Shards of Hope

Chapter 13

ADEN GAVE HIM the facts—there was no reason to hide the truth. Either RainFire was already in on it, and knew, or the pack might be of assistance in unearthing further information. “The men who were holding us were a combined Psy-human team.”

“Human?” A skeptical look. “You sure?”

“Yes.” The surprising development lined up with one other factor in this situation. “The implant Zaira and I had in our heads,” he said, reaching into a pocket to retrieve the small, flat container in which he’d earlier put the surviving implant, “shows signs of being a patch-up job involving human and Psy technology.”

Aden had borrowed Finn’s microscope to have a closer look at it. He was no expert, but he’d previously seen both the Aleine implant and the Human Alliance one, and the one he held clearly showed evidence of both. “A roughly done fusion.”

“Goes with the sketchy nature of the surgery,” Finn said, his tone unforgiving. “They might as well have used a hacksaw, it was so badly done.”

“Yeah, but these ham-handed butchers managed to abduct you two,” Remi pointed out with a directness Aden was coming to expect from the RainFire alpha. “Everything I’ve heard about Arrows tells me you aren’t exactly easy prey, so the abductions were well planned.”

Aden looked at the rough-edged male with new respect. Aden had never disregarded changelings, never underestimated their intelligence as so many Psy did, but he’d come perilously close to downgrading Remi’s threat level because the other man appeared so ruggedly physical. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

“Either the implants weren’t ready when the opportunity arose to abduct us,” he said, “or they were never meant to be long-term.”

“I wouldn’t keep a threat alive, either, not after I had what I wanted.” The alpha’s gaze shifted to Zaira. “You don’t talk?”

“Not when I have nothing to say,” Zaira responded with glacial calm, though Aden knew she was at the edge of her endurance.

He had to get her away from the changelings. “Is there any reason for Zaira to be confined to the infirmary any longer?” he asked Finn.

“No, but I want to do a couple of final scans before I spring her. I also want to check your bullet wound now that you’ve been on that leg for several hours.”

Aden stepped aside so Finn could complete Zaira’s scans, but remained within her direct line of sight. Aloneness was Zaira’s secret horror, the one foe she couldn’t beat.

Being isolated and alone and hurt day after day changes a person, Aden. It turns a child into . . . into a thing that isn’t quite human and not quite animal. Like any trapped creature, that child will gnaw off its own limb to escape—but if that child is a Gradient 9.8 combat-grade telepath named Zaira Neve, it’ll first ask if it can gnaw off its attackers’ limbs instead.

She’d said that to him at fifteen, the self-portrait both icily honest and disturbing.

You aren’t an “it,” Zaira.

You’re right. I’m not an it. I’m a nightmare.

AS Finn worked on the female Arrow, Remi could feel Aden weighing him up. Fair enough. Remi was weighing up the Arrow—and his silent partner—in turn. Though Remi was predisposed to like him, he wasn’t about to give two lethal strangers free rein of the compound.

“There’s a small aerie just above the infirmary that you’re welcome to use until the weather clears,” he told them. “Or until your transport arrives.”

Finn had suggested the reason a teleporter hadn’t turned up already was because the two Psy had residual bruising from the implants that might be interfering with their psychic abilities. That made sense to Remi and it also made him a fraction more sympathetic to their guarded caution. If someone shoved an implant in his head that stopped him from shifting, he’d be a whole lot pissed and suspicious, too.

“Thank you,” Aden said in that calm, cool voice that nonetheless held the power of a fellow alpha. “Do we reach it via an outer door?”

“No, it’s connected through an internal trapdoor at the end of the corridor outside.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “The ladder’s shielded from the wind and rain so you won’t need outdoor gear.”

Finn had asked for the modification as that particular aerie was used mostly by patients who’d recovered enough to leave the infirmary but that Finn wanted close by for two or three more days. In this case, it’d keep the Arrows within easy watching distance—there was no way to leave the aerie except through the trapdoor that led down into the infirmary corridor.

