WarriorsApprentice (5 page)

The Dvalinn military authorities had plucked him from a gym
and tossed him straight to Tybor, bypassing basic military training. He’d never
worn a uniform or a formal outfit in his life and no one had thought to check
to see if he knew how to wear a tie. He searched his memory. The captain always
wore one—surely he if could visualize it, he could replicate it.

The image of the captain, tie neatly knotted, appeared the
instant he closed his eyes, but Huon barely noticed. In his memory, Tybor stood
beside the captain, chest bare, muscles arrayed in rippling lines, skin
gleaming. His presence dominated the picture, drew Huon’s eyes and swamped
anything else. His hand moved to his throat and he ran his finger around the
collar as if the tie were already in place, too tight and restrictive.

Another of those strange hot-and-cold shivers scudded over
his skin. Pushing the image away, he opened his eyes and moved to the mirror.
Trial and error made a much safer if slower option.

Ten minutes and many attempts later, he nodded and prepared
to leave. According to the information provided by their source Judie Scanlon
ate at the same restaurant most lunchtimes. In Venice, the press of tourists
put such pressure on dining facilities that single travelers frequently found
themselves sharing tables with strangers. Huon planned to take advantage of
this to strike up an acquaintance.

The photo of Judie Scanlon he’d been given showed further
evidence of the remarkable variation of skin color accepted among humans. Judie
Scanlon’s skin glowed a dark gold and her hair fell in a long, straight ebony
sweep to her shoulders. Her eyes were almond shaped, dark and hinting at
secrets she alone knew. Even in a world where infinite variety was the norm,
Huon knew her beauty would make her noticeable.

Shoving the picture in his pocket, he left. The door had
almost closed behind him when he turned and stepped back inside. Tybor had
drilled it into him over and over again
—control your environment, leave
nothing to chance.
He opened a drawer, slid his orders and the photograph
to the back of it and covered it all with his clothes.

In spite of Tybor’s detailed descriptions, in spite of the
hours Huon had spent studying the maps of Venice, navigating his way to the
restaurant where Judie Scanlon could be found proved more complex than he’d
imagined. He turned a corner, crossed a bridge over a small canal and walked
down an alleyway. Three turns later and after crossing a narrow bridge, he
found himself walking down the same alleyway from the opposite direction. He
turned and retraced his steps. After a few more moments and several twists and
dead ends he didn’t recall from any map, he began to suspect that in this
amazing city, finding any specific location was not such a simple matter after
all. He plowed on through crowds of tourists, certain at one point that he’d
crossed the same bridge twice even though he was sure he’d approached it from
different streets.

At last he recognized a sign and picked up his pace. He
reached the restaurant and looked inside. No one in the room resembled the
human he’d come to find. He thought about sitting at a table and waiting for
her to appear, but there was no way to be certain she would sit next to him,
and if he got up from one table and moved to hers it would look far too much
like what it was—a set-up.

Instead he walked on, circling around the twisted streets of
Venice, returning to the restaurant twice more before he finally found her. At
the back, sitting alone at a table set for four, was Judie Scanlon. A waiter
stood at the table, writing as she spoke, words Huon was too far away to hear
distinctly but which seemed to be in fluent Italian. Huon steadied his
breathing and sauntered inside. Some of the tension eased from his shoulders as
he looked around. Every table had at least one occupant, giving him the excuse
he needed. He stepped up to her table, rested his hand on top of the vacant
chair and flashed what he hoped was a reassuring smile, not the nervous grimace
it felt like.

“Do you speak English?”

She nodded, her expression distant, as if she looked past him.

“There are no vacant tables,” Huon said, gesturing around
the restaurant with one hand. “Would you mind if I shared yours?”

Then Judie Scanlon looked
at
him and Huon gripped the
back of the chair. A man could drown in the depths of those soft brown eyes.
They glanced around the restaurant, sweeping over several empty chairs at other
tables. Huon’s stomach clenched. She was going to say no.

