by Jade Kerrion
“So they are best friends?”
“Best friends would be a stretch for now. Let’s just say that Jason and Roland appear to be working their way toward an improved relationship.”
Zara lifted her gaze from her empty coffee mug to survey the brightening horizon. Danyael was powerful. He could and apparently had changed emotions. He had undone the emotionally crippling effects of decades of hatred and indifference with his touch.
She had absolutely no doubt that he could fix her too. The real question, the one that had kept her up most of the night, was whether she wanted him to.
“Here they come.” Xin nodded her head at the lower deck. Miriya and Galahad walked toward them, each toting a small bag. Danyael slowly brought up the rear on crutches, navigating the steps with some difficulty. On the helipad, the helicopter engine purred to life. The rotor blades turned, picking up velocity.
Zara pushed away from the rail, Xin beside her. “Travel safe,” she said simply, smiling.
“We’ll see you shortly,” Galahad confirmed.
Farewells were terse; they were not intended to be permanent. Besides, the helicopter had to depart while the yacht was still in international waters, and they were running out of time. Danyael joined Zara and Xin, and together they watched the helicopter depart, carrying Galahad and Miriya to Nassau, to Lucien’s waiting jet and a long transoceanic journey toward a safe haven.
“It was a good idea to send them off before we got back to the US,” Zara said.
Danyael shrugged. “After all the apparent effort we went through to get Galahad out of the country, I didn’t think we wanted to bring him back in.”
“Apparent effort?”
“I don’t actually remember anything, so I’m taking your word for it.”
“You’re so bloody calm about the whole thing.”
“Not calm, just resigned. I don’t have amnesia. I didn’t just lose the connection to my memories. In my case, the memories aren’t there anymore. No amount of stressing over them will bring them back. I’ve relearned the context for a great deal along the way, but as far as I know, nothing that will actually trigger another demand for a memory wipe, so let’s leave it that way.”
“So your plan is to turn Lucien over to his parents, and then seek out the council trained?”
Danyael nodded slowly.
“What makes you think they’ll be any more amenable to helping you than the council itself?”
“It’s less about their willingness to help and more about their ability to help. The council trained are some of the most powerful mutants in the country. If anyone can undo the damage to Lucien’s mind, it will be them.”
“I’d say the willingness is at least as, if not more, important.”
“I’ll have to address that issue when I get to it.”
“If you’re planning to use your empathy on them, you’re out of luck. I’m sure they’re shielded,” Zara said.
“How about sweet reason instead?”
“You? I didn’t even realize you knew how to reason.”
He smiled, amused rather than insulted. “I can appreciate the use of reason. Trusting my emotions, I’ve found, tends to get me into trouble.”
The sharp reminder tore her away from the easy banter she enjoyed with him. “How are you feeling today?”
“About as good as can be expected.” The bruised darkness under his eyes accentuated his pallor, but at least his eyes were alert. “Caroline helped me change the bandages this morning.”
“No infection yet?”
“No, but I’ll need to get the injuries x-rayed and stitched up today.”
Xin spoke up. “You’re looking at a several-month recuperation period, with severe scarring. A council healer could fix you up in under five minutes.”
Danyael’s jaw tensed. “There’s a price to be paid for everything. I’m through with the council.”
“How do you intend to stay out from under the council’s radar?” Xin asked.
“Heavy psychic shielding and limiting the use of my empathic powers.”
Zara asked, “But wouldn’t seeking out the council trained be practically equivalent to walking into the council headquarters?”
“The council trained aren’t a monolithic group of mutants subservient to the desires of the council. Some of us can actually think for ourselves,” Danyael said mildly.
Zara shook her head. “You underestimate how difficult it is to defy the authority and the structures in place.”
“And here I’m talking to someone who runs an organization of mercenaries recruited from the ranks of former terrorists and someone else who uses government resources from her day-job to dabble in subversive activities on the side.”
Zara suppressed a smile. “All right, you happen to be in good company, but I’ve noticed that mutants fall into two camps, those who blindly follow the rules and those who fervently oppose them. The latter tend to be in mutant holding facilities.”
“There’s a lot more grey than you think. I’ll be all right. They’ll listen to what I have to say. Besides, many of the council trained left the banner of the council a few years ago.”
Xin looked interested. “Dissention in the ranks? That’s not common knowledge, is it?”
“Chalk it up to differences in philosophy. It’s not something the council is proud of,” Danyael said.
“So who are you going to talk to first?” Zara asked.
“Andrea Hunter, an alpha telepath who lives in Boston.”
“Have you ever met her?”
“Several times.”
“And you’re determined to do this alone?”
He met Zara’s gaze. “You’ve done more than enough to help, you and Xin both. Mutants, especially alphas, can be an ornery bunch. There’s no need for you to get in any deeper than you already have.”
Zara looked him over. Could Danyael be serious? He would not even be able to drive. Modes of transportation that required identification were not good ideas for someone on the run from the government, which ruled out planes and trains. What was he going to do? Head off on a cross-country trip on Greyhound? She should travel with him. She had promised Lucien she would keep Danyael safe, and he was far from safe.
