Selfish Motives: Ozark Destinies Series Book Two

By Shanda Adams

Now in the hands of her progenitor, Mari struggles with this new relationship and the absurdity of Christoph driving her to develop the rare gift of foreshadowing, despite his having specially bred her over four generations, but aware that if she could see into the future, it might mean seeing a way of escaping him, of returning to Troy. Considering Mari lost to him, Troy pursues a coldhearted course of revenge against the woman who betrayed her, while trying to stay a step ahead of David’s intent to prosecute him for Mari’s murder after Christoph fabricates her death in human society. Disgusted with Troy’s appearing to have abandoned Mari, Garlin begins implementing a plan to abduct her from the Springfield enclave, even at the cost of renewing the war between the Kansas City and Ouachita Colonies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781626755383

Book preview

Chapter 1

Troy made a circuit around Mari’s house almost out of habit now, checking that nothing was amiss. If she was ever allowed to return, it would likely be years. But he’d never let this place go to ruin. It had become a mission to preserve it for her, just in case. Reaching the front again, he stepped onto the porch.

Now May, it was devoid of its winter wood supply, had been swept clean. The wicker rocker from her bedroom sat in front of the window for taking in quiet moonlit nights. But not tonight. He’d snuck out; didn’t want to have any explaining to do if he got home too near dawn.

He pulled his keys out of his pocket. It hadn’t even occurred to him to take Mari’s keys when he packed up her things at Ouachita. He might have felt a little funny getting into her purse, anyway, before just putting it in the bag with the rest of what she’d want. It had felt like he was prying enough going through everything else to make sure he didn’t miss anything important to her, much more so than it ever did snooping through her entire life in the beginning. Everything of hers was important to him, and he’d been so dazed, so numb, it was like he’d sleepwalked through that day, memories of it a kind of surreal nightmare. But it meant he’d had to change the front door lock.

He opened the door and stepped inside, just let his gaze wander the room trying to fill the hollow inside with memories. They never did; their weight only deepened it. As he lit one of her homemade candles, he was reminded again that he’d nearly used up all of them, would need to bring some with him next time. It wasn’t that he needed the light so much as that the room didn’t seem right without their soft, flickering glow.

Sinking down in her chair by the woodstove, he noticed the scent of the rosebush in full bloom outside the window seeping into the room rather than the fragrance of wood smoke that was so much a part of those memories. His attention drifted to the kitchen. He was going to have to do something about that one of these days. The refrigerator had been largely emptied many long weeks ago, but the chest freezer was still full, her cupboards still stocked with all the canning she’d done.

But there was no immediate hurry. A tiny corner of his mind still kept telling him he was smart enough to learn to be a decent cook, there just hadn’t seemed much point for the past couple centuries. There would be something sadly satisfying now about personally consuming all her efforts. His gaze darted over to the bookcase, the overfull recipe box next to an old, worn out cookbook. He had all her favorite recipes.

But again, not tonight. He rose and moved into the bedroom that made up the back half of the two room house, where the scent of her was still strongest, and stretched out on her bed. Tonight was just a brief harboring in the storm. Pulling one of her pillows over, he wrapped his arms around it on his chest, just breathed deeply.

He missed her more than life. It probably wasn’t good for him to come here so much. But the pain was there anyway; he didn’t expect it to ever really leave him, no matter how he filled his time. And he needed whatever moments of refuge he could steal here.

His eyes closed with a weary sigh. That little girl was going to wear him out. But the more he kept that mouth otherwise occupied, the less he had to listen to her prattling. He’d half expected Hannah to have tired of him by now. Fortunately, she hadn’t. Yet. He couldn’t let up, had to keep spoiling her. Though the booty of this war was becoming more of a chore to plunder with apparent fervor, however sadistically entertaining at first. He might have to push the calendar ahead on this.

As he opened his eyes, he rolled his head to gaze at the photo of Mari which he’d taken out of one of her albums to have on the nightstand. He’d sworn to avenge her. And nothing mattered more still, whatever the personal cost.

He got back up and wandered the room. Very little had been changed in the entire house, but this room was nearly a time capsule, the rocking chair aside. All her clothes were still there, the book she’d been reading still on the other nightstand, all the clutter on the dresser top just as she’d left it. He ran his finger along the edge. He ought to at least dust. There was a jewelry box on top he’d never looked in. She’d never worn much, and the few pieces she favored were in the little jewelry box she’d had at Ouachita which went with her. He smiled. With one little addition.