He smiled, opening his eyes wider, aiming for innocence. If
he had to be slender and boy-like, he might as well make the most of it. “I’m
glad you speak English. I would be very grateful if you could help me with the
menu.” The smile he maintained made his cheeks ache but he had to break through
the barrier of this first conversation. “I heard you speaking Italian to the
waiter so I knew you had that part of it right.” A sudden burst of inspiration
hit him and he added, “There are other tables with empty seats but I thought it
would be nice to sit with you.” He held his breath, wondering if lines like
that impressed women.

Nothing he’d ever said to any Dvalinn female had worked, but
the human world seemed to be different, because her shoulders lowered and her
stiff spine curved into a more relaxed posture and she said, “Sit down.”

He pulled out the chair and settled himself in, taking care
not to lean toward her in a manner she might find aggressive or threatening,
then picked up the menu and flashed the obviously winning smile again.

“I don’t speak
any
Italian.”

He figured the small lie wouldn’t count. All the Dvalinn spoke
English and Tybor had tried to teach him Italian too, but it hadn’t taken as
well as the rest of Tybor’s lessons.

“I don’t understand anything here. What do you recommend to
eat?”

Judie Scanlon’s lips moved in a small, social smile and for
the moment it was enough. At least she wasn’t ignoring him. She pointed to the
menu.

“It depends if you want to embrace the Italian lifestyle and
eat your main meal in the middle of the day or if, like me, you prefer to stick
with a light lunch and eat more at night.” She pointed to a few items, naming
and describing them.

Damn it. What would the kind of male women found attractive
do? Show her that in spite of his slight build he had a man’s appetite by
ordering everything from antipasto through to dessert? Yeah. That was what
someone like Tybor would do, with his solid athletic build and bulky muscles.
He raised his hand to summon the waiter but before he arrived, sound and sense
belatedly wound their way into Huon’s overloaded brain, alerting him to the
second part of Judie’s sentence—
stick with a light lunch, like me
. If he
ordered a huge meal he’d be left on his own, eating. Judie’s light lunch would
be over and she’d be gone, taking away his chance to walk with her and get to
know her.

The waiter appeared at his side and Huon looked at him in
confusion. “I’ll have… I’ll have…what she’s having.”

The waiter rolled his eyes and walked back toward the
kitchen.

“Have you been in Venice long?” Judie asked.

“No, I just arrived,” he replied. The exchange seemed too
banal to lead anywhere but who was he to judge how conversations that led to
sexual encounters began?

The next question was a routine inquiry about his first
impressions. Halfway through his answer, the waiter arrived carrying a plate that
he set down at Judie’s place.

A rush of cold, nauseous saliva flooded Huon’s mouth and he
swallowed it down before he gasped, “You’re not going to eat that.”

Judie’s head jerked up from her smiling contemplation of the
meal in front of her. “Of course I am. It’s my favorite.”

“But…but, it’s black and stringy. How can you contemplate
putting that, whatever it is, in your mouth?”

“It’s squids’ ink pasta and it’s a Venetian specialty. I
thought you knew that,” a deep voice said from behind him.

Before Huon had the chance to turn around, Tybor pulled out
one of the remaining two chairs at the table, smiled at Judie, said, “May I?”
and, without waiting for an answer, sat down.

“What? What are you doing here?” Huon asked, teeth gritted,
fists clenched beneath the cover of the table.

“Young Huon here and I are work colleagues,” Tybor said,
grinning at Judie. Then he looked across at Huon. “I brought some extra
equipment from head office.”

Anger churned in Huon’s guts. How dare Tybor pull this shit?
Everything Tybor had asked him to do, every task, every aching, screaming
muscle Huon had pushed to exhaustion, every target he had hit, every minute he
had denied himself sleep meant nothing. The bastard was here, taking a seat at
the table because he didn’t believe “young Huon here” was good enough to carry
out this mission. Huon’s desire to reach out and slam his fist into Tybor’s
face fought with the urge to walk out of the restaurant. But from somewhere
deep inside he felt a frisson of pleasure because it was so good to see that
toned body again.

The sense of duty Tybor had instilled into Huon’s very bones
kept him seated at the table. Be damned if he would do anything to validate
Tybor’s lack of faith in him.

