Ashwin (Gideon's Riders #1)

by Kit Rocha

  “And of why we can never go there again.”

  She sounded sad but determined. Kora always sounded determined. The Base was a darker place without her, especially for the Makhai soldiers, who had rarely known compassion from their doctors. But her life could be brighter in One. “You’re better off here. Gideon won’t ever hold you back from helping people.”

  “I know.” Her arm touched his again—firmly this time, purposefully. Like they were sharing a private joke. “I’ll never have to fight him on anything the way I did the COs and administrators on Base. There’s always that.”

  The touch triggered pain, and the pain sparked a memory—a mission over the mountains into what remained of California. He’d gotten into a firefight and spent a rainy night on an exposed mountain ledge, digging a bullet out of his thigh so he could suture the wound.

  By the time he made it back to the Base, the wound had started to heal, but imperfectly. Since a badly healed wound might lead to degradation in his performance, protocol dictated that his doctor rip out the stitches and undertake full regeneration to preserve mobility.

  Protocol did not dictate pain management.

  Ashwin had tried to convince Kora to follow protocol. His own temporary pain was far more manageable than the repercussions she might face for angering the COs. But Kora wasn’t like the other doctors, who tiptoed warily around the Makhai soldiers and flinched whenever they moved. Kora had fought with him, stubborn and fierce.

  “Protocol would be torture. If that’s what you want, you can find another doctor.”

  In the end, he’d acquiesced. Forcing her to hurt him would have hurt her, and she couldn’t help what she was any more than he could. “We noticed you fighting for us. Not many people bothered.”

  She fell silent, her lips pressed together in a firm line, tears glittering on her lashes. When the music changed this time, melting into something slow and suggestive with a heavy, throbbing beat, she stood.

  And held out her hand. “Dance with me.”

  Ashwin could think of half a dozen rational reasons to accept. He’d thought of three before her lips formed the final word of her invitation.

  He needed to learn how to interact the way the Riders did if he had any hope of becoming one.

  He needed to learn more about Gideon Rios, and Kora had spent the last six months or more under the man’s roof.

  He needed to find out if proximity to Kora was going to be a problem, because it was swiftly becoming clear that being careful wasn’t a viable option. Better to find out now, when the mission could still be cleanly aborted.

  Another reason formed as he stared up into her eyes, blue-gray and bright with tears. If he had to engage in an awkward social ritual with which he had no experience, Kora was the most obvious partner. She’d understand his ineptitude and help him correct it.

  Given time, he could probably round the list out to an even ten. Ten perfectly logical, artfully rationalized reasons why he should dance with her.

  When he took her hand, it was for the one irrational reason.

  Oddly, distantly, he wanted to.

  »»» § «««

  Kora had dated some very nice men—by Eden’s questionable standards as well as her own more exacting ones. Intelligent men who had fascinated her with their expertise. Charming men who had made her laugh.

  Those men had kissed her, too. Sometimes it was awkward, like trying to fit together two mismatching puzzle pieces. Other times, it was pleasurable enough to make her body tingle and her head buzz with possibilities.

  But none of them had ever made that happen just by touching her hand.

  She fought the urge to rub her thumb over Ashwin’s hand as she led him toward the small cleared area where the congregated couples were already swaying to the music. “Have you ever danced before?”

  “No.” His gaze swept over the nearest couples, cataloguing their stances, the position of their hands, how close they stood. When he turned to face her, he settled his free hand low on her back. The very tip of his thumb brushed the skin bared by her shirt, stroking lightly.

  “It’s not hard to do.” She shivered as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Everything about him was warm, a shocking contrast to the gentle night breeze on her back. “Just move with the music.”

  His other hand settled on her hip, guiding her to move with him as he swayed gently. “Like this?”

  Of course he was a natural. All you had to do was watch him to understand that he was in perfect awareness and control of his body. Even his most mundane movements were poetry, so why would this be any different? “Not bad, soldier.”

