Dragon's Revenge (The Dragon Corps Book 4)

by Natalie Grey

  Their hands clasped, bloody, as they accepted the necessity. She met his eyes, and nodded at last.

  “I’ll do it if you want,” he said seriously.

  “No. I’m with you.” She looked around at the Dragons and stepped out of his arms; she had to, or she would lay her head against his chest and not be able to bring herself to leave. “Aleksandr is in his office. It’s the only thing left along this corridor. I assume you have soldiers coming up the other side of the ship as well?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. I can’t guarantee he won’t try to run.” She looked down at her hands. “Of course, I can scan for him.”

  “Someday,” Talon murmured, “you’ll have to tell me about all of your upgrades.”

  “Maybe.” She found the shadow of a smile somewhere. Talking about the future was all they had. Her hands clenched.

  There was the hectic tramp of feet behind them, and the Dragons moved into position. Tera drew her weapon, and Talon bent to retrieve his.

  “How many people do you need to take him out?” Nyx asked them, her eyes flicking between Tera and Talon.

  “Just one.” Tera felt the yawning fear and pushed it away. “I’ll bet that he’s alone now.” There was no way that a man as rigidly isolated as her father had taken unknown mercenaries into his chambers with him.

  “There might be Dragons. I’ll come with you.” Talon’s voice was uncompromising.

  She hesitated, but did not disagree. There was blood still trickling down over her forehead.

  “We’ll buy you as much time as we can,” Nyx said simply.

  “Thank you.” Tera met her eyes at last, and the woman smiled. Her nod said more than words ever could. Despite everything, she was glad that Tera had come back.

  Tera didn’t know what to say to that. “This way.” She led Talon away without another word.

  They walked quietly down the hallways, feet heavy on the metal grating. Once, Tera would have taken the time to make sure that there was no sound. Now, she knew there was little point. She knew a moment of fear that Aleksandr might have rigged the ship to explode when his study was breached….

  He had not been able to kill her. Certainty returned and she squared her shoulders. He was not going to destroy her now. Deep down, in his heart, what Aleksandr wanted most was for Tera to accept him. He would hold out to the end, far past when he should have run, for that chance. Her heart twisted at the fact that she was going to use that to destroy him.

  Her hand reached out to close around Talon’s, and he laced his fingers with hers, giving her a quick look that she could not bring herself to return. All her life she had lived outside the law, not existing, not abiding by the strictures that bound him; now she walked to the end at his side.

  Not the end. Not yet. She could hope.

  She just wished she knew what she was hoping for.

  Outside the door, she stopped Talon. Are you sure about this? her eyes asked him.

  He nodded.

  “When this is over, where will you go?”

  He looked away. “I hadn’t thought.”

  “You didn’t think you were going to survive.”

  “No,” he admitted. “I knew he had allies beyond me. I knew they would deny me. But now….”

  “Now?” she prompted him. Her implants caught the sound of Aleksandr shifting restlessly behind his desk. He could hear the murmur of their voices, she knew.

  “When I learned the truth, I gave everything else up,” Talon told her, his voice drawing her eyes back to him. “Vengeance is a fire. I fed everything into it. I don’t know what’s going to be left. I just know…” His fingers reached out to trace her cheek. “I know I want to be where you are. Whether we run, or go back to stand trial for this, I want to be where you are.”

  They were going to hang for this. The knowledge hit her, low and gaping in her chest. Not everyone can be saved, Aleksandr told her, again and again. I kill those who deserve it, she told Talon. She had simply never expected to pay like this.

  39

  Aleksandr was waiting for them. He looked up as they came in the door and Talon saw the betrayal plain on his face. His eyes took in the bandages on Tera’s wrist, the blood from her forehead that had rubbed off on Talon’s. He had known, Talon realized. Somehow, in the whispered conversation Nyx overheard, in the words he and Talon had shared, or perhaps just in the prescience of a man who had known better than to pit the two against one another….

