Shards of Hope

by Nalini Singh

  She wanted to open so badly to him. "If you do that, I won't ever let you go." If the physical connection had sealed them together, this would turn that seal into an unbreakable glue. "Even my death won't free you." The psychic scars would be irreparable.

  "Whether we bond or not, your loss would change me forever." A quiet voice that held so much power it vibrated with it. "You are written indelibly on my soul, Zaira. Nothing will ever alter what you are to me."

  Her rib cage seemed to compress her lungs, the pain sharp.

  No one but Aden had ever treated her as if she had that much value, that much worth.

  Sliding down her shields, she found his were already open for her. The connection was deeper than a private telepathic pathway; it was the kind of contact two operatives might make so they could work as a seamless unit. The difference was that this connection was fully open on his end. No barriers. No shields. No secrets.

  She could've gone in and taken everything, drunk in every second of his life. Greedy though she was, she didn't do that--the rage creature inside her liked the gifts of himself that he gave her. It wouldn't mean the same if she took advantage and stole him. And this . . . the intimacy made her shudder. There was no aloneness now, not even a whisper of it, Aden's strong, distinctive presence a silent partner she could carry with her.

  Unlike a simple telepathic bond, this one wouldn't snap once she was out of range. Their minds were tangled together now, as tangled as their limbs when they were alone behind the closed doors to her Venice room. With the tangling came a sense of satisfaction that quieted the possessiveness that clawed at her always, her desire to keep him for herself no longer a monster she had to fight.

  "Will you stay?" she asked, though the feral thing in her soul hissed at her not to speak the question, not to give him any reason to second-guess his decision to be with her.

  "Have I ever left?"

  "No." Not since the instant she'd woken in that infirmary to find the boy with the quiet eyes and the quiet feet at her bedside. "My mind is a dark place." She shied away from opening herself up to him as he'd done for her. The twisted girl inside her adored him, didn't want him to see the horror of her.

  "Show me when you're ready," Aden said, his words intensified by the echo inside her mind, the sense of him wrapped around her.

  Zaira wasn't sure she'd ever be ready.

  Closing the final inch of distance between them, she pressed her lips to his. He angled his head to create a better fit and then they were kissing. The intimacy made a hot, tight fist form in her abdomen, the rage stretching out inside her like one of the big cats she'd seen in RainFire.

  When Aden shifted closer, running one hand around her waist to spread it low on her back, the fist grew tighter. His hand was big, warm, and she wanted to feel it on her bare skin. She didn't realize she'd telepathed the request to him until he tugged up the back of her uniform top and managed to slide his hand underneath despite the fine armored vest that she wore over the black long-sleeved top.

  The rough warmth of his hand against her skin was a pleasurable shock, one that was rapidly becoming familiar.

  Shivering, she wrapped her arms around his neck and held him to her as she tasted him until her head spun and the rage was molten in her blood. His hand moved slightly on her skin, just enough to make her shiver again as he opened his mouth over hers to deepen the kiss. Her nipples rubbed against her bra, her skin stretched tight over her entire body.

  It felt as if she was losing herself in him, but that was all right. After all, he'd given himself to her.

  The knock penetrated only in that it might be a threat to Aden. Breaking the kiss, she released him to turn and focus her mind beyond the door. The psychic signature on the other side was easy to identify. "It's Nerida."

  Aden pressed his lips to the curve of her neck from behind. "She's my ride to New York. I'm heading to see Dev."

  That explained his civilian clothing. "Your security team?"

  "I can't be seen with a security team," Aden replied, his hand on the panel that would open the door. "That defeats the whole purpose of the squad's reputation, especially with the Beacon publishing rumors about my suitability as squad leader." Authorizing the door to open, he nodded at Nerida.

  I'll come with you, Zaira said, not angry at the Beacon article because she knew full well it was idiotic and that Aden would have a plan to handle the subtle attack on the squad.

  Now, he looked at her.

  As your . . . She paused, at a loss. I will never be a girlfriend.

  Aden thought again of laughter, and that he might be capable of it. We can discuss terms later.

