Shards of Hope

by Nalini Singh

  Zaira knew how much loyalty meant to Aden, how seriously he took it, so she could guess his reaction to any betrayal. "Blake fit Ming's regime. Yours asks too much of a man who's only ever cared for his own skin."

  Aden glanced at her. "Did he hurt you?" Ice-cold words.

  She shook her head. "The look in his eyes reminds me of the look in my parents' eyes." Psychopathic and self-involved, not an ounce of empathy. "I want him to be a traitor so I can kill him."

  "That's why we have to have proof."

  Zaira nodded reluctantly, knowing Blake wasn't the only Arrow with a problematic past and personality. To go after him without proof would splinter the trust that held the squad together. "This conspiracy," she said, leaning against the wall, vines growing up the weathered plascrete on either side. "Why target one of the most lethal groups in the world? What is the payoff in having the squad out for vengeance?"

  "I don't have an answer yet." Aden leaned beside her, his own arms folded. "We might get some indication when the BlackSea alpha arrives."

  As she listened to what he knew so far, she was hyperconscious of the fact that his arm was touching her shoulder, that his uniform pants and plain black tee showcased the muscular strength of his body, that he smelled good enough to lick.

  Pushing off the wall without warning, she walked around the corner and into a small alcove hidden from the world by a heavy mass of overhanging vines as well as its position tucked in between two buildings.

  "Zaira." Aden followed her. "What--"

  Slamming him against the wall, she pressed her lips to the strong, powerful beat of the pulse in his neck. Since she was already falling into the abyss, her control shredded, why deny herself the pleasure that was the flip side of the nightmare memories she could no longer stifle?

  He shuddered, one hand sliding up to curve over the back of her neck. And then their mouths were meeting and it was wild and undisciplined, wet and hot, and she stopped thinking, the rage in her drugged into a haze of want focused on this beautiful man whose hunger for her seemed as feral as hers for him.

  Sir, we're almost at the compound.

  She dug her nails into Aden's shoulders, the raw need inside her threatening to turn her blind and deaf to all other concerns. "The woman is about to arrive," she rasped out, giving a telepathic order at the same time. Take her to room 7A.

  Twisting her so that she ended up with her back against the wall as the last words left her mouth, Aden kissed her again, his hard body pressed to her own and his hair tumbled from her fingers. One hand came up to cradle her jaw as he ran his tongue over her lips and took and took until she couldn't breathe, and that was absolutely fine because he was doing things to her that made pleasure singe her nerve endings.

  Sir, the target is in place in room 7A.

  The rage that wasn't rage with Aden went to shove aside that interruption, but her Arrow training kicked in at the last instant. I'll be there soon, she replied and forced herself to break the kiss. Aden.

  Chest rising and falling in harsh breaths and pupils dilated, Aden watched her mouth as if he'd devour her all over again.

  Zaira was fine with being devoured. Fine. "I'm meant to be the out-of-control one," she whispered.

  He shot her a look that made her burn, made her realize just how much he kept contained beneath his calm, stable skin. It felt as if he'd shown her a secret, shown her a small madness within himself. She couldn't stop herself. She pressed close, claimed another kiss, was claimed, that strong hand on her jaw and his body crushing her to the wall.

  And Zaira realized that some prisons could equal pleasure, not pain.

  *

  WHEN they entered room 7A, it was to discover Olivia Coletti was neither blindfolded nor gagged, but she wasn't struggling, her dark blonde hair hanging limp on either side of her badly scarred face as she sat motionless in a chair. Her dazed brown eyes and the yellowish tinge to her otherwise pale skin tone--pale to the point of translucence--explained her lax state.

  "Halcyon," Zaira said, knowing this woman would give them nothing. She was too zoned out. First they'd have to dry her out. Though chances of intel were low even after she was sober--Halcyon also had one major side effect: it affected long-term memory.

  She did make an attempt, got nothing except for one single word.

  "Persephone," Olivia said, her eyes staring out into nothing. "Persephone."

  The tone of Olivia's voice disturbed Zaira. The child may be a hostage, she said to Aden. Even if not, her situation can't be good. If the little girl was even alive.

