by Natalie Grey
What did it matter when he would have killed her anyway, no matter how much he loved her?
She opened her mouth to speak, and then he saw tears well up in her eyes, and the look of horror at her own breakdown.
“I’d like to be alone now.” She looked away from him. “Please.”
“Of course.” His voice trembled. It was the please that broke his heart. That she should be trying to absorb this here, now, like this. That she was trying to be polite in the hopes of salvaging even a scrap of solitude, because she needed to ask that of him. He felt answering tears in his own eyes and blinked them back, and then, before he could stop himself, he went to her side and knelt to take the handcuffs off. He took them with him when he left, unable to meet her eyes.
26
She had to confront him. It was the only way.
Tera lay on her back in the brig and stared at the ceiling. She had known what she needed to do within moments of hearing Aleksandr—she refused to call him her father now—say those fatal words. Neither time, nor Talon’s sentiments, nor indeed any contortion of Tera’s own thoughts, removed the necessity. She needed to confront Aleksandr, and she needed to do it now, before her resolve failed.
Because he was right. In time, locked away on that ship, faced with the certainty that there was no one and nothing else in the world for her, she might have come to accept it. Forgive it. And she could not let herself forgive it; if she did, she was certain she would lose everything that made her her.
She’d been proud of her efforts to take the Warlord down, and the man she thought Aleksander was would have been proud of them, too. He would have been glad that she was becoming more than just an assassin. That she was trying to work for justice on a larger scale.
Aleksandr Soras, the real Aleksandr Soras, was never going to be happy about what she’d become.
She sat up and considered her options, coldly, as she had learned to do. There was a terminal not far away, in a tiny room that they must use as a study of sorts. There was a terminal closer, in one of the hallways, but she could not take the chance of someone seeing her. Even though they had removed the guard at the door, and Talon had taken her handcuffs, she was not stupid enough to think that they would let her wander about.
Getting out of the cell was astonishingly easy. They still had her lock picks, but she had managed to pick up any number of tiny things from her time aboard the ship and out in public. It did not take her long to cut off the circuit that told the door whether there was power, and then short it out. The fire fail-safes went on with a click and Tera paused to listen for footsteps before sliding the door open and making her way quietly down the hall.
Now that she had made a decision, it was astonishing how clearly everything led up to this. Why, otherwise, would she have hidden her implants from the crew? They of all people must know how the black market worked, and what upgrades humanity had learned to give itself. Their disgust would not have stopped them from using her as an ally, but if she was to evade them and get to Aleksandr herself, they must underestimate her. And why, more importantly, had she never told Aleksandr all of what she had done? He knew only some of her upgrades, the ones he had purchased for her, the ones Browman had put in.
Her place in the universe seemed very neat and tidy: a girl raised by a monster so that she might learn his weaknesses and kill him, a girl no one would miss when she was gone. She could appreciate the elegance, even if she was not certain she believed in fate.
She reacted to the sound of approaching footsteps before she even realized she heard it. One of the most difficult things about learning to assimilate the upgrades had been this: allowing herself to react and trust her instincts without knowing what she was doing or why. But she had learned, and by the time the two Dragons came around the corner, Tera was wedged between the pipes that ran along the top of the hallway.
These two, she knew only peripherally: a red-haired man they called Meph, which was short for some old-earth reference that made everyone laugh, and a tall man with the darkest skin she had ever seen and eyes of an astonishingly pale green. Esu, if she remembered his name correctly. They passed beneath her, deep in conversation about the merits of a book they had both read, and Tera tried to keep herself from doing any of the things she wanted to do: drop on them like the enemy she was and begin the battle here, now; greet them as the friends she traitorously wanted them to be; watch them as targets. They were peripheral. She was neither their enemy nor their friend.
When they were gone, she let herself down carefully and trotted down the hallway to the alcove, taking comfort in the silence of the ship. What time was it? She never knew anymore, and she clung to that bit of dislocation. That was manageable. The idea that the man who saved her from Osiris was a mass-murderer and despot was not manageable. Her life had been built on the love of a man she had not known at all.
And Talon was right. The thought made her actually double over, holding a gasp in. This was why Aleksandr had told her to remain on the Blad, why he had forbidden her from following Apollo. He knew she would find out the truth. He knew her love and her honor would be at war.
He had not trusted the outcome.
She straightened and closed her eyes, driving everything away in the way she used when she was sniping. She shed the faint pain from a bruise she’d picked up during yesterday’s firefight, let go of the kink in her neck she’d developed from sleeping on the floor, and felt a faint flush as she acknowledged the soreness between her legs. She pushed her perception of it away. Of all things, she must not think of that.
When she opened her eyes, her fingers danced over the keys, faster than anything human while her eyes caught the faint flickers of code at the edges of the screen. Her eyebrows shot up at the protocols she encountered and sidestepped; Tersi was just as good as Talon said. But the man had set things up to protect the Ariane’s weapons, her stored communications, her life support systems. He had not planned for the eventuality that someone would just want to send an untraceable message.