Carrying it back to the bed, he set the box down in front of him and opened it, just to glimpse another piece of her old life. In the bottom drawer was an aquamarine ring, a clear light blue, not the pale smoky gray-blue of Mari’s eyes. A beautifully faceted, oval cut set into a raised silver band. He took it out and stared at it for a while. He’d taken his emerald off the day Mari died. She’d supplanted Glynis in his memory well before that.

He and Glyn had been together just five short years before her demise had sent him down a dark and ultimately deadly spiral. He’d only been awake six years when they met; thought he’d never get over his fiery little redheaded Scottish nymph. He’d worn her ring for over two hundred years. His hand still felt a little funny when he’d flex his fingers, feel like part of him was missing.

But he wasn’t sorry he taken it off. He’d lost what was the true great love of his life. He slipped Mari’s ring on his left little finger. It would be a part of him now forever.

*

The Springfield enclave was very different. Not that Mari had much frame of reference. But it wasn’t like Windermere; its mansion nestled in a cavern, miles of natural caves and tunnels beneath it. Nor like the massive underground complex at Ouachita, a veritable city of hundreds, that Colony seat as much excavated as natural. This enclave was a mixture, too; tunnels and hollows expanding the network of natural caverns. And sizeable. After all, it had been the seat of the Landry clan before the Bacarros had seized it, still had a population of about a hundred fifty, plus perhaps again as many guards and warriors from the Kansas City Colony.

Maybe it wasn’t so much the configuration of the place as the feel of it that was so strange. The obvious military presence and domineering power Christoph held over this place. Or her place in it. She was still a very new vampire, had only died a couple of months ago, the day he’d rightfully demanded her release to him as her progenitor.

Mari drew the curtain around her bed and lay back on it, remembering that day. She’d only been awakened less than six weeks before. Six bewildering, distressing, yet in many ways glorious weeks. But she’d been secretly accelerating the change through her blood trading with Garlin. She closed her eyes; she couldn’t go there right now. She’d forced the appearance of her fangs at just two weeks. An early death should have been expected. But her heart couldn’t take hearing that she’d been found, that she was being taken away from Troy.

A tear slipped from the corner of her eye. Her sweet, adorable young benefactor. Young. He was about two hundred and forty; he just looked eighteen or nineteen. Those longish, soft, black curls, sparkling emerald eyes, luscious lips that made her feel like she was the most precious, desirable thing in the whole world. A tear slipped from the other eye and she wiped them both away. No point going there, either. She’d see him in her next reverie, as she did in every reverie: the unfettered roaming of her subconscious that now replaced sleep, insuring she didn’t go mad from dream deprivation.

He’d never had a chance to prepare her for what to expect when she died. Except to say that it would really hurt, feel like she was dying—he hadn’t lied there. And that she’d reawaken ravenous, ready to attack the first warm-blooded body she saw. That had been no lie, either. But he’d told her nothing of a typical transition ceremony, if there was such a thing. He’d told her in passing that his wasn’t typical, but she had no idea how much they still might vary with different clans.

Her last living memory was of gazing up at Troy from the floor of the Council’s chambers at Ouachita, trying to voice her love for him. Unable to get it past her lips in all her pain. For the next thirty-five hours, though it seemed an endless eternity, there was nothing. Only darkness. The sound of her own thoughts telling her she might never see him again, never see her home again, that she was being handed over to the enemy.

Unconditionally surrendered to a man she knew nothing about, except that he was part of the Kansas City Colony, her birthplace she’d abandoned years ago; probably an elder of one of the ruling clans. She’d also known she might well be a legacy, her father having been left a latent sleeper. Someone her progenitor worked within her family line years earlier to produce when he implanted the genetic code while she was still inside her mother’s womb.

It was probably a good thing she hadn’t known the half of it then.

It had been a bit of a shock to reawaken in a coffin. But as she understood it now, that part of the ceremony was meant as a clear reminder she had left her old life behind. Like she’d needed that. She’d had no idea where she was, only that she was to have been turned over to Bacarro in Springfield. The original plan probably some kind of official handing over somewhere in ambiguous territory north of the Ouachita Colony’s border. Maybe they’d just ended up changing over the driver of the hearse there since she dropped dead on them.

Ravenous didn’t adequately describe how she’d reawakened; nor a blind hunger, even, as Troy called it. In a sort of perverse way, her transition ceremony still gave her chills. To knock the edge from her hunger, Christoph had handed her a goblet of blood. The first swallow kicked her heart on, and though it didn’t last, it was amazing feeling the movement of blood throughout her body. She’d all but licked the cup clean in seconds.

