The Kinsmen Universe Read online

  Every time she looked into those eyes, a jolt of adrenaline tore through her.

  Meli forced herself to look at him again, trying to separate herself from the adolescent flutter of her pulse. That flutter, the slight pain in her chest, the rapid chill, all that was but a bitter memory of a little foolish girl, hardly more than a child. Her little foolish hopes and dreams had long turned to dust.

  She had to evaluate him for what he was—a target.

  In her mind a younger Celino sprang from her memories: handsome, tall, with a lazy, self-indulgent smile, standing on a verandah with a short blade in his hand, inviting the party guests to throw polymer drink cans at him. He was barely seventeen then. He looked incredible poised against the backdrop of the flower beds that gave the province of Dahlia its name. As a barrage of the multicolored containers hit him, he sliced at them in a blur, severing them with his blade. When he was done, the tile around him was drenched. Celino, on the other hand, remained perfectly dry.

  Carvannas had a reputation for their knife skills, superb even among the kinsmen.

  The man who looked at her from the photograph now wouldn’t show off. Tempered by a decade and a half in the kinsmen family feuds, he would watch, calculating the odds, until the right moment came, and then he would seize it without hesitation and squeeze out every advantage. He had survived four known assassination attempts and likely a dozen or more that remained secret. She tapped the notebook screen, calling up the only recorded attempt. She had viewed it twice already.

  The premiere of Gigolo. A brightly lit street. Red carpet stretching into the mouth of Miranda Theater. Adoring crowds shouting their worship at the stars and their escorts.

  A sleek, bullet-shaped aerial slid up to the ropes. The door swung up. A metal step unfurled from the underside of the vehicle, permitting the passengers to exit in comfort. Celino stepped out. Tall, lean, and overwhelmingly masculine in the traditional Carvanna black doublet stretched by his broad shoulders. He had matured well. Too well, Meli reflected.

  He bent lightly, offering his hand, and immediately feminine fingers rested in his palm. A woman stepped out. She wore a glittering silvery sari that stopped a shade short of vulgar. In spiky heels, she stood only a couple of inches shorter than Celino, six two to his six four. A fountain of blonde hair spilled down her back all the way past her butt.

  Celino led her down the carpet. They seemed perfectly matched—her glamorous light to his brooding darkness. A painful needle pierced Meli’s chest. Old dreams, she reminded herself.

  She sensed the attack a moment before it came. Celino’s head jerked as the crowd on the right erupted and four men dashed at him. The magnetic disruptors installed by theater security made any metal projectiles unusable, and the attackers opted for dark red monomolecule blades.

  Celino thrust his date behind him with a powerful shove and attacked so quickly, he blurred. He was preternaturally fast. Meli tapped the screen, slowing the recording by twenty-five percent. He held a simple metal knife. His swipe drew a bright red gash down the first attacker’s throat—beautifully done. A vertical gash opened a bigger hole in the carotid without slowing down the strike. It was nearly impossible to hit the artery that way—like aiming at a piece of lubricated IV drip dancing around in the wind. Meli had factored in the enhanced strength and speed, but Celino seemed to have enhanced reflexes as well. Or perhaps a targeting implant. Or both.

  The second cut grazed the second attacker’s arm pit, severing another vein. The third assailant received a sideways swipe to the kidneys. That strike took a quarter of a second longer than Celino had planned. She saw him change his strategy in mid-move, hammering a kick to the fourth man’s neck. She rewound half a second, slowed the feed to half speed, and watched Celino’s black boot connect with the man’s neck. She couldn’t hear the telltale crunch, but she saw the man’s neck line jerk sharply. Celino’s kick had broken the vertebrae of his attacker.

  She shut down the notebook. In a purely physical confrontation, Celino would kill her. She had absolutely no doubt of that. She was a small woman—he towered over her by a foot, outweighed her by at least eighty pounds of hard muscle, and he had enhancements she couldn’t match. Judging from Celino’s performance, very few people would be able to match him blow by blow. Add to it bodyguards, who always accompanied him. And Marcus. One couldn’t forget Marcus. Only one generation removed from old planet, Marcus was ill-suited to traditional enhancements. Instead he had done horrible things to his body in the name of service. A walking poison, he killed with a mere touch. Celino had saved him years ago and Marcus was devoted to Celino like a dog.

