Shards of Hope

by Nalini Singh

  ARMS steel around her, Aden breathed Zaira in. When he looked up, it was to see Walker and Vasic getting everyone else out of the room. Vasic had his arm around Judd's waist, the exhausted Tk only minutes away from a total flameout, while the doctor's face held lines of exhaustion. Her nurses weren't in any better condition, their feet dragging.

  Walker met his gaze, the raw depth of his relief open. Hold on tight to her. She loves you.

  I know. Pressing his cheek against Zaira's temple and sliding one hand in her hair, his other arm still locked around her, he basked in her fire, letting it banish the coldness of near death.

  When she pulled away and shoved at his shoulders, he noticed she'd tempered her strength. "You aren't meant to get hurt." The words were gritted out. "You aren't meant to leave me alone."

  Getting to his feet, his strength enough for that thanks to a blood transfusion, he closed the distance she'd created. She stood her ground but she was careful with how she pushed him, his lethal Arrow mate. He'd accepted that the bond might never form, her scars too deep to allow such trust, but she was his mate in every way that she could be; she had given him every trust she could.

  Cupping her angry face, he said, "I'm sorry."

  She pressed her fists against his abdomen and shook her head. "I'm never allowing you out alone again."

  He loved her wildness, her spirit. "That'll make being the leader of the squad difficult."

  "Shut up." A growl of sound before she hugged him again, a tiny Fury who'd claimed him as her own. "We found Persephone. Alive."

  Hard, almost painful joy in his blood. "How?" He could feel exhaustion starting to drag him down, the work the medics and Judd had done not enough to erase the effects of the catastrophic hit he'd taken.

  "I made the shooter talk." Pressed up against him, Zaira suddenly stiffened her body and slipped an arm around his waist. "You're about to keel over. Get back in bed."

  "I will, but not here." Touching Vasic's mind, he asked his friend for an assist, shooting him an image of the location he wanted.

  The remote teleport was flawless, and Aden and Zaira were standing by the bed in their cabin the next second. Pushing him gently into it, Zaira went to the end and unsnapped his boot clips before tugging one boot off.

  "I never expected you to be so domestic," he said softly, feeling his heart expand to an impossible size.

  "I told you to be quiet." She glared at him even as she removed his other boot, then stripped off his socks. "You're bloody. You need to be clean before you can sleep."

  "I'm not sure my legs will hold me upright at the moment," he admitted, waves of exhaustion crashing into him. "Did the shooter tell you anything else?"

  "It's what you thought," she said, coming around to help remove the shreds of his shirt. "This group wanted to assassinate you in order to subvert the stability not only of the PsyNet but of the world. All their actions are fueled by that single aim: to foster discord, fear, and panic."

  Zaira disappeared into the bathroom and returned with a wet cloth. Climbing into bed behind him after nudging him to a seated position, she tugged him back against her and gently cleaned the blood on his shoulders and chest that the medical staff hadn't bothered with in the rush to save his life. "The group calls itself the Consortium."

  "You missed a spot," he said, his mind heavy.

  She kissed him for the teasing. "Do you want to hear the rest?"

  "As much as I can before I fall asleep."

  "We have one of the Consortium leaders in custody," she told him. "His memories confirm that the people at the top of the organization come from all three races--their plan is to take advantage of the post-Silence fractures to destabilize the world while putting their own empires in position to benefit from the ensuing chaos."

  Sinking against her, Aden permitted his eyes to close. The Consortium's plan was predictable in a way--but only if you thought solely of individual gain rather than the good of the world. "Like an arms dealer who starts a war."

  Zaira ran the clean side of the damp cloth over his chest. "Yes. And here's the other thing--they've made certain they can't identify one another. All meetings were done via audio and even the voices were disguised."

  Compartmentalization at its highest. "Clever," he murmured. "One person has to know everyone, however."