  Aleksandr had known this would happen

  His eyes went between them and there was fury there.

  “Yes,” Tera said simply, in answer to the question he had not asked.

  “Why him?” The man’s voice trembled with anger. “The white knight? The hero in black and red? I threw people into your path, people that should have captured your heart. That was what Apollo was supposed to be. And you chose Talon Rift.” He sounded as if he were going to be sick.

  Tera did not bother to respond. She locked the door behind them and Talon saw her enter a code, her fingers a blur. He remembered her telling him that the Warlord’s security codes required precise timing; he should have seen that as a clue to what she really was. When she turned, however, her face was as human as he had ever seen it. Even the eyes that were usually so unreadable were squinted in pain, as if she stared into the sun.

  “You could have gone in,” she told him. “You could have faced justice. It never had to come to this.”

  “This, meaning that you’re going to kill me?”

  She did not answer him.

  “And what, exactly, do you mean by justice?” His voice was thick. “Do you think the fools on Gemini even understand the word? They are corrupt, Tera. You have always known it. You knew there were more you might have killed that no one would miss. You saw the money from arms, from drugs, from slave trading. You watched them beggar whole planets, and now you want me to go back and face justice at their hands?”

  “’True justice is beyond humans,’” Tera said, her voice taking on the cadence of a quote. “’It may be wielded by imperfect instruments.’ Do you remember telling me that? I remember it. You were telling me about mistakes you had made, and when you later thought to tell me how you understood the world, I asked why you should get to judge people. That was what you told me. And then you sent me on my first mission.”

  Aleksandr said nothing. He swallowed.

  “I was fourteen,” Tera said quietly. “I killed the man you would replace in Alliance Intelligence.”

  “Now you’ll say I coerced you,” he guessed.

  “I will say that I had nowhere else to go. That you trained me for warfare when I was too young to think that there might be something else. You took me away from Osiris, but you never wanted to teach me that there was more to the world.”

  “There isn’t.” His voice was flat. “There are forests and there are oceans, and there are gorgeous cities, and none of it is any different from Osiris. If that is what I taught you, then I did well, Tera. Because the prettiest places, the ones with the most statues to Lady Justice and the pretty schools and the clean streets—those places have nothing that is any less brutal than Osiris. Everyone is always out for their own gain. I am proud to have taught you that.”

  “There was so much more,” Tera said quietly. “So much more you could have showed me. Was it why you gave me your love, only to turn around now and imprison me for speaking against you? To show me that I could trust no one?”

  “You trust the man beside you.” Aleksandr’s eyes met Talon’s. “He has killed more men with his bare hands than—”

  “You can hardly expect an assassin to take that as a flaw in his character,” Tera observed.

  Talon felt a rush of warmth. Doubt had crept into his heart, cold. Was this how Cade felt when he spoke of the Corps? Was this the feeling that tormented him, that the scales were weighted too heavily ever to be tipped back?

  They heard the shooting begin outside and Talon’s head t
urned. He could hear Nyx calling orders, and the Dragons responding. Bursts of gunfire alternated with screams and the rush of feet.

  They did not have much time.

  “What was your plan?” Talon asked, looking back to find the others watching him. His eyes fixed on the Warlord’s face. “Did you really think you could get away with it once the intelligence had been released?”

  “They would have acquitted me.” His eyes were dark, glittering. “I wouldn’t have been able to retake Ymir—you ruined that—but I would have had the rest of it. There would be some who doubted, but the rest would convince themselves that the lies they spoke were the truth.”

  “Someone would have come for you in the end. If you had ever let us get back to the rest of the Corps, every Dragon who stayed loyal to the Alliance would have come for you. If not them, it would have been the families of those lost on Ymir.” Talon knew one of them well. He saw Aryn’s determined face in his mind, and Cade at her side. “Do you even know how many lives you destroyed? Or do you lie to yourself, too?”