Aden and Zaira could attempt to climb down the tree itself, but then they’d be stuck outside in the storm; the weather was an excellent security measure right now. Hell, Remi had pulled back all of his sentries and ordered everyone to stay within a tight circle around the heart of the pack—anyone who went out any farther at the moment had a death wish. If the rain didn’t wash you away, the lightning would fry you where you stood.

“If you have surveillance footage of your neighbors,” Aden said, “we can study it while in the aerie.”

Remi shook his head. “No footage.” It wasn’t a lie—the pack didn’t have the time or the resources for in-depth surveillance of their neighbors, especially since those neighbors had minded their own business and left RainFire to mind theirs. “We can sneak up to investigate once the storm’s died down. I’m betting they’ll have cleared out on the off chance you two made it out.”

The female Arrow, the one who was attempting to appear harmless—Remi’s leopard huffed in laughter—stared impassively at the food Finn had brought in. “You need to eat,” Finn said, his expression stating he’d brook no refusal this time. “Aden told me Psy prefer plain food, so I tried to find the plainest but highest-protein items I could—mixed nuts, a lentil-based spread on high-energy bread, and an energy bar.”

When Zaira still didn’t take the food, Aden spoke. “Eat. If you don’t, you’ll be weak.”

Zaira took the plate from Finn on the word “weak.” “Thank you.”

After she was done, Remi showed them up to the aerie. “Lock the trapdoor,” he said, demonstrating the mechanism, “and you’ll have privacy.” Not bothering with the ladder, he jumped through the trapdoor and straight down to the infirmary level. His cat ensured he landed lightly on his bare feet, his body in a slight crouch.

Walking into the infirmary, he met Finn’s perceptive gaze. “Well?”

“Muscle tone on both is as good as your own,” the other man replied with a grin. “Aden and Zaira are as dangerous as each other, I’d say.”

That’s what Remi had figured. Anyone who discounted the woman because of her size or gender was an idiot who deserved to get his head ripped off. “Anything about their injuries say they’re lying to us?” Finn was a healer to the bone and he’d done his best by the two Arrows but his first loyalty was to RainFire.

“No.” Finn brought up two scans side by side on the screen beside the beds. “Aden and Zaira were shot like they said, and had those barbaric things implanted. I also found signs of multiple stuns to the body.”

Frowning, he tapped a laser pen against his datapad. “I guess it’s the only way to contain an Arrow if you don’t want to use drugs.”

“Wouldn’t drugs be faster, quieter?”

“Tammy told me Psy don’t react well to most drugs,” Finn said, referring to the DarkRiver healer. “You never know when even a specially calibrated drug will have the unintended effect of sending their psychic abilities out of control.” Frown turning into a scowl, he shook his head. “I counted four stuns on her, more on him. Their abductors were playing with fire—their bodies could’ve overloaded at any point past three.”

“That bruise on Aden’s face from a stun, too?”

“Yes. I cleared it up some, but it’ll take at least forty-eight more hours to fully disappear.”

Remi stared at the scans that provided unmistakable evidence of violence that could’ve easily led to death. His focus was on building his pack, but he wasn’t about to ignore a threat on his border, especially when that threat might ignite an all-out war with the Arrow Squad. Soon as the storm cleared, he’d do everything in his power to find out what the fuck was going on up there.

THE howling aloneness inside her skull threatening to awaken the bloody rage that had helped her survive and almost led to her execution, Zaira stood in the center of the aerie and watched Aden secure the trapdoor. Task complete, he walked over and did something that made every muscle in her body lock tight.

He put his arms around her.

“What are you doing?” Arrows didn’t make physical contact except in exigent circumstances.

“You’re in distress at being cut off from the PsyNet.” Aden didn’t release her stiff form, his body heat passing easily through the thin material of his T-shirt and her top. “You need contact.”

Zaira didn’t know how to answer that. She wasn’t used to being in distress about anything—if she’d ever had any softness in her, it had calcified long ago. Even as a child, she’d refused to permit herself to be weak. She’d much preferred to be angry. In anger was strength, brutal and deadly.

