Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

fleet had a long memory for insults, and it bore grudges. So Adrienne played her little games, a small fish in a big pond, and tried to avoid being eaten by the sharks.
    She assumed she was currently ahead of the game. She was still alive, after all.
    If you called this living. She sniffed angrily and glared at her reflection in the viewscreen. She'd spent a lot of time with her thoughts lately and had come to the uncomfortable conclusion that she didn't like herself much. She was too busy being negative about everything to be positive about anything, even herself. But she knew she was right about this one thing. Adrienne had built her personality quite carefully and deliberately, being hard and harsh and uncompromising, because that was the only way she knew to get things done. Being soft just got you hurt, or even killed. High society had always believed in the survival of the fittest. Besides, she'd enjoyed being rude and obnoxious and loud. If only because she was so very good at it. But all her strength and all her hardness and all her clever, vicious words hadn't been enough to save her when the House of Campbell fell.
    Her children were safe, at least, in a military school. Not quite the future she'd intended for them, but a safe haven, none the less. Robert had arranged it for her. Strange to think that that young man with the naive background and the vague smile was now the Campbell, head of the Family. There was no one else with a better claim but Finlay, and he had given up all claims to power and position when he chose to disappear into the underground. Now only a few very minor cousins remained with any legitimate claim to the title, and they were mostly
    still in hiding—keeping their heads well down till the storm passed and the waters calmed. The rest were mostly dead, or missing and presumed dead. A few had married hastily into lesser Houses, giving up their name in return for protection. Some of those had gone missing, too. The Wolfes had a long reach and endless malice.
    Adrienne knew that if she had any pride, she should give up on society, as it had given up on her. But she couldn't. It was all she knew. The great game of influence and intrigue was the only game worth playing, and it was infinitely addictive. She'd do anything, promise anything, to get a foot in the door again.
    It was either that, or retreat into the underground, which she despised. She had no taste for rebellion, full of thugs and non-people and the lower classes. And she'd never been one to hide her light behind a bushel. On the whole, apart from her present circumstances, Adrienne liked things as they were. If she could only find just the right leverage, she had no doubt she'd be accepted back into society again. They had to take her back. She was one of them. She might have verbally attacked society on occasion, but she was lost outside it. All she knew was how to be an aristocrat and play the game.
    Which was why she'd been reduced to making more and more desperate calls to fringe elements, lesser Houses, and those "personalities" who lived on the edge of events for whatever crumbs they could pick up from the greater players.
    Renowned for taste and repartee and knowing all the latest gossip, they passed in and out of fashion according to a season's taste or whim.
    But one figure was always there, raising laughter and eyebrows with barbed bons mots and the perfect put-down. Chantelle. Not so much a friend, more an honored rival, but Adrienne had known her for years. Chantelle had no aristocratic blood
    or political power, but somehow still commanded everyone's attention at those soirees she deigned to attend. She decided fashion, chic, and everything else that mattered with a gorgeous smile or a flared nostril, and never gave a pretender an even break. You could break fingernails on her charm, but she never forgave a slight. She and Adrienne had always had a lot in common. Including several ex-lovers, who kept their mouths firmly shut on certain matters, if they knew what was good for them. If Adrienne could get Chantelle's backing, no one would dare insult her, or refuse to take her calls. If Chantelle accepted you, so did society. If society knew what was good for it.
    Adrienne braced herself and made the call. There was always the chance Chantelle would see her own possible future in Adrienne's fall and feel sympathetic.
    Adrienne jumped despite herself as the viewscreen cleared to show Chantelle's frowning face. The