Empress Game: The Empress Game Trilogy Book 1 Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Coming Soon from Titan Books

  Also Available from Titan Books

  The Empress Game

  Print edition ISBN: 9781783295241

  E-book ISBN: 9781783295265

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: July 2015

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

  © 2015 by Rhonda Mason

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  What did you think of this book? We love to hear from our readers. Please email us at: [email protected], or write to us at the above address.

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  To the best friends a girl could have, Jen Brooks and Diana Botsford, without whom I never would have finished this novel.

  1

  Shadow Panthe.

  Power, grace, deadliness defined. Always cunning, never merciful, and endlessly, infinitely, victorious.

  She, Kayla Reinumon, was Shadow Panthe.

  And she was tired of it.

  Tired of fighting, of hiding.

  Perhaps her foe would end it. Kayla gripped a kris dagger in each hand and eyed the fellow occupant of the Blood Pit. This one would not kill her. Could not, had she a wish to, which she most likely did. Every woman who earned the dubious glamour of fighting in the Blood Pit wished to vanquish Shadow Panthe and claim her throne. Well, this one would not.

  The girl—who possessed the ridiculous stage name Angelic Assassin—came at Kayla with knives flashing. She had technique, at least. Flawless footwork brought Angelic close, her blade descending at the perfect angle to slice a hamstring. It might have succeeded if Kayla hadn’t spent her twenty-five Ordochian years training for moments such as this.

  She lashed out with her booted foot and sent one of the girl’s knives spinning, arcing toward the crowd that sat above the Blood Pit. It struck one of the spectators, judging by the scream that rang out, and was followed by a chorus of cheers. Kayla smiled. Hopefully the man had been killed, or at least seriously maimed.

  She hated them, the men who came to this planet on the edge of Imperial Space to watch her fight. They fed off the violence, swore, sweated and screamed her name all night. She hated them, but not more than she hated herself for being Shadow Panthe. For giving them exactly what they wanted.

  Angelic rolled and recovered quickly. Impressive. Kayla glanced at the wavy edge of her own kris daggers before tossing the left one away. It skittered to the limit of the pit, out of reach.

  “You’ll wish you had that back,” Angelic called. A round of boos met her declaration—the crowd didn’t believe it any more than Kayla did.

  “We’ll see.” Kayla twirled her remaining kris. “Come.”

  Angelic lunged again, grabbing at Kayla’s knife hand even as she stabbed at her with her long, thin blade. Clever girl. Not a worthy opponent for Shadow Panthe, but clever nonetheless.

  The fight ranged across the pit floor, as Lumar liked it to. Despite her disgust for the owner of the Blood Pit, she knew who paid her prize money and how he liked things done. Lumar wanted a show. If Kayla and her brother, Corinth, didn’t depend on the credits the Blood Pit fights brought in she would have ended the fight in a heartbeat, spat at the spectators and told Lumar exactly where to shove his “show.”

  But they did need the credits, so Kayla ignored the self-loathing and toyed with the blonde girl. If inflicting half-a-dozen minor cuts and bruises could be considered toying. Kayla herself had almost as many injuries. The fight had to look good, after all. The crowd wanted their sport.

  Kayla closed with the girl again. Her sleek, cat-like movements and micro-fine reflexes had earned Kayla the moniker Shadow Panthe long before her nights in the Blood Pit. It had taken fighting like a caged animal in front of a crowd to make her hate the title and all the skill it implied. They chanted it now, the syllables elongated, the sound drawn out. SHA-DOE-PANTH. SHA-DOE-PANTH.

  The crowd’s mood turned. They’d seen enough sport, now they wanted blood—Angelic’s blood, never Shadow Panthe’s. Not their infamous champion wench.

  Screw ’em.

  She’d given them enough already, and she still had a final match tonight.

  Kayla sidestepped, affecting a miscalculation that appeared to put her off balance. Angelic lunged to take advantage, as many fighters would have. Of course, a better fighter would have been more cautious. The best, like Kayla’s mentor, would simply have laughed at such an obvious move. Not Angelic. She dove right in.

  Kayla shifted her weight, spun past the charging girl and brought the hilt of her kris down hard on Angelic’s temple. The girl crumpled without a sound to the stained organoplastic floor of the pit.

  The crowd roared above them, and bile stung the back of Kayla’s throat. She glared at them, her adoring fans. She knew they sensed her enmity and cherished her all the more for it. What better champion had they ever seen? Who more flawless, more coldhearted than she?

  None.

  Nights like this made her almost thankful for her mentor’s murder. If she were ever to have seen Kayla thus, fighting for money, for the pleasure of men in a pit of filth on the slum side of Altair Tri…

  An oddity in the crowd caught her eye. Had he moved, she would never have noticed him. That he didn’t stand wasn’t in and of itself strange. Many men couldn’t be bothered to rise for her, though they applauded and shouted as loud as any.