  “There are those with the will to see beyond the rules of this society.” Aleksandr’s voice was ugly. “You are no different from me in any way except the limitations you place on yourself. You would have grasped for Ymir in a moment if you thought no one would come for you.”

  “Do you honestly believe that?” Talon’s fingers found the trigger on his weapon.

  Aleksandr’s face went pale and his eyes darted to Tera.

  “Ah.” The word was a breath. There was satisfaction in her voice that she had unraveled the puzzle—and sadness at what she had found when she did. “That was it. You hoped I would fight them all off for you. That I would go and hunt them down, perhaps … like I tried to do.”

  “If you had only let me explain to you—”

  “No.” She cut her father off with a swipe of her hand. “You had weeks here, aboard the Blad. You knew at once that I wouldn’t accept it. You didn’t have it in you to kill me, and I can only be grateful for that, but you knew it would come to this someday. You don’t get to claim my loyalty for this. I never owed it to you to save you from the consequences of your own actions.”

  He should raise the gun and shoot Aleksandr through the head. The thought occurred to Talon belatedly. It was what he should have done any number of times while they stood here. Aleksandr was distracted, and he was not the warrior that Talon was. If Talon moved first, it would all be over.

  He was waiting, he realized, to see what Tera would do. Sometime between the first time he’d talked to her in the brig, and this moment, his sense of justice had begun to shift. He had given up on the vengeance he sought. He continued down this path out of blind habit, but his heart was no longer here. He was not willing to kill Aleksandr at any cost—and when Tera looked over at him, seeing the gun in his hands and the hesitation in his muscles, he knew she had made the same decision.

  Their eyes caught the hint of movement at the same time, but Tera was faster. Her shoulder slammed into Talon’s solar plexus and bowled him over as a shot rang through the room. He heard her cry as the bullet hit her, but even as he grabbed for her, she was gone. He was just hitting the floor when he saw her leap the desk to take Aleksandr down. The gun went off once more, and then…

  Silence.

  “Tera?” He pushed himself up. “Tera!”

  She crouched behind the desk, Aleksandr’s gun in her hands. Blood ran from a split lip and his hands were up, his eyes locked on hers. Talon saw the wound in her side and prayed that nothing vital had been hit.

  “I can’t go back,” he told her. “They’ll kill me. They’ll string me up like an exhibition and then they’ll kill me. If you want me dead, do it now, for mercy’s sake.”

  The moment stretched. Then:

  “No.” She shook her head. “It’s not my job to stop that now. You deserve to have an exhibition made of you. You deserve to have your legacy tarnished. I won’t have the fact that you died in some unnamed ship in the middle of nowhere take justice from the people. The Alliance was never able to reach you while you were the Warlord. Well, now they have. And I’m going to go back there and give you to them … and tell them everything.”

  “You came here to kill me,” he said.

  She smiled then. “I’m not going to hang for you, and I’m not going to spend my life outrunning them for killing you, either. You’re going back.” She hauled him up and Talon clasped handcuffs over his wrists.

  “Are you sure about this?” he asked her. “They might still acquit him.”

  Her smile was not entirely pleasant. “I don’t think they will.”

  They both heard the silence at the same time. At some point, the gunfire had stopped. Now cautious footsteps approached.

  “Boss?” Nyx’s voice. “You all right in there?”

  “We’re all right,” Talon called back. “We’ve got him. Let’s go back to Gemini and deliver the fugitive, shall we?”

  Epilogue

  “Are you sure about this?” Tera asked. She stared at the pictures unfolding on the screen and pondered the array of beaches and cozy, secluded islands. “It’s an awful lot of money to spend—”

  “It’s romantic,” Talon said wryly. He pushed a plate of food at her across the table. “And secluded. And restful.” When she looked up at him, he grinned. “And you need rest,” he finished.

  Tera considered this as she dug into her food. Her only experience with rest was the infuriating few weeks aboard the Blad before all of this began. She wasn’t sure she was going to enjoy rest all that much. Then she considered that she would be spending this rest with Talon, and decided she was intrigued. His low laugh told her that he noticed the flush in her cheeks, and she felt the blush grow stronger.

