Tangle of Need

Chapter 38

RIAZ STEPPED OFF the watercraft he and Adria had boarded to reach Venice after the airjet landed in nearby Marco Polo Airport, both of them carrying small duffel bags. It was temperate this time of year, the air around them dusky with the oncoming sunset, the soft light burnishing the old stone of the buildings that remained above the waterline.

As a result of changing water levels in the Adriatic and an undersea quake that had badly damaged the wooden foundations on which Venice stood, much of the jewel of a city was now underwater, though some of its iconic, graceful bridges survived, a few marooned in the midst of wide canals. However, instead of sinking into obscurity, Venice remained a vibrant, living city as a result of its complex network of biospheres below the waterline.

The spheres had been developed by a consortium of water-based changelings and put into place during the final decade of the twentieth century. A large number of BlackSea’s people still called Venice home, but Riaz’s wolf found the old city claustrophobic, especially beneath the surface, where the biospheres acted as—to his mind—protective prisons.

“I’ve always been fascinated by Venice.” Adria did a full circle on the “floating” roadway designed to rise with the water, her eyes taking in everything with unhidden wonder. “It’s filled with so much history you can almost hear the city whisper it to you.”

Painful though his memories of Venice were, it was impossible not to be affected by the infectious depth of her joy. “You should see it during Carnevale.” It was just before the last Carnevale that he’d first seen Lisette, and he’d been unable to stop himself from seeking her out during the celebrations.

Standing in the shadows created by the alcove of a moss-covered building, his face concealed by a half mask, he’d watched her lithe figure swirl in her husband’s arms, both of them full of the wild energy that came from the beautiful chaos of the festival. She’d been dressed in red and black, a Spanish flamenco dancer transplanted onto Venetian soil, her sun gold hair dyed a vivid black.

“It’s on my list.” Adria’s slightly husky voice broke into his thoughts, so very different from Lisette’s French-accented soprano. “Along with Mardi Gras in New Orleans, the Inca Trail, the Taj Ma—” Her eyes connecting with his, she cut herself off midstream, a slight wash of color on her cheekbones. “Sorry, I’m talking your ear off.”

“No, tell me.” Struck once more by how much he didn’t know about her, he found himself fascinated.

“How about you tell me,” she said instead, cocking her head a little to the side as they detoured to drop their bags off at the hotel. “You were away for a long time. Tell me some of the places you visited, the things you saw.”

Riaz shoved a hand through his hair, thinking back. Though he had been based in Europe, he’d traveled through Asia and parts of Africa, had adventures that had thrilled and changed him in different ways. “I once got caught in the monsoon rains in India,” he said, choosing a memory he knew would make her laugh, because when Adria laughed … the edges inside him gentled, hurt less. “The human part of me loved it, but my wolf was not impressed.” He shuddered, as if flinging water off his fur.

Adria’s laughter held her own wolf’s amusement, the fine streaks of gold in her eyes glittering in the deep orange light of the setting sun. “I can imagine. Did you make it to Nepal, see Kathmandu?”

He shook his head. “I was on my way there when I was recalled to Rome to take care of some pack business.” He’d met Lisette not much later, and the ensuing months had torn him bloody, until he’d had to go home to the den deep in the Sierra Nevada mountains, where he could lick his wounds surrounded by the warmth of his pack.

He still needed that warmth, that connection, but felt no lack today, though he was far from his heartland. It wasn’t hard to understand why, with Adria walking long-legged and happy beside him, her pleasure in Venice as open and as unhidden as the heart of her wolf.

No ties. No promises.

Yet, in spite of the vow they’d taken, ties were forming. Ties of friendship, of need, of respect. Whenever this relationship ended, those bonds would remain. Riaz’s wolf was pensive about that, but it didn’t reject the idea out of hand—Adria wasn’t just Pack now, wasn’t just a lover with whom he’d shared skin privileges. She’d become someone who mattered to both sides of his nature, part of his own personal “pack” of people.

His to protect.

BOWEN was waiting for them outside an unassuming seventeenth-century building half submerged by the rising waters that had permanently flooded the Venetian lagoon, the bridge that had once linked it to another, larger building long gone, leaving it an island at the end of the road, the shimmer of water beyond. The leader of the Human Alliance held out a hand. “Riaz, good to see you again.”

“Bo.” Shaking the proffered hand, he said, “This is Adria.”