  This man, though, didn’t clap. He didn’t wave his arms about, say something to his neighbor or point at the unconscious body of her latest victim. He held himself as rigid as the trinium decking and stared at her. She wanted to hate him, group him with the others. He sat in the arena, had paid to watch her fight another woman, hadn’t he? One look at him and her mind refused. Different.

  In his eyes she saw none of the admiration, none of the lust or possessiveness that shone in the others’. What she saw
instead disturbed her: calculation. As if he saw past the façade, past the paint that covered her, the stage-name that shielded her.

  She touched her fingers to the black ashk that wound around the lower half of her face, afraid she’d been unmasked. The cloth was still in place, revealing only her eyes.

  The whoosh of pressure locks releasing tore through the crowd noise, offering her an escape. A battered section of the pit wall opened toward her, all the invitation she needed. She scooped up the dagger she’d tossed aside and fled the pit.

  * * *

  “What the frutt do you think you’re doing, Shadow? They didn’t come to see you play footsies, they came to see you fight.”

  Kayla didn’t bother to look at Lumar as he ranted behind her.

  “I told you to punish that upstart, but no, you let her off easy. I swear …”

  Even if this same scene didn’t play out after most of her fights, she still wouldn’t have listened just then. She waited on the airway, a catwalk of trinium alloy that ringed the top of the arena and led to the fighters’ dressing rooms. Lumar’s uneven tread rattled the plating behind her while she peered down at the pit. Against her will, her gaze sought out the single man.

  He sat as still as ever. Was he enamored with the spectacle in the pit? She glanced at the current contest—Oriala versus some unknown. All of Lumar’s fighters wore skimpy costumes, and Oriala’s chest threatened to burst out of her top with every breath. Kayla snorted. The look in the man’s eyes must have been fanciful imagining on her part. He was just like all the rest.

  Before she could decide if the revelation relieved or disappointed her, she noticed that the angle of his stare was off. His gaze was a touch high. He looked as though… he studied the ring of lights circling the pit. His posture indicated attentiveness, but she doubted he saw anything of what was going on in there.

  Odd.

  What sort of man came to the Blood Pit and didn’t watch the fights? Mercenaries, smugglers, slave runners and unsavories of all sorts came to the pit to do business, but they always confined it to the intermission between matches. No one ignored the violence on display.

  Except this man.

  A chill crept over her, raising the fine hairs on the back of her neck. Why, then, had he been staring at her after the match? What was he doing here?

  “Are you listening to me? I have had it!” Lumar grabbed her upper arm, heedless of the damage to her body paint. “Do you want to lose tonight?”

  She tore her gaze away from the mysterious man in the crowd and focused her coldest stare on the pit’s owner. “Shadow Panthe never loses.” Kayla bared her teeth in a feral smile. “That’s why they love me.”

  “You’ll lose when I tell you to. I control every match here.”

  She arched a brow.

  “You’re a credit-whore for me, Shadow, I admit. You win because it pays for you to win, but you don’t show off enough. The people want drama.”

  “Frutt the people. They want blood, I give them that.”

  “Not enough. They won’t pay to watch you dance with the other bitches. Your match with Phoenix is the headliner. If you want to keep your status as golden girl of the Blood Pit I had better see some drama, I had better see some blood, and I had damn well better see Phoenix crippled before the night is over.” He leaned in close. “The Blood Pit brought customers in from across the Altair System before you ever arrived, Shadow Panthe. You’re not irreplaceable.”

  He walked away and she let him go without a reply. She was irreplaceable and they both knew it. The Blood Pit could only claim patrons from all corners of this star system because of its location; the slum side of Altair Tri was a catch-all for human filth. People didn’t fly here to build a reputation. They didn’t come to make a profit, gain a name or find their destiny. They came for one reason: to hide. As she and her brother had. Now the Blood Pit was famous on worlds beyond Altair Tri, and people came to this voidhole of a planet for another reason: to see Shadow Panthe fight. They were still the lowest of the low: murderers, rapists, slavers, but she brought them in. Lumar would never get rid of her as long as she continued to win.

  She had no intention of losing to Phoenix tonight. The promise of four hundred credits to the victor would ensure her full efforts. The potential of another hundred as a bonus from a pleased Lumar was worth stirring up some drama.

  Below, the crowd roared, drawing her attention once more to the man who sat curiously still amid the raucous spectators.

  Lumar wanted a little drama, hmm?

  * * *

  Senior Agent Malkor Rua of the Imperial Diplomatic Corps stood in the tunnel that ran behind the Blood Pit’s stands, taking a break from the violence for a moment. The place was revolting, pit to dome. The tunnel smelled like piss and ruinth smoke, ozone from the faulty lighting stung his throat and a vandalized beverage synthesizer oozed slime from a ruptured calorie pack. The stands themselves were worse, dotted with puddles of vomit and rank with body odor. The hint of the smell of semen coming from the man beside him after the last match had been enough to send him off on this momentary retreat.

