Overlord: The Fringe, Book 2 (10 page)

Somehow, she had to get out of House in order to escape, and she had to defeat the functions of her bracelet. “While I’m dreaming, I’d like a fast ship stuffed with weapons and script.”

If nothing else, she had to keep her distance from the aggressively sexy Commander. When he’d strapped her into the shuttle, her body reacted to his touch, but her mind reacted more to his strapping her down. Commander was very good at being in charge, and she liked the idea of him compelling her, but then fear of being vulnerable caused her to fight his advances.

Perhaps she should dump some of that smelly musk on herself. That would drive him away, but she didn’t want to have to smell that stench either. Besides, she doubted such a ploy would work. Genuine attraction didn’t drive his actions. He played with her like the Taiga deputies, the Duhon brothers, did when they arrested drunken women on payday Friday.

Feeling defeated and frustrated, she turned her attention to the book Commander had left for her. She realized the black marks covered up the author name and the publisher information, and he’d been quick to close the book at the plant. Would such information give her a clue as to who he was or where he held her? It might. She held the cover open and up against the brightest light she could find but still couldn’t make anything out.

Perhaps a clue or some insight lay within the pages.

She spent the afternoon reading
Danger in the Dark
. Curled up on the burgundy fainting couch, she didn’t realize how much time had passed until House turned the lights on.

Sudden brightness shocked her and she tossed the book in the air with a bellowed, “Christ almighty!”

Fumbling for the book, Mary flipped the pages around to find her place. Caught up as Janice, the intrepid, and at times foolish, heroine of the book, found herself in another dangerous predicament, Mary couldn’t read fast enough to satisfy her curiosity. She wanted to know just how Janice was going to get herself out of
this
mess.

Pulled away by a sneaky thought, Mary wondered if that was why Commander gave her the pleasure book. Janice, in many ways, seemed similar to herself—falling into one big mess after another. The only difference was that Janice was wholly unaware that her own actions led to trouble. Mary wished herself so blissfully unaware of her own penchant for peril. If her actions didn’t get her in a mess, she knew her smart mouth would.

Commander said he liked danger, and Mary thought that perhaps she did too. She never felt more alive than when she robbed the black-market shipping lanes. Danger gave life a sharp edge and all of her senses cut to acute awareness. Nothing killed the spirit more quickly than boredom.

“Are you enjoying the book?”

Mary shot into a fighting stance, trembling as she faced Commander. “If your goal is to give me a heart attack, you’re doing a bang-up job!” She slapped her hand over her pounding heart as she withdrew, dropping her tense stance.

“I apologize.” Commander looked contrite for about half a second before he started laughing.

“You—you—I don’t know what you are, but stop scaring the daylights out of me.” For a large man, he had the softest step. Probably because he didn’t wear shoes on his big, tan feet.

“Nightlights, at this point.”

“What?” She yanked her gaze from his sexy feet to his massive hands.

“It’s night time.” He pointed to the bank of windows behind her, and she glanced over her shoulder. Darkness outside reflected the brightly lit room back at her in wavy shapes.

“Yeah-huh.” She yawned and stretched. “So, what’s for dinner?”

“That’s what I like.”

“What?” She blinked up at him, wary.

“A woman with her priorities on straight.”

Cook followed Michael’s orders to make simple meals. Tonight Michael dined with Mary in the small parlor off the main dining room on soup, salad and sandwiches. The less he tried to impress her, the more she warmed up to him. She was a simple woman with simple tastes. No, not simple, not Mary, but she did seem more appreciative of simple tastes.

“Tell me, what do you think of
Danger in the Dark
so far?” He settled back, sipping from a fresh cup of coffee.

“I like that book.” She smiled with a strange shyness he didn’t grasp as she fidgeted in her chair, toying with her spoon.

“Does it remind you of someone?”

“Who? The heroine?” She shot him a suspicious glance. “Are you trying to get at the fact you think she’s like me?”

After a lift of his brow, he shook his head. “The thought never crossed my mind. Janice couldn’t fight her way out of a wet paper sack. You, on the other hand, would tear your way out of the sack, then kick the crap out of whoever put you in there, as you force-fed them the remains of said sack.”