In rage was power.

Arrow training had taught her to corral that rage, but she knew it lived inside her, as vicious as always and ready to do damage. Even now it twisted in its bonds, eyes red and only two things in mind: escape and retribution. Escape from the nothingness and retribution against those who’d put her in this position.

She had never been this alone.

Even when her parents beat her without mercy while holding her trapped within their telepathic shields, she’d had their minds within touching distance. When her Arrow trainers had locked her in their shields—all of which were constructed to ensure she didn’t break out as she’d done from her parents’ weaker efforts—she’d felt their presence in the shields themselves.

It wasn’t the same, having Aden’s arms around her while her mind was numb with aloneness, but the incipient rage took a wary look and withdrew from the surface of her thoughts. Aden wasn’t its target, and the contact, the feel of his muscled body pressing against hers, his strong arms around her, was a living barrier to the nothingness that threatened to suffocate her.

And it was Aden, the first person who had ever treated her as a sentient being worth knowing. He’d asked her opinion on things at a time when others had seen her as a vicious monster to be broken to the bit. He’d told Zaira her ideas had value. Later, he’d also ordered her not to lose herself in the hard black box that was Arrow training.

You, Zaira, are priceless as an individual. Don’t ever permit them to erase you.

In Venice, she had an Arrow who’d imprinted on her as a result of a catastrophic drug error—Alejandro followed her orders without question, would die for her in a heartbeat. While Zaira would always question Aden if she didn’t agree with him, she sometimes thought she’d imprinted on him in a similar way: for her to ever turn against him, Aden would have to betray her in ways of which he was simply incapable.

Where she had a twisted conscience at best, he was that shining knight human and changeling children read stories about. The good man who would fight on the side of right and who would never abandon those to whom he’d pledged his loyalty. She knew he could be ruthless, had witnessed it, but Aden’s ruthlessness fed into his overwhelming protective instincts, never into the selfish pursuit of power or glory.

Stepping in the path of danger to protect him had never been up for discussion for Zaira. It was an absolute fact: as long as she lived, she would do everything in her power to keep Aden safe. Coldly planned murder, torture, she’d do whatever was necessary in an eyeblink. He might not agree with her actions, but she was quite willing to disobey him should his life be on the line.

Every white knight needed a deadly black sword at his back.

Relaxing against him on that thought, she allowed the heat of his body to seep into hers. It wasn’t protocol, but Silence had fallen, so they broke no laws. There was also no risk to the unforgiving and constant discipline that kept her sane and nonviolent; this was an aberrant circumstance that would cease to exist as soon as their brains recovered from the trauma of the implants.

Zaira couldn’t afford to believe anything else, the idea of endless aloneness a horror that made the rage inside her threaten to boil over into unthinking insanity. “Are you in distress, too?” she asked Aden while maintaining a white-knuckled grip on the sleeping death that lived within her.

“How do the other races deal with this silence in their minds?” he said in response.

“Maybe that’s why they make so much physical contact.” She’d never before come close to understanding the tactile nature of the humans and changelings. Being physically close to Aden wasn’t like being in a psychic network. It was more immediate and oddly more intense despite the fact that there were only two of them in this physical network.

Aden moved his hand to the back of her head, but the strength and warmth of his palm in such a vulnerable location didn’t rouse her instinct to fight. Always, she’d thought that if she was trapped again in any way, she’d fight. However, she’d never considered the depth of her trust in Aden, never understood that being held wasn’t always a prison. “I heard the healer. Your leg was injured.”

“I’ve survived worse.”

“You’re supposed to keep your partner apprised of your situation.”

“Not if the partner will then argue against the best course of action.”

Zaira opened her mouth, closed it a heartbeat later. His decision had saved both their lives—she would’ve never made it out without his help, and he’d be dead from the implant had he gone out on his own. Sliding her arms around him to strengthen their two-person network, she listened to his heartbeat strong and steady under her ear . . . and thought that perhaps the other races understood a truth she’d only just realized: that even a tiny physical network connected by trust held a potent, raw power.