  He checked the feed on his mobile comm. One of his octet members, still on board Prince Ardin’s starcruiser in orbit, had sent a message.

  “IDs confirmed on the men following you and Hekkar. Lower-level guards in Master Dolan’s employ, as suspected.”

  Now that was odd. As Grand Advisor of Science and Technology to the emperor, Master Dolan wielded plenty of power in the Sakien Empire. Why would he be concerned enough with the seedy goings on of such an inconsequential Protectorate Planet to send men here? And why did Malkor get the sense they were after the same thing—Shadow Panthe?

  As much as Malkor had to feign interest in the Blood Pit to keep his cover as nothing more than a spectator, he didn’t have to feign any of his interest in Shadow Panthe. Something about her…

  It was in the way she moved, the defiant way she stared at the crowd, the flawless technique she wielded. She was in the Blood Pit but not of it, as so many of its denizens were. She’d been trained somewhere other than Altair Tri, and for a purpose grander than this. Where? And why?

  Malkor shook off the questions. Where and why didn’t matter. Who didn’t matter. She was an asset, a means by which to secure Princess Isonde a win in the tournament for the crown. A fierce, feral means, and exactly what they needed. Or would be, once he convinced her to join them.

  Two men lounging by the broken beverage synthesizer straightened when a third man ducked into the dark space. A glassy-eyed woman followed him, hands cuffed together in front of her, manacles connected to a metallic lead, the end of which was tucked into the man’s belt.

  Malkor stiffened—a slaver.

  In the close confines of the tunnel, he could catch bits of the trading going on:

  “Why hire a whore for a night when you could buy one for years? This one’s prime blood, disease-free, brought her from Altair Prime myself.”

  One of the other two men muttered something Malkor couldn’t catch.

  “Any whore can steam up the sheets, but my girl—you can have her on her knees all night and she’ll still have your breakfast ready for you in the morning. She’ll spread her thighs on command, pleasure any of your other friends and still keep your house tidy.” The slaver flicked a finger and the woman stepped closer. He gripped her jaw and angled her face to show off the scar behind her ear. “Discipline chip already installed, no extra charge.”

  Bile rose in Malkor’s throat. It wasn’t the first such transaction he’d overheard in the Blood Pit—more like the tenth. Though usually the “merchandise” wasn’t on display. His fingers itched to draw his ion pistol and bring a definitive end to the discussion with three quick shots. He could do it, too, no one would miss them, but then he’d be ejected from the Blood Pit for making a mess. As much as it sucked, he had a larger mission at stake, and freeing this woman from her miserable existence wouldn’t serve the greater good tonight.

&
nbsp; The announcer bot boomed out a five-minute warning until the next match. Time to get back in there. Hating himself as much as the slaver and buyers in that moment, Malkor turned his shoulder and walked away. He elbowed his way through the heat and noise of the crowd to take a seat beside Hekkar, his second-in-command and backup on the mission.

  “Shadow Panthe’s the one, hmm?” Hekkar spoke just loud enough to be heard over the surrounding rabble.

  “So it would seem.” Malkor drew his thoughts back to the mission. It had to take precedence, the fate of the empire depended upon it. He forced the image of the slave’s hopeless face out of his mind. “Of course we’d find Isonde’s body-double in the darkest, nastiest voidhole on Altair Tri.” If only Isonde knew how to fight, could win the hand-to-hand combat tournament without the need for subterfuge.

  “This is a bad idea, Malk, and you know it. An IDC agent would be a better choice.”

  “Any agent has an excellent chance of being recognized on Falanar, no matter how long she’s been undercover somewhere else. Besides, we need someone expendable if this whole thing goes to shit.” Which it very likely would. How had he let Isonde and Ardin talk him into this?

  “Think Shadow Panthe’s good enough to win the Empress Game?” Hekkar’s gaze slowly traveled over the other occupants in the arena as he spoke, never resting in any one place.

  “She’ll have to be. If we can’t put Isonde on the throne, the empire is in serious trouble.”

  A bot announced the final match of the evening: Phoenix challenging Shadow Panthe. All the drug-dealing, slave-trading, gambling and bribing going on around them ground to a halt. Only one thing could hold the attention of so many disparate criminals at a time—the promise of violence. The pit drew Malkor’s gaze once more. Who was this Shadow Panthe that she could rule here, thrive in this environment? A section of the wall lining the pit swung open. Malkor unconsciously leaned forward, anticipating Shadow’s entrance. Every man in the room did the same.

  Instead of her sleek and deadly form, flame burst forth, arcing from one end of the pit to the other. It vanished before Malkor could shield his eyes. In its place stood a voluptuous woman gowned in free-flowing fire silk. It slipped and shimmered with her every breath, giving the illusion that the woman was herself fire.