  To kill Celino Carvanna, she would have to get close to him and separate him from his guards.

  Father was right. None of the people at Galdes disposal could take out Celino Carvanna. In fact, of all the millions that inhabited New Delphi, she alone was uniquely qualified to take him on.

  Father, in his wisdom, also reasoned that she would do it. If not for the sake of Galdes, then for the sake of sliding the tomb stone atop her broken heart. He believed she would hate Celino Carvanna. After all, Celino had humiliated the Galdes family. He ruined her life, obliterating her future. Of course, she had to hate him.

  Meli recalled the file. Celino chose to oversee a number of projects for the Carvannas, including Raban, Inc. and Sunlight Development. He was active and ruthless, and his leadership brought his family to its prominence. He made the Carvanna millions. For all practical purposes, he was the Carvanna family. His death would plunge his clan into chaos and destroy the value of their stock.

  Angel had managed to obtain Celino’s calendar for the next two weeks, at astronomical cost, no doubt. Celino scheduled an inspection of the new development to the south. That meant a flurry of meetings and formal dinner engagements, which, if the new Celino was anything like his younger self, he would loathe with great passion. He was both too active and too smart. Time may have taught him patience with less agile minds, but it could hardly teach him how to escape boredom in their presence.

  She had reviewed his recent development projects. Celino built beautiful places, full of sunlight and flowers, all of the modern technology seamlessly married with the provincial earthiness. Meli smiled. One could remove a man from the provinces, but one couldn’t take the provinces out of the man. He would strive to escape tedium of formality, which meant he would likely stay in his villa on the Terraces and lunch below, among the cafes.

  Revenge was sometimes best served hot.

  Celino strode down the tiled curve of the Red Terrace. Built into the side of a towering cliff, now honeycombed with metal and plastic-sheathed tunnels, the Terraces consisted of seven platforms, layered one under another, each about a mile long and two hundred yards at their widest. The platforms jutted in gentle curves from the former cliff, housing small shops and eateries. The bottom terrace sat roughly three thousand feet above the plain, while the Red Terrace, where he stood, was situated three levels above it. He wasn’t sure about the exact altitude, but the view was magnificent.

  The residents of New Delphi were used to heights, but even Celino, as he stopped by the faux wooden rail, was momentarily overcome by the enormity of the landscape. Far below him a vast plain rolled into the distance and beyond it blue cliffs rose, made ethereal by the ocean of air.

  Celino resumed his walk, aware of Marcus following like an unobtrusive shadow a few feet behind. Two of his men, Romuld and Ven, stalked behind Marcus.

  The breeze brought a whiff of a shockingly familiar aroma. He stopped. He smelled crisp dough with a slight buttery taste and a tantalizing scent of roasted passion raspberry, the only variety of the old planet berry that grew in the southern provinces. The aroma swirled about him and instantly he was five years old, stealing the still warm cone of pastry from the dish and eating quietly under the table, thrilled at his own sneakiness.

  “What is it?” Marcus asked softly.

  “Passion cones.” Celino accelerated, headin
g toward the source of the scent, until he reached a small cafe with a red overhang. A sign proclaimed A Taste of Dahlia. He rarely entered unfamiliar places. Why risk an ambush?

  Celino glanced past Marcus at Ven. “An order of passion cones.”

  The bodyguard ducked into the shop.

  Celino shrugged. Funny how the memory played tricks. He could practically taste the pastry from the scent alone.

  Ven emerged from the cafe. Empty handed.

  Celino stared.

  “The owner says the cones aren’t his to sell,” Ven said. “I told him to name the price, but he refused.”

  Celino growled. He wanted the damn cones. He strode into the shop.

