Heart of Steel by Meljean Brook Read Free Book Online

Zenobia’s cheeks had already flushed with cold. “That was quite the crack shot. I never saw you draw your weapon or aim.”
    That was the point. “If Mattson had seen it, you’d be dead.”
    â€œAre you infected, then? I have heard the bugs make a person stronger and quicker.”
    Infected with Horde nanoagents, the millions of tiny machines that lived in her body like industrious little ants. Though Yasmeen’s nanoagents weren’t exactly like the two strains Zenobia was probably familiar with—the “bugs” used by the Horde to control large populations, or the ones that infected the zombies—Yasmeen didn’t bother to explain the difference. The woman had only asked if they’d made her fast and strong—and they had.
    â€œYes,” she said.
    â€œMattson must not have been, then.”
    Oh, he had been. His bruises had always healed too quickly after each tavern brawl for him to have been anything but infected. But Yasmeen only nodded. “He was slower,” she said.
    â€œAre you originally from one of the occupied territories, then?” Zenobia asked. “Or did you take a blood transfusion and infect yourself later?”
    â€œIs this a search for a crumb?”
    â€œFor your background? Yes.”
    â€œSurely you’ve already picked up a few.”
    â€œYes, but they tell me little. Your accent, for instance. Perhaps you were born in the occupied territories of northern Africa or farther east. Perhaps you came from one of the tribes who fled to the southern American continent when the Horde moved across the Arabian Peninsula.”
    Only her accent was of note? Was Zenobia trying to be delicate? Or, considering the woman’s hatred toward her father, perhaps she simply didn’t want to echo him. “And my complexion?”
    â€œTells me nothing. In the New World alone, I cannot name a city that you couldn’t have hailed from. Who does not have family that is native or African, or some mix of both in their blood?”
    Spoken like a true Liberé supporter. “As your father often pointed out, your family doesn’t.”
    â€œYes, well. Even that means little as far as discerning your origin by complexion. Without the sun, Wolfram is as pale as I, yet after a summer spent diving along the Gold Coast, he returned as dark as you. How many of your own crew are, too?—and how many are from the New World?”
    Most of them. “So I could be from anywhere. Your options are open. You cannot make a story out of that to please your readers?”
    â€œOf course, but it does not satisfy my curiosity.” She huffed out a breath. “At least tell me how you became such a crack shot. Did you learn before you joined my father’s crew? Of course you did, since you shot him in the head, too. You must be from the New World, then—perhaps along the frontier borders, or in the disputed territories. I cannot imagine anywhere in the Horde empire that they would teach a young girl to fire a gun.”
    â€œCan’t you? I imagine they’d have reason to in the walled cities. If a zombie came over the barrier, a girl’s ability to shoot it in the head might be her—and the city’s—only chance of surviving.”
    â€œThat is true enough. But I didn’t realize the Horde armed the citizens in the occupied cities. They didn’t in England.”
    â€œThey don’t. But they should.” Amused by Zenobia’s second exasperated huff, Yasmeen smiled and blew a stream of smoke through her teeth. “I think every woman should be armed, including writers in quiet little townships like Fladstrand.”
    The woman’s color deepened. “I have a weapon. But I don’t sleep with it.”
    â€œI do.” Yasmeen kept so many weapons in her bed that her friend Scarsdale had once called it an orgy.
    â€œAnd I am grateful that you were so well prepared. I’ll