Ice Baron (Ice Chronicles, Book One (science fiction romance)) Read online

  Relief lightened the girl’s sallow face. Without a word to Marli, she hastened to her father’s side and out the door, heading for the shuttle bay.

  Marli didn’t seem to notice the snub, and eagerly wolfed down the last of her dessert. “Can I be ’scused, Joshua?”

  “Of course.”

  “Me, too.” Anya stood before Joshua could speak. When she had gained the empty hall, she discovered she was shaking. She could not marry Onred. She would not.

  “Anya.” Joshua’s voice came as a shock, for she had not heard his following footsteps. “What is wrong?”

  “I told you before. I can’t marry him.” Her voice trembled.

  “Don’t you want peace?”

  “Yes, but not with him. I don’t trust him, and I don’t like him.”

  “He gave us his word. We have to trust him. In any case, the deal is done. You will marry him tomorrow.”

  “I won’t!” she gasped.

  Something wild must have flashed in her eyes, for Joshua caught her wrist and held it firmly. “You have no choice. I told you. The deal is sealed. He paid the bride price.”

  “I don’t care,” her voice rose. “I won’t marry Onred.”

  “You will marry him.”

  “I won’t!” Anya struggled to free herself, but in one blindingly swift move, Joshua jerked her up tight against his chest, her arm bent double, so she couldn’t move. His show of superior strength infuriated her.

  “I am your protector. You will do as I say.”

  “I won’t.”

  “You will.”

  “Damn you!” She never swore, and guilt pinched. But it all was too much. Worse than anything, she felt betrayed. That this man, whom she had looked up to all of her life, would relinquish her to the Altai wolf—and all for a price. Because it would bring peace. …Or was peace the only reason why Joshua refused to reconsider the matter? A completely new, shocking scenario entered her mind, and she wondered why she hadn’t thought of it before. Had he instead approved the match because it would protect his power? Was she merely a pawn, to be used to further his political goals? Nausea rolled through her. All of a sudden, she feared this was the truth.

  Through clenched teeth, she gritted, “I will do nothing to please you again. Ever.”

  His grip tightened. “You act like a child. Grow up!”

  That he would discard her like this, as if she meant nothing to him—but perhaps this is all she had ever been. A game piece. A responsibility he had willingly taken on, all for the profit of payoff. After all, if she married outside their territory, he would stay baron forever. Had this been his plan all along?

  Well, his plot had come to fruition. The good she had believed she had seen in him—their rare moments of laughter and equanimity, and sometimes even a deep, uncanny understanding of each other—must have been a product of her own fantasies.

  At the same time, she had known this day must come. According to the Old Barons’ Law, it could be no other way. Once she achieved a certain age, Joshua would discharge his duty of her. All the better if he could successfully—from his viewpoint—marry her off to a territory baron who would promise to become Joshua’s blood ally. Her blood, of course, being the tenuous thread that would bind the two men and strengthen each of their territories and power.

  She stopped struggling. “I hate you.”

  His eyes gleamed a tawny color, which matched his hair. A paradox, for his eyes were in truth a deep, velvety brown. His lips curled back so his white teeth showed in a smile. “You love me.”

  For a second her heart stopped, and then it slammed harder. She felt cold, and then hot. “You mean nothing to me. Just as I mean nothing to you.” She twisted her wrist, and to her surprise, freed herself. “Isn’t that right?”

  “I expect you to be on the next shuttle.”

  Anger tightened like a knot in her chest. It felt like a fist squeezed her lungs so hard that she could barely breathe. So Joshua thought it would be simple to get rid of her? That she was still a child, eager to do his bidding, to please him?

  No. At last, she had grown up, and now she understood that the heart of a snow leopard lived in him. No warmth. No laughter. Those fictions had been proven a lie. How quickly he was willing to sell her. For power. For peace. Should she feel flattered it was to the highest bidder?

  Abruptly, she said, “How many Detsk did he give you?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I want half. It’s my life that’s been sold, after all. Don’t you think I deserve something?”

