Sanctuary wanted liberation from anything it was from the bloody terrorist tactics of his night-running faction.
Somehow, in her imagination and from the stories she’d heard, she’d always thought of Zip as closer to her own age. Probably because everyone called him boy all the time. It had surprised her to see that the rebel was older by some years, She called up her memory of him again: dark-haired, with that cute sweatband above his eyes, pleasant to look at. He hadn’t cared much for her, though. That had been clear enough in his eyes.
Tempus had made more than one amusing proposal to her in that garden. Both his
Stepsons and the 3rd Commando were leaving Sanctuary, he’d told her. That would leave the city virtually defenseless unless someone seized control of the PFLS and used it to forge a unified force of all the other factions.
“Use your gift,” he’d grunted in her ear as he fumbled with her skirts. “You can’t be defeated. Be the one to take control.”
Control, indeed. It was she who’d been in control even as he’d pushed her to the ground. She smiled at that. It was a morning for her to smile, it seemed.
Tempus had even tried to blackmail her into accepting his proposition.
Apparently, he’d realized it was she and her gladiators who had attacked
Theron’s barge when the cursed usurper had unexpectedly come to Sanctuary.
Unfortunately, the wily old crown-thief had possessed the foresight to dress some luckless fool in his raiments while he saw to business elsewhere. Her attack had been successful; she’d just aimed at the wrong man.