He’d then lifted her from the coffin and carried her over to a line a feeders, male and female, the reverberation in her head of their heartbeats a symphony of pounding rhythms. She was allowed to pick four. All consorts, she’d learn later; all just fed vampire blood to heighten their pleasure in the experience, accelerate the blood replacement and strengthen their endurance.

They led her over to a large bed where for the next hour she freely rotated among them to feed. Whatever other pleasures she cared to indulge in were entirely permissible, as well. It wasn’t her first human blood. She’d briefly attacked a friend for his blood not long after she was awakened, and shared human blood with Garlin just nights before she died, and had found the latter quite arousing. But even with the first experience of human blood as a transformed vampire, the indescribable satisfaction now in feeding and the feel of her heart beating again invoking memories of what it felt like to be alive, she hadn’t been able to allow herself to turn it into an orgy. At least not to participate, though her feeders got a little frisky with one another while she wasn’t preoccupying them.

Once she was glutted on probably a pint apiece—though ravenous as she was, she still couldn’t imagine having consumed a half gallon that night—Christoph returned for her. He escorted her to her chambers. She hadn’t known what to expect, really, but had assumed she’d be placed in a sort of dormitory situation like she’d been in at Ouachita, living in proximity to other neophytes while undergoing her training.

But this was a lot smaller enclave with far fewer neophytes, most being sent to Kansas City for its training facilities. Only some of the Landry clan kept their young at their primary enclave, in their own small way still rebelling against the takeover by the Bacarro clan elder. Christoph had plans for her that didn’t include shipping her off to the Colony seat, entrusting her to anyone else. Her chambers were in the east wing of his regal private residence. Having destroyed the clan’s chieftain, he’d taken over this stronghold on a lower level of the enclave. And she didn’t attend classes and combat training sessions like before; she had tutors.

The first room they’d entered was a small bed chamber with sitting area. There, a young-looking vampire woman, obvious by the lack of heartbeat, had surged to her feet on sight of them, curtsied but kept silent. He introduced her as Tiara, saying that she’d be her handmaiden, but barely gave them time to exchange hellos before ushering her on through to the chambers beyond.

Mari rolled over to lie on her side, drawing her knees up to ease the ever-present aching hollow inside. From there the memories of the day grew less pleasant. He hadn’t really spoken to her since she arrived, had been very cool and distant.

Her first impression when she looked up at him from her casket was that he was probably the most attractive man she’d ever seen. She didn’t care; she’d already lost her heart before it stopped. He was easily six foot, with lightly curling, near black hair, just a little on the long side, such deep midnight blue eyes they, too, were nearly black, his complexion a little darker than most vampires she’d seen (the Indians at Ouachita aside) with a perfect symmetry of features. And strong. Lifted and carried her like she was no more than a small child. Not quite the muscled physique Garlin had, but nearly; definitely a Bowflex body he’d held her against. And like him, looked to have been in his mid-twenties when he was awakened. Unlike so many who would never leave their teens.

Inside her chambers, a fair-sized living space with a bed off to one side, tucked in a little alcove, he’d turned her toward him and told her to strip. The fresh blood supply in her giving her a flawed sense of invincibility, with her typical willfulness, she’d refused. What did he take her for? His, apparently. He’d backhanded her and told her she’d do as she was told. Her memory still held the sting in her cheek.

‘He made you and he can take you back out, no questions, no contest.’ Troy had said about one’s progenitor. She’d swallowed her pride and stripped. She’d suspected he felt he had any right with her, but he hadn’t raped her. And although his heart wasn’t beating, making that impossible at the time, a belated realization, he still hadn’t. He’d merely wanted an unobstructed view of what his progeny had to offer. It was probably fortunate that his expression showed her as being a pleasing creation. She was then made to re-dress in clothes that he provided for her.

The tears she’d tried to wipe away earlier still dampened her pillow and spilled over the bridge of her nose. He was a harsh taskmaster. But he expected a lot from her. As it turned out, her suspicions about being a legacy were underestimated. She wasn’t just a legacy, but a fourth generation sleeper. He had started with her great grandfather being left dormant, then her grandfather, and then her father.

She wondered if he’d missed the timing to carry it on yet another generation through either of her older brothers. Her mother had a girl next, which can’t produce a legacy, but would mean she may well be a sleeper, also. And then, eight years later, and likely the last of the children, he’d had to implant her, too, to try not to lose the line, but ended up with another girl.