  The cafe was small, barely more than a counter and six tables. The floor was faux wood, the furnishings vintage Dahlia: sturdy old furniture that would last another century. Only two of the tables were occupied. The patrons watched him like terrified rabbits.

  Behind him Romuld activated the scanner that sat over his left eye. A sheet of green light swept over the tables and people sitting at them. Romuld said nothing. The place was clean.

  An older man hurried to Celino’s side, nervously wiping his hands with a towel. “Sir?”

  “Passion cones,” Celino said.

  The older man twisted the towel in his hands. “You see, the business is a bit slow. It’s a weekday and off-season.”

  Celino frowned.

  The man stammered. “There is a woman. She rents one of my stoves once in a while, because I have the old iron ovens. The old province kind. She pays well. She was the one who made the passion cones. So I can’t sell them. I’ve asked.”

  The trip down memory lane suddenly became a challenge. “Then I will ask her myself.”

  The man nodded and pointed to the back. “Through that door, sir.”

  Celino crossed the floor and ducked through the low doorway. A spacious kitchen stretched before him, filled with the tantalizing aroma of freshly baked dough.

  A woman sat at a large table, in a pool of golden light streaming from the window. She wore a sundress the color of burgundy. Her hair was gathered into a thick dark braid that glinted with copper in the sunlight. In her hands was an electronic reader.

  She looked up at him, her dark eyes like two bottomless pools on a face tanned to golden perfection. Celino stared.

  The woman blinked against the green sweep of Romuld’s scanner and raised her eyebrows.

  “I’m told you made the cones,” Celino said.

  “Technically, I’m still making them.” Her voice was sensuous and confident, and completely unimpressed with his surliness. She checked her reader’s clock. “Thirty seconds left.”

  “I’d like to purchase them.”

  “Are you a Dahlian?”

  “I don’t see how that can be of any consequence.”

  She rose. She was shorter than he, maybe five four. The thin dress hugged her chest, outlining large, full breasts and a narrow waist. The wide cut of the skirt hid her hips, but judging by the rest of her, her butt was round and plump. She grasped a heat-resistant towel, forced open the stove door and pulled a tray of cones into the light. They looked perfect, golden crispy brown.

  “If you were a Dahlian, then you would know that passion cones must be baked with love and given freely. Mothers make them for their children, wives make them for their husbands, and young girls bake them for their lovers. It’s bad luck to sell them.”

  She set the tray atop a stone block and used the tongs to transfer the cones to a small cloth-lined basket. He liked the way she moved, easy, graceful, gliding.

  “That’s an old superstition.”

  “Superstitions add texture to life.”

  She picked up the basket and brought it to the table, and once again he stared, mesmerized by her curves and her bottomless eyes.

  “How much?” he asked, and wasn’t sure if he was asking how much she wanted for the cones or how much she would charge to let him have a go at her ripe body.

  “Not for sale.” A little sly light danced in her dark eyes.

  Cones or you, he wondered. Her eyes told him the answer: both.

  He changed his tactics. “By the same tradition, it’s bad luck to turn away a guest from your table. Especially one who arrives in the middle of the meal.”

  She laughed softly. “So you’re from Dahlia after all. I’ll make you a deal. I will share my cones. But I have no pink wine to go with them. If you…”

  He simply jerked his hand and the sound of rapidly retreating steps announced Ven’s departure.

  “A bit imperious of you,” she said, amused.

  He pulled out a chair and sat at the table opposite her. “It’ll save us time.” He glanced at her reader. A Chronicle of the Reign of Charles IX. “Prosper Mérimée?”

  “Indeed.”

  He didn’t think anyone except him read the long forgotten old planet author. “Stories of a more savage time. When men were men and women were…”

  “Hauntingly beautiful bronze statues of Venus who crushed them in their sleep?”

  Celino frowned. She didn’t simply read the novel, she had read the short stories as well.

  “I’m afraid I prefer Colomba to Carmen,” she said. “So if you want to discuss the opera, you’re out of luck.”

  He viewed opera as a garish and vulgar spectacle.