  For a moment, she thought he’d smile. She felt it, though his lips didn’t so much as twitch. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Her leg brushed his, and she swallowed a gasp. “This is new.”

  “Is it?” His thumb grazed her lower back again.

  She managed not to shiver this time, but she couldn’t stop her nipples from tightening. “Not much like most of our previous encounters, I mean. You’re wearing clothes, for one.”

  “And I haven’t been shot. Or stabbed. Or pushed off a building.” His gaze found hers. Held it. “This isn’t much like my normal missions, either.”

  “What, the dancing? Or the lack of bodily injury?”

  “All of it. If I hadn’t met up with the Riders, I’d be in a safe house somewhere, analyzing my next step. Trying to make plans. Researching. I’ve never had time for...this.”

  “You had time to kidnap me once.” She meant to say it lightly. A tease, because she didn’t resent it. A man had been dying, and her intervention had saved him. Most of the time, that would be enough. But the moment she breathed the words, she felt the question lurking beneath them, the one that never really left the back of her mind.

  Why me? And why like that?

  Ashwin stiffened. His fingers dug into her hip. “You weren’t supposed to know it was me.”

  “I realize that.” She wanted to give him a good reason why she figured it out, some way he’d accidentally given himself away when he’d pulled her out of her bed in the middle of the night. But she just knew. “The man you had me save—Ace Santana. Who is he to you?”

  “No one.” Ashwin’s grip eased somewhat, and he began to move with the music again, but more stiffly, almost self-consciously. “But Lorenzo Cruz is in love with him.”

  “I suspected that might be the reason.” She had vaguely remembered Cruz from her internship on the Base, as well as his service in the city’s military police force—a huge, quiet mountain of a man who always seemed a little out of step with the other MPs. But it wasn’t until she saw him with Ace after the war that she realized he must have been the missing link. The only thing that could motivate Ashwin to save a stranger. “Was it a favor for an old friend or a mission?”

  “It was a favor for an associate, one that could have proven vital to my mission. Having Cruz owe me might have been important when the war came.”

  So logical. So well-reasoned. “You could have just asked me.”

  “That would have implicated you.” His jaw tightened, and his lips pressed together—a rare display of emotion. “I regret the distress I caused you. But the choices I made were intended to shield you from potential repercussions.”

  “Repercussions?” She had to laugh at that, because he had no idea. She’d been high for weeks afterward, high on the adrenaline that came from doing something forbidden and getting away with it. On the sheer joy of helping someone because she wanted to, dammit, not because the Base or the city needed to salvage an asset. “I think that night was the first time I realized they don’t own me. They never did.”

  “No,” he said finally. “They never did. And you were more than they deserved.”

  Her humor faded as he stared down at her, his dark eyes swimming with emotions she couldn’t pin down, much less name. Spellbound, she tightened her arms around his neck until her chest brushed his. If she could just g
et closer, close enough…

  “I wouldn’t have endangered you,” he said quietly.

  “I know.” It seemed to worry him, the idea that she would think it possible, and she resisted the urge to smooth the tiny furrow between his brows. “But why not? There are worse things.”

  “Worse than being endangered?”

  “Mmm.” Her fingers moved of their own accord, tracing up and down the back of his neck. “There’s being alone. Not feeling anything. Living your whole life in some safe little cage.”

  He inhaled sharply, a tiny, telling gesture. For Ashwin, it might as well have been a groan. “The first two have never bothered me.”

  She braced herself for the wave of pity—or, worse, rejection. But she was still looking into his eyes, and she saw the lie this time.

  Did he even realize it was a lie? She’d spent most of her career arguing with administrators and psychologists who insisted that Makhai soldiers couldn’t feel basic human emotions. Some had considered them above such petty concerns, too advanced and focused to waste precious energy and brainpower on inconsequential things. Others seemed to think them beneath it all, animals who only understood instinct and survival.