  Something flickered in those brown eyes. Guilt? Grim triumph flared. So, she’d struck into the heart of this cold, self-serving man, whom she had apparently never known.

  “I’ll give you five hundred. It’s all you’ll need for your travels. You will need no money there.”

  A more than generous sum, if it was just for travel money. But they both understood it was the bride price. Her life price.

  Silently, she held out her hand.

  Joshua hesitated for a moment, and then dipped into his pocket and withdrew a folded stack of bills. He didn’t bother to count it. Neither did Anya. But it was clearly more than five hundred.

  Joshua silently watched her push the bills into her pocket. “The shuttle leaves in two hours. I expect you to be on it.” Abruptly, he turned on his heel and left her. His cream uniform, edged with gold, stretched crisp and taut across his straight, well-muscled shoulders. His tawny hair was so short now it didn’t even touch the collar.

  Anya watched him go. With each step, her heart broke a little more, until it felt like millions of pieces of glass punctured her soul.

  He had sold her.

  He was finished with her.

  Maybe this was the end of one part of her life, but Anya absolutely would not marry the powerful Altai baron.

  She wanted peace, just as Joshua did. But she would not give her life to Onred to ensure it. Onred’s word could not be trusted. History had proven that he was a bloodthirsty monster. His moral character had been further proven in the hallway. He was cruel, perverse, and corrupt to his very soul. Once he took all that Joshua had promised him—goods, exchanges of minor sections of territory, and herself—the peace would end. This, she knew.

  All the same, she would get on that shuttle, as Joshua dictated. It would appear to everyone, including Onred’s watching men, that the terms of peace were being met. But on the trip to the sky city of Bogd in the Altai Mountains, she would disappear. It was the only way to ensure peace. Forever.

  * * * * *

  “I have to go,” Anya said again to Marli, and stuffed another dress she would never wear into one of her mammoth suitcases. The other four were already filled. She had known since yesterday evening what her fate would be, and in the back of her mind a plan had emerged. The battle with Joshua in the hall had been a last attempt to delay the inevitable.

  Anya told herself that she hated the cold, unfeeling man. She did.

  “But why?” As the only child with blue eyes and blond ringlets in the family, Marli was adept at wrapping all of her older siblings around her little finger. Joshua, too, if the truth were told. But the tears in her voice now were real. “You don’t want to go! I heard your fight in the hall. Why is Joshua so mean? Why do you have to leave?”

  Anya stopped packing and pulled her little sister into her arms. Marli’s tears soaked into Anya’s simple black shirt. Underneath, Anya wore an even thinner polymer shirt, suitable for regulating body temperature when subjected to extreme weather. She would need it later.

  “I’m sorry, honey.” Anya’s own unhappiness gathered into an aching lump in her throat. “I’ll miss you. But I’ll come back.” If she could. She fiercely loved her brothers and sisters, and Astana was her home. She couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, and she couldn’t bear the thought of parting with her family. Marli needed her. She was the only mother figure the young girl had ever known. Anya blinked back tears.

  Marli looked u
p. “You promise?”

  Anya pressed a kiss into the soft hair at her sister’s temple. Marli’s baby fine skin was damp from the exhausting ordeal of crying. “Sometimes life turns in directions we don’t want,” she murmured. “But I’ll get it back on track.” She bit her lip. She shouldn’t have said that to her unusually perceptive sister.

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. I’m making it up as I go along.” That was true enough. “Now.” She squeezed her sister tighter, and then released her. “Will you get the others? I’ll need help to the terminal.” She had to try to be strong. If she could project confidence to her siblings, they would believe everything would be fine. It would give them a measure of peace.

  How sorely Anya wanted to believe it, too. But her plan was far from failsafe.

  Her sister paused near the door. “Joshua, too?”

  Anya averted her face. “No. Not Joshua.”

  “I’m mad at him, too,” Marli said. “I won’t talk to him for a month.”

  “Listen to him. He wants what’s best for you.”

  “But not for you. If he wasn’t so stupid…”

  “Marli!”