  Ven entered and placed a bottle of Dahlian Pink on the table. He had activated the icer on the side of the bottle and a delicate feathery frost painted the glass.

  “We’ll need mugs,” she murmured. “Ascanio! Can I trouble you for a couple of mugs?”

  Mugs. How…provincial. He hid a smile.

  The proprietor scurried into the room, deposited two heavy clear mugs onto the table, and escaped.

  Celino popped the cork and poured the wine. A lush pink splashed into the mug. She tasted it. Her eyes widened. “Cerise!”

  “Indeed.”

  “Had I known you would pay for the cones with luxury wine, I would’ve surrendered immediately.”

  “Surrendered” conjured an image of her naked in the sheets. Surprising. It had been a long time since he reacted that way to a woman. And she wasn’t even beautiful. She seemed to have none of the refined elegance he usually sought.

  Where did she come from? What was she doing here? Besides baking passion cones.

  He pulled his combat knife from the sheath on his belt and offered it to her handle first. “I believe it’s customary to share the first cone.”

  She took the knife without care, gripped it like a hammer, oblivious to the fact that her fingerprints registered on the handle, and chopped a cone in two. Whatever she was, knife artistry wasn’t in her talents. She cut like a cook.

  She returned his knife and pushed half a cone toward him. “May you prosper.”

  “And you as well.” His mouth automatically shaped the response to the old greeting.

  She bit into her cone. Celino tasted his, waiting for the three-second diagnostic. No alarms blared in his implant. No poison. He bit a piece, savoring it this time. It tasted like heaven. Neither too sour, nor too sweet. Perfection. He ordered passion cones from time to time and the premier bakeries of New Delphi had nothing on this woman.

  His teeth caught something solid. “Lemon rind?” he said in disbelief. To the best of his knowledge, only his mother put lemon rind into the cones.

  “You found out my secret.” Her pink tongue darted out of her mouth to lick a smudge of the filling off her bottom lip. He wondered if her mouth tasted of cones and pink wine.

  “Would your men like some?”

  “No,” he said.

  “They’re on duty?”

  He nodded and attacked the second cone.

  He had eaten three before Marcus leaned over to him. The meeting with the land owners started in less than twenty minutes. Barely enough time to reach the conference hall within his hotel.

  He didn’t want to leave. He wanted to sit with her in the sunny k
itchen, drink pink wine, eat cones, and think of her in his bed.

  “Ah. You have to run,” she guessed.

  “Indeed.” He rose. “Thank you. The cones were divine.”

  She handed him the basket. “Take them.”

  He hesitated.

  She rose and pressed the basket into his hands. “You’re leaving the wine with me. It’s only fair.”

  Outside the sunshine made him blink. He slipped the knife out and handed it to Romuld. “Find out who she is.”

  Meli sat alone in the kitchen. She poured herself another mug. The wine was perfect, delicate, its bouquet leaving a symphony of complimenting flavors on her tongue.

  A small part of her had hoped Celino would recognize her. But he didn’t. That was how little her existence had meant. She was nothing but a forgotten speck in his past life.

  Meli drank the wine.

  It had started with a veil.

  She vividly remembered it. It was a diaphanous indigo veil that hid the bottom part of her face, leaving only her eyes exposed. When her mother had slipped it onto her, adjusting the band to fit under the knot of her hair, Meli could still see her features in the mirror, but her face seemed broken in half. There was the tan half with her eyes and then there was the lower half under the veil that seemed to belong to someone else.

  “Why?” she asked.

  Mother sat on the bed. “You are betrothed. The veil lets everyone know that you’re off-limits.”

  The enormity of it failed to penetrate. “But I’m only ten.”

  Mother sighed. “I voted against it. I think it’s a critical error in judgment and I think it will come back to haunt us all. But I was outvoted by the family counsel.”

  Even at ten, Meli knew that family counsel was law.

  “Who am I marrying?”

  Mother snapped her fingers. The display hidden in the surface of the mirror ignited. “Engagement,” her mother said briskly. A file appeared, opened, and an image of Celino Carvanna filled the screen.

  “But he’s old!”