Christmas Tsar (Blood and Thunder 1)

“You? Join us?” Alexei looked at her skeptically. “Do you think it’s that easy?”

“You said the gang belonged to a network of criminals?” she pressed undaunted.

“Correct.”

“Then you need all the help you can get.”

Alexei leaned back against one of the snowy-white barstools to regard her sternly. He looked like a dark angel that had alighted briefly on a cloud; a very bad dark angel. She cleared her throat, and attempted to clear the smutty thoughts from her head. “So tonight’s gang will have colleagues who’ll want revenge?”

“I’d hate to be out of business,” he said dryly.

He reached for two shot glasses and put them on the bar. When he leveled a stare on her face, every lustful thought inside her sprang to attention and saluted.

He poured two equal drinks and held one shot glass out. “Vodka—”

“Oh no, thank you. I don’t drink spirits.”

“That wasn’t a question.”

She stared at the glass.

“Vodka,” he repeated. “You’re shaking. It will steady your nerves.”

She doubted any drink had the power to do that.

“Unless you’d prefer hot milk?”

Alexei’s mocking remark and the challenge in his eyes were all it took for her to pick up the gauntlet and run with it. She took the glass, careful not to touch his hand. Taking a sip, she almost choked.

“Like this,” he said, knocking it back. “Za zda-ró-vye! Cheers!” Alexei slammed his glass down on the bar.

“Right now, hot milk sounds great to me,” Amber admitted as she put her still-full glass down next to his.

Alexei laughed derisively. “How are you going to join the team when you can’t even drink with us?”

“Perhaps one of us should keep a clear head?” she suggested mildly.

Judging by Alexei’s expression, it was touch and go as to whether he would fire her or throw her over his knee and spank her, a possibility she found irrationally arousing.

“You have heard of mutiny, I presume?” His tone was low and faintly menacing.

“And the brig,” Amber confirmed. “Where you could lock me up and throw away the key. But I’d like the opportunity to prove myself first—if that’s okay with you?”

“In what way?” Alexei looked interested.

“In the gym?”

“The gym?” Now he looked amused. “So the little English girl thinks she can handle herself in the gym?”

“She knows she can,” Amber said coolly. She’d watched Alexei’s back tonight and had taken full part in the raid. She deserved some respect for that at least. “And it’s English woman,” she emphasized.

His eyes narrowed and his lips pressed down as he considered her offer. “Six a.m.—before you start work tomorrow. In my gym, not the crews’. The officer will show you the way.”

Amber glanced at the deck beneath her feet as the huge vessel shifted almost imperceptibly. Alexei confirmed her suspicions. “We’re casting off. This is your last chance to change your mind.”

“I’ve got no intention of changing my mind.” Picking up the shot glass, she exclaimed, “Za zda-ró-vye!” and knocked it back.

Banging her glass down on the bar, she ran for the hills—or the lower deck, at least, making it out of Alexei’s study with seconds to spare before her throat turned into an inferno and her legs gave way.