  “I’m going,” the girl sullenly muttered, and the gun metal gray door slid shut behind her.

  The dull gray walls of the room matched the bleak feeling in Anya’s spirit. She had programmed the depressing color into the paint’s tiny, diamonite silicon paint chips last night. Normally, she preferred a warm, toasted almond hue, with a mirage of surging and crashing ocean breakers on the wall across from her bed, but she couldn’t bring herself to enjoy the scene any longer. She had even turned off the sound system. It was utterly silent and barren in the room. It matched the desolation in her soul.

  Anya lugged the suitcase to the floor to join the other four. Her fingers curled around her black overnight bag. She would carry this one herself. In fact, she wouldn’t let it out of her sight.

  Don’t cry, she told herself again. But that was impossible moments later, when her siblings entered the room. The four were her only family in the world, except for her uncle Richert (Rik’ ert), a baron to the south, who had started a blood feud with her father shortly after Anya’s mother had married him, instead of her uncle.

  Her twin brothers, Damon and David, approached first. They were fourteen now, and taller than she. Elise held Marli’s hand. Elise was sixteen, and with her long dark hair and blue eyes, looked very much like Anya. Elise’s features were perfect, whereas Anya knew her own nose was too sharp, and her mouth too wide. Like all of the inhabitants of Donetsk Territory, the five siblings were a mix of Eastern European and Russian descent. Once the nuclear holocaust had decimated the earth, the survivors had scrambled to claim new land. Eurasia, even now, was barely habitable, and covered with a thick ice sheet, which covered the deep scars in the earth.

  Tears blurred Anya’s vision, and a sob closed her throat. “Let’s say goodbye now. I don’t want to make a scene in the terminal.”

  Her brothers hugged her first, their arms all gangly bones and lean muscle. “We’ll come rescue you, if you need it,” Damon said. “The guy’s a jerk.” His face looked pale and sick in its earnestness.

  “Don’t,” she told him firmly, with a rush of protectiveness. “Remember, I want peace. I want you to be safe. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

  Yes, she would pursue peace, but by her own means. In fact, in the days to come, others would label her actions as selfish and immature. The truth was far different, of course, and far more dangerous. Even better, if her plan succeeded, she would win peace with all of their enemies—not just Onred.

  “Take care of them,” she whispered to Elise, and then hugged Marli last of all. Her little sister sobbed without restraint, and clung to her tightly.

  “You can’t go. You just can’t!”

  Anya held her for a long time, and tears ran down her own cheeks. Then, gently, she untangled Marli’s arms. “It’s time to go.” Her heart felt sick, empty, and fearful. She may never see any of them again. Her plan had so many holes. So many uncertainties. “I love you.”

  Words seemed inadequate to express the deep emotions overwhelming her. It was a good thing Joshua hadn’t come. She just might flay into him for forcing her to leave her family.

  For peace, of course. But for once in his charmed life, Joshua was wrong. The sweetest revenge would be to prove it.

  * * * * *

  Anya sat with her arms tightly crossed, struggling to barricade her emotions inside. She sat on a plush, cushioned seat in the baron’s official government shuttle. Beside her, the window radiated in the mercilessly cold, late afternoon sun. Tears slipped down her cheeks.

  Inside the terminal, her younger siblings mingled with other well wishers, and waved whenever she managed to look. Each glance at her family stabbed a fresh knife of pain through her heart. Anya disengaged a hand and waved again. A hot lump closed off her throat, and she stared down at the black bag at her feet, willing the tears to stop. The bag contained everything she would need to survive in the snow for several weeks.

  Of course, her five monstrous travel cases, stuffed with her superfluous belongings, had been checked into cargo. To all appearances, she had packed for a permanent farewell. No one had noticed her best winter boots on her feet, or the ultra thin, but heavy duty parka she wore. Underneath her black pants and shirt, she wore fiber thin snow wear. She had set the thermostat to cool, so she wasn’t too warm inside the winter layers. A solar panel was built into her parka hood, and would provide all the electricity she would need.

