by Jade Kerrion
“We have a bit of a crisis, and we need you to join us. How soon do you feel up to getting out of bed?”
Miriya eavesdropped on his internal debate as uncensored answers flew like nervous, fluttering sparrows through his mind. She winced at the exhaustion evident in his thoughts. Next week…five days at least…maybe three. Don’t have that kind of time. One day, perhaps just overnight or a few more hours. I can do this…Just take it an hour at a time.
He finally mustered the strength to respond out loud to her question. “I’ll be down in ten minutes.”
He did not just amaze her. He humbled her.
Miriya nodded and stepped back, leaving the room to give him physical privacy. Mental privacy, however, was no longer an option for him, not with her psychic hook in his mind. Danyael would likely not discover their connection for a while, but he would, eventually. No doubt he would be furious at the psychic intrusion, but God knew, regardless of what he said, Danyael needed friends far more than he craved privacy.
Danyael needed her even if he did not know it.
Her thoughts and emotions churned. What would it take to be his friend?
Miriya drew in a deep breath and lingered outside his bedroom door, prepared to wait.
~*~
Nine and a half minutes later, Danyael stepped out of his bedroom. Miriya, slouched against the opposite wall, looked up, studying him. Their eyes met across the breadth of the corridor. His shoulders slumped with exhaustion but he seemed steady on his feet. His expression, however, was guarded, and his body language screamed, “Hands off.”
Fortunately, she was not easily deterred. She grinned up at him. “You okay?”
“I’ll be all right.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Yeah, well, it’s good to know you’ll be all right some time in the indefinite future, but how about right now?”
The soft sound of his laughter caught her off guard. Compelling and infectious, it warmed her and drew a matching chuckle from her. The muddy swirl of stress and tension gnawing at her eased. Who knew that making an empath laugh could have such positive aftereffects?
“You sure you don’t need any help?” Miriya asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Have it your way.” Her gaze flicked to a closed bedroom door on the other side of the hallway. In spite of her best efforts, she twitched.
Danyael glanced at her and raised his eyebrows.
“Zara and Galahad,” she said.
“Ah.” Danyael nodded. He and Miriya walked down the corridor toward the curved staircase. “Good for them. They’re perfect for each other.”
Danyael’s emotions flickered. Despite her intimate psychic connection with him, Miriya could not put a name to that feeling—a startling burst of color and light that made her senses reel before fading into the depths of his flawless equilibrium. She paused for a moment before responding. “I can’t believe you managed to say that without irony or malice. Zara’s a man-eater—”
“She respects strength. She needs a partner who isn’t intimidated by who and what she is. Galahad’s the perfect human being—no one could be more suited to her.”
His voice was steady, his tone even, but the soft exhalation of his breath almost sounded like a sigh. Miriya stopped walking and tilted her head to look at Danyael. “You’re not intimidated by her either.”
“No, but she hates me.”
“You’re an alpha empath. You can change her feelings, can’t you?”
“Yes, but what’s the point? I can’t change the reasons her feelings exist. She’ll come to her senses once logic catches up with her emotions, and she’ll hate me again.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
Danyael shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because it’s hard to live with hate.”
“She’s the one living with hate, not me.”
Miriya’s mouth dropped open. She had thought that she was well-adjusted. Now she knew she had nothing on Danyael.
He continued walking as if he had not noticed her reaction. “Besides, to change her feelings, I’d have to absorb them.” He shook his head. “It’s too hard to distinguish between someone else’s hate and self-hatred once it’s in me. I spent years digging myself out of that pit; I’d rather not go back.”
“So you’re not—”
“Masochistic and suicidal? No, I’m not. I do what needs to be done, but as an empath—”
“There’s a real physical and emotional cost to what you do.”
Danyael nodded.
Miriya stared at him. He seemed relaxed, no trace of tension in his expression or his stance. His thoughts were equally at peace.
“So why did you try to save Carlos when you knew you had nothing left to give?” she asked.
