"Charles Ingrid - The Sand Wars 06 - Challenge Met" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ingrid Charles)

and if he'd been encased in his battle armor, he would have towered over
Pepys, filling the entire room with his presence. The two men locked gazes,
and Pepys turned away first, unable to stay with the clear as rainwater faded
blue eyes of the other. The corner of Jack's mouth twitched. He remained
standing.

"I've sent for an escort," Pepys said. He plucked an imaginary thread
from the seams of his red and gold jumpsuit which was not his customary
elegant wear but far more suitable for the journey they'd just made.

"Escort?" Amber echoed. "Or guard?"

Pepys' face twisted in ill-concealed anger. He shoved a fist into his right
leg pocket. "Does it matter? You agreed to return with me, and this is my
world."

Amber's lips curved shut and she said nothing although she might well
have reminded him Malthen was her world, too. But it wasn't in the sense
that she came from the underground, from the unprivileged society, and
Malthen had never held anything for her, until it had brought her Jack.

"No Thraks," Jack said, and he moved to the back of her chair, his
protection of her obvious for all that it was unspoken.

The emperor's anger became wry amusement. "Ah, yes," he said. "Let us
not forget the phobia which drove you away from my Knights. Whatever
else we may do here, I won't have you upsetting the alliance which I have
taken such pains to reweave."

"Alliance. You've been infiltrated and conquered, but you're too blind to
see it." Jack's hands, resting on the back of Amber's chair, touching but not
hidden by the cascade of her hair, tightened. "They've sucked you in."

"There are considerations you know nothing of."

"If you'd care to elaborate, I'd like to know just what you've been
planning."

Pepys made an exasperated sound, his lips pursed. He took his hand out
of his pocket and slapped it on the bulkhead, then keyed open the com lines
to the bridge. "Raise the shields."

"But, sire—"

"Riot watch notwithstanding—do as I say!"

The portal shield before Amber began to rise, and Malthen's white-gold
sunlight flooded in, made bearable by the window filter. Pepys pointed
outside, beyond the berth cradle, across the spaceport. Jack turned his head,
and his eyes narrowed.