The encryption was easy enough to set; Tera could do it without looking, without thinking. She had developed the rotating system of codes and filters that Aleksandr still used; that if nothing else, would tell him that this message was from her.
But as she considered the message, she frowned. What to say?
I need your help, she typed finally. I thought I could take them down alone, but I can’t. You know Rift. I need your advice.
Her mouth twisted bitterly. That would appeal to him, hearing that she had overreached herself. It sounded oblivious to his fears, but she knew she must address them as well.
They trust me. They keep me in the brig but they believe I am on their side. Let him think that she resented their suspicion and her lack of comfort, as though it mattered at all. If Aleksandr were truly a warrior, he would know that she respected them all the more for their insistence on keeping her locked up. But he wasn’t a warrior—if ever he had been when he started in the Navy, that part of his life was long past. She knew he would not understand.
She must finish this now and get back to the brig. She needed a meeting place, a way to make a call that they would not be able to tap.
Arrange a call at SSW Station B4. I will find a way to get us there. She’d had one planned for weeks, ever since she saw Nyx’s weakness in combat. Tera’s own doctor resided on B4, a station so far out that it had never even been properly named, and where anything at all could be bought and sold. Nyx’s rib would be fixed, better than new, and Tera would have her call.
And she would get to Aleksandr first. Because while she had thought over how this might feel, trying to give her lies the ring of truth, and while she had thought she would never be able to confront Aleksandr, she knew now that she had been wrong.
Now, she was damned if she was going to let Talon get the first hit. Aleksandr was hers, her liability. She had helped him. She had loved him; you still do, her mind whispered, and she ignored it. This mission was he
rs and hers alone.
She sent the message with a jab of her finger and listened for footsteps, then got herself to the brig as quickly as she dared, unwilling to sacrifice silence for speed. She locked the door behind herself again, trying to smile at the irony. But she could not, and as she curled miserably into the corner, she knew what she was hoping for. That somehow, some way, Aleksandr would reveal that this was all just lies, and a terrible mistake.
27
Arrange a call at SSW Station B4. I will find a way to get us there.
Talon stared at the message and heard a distant roaring in his ears. It could not be true. It wasn’t true. But he saw the look on Nyx’s face and knew beyond a doubt that she would have checked half a dozen times to make sure before bringing it to his attention. He should turn away and stop reading, but his gaze was dragged back to the words that had hit him like a blow: They trust me. They keep me in the brig but they believe I am on their side.
He read the words over and over, letting them hit him afresh each time, hoping that somehow they would carry away the part of him that was this weak, and leave behind the man he used to be.
She had tricked him. All this time, she had tricked him. He spun and slammed his fist onto the metal bulkhead with an oath. He made a point of not unleashing this sort of violence in front of his crew; no Dragon team needed to fear their commander. But right now, there was only Nyx—Nyx, who had known him longest, and who already suspected, he knew, what had happened in that hallway a day and a half ago.
“She could be trying to lure him into a trap.” He heard the note of hope in her voice, and knew she would not have said it if there was no possibility.
“No.” Talon clenched his hands and read the words through one more time. He wished he hadn’t—it was a meaningless penance and it did not make him feel better—but done was done. He swallowed. “That’s not what she’s doing.”
“It could be,” Nyx said simply.
“No.” He took a seat, as much to force himself to be calm as anything. He ticked the points off on his hand. “Soras knows us. He knows we give people the benefit of the doubt. She never hid what she was, she told us how much she loved him and how much she owed him. We’ve seen her honor—we know that’s an honorable assassin’s move. She was warning us off. She told us what she was and she led us on a merry chase around Soras’s properties, gaining our trust. She was going to deliver us to him.”
“She said he forbade to take this mission.”
“It could be true.” Bitterness was going to choke him. “Any of it could be true. Anything and everything up to the damned part about who she’s backing. It’s him. It’s always been him. Every little hesitation, all the times she … goddammit, Nyx, do you know how many things she’s said that could mean literally anything?”
She watched him, clear-eyed, a faint twist of pain in her mouth. “You were right not to trust her when the rest of us wanted to.”
He heard the attempt to placate him, and wanted to rage at it. He did not—it was a valid reminder, when Nyx and Cade had both been as lost as he was. But that excused nothing. A smart man would have turned her over to the authorities the second he had the chance.
Nyx guessed the flow of his thoughts. “Your other options were to torture her, kill her, or leave her out there as an enemy—because you know she’d have gotten out of any prison they put her in.”
“Then I should have tortured her. I should have gotten the information we needed and put her out of her misery.”
“You’re not that kind of person,” Nyx told him simply. “You wouldn’t do that without being sure of who she was.”
He looked at her, almost murderous. She met his gaze, unflinching, and he swore again and looked away.
She did not ask him anything, only let him think. It was a blessing and a curse, his head tumbling over and over with the relentless feeling of foolishness. He had been played, from the very first moment. Tera had sacrificed another assassin’s life to gain his trust and he had fallen for it like a complete idiot.