  "The instigator behind the entire idea." Putting aside the cloth, Zaira wrapped her arms lightly around his neck. "That's definitely not the man we captured, though once we put together all the clues from his memories, it's likely to point us in the direction of some other players."

  "Does the Consortium want political power?"

  "Not according to the shooter, but I'm getting faint hints of something else from the memories of the CEO we've captured--I haven't had time to mine all the data in his mind yet." She telepathed him the pieces she'd picked up so far.

  Aden immediately saw what she hadn't, her brain not wired for politics. "The leaders of this group want to be the shadow powers behind the throne." It fit the cunning and slyness of their actions to date. "They want to manipulate puppets of their choosing while staying safe in their anonymous skins." Ironic, given how they'd fostered rumors saying he was nothing but a stalking horse for the real leader of the squad.

  He went to vocalize that, but his lips barely parted before a curtain of drowsiness had him fighting to raise his lashes.

  Zaira pressed her lips to his temple. "Sleep. We have things under control." Another kiss. "Vasic has promised to provide me with rope to tie you down, so don't tempt me."

  That fire.

  Aden curled his soul against it and fell asleep.

  PSYNET BEACON: BREAKING NEWS

  Nikita Duncan has released a statement on behalf of the Ruling Coalition quashing rumors of Aden Kai's death. Text as follows:

  An attempt was made on his life, but he is an Arrow. A simple bullet has never stopped an Arrow. Those who persist in believing otherwise will have to admit to believing in ghosts when Aden reappears.

  Anyone else who wishes to try to assassinate Aden Kai should take note of the fact that the assassin is alive only because the Arrows did not find him worth executing. He is also recovering from multiple broken bones and other injuries delivered by a woman half his size.

  Underestimate the squad at your own risk.

  As always, the Arrow Squad itself has not responded to calls for comment.

  PSYNET BEACON: LETTER TO THE EDITOR

  I do not agree with the new direction taken by the strongest among us, do not agree with the fall of Silence, but I agree very much with the strength shown by the Arrows. Today's display by the female Arrow should silence any rumors of the squad going "soft" because of their choice to align themselves with the empaths.

  Protecting the empaths doesn't make the Arrows weaker. It makes them even more ruthless. As Kaleb Krychek's bond with Sahara Kyriakus makes him the same. This is something I've come to understand in the past weeks, and it conflicts with my belief that emotions--and in particular, the empaths--are the enemy of our peace. That makes it no less true.

  As long as the Arrows exist, no one can doubt our strength.

  Ida Mill, on behalf of Silent Voices

  Chapter 79

  THE ARCHITECT OF the Consortium, the brain that had seen the direction of the world and laid a plan B in place just in case, looked at the images flowing across the comm screen and knew the group had failed in its first major action.

  Abducting and controlling the water-based changelings had been easy because of the creatures' habit of roaming far distances alone or in pairs. The Consortium had also made certain not to target the strong--they had needed malleable puppets, not those who might break free of the drugs and other methods of control.

  They still had a number in reserve, so that had been a success at least.

  However, the water changelings had been but a single small stone on the Consortium's path to unrivaled power. They had created myriad small networks, situated pawns t
hey could move about as they wished, held their hand until the fall of Silence sent a shock wave across the world.

  A year of hard work while the architect of it all played both sides of the line, building the Consortium on one side while maintaining an "ordinary" life on the other. Unlike the others in the Consortium, the architect hadn't decided which side to support until the final instant. As it was, plan B was now plan A.

  From the first recruit, the architect had researched and targeted pragmatic and cold-blooded businesspeople across the racial spectrum. Everyone in the group had learned from watching the rise and fall of Pure Psy. There was no room for fanaticism in business or in power. Only the strongest and the smartest survived. Ego had to be left at the door, all of them meeting on a level playing field.

  The architect didn't actually believe the founding partners were all equal, but that ideology served the purpose of the Consortium at this time.

