Perfect Shadow: A Night Angel Novella

she was seeing if Gaelan Starfire would turn around and leave such a party before he even met her, or if he would tolerate debauchery. What kind of a man is Gaelan Starfire? she was asking.
    A good test, devised by an incisive mind.
    “Say your piece. You didn’t invite me here for my wit, or my cock.” Her eyes widened for a moment, then a smile curved her full, rouged lips. She lay back against her divan. “I hadn’t thought I had,” she said. “You’re making me reconsider.”
    He folded his hands behind his back, legs apart, bearing military.
    Her eyes played over his figure. She said, “Gaelan Starfire, farmer from nowhere turned hero of the Ceuran Campaigns, master of the longbow, master of the warhammer.
    Single-handedly freed a hundred of his imprisoned comrades. Five times refused promotions. Held the ridge at the Battle of Blood Grass all by himself. Suspected of being Talented, but twice refused to be examined by the Sisters. Quarreled bitterly with his Alitaeran commander, and then left suddenly. Recently accused of murder and hunted by armies from Alitaera and Ceura both.”
    “Stories. Half true at best. They bore me.”
    “The Alitaeran commander turned up dead a month later,” she said.
    “Really?” he said, too slowly. How could she know that? “Serves that bastard right.”
    “When he recruited you, he promised you vengeance on the Ceurans, didn’t he.” It wasn’t a question. “Then he took their bribe to call off the campaign.” Again, not a question.
    “So you think I’m a murderer. You want me as an assassin?” Gaelan asked. “What?
    Some pretty rival slight you? A lover spurn you?”
    He intended her to take offense. Wanted to see her angry.
    She smiled indulgently. Full lips, beautiful smile, light in her eyes at being challenged. Enjoying being challenged. “I’m Sa’kagé, Gaelan.”
    “Of course you are.” The underworld lords, the Sa’kagé, ran all of the significant crime in the city under the watchful eye of their ruling Nine, who were in turn watched by a Shinga, whose power would make kings jealous. One of those Nine ran all of the prostitution in Cenaria. That man, the Master of Pleasures, wouldn’t let a beautiful woman like Gwinvere Kirena operate independently. So maybe that was it. Maybe she wanted out.
    “I wasn’t finished.” She stood, walked over to check the lock on the door. He noticed that the gold chains actually disappeared into a cut in her dress, apparently wrapping beneath her body to emerge at her bare back, which it covered in an artful golden lattice of bondage. Her beauty made his breath catch and his mind slow, and he needed his mind with this one. “I’m one of the Nine,” she said. “The Mistress of Pleasures.” It was not a secret to be casually shared. “Young to be – ”
    “I have a plan, and I need you for it.”
    He thought about it. Gaelan Starfire was supposed to be forty-five years old now, and he looked at least a decade younger. Gaelan was famous, but he had few real friends, and many enemies. Maybe it was time to move on, let that name die. There were worse things than to ally yourself with a beautiful, intelligent woman.
    “What’s your plan?” he asked.
    She turned. “There’ll be time for that. First, we need to take care of something.” She extended her hand. He took what was in it.
    It was the golden key she’d been wearing on her choker.
    He cocked an eyebrow, trying to ignore the shock running to his loins. Having the body of a young man meant having the reactions of a young man, too. “Why?” he asked.
    “Because if we don’t fuck tonight, you might fall in love with me. But if we do, you’ll probably still desire me – in fact, I’ll consider it a professional failure if you don’t; this is my work, after all – but you’ll never trust me. You’ll know that I’ll do the same with any other man who catches my fancy. It’ll make things simpler.”
    ~An honest whore. A rare woman in a dozen ways. She’s poisoning the well and telling you, Acaelus. Is that really what you want?~
    “And you?” he asked her. Are you in no danger of loving me?
    She came close, slowly, gently, into his arms. The scent of fine perfume and the insidious softness of silk and skin. Cold gold chains on his skin and a warm breath in his ear. “I intend to enjoy my work tonight.”

    * * *
    In their little farmhouse, Gaelan held his wife’s bare ass, balanced on the edge of a table he’d made himself.