He drew in a deep breath. “Because he meant something to Zara.”
His dark eyes gave nothing away but his emotions flickered again—that same dazzling burst of light and color.
Miriya gaped at him. The explosion of a world coming to life in the dark void of space—was that what love looked like to an alpha empath?
Danyael could not possibly be in love with Zara, could he?
Oh, damn. That relationship had disaster written all over it. She had to talk Danyael out of it, but if she broached the topic, he would realize that his deepest emotions were transparent to her, and she wasn’t ready for that confrontation. She had to bide her time. “So, what are we going to do about Galahad? Zara and Lucien don’t seem inclined to turn him in.”
“There’s nothing for him to go back to even if Pioneer Labs didn’t burn to the ground. Life as an experimental test subject isn’t worth living.”
“But do you really think there’s a place for him out here in the world?”
A muscle twitched in Danyael’s cheek. “Perfection is tied to purpose. What was he created to do?”
Lines furrowed Miriya’s brow. “You believe he’s dangerous.”
“We’re all dangerous. The only difference is that we’re known quantities. No one knows how dangerous Galahad has the potential to be. With his optimized genes and his miserable life experiences so far, he could just as easily save the world or crush it.”
“We’ll have to make sure it’s the former and not the latter. Do you have a plan?”
Danyael shook his head. “Not really. We’ll make it up as we go and trust that together, we’ll be strong enough to deal with whatever comes our way.”
He paused at the top of the stairs, and so did Miriya. She looked down at the hand he extended to her, and then up into his face. His smile was faint, but the warmth in it matched his eyes. He had made the first move toward closing the distance between them. She grinned and met him half-way.
CHAPTER NINE
Danyael joined Lucien, Zara, Galahad, and Miriya in Lucien’s armored BMW for the twenty-minute drive from McLean to Jason’s home in Bethesda. Xin opted to stay back to monitor the situation; she was most useful behind a computer, anyway. The dark gray SUV cruised through the silent, empty streets. Though the open fighting was taking place mostly in D.C. itself, apparently no one in the suburbs was taking any chances. Huddling at home was on the agenda for the day. The suburbs appeared desolate, stripped of any signs of life.
Fatigued, Danyael leaned his head against the seat and massaged the back of his neck with his left hand. The soft purr of the car engine was almost comforting, a low hum that—if he focused on it intently enough—helped him function in spite of the incessant assault of Zara’s emotions.
He needed to put some distance between them, allow physical space to dull the impact. He glanced at her. The sunlight caught the dangerous gleam in her violet eyes as she returned his gaze. He broke eye contact, but only because he did not need eyes to see her emotional spectrum. She had no psychic shields to mute the colors of her emotions, and he saw her as no one else—other than another alpha empath—could.
Zara’s personality, a seamless blend of light and darkness, the brilli
ant facets etching patterns against the shadows, created art so beautiful, so complex, that he could have stared at her forever, oblivious to time slipping by
“Pretty” did not do justice to Zara. She dazzled him.
A stray memory flashed through his mind. He had been in his senior year in college, but instead of spending his evening alone studying in his dorm room, he was slouched in his favorite armchair in the shabby living room of Lucien’s Cambridge townhouse and watching with subtle concern as Lucien downed his seventh shot of whiskey before slamming the crystal shot glass down on the hand-carved oaken table.
No point in asking if Lucien was okay. He could not affect Lucien’s emotions, but he could sense them. His friend was a long way from okay. Lucien looked up at him and scowled. “Women are nothing but trouble.”
“Trouble’s usually inevitable.” Danyael shrugged. “If it’s not a woman, it’ll be something else. The real question is whether the woman’s worth it.”
“This one wasn’t.”
Danyael agreed with him. It was unusual for Lucien to have fallen so hard and so fast, but somehow he had, and then she had broken his heart. Danyael reached over and pulled the bottle out of Lucien’s hand before he filled the shot glass again. “You’re done,” Danyael said firmly.