  Aden nodded. We'll get Olivia into detox, but I'll grant access to the BlackSea alpha when she arrives--depending on Olivia's place in changeling hierarchy, she may feel compelled to answer her alpha's questions.

  Look at the scars on her face. To Zaira, they looked like healed cuts. If those aren't from a previous injury, then it might not only be Halcyon that's keeping her silent.

  Aden's response told Zaira he was following her train of thought. We'll make sure the medics assess her for further signs of torture.

  Giving the order for Olivia to be taken to an Arrow medical facility, Zaira spoke to Mica, who'd led the team that had brought the woman in, and asked if they'd discovered anything in her apartment. The answer was expected: "Nothing but a four-day cache of disposable drug injectors preloaded with what must be Halcyon--though I'm having it tested to confirm--and some clothing."

  Zaira released her lieutenant to his duties and walked back outside with Aden. "I didn't get a chance to tell you earlier"--because she'd decided to pounce on him instead--"but it looks like both Jim and Olivia simply took a water taxi into Venice a week ago. We're working on backtracking further, but my instincts say we'll find no paper trail that leads back to anything substantial." This entire conspiracy was too well organized.

  "Update me if there are any developments." Ordinary enough words, but his eyes took her back to their stolen kisses, her body humming at the proximity to his. "I have to return to the compound, but I'll be back soon . . . and we can finish our earlier conversation."

  Her heart slammed against her rib cage.

  Chapter 48

  BEATRICE STARED AT the target she'd taken as part of her first live mission, nausea churning in her gut and threatening to erupt from her throat. The girl was crying again, begging to be released. Beatrice had given her water and some food, so she wasn't emaciated, but her face was thinner, her eyes red.

  "I don't think she knows anything," she dared whisper to Blake. "I've used every viable interrogation technique."

  Blake backhanded her. Hard.

  She fell to the floor, stayed there when he came to straddle her body and wrench back her head with a grip in her hair. Blood trickled from her nose, her entire face a throbbing pulse. "You used only the nonviolent methods," he said, his voice toneless and cold. "You've failed the test."

  Her eyes burned. "No, please." If she lost him, she'd have nothing and no one.

  "Stop sniveling and get up. I'm going to show you how a real interrogation is done."

  Rising to her feet, she wiped away the blood and tears and followed him to stand beside the girl, who looked at her with scared eyes. "Please help me," she begged. "Please."

  Blake grabbed the girl's jaw in a punishing hold. "There is no help here." Taking a hunting knife, he cut a deep line over her left breast while muffling her screams with his palm.

  Blood blackened her thin red top, but he'd cut with care to cause pain without doing a debilitating injury. Beatrice's stomach lurched nonetheless and she would've stumbled back if Blake hadn't raised his head and said, "This is how you get answers." Removing his hand from over the woman's mouth when her scream died to snuffles, he held the knife, point down, over her abdomen. "Your father is a scientist, is he not?"

  The woman nodded frantically. "Yes, yes! He is!"

  "And he's creating a serum to neutralize Psy abilities."

  "Yes!"

  "Good, we're finally getting
somewhere." Turning, he held the blade handle out toward Beatrice. "Get the rest of the information."

  Chapter 49

  IT WAS AFTERNOON in Venice by the time Zaira was able to go off shift, and though she'd been up for well over twenty-four hours, she went to bed with a deep sense of frustration at how little she'd unearthed about the conspiracy targeting the Arrows.

  The pathologist had just confirmed that Jim's brain, while showing signs of Halcyon damage, wasn't the Swiss cheese that scans showed his female partner's to be. Even after a full detox, Olivia might never salvage large blocks of memory. Jim, on the other hand, might well have made a total recovery.

  According to the pathologist, the male may have been "one of the lucky few who have a kind of natural protection against long-term Halcyon damage."

  "Which is why he had to die," she said to Aden when he joined her in her room ten minutes after her own return. "If it was Blake, he was very careful about it."

  "No luck with surveillance feeds from security and street cameras?" Sitting on the bed, he took off his boots and socks.