  Each had supported the business interests of the other partners. Of course, the architect acted as the intermediary who made certain nothing revealed the identity of any one party to another, all the while ensuring money flowed in the right direction. Where possible, the Consortium had created problems for those who were financial or business threats, or had nudged bad feelings to grow between normally friendly competitors.

  But money, while enough to satisfy those on the lower rungs of the Consortium, wasn't enough for the upper. Their aim was to build a new world order, one in which the most ruthless and intelligent of all three races would wield power behind the scenes, working as one, while below them, the triumvirate remained splintered.

  Stability might be good for the world, but it wasn't good for their interests.

  Kaleb Krychek and the Arrows were two of the most solid beams holding that shaky stability in place and giving it time to become stronger. Krychek was a difficult target and one the Consortium had set aside in favor of focusing on the squad. To have excised the Arrows from the equation, whether through an assassination or by making the squad appear weak, had been their first major goal.

  The result was a resounding failure that had turned Aden Kai into a demigod and elevated the near-mythic status of the squad. The news channels were currently obsessively playing the images filmed by eyewitnesses who'd seen the female Arrow take down the Consortium shooter.

  What made the news media voracious in their interest, an interest shared by the public at large, Psy and non-Psy alike, was that the Arrow was petite by the standards of any of the three races. That petite woman had decisively beaten a man twice her size without sustaining a single injury. She'd also been pitiless in her treatment of the male, who had unfortunately known enough to have revealed the Consortium's existence and pointed the squad to one of the founders.

  The image of Zaira Neve, her face cool, holding the tip of the blade to the shooter's eyeball, was being shown over and over. No one was horrified by her actions. Or if they were, the horror was mingled with equal amounts of awe. The Arrows hadn't only retained their position as the bogeymen you never wanted on your trail, they had become heroes who protected innocent bystanders.

  "We have to pull the plug," the architect said to the Consortium's top tier. "We overreached by attempting to take out the Arrow leader." They should've focused on Nikita Duncan. Now even she was forewarned. "You'll notice one less member at this meeting. He was captured by the squad last night."

  A murmur of consternation. "He won't be able to identify us?" one of the others asked.

  "No. It's why we've always taken precautions veiling our identities from one another."

  "Except you," another member pointed out. "If you get captured, we're all dead."

  "I won't be taken. I haven't survived as long as I have by being unintelligent. We're all safe."

  Regardless of the assurance, every individual at the meeting knew that in going after the squad, they had painted targets on their backs.

  It was a risk the twelve people in attendance--and the missing member--had recognized right at the start, but back then, the Consortium had believed they had the pieces in place to initiate a total shadow coup. Aden Kai was meant to have died on that mountain after he was interrogated, his body to be dumped in a public location that made it clear the Arrows couldn't even protect their own, much less anyone else.

  No one had expected the "field medic" to be a power, or for his female partner to survive her wounds. Now . . . "We need to go under for a small period as far as the wider world is concerned," the architect reiterated, careful not to couch it as an order. The perception of equality was what held the Consortium together.

  Agreement from all sides.

  "The Consortium will rise again," the architect said. "While the three races live in their separate worlds, we have created a group that takes advantage of all our different strengths and weaknesses. We will own the world."

  "We will own the world!" repeated the others, the sound thundering around the room.

  Chapter 80

  ADEN APPEARED IN public a bare six hours after his surgery, after promising Zaira the entire operation would take less than fifteen minutes. It was easy enough to organize--with him taking a touch of power from Vasic to keep himself upright, he and the other man walked through a busy neighborhood as if on their way elsewhere. Giving the appearance that, to Aden, having major arteries and veins critically damaged was just a temporary nuisance.

  People whispered and took camera-phone images from a safe distance.

  Job done.

  Two minutes later, they ducked into a disused building site and Vasic brought him home to a Zaira who scowled. "Get back in bed."

  "Come with me."