“I’m not nearly drunk enough.”
“You’re going to regret it tomorrow.”
“I wish you could do something about it.”
“No, you don’t. Your emotions are real; nothing’s worth trading them for a falsehood.”
“Bullshit. You’d let me believe a lie if you thought it would be easier for me to live with.”
Danyael’s eyes narrowed. “Where the hell is this coming from, Luce?”
Lucien dismissed it with a frown. “Forget I said anything.” He looked over at Danyael, his blue-eyed gaze unfocused. “Are you still dating that journalism major?”
Danyael shook his head. “No, she’s not for me.”
“You say that about everyone you date. Do you even know what you’re looking for?”
“I’ve narrowed it down to alpha telepaths.” Danyael’s faint smile was humorless. “That way I don’t have to worry about accidentally killing her if my shields drop when I fall asleep. Other than that, I’m not really that picky.”
Lucien considered it for a moment. “I thought I had it bad, never knowing if she’s just a bloodsucker after my money, but maybe your situation does suck worse than mine.” He leaned over, pulled the Glenfiddich whiskey bottle out of Danyael’s hand, and filled two shot glasses. The golden liquid sloshed over the edge of one of the glasses. “Let’s drink to us.” The dimple flashed again. “There’s no one I’d rather be drinking with.”
Danyael chuckled. “You say that only because you know you’ll get to drink my share.” He raised the shot glass to his lips, wetting them, and then set it down. He leaned back in his chair, watching as Lucien tossed back the whiskey from both shot glasses. Comfortable in their unchanging friendship, they talked about inconsequential things as the flames burned low in the fireplace.
When Lucien finally fell asleep on the sofa, Danyael covered his friend with a cashmere throw and then retired for the night in the bedroom that Lucien had set aside permanently for his use. There was no point in going back to his dorm room. He wanted to be nearby in the morning when Lucien woke with a killer hangover. Danyael could not do anything about Lucien’s emotional heartache, but he could alleviate the physical cost of overindulging in expensive whiskey.
Even back then, Danyael had dabbled in healing. Nevertheless, his college years were among the best years of his life, before medical school and his subsequent career as a doctor ensured that he would always pay the price for healing someone else.
He knew why the memory had returned. At first glance, it seemed as if Chloe Larson-Sullivan, the journalism major from Harvard University, a year his junior, had nothing in common with Zara Itani. Chloe, the daughter of a senator, was the quintessential all-American girl-next-door. Zara was part-Lebanese, part-Venezuelan, and an assassin-for-hire. Still, Chloe had a certain flash of something—spirit, passion—that resonated with striking clarity through Zara too.
Against his will, he found his attention drawn back to Zara.
This time, she did not even bother to conceal the scorn in her eyes
And like Chloe, he reminded himself wryly, Zara was not for him.
The hostile surge of her emotions subsided as her attention shifted. “That’s his house; the third on the left. Pull over here,” Zara told Lucien.
Lucien pulled his SUV into a neighboring driveway three doors down. He peered out of the window and then reached for his cell phone. “Xin, is his cell signal still in Bethesda?”
“Hasn’t moved, and it’s actively being used,” Xin reported.
“Great.” Zara released the seat belt. “I vote for holding a dagger to his throat until he calls off his minions.”
“We can be a great deal more subtle than that,” Miriya said. “As long as we can get in, we can handle this without messing up the carpet. Do we have to find a broken window to crawl through?”
“We don’t have to.” Zara pulled a keychain out of her pocket, dangled it from a fingertip, and let it jangle. Her violet eyes glittered with amusement. “After we broke our engagement, he never asked for his house keys back. I’m betting he never got the locks changed.”
Zara was right, the locks had not been changed. She pushed the door open, and the five of them stepped into the foyer. Danyael could hear Jason’s voice in another part of the house, likely issuing orders into his cell phone.