  Onred’s men occupied seats nearby. Anya had placed an electronic notebook on the seat beside hers, discouraging others from sitting there. Her gaze strayed again to the terminal and she found herself searching the dwindling crowd for tawny hair. When she realized what she was doing, she berated herself.

  The shuttle jerked, and then slid forward, propelling her in a direction she did not want to go; taking her from her beloved city of Astana, possibly forever. Childhood images tangled with a flood of memories: Astana’s warm, sparkling walls when crisp, summer sunshine streamed through the windows; the laughter in Marli’s eyes at Christmas time; coming home after a two day military survival trip with her father and Elise… How beautiful Astana had looked then, growing larger and larger as they’d flown home; a silvery, saucer-shaped city perched on a steel stalk, far above the earth.

  And now she was leaving her home and family—perhaps forever. Anya blew a flurry of emotional kisses to her siblings. A flash of cream on the upper concourse caught her eye.

  Joshua. Her hand froze, lips puckered, still in the motion of blowing her last kiss. He watched as the shuttle slid forward, faster, until he was out of sight.

  Anya jerked her chin forward. Her heart thumped in uncomfortable, erratic beats. So he had seen her off? It meant nothing, of course. He had probably watched to make sure she had obeyed him. Well, now his duty was fully discharged, and he could retreat to his office and toast his success at having won the most important peace negotiation in Donetsk Territory’s history. And he had ensured his title of Baron for life.

  Anya closed her eyes. She didn’t care.

  She didn’t.

  Time to orchestrate her disappearance.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Joshua slammed back another shot of raw alcohol. He rarely drank liquor, and this particular brand tasted bitter and foul. The truth was, he wanted to punish himself. And he wouldn’t mind deadening the pain roaring through his heart and mind, too. Nothing would ever be the same again. And damn it, but he would live with it. It was for the best.

  With a curse, he hurled the glass into the hearth. Flames exploded up into a hot, roiling inferno. Joshua seethed another curse, this time at himself. “It’s for the best.”

  Why couldn’t he believe it? Why did fear clench his gut? Why did he feel like he had just made the biggest mistake of his life?

  “It’s for the best.” His jaw hurt. “Damn you, it’s for th
e best.”

  Was that why he had agreed so quickly to let Onred have Anya? To get her out of his life and his city, so he wouldn’t be tortured by his own dishonorable weakness anymore?

  But this didn’t feel better. It felt like death.

  Ten years ago, it had all started so differently, and with such promise. When Joshua had learned that Jason Dubrovnyk’s will had designated him to become protector to Jason’s young brood of five, along with the help, of course, of their nannies, he had felt honored. It was nothing short of a miracle, for a man from his background. His new duties wouldn’t be strenuous; be a strong male influence on the boys. Keep the girls in line.

  But then proof surfaced that the baron’s first-in-command had poisoned the baron and his wife. The murderer had wanted power, but wasn’t willing to trust fate for it.

  Fate. Joshua smiled without humor. Fate and superstition tangled through the odd laws of the Old Barons in middle Asia, frozen in a perpetual ice age ever since nuclear war had destroyed most of the earth a millennia ago.

  Although the Old Barons had wanted to keep power in their families, they had superstitiously chosen to surrender the ultimate, trump card to fate. They believed power should flow to its intended recipient—whomever that might be. As a result, the Old Barons’ Law stipulated that only the oldest child could inherit. If the oldest child died, or if the girl child married out of the territory, power would go to the late baron’s first-in-command. Unless, of course, the baron bequeathed power before his death. A rare occurrence. Jason Dubrovnyk certainly had not done so.

  Shocking to all, after Baron Dubrovnyk’s first-in-command was executed, Joshua, as second-in-command, was next in line for power. He had become interim baron; a position which would last until Anya grew up and married, when her husband would become the next baron. Joshua had taken the job in stride, and with single-minded tenacity had learned all the intricacies of the baron’s duties in six short months. Plenty of advisors helped him, but he had found his own way, all the while negotiating the far more tricky duties of protector.