Read Online Through Fire (Darkship Book 4) by Sarah A. Hoyt - Free Book Online

There was an equally terse answer from the other end. “Will do.”
    He turned to me and smiled. “There will be clothes for you in the bedroom when you’re done with the fresher.” He turned to Alexis. “You’ll have to wait your turn, Brisbois.” And, advancing towards an impressively stocked drinks table, he said, “What do you drink?”
    Which, I thought, was just like men, sending me off to wash, while they drank and, doubtless, Lucius Keeva got an accurate report of the revolution and the mess in Liberte from Alexis Brisbois.
    I was in the spacious, and certainly luxurious, fresher and scrubbing the outrageous makeup off my face when it occurred to me that I’d been positively itching to get out of this; that Alexis was probably better equipped to explain the military situation to Keeva, and that they were not being slighting but gallant, giving me first shot at getting out of what were clearly uncomfortable as well as awful-looking clothes.
    Still, I washed as fast as I could, and rushed out, to find that indeed there were clothes waiting for me: a black pair of pants and a gray tunic in roughly my size. Lifting them, I found underwear underneath, and pulled that on first, in a hurry. Then I ran my fingers through my wet hair and rushed out, barefoot.
    The men had sat down across from each other with glasses of something amber in their hands. They both rose as I came in. “Ms. Sienna,” Lucius said. “May I offer you something to drink?”
    “Whatever you’re having,” I said.
    He lifted his eyebrows, but I wasn’t quite up to the variety of drinks on Earth. I knew that some of them weren’t considered ladylike—whatever that might be—but I had yet to taste one I couldn’t drink. None of these people had, after all, been raised on the particularly noxious drink my countrymen made from fermented bugs.
    He handed me a glass of amber liquid that smelled alcoholic and peaty. I took a short sip, determined this was a drink to take slowly, and did so. “What did Alexis tell you?” I asked.
    “Everything,” Alexis said. “Everything I know.”
    I wondered if that was true. I suspected Alexis Brisbois didn’t tell everything he knew, not even to himself. Not if he could help it.
    “And now you may go clean up,” Lucius said. It wasn’t an order, but it was. Alexis hesitated, but he got up and said, looking at me, “I’ll be right back.”
    I wondered what he feared, exactly, from Lucius. I didn’t think he intended to attack me. But Lucius waited till Alexis had vanished into the room beyond, before saying, “Ms. Sienna?”
    “Zen.”
    “Beg your pardon?”
    “If you’re Luce, I’m Zen.”
    “Very well, then, Zen. What…what is your relationship with Simon?”
    “What?”
    “Your…relationship. Are you…involved?”
    “He—” I said. The problem with Simon is that you couldn’t help liking him. But it came to me that one always felt slightly guilty for doing so. “He has been very kind to me. He’s…he let me live in his palace and…and get acclimated to Earth. I suppose you could say we are friends.”
    A short silence, then he frowned. “Yes, but…but that covers a vast array of terrain. Excuse me, but…are you emotionally involved?”
    Was I emotionally involved? What did he even mean? “I owe him a debt,” I said, stubbornly. “I think he…I think he likes me very much, but—”
    “But?”
    “I can’t…I think he arranged for an innocent man to murder his fath—predecessor. I think he enjoys power and being the center of the seacity. He says he loves me, but I can’t tell if he means it, or is just playing at it.”
    “Oh.” Lucius smiled suddenly, as though startled. It was an odd smile. Fleeting. When I’d met him before, we’d been in battle mode. I realized for the first time he’d been raised in the same world as Simon, if not in the same way; that he could probably be charming, if he wanted to, in a way that meant absolutely nothing. The smile was