Zara’s emotions flashed then cooled. The icy edge was sharper, deadlier than the blast of her anger, and it was focused on Jason Rakehell. The murderous slant of her emotions belied her flippant promise to hold a dagger to his neck until he called off his minions. She was going to kill Jason.
Danyael caught her wrist. “Zara, no.”
She shook his hand off. “Stay out of this, Danyael.”
Damn it. Of course she would not listen to him, not unless he forcibly altered her emotions, but perhaps Lucien could sway her. Danyael turned to his friend. “Luce, you can’t—”
Lucien shrugged. “I don’t entirely approve of Zara’s casual attitude toward killing, but then again, I don’t particularly approve of people organizing mobs to assault my home, either.”
Lucien’s non-interference was apparently all the approval Zara needed. She pulled out a dagger from the sheath in her boot and strode toward Jason’s voice, Galahad just a step or two behind her.
Danyael’s eyes were cool, focused. His empathic powers raced ahead of him.
Zara stalked into Jason’s study. He looked up with a startled cry and grabbed the gun from the table.
Something invisible yet tangible flashed through the room. Like a dash of cold water, the emotional shock jarred all present, breaking their concentration. The bullet Jason fired without aiming grazed Zara’s arm before slamming into the doorframe. Zara’s dagger flew through the air, missed Jason’s heart, and instead sank deep into his side.
Nice one, Miriya’s voice whispered into Danyael’s mind. I thought I was going to have to psi-blast the both of them. You really don’t like seeing people get hurt, do you?
I’m a doctor and an empathic healer, Miriya. Saving lives is a bad habit I picked up along the way.
You know, you really should consider the possibility that there are some lives not worth saving. She shrugged when Danyael glared at her. Just saying. Hypothetically.
Danyael chose not to reply. Miriya was right; hypothetically, there were lives not worth saving, though it was not clear who was supposed to make that decision. He followed Zara and Galahad into Jason’s study. A muscle twitched in his smooth cheek as he braced against the fury and hatred flowing out of Jason Rakehell, swamping everything in sight.
Jason froze, anger transforming into shock and disbelief. He stared wordlessly at Danyael.
Z
ara knelt down behind Jason and yanked his head back, prepared to draw the edge of a second dagger across his jugular, but Danyael shook his head. “Zara, no. Not in cold blood.”
“This has nothing to do with you.”
Danyael gritted his teeth against the slap of her anger, but he did not back down. “We need him alive to call off his pro-humanists.”
“I won’t call them off.” Jason’s furious gaze alternated between Galahad and Danyael. Zara’s blade was nestled against his neck, and he did not move when Danyael knelt down beside him to place a hand over the wound. “Who the hell are you?” Jason spat out.
“My name is Danyael Sabre.” He closed his eyes and channeled his mutant powers toward assessing Jason’s physical and emotional state. He winced as he worked through the painful blast of Jason’s wild emotions and probed for the truth that lay beneath.
Jason’s body throbbed with pain. The injuries themselves were not immediately serious, though they needed treatment. The bigger challenge was Jason’s emotional state. It unfolded before Danyael like a tapestry, woven throughout with brilliant color, a testament to a personality that was both vivid and bold. The patterns were complex, beautifully intricate, but the tapestry was torn, rent as if by sharp claws in many places, ruining the effect of the whole. There was no easy fix, not even for an alpha empath skilled in the art and science of emotional manipulation. The damage to Jason’s personality was far too extensive, much too intensive.
“How bad is it, Danyael?” Lucien asked quietly.
“The physical part is easy to fix; the emotional part a great deal harder. It’s fully embedded into his psyche.” Danyael removed his hand as he opened his eyes and sat back on his heels. “I’d have to absorb it, and given how much he hates someone who is my exact physical mirror image, that’s probably not a good idea.”
Lucien glanced over at the other young woman. “Miriya?”
“Obsession is a very good defense against a telepath, and he’s taken the definition of obsession to entirely new heights. I can change his mind, but it’ll take a while.”
“So it’s back down to my option.” Zara’s voice had a decidedly dangerous edge to it.