  Stepping out with Nerida, he asked if she was fine transporting them both. Unlike Vasic, Nerida wasn't a teleporter by birth, but a Tk who had teleport abilities. As such, her range, while wide, was more limited than Vasic's. Increasing the number of passengers further narrowed that range, as did any other duties she may have completed recently that required a psychic burn.

  "No problem," she said.

  'Porting them to the basement of a refurbished hotel that was shuttered while it waited for the final planning permits, Nerida left for her next task. Depending on the timing, Aden and Zaira would most likely catch a high-speed jet back, making the final part of the trip back to Central Command in one of the vehicles they kept garaged near the closest jetports.

  "You want to spend some time here on Blake's trail?" Zaira asked as they walked out of the hotel via a basement exit. "We can hit the locations that have already been searched."

  It was a standard technique: when caught in a trap, you returned to the place your hunters thought they'd cleared. "That's a--" Aden's instincts suddenly went on high alert, his subconscious picking up something his conscious mind hadn't yet worked out.

  "Aden! Get down!"

  The bullet buzzed over his head a split second after Zaira's cry. He'd dropped to the pavement, palms flat on the plascrete and legs stretched out, the instant she spoke. An Arrow did not ask his partner to clarify a warning, trained to know that a single nanosecond of delay could equal death.

  That lesson had just saved his life.

  Zaira was moving past him within two heartbeats, her legs covering the ground at lethal speed. Following on her heels, Aden pinpointed her target--a slender male holding a weapon at his side.

  "Down!" Aden yelled at a passerby who hadn't already hit the ground.

  The assassin turned and shot again midrun, but Zaira had judged his movement and dodged it, as did Aden. The bullet slammed home in a tree. That was the last shot the male made. Zaira slammed him to the ground the next instant, his face hitting the pavement with such force that blood splurted out, his nose clearly smashed in.

  Aden saw Zaira's expression, realized she'd fallen into the blind protective rage that would leave the assassin dead in seconds.

  Zaira. Secondary threat.

  As she jerked around to neutralize the imagined threat, he was already contacting Vasic. His friend appeared a second later, his boots, jeans, and dirt-stained T-shirt telling Aden he'd probably been helping Ivy with the gardens the empath was creating in the valley.

  Zaira turned back right then, her focus on the unconscious male once more. "He tried to hurt you." The words were calm--if Aden hadn't known her, he'd never have perceived the ice-cold fury inside her.

  Vasic 'ported them both to a desert cloaked in night just as Zaira's body tensed for a deadly attack. I'll take care of the assassin, Vasic said. Call me when you need to return.

  Then he was gone.

  Aden went to touch Zaira, help her calm down . . . and she turned on him. Her eyes dull and blank, her face set, she slammed out with a fist, followed it with a kick. He blocked her moves, but made no offensive ones of his own. Zaira, he said telepathically and verbally. "Zaira, it's Aden."

  Her hand-to-hand combat skills were deadly. Aden could hold his own against her only because he was bigger and stronger. It usually gave him just enough of an edge
that they were evenly matched, but he realized at that instant that he'd never fought against a Zaira in an unthinking rage.

  She was a fury, a whirling storm.

  He took a blow on the jaw, a second in the neck, a third on the cheek.

  Realizing she wasn't hearing him, Aden focused on getting her down with as little damage as possible. It meant taking a number of further blows himself, but the one thing Aden would not do was hurt Zaira. He'd made that promise to her long ago, would never break it. Instead, he used his greater bulk against her, slamming his body into hers as she lifted up on one leg to deliver a roundhouse kick.

  Unbalanced, she fell, and he saw her knee begin to bend the wrong way. He flipped her so she wouldn't fall wrong and twist or tear her tendons. His action had the unintended side effect of throwing her harder against the ground, the air rushing out of her. He came down over her before she could recover, clamping his hands on her wrists and using the weight of his lower body to pin her down.

  "Zaira!"

  Muscles tense enough to snap, she tried to throw him off. He crushed her to the sand while gripping her wrists, but not so hard that he'd leave bruises. "Zaira, it's Aden," he repeated.

  No recognition in her eyes, on her face, her mind a closed door.

  Chapter 61

  ZAIRA, IT'S ADEN.

