Shards of Hope (9781101605219)

by Singh, Nalini

  It was that kind of a commander Aden had needed in Venice.

  After she kept her word and paid the first few scared informants as promised, others had started to pass over pieces of data. According to one of her long-term and more talkative informants, word on the street was that “the scary Psy chick is all about business—don’t mess with her and she’ll treat you square. Cross her and maybe you find your ass floating in a canal one dark night.”

  As far as street reps went, Zaira was pleased with hers.

  In the end, she calculated she’d identified eighty-five to ninety percent of the water changelings in the city. The remainder had to have come in via no known transport options, never registered to receive any services, and drawn zero notice. Miane Levèque and her guards failed only on the last factor—and Zaira knew that had been on purpose.

  The BlackSea alpha had wanted to make her presence felt.

  Now, as Zaira pulled herself onto the balcony outside the hotel room where Miane Levèque slept tonight, she didn’t for an instant forget that the other woman was a deadly predator.

  The lock on the balcony door was more secure than she’d expected, but Zaira had always been good at getting into places. Waiting in silence for ten minutes until she was certain no one was moving in the room beyond, the night hushed around her, she slipped inside. Her eyes already adjusted to the darkness, she saw that she was in an elegant living area. No one else breathed in the room.

  She knew that there was, however, a guard on the door directly outside.

  Zaira had checked the hallway before she came in this way.

  Conscious of the acute hearing possessed by so many changelings, she made her way to the bedroom door in absolute quiet and listened. No movement.

  Slipping inside, she saw Miane’s form beneath the sheets in the large bed. Most people would have believed her asleep. “Your body is too tense.”

  The BlackSea alpha’s hand reached out to turn on a bedside lamp. Its glow was soft rather than cutting, but Zaira was prepared regardless. She’d narrowed her eyes so as not to be overwhelmed by a sudden change from dark to light.

  “Really?” Miane said. “I thought I’d controlled the tension.”

  “Enough to fool the majority of people.” Zaira leaned against the wall by the door, arms folded. “You don’t need the gun you’ve got in your other hand. If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead.”

  “Are you sure?” The other woman sat up, the sheet sliding away to reveal a slip in a pale color Zaira thought might be called champagne. Her eyes held Zaira’s and they weren’t black as they’d been during their initial meeting, but a lighter shade.

  “Yes,” she said, as Miane got out of bed and, placing the gun on the bedside table, pulled on the robe that had been thrown over a nearby chair. That robe matched the slip. “I’m an assassin. You’re well trained and dangerous, but you don’t expect me to come up behind you and snap your spine.”

  “You’d have to get that close to me first.”

  “I could’ve done it two hours ago, while you were visiting the elderly human who lives in the neighboring district.”

  Miane went preternaturally still. “You followed me.”

  “Of course.” Zaira wasn’t about to allow a threat to wander freely around her city. “The human is a relative? Your features are distinctive.”

  “My grandmother,” Miane said, and Zaira knew she’d only shared that because it was something Zaira could easily discover on her own. “Would you like a coffee?”

  Zaira stepped aside to let the BlackSea alpha pass into the other room, careful to follow at a pace that allowed her eyes to adjust to the much brighter light Miane had flicked on. “No coffee for me.”

  Waiting while the other woman prepared one for herself, she wasn’t surprised when the door opened, the big male named Malachai in the doorway. His eyes went to Zaira, grew hard. “Miane?”

  “I’m fine, Mal. Zaira decided to drop by for a visit.”

  “Next time, use the door,” Malachai said, his voice holding the distinct edge of a growl.

  Zaira kept her silence and wondered what sea creature growled. Or perhaps that was the human part of Malachai.

  Laughing softly, Miane shook her head. “Think of her as another me. I’m sure you’ll understand her much better.”

  Expression unchanged, Malachai met the crystalline clarity of Miane’s hazel eyes, something silent passing between them before he withdrew. “I don’t normally have guards,” the BlackSea leader told Zaira. “However, with the rash of disappearances”—her mouth tightened—“the lieutenants are edgy.”

  Zaira wondered how the other woman had accurately guessed her thought processes. “You don’t feel their presence is a comment on your abilities and skills?”

  “No. I wouldn’t be BlackSea’s First—its alpha—if they doubted my strength.” Coffee prepared, she took a seat on one of the sofas, gestured for Zaira to take the one opposite. “I’m glad you decided to take me up on my invitation.”

  “Why did you offer it?”

  “Partly because the Arrows would be a good ally to have.” She held the cup balanced on one knee, cold fury in her next words. “If the bastards who’ve taken my people hadn’t thought to disfigure them, your teleporters could’ve brought them all home by now.”

  “I’d have made the same decision in your shoes.” Done whatever it took to protect her family.

  “But,” Miane added, “I also did it because you’re the first woman I’ve ever met who reminds me of me.”

  “You live an emotion-rich life.” While Zaira had spent most of hers in chilling Silence.

  Miane drank some of her coffee. “BlackSea is unique. Some of us are very similar to other changelings in our interactions, while others are loners in a way even the feline changelings would struggle to understand. Our emotions are sometimes not what you would expect.”