Mary chuckled and looked down at the plain stoneware plates as a blush darted across her cheeks. Even subtle compliments unbalanced her, making her scent unstable and thus more unreadable.

“There is something about the book that draws you in.” Leaning around the small circular table between them, he breathed deeply of her, but he still couldn’t read her conflicted scent. “What is it, Mary?”

She looked down at her plate for a long time, not scowling, but not smiling, debating. “Have you ever heard of a man called Overlord?”

Thank gods she kept her attention on her own plate. If she had looked at him when she asked that question, the shock in his eyes would have given him away.

“I’ve heard of him. Why?”

A wistful, troubled grin crossed her face as she toyed with her water goblet. “Promise me that you won’t laugh.”

“I promise.” He’d strangle himself with his own two hands before he’d laugh at her.

“The shadowy man in the book reminds me of Overlord.” Passion filled the depths of her eyes when she finally met his gaze.

“You’ve met Overlord?” He couldn’t keep the edge out of his voice. Had some Lothario been running around seducing women using his despised nickname? The mere thought infuriated him, especially if the bastard had done so to Mary.

“I wish!” She laughed. “But no, I’ve never met him.”

“Then how does the man in the book remind you of a man you’ve never met?” A dark foreboding coiled tension throughout his body.

“Just—well—because—I don’t know.” She rolled her eyes and looked away, embarrassment staining her cheeks again.

If he remembered the book correctly, Janice never saw the man who helped her until the very end. Along the way, Janice took to wild fantasies about the man she knew only as a voice on the phone. Click. He understood in a sickening rush.

“Is Overlord your hero?” He hated to ask, because he couldn’t live up to even half the tales told about Overlord. His nickname followed him like a curse, a prayer, alternately despised and adored by millions.

Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she grimaced at her plate. “I guess you could say that.” She looked up at him, wary, as if she expected him to point at her and laugh.

He sat very still. “Why?”

“Why is Overlord my hero?” she asked with an incredulous rising note. “Are you kidding?”

“No.” What tales did she believe? How deep did her misguided infatuation run?

“He’s done the impossible by fighting off an IWOG invasion! For years, the IWOG has tried to capture him but hasn’t come close.” A playful malice filled her eyes, and her whole face lit up with admiration. “They don’t even have a sketch of him, so arresting him is like—like—finding a needle in a haystack, in a thousand galactic haystacks. I think he’s just—amazing.”

She gushed like a smitten schoolgirl. His heart took a sickening lurch. He’d given her the book because of the opening line about fear and desire, since that was what her scent conveyed to him. He wanted her to think of him while she read, but he realized her fascination wasn’t about him at all.

“You’re infatuated with Overlord.”

“I knew you’d laugh.” The light in her eyes died when she scowled down at the dark pine floor.

“Look at me. Am I laughing?” He longed for a glass of whisky the size of his skull.

She met his gaze with a lift of her chin. “No, but you will. Behind my back.” Lowering her voice, she added, “Everyone does.”

Her soft admission reminded him of the abuse she’d suffered at the hands of the Pine Glenn inhabitants.

“I won’t.” He wanted her infatuated with him, the man she knew as Commander, not Overlord, even though he was Overlord. He wanted her to want him, the man, not the overblown hero he could never be. “I don’t think this is funny at all.”

“You think I’m stupid.” She looked down at her plate.

“I don’t think that either.” He reached for her hand, but she pulled away.

“Then what do you think?” Her gaze locked to his.

I think this is getting ever more complicated.

As he scrambled for something, anything, to say, Mary abruptly shot to her feet.

“Hey, don’t worry.” She forced a smile. “I know I have a better chance of becoming queen of the Void than of ever meeting Overlord. If millions of IWOG officers can’t find him, what chance do I have?” She nodded to the table. “Thanks for supper.”

He stood. “Please don’t go.”

“I’ve had enough. I mean I’m full. I don’t want dessert.”

“Then sit and talk with me for a moment longer.” He held out his hand to her.

She sat with a reluctant sigh. “Who’s your hero?”

The question caught him off-guard as he settled back to his seat. The first name to pop into his head was Kraft. He didn’t know how, but Mary knew.

“Kraft is your hero.” She folded her napkin with slender fingers.

“I won’t discuss her with you.” He forced his tone to a crisp, business-like edge.