  The words sank through the black fog, disappeared. But they came again and again and again, until she could no longer disregard them, until the fog around her mind started to lift enough that she could understand the meaning behind the words.

  Aden.

  She knew that name, knew the face of the man leaning over her, knew that silky black hair that fell over his eyes and shone blue-black in the moonlight . . . knew those lips that bore a cut that dripped blood, knew that cheek with its spreading bruise. "You're bleeding." The words were hoarse and hesitant, as if she was speaking a language she didn't know.

  When she tugged at her wrist, he opened one hand enough that she could slip her wrist out. Raising her hand to his face, she wiped away the blood. "I did this." The fog had almost totally burned off, leaving her with the blinding light of knowledge. "I hurt you." Hurt the one person she'd promised to always protect.

  "I wouldn't be much of an Arrow if I couldn't take a few blows."

  He was trying to make her feel better. But the hollowness in her, it went soul deep. "I hurt you." No longer caught in the madness, she remembered why this had all begun. "I was angry because he wanted to hurt you, then I did it for him." She'd also almost lost control on a public street, could've permanently damaged the image and reputation of the squad. "I came a second away from exposing the monster that lives in me, in giving those who hate the squad a reason to exterminate us."

  Her eyes burned, her throat grew rough, the pressure inside her building and building. Twisting to the side under Aden's body, she tugged her other wrist free and wrapped her arms around herself, trying to hold together the fragmenting pieces of her.

  Aden wouldn't allow her to hide. Shifting to lie beside her, his face looking into hers, he brushed back her hair. "I'm fine. And what the public saw was a hard, fast takedown that'll only reinforce our reputation as dangerous adversaries."

  Her eyes went to the cut, the bruise. "Don't you understand, Aden? I can't remember." The blows, the kicks, nothing but the pitch-black of violent rage. "I thought I'd escaped, but this makes it clear that I did inherit the madness." The insanity and violence was in her blood, in her genetics. "Those impulses are built into my neural pathways."

  Aden, his beautiful, bruised face looking into her own, his jaw so stubborn. "I don't believe in predestination. We make our own destinies."

  She wanted to believe him, but she also knew the truth. "There's a reason why our race was desperate enough to accept Silence, accept a truth that was a lie. I'm part of that reason." It was nothing he could alter. "I can't risk a life beyond the strictures of harsh discipline." Somehow, she had to leash the rage again, lock in the insane girl inside her, and once more become the cold-eyed Arrow nothing . . . and no one, could touch.

  Zaira wasn't certain she could, that she hadn't come too far, but if she didn't, then who would protect Aden?

  "Is that what you want for Tavish?" A pitiless question. "For Pip and the other children?"

  "They're young," she began. "They can--"

  "No." He gripped the side of her face. "If what you say is right, if we inherit the worst of our genetic lines, then they can't. One day, they'll be here, in this moment, and their lives will end in a hard black box created of rules of behavior that allow no freedom. Is that what you want?"

  "What I want doesn't matter!" It never had. "Madness exists! It's always existed, especially among our race." The Psy had disproportionately high rates of insanity and mental illness, the dark flip side of their extraordinary gifts.

  "If you're mad, then I will walk with you into the darkness," Aden said, his grip tightening on the side of her face. "Don't you choose to leave me, Zaira. Don't you do that."

  Her heart, that stunted organ that he'd given new life, hurt at the pain she sensed in him. Wrenching away from him because she couldn't bear it, she sat up with her arms wrapped around her knees and she stared out into the vastness of the desert. And she thought of the hope in Tavish's eyes, of the little girl who'd held her hand after the RainFire playdate and asked if she was permitted to have a doll now.

  Their dreams, their hopes, they were chains holding her to the here and the now, refusing to allow any retreat.

  And the biggest, strongest cord?

  It was Aden.

  The man who sat beside her. The man she had hurt. The man who'd allowed her to hurt him. "Why don't you ever fight back when I lose control?"

  "Because you've been beaten enough. Never again."

  It made her heart flinch, the way he said that, the potent emotion in his tone that she wanted to hoard and wrap around herself. "How do I fight, Aden?" she whispered, her shoulders slumping as the twisted rage creature inside her soul curled up into a fetal ball. "How do I fight something bred into my bones? I don't want to become a monster, to lose myself."

