Shards of Hope (9781101605219)

by Singh, Nalini

  The bite was on her lower lip this time, almost exactly on the spot where she’d bitten him earlier. He didn’t hurt her, but the rage crashed outward, only it didn’t want to harm him. It just wanted to keep him, possess him. Twisting her legs in a move she knew he’d never expect from her, given her lighter weight and body mass, she unbalanced him and suddenly had him on his front, while she knelt with one knee on his back, her hand on his nape.

  “I win,” she said.

  She half expected him to rise up and throw her off. Since she wasn’t actually going to break his neck or hurt his spine, the countermaneuver would’ve worked. But he spread his hand and patted the bed twice in a silent signal that acknowledged her win.

  Smiling—and conscious deep inside that this was bad, very bad, the two sides of her nature now existing in one moment—she came down over him, her entire body lying along his. He brought in his arms so that his head was resting on his hands, but didn’t ask her to move. “You smell good,” she said, wishing she was bigger so she could touch all of him at once.

  “It must be the soap and other toiletries.”

  Playing her fingers through the heavy silk of his hair as she lay on him, the uncivilized rage creature a living pulse in her every cell, she took a deep breath. “Yes, but it’s also you.” Beneath the faint scents of the toiletries was the scent of the boy she’d first met, but it had matured, become deeper, more richly masculine.

  He lay still as she ran her hand along his arm and over the taut curve of his biceps, the sleeve of the T-shirt bunching under her touch. It made her feel drunk to touch him like this, made her feel as if she was spinning out into a darkness that had no end. But, like an addict, she couldn’t stop. When she rose up enough to push up his T-shirt, he tugged it off over his head.

  She rubbed her cheek against the warm, smooth skin of his shoulder, sliding her hand over the muscles of his back at the same time. Under her, his breathing altered, became more erratic. Lying against him, she stroked her hand over his biceps again. “You like this,” she murmured. “You like being touched by me.”

  “Yes.” Lifting up a little to warn her of his intent, he began to turn.

  She shifted enough to allow it but straddled him as soon as he was on his back, her hands on the smooth skin of his chest. His pectorals were defined, as were the ridges of his abdomen right down to where his muscles created a vee low on his body. She’d never really spent any time thinking about the differences between males and females, except in the context of how male physical strength gave her opponents an advantage she’d have to learn to counter, but now she found herself fascinated by the ridges and valleys of his body, her hands eager to explore every inch.

  When he raised his own hands to her thighs, she decided it was acceptable: he could touch her. Leaning down, her forearms braced on either side of his head, she ran her lips along his jawline and down his throat, to the hollow there that made her want to lick. The raw depth of that desire nudged awake the part of her that had kept her alive and sane all these years.

  “I . . . can’t be like this,” she said, the words coming out in a halting pattern as she fought the twisted, dangerous half of herself. “It could be deadly.” Inside her was a violence so horrific it had caused the first responders to flinch—all of whom had been fully conditioned adults. “I did so much damage to my parents’ faces they weren’t even recognizable as male or female from the neck up.”

  The deep memories were locked up behind a psychic wall she’d built as part of her Silence training. She could still remember what she’d done, but she didn’t relive it, didn’t experience what it had felt like to bring that pipe down over and over. Or she hadn’t. “My shields are breaking down. I’m remembering, Aden. I can’t remember and function.”

  Tugging up her head with a gentle grip in her hair, Aden said, “Isn’t this worth fighting for?”

  She thought of how she’d felt touching him before she remembered the risk, how she’d given him pleasure. Never had she given anyone pleasure. “The risk,” she began, but Aden interrupted.

  “We’re in a unique situation,” he said. “No one will ever know what happens here unless we tell them. I promise you I will not let you cross any violent lines.”

  Zaira flexed her fingers against his shoulder, the temptation extreme. With their minds numb, if she made a mistake, it wouldn’t ripple out into the PsyNet, wouldn’t betray her instability to those who might take advantage of the weakness.

