead?”

“The toy maker?”

“Yes…the man on the rug who was a part of whatever spy network you had set up.”

Dankyo was quiet for a few seconds. “Not mine. He was looking out for Fire Annie. She’s like an interconnection between the Ottomans and whoever on this side needs to talk to them. I don’t know if he’s dead.” With his knuckle beneath, he angled up her chin, then looked into her eyes. “I just needed you, us, out of a dangerous situation. Understand?”