Judie glanced from one man to the other, her eyes flicking uneasily
between them. Whether her nervousness was caused by the tension sparking from
him or a more natural unease at the presence at her table of two male
strangers, Huon couldn’t tell, but he knew that if something didn’t change she
was going to get up and leave. Once she did, the task of infiltrating
Hopewood’s headquarters would go from difficult to almost impossible because
any further contact with Judie Scanlon under those circumstances would set all
her stalker alarms ringing.

The best way to allay her fears was to tackle them head-on.
“When I sat down at your table, I didn’t intend to usurp it for a business
meeting,” Huon said, forcing his lips into what he hoped was a reassuring
smile. “I had no idea my colleague had come to Venice.” He hoped his expression
didn’t reflect his feelings, because if it did, the smile would have morphed
into a snarl.

“The last thing I want to do is upset a beautiful lady,”
Tybor said, his smile wide and natural-looking. “If we’re bothering you by
being here, we’ll move.”

Judie’s shoulders lowered again, her stiff posture loosened
and the tight line of her mouth softened. “It’s routine to share tables at the
height of the tourist season. I don’t mind,” she said.

“I’m glad,” Tybor replied. “The meal will be more enjoyable
with such charming company.”

A warm, pink blush colored Judie’s cheeks and the pupils of
her eyes widened before she dropped her lids, half concealing them. Shit. Tybor
had taken over the job of seducing her. Did he think Huon couldn’t do
anything
?
Okay, chances were Tybor had a lot more experience with women than he had—hell,
any experience at all would put him ahead of Huon—but did he have to prove it
right under his nose?

“What business are you in?”

Judie’s question was general, but Tybor answered it. “Personal
security.”

“Bodyguards? I imagine you’d be good at that. You look very
fit. You must work out a lot.”

Of course he did. Anyone with eyes could see the perfection
of Tybor’s physique. Except Judie wasn’t looking at Tybor, she was looking at
Huon and—holy crap!—her lips parted and her tongue slipped out to moisten them.

“Internet and financial security as well,” Tybor continued,
nodding at Huon. “Our company covers a wide range of activities. Perhaps we
could interest you—”

The reappearance of the waiter interrupted him. Without
glancing at the menu, Tybor ordered. “Saltimbocca. Insalata. Valpolicella.”
Then he uttered a few more phrases in rapid-fire Italian to the waiter, who
hurried off.

Judie Scanlon looked at him and smiled. “You speak Italian
very well, Mr…?” Her sentence ended on the uplifted pitch of a query.

“Ty, Ty Borland.” Tybor held out his hand and when Judie
raised her own to meet it he lifted it to his lips.

She didn’t snatch it away but looked up at him through her
eyelashes. “What a charmingly old-fashioned gesture.”

Tybor placed her hand back down on the table and covered it
with his own. “But suited, I hope, to the timeless ambience of Venice.” He
leaned forward in exactly the way Huon had decided would not be wise. “And I am
an old-fashioned man.”

Huon snorted. Got that right! At least a thousand years old-fashioned.

As if Huon had said the words out loud, Tybor turned his
gaze on him. “Did you say something?”

“Me? No. I haven’t had a chance to get a word in, have I?”
he replied.

Tybor’s gaze dropped briefly and Huon knew he’d acknowledged
the hit.

Tybor drew his hand back and rested it on Huon’s shoulder.
“Has my…” there was the slightest hesitation, “colleague introduced himself?”

“Er, no. We hadn’t got around to exchanging names. I’m Judie
Scanlon,” she said.

Huon could feel Tybor’s charm heating the atmosphere until
he was sure Judie was ready to eat out of Tybor’s hand, nasty black pasta and
all. “May I introduce my colleague, Huon Green?”

Huon’s fists clenched but he kept a smile pasted on his
face. Green. Tybor just couldn’t resist the urge to pick at him. Tybor’s
presence underlined his lack of confidence in Huon’s ability to succeed on his
own and the name Tybor had concocted insulted him but remained true at the same
time. Compared to Tybor he
was
green, but he’d been chosen for this
mission for good reasons. No one would ever suspect Huon of being what he was
but Tybor, who knew more about women and fighting than Huon ever would, was the
epitome of a Dvalinn warrior.

Huon sat at the table in the restaurant, Tybor’s hand on his
shoulder, grateful for the polyglot crowd who talked and ate and moved past
them to and from tables.