The vampire genetics were thick in recent generations of her family, certainly accounted for her father’s mental acuity and tenacity to build his little financial empire, for her siblings and aunt’s success and achievements. Her own abilities had surely been advanced with the cerebral enhancement handed down, and she’d never really studied throughout her academic career, never really tried or cared, still maintained a B+ average.

And the acceleration of the change she tried to do through supplemental feedings after she was awakened may have been entirely needless, might not have affected her transformation significantly. Just messed with her head. And her heart. She shook her head clear. She still wasn’t going to go there.

Christoph’s hopes were to have produced a true foreshadower. She didn’t know if she had it in her. She was having no luck so far, but she was less than four months old, for god’s sake. What did he expect? Her cellular makeup won’t have fully mutated for years still. Troy had said it wouldn’t surprise him if she’d be able to probe deeper layers of the mind than the surface thoughts all vampires hear. He’d mentioned the possibility of her maybe moving into rarer abilities such as foreshadowing someday. Christoph didn’t care how far she could see into human minds; he wanted a seer into future battles to renew the war with Ouachita. For the first month here she’d had trouble just seeing the point of her own continued existence, had largely sat catatonically staring off into space when not required to be in her lessons.

Mari climbed out of bed. The softly lit sitting area was almost claustrophobic. Not even a window, naturally, underground as they were. But she had no idea what it was like outside these days, unless she felt the rumble of a storm. It was May, would be warm. But she hadn’t seen daylight in two months. Of course, she couldn’t actually step out into the sunlight anymore, except very briefly. But she hadn’t seen moonlight, either. She wasn’t allowed to set foot outside the enclave, even escorted. And she was escorted everywhere.

Her handmaiden was really just another word for her new babysitter. But Mari liked her. Tiara was sweet. Terrified of Christoph, but then most of the enclave’s original residents did bow down to him.

After the assassination of the chieftain, his remaining first generation of progeny were all executed. There were only three left after the enclave was seized, but the message was clear. The Landrys no longer held power; any clansman who threatened or did not accept the Bacarro clan ruling over this enclave would be removed. One of the second generation was appointed as their new chieftain, spoke to Bacarro on their behalf. There was an Advisory Council, also. A kowtowing collection of representatives from the other Kansas City Colony’s clans, but everyone knew they held no actual power, either.

As her handmaiden would be held responsible if she stepped out of line, Tiara always made sure she was strictly conforming to Christoph’s wishes. Around here that could mean your head, so Mari always tried never to get her in trouble. It was a test of will at times to let her life be dictated like this.

Expected to look the part of a first gen’s progeny, Tiara helped her to be suitably attired whenever she stepped out of her chambers. Christoph had allowed her to keep her own clothes, after all, but had a couturier outfit her with additional garments more suited to his taste. Generally more revealing, in other words. Tiara encouraged her to indulge him and appear appreciative. Personally, she favored the clothes Troy bought for her in Ouachita, and was sweet enough to pack in the things that were shipped with her.

He’d known she felt more attractive in them, less conspicuous; more like she’d belonged in the Colony than she had in her old, casual, sort of hippie fashion and cave-crawling attire. She did manage to hold on to one pair of jeans, over Tiara’s objections, promising to only ever wear them in the privacy of her own quarters when there was next to no chance of Christoph stopping by or summoning her immediate presence.

Mari wandered the room restlessly. She still wasn’t comfortable in there, not like she’d been in her little excavated rock dorm room in Ouachita, certainly not like in her own little two room house in the woods. She tried very hard to keep her thoughts away from there, not knowing if she’d ever see it again.

This was more like being stuck in a five star hotel room. It wasn’t decorated for her. She seriously doubted there was time between when Bacarro had tracked her down and had demanded her immediate release. Either it was the original occupant’s taste or he’d had the whole place redone after he’d seized the enclave, but he probably expected her to feel at home—if he cared—given the home she’d grown up in. Her parents certainly wouldn’t stay in accommodations any less nice.

She picked up a photo of Caron and David from the desk and sighed. They were probably getting worried about not hearing from her for so long. Her friends thought she was off with some film crew photographing cave life for a documentary. She’d promised to stay in touch, even make it home very briefly now and then. But that was impossible now. Sadder still, could she reveal the truth, Caron would have no problems with what she’d become, more likely envy her. She set the picture back down, her gaze wandering.