  Zaira thought about the squad, about how many walked alone even while part of a group. “I think you’ll find more Arrows who understand you.”

  “Perhaps.” Eyes gone obsidian, the other woman said, “BlackSea doesn’t trust easily and it’s clear Arrows don’t either, but here we must. Someone is hunting my people and yours.” A grimness to her tone. “I’ve sent word across BlackSea about little Persephone. It’ll take time to get to those who live in the very deep, or in the most distant places on this Earth, but of the hundreds of confirmations I’ve received so far, none have caught any glimpse of her.”

  In the ensuing hours, the two of them went over theories and possibilities and split tasks so they wouldn’t waste time following leads in areas that weren’t their strengths. Zaira wouldn’t normally have made such an arrangement with a relative stranger, and she knew neither would Miane, but the alpha’s anger over Persephone’s fate was visceral and it spoke to the same in Zaira.

  “I am angry for and worried about all those who’ve been taken,” Miane said at one point, her bones sharp against her skin. “But to imprison a child? That is against every rule of engagement. It would cost them nothing to release a child so young. That they haven’t makes them monsters who deserve no mercy.”

  Gut instinct told Zaira that Miane could be trusted on this point; she and the BlackSea alpha were very much on the same page. If she was wrong, she’d deal with it after the girl was located. Until then, the Arrows and BlackSea would have a temporary working alliance.

  It was well past midnight by the time they finished.

  “Aden,” Miane said as she made herself a second cup of coffee. “He belongs to you, yes?”

  “Yes.” He’d given himself to her and she would not release him from that promise. Not even if she failed in her bid to live this new existence. That was why she’d asked Vasic to make sure she was eliminated should she become a deadly threat either as a result of the madness—because there remained a chance it liv
ed in her genes, a pitiless intruder who could strike at any time—or because of her violent possessiveness.

  The teleporter had looked at her with those wintery eyes, said, “He’ll never forgive me. Or you.”

  “But he’ll be safe.” What Zaira feared more than anything was that the madness would make her turn on Aden. “Will you do it?”

  “Only if his life is under imminent threat.”

  Zaira had to be satisfied with that and hope Vasic never had to fulfill his promise. If he did, Aden wouldn’t forgive it; he’d lose his closest friend as well as his lover in one savage blow. Zaira would’ve asked someone else but Vasic was the only one she trusted to watch out for Aden’s interests above all else.

  Evil didn’t win there. And it won’t win in our fight to be together.

  No, it won’t, Zaira vowed, but part of her knew that the choice might be wrenched out of her hands, rage swamping her in black fog that drowned out all reason.

  Chapter 56

  ANTHONY LISTENED TO what his daughter was telling him and knew he had to act. “How many?”

  “At least twenty-five,” Faith responded, her voice high-pitched and her words running together. She’d called him directly after an intense unsolicited vision, was clearly still feeling the aftereffects.

  Stopping her when she would’ve spoken again, he said, “Are you alone?” He understood that her bond with her jaguar changeling mate gave her a way to leach off dangerous psychic energy, but foreseers needed someone with them after the most powerful visions. It was one of the reasons why F-Psy had always been and would always be part of a tight clan group.

  Even when Anthony had believed Faith had to be isolated for her own good, he’d made sure she always had medical oversight.

  “No,” she replied. “I was with Mercy when it happened. She’s here.”

  Identifying the named woman as a DarkRiver sentinel, Anthony didn’t reach for his other line to contact Vaughn. He and Faith’s mate had come to an understanding over the two and a half years the couple had been mated and Anthony didn’t have any compunction against making contact should Faith be at risk.

  “Father,” Faith said, her voice breaking, “you have to stop him. He’s going to kill them all.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  Considering his options after hanging up, he moved to a screen at one end of the room and called Ming LeBon. The former Councilor’s face filled the screen moments later, the birthmark on the left side of his face a dark red that would’ve drawn the eye if Anthony hadn’t already been familiar with Ming’s pigmentation.

  “Anthony,” Ming said. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’ve had a disturbing prediction hit my desk.”

  “Clearly this prediction involves me.”

  “It does.” Anthony put his hands behind his back. “You will apparently kill an entire human family group within the next forty-eight hours, including all the infants.”

  “I see. What’s your interest in this family group?”

  Anthony didn’t know the family involved—to her panic and horror, Faith hadn’t been able to identify them, her vision focused on Ming. “None,” he said. “My only interest is the fact that you will realize only after the killing is over that your reconnaissance data was wrong—you will make a very dangerous mistake.” He paused to let that sink in.

  “According to the F-Psy who had the vision, you will execute the patriarch last, on the theory that watching his family being tortured will cause him to talk.” Stripping the human’s mind would be faster, but that often destroyed parts of the brain—and Ming, Anthony knew, was an expert in torture. “What you discover is that he never had any knowledge of whatever it is you suspect.”

  Ming held his gaze without blinking. “I appreciate the call.”