  She shook her head and, having already changed, stood in front of the closed door and indulged her need by watching him. Boots set aside, socks beside them, he rose and removed his belt to drop it by the boots. "Beggars belief to think this situation is unconnected to our abductions."

  "Agreed. Two different entities suddenly after the squad? I don't buy it." Zaira blew out a breath and watched him strip off his T-shirt. "How are things in the valley?"

  "On track." He stretched, rubbing the back of his neck, his body flexing.

  Breath catching in her throat, she clenched her stomach. "How do we do this? What are the rules?"

  "We make the rules." He closed the distance between them, crowding her up against the door in a way she'd permit no one else. With Aden it felt as if she was basking in sunshine, her body turning molten.

  Running her hands up his sides, she shivered when he dipped his head to kiss her throat. On the PsyNet, her shields began to fall, but she'd built fail-safe after fail-safe since RainFire. No one would know her emotions, know that he was her greatest weakness.

  She held his head against her, craving the contact, the sensations he aroused in a body that, before him, had never understood it had the capacity for such pleasure. But as her mind began to haze, she felt the hard thrust of his erection against her abdomen. "Do you want full sexual contact?" Zaira wasn't sure if she could trust even Aden to invade her body in that way.

  Aden lifted his head, palms braced on either side of her shoulders. "Sexual penetration is the final step. Many more precede it."

  "How do you know?"

  "There are manuals."

  "Manuals?" She gripped fistfuls of his hair. "I want to read them."

  "If you get in bed," he said, his lips against hers, "I'll download them to your organizer."

  "Blackmail?"

  "Negotiation."

  The rage in her wanted to curl around him. "These better be worth it," she said, sliding into bed as he found the slim-line device on a small shelf by the door and came to join her, his body sleek and strong and healthy, his olive-toned skin warm.

  Tapping the screen, he brought up files from his own account, then lay down on his back beside her, holding up the organizer so they could both see the screen. "This bed needs to be bigger," he said, and lifted one arm so she could use it as a pillow.

  She turned into his body so that she was on her side and he wrapped his arm around her. It made her feel precious again. Worth protecting. "As long as you don't go far, we can get a bigger bed."

  That look again, the one that said an inferno blazed below the calm waters of him. "Vasic passed on this package of data," he said, his voice rough. "It apparently originated with Judd, but Vasic's added to it, as did Stefan."

  *

  I'M happy you need it had been Vasic's only comment when Aden raised the subject of physical bonding.

  "That's ridiculous," Zaira said suddenly, her eyes on the screen. "The pulse point of the wrist cannot be an erogenous zone. It's just like any other part of the arm."

  Aden's body grew taut. Placing the organizer beside him, he picked up her hand and bent it slightly back to expose the delicate skin above her pulse. He didn't touch it with his mouth as the literature had suggested. Instead, he used a fingertip to map the tracery of fine veins beneath the skin. "Your skin is softer than mine," he said. "Did you know that?"

  "Yes." Warm breath against him, her eyes trained on what he was doing to her wrist. "I like the way you feel against me."

  His body grew impossibly harder at her confession, but he continued to trace her veins with a fingertip. It was difficult to hold his concentration, especially with Zaira's unfettered breasts pressed against his side, the thin barrier of her black tee no impediment to feeling the lushness of her. The fact that her nipples were hard ratcheted up his primal response.

  Long conditioned to suppress all sexual desire, his penis was now very definitely receiving signals from the rest of him and it liked those signals despite the almost painful intensity of the sensation.

  Bringing Zaira's wrist closer as his erection throbbed, he licked out very gently over the pulse point, then blew on it.

  Her pulse skipped, fingers curling into her palm. "Perhaps the manual writers do know something," she admitted.

  Instead of releasing her, he put his lips to her skin, licked out again. She tasted of Zaira, of power contained in a small form, of ice and of steel. Blowing on her skin once more, he released her. She didn't pull away, allowing her hand to fall on his chest, over the racing beat of his heart.

  Her fingers curved, her nails grazing his skin.

  It was too much provocation.