The steady rhythm of the yacht engine changed subtly. Danyael glanced over his shoulder. “We’re almost there,” he said quietly, his gaze fixed on the towering palm trees lining the dock in front of Lucien’s Intracoastal home. “We should be docking in about five minutes.” He looked at Zara and held out his hand. “Give me your hand.”
“What?”
“You said we’d do this after we rescued Lucien. We’ve saved him. Now, give me your hand.”
“Do what, Zara?” Xin asked, her voice quiet in spite of the alarm filling her eyes. “What are you talking about?”
Zara stared at his outstretched hand, his way of making sure she would not go along, by taking her feelings, whatever they were, and turning them irrevocably to hatred.
No question, he was willing to do it for her. Perhaps he even wanted to do it for himself, but what did she want?
The seconds ticked by in silence until he said quietly, “Please, Zara. I can put both of us out of our misery.”
Misery was all it had been for him. It was never meant to be.
Zara reached out to him and placed her hand squarely in his. She stared as their fingers entwined briefly, the motion as natural as a long-time lover’s caress. They fit well together.
She fit as perfectly with Galahad.
Why was there even a question, when the other option, the other man who wanted to hold her each night, was perfect? She had no need to doubt, none at all to justify her hesitation. She had every reason in the world to walk away from the misery she and Danyael seemed to inflict naturally on each other.
Zara met his gaze. His dark eyes were beautiful, expressive. Her stomach churned. It took every shred of willpower to keep her voice from catching on the words. “Do it.”
&nbs
p; She braced herself.
Danyael lifted her hand to his lips and breathed a kiss. The contact was light, a faint brush of air, but the electrifying effect shot down her spine. “Goodbye, Zara,” he said softly.
The sensation was like slowly dying. The warmth within eased out of her like a steady trickle of blood from a delicately sliced vein, the injury nearly invisible, but inevitably fatal. Color leeched out of her world. The brilliant and contrasting blues of the sky and sea turned grey.
She closed her eyes, swayed on her feet. She sank to the deck, light and insubstantial as a feather. Drifting in a world stripped of stimulus, she heard voices speaking around her but could not make out the words. She let go.
~*~
“What did you do?”
Danyael avoided Xin’s question as he gazed at Zara. His empathic powers swept over her, scanning for evidence that his work was complete. The frequency of her brainwaves resonated between four and seven hertz, firmly locking her into theta state, immersing her into the fluid boundary between the conscious and unconscious worlds, into a state of deep and profound healing, learning, and growth. Her expression was dreamy and her eyes were closed.
When they opened, he knew they would never look at him the same way again.
Danyael braced against the echo of an ache deep within. His trained response was instinctive. It doesn’t matter. My own pain doesn’t matter.
Instinctive or not, it still hurt. The injustice seared, scorching old wounds that had never fully healed. One day I’ll find that I can no longer pay the price, and then what? He struggled to modulate his voice. “Stay with her until she wakes.” He gently folded Zara’s hands over her stomach. “Some disorientation is common.”
“Some disorientation is common after what? What did you do to her?” Xin demanded.
“I changed how she felt about me.”
“You did what?” Xin shook her head slowly, her gaze fixed on Danyael’s face. “But…but why?”
“Because she wanted it. Because what she felt wasn’t real, anyway.”
“Real?”
Danyael looked up sharply as the clone’s emotions flash-flooded, swamping over with indignation and righteous fury.
“Zara has trouble reconciling what she feels with what she thought she should have been feeling based on early, incomplete, and prejudiced information about you, and she thinks therefore, it is not real? The only problem I’m seeing is her inability to wrap her mind around a new reality based on new information. Oh, that and your complete lack of faith in yourself as a decently likeable person—with or without your psychic shields.” Xin shook her head in disgust, dark hair swaying. “I should have known. A train wreck waiting to happen.”
“All personal hang-ups notwithstanding, this would never have worked out,” Danyael said quietly, reaching for the rail and pulling himself to his feet. His left leg screamed in protest. He reached down, his fingers gently clenching around torn flesh and muscle as he tried to ease the painful cramp from his left thigh.
“Why not?”
He tackled the answer indirectly. “You think I’m a decent person. Do you know if you like me because of who I am or because I made you like me?”
“You’re splitting hairs.”
“Am I?”
“Yes, because all of us, to some extent, are empaths. You make the rest of us look like rank-and-file amateurs, but the fact of the matter is that our personal desires affect the way we act toward others, which affects the way they feel about us. What’s the difference between what you’re doing through directly manipulating emotions and someone who takes a girl out to dinner, wooing her with flowers, candies, and jewelry, other than the fact that you can get away with being a cheap date?”
“She gets to make up her own mind?”
Xin laughed, a short and un-amused sound. “Who would have imagined that one of the most powerful empaths in the world would actually be a closet rationalist?”
He shook his head, his lips pressed into a grim line. The yacht bumped gently against the wooden dock. “I have to go. Take care of her.”
Xin released her breath in a sigh. “Sure. Be safe, Danyael.”