  “There’s more,” Anthony continued. “The murders will start a chain reaction that’ll lead to weeks of riots in your region. It appears images of the victims’ bodies will be leaked with your name attached to the violence, calling your leadership of the region into question.”

  “I see.”

  “Will you be spilling innocent blood, Ming?”

  “I’ll make my decision after reviewing all the facts.”

  After he signed off, Anthony input all the identifiable elements of Faith’s vision and set his computers to searching on the slight chance that he might trace the family and be able to warn them. If they died, Faith would blame herself. That horrified guilt was the reason so many foreseers had switched voluntarily to business-only predictions at the dawn of Silence. The weight could crush, the pain could devour.

  Anthony had never wanted that for his child.

  • • •

  MING rarely second-guessed himself. The last time he’d done so, it had been in his handling of the Arrows. He’d made a serious mistake there. The operation scheduled to take place in another twelve hours, on the other hand, hadn’t raised any red flags. He hadn’t even planned to be there—the fact that Anthony’s foreseer had connected it to him without his physical presence made it near certain the foreseer in question was Faith NightStar.

  And Faith NightStar was never wrong.

  Accessing the file once more, he checked the data. The patriarch of this family group was maneuvering for political power in Ming’s region, had already made connections with a number of powerful supporters. That wasn’t what made him worth killing—Ming could crush political climbers without bloodshed.

  The thing that had pushed Ming to give the interrogation and assassination order was that the patriarch appeared to have access to information that came from inside Ming’s headquarters, which meant Ming had a leak he needed to plug. However, according to Faith NightStar, his people would torture and execute the man’s entire family and still not discover the identity of the leak.

  The other possibility was that Anthony was lying and twisting the facts to suit his own agenda—except Anthony had never shown any interest in Ming’s region. The NightStar patriarch was tightly focused on his foreseers, the family empire and reach such that he didn’t need to make land grabs.

  Closing the file, he walked out of his office and down to the underground bunker that housed his data analysts. “I want you to mine down for information on Kurevni,” he ordered. “Get me hard links to where and how he gained access to classified data.” The previous run had been thorough as per the standard protocols under his command, and as everything appeared to line up as expected, Ming hadn’t seen the need to go any deeper.

  “Yes, sir. How far?”

  “Exhaust all possibilities.” He would put the action on hold until he had absolute confirmation. Ignoring a warning from Faith NightStar was not a decision to be made lightly.

  Chapter 57

  MORE THAN FORTY-EIGHT hours after the initial attack on the compound in Venice, the search for both Blake and the abducted child continued unabated. It would’ve been easy for Aden to focus on those two ops and forget his larger vision for the squad, but he knew there would always be another mission, another mess to clean up, another predator to stop.

  Aden could not—would not—allow that harsh truth to destroy the future he was trying to build. Neither would he allow Zaira to be consumed by the darkness that so often swirled around Arrows.

  Which was why he’d called Remi the previous day and made a request. Now he looked out on a scene he would’ve deemed impossible prior to his and Zaira’s abductions. In front of him was a lush green landscape under a bright mountain sun that bore little resemblance to the rain-lashed terrain of three and a half weeks before.

  That wasn’t the surprise.

  It was the fact that little Jojo was currently earnestly explaining the concept of “catch” to an Arrow child a year older than her. That child kept looking to Aden for permission, until he stepped in and, hunkering down beside the boy, said, “Throw to me,
Jojo.”

  Giving a happy smile, Jojo threw. When Aden caught it, she clapped her hands for him. He threw it gently back, and when she successfully caught it—after a little wobble—he put his hands together for her. The next time Jojo threw to the Arrow child, the boy tried to catch, but his coordination wasn’t good at the unfamiliar task and he dropped it.

  Jojo laughed. “Pip oops!”

  Looking uncertain, Pip picked up the ball and threw. This time, Jojo fumbled it. “Oops!” she cried with a big smile that made it clear she didn’t mind at all. “Jojo oops!”

  Aden saw Pip relax as the boy began to understand that there was no right or wrong here, no test. Rising to his feet once he was sure the two were happy playing together, he looked across to where Zaira was watching over another group. She’d already been “tackle hugged” by Jojo, as Remi had laughingly called it.

  Aden wasn’t the one who’d remembered to buy a gift of candy for all the children to share. That had been Zaira. And she’d snuck in a special piece for Jojo, who’d giggled and eaten it then and there.

  All systems go?

  Looking up from where she leaned lazily against a large rock, she shot him a faux salute. I say we let Jojo run this op—she already knows everyone.

  Perhaps she’ll one day be an alpha.

  I’d put money on it.

  “Here, kitten.” Remi rolled the ball back toward Jojo when it went too far.

  “Thank you for agreeing to this,” Aden said to the alpha after the children returned to their play, the two of them standing under a soaring tree with wide sheltering branches. “I didn’t expect it.”

  He’d made the request regardless—because having spent so much time in the valley of late, he’d realized that Arrow children didn’t know how to play. Even with explicit permission, they waited to be told what to do because that was the first phase of the training process—rote learning. Independent thought wasn’t encouraged until much later.