  And Aden would never tell.

  Dipping her head, she licked that spot that had tempted her and his hand clenched on her thigh, his heart thunder under her palm. The rage that wasn’t rage around Aden taking her over again, she began to kiss her way down and across his chest. His nipples were flat disks but he tensed when she touched them, bit at them lightly, then licked.

  She filed away the response in her private folder of all things Aden and continued on her journey down his body. When his hand closed around her nape, it didn’t break the moment. This was Aden, who had never hurt her and would never hurt her. He could touch her there.

  He tugged.

  Frowning, she looked up. “I’m busy.” Underneath her, his body was hard, hot, a strange and wonderful new landscape for her to explore.

  His eyes darker than she’d ever seen them, he said, “Take off your top.”

  Deciding the request was fair enough since he was half-naked, she rose and stripped it off, her breasts still covered by the bandeau. Aden’s hands on her waist felt bigger, hotter without that thin barrier. A shiver rippled over her and when he tilted her toward him, she went.

  Sprawled out over his body, she met his lips with her own, instinctively seeking the intimacy. One hand returning to the back of her neck, he gave it to her, the two of them exploring the contact slowly and deeply. When they broke the kiss to suck in a breath, Aden nudged her onto her back.

  Zaira didn’t fight it.

  Neither did she fight when he came over her and traced the path she’d taken on his body on her own, his hand sliding over her ribs to spread on her back as the cool strands of his hair ran over her skin. His lips were warm, his kisses wet, and at some point, Zaira stopped trying to think and gave in to the raw insanity of the sensations.

  This night was secret. Was theirs.

  No one would ever know.

  Chapter 26

  STILL GLUTTED ON the experience of stabbing the man on the beach to death, Blake stood at the window of the main training building and watched the teenagers in the compound. They were being led through an early morning martial arts routine by a twenty-five-year-old he’d previously approached about a partnership. She’d thought it would be an ordinary partnership, of course, and he hadn’t disabused her of that notion.

  As it was, she’d turned him down because their fighting styles didn’t mesh.

  He’d made a counterargument that their differences could complement one another but when she’d stood firm, he’d realized she was too dominant a personality to allow him to be the alpha in their partnership. He’d have to find someone else. Scanning the trainees almost desultorily, he considered other Arrows in their early twenties.

  That was when his mind whispered—why not someone younger?

  He had never before considered a younger accomplice, but as he watched the trainer move, the teens following in seamless formation, he realized it was the best possible option. He’d have both a partner with whom to share the kill, and a weaker, less confident individual he could control.

  When he examined the teenagers more carefully, he found his eye caught by a brown-haired girl in the back row he didn’t recognize. That should’ve been impossible—like the majority of senior Arrows, he knew the juniors coming up, had taken the age group for training at various points in time.

  Yet this girl flicked no mental switches.

  Sliding out his portable organizer
, he found the list of attendees at the session and eliminated them one by one until he was left with a seventeen-year-old girl who was a strong telepath, but who also had a notable ability in the rare illusion range.

  The latter would be useful when it came to the abduction of victims. On the negative side, she also registered as stable and loyal to the squad.

  Of course, he did, too, but he knew how to manipulate the tests. Did she?

  He scanned several other files, all of teenagers who were old enough to be fully trained but young enough to mold to his specifications. But he kept coming back to the girl; she even looked like the female victims he preferred when he had a choice. Every other kind of victim was a mere snack—this specific type fed his hunger.

  Brown haired, pale skinned, not slender, not overweight, with small breasts.

  She was the one.

  He just had to find a vulnerability, a crack.

  Chapter 27

  ZAIRA WOKE CURLED up on her side with Aden behind her. Even as her eyes opened, she remembered the previous night, remembered the warm flex of Aden’s chest under her exploring fingers, the taste of him under her lips, his hand in her hair. They’d come to a halt not long after he began to kiss her body, her mind overloaded by the unfamiliar influx of potent sensual sensation, but the intimacy of it had been searing.

