The Scarlet Empress by Susan Grant

Author:Susan Grant
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-02-22T09:00:09+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

The next thing Cam knew, she was sitting at a dark corner table in the Hollow Heart. Kublai pressed a cold pack to her wrist. “I didn’t even feel it,” she said. “I think I bashed it when I tripped over those pots.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Kimchi.” She tried to tug her hand away, but he held fast. “Apply the ice a little longer.”

“I want to wash up. I stink.”

“I don’t mind.”

She sighed and let her head sag onto her hand. A lank strand of hair fell over her eyes, and she blew it out of the way. “I haven’t had many days worse than this, Kublai. The prince refused to see me for the sixth consecutive time—or the tenth, depending how I count. Then I chase down the boy throwing rocks at Minister Hong and—”

“Minister Hong was in the Serpent Quarter?”

“Yes. And I was as surprised as you are to see him there.

Anyway, I chased down the boy tossing the stones and—”

“A child was throwing rocks at Hong?”

“Yes, but someone else told him to do it, and—”

“Who did?”

“She . . .” Cam stopped short of giving an immediate answer. There was the question of Zhurihe’s double identity, something she hadn’t fully puzzled out yet. Until she had a better idea what was going on, she’d best not share too much and risk putting Zhurihe’s life at risk. Kublai was loyal to the prince. If he were to learn of deceit going on in the palace, namely Zhurihe’s deceit, it could get the clone killed—if Dr. Park didn’t get to her first. As many wrongs as the girl had committed so far, Cam didn’t think she deserved to die for them. Her instincts told her that while Zhurihe couldn’t be trusted, she wasn’t evil. “It was an older girl,” she said finally. “A teenager, and she kicked my butt.”

“I think it was the other way around.”

Cam made a sound halfway between a huff and a snort. “Let’s just say she had the advantage of being younger.”

“And not having been in biostasis for a hundred and seventy years.”

Leaning on her hand, she smiled up at him. “You give good pep talks.”

His thumb moved over her arm, tracing the line of the ice pack. “You’re Rim Rider material, you know that?” he said.

She leaned closer. “You might find Rim Riding with me more fun than going with Nazeem.”

He watched her with that enigmatic expression of his. “Fun wasn’t the first word that came to mind.” He reached for the strand of hair that kept flopping over her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. The filmy white embroidered blouse she’d somehow not stained in her pursuit of Zhurihe slipped lower, baring one shoulder. His fingers dipped from her hair to her bare skin.

She couldn’t breathe the entire time those fingers circled over the rounded part of her shoulder. That touch went a lot deeper than what was obvious. One lingering, almost regretful caress, and that magical contact vanished.

She exhaled through her nose.

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