The Iron Admiral: Deception Read Online Free PDF Page A

just lay there, motionless, like a broken marionette.
    Saahren stood over him for a long moment, his lip curled, before he turned to the guard. “Tidy this up.
    I’ll take my lady home.”
    She stared at the body on the ground as two guards rolled him over. The moonlight accentuated the contusions and swellings on his face. “Is he dead?”
    “Him? No. He might wish he was, come tomorrow.” He reached out a hand to her.
    She dodged away from him, a tendril of fear clutching her heart. Saahren like this was scary. She walked quickly to the skimmer, pushed past him when he tried to open the door for her. Fear faded and anger took its place. She’d let him get under her skin but he was just a brutal bastard in a fancy uniform.
    “You beat him to a pulp.” She leaned away from him, as far as the seat would let her.
    “He was going to rape you.” His anger had abated, that deadly fire in his eyes had gone. He seemed confused, surprised at her reaction.
    “I know. I know. You near-on killed him.”
    He glowered at her. “He deserved what he got.”
    “So you’re above the law? You can dispense your own justice?” Her heart beat too fast.
    “Justice was done.”
    He was probably right but that didn’t make it right. He’d been the prosecutor, the judge, the jury and the dispenser of retribution.Chohzu the Destroyer in a very personal guise.
    Allysha eyed him as the Lysanda lifted and turned toward the city. He wasn’t sorry. He was ruthless, proud of what he’d done. The military mask slipped into place for the first time all day. His face became composed, his expression controlled. She couldn’t see his feelings anymore.
    “Look,” he said after a few moments. “If a beating teaches that young thug a lesson it will be worth more to him than going before a court. The judge would have slapped him on the wrist and told him not to be naughty again.”
    “And that excuses you beating him to death?”
    He shot one unreadable glance at her and looked away. The Lysanda’s engine purred through the night, the only sound in the cabin.
    Yes, they would have raped her. She knew that. He’d rescued her, of course he had, but his bodyguard was nearby. He could have waited for them. He could have turned them over to the police. Oh, god.
    Yes, she was grateful but this darker side of him scared her. What if he turned on her like that? And to think she was even considering giving up the fight. The vehicle skimmed in over the suburban sprawl, headed for the bright towers at the center of the city. Maybe this was a reminder, a wake-up call.
    Saahren hadn’t changed. He might look like Brad Stone, act like Brad Stone, but underneath it all, a scratch below the surface, wasChohzu the Destroyer. Grand Admiral Saahren.
    She was surprised when he spoke. The strange expression on his face seemed to be a combination of anger and sadness. “I’m not proud of myself, Allysha. I lost control. I admit it. I don’t do it often.” He slid
    his tongue over his lips. “Let me tell you a story. When I was a small child my home planet had slipped out of Confederacy control and was left to its own devices. The local warlords fought for their slice of pie
    like dogs over a bone. Where I lived, we were invaded and taken over by a neighboring army. We—the locals that is—were reduced effectively to slavery, farming our own land for the benefit of others. The warlord employed garrisons of mercenaries to make sure we behaved. They were brutal and eventually, my father led an uprising against them.”
    He stopped talking, just sat there. She could almost feel his pain.
    “What happened?”
    “The uprising was suicidal. They didn’t have a hope. The mercenaries captured my father and my brothers. My mother escaped into the mountains with my eldest brother’s infant son. But soldiers caught my sister and me. They raped her, three of them. One after another and then two at a time. She was fourteen.”
     
    His nostrils flared. “They