  As it was now.

  She didn’t feel alone, didn’t feel lost. Not with Aden’s pulse beating strong and steady against her. Beyond that sound was the pounding barrage of the endless rain, though it sounded less powerful than before. “Aden?”

  He stretched against her before curling himself around her again, one of his arms crossing her chest to close over her shoulder. When he spoke, his voice was unusually lazy. “Is it time to get up?”

  Zaira wanted to say no, to stay in this warm, safe cocoon where there were no rules and she could touch him, claim him without fear—and where he could put down the responsibility on his shoulders and rest—but this was bigger than her needs or even Aden’s. It had to do with the survival of the squad. “The rain.”

  Sudden alertness in the tension of his body. “I hear it.”

  They got up and completed their morning routine in silence, both of them aware their secret time was close to over. By unspoken agreement, they dressed in the clothes in which they’d come to RainFire. The repairs were more than good enough to stand the test, and if the two of them were to face the outside world, they had to do it as Arrows.

  “Zaira.” Aden curved one hand around the side of her face. “This doesn’t have to end here.” Quiet words containing a strength that had won the loyalty of the deadliest men and women on the planet; only today all that intensity was focused on her alone. “I don’t want it to end.” He drew her closer, his voice dropping, becoming even more quiet, impossibly more luminous with power. “I want you by my side.”

  Zaira didn’t trust herself in a world without boundaries. And yet she’d never wanted anything as much as she wanted what he was offering. Perhaps she was shortchanging them both. Maybe Aden was right and she had the control to become more . . . to become his, without ending up a murderous monster drowning in rage. “We can try,” she said, taking a risk that could change everything or destroy them both. “I’ll try.”

  Aden’s fingers tightened against her face, a tremor shaking his body. “Thank you.” Rough words.

  “For what?” She was the one who might get to keep him.

  “For giving me you.” He drew back while the staggering impact of his words was still slamming through her. “Let’s go to breakfast, find out when the changelings think the terrain will become navigable.”

  Remi met them in the breakfast room. “My gut says the last of the rain will clear within the next couple of hours.”

  “Land stable enough for vehicles?” Aden asked while Zaira knelt down to listen to something a pajama-clad Jojo was excitedly telling her.

  Remi nodded. “The sentries have been sweeping out to survey the landscape over the past hour. So far, they’ve found nothing overtly problematic.”

  Aden had a feeling it wasn’t only the sentries who’d been out; Remi had a fresh cut under his eye where a branch might’ve whipped his face and his hair was damp and roughly tumbled. More, the RainFire alpha struck Aden as a man who wouldn’t send his people out into a situation he wouldn’t enter himself.

  “We can drive you out to where you can contact your people,” the other man said once Zaira rose to her full height, Jojo having scampered back to her mother. “Or we can return to where I found you, see if we can retrace your route to where you were held.”

  Aden didn’t glance at Zaira before he answered. They both knew there was only one possible decision. “We go up to the bunker.”

  “Be ready to move in ninety minutes. The rain should be trailing off by then.”

  Finishing breakfast, the two of them returned to their aerie to make sure they were leaving everything in order. Aden then headed to fulfill a commitment he’d made to offer another training class to RainFire’s younger soldiers, while Zaira chose to remain behind. The fact was, she’d experienced several stabs of pain in her head since soon after waking.

  With each stab came a hint of porousness in the thick black fog around her mind. She could almost catch glimpses of PsyNet traffic. Nothing concrete, more ghost shadows of what might be, but if she was in the process of going psychically active, she had to put herself back into the right frame of mind.