Danyael hooked the crutch under his left arm and hobbled off the yacht, gratefully accepting the assistance of the captain as the two navigated the narrow gangplank. Safely on solid ground, Danyael looked up and saw Lucien’s parents making their way from the mansion. They were as elegant as old-world aristocrats, immaculately dressed in spite of the early hour. They walked together, their comfortable pace unconsciously adjusting to the other. Their divorce notwithstanding, they were still a couple, their long relationship of intimacy and trust allowing them to sustain an uncommonly deep friendship.
He both admired and envied their relationship.
Danyael inhaled deeply, bracing for the inevitable confrontation. They had never liked him, never trusted him, but had endured him for Lucien’s sake. He had always felt like an intruder in their home, an interloper in their ideal family, the one glaring flaw in their son’s otherwise perfect life. As soon as he had been able to, he had broken away financially. He had refused to accept any more of their money, even if it meant taking on a great deal of debt for college and medical school.
The physical distance had helped. Despite Lucien’s protests, staying away from the Winter family during holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas had helped even more. If his relationship with Lucien’s parents had not improved, then at least it had not gotten any worse.
Later, with a single pen stroke, Lucien wrecked any chances of Danyael ever smoothing over the relationship with his parents. Lucien controlled one of the largest private fortunes in the world, and he made Danyael the sole beneficiary in his will.
The fallout was grueling. Danyael suffered months of visits from Winter attorneys and endured their subtly veiled threats. Nothing he said could convince them that he had protested his inclusion in the will when Lucien carelessly suggested it one day. After the deed was done in spite of his protests, Danyael had gone to Lucien and begged to be removed from the will.
Lucien, however, was his parents’ child. The Winter stubbornness had bred true through the generations. Lucien’s will pitted against his parents, with Danyael caught in between, a wretched place to be.
“Ms. Callahan, Mr. Winter.” Danyael inclined his head as they approached him.
“Danyael,” Madge Callahan greeted, her voice cool. She cast a critical eye over him but made no comment on his appearance. She glanced up as several crewmembers carrying Lucien on a stretcher carefully disembarked from the yacht.
Madge’s blue eyes softened as she looked at her son. With trembling fingers, she smoothed the sheets over Lucien’s chest. Damien reached out and tightly grasped Lucien’s shoulder, to reassure himself that his son was safe, was home. Danyael stepped back to give them the privacy they wanted, but the tender moment passed in seconds. Damien looked up, hard eyes locking on Danyael. “We have several specialists standing by to take over his care.”
“Of course,” Danyael murmured.
“We want you to debrief Julian on his status.” Madge waved a hand at the stocky man hurrying out of the house to join them. Dr. Julian Ross consulted privately with many high net-worth families, and he was a long-time confidant of the Winter family.
Danyael knew Julian Ross well, having received care from the doctor over several years while growing up in the Winter household. “Good morning, Dr. Ross.” Danyael offered the doctor a faint smile. “Lucien was drugged with tropane alkaloids. I drained the drugs and helped him sleep through the night.”
“With medical technology or uh…” Julian waved his hand uncertainly.
“With magic,” Danyael said wryly.
“Great.” Julian grinned and visibly relaxed, eliciting surprised glances from Lucien’s parents. “Danyael’s empathic healing is far more precise and thorough than anything medical technology can achieve,” he explained. “Lucien’s color is good. Heart rate’s normal.
Anything else?”
“Physically, he’s all right. Mentally, the blocks in his mind—”
“Right. Damien mentioned them. When will he wake?”
“In an hour or two.”
“And what can we expect when he wakes?”
“You’d need a telepath to get into his head, to be certain. I’d be cautious around him, but without the effects of the tropane alkaloids, I think you’ll be able to avoid any unanticipated outbursts.”
“Was there an unanticipated outburst?” Julian asked carefully.
“Something like that,” Danyael answered, just as carefully.
Julian’s gaze shifted to the crutch and Danyael’s left leg.
Danyael said nothing, but he tensed at the assessing glance.
“Looks like you need some medical attention too,” Julian said.
Danyael did, but he did not want to use Winter resources for his personal needs. He would have to find an ER somewhere, or in the worst-case scenario, buy some basic medical supplies from a pharmacy and fix himself. “I’ll be all right.”
“You always say that, but you never are,” Julian murmured. He shrugged and turned to the patiently waiting crewmembers carrying the stretcher. “Follow me,” he ordered and led the way to the mansion.
At least Damien and Madge waited until the doctor left before ripping into Danyael. “We were informed that Lucien was targeted as a means of getting to you. Is that true?” Damien asked.
“Possibly,” Danyael conceded. It required all his willpower not to look away.
If Danyael had thought that Damien’s eyes were cold before, they were absolutely frigid now. “You are a liability to Lucien,” Damien said.
Danyael felt like a sinful child called to task for bleeding over a pristine marble floor. “I know. I am sorry.”
“Sorry? Lucien is our only son, and you’ve placed him in danger. He could have been killed. And for what? For you? This is far too high a price to pay for his friendship with you.”
It was not anything he had not told himself. “I will find a way—”
“You will stay away from him. We will make arrangements to care for Lucien. As for undoing the damage, that remains to be seen. If the only alteration is in his feelings toward you, it may be that the changes in Lucien are indeed for the best.”