  "With blind faith." He gripped the wrist of one hand with the other. "And with love." Raw words. "Don't let one setback drive you back into a cage." He took a shuddering breath. "I won't stop you if you believe this is your only hope of survival, but if there's even a ghost of a chance otherwise, then fight, Zaira. Fight for us. Fight for the children who will one day be us. Fight for the little girl you once were, the one whose spirit never flew away, no matter the horror."

  Zaira thought of the beatings, the deprivation, the blood in her mouth when she'd bitten her tongue as she tried to stifle her screams. She thought of a family where serial killers begot serial killers and where parents could treat a child worse than they would a stray animal. And she thought of the man who wanted her to fight the evil that had birthed her.

  It was too much. Something just broke inside her.

  This time, she didn't scream. Her body shook as wet trails leaked out of her eyes. "What's happening?" she gasped, panicked.

  Aden's arms locked around her. "You're crying," he said, his own voice rough.

  "I don't cry," she said through the wrenching pain of it, that strange, hot water blurring her vision.

  "Maybe it's time." One hand in her hair, his other arm steel around her, he pressed his cheek to hers. "I'm here." Always.

  And those horrible, hot tears, they broke the banks and swamped her in a violent deluge.

  *

  ADEN didn't know how long Zaira cried. All he knew was that the tears were leaching the poison from her system, the rage and the hurt that she'd kept inside for so long that they'd become toxic to her very breath. She cried until she had no tears left, and then she cried dry tears so hard that he worried she'd cause herself physical injury.

  But he didn't tell her to stop, didn't tell her to hush.

  Night turned to dawn in the desert, the air chilly, and s
till she didn't speak. Instead, she lay in his arms as he stroked her hair, and every so often she'd cry again. It broke his heart into a million pieces each and every time. In the twenty-one years he'd known her, Zaira had never cried. Not once.

  These tears were a release.

  Beyond them . . . beyond them might lie their future, or a loneliness made more terrible by the beauty of what had passed between them in the past weeks. If he lost her to the nightmare, if she chose to go back into the cage of endless discipline and no emotional connections, he wouldn't recover.

  He'd function, he'd do what was necessary, but those wounds would bleed always.

  The knock on his mind on the PsyNet came an hour after Zaira fell asleep in his arms, exhausted and wrung dry. It was Vasic. "Aden," he said once Aden opened his mind on the sprawling psychic network and stepped out to speak to his best friend. "Nikita Duncan's been shot."

  Aden knew that was important, but he also knew that the most important thing in the entire world right now lay in his arms. "Can you handle it?"

  "Yes. Do you need a 'port back?"

  Aden didn't want even that slight interruption, but the desert sun would soon be high and he wanted Zaira to sleep. "Can you get us back to Zaira's Venice room?" He sent his friend an image of the room.

  The moment of disorientation was immediate, their landing on the bed whisper soft. "A remote teleport over that much distance?" Aden looked at Vasic's mind on the PsyNet, the silver brightness of it entangled with sparks of color that spoke of Ivy. "You've become stronger."

  "I've been exploring my abilities--it seemed to me that a born teleporter should be able to do far more than simply rapid 'ports or short-distance remotes." Vasic's mind pulsed with lightning sparks. "I'll feed you all data I find about Nikita." A pause. "Rest, Aden. You've earned it."

  Dropping out of the PsyNet, Aden gently pulled a blanket over both himself and Zaira without bothering to remove her boots or his own--he didn't want to risk waking her. As he closed his eyes, he could feel her breath against his skin, her pulse steady under his hand, and it was exactly where he was meant to be. Leaving his mind wide open to her own so she wouldn't wake alone on any level, he allowed sleep to sweep him under.

  *

  VASIC had always stood in the shadows behind Aden. He'd never seen it as a lesser position--the two of them had their strengths and Aden's was in front, his leadership not a mantle he put on, but one integrated into every part of his self. Vasic, by contrast, functioned best as a lieutenant who had Aden's back. Politics wasn't his strong suit and neither was conversation.