Her things had all been gone through before she reawakened. Most everything that had likely been sent with her she’d been allowed to keep, but her laptop and phone were gone, now locked away in Bacarro’s vault. She was to have no communication with the outside, no chance of her contacting anyone in the old Colony, the enemy—like she’d even get a signal underground. He rightly didn’t trust her loyalties to her own clan yet. This was very much her prison.

She thought she’d recognized Troy’s handiwork in the packing. And as her benefactor it had probably been his responsibility. Besides, there was one item she came across in her jewelry box a couple of days after her arrival that she’d never seen before. Squeezing her eyes shut, she clutched the two inch teardrop-shaped jadeite pendant that hung over her heart from a delicate silver chain. On one side of it was a relief carving of a pair of hearts, a fat teardrop dripping down from between them. Call the droplet blood if you liked, for her it was clearly a tear.

Troy was an extraordinary sculptor, mostly three to six foot marble statuary. He’d recently been working some with jadeite, though. She’d caught a glimpse in his studio of a single example; a work in progress he doesn’t like to have seen. About a foot and a half tall, suspiciously erotic piece. He had to have been working on the pendant for a while before she was taken from him. She hadn’t known him to do anything so small and delicate but she was never taking it off.

*

Garlin hadn’t been able to concentrate for the past hour. He’d started out in the second floor lounge, a recent favorite hangout, but the little witch returned home and wouldn’t shut up about her outing with the other girls. He’d relocated downstairs to the desk in the main living room, and now she was restlessly pacing all over the first floor.

No! he snapped, before she could even ask again if he’d seen him come in yet. He sighed then, raking his fingers back through his hair when she turned on her heel, tossed those blond curls and flounced out again. He’d said once that they deserved one another, but, honestly, how could he have taken up with her? After what she’d done. He’d see she paid? Looked more to him like he’d bought his own ticket to a living hell.

Not a week after Mari was gone and he’d fallen for Hannah’s honeyed pleas for his forgiveness, acted now like she’d never existed. Let that girl lead him around by the nose ever since. Or by the— Garlin tossed his pen down with another sigh. Yeah, okay. She was a little tigress in bed, he knew. They’d had a brief fling, hardly more than a one night stand, when she’d first come to Windermere. But it didn’t take long to see past the surface to what a vain, manipulative little witch she really was.

The sound of the front door got his attention. Speaking of the traitorous pup.

Troy nodded at him. Is she home? God, he sounded whipped.

For the past hour.

He winced, cringed slightly then as Hannah’s voice preceded her appearing in the library doorway. There you are. Where have you been?

He watched Troy meet her halfway and take her in his arms, kiss her till she went limp. I’m sorry, Sweetheart. Just popped out for a quick bite. Didn’t mean to worry you; thought I’d be back ahead of you.

What a line of shit. Garlin knew for a fact Troy had taken off the moment the girls left. Not that he cared what he’d really been up to. But Hannah was blind. She’d sunk her hooks into aristocracy and believed herself to be a prize any man she chose should want. And he doubted he was cheating on her.

If he had to watch any more of this he might be sick. He gathered up his things to go shut himself up in his room, though it was seriously tempting to tell them to take it to one of theirs. How could he disgrace Mari’s memory like that? He’d actually thought Troy had really cared about her, even loved her. So, he’d only known her for about six weeks. He’d also spent every day of it with her, half the nights. How could he not have?

As he started up to the second floor, he remembered how she’d captivated him on those very stairs the first time he’d laid eyes on her. He could almost count on both hands how many times he’d seen her after that. But nearly every one of those times he’d been allowed to hold her, to kiss her, to taste her and feed her. And before he lost her, was sharing her bed twice a week. He was hers, body and soul. And he wasn’t going to take this lying down. The truce be damned.

Arriving at his room, he settled at his desk and looked back over his notes, pulled out the map he’d created of Springfield. How could they know so little about the set-up of the enclave? There had to be those who’d been inside before Bacarro seized it. He knew no one across the whole Ozark Plateau trusted one another. But even so… There had to be more. He was going to have to go back to Joplin again, talk to Leo Canpelli.

It was tempting to move there, even temporarily, to get away from the lovebirds before he took Troy’s head off. Either one of them, really. With a smile he replayed that thought from how it first crossed his mind, then shook his head clear. He had more important battles.

