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.
I wanted to be Lord Mark. I just wanted to be Lord Mark
. Was that so bad? He still wanted to be Lord Mark. He d almost had it,
brushing his grasp. Ripped away. He wept for it, hot tears splashing like
molten lead on his not-skin. He could feel Lord Mark slipping from him, racked
apart, buried alive. Disintegrating.
I just wanted to be human. Screwed up again
.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
He circled the room for the hundreth time, tapping on the walls. If we could
figure out which one is the exterior," he said to
Rowan, "maybe we could break through it somehow."
"With what, our fingernails? What if we re three floors up? Will you please
sit down
," Rowan gritted. "You re driving me crazy!"
"We have to get out."
"We have to wait. Lilly will miss us. And something will be done."
"By who? And how?" He glared around their little bedroom. It wasn t designed
as a prison. It was only a guest room, with its own bath attached. No windows,
which suggested it was underground or in an interior section of the house. If
it was underground, breaking through a wall might not be much use, but if they
could bore into another room, the possibilities bloomed. One door, and two
stunner-armed guards outside of it. They d tried enticing the guards into
opening the door last night, once with faked illness, and once for real when
his frantic agitation had resulted in another convulsion. The guards had
handed in Rowan s medical bag, which was no help, because then the exhausted
woman had started responding to his demands for action by threatening to
sedate him.
"Survive, escape, sabotage," he recited. It had become a litany, running
through his head in an endless loop. "It s a soldier s duty."
"I m not a soldier," said Rowan, rubbing her dark-ringed eyes. "And Vasa Luigi
isn t going to kill me, and if he was going to kill you he d have done it last
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night. He doesn t play with his prey like Ryoval does." She bit her lip,
perhaps regretting that last sentence. "Or maybe he s going to leave us in
here together till kill you." She rolled over in bed, and pulled her pillow
over her
I
head.
"You should have crashed that lightflyer."
A noise from under the pillow might have been either a groan or a curse. He
had probably mentioned that regret a few too many times.
When the door clicked open he spun as if scalded.
A guard half-saluted, politely. "Baron Bharaputra s compliments, ma am, sir,
and would you prepare to join him and the
Baronne for dinner. We will escort you upstairs when you re ready."
The Bharaputras dining room had large glass doors giving a view onto an
enclosed, winter-frosted garden, and a big guard by every exit. The garden
glimmered in the gathering gloom; they had been here a full Jacksonian day,
then, twenty-six hours and some odd minutes. Vasa Luigi rose at their entry,
and at his gesture the guards faded back to positions outside the doors,
giving an illusion of privacy.
The dining room was arranged stylishly, with individual couches and little
tables set in a tiered semi-circle around the view of the garden. A very
familiar-looking woman sat on one of the couches.
Her hair was white streaked with black, and wound up in elaborate braids
around her head. Dark eyes, thin ivory skin softening with tiny wrinkles, a
high-bridged nose - Dr. Durona. Again. She was dressed in a fine flowing silk
shirt in a pale green perhaps accidentally reminiscent of the color of the
Durona lab coats, and soft trousers the color of cream. Dr. Lotus Durona,
Baronne Bharaputra, had elegant tastes. And the means to indulge them.
"Rowan, dear," she nodded; she held out a hand as if Rowan might give it a
courtier s kiss.
"Lotus," said Rowan flatly, and compressed her lips. Lotus smiled and turned
her hand over, converting it into an invitation to sit, which they all did.
Lotus touched a control pad at her place, and a girl wearing Bharaputra brown
and pink silks entered, and served drinks, to the
Baron first, curtseying with lowered eyes before him. A very familiar-looking
girl, tall and willowy, with a high-bridged nose, fine straight black hair
bound at her nape and flowing in a horse-tail down her back.... When she made
her offering to the
Baronne, her eyes flicked up, and opened like flowers to the sun, bright with
joy. When she bowed before Rowan, her up-turning gaze grew startled, and her
dark brows drew down in puzzlement. Rowan gazed back equally startled, a look
that changed to dawning horror as the girl turned away.
When she bowed before him, her frown deepened. "You... !" she whispered, as if
amazed.
"Run along, Lilly dear, don t gawk," said the Baronne kindly.
As she left the room, with a swaying walk, she glanced covertly back over her
shoulder at them.
"Lilly?" Rowan choked. "You named her Lilly?"
"A small revenge."
Rowan s hands clenched in deep offense. "How can you? Knowing what you are?
Knowing what we are?"
"How can you choose death over life?" The Baronne shrugged. "Or worse - let
Lilly choose it for you? Your time of temptation is not yet, Rowan my dear
sister. Ask yourself again in twenty or thirty years, when you can feel your
body rotting around you, and see if the answer comes so easily then."
"Lilly loved you as a daughter."
"Lilly used me as her servant. Love?" The Baronne chuckled. "It s not love
that keeps the Durona herd together. It s predator pressure. If all the
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