  Footsteps, however, interrupted them. A moment later, Aryn emerged into the tiny kitchen with a smile on her face. Cade trailed after her, ducking under the low doorways of the ship. He nodded to Tera.

  “We’ll be there in a little over a day,” Aryn told them as she ladled some soup into her own bowl. She came to sit with them at the table. “It would be less, but the jump core isn’t doing so well. I’d rather not use it and end up splattered on a moon somewhere.” She took a mouthful of soup and stared off into space as if the possibility was more academically intriguing than horrifying. Then her eyes flicked to Tera. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I could sleep for a month,” Tera said promptly. With a good meal in her stomach, she was now beginning to feel very sleepy indeed.

  “It will be good to get away from Gemini, I expect.” Cade joined them at last. “I sense the media circus is just beginning.”

  Tera groaned softly and sank her face into her hands. The depositions had been carried out hastily, resolving beyond a shadow of a doubt that Aleksandr was guilty. Admirals who had backtracked on assertions of guilt, backtracked again. Politicians who had called for restraint issued somewhat disturbing calls for violence, and posts appeared on public boards with vivid descriptions of the crimes committed on Ymir. Tera, no matter that she was an unknown, had been found and called by at least a dozen reporters in the two hours it took to get out of the capitol city.

  “Er, not to trouble you with more of it…” Aryn’s voice trailed off. “But we received a message from a woman named Lesedi.”

  “Oh?” Tera perked up. “How is she?”

  “You know Lesedi?” Talon asked, one brow raised.

  “She’s the one who helped me get to Aleksandr after I escaped the Ariane.” Tera smiled at him.

  “She helped you?”

  “She…” Tera flushed. “I might have confessed how I felt about you, and she seemed to approve of my plan not to let you die.”

  His eyes met hers, very warm, and he stood up to come around the table and kiss her until Cade cleared his throat meaningfully.

  “Right.” Tera tried to remember what they had been talking about. “What did Lesedi say?”

  “She just said to tell you, ‘it was
legal.’” Aryn shrugged. “I’m afraid I don’t know any more than that.”

  Tera began to laugh. She laughed until tears came out of her eyes and she wasn’t sure if they were humor or sadness or something in between.

  “Tera?” Talon crouched beside her. “What is it?”

  “It was legal,” Tera repeated. She wiped her eyes. “It was legal. I was really his child. He adopted me.”

  His brows went up. “I wouldn’t have expected that.”

  “Neither would I.” She looked away. “It means that his holdings…” There was a collective gasp around the table, and Tera sank her head into her hands. “I own all of them now. I don’t know what to do with that.”

  “It seems like the sort of thing to decide after a vacation,” Talon said firmly. “Although I’m guessing we don’t really need to worry about the cost of the resort now.”

  She gave a hiccup of laughter. “No, we don’t..” She nodded wearily. “Just, you know … what to do with the rest of my life.”

  Talon’s expression said clearly that he’d hoped she wouldn’t come up with that question for a while longer. Across the table, Cade opened his mouth, and then closed it.

  “What?” Tera asked.

  “Nothing.”

  Tera raised an eyebrow, and the man shrugged.

  “Have you considered becoming a Dragon?”

  Talon choked on his soup.

  Tera blinked. “I have too many upgrades.”

  “I’m quite sure they’d make an exception.” His smile was wry. “Something to think about. I think you’d be…well-suited.”

  Tera looked away, her mind racing. It was an intriguing possibility, very intriguing, indeed….

  She yawned.

  “Time to get you to bed.” Talon carried their bowls into the kitchen and threw Cade a look that promised retribution for the suggestion. “Come on. Sleep.”

  “That does sound good.” Tera murmured a goodnight to Aryn and Cade, and let herself be drawn from the room. She yawned again as they made their way down the hallway.