  Her first instinct was to shove all her emotions into a box, but she didn’t want to pretend last night had never happened, didn’t want to lose the untamed power of the memory. And she’d promised Aden she’d try to be the partner he needed. So, instead of the box, she spent her time creating a solid layer of intensive shielding. Silence might have fallen, but Zaira didn’t intend for her emotions to leak out into the PsyNet.

  No one had a right to those emotions except the people she chose.

  Feeling in control afterward, she went through the trapdoor and heard Jojo’s voice chattering to Finn in the infirmary. The child sounded happy and healthy. Zaira should’ve continued on to find Aden. Instead, she made a detour.

  Seeing her, Jojo broke out into a huge smile, as if they hadn’t already spoken less than ninety minutes earlier. “Zai!”

  Zaira caught the girl in her arms, such soft skin and fragile bones.

  “Play?”

  “Not today, Jojo.” It no longer felt so awkward to do this, talk to a child, hold a child. “I’m going to be leaving soon.”

  “Go bye-bye?”

  “Yes.”

  Jojo’s lower lip quivered and she threw her arms around Zaira’s neck. “No!” It was an order.

  Walking over, Finn stroked the little girl’s back. “Zaira has to go back to her own pack, sweetheart. They must miss her.”

  Jojo eased her embrace so she could look into Zaira’s face. “Go home?”

  “Yes.”

  Hugging her again, Jojo said, “Come back, okay, Zai? Play with Jojo. Cat climb.”

  “I will.” She’d make the time for this child who didn’t know what it was to be ignored and hurt; Zaira wouldn’t be the one to teach her.

  Leaving Jojo not long afterward, she made her way to the large ground-floor cabin that functioned as an indoor training space. Aden’s session was over by the time she arrived but he wasn’t alone. A tall RainFire female with rich brown hair woven into a loose braid and bright blue eyes was standing only inches from him. She had one hand on a hip she seemed to have cocked out, her body clad not in the clothes of a fighter, but in lighter gear, her top too airy and gauzy for the weather.

  As Zaira watched, she reached out and put her hand on Aden’s forearm.

  And the rage, it roared to the surface.

  • • •

  ADEN was in the midst of breaking the unexpected phys
ical contact made by the RainFire female who’d come by with fruit juice for the trainees, then stayed behind to talk to him about self-defense—though he’d belatedly realized she had little interest in defensive maneuvers—when his instincts screamed an alert.

  “Run,” he said to the changeling woman, who was no fighter and who’d die in seconds if Zaira got to her. “Run.”

  To the woman’s credit, she took one look at the threat about to bear down on her and ran straight for the door on the other end, going at full changeling speed. Aden, meanwhile, got in Zaira’s path, her body slamming into his with bruising force. He didn’t try to fight her, just clamped his arms tight around her and tangled her legs so they went to the floor.

  She could get free, of that he was fully aware. However, to do that, she’d have to severely hurt him. He didn’t think Zaira would do that. Even as a child, she’d never struck out at him. “Zaira, look at me.”

  Her eyes remained locked on the doorway through which the RainFire female had disappeared. “You’re mine.” It came out a low, tight rage of sound. “She touched you.”

  Aden pressed his weight fully on her, her smaller body twisting in an effort to break his hold. “A mistake she won’t make again.”

  Dark eyes burning with fire met his. “Did you touch her?”

  “Would you snap my neck if I did?”

  Lines formed between her eyebrows before she gave a decisive nod. “Yes.”

  “Liar,” he said, hearing reason in her tone again. But when he went to brush his lips over hers, she turned her face away, and the tension in her muscles, it was different.

  Rolling off her, he sat up as she did the same, her arms on her raised knees.

  “I would’ve killed her,” she said into the silence, her respiration yet uneven. “Not only would I have killed her, I wouldn’t have stopped beating her until someone dragged me off.” When she turned to look at him there was so much pain in her that he reached for her instinctively.

  Except she wasn’t there anymore, having stood in a fluid motion and moved out of reach. “That’s who I become when I step outside the box.” A pitiless whisper.