  As it was, he fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow and slept for fourteen long hours, leaving the squad in the hands of those he trusted. He woke, ate, fell back asleep. The next time he opened his eyes, he no longer felt as if he'd been hit with a sledgehammer. Touching his neck, he noted the sensitivity of the skin, but it was nothing major.

  Not that Zaira would allow him to return to full duties.

  It wasn't until a week later that the medics gave him a clean bill of health. He'd spent the interim time with his Arrow family in the valley. The world was calm, no major issues on the horizon, though Aden didn't trust that calm. He didn't think their enemy had given up, and he was worried by how easily they'd manipulated countless parties.

  However, he wasn't about to squander this chance to care for his squad. Not only the older Arrows and the children--all of them. Because as a result of the calm in the Net, most of his Arrows had been able to come home.

  Some couldn't, of course. There were always serial killers operating somewhere in the Net, and they had to be hunted, but Aden made sure everyone was rotated back in on a regular basis. He didn't want anyone to feel like Edward, as if they didn't have a place in this new world, in this sun-drenched valley.

  As he walked out after the final medical checkup, Zaira's hand in his, he saw children laughing as they played, two of the oldest active Arrows watching over them, and felt his heart expand. "We're doing it," he said to Zaira. "We're creating a better world for Arrows today and Arrows to come."

  Weaving her fingers through his, Zaira nodded. "I've heard a rumor."

  "Since when do you listen to rumors?" He felt a smile kick at his lips.

  Narrowed eyes. "Since I'm trying to help you. Be grateful."

  Breaking their handclasp, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "I am." And then, because he could, he kissed her in front of anyone who might be watching.

  Cheeks flushed when she drew back, Zaira crooked her finger so he'd bend closer. "I heard that Cristabel and Amin have been seen walking together alone at night."

  "They're senior Arrows," he pointed out. "They're probably discussing ops."

  "Do you think they discuss them all night?" Zaira asked with a glint in her eye. "Because that's how long Amin was with her yesterday. In her cabin."

  Aden blinked, felt h
is smile begin to deepen. "Confirmed?"

  "By three different sources."

  Aden wouldn't have predicted the pairing. Both were long-serving Arrows, and though Cris was older by eight years, Amin was equally Silent. "It's happening." His Arrows were starting to see a better future for themselves, a future that didn't have to be devoid of pleasure.

  "Yes." Rising on tiptoe, Zaira said, "We promised each other a night to ourselves. How about tomorrow?"

  "Yes. What would you like to do?"

  Zaira ran her hands down his chest. "I'll organize it. Dress in civilian clothes."

  *

  ONE night later, Zaira sat with Aden at a table in a tiny rooftop restaurant in Rajasthan, India. It was atop the second floor of what looked like a large family dwelling, the tables wood with embroidered cotton tablecloths. There was no roof, the desert sky drowning in stars above.

  There was only one server, who bustled every which way, somehow managing to bring in meals without anyone having to wait too long--though if you had to wait, this location was . . . beautiful. Zaira wouldn't have understood that before her time with Aden in RainFire, but tonight, she saw the stunning clarity of the starlight, appreciated the warmth of the air against her skin.

  She'd worn a dress, not because she had any particular desire to wear an item of clothing so much less efficient than her uniform, but because anything else would've made her stand out in this place. After settling on this location, she'd done her research, picked this white dress with its full skirt, modest neckline embroidered with colorful flowers, and cap sleeves as being appropriate to the local environment and customs.

  Aden had followed her instructions and was wearing a simple white shirt untucked over old blue jeans, with the sleeves folded up to the elbows. His hair was long enough now that it fell across his forehead at times, and touched the collar of his white shirt. He was beautiful, too.

  "Will you trust me to order for you?" Aden asked from where he sat beside her and used his free hand to pick up the yellow piece of paper on which were printed a number of dishes. His other arm was around her shoulders, fingers desultorily caressing her skin.

  Each brush made her stomach tighten, the possessive need in her conditioned to know that his touch meant searing pleasure.