  The truth was both simpler and more complicated.

  “You were told that it shouldn’t bother you,” she corrected softly. “Does that necessarily make it true?”

  “No,” he conceded. “But it makes it practical. You know what happens to a Makhai soldier who lets himself become bothered.”

  Elijah. The name was legend, a whispered cautionary tale. The officers and psychiatrists brought him up every time they needed to defend the necessity of recalibration and pharmaceutical control. The worst-case scenario, a man who had killed himself because of his obsession.

  It had happened before her time, but she’d read the file. Fixations and obsessive thoughts weren’t unheard of amongst the ranks of the Makhai soldiers, and reading about Elijah seemed like the best way to learn about them. In a sense, he was Patient Zero. Ever since, the Base psychologists had carefully monitored any and all growing preoccupations—and taken special care to prevent them.

  It started with his domestic handler. Every Makhai soldier was assigned one, a woman—or man—who, for all intents and purposes, acted as their sole access to normal socialization and human contact. It was an impossible task for a single person to perform, even under the best of circumstances, and Kora had protested the practice more times than she could remember. She even had a few official reprimands in her file because of it.

  These days, domestic handlers were reassigned often, but Elijah had the same one for months, a sweet-faced brunette whose name was never recorded, just her number designation. According to the file, Elijah had subverted her loyalties, convinced her to lie for him when administrators asked her to report on his mental status.

  According to the gossip whispered by some of the older employees, she and Elijah had fallen in love.

  “Maybe Elijah wasn’t bothered,” she whispered. “Maybe he just understood something none of his doctors could fathom.”

  Ashwin’s eyes were impossibly dark. “What?”

  The music ended, and Kora stood still, her cheeks heating. “Sometimes, you just need to feel close to someone.”

  All around them, dancers were breaking apart and claiming new partners. Ashwin didn’t release her. His hands rested heavily on her skin. His body pressed against hers—his hard chest grazing her nipples, his shoulders tight beneath her arms. He was utterly unmoving but coiled, as if he could explode into action in the space of a heartbeat.

  “Maybe that’s true,” he said finally.

  There it was, at last, burning in those dark eyes. She wanted to stay right where she was, drowning in it, wrapped in his arms under the winking stars.

  Instead, she pulled her arms from around his neck, pushed lightly at his shoulders, and stepped back. “Of course it is. I’m a Rios now, remember? We always speak truth.”

  Ashwin still didn’t move. Didn’t stop watching her, and now that he wasn’t holding her, that intense gaze and coiled energy made it seem like he was about to pounce. “No one always speaks truth.”

  “I’ve never lied to you, Ashwin.” She took another step, anything to stop herself from moving back into the circle of his arms. “I wouldn’t start now.”

  “I know. You’re the exception to every rule.”

  Not even close. She usually prided herself on being rational, after all, yet here she was, making eyes at Ashwin. If it had been Maricela interested in a Makhai soldier, Kora would have warned her off. They didn’t have to be as unfeeling as the Base painted them to be a bad idea. They were still dangerous men who led even more dangerous lives.

  And she and Ashwin had history, even if it was mostly in her head. If she was truly as practical as she’d always thought, she’d walk away. She wouldn’t risk her heart.

  “I’m only human,” she murmured. Fragile, fallible—and just as much of a fool for love as anyone else.

  Deacon

  Deep into the night, with the party still raging under the inky black sky, Deacon watched.

  Nothing in particular, not really—the acolytes having a good time, flirting with the Riders. The Riders flirting right back. And Gideon, talking softly with Del while she kept an eye on her acolytes.

  Even Ana was enjoying herself. The newest Rider seemed content to chat with Zeke, and equally content when someone dragged him away to dance. She stood there alone, exuding a sense of quiet peace.

  And why shouldn’t she? This was literally her legacy. Ana might be new among their ranks, but she’d grown up with the Riders, raised by a father more dedicated to service than to his child.

