Steel Dominance Read online

  “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 i
n. 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?”

  She nodded, then swallowed. “Is there some way to find out? He was so nice.” A thought occurred to her. “If he was on our side, not some enemy, then that creature he made won’t be dangerous.”

  “Hmm, perhaps.” He clucked his tongue.

  Under her cheek, she felt the slow heave of his chest and smelled his deep scent. Dankyo was so solid, so real, she doubted anything could harm him. But panic clutched her heart for a second. Please, no. I couldn’t take it if he was hurt.

  “Perhaps it’s not dangerous,” he added. “It never hurts to be careful, though.”

  It had hurt him, though—the clock-dog. She tried, and failed, to figure out why she cared what happened to a mishmash of clockwork parts.

  “Now. Tell me how you knew there was a bomb.”

  Strange how she’d forgotten that. All the messy crazy stuff had distracted her. “Um. The note. The boy who ran through gave it to me. It was in code, but I worked out what it meant.” She thought back. “It said something like, there’s a bomb at the toy maker, and then it said, stop meddling.”

  “Meddling?” He stared at the back of the driver’s seat. “There are implications here that I don’t like. Someone knows about you and your puzzle-solving ability. And they think you’re somehow meddling, but in what? If the bomb was a killing device, then they aimed to help you also.” He let out a long breath, peered down at her. “What do you make of this?”

  Me? What do I think of all this spy stuff? But, she solved puzzles. Was this too a sort of puzzle? She’d never really applied herself to something like this. She thought through it all.

  “There’s so many permutations. It seems unlikely to be the Ottomans. Could it be meant to stop you interfering in affairs between the emperor-bey and the Ottomans?”

  “That was my conclusion too, Miss Sofia. But also, who planted the bomb? And how does the person who wrote the note relate to them?”

  Oh. She’d not figured that bit. Maybe people were too complicated for her?

  “As for the man and whether he died”—he squeezed her shoulder—“I’ll be making enquiries. There was no body. It’s possible he escaped into the river.”

  Possible, but even she wasn’t convinced. “I don’t want anyone else dying because of something I might have done.” She sniffed. Tears were ridiculous, but her hands were trembling too.

  “Oh, Sofia.” The smile he gave her was a little sad, a little incredulous. “I’m sorry you are upset by this, but it is unavoidable. There’s too much at stake. I just hope no enemy has discovered what you really aim to do here. I want to keep you safe. I want us all safe. Just remember to say if you want this to stop…if you want to go home. Because I’ll board the next airship in an instant. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Then he pulled her to him, kissed her once on the lips, and held her that way until they arrived at the compound.

  She thought a while as they drove. This is the second time today I’ve cuddled up to Dankyo.

  She’d never heard of him as a caring man. They’d told her he was a hard taskmaster, an unforgiving, stick-to-the-rule-book-or-die sort of person. Had the rumors been that wrong? The alternative crept up on her and stayed in her mind all the way back. Has he changed because of me?

  When she opened the door and stepped out, a clunk and rattle from under the car made her crouch to look. The clock-dog was untangling his limbs. He got to his feet and shook out all his joints in a metal shimmy and whirr. His tongue flopped out, reaching hallway to the ground. Then he leaped forward and circled her legs several times in a whip-fast spin of legs and body.

  “Damnation.” Dankyo had come round the end of the limousine. He reached under his coat. “How?”

  She couldn’t stop her mouth curving into a lopsided smile. “I think he was clinging on under the car somehow.” The long shape of the revolver emerged as Dankyo pulled it from inside his coat. She stepped sideways to shield the clock-dog, then scooped him up. “No. You can’t! He’s harmed no one.”

  “No?” Eyes dark, Dankyo stepped up to her, seized the creature by the neck, and jiggled him. “If I say he’s unsafe, he’s unsafe. Let me take him. Now.”

  Mouth trembling, tears brimming on her eyelids, she released her hold. “Please.”

  He clicked his fingers and gave the clock-dog to the guard who came forward. Though it wriggled in his arms, he held it tight enough to stop any escape.

  “Please?” Only one possible way to appeal to Dankyo surfaced. She dropped to her knees and fingered his trousers at the knee, blinking up through watery eyes.

  Head shaking side to side, mouth set, he examined her, then gave the clock-dog a long look. “I’ll do this much. Henry will look at him. We will abide by his decision. Satisfied?”

  Surely Henry would see the thing wasn’t dangerous? A smile spread. “Yes, thank you.” Then she added softly, overcome by evil inspiration, “Shall I kiss your feet now? But no, they are too smelly after all the walking today. Your
knee?” With both arms, she hugged his knee and grinned.

  “What?” Slowly Dankyo squatted down to her level. He fisted her hair, screwing his fingers in tight enough to hurt just a little. “I’ll take this out on your butt later.”

  A frisson of delight swept her. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” With his hand still tight as a steel knot in her hair, he kissed her thoroughly—enough to leave her breathless and her groin throbbing. When he stopped, his deep brown eyes held her as much as his fist did—seeming to delve into her very soul. She shuddered, sinking, sent floundering by the depth of his control.

  Oh. She so wanted his hand between her legs.

  The rest of the day was reserved for the palace. Though security seemed a little tighter and the number of soldiers at the gate might have been more by five or ten, it was as if the bomb were a mere blip on the horizon. The trek through the palace corridors was the same—Xiang escorted her, and the iron-faced woman with the bun came too. The Clockwork Warrior had, of course, not changed at all.

  She stared at him. But I mean to make you change. Again, her instincts urged her to do. To do what she knew down to the last microcosm of her flesh was the way to solve his puzzle.

  “No,” she whispered. If nothing else, university had taught her how to be thorough. She would catalog every detail of him before she attempted anything. A week or so, then she would be ready.

  Lunch came around too soon. She sat outside the tomb on a picnic blanket with Xiang, gnawing on roasted chicken and eating fresh-baked bread. It seemed so strange and so normal at the same time. A flock of green parrots flew overhead, and she watched them wing across, screeching at each other. “So pretty. I’d much rather see these than birds in a cage.”

  “Oh?” Xiang wrenched another bite off her drumstick and swallowed. She looked skyward with a thoughtful expression on her face. “So you find birds beautiful?”

  “Don’t you?” How could anyone not? “The colors of their feathers, their smallness, the brilliance of their design even.”

  “Design?” Xiang cocked an eyebrow.