Tonight was going to be a misery. He could see the hours stretching out before him, lying alone in the darkness in his rooms. The memories were already crowding close, the moments of her eyes meeting his, the feel of her skin against him, the way she both feared her pleasure and gave herself up to it. He could not stop seeing it. What had happened in that hallway, in the aftermath of the battle—
Was fake, he reminded himself brutally. She had encouraged his desire and she had been clever enough to run from it instead of seducing him in a way that would have sparked caution. That was the explanation for it. She was clever; she knew exactly what she was doing, and no matter how real it felt, how he could have sworn he saw the same tumble of fear and hope and desperate desire in her eyes…
No.
It was lies. All of it. Lies.
And then it came to him; cold and perfect. He gave a sigh and looked up at Nyx.
“Are you ready to face her?” she asked. Quietly, she added, “What are you going to say?”
He felt a smile touch his lips, and knew that it did not reach his eyes. “Oh, I’m not going to say anything.” He had wanted the hurt to be gone and it was, with a vengeance. All that was left was cold.
“What?” Nyx had been expecting rage, a fight. She would have been at his side for any of it. She had not expected this. It was going to unsettle the crew, Talon thought, and he realized that he did not care.
“We’re going to go with her to the station,” he told Nyx.
She waited, wary.
“We’re going to let her bring us to B4, we’re going to listen in on that call, and we’re going to learn the truth. All of it.”
“It’s not a big station, we can hardly follow her without attracting suspicion.”
“That’s her problem. She’s the one with something to hide, remember? I’ll follow her.”
“I’ll do it.” Her response was instantaneous. “This is one time that your temper won’t do you any favors.”
“I’m perfectly—”
“I’m not going to stand in the way of you taking a shot at Soras,” she interrupted him. “But for this—for her—you need someone else.”
His eyes flicked up to hers before he could stop himself, and what he saw there made him want to sink through the floor. Nyx did not just suspect what had happened, she knew. She understood the longing and heat and absolute betrayal in Talon’s gaze, and somehow the part that made him most ashamed was the acceptance there. She was not going to judge him, or spread his shame to the crew. She understood.
He wished he did. He wished her loyalty, and the loyalty of the crew, was enough. And he had the sinking fear that it would never be enough again, that he would always be yearning for what he had thought he found in Tera’s smile, and in her arms.
“Fair enough.” He swallowed. “I’ll go find out how she’s getting us to B4.”
“Right.” Nyx settled back in her chair. He felt her eyes on him as he walked down the hall.
His breath was even and deep. He was no longer Talon, the man he had allowed himself to become as a renegade Dragon. He was the Major, their commander, a soldier who, if truth be told, was a living legend. There was a reason Talon had risen so far and so fast, and it was not that he was a fool. He had faced persuasive enemies before, and beaten them at their own game.
He was going to speak to his enemy and charm her just the way she wanted to charm him, and he would emerge the victor. He was one step ahead of her now, as Talon Rift tended to be with his enemies.
He was going to win.
28
The room was spartan in a way that made Tera and Nyx look out of place simply from the sheer volume of weapons and armor they wore. The man behind the desk, however, looked them over without fear. Somewhere in his middle fifties, though he looked more like eighty, Dr. Feik had been operating in a lower-class district of SSW Station B4 for at least as long as Tera had known Aleksandr.
“Thirty-eight.
” The man did not move as he said the words. His gaze rested on Nyx, curious but dispassionate.
“That’s ridiculous,” Tera told him flatly. “Fourteen. You’re not working with implants, here.”
When she was still thirteen and justifiably wary of adults, knives, and windowless rooms, Aleksandr sat here with her and held her hand as the implants were put in with painkillers, but no anesthesia. An extra wad of cash had overridden Feik’s concerns, but the man muttered darkly about putting her to sleep if she so much as twitched. Tera held herself still with a fierce, terrified concentration, her eyes fixed on the knives and implants, while Aleksandr looked away rather than watch the surgery; he hated blood.
She had been twenty-one when she went back, driven by a desire she could not name, and she gave Feik everything she had in the world to make her more, better, different. She wasn’t sure if she was trying to get rid of something, or gain something, and Feik wasn’t inclined to ask questions. He clucked over the implants she brought—the ones even Browman refused to touch—and put them in anyway.
They were her first secret.
Now, Feik smiled like he might remember a good deal more secrets than people would wish.
“Who’s to say what I might find … in a Dragon?” He gave Nyx another glance, and Tera was powerfully reminded of the price on Talon’s head. “And even if I don’t, human tissue is always the tricky part, isn’t it? She’ll have fouled up the muscles around the rib.”
“I’m here, you know,” Nyx said curtly. “I can hear you.”
Tera looked over in surprise. Nyx had hardly said a word since they left the Ariane, Talon staying behind in equally grim silence. From the murmurs of the crew, Tera had gathered that Talon was staying out of sight precisely because of the price on his head, and he was not happy about it. But he had been reserved since before they set out, seeming all at once pleased by Tera’s offer of a doctor, and troubled.