He closed his notebook. He needed other people he could talk to. Sympathetic to the cause. There was only one person he’d confided in throughout all of this over the past four months, and Andy was on his side about his plans, might go with him. He still didn’t think it wise to tell Leo what his real interest was, that he had any sort of personal agenda. Leo was obsessed with the idea that the Springfield enclave could be captured. He’d already taken Joplin. Dominic Canpelli had every reason to be proud of him.

But Leo was ambitious. He wasn’t sure he, himself, would trust him not to go renegade if he did take Springfield, start trying to build his own empire across the Ozark Plateau. If Dominic was smart he’d put another first gen in charge there, not replace Leo over the Joplin enclave. Send a message. They belonged to his clan, this colony.

Garlin went over to his bed and stretched out on it. If only there was a way he could get even a message to her. He needed for her to know how he felt, at least. That full night they spent together just before she was taken he’d wanted to tell her, had tried in a roundabout way with his present to her to get the message across. But he was afraid she wouldn’t take him seriously. It was crazy. But if he was out of his mind, might as well do something really reckless and foolhardy.

Chapter 2

Mari studied her eyes in the hand mirror. Good enough. At the sound of the outer door opening, she dropped the eyeliner pencil and hurried out to Tiara’s room. Well?

Tiara smiled and closed her door. He’s in an exceptionally good mood.

She breathed a sigh of relief. Troy was right; even though she didn’t need to breathe anymore, sometimes a sigh just felt good, besides being expressive.

Tiara ushered her back into her room and stood her before the full-length mirror. Apparently, he’s just gotten word his brother recaptured an enclave north of Marysville, near the Iowa border.

She nodded. That would do it. She was learning a bit about the politics of her new clan and colony. The Colony seated outside Sioux City controlled down past Omaha, and Kansas City held the extreme southeast corner of Nebraska, but that northwest corner of Missouri had always been problematic in the boundary between the two powers.

Are you sure that’s what you want to wear?

Mari critically reviewed the extreme low cut, the way the gauzy material clung to her body and clearly defined her nipples. You know it’s not. Tiara’s gold-flecked green eyes twinkled in the reflection as she returned a dimpled smile. But it’s not a matter of what I want. And it’s one of his favorites. Her handmaiden picked up a hair brush and started trying to put some order into the unruly curls of her caramel-colored hair. Tiara’s own was gorgeous. Long, glossy red, tight little spirals, always like it had been freshly permed. "I need him receptive. You know how he can be."

Christoph ran very hot and cold. And when he was hot, he could be tenaciously affectionate. She knew she had to allow the occasional kisses. She’d never been in an abusive relationship, but this wasn’t one she would walk away from, seek shelter. He never pushed it much further than that, some roaming hands. Her position didn’t merit more than trifling with her. But the fact that he even did gave this plan hope.

Tiara wrinkled her nose and picked up a handful of combs, trying first one then another in her hair. But you’re encouraging it this time.

I know. She drew a deep breath through her nose, tried to quell the way the prospect made her stomach roll. I just don’t see any other way of getting him to agree to this kind of favor. I’m pushing my luck by even asking.

Alright. She stepped back and nodded, apparently satisfied with how she looked now. Her ever present second shadow, Tiara followed her out.

Was he in his quarters? Mari wondered as they emerged from her wing into the main hall of the mansion. If so, she wouldn’t have actually seen him earlier.

"He was." They both knew that could have changed.

Disturbing him in his private quarters was a bit risky; just going to him without being summoned was uncharacteristic enough of her. She hoped it would suggest she was becoming more content with her place there, though her intended request sort of contradicted that.

It didn’t take long to reach his suite, past his two courtesans’ chambers. He might be in with one of them. With both of them, for all she knew. They were most amenable to sharing him—like they had a choice; got along quite well with one another. Though that might more likely put them in his bedchambers. Was she out of her mind attempting this? If he didn’t answer a knock at his living room door, she’d abandon this to another time when he initiated consideration toward her.

Mari held her breath for a long moment, but the door opened. She forgot about breathing after that. OMG. She’d only seen him in communal areas of the residence, out in public in the enclave, always sharply dressed. But he did understand casual comfort—might even forgive her jeans if he ever did catch her in them.

He was wearing black silk lounging pants and a black-on-black embroidered silk robe, loosely hanging open and displaying a thick mat of dark curls on a sculpted chest. His gaze raked over her, stripping off the surface, a slow smile emerging. It was tempting to turn and run. "Well, if it isn’t my favorite little progeny. What a pleasant surprise."

As far as she knew she was his only progeny. After all, he was a first gen general, not a commissioner, responsible for creating second gen healers and