The Edge of Dawn Read Online Free PDF Page B

you a bath.”
    Narice had showered this morning, but after her harrowing adventures, the prospect of a long soak in a Jacuzzi was just what the doctor ordered. Being the head of a school whose pupils came from all over the globe, Narice was very cognizant of custom and the value in respecting different cultures. If she had to bathe in order to get the information she needed about why her father was killed and to keep the Red Queen from screaming, “Off with her head!” then she would take a bath. “Why is your Queen called The Majesty and not Her Majesty,” Narice asked Fulani.
    â€œOur title has no gender. The ruler is The Supreme, The All, The Anointed. The Majesty,” she said simply.
    Narice thought she understood now. “How long have you been with the queen?”
    â€œFourteen years. I began service when I was six. The Majesty has made it possible for girls like me to attend school. At home, girls are forbidden.”
    â€œSo, she has been good to you?”
    â€œYes, she has. Now, I must see to the bath.”
    And what a glorious bath it turned out to be. After sipping on a cup of herbal tea, Narice eased into the warm scented water and just knew she had died and gone to heaven. The temperature was perfect, the scents relaxing. She leaned her head back on the little terry pillow Fulani supplied and closed her eyes.
    On the other side of the wall, Saint lay on his stomach on the bed. The towel over his butt was all he had on in order to facilitate the oiling and massaging of his now clean but tired body by two of The Majesty’s female servants. The years of sneaking and hiding and running and skulking were starting to catch up with him physically. The leg he’d broken in Tibet ten years ago now ached every time the weather changed. His left shoulder, dislocated five years ago in a bar fight in Mexico, had been set, but was never the same since. On his thirty-six-year-old body were knife wounds from Jamaica, stitches from Portugal, and the remnants of a bullet he’d taken in Thailand to go along with an international collection of long-ago healed bruises and contusions. Saint was a mercenary. His specialty—intelligence. He began his career as member of the U.S. Army and had climbed the ranks to the top of his field by way of the many-acronymed clandestine agencies that operated under the official government radar. Eight years ago, he officially retired, taking with him his reputation for stealth, discretion, and success. He was now a highly paid freelancer; hired by governments, the U.S. included, multinational corporations,and private citizens for shadowy jobs big and small. It was a life Saint enjoyed and still got a rush from, even if he did sometimes feel like he was getting too old. Like now.
    When the call came in about this job for The Majesty, he’d had been in the jungles of Belize tracking a band of grave robbers on behalf of the Belize Antiquities Ministry. The thieves had made off with the treasures found in a newly discovered Mayan temple, and the Ministry wanted them back. Saint and a small band of the country’s soldiers found the men, but not before suffering through ten days of sleeping on the ground, eating bad food and fighting insects the size of pigeons.
    Now, less than twenty-four hours later, he was here, the tiredness of the Belize jungles being stroked away by soft female hands and his body responding in typical male fashion. He shifted his position a little to accommodate his arousal. He’d given The Majesty the letter sent to her by the President, and afterwards, she’d made it clear that the women were at his disposal, but he’d have to take a rain check on the offer; the President and his advisors were sure The Majesty had a mole in her entourage reporting her every move back to the generals ruling her country, so he needed to be clearheaded in order to assess the players in this drama. Knocking boots with the two