“Thanks for the confirmation.”

“Mary—”

“What?” Her intelligent gaze hit him solid. “You think I’m going to make fun of you because your hero is a woman? I’m not. It’s different but not all that surprising.” She shrugged. “Neither is the fact you’re all infatuated with her. I guess the only difference is you’ve actually met your hero, and I haven’t.”

Complicated? The situation is downright Byzantine.
How could he tell her she sat across the table from her hero, who was anything and everything
but
a hero?

“Was she your girlfriend, your wife? Do I remind you of her?”

For once in his life, he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to say. So he attacked. “What makes you think you remind me of her?”

Mary flinched back. “I don’t—I—wondered.” Anger filled her face and voice as she lifted her chin. “That’s why I asked.”

“I don’t want to talk about Kraft.” He turned slightly away, feeling threatened and afraid. He wanted to know every secret of hers but didn’t want to give up any of his own.

After a long pause, Mary softly said, “I took a risk and told you something personal and private because I’m trying to trust you. Trust is really, really hard for me.”

From what he’d read about her in his reports, her reaching out to him at all was impressive. Guilt washed over him, rendering him unable to speak.

“Look, if this is going to be one-sided, I’ll stop.” She toyed with her napkin. “If my honesty makes you uncomfortable, we can go back to being wary antagonists.”

He didn’t want to be her captor or her enemy. He wanted to be her friend. He wanted to share himself with her but feared her eventual rejection.

“Kraft is the one subject I don’t discuss with anyone.” He didn’t even like to talk about Kraft with Duster, who’d been his second for over seven years.

“Maybe she wouldn’t haunt you so much if you did.”

“She doesn’t haunt me.” He reached for his wine but pulled back his hand. Alcohol wouldn’t help, probably the opposite. He reached for his water and took a long drink.

“Is that why you keep her ship spit-polished pristine on the tarmac, like she’s going to emerge from it at any moment?” Her gaze met his with steady intensity.

“How dare you.” Her remarkable insight infuriated and shocked him. Worried she could somehow read him, he pulled back from the table.

“Listen to me, the tone of my voice. Do you hear one bit of mocking, or one tiny scrap of needling? I’m not asking so I can have some kind of psychological hold over you. I’m asking because it seems to hurt you.” She shook her head and lifted her hands. “I didn’t mean—not my asking—but her memory seems to hurt you, and if you’d just deal with—”

“What are you? My stripper?” He’d contemplated going to a chemtherapist to have his memories of Kraft removed but nixed the idea when he found out he’d lose all his memories after the day he met Kraft too.

“No, I’m not a therapist. I’m trying to be your friend.” Mary squirmed in her chair. “If I’m messing it up, I’m sorry, but I don’t have a lot of experience with making friends.”

Vulnerable honesty in her eyes and voice compelled him to lean closer, but a strange perversity made him coldly say, “Friends respect each other’s privacy.”

She opened her mouth to retort but snapped her jaw abruptly shut and continued to fold her napkin.

Shocked that he didn’t get a reaction out of her, he snarled, “You don’t have any right to poke your nose around a bunch of painful memories. It’s unbelievable you’re trying to do so under the guise of friendship.”

She folded her napkin into an origami butterfly. “You’re right.”

He sat back with a soft, “Huh?” What happened to the feisty and argumentative Mary? Who was this calm and thoughtful woman across the table from him?

“If you ever do want to talk about Kraft, while you keep me captive in your life, you let me know, okay? Otherwise, I’ll keep my nosy questions to myself.”

She didn’t yell, didn’t scream, didn’t dump food on the floor and didn’t twist his words around to bite him on his own ass.

Mary backed off.

Infuriated, he lashed out. “So, now I don’t owe you one for one? One secret of mine for one of yours?”

“You already gave me one.”

“Indeed?”

“Books. I guess I forgot that you shared with me first. And I gave you one. Overlord. That makes us even in my book.”

She returned her attention to folding her napkin.

Why did he feel the sudden need to drag her into an argument? Was it from self-defense or to keep her at a distance? He wanted to talk about Kraft, wanted to express his anger at her death and his fear he might be partially responsible. If he didn’t say something soon, Mary would leave the table.