  He had her under him before he consciously processed what he was about to do. Halting with his weight braced above her, he looked at her face, into her eyes. "If you ever want me to stop, just say."

  "Why would I do that when I can just break one of your ribs instead?"

  And Aden found he knew how to smile after all, his lips tugging up at the corners. "That'll work, too."

  A small fist mock-punched him in the abdomen. "I wouldn't hurt you." Thunder in her gaze.

  "You are so beautiful." The words came out raw.

  Freezing, she looked up at him for a long, long time. "You mean it," she whispered. "You really do."

  He didn't understand why she'd even question that, but he didn't have time for a discussion. Not today. Bending his head, he kissed her. She opened for him immediately, one of her legs curling over his hip in a distinctively possessive act. Reaching down, he pulled up her other leg until she was locked around him, her arms wrapped around his neck as she held him to her.

  "Mine," she said on a kiss.

  The single word branded him to the soul. "Yes."

  When he allowed her to feel the weight of his lower body, she slid one of her hands through his hair to grip at it. He groaned at the tug of sensation, at the sign that his wild, dangerous lover was with him every step of the way. Pushing up her tee, he drank in the silken feel of her skin, shaped her rib cage. How can you be so small and so strong?

  Her answer was to bite down on his lip. Not hard enough to hurt or to draw blood. Just enough to send an electrical current directly to his erection. Shuddering, he shifted his hand to close it over the warm globe of her breast.

  She jerked, nails digging into his nape. "Don't stop."

  The husky order sliced like a scalpel through any control he might've retained. Raising his head to look at her face as he touched her, Aden saw her eyes flutter shut and his entire body turned into one big pulse. Giving Zaira pleasure was an intoxication, her trust in him a drug. With no one else would she allow herself to be this vulnerable--that knowledge alone was enough to drive him to the edge.

  When the scrape of his thumb over her nipple elicited a throaty moan, he knew he should file the response away for later retrieval and future use, but his brain wasn't functio
ning too well. All he wanted to do was taste her, touch her, devour her.

  Lowering his head on the roar of need, one hand under her back to arch her up toward him, he sucked at her nipple. Zaira twisted under him, her legs sliding over his body, but she didn't push him away. Continuing to lick and suck at her, he drank in the small sounds she made and suddenly understood that he had a deeply primitive core that gloried in his ability to give his lover what she needed.

  "What--" Zaira sucked in a breath as he switched to her neglected breast. "What should I do?" A gasp. "For you?"

  Drunk on her, Aden didn't reply.

  Shuddering as he grazed his teeth over her breast, she said, "Do you want me to take off my top?"

  Aden had to stop, tense every one of his muscles, his penis ready to explode. "Yes," he finally gritted out.

  Reaching down, she tugged off the soft fabric. He didn't see what she did with it, his eyes on her naked upper body. She appeared even more delicate this way, the skin of her breasts pale and already marked by his caresses. Closing his hand over the flushed flesh of one breast, he bent his head to the other, not yet done with his self-imposed task.

  The sound that came from her was a shocked combination of pleasure and sweet need, her arousal damp and hot in the air.

  It turned Aden into a creature of pure want. He took Zaira's mouth in harsh demand. Arms and legs locking around him again, she met him kiss for kiss, their bodies rocking instinctively against one another and their breathing choppy. He drank her up and demanded more, his greed for her voracious.

  *

  ZAIRA didn't know how to process this much pleasure, this much sensation, but neither did she want to stop. Especially when Aden was so totally out of control. She'd always thought he was beautiful, but seeing him like this, his cheekbones flushed and his hair falling around his face as he gorged on her, she had no words to describe the way he affected her.

  "Yes," she said.

  Eyes jet black and glittering with need, he shook his head, as if to clear it for thought. "Yes?"

  "Full sexual contact," she whispered, running her fingers over his kiss-swollen lips. "I want it." Even in the midst of such unadulterated pleasure, part of her knew this was a moment out of time. If she was lucky, the madness might not live in her blood, but that didn't alter her nature, didn't alter her feral possessiveness where Aden was concerned.