  Sad, really. But he doubted she would agree, so he held his tongue as he approached and offered her his flask.

  Ana accepted it and took a long sip. “Not in a dancing mood tonight, boss?”

  “I danced.” He folded his hands together behind his back. “Twice.”

  “That many times, huh?” She took another sip before holding out the flask. “I stand corrected.”

  He accepted it, rubbing his thumb over the warm steel. “First thing tomorrow, we’re making a sweep of the sector. Bishop and Lucio aren’t back from their trip yet, but I want everyone else. All hands, and we talk to everyone—I don’t give a fuck if they herd goats or have a thousand servants painting all their food with gold leaf. Someone has to have seen something, even if they don’t realize it yet.”

  Ana might enjoy teasing him, but when it came to business she didn’t fuck around. “Solo, or in pairs?”

  “Pairs.” It came out more sharply than he’d intended. “I don’t want anyone caught alone and off-guard.”

  She nodded. “Ivan and I will visit the tenements early. And I’ll hit up my dad’s contacts, ask them to spread the word.”

  During his time with the Riders, her father had cultivated an impressive network of what could only be termed spies. “As long as they don’t know everything. We can’t start a panic.”

  “Got it.” She hesitated, then parted her lips like she was going to say something else, but Gideon broke off from Del and strolled toward them, and the moment passed as she turned to smile at him. “Sir.”

  “Ana.” Gideon clasped her hand, returning her smile with genuine fondness. “I need to borrow Deacon. Do me a favor, please, and make sure Kora and Maricela make it back to the house all right?”

  “Of course.”

  She nodded to Deacon and strode off toward the dancing. Gideon watched her go, the smile lingering. “Walk with me, Deacon.”

  He’d been waiting all evening for a private moment. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

  “I know.” Gideon turned toward the path back to the house, and Deacon fell into step beside him. The light from the fire receded behind them, leaving the path illuminated by silver moonlight. Once they were far enough away for the music to fade into a soft, thudding beat, Gideon exhaled softly. “Rev
olution was supposed to make things simpler, but here we are. Things might be better, but they’re not simpler.”

  Not in the slightest. “You know why he’s here.”

  “Lieutenant Malhotra?” Gideon made an amused noise. “No one knows why he’s here. Not even him, I’d wager.”

  Only Gideon Rios would get philosophical about a clusterfuck waiting to happen. “He has orders to infiltrate the Riders, that much is clear.”

  “It seems likely,” Gideon agreed. “I know why I have my suspicions. Why do you have yours?”

  Because his gut burned with unease every time he looked at Ashwin, for starters. But he had better, more rational reasons, too. “He’s making himself at home, and he isn’t pushing me hard to move on the deserters. If he was anyone else, I’d say he was being polite—you know, in another man’s house, and all. But he’s not anyone else. He’s Makhai, and he’s content for now.” Deacon pinned his leader with a look. “Which means his real mission is coming along just fine.”

  “Fair enough.” Gideon stopped in the middle of the path and faced Deacon. “What would you do with him, if it were up to you?”

  “You’re not gonna like it.”

  “I asked. Tell me, whether I’ll like it or not.”

  “Get rid of him,” he said bluntly. “A rabid dog is still a danger, even though it’s not his fault.”

  “What about a whipped one? A dog that’s been kicked and starved by its master until the only thing it knows how to do is fight?”

  “Depends on the dog, I guess.”

  “Or on what sort of life you have to offer by comparison.” Gideon tilted his head back to stare up at the stars. “You know that if I thought he was a danger to Kora or Maricela, or to any of my Riders, he wouldn’t be here.”

  Oh, he knew. It was why he chose to follow Gideon—not because of the traditions of One, or the mission of the Riders, but because Gideon could look at people like Ashwin and see things like this. How a deeply disciplined soldier possibly sent to kill him had the potential to become a trusted ally, even a beloved brother.