Bowen’s smile changed, into the kind a man gives a woman who’d caught his attention. “Welcome to Venezia, Adria.”

“Thank you.”

The cool remoteness of her response made Riaz realize how long it had been since he’d heard that tone from her. His wolf’s smug pride had his lips tugging up at the corners.

“Come on in.” Bowen led them through the doors of the apparently small building that housed the Alliance offices, down the carpeted front hallway, and into an elevator.

Riaz spotted six security cameras, five obvious guards, and at least three concealed ones he discerned only because of his sense of smell. That was on top of a laser-alarm system and the prettily dressed receptionist with the eyes of an assassin. He didn’t even think before positioning himself so that Adria was protected by the heavy bulk of his body. He saw her sharp look, caught the tiny nod. Rather than fighting his subtly protective stance, she focused her own attention on covering his blind spots.

“Expecting company?” he asked Bo once they were in the elevator.

The other man leaned back against the wall, folding his arms over a black T-shirt that said, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.” The quote was amusing, the way he bared his teeth less a smile than a feral display akin to that of a wolf. “Something like that. We’ll talk inside,” he said as the elevator doors opened. “I had some food brought in.”

Stepping out into the biosphere-protected part of Venice made Adria’s shoulders slump in disappointment, though her eyes never lost their alert watchfulness. “It’s no different from the aboveground city,” she whispered in a sub-vocal murmur he had to lean down to hear, her breath a caress across his jaw.

“Be patient.” He knew what was coming, his wolf quivering in anticipation as it waited to see her response.

“In here.” Bo pushed open a door.

Adria froze in the doorway, her eyes huge.

“More like what you expected?” he murmured in her ear, nudging her forward with a caressing stroke of his hand on her lower back.

Clearly captivated by the meeting room that, at first glance, seemed suspended over nothing but water, she walked slowly inside. The Alliance building was on the very edge of the city, which meant it was possible to actually see the water lapping at the biosphere from a number of lower-floor rooms. Located in a corner, with three glass walls, this one was the most magnificent—it created the illusion of the clear blue-green water touching the glass, when the actual curve of the biosphere was several meters away.

As if putting on a show, a pod of sleek silvery fish darted across that water, their scales catching the sunlight from above.

Not saying a word, Adria crossed the deep green of the carpet to look through the windows into the water. Up close, Riaz knew the view was bisected on the right side by the remnants of neighboring buildings that had sunk and deteriorated pre-Restoration, as well as by the wooden pilings on which those buildings had once stood, but flawlessly clear on the side that faced out into the lagoon.

“She’s damn beautiful,” Bowen said, and it was a question.

Riaz’s response was instinctive. “She’s taken.” Neither part of him cared that the agreement he’d made with Adria gave him no rights of possession.

“Lucky bastard, whoever he is.” An oblique glance.

Adria turned at that moment, the light from the water playing over the clean angles of her face, the light-shot amber of her eyes a silent indication of her wolf’s fascination with this strange city. “I’d go insane living here, but for a visit, yes, it’s a sight.”

“You should see the view during a storm.” Bo walked over to the conference table already set with sandwiches, water, fruit, and cookies, urging them to take a seat. “Even some of the folks who live and work here can’t handle it. The reminder that there’s not much between Venice and oblivion cuts too deep into the bone.”

“You like it.” Adria’s voice had thawed a fraction, her lush mouth soft with the faintest of smiles.

Bowen cheeks creased into a deep smile in return. “Yes. She’s a stunning lady, my Venezia.”

Riaz’s wolf bristled at the hint of flirtation in the male’s voice, but he managed to remain polite as they each grabbed some food. “So,” he said, once everyone had had a chance to take a few bites, “why the intense paranoia?”

Swiveling in his chair, a cookie in hand, Bo used a sleek black remote to bring up an image on the comm screen behind him. It was of a middle-aged man, a little pudgy and altogether harmless looking. “One of our senior comm specialists.” He dropped the cookie onto his plate, his jaw a hard line. “We found out two weeks ago that the Psy broke and programmed him.”

ADRIA pushed aside her plate, appetite lost. “Did he survive?” Brainwashing was hard on Psy minds from what she’d picked up from the Laurens, but it was brutal on changelings, involving as it did the shattering of their strong natural shields. With humans, it could go either way, since their natural shields were so weak as to be nonexistent—but their brains also weren’t built to take that kind of psychic pressure.

