Beloved Bodyguard by Bonnie Dee Read Free Book Online Page A

wore. “What is that scent?”
    “What scent?”
    “That you’re wearing.”
    “I don’t have anything on.” He paused. “The
air of my room is infused with mashiki .”
    “That’s it.” Her own room was infused with
roses, a fragrance she particularly liked. Maybe she’d have to
switch to mashiki for a while. “I like it.”
    “No flirting,” he reminded her, but there was
a ghost of a smile on his hard mouth.
    “Not flirting, just making an observation.
Tell me more about where you’re from and what brought you
here.”
    The ghost-smile disappeared. “You don’t want
to know.”
    “Yes, I do or I wouldn’t ask. Trust me, you
can’t shock me. I already suspect the worst. I imagine you haven’t
always been a bodyguard. I imagine you’ve been hired to kill people
in the past. Maybe you’re trying to leave that life behind now.”
She laughed. “Or maybe you’ve been sent to kill me , although
I think you would have accomplished it by now.”
    There wasn’t a glimmer of amusement in his
eyes as he stared back at her.
    “You don’t have much of a sense of humor, do
you? I don’t think you’ve laughed since I met you.”
    He remained silent.
    “Okay, so you don’t want to talk about your
work history. I get that. How about family history? Where do you
come from originally?”
    He paused so long she thought he wasn’t going
to answer that question either; then he suddenly spoke.
“OldEarth.”
    Her eyes widened. “No shenje ? Like
directly from OldEarth? My father’s ancestors came from there. They
were among the first to colonize NewEarth, but that was so many
generations ago I can’t count them. I’ve never met anyone who was
actually from OldEarth. What’s it really like? The vids show
it as a wasteland.”
    “The vids are right,” he answered
quietly.
    “Go on. Tell me more.” She was getting tired
of having to prod every word from his mouth.
    “I come from a place on OldEarth called
Japan. An island and one of the few places people still exist. They
live crowded together in all the safe zones across the planet.
There’s not enough work, not enough food or water, not enough
anything.”
    “Why don’t they leave?” Leelah couldn’t
imagine staying in such conditions.
    “Can’t afford to fly out. Those who stayed
behind when the migrations began were the very poorest, and life
didn’t get any better for them over the next generations. Residents
of OldEarth are the forgotten people.” His tone was level and
emotionless. The shutters had drawn over his eyes again.
    She’d heard this about OldEarth, but never
firsthand. “How did you get off-planet?”
    “Stowed away on a carrier that dropped care
supplies from the Free Worlds. By the time I was discovered, we
were nearly to NewEarth. I was sure the captain was going to
jettison me with the garbage, but he decided to let the authorities
deal with me when we got to port. I managed to get away before I
could be arrested.” He smiled. “NewEarth was a shock, to say the
least. I’d never imagined anything like it, so much of everything
anyone needed.”
    Leelah felt a wave of guilt at the awe in his
voice. She took everything she had for granted, but Ja-hun carried
inside him a kernel of that half-starved boy amazed at the riches
around him.
    “Without an ID card, I couldn’t get work, not
legal work anyway. That’s how I stumbled into my first profession,
wet work for criminal types.”
    Hired killer. She’d been half kidding when
she said it. A little chill went through her at the realization she
was sitting next to a man who had actually murdered people.
    “I finally decided I’d had enough of that
life, but guarding Crin-tai entailed some of the same tasks I was
trying to avoid. So now I’m here.”
    “Guarding me and my father. He must really
think we’re in danger to hire…” She left the words “a killer”
unsaid.
    “Someone like me,” he finished. “Yes. The
threats he’s received suggest this