“He’s on life support.” Bo’s tone was bleak. “We’re trying everything we can to give him a shot, but…” Rubbing his jaw, he took a deep breath, and when he next spoke, the bleakness had been replaced by anger. “He was—is—a good man, fought hard not to give in to the compulsions. The doctors say he had to have suffered constant nosebleeds, worse.”

“You think he failed,” Riaz said, his anger a quiet, dangerous thing that spoke to her own. “That he compromised your comm system from the inside?”

“Thing is,” Bo said, “Reuben can’t tell us what he did or didn’t do—by the time we discovered what the bastards had done to him, he’d lapsed into a coma.” He shifted his chair sideways, so he could see the comm screen and them at the same time. “We’re in the process of ripping out and reinstalling every single piece of comm equipment on-site. Software and hardware. Until that’s complete, we’re in total shutdown on any but the most general conversation.”

“Cell phones?” Riaz asked.

“We’re replacing the whole lot—Reuben was the one who issued them to us.” He shook his head. “New ones are supposed to arrive today for the techs to pull apart and check.”

Adria agreed with the precautions, extreme though they might seem. Only a fool would consider the Psy race a nonthreat. “Do you have any idea who orchestrated the attack on Reuben?” It was easy to generalize the Psy as the enemy, but the psychic race ran the gamut from the innocent to the evil, same as changelings and humans.

Bo’s expression turned brutal, stripped bare of any lingering trace of the charm he’d earlier displayed. A quick touch of the remote and the image of Reuben was replaced by that of a woman with cheekbones that could cut glass. Her hair was a deep, luxuriant mahogany, her skin slightly olive toned, her eyes an acute hazel-green.

“Tatiana Rika-Smythe.” Ice in every syllable. “She’s not as flashy as some of the other Councilors—this one’s more like a snake in the grass.”

“You sound certain.” Adria had been in the upper hierarchy of the pack long enough to know that Councilors had a way of working machinations behind machinations.

Bo discarded Tatiana’s photo for another image, that of the yacht that had started everything. It sat adrift in the ocean. “Ask me why I was on that yacht in the middle of the fucking Mediterranean with seven Psy guards.”

Adria’s claws sliced out, threatening to mark the gleaming wood of the table. “They planned to break you, too.” It took conscious effort to retract her claws—Riaz had kept control over his own, but his eyes were a hypnotic, dangerous gold.

Bo took several minutes to reply, clearly fighting the rage that had caused white lines to appear around his mouth, carved into the warm hue of his skin. “We’re starting to think that that’s what happened to the old chairman,” he said at last. “It would explain why he suddenly started making those bullshit calls—at the time, we all hated him. Now … I pity the poor bastard.” Running a hand over the smooth curve of his skull, he grabbed a bottle of water, slugging back half of it before he spoke again. “One of them stunned me while I was walking home around nine at night. When I woke up, I was on the yacht.”

It was a plausible story—especially since it involved a male who, like all strong men, didn’t think anything could touch him, but something didn’t ring true. “You’re not the official head of the Alliance,” she said, never moving her eyes off his face.

“The chairman position is now largely administrative.” Bo shrugged off her implied question, his expression betraying nothing. “Just means Rika-Smythe has good sources of information.”

“Are you telling me,” she insisted, conscious of Riaz going very still beside her, “that you were arrogant enough to go out alone after dark when you’d already discovered what had been done to Reuben, knew the Psy might be out to mess with you?”

Bo’s smile was slow and dangerous. “Smart and sexy—my perfect woman.” He finished off the water. “We were working on the assumption that with Reuben down, someone else with his level of access to our systems would be a target. We made sure everyone who qualified was covered … except for me.”

“Playing bait?” Riaz tapped his fingers on the table. “No way for you to know you’d be able to handle the operatives who captured you.”

“I wasn’t stupid bait,” Bo said with an offended snort. “Had a GPS tracker implanted an inch below my armpit, where pretty much nobody ever thinks to check. We also had a team in the air above me the entire time.”

The man had guts, Adria thought. Because air support or not, he’d been on his own on that yacht. “You weren’t worried about psychic coercion?”

A small pause before Riaz whistled. “Son of a bitch.” His tone was a mix of admiration and disbelief. “You did it, you actually figured out how to make that chip work.”