by Natalie Grey
Also by Natalie Grey
Original Series
Bound Sorcery (Shadows of Magic, Book 1)
Blood Sorcery (Shadows of Magic, Book 2)
Bright Sorcery (Shadows of Magic, Book 3)
Set in the Kurtherian Gambit Universe
Bellatrix
Challenges
Risk Be Damned (Trials & Tribulations, Book 1)
Damned to Hell (Trials & Tribulations, Book 2)
Stay tuned for a Barnabas series, coming May 2018!
To be notified when it’s released, click HERE to join the mailing list (all book release info, no spam ever!)
Writing as Moira Katson
Shadowborn (Light & Shadow, Book 1)
Daughter of Ashes (Rise of Aiqasal, Book 1)
Meridian (set in Nick Webb’s Legacy Fleet Universe)
Mahalia
Prologue
Cade checked the cabin for danger and, at last, turned to Aryn with a decisive nod.
“All safe.” His smile died as he saw the look on her face. “What is it?”
She swallowed. She’d promised herself she would tell him the truth and now was the best time. Now, she should come clean. He wouldn’t stop her, would he? He might even know something about Talon. He could tell her what would be best to do when they arrived on Ymir.
She just didn’t want to tell him. She looked around herself, and then—realizing the possibility of listening devices—tapped her ear, a question in her eyes. He shook his head slightly.
“You may speak freely.” He was waiting for something, she realized.
She mentally prepared herself, standing straight, chin up, shoulders back. I’ve bought several crates of weapons and I’m going to give them to the resistance. I’ve bought several crates of weapons and I’m going to give them to the resistance. I’ve…
Instead, as she walked toward him, her hands reached out to take hold of his suit. As if in a dream, she felt his arms slide around her, and he lifted her easily. His body hard against hers, her skin on fire for his touch, Aryn leaned forward and pressed her lips against his.
1
She was in his arms, eyes drifting closed as she kissed him. He had imagined the touch of her mouth for weeks, and now it consumed him, her lips parting under his, her body pressed close. He could smell the soap she used, the scent that had become more intoxicating to him than any liquor.
And yet….
“We can’t do this,” Cade murmured against her mouth.
She shook her head, whether in protest or agreement he had no idea. When he set her down, however, she stood on tiptoe, one arm still around his neck to pull him down. The other palm burned against his chest like a brand. He wanted to sweep her into his arms again and deposit her on the bed, hear her shriek of laughter and feel her fingers fumble at the buttons of his shirt. He could feel, like a pleasant hallucination, how it would be to press her down onto the bed, her legs twining around his. She would reach up to hold his face while she kissed him. She would bite her lip when he pulled away to strip off his jacket—
How he broke away, he did not know. His breath was ragged.
“I—” He didn’t know how to finish the sentence. He needed to go, that was all. If he stayed….
He needed to leave.
And he might have pulled it off, too, if he hadn’t looked back at her as he strode to the door. She was standing as if in a dream, her fingers up to brush at her lips. He had never seen her look so peaceful—and he had never seen her look so sad, either. Her eyes flicked up to meet his, startlingly blue in this light, and she opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“I have to leave.” It was a plea. He hoped she understood.
“Wait.”
His hand shook on the doorknob. He was going to go insane if he didn’t leave now, but her voice froze him.
“I’m … I bought weapons.” The words came out very small. She looked at him as if he was supposed to know what that meant, and when his eyes roamed over her, searching for the distortion of knives or guns under her jacket, she shook her head impatiently. “For the resistance.”
The world seemed to disappear. He could feel his hand on the doorknob, but beyond that there was only a rushing in his ears. He could see nothing. He was not thinking. There was only horror.
“Cade?” Her voice jolted him back to awareness, and he looked over slowly.
She swallowed, but she stood her ground. Her hands were in fists now.
“What did you say?” Cade asked her, hoping against hope that he’d dreamed the past few seconds.
“That was where I used the money I got from pawning my necklaces,” Aryn said simply. “You were right. I don’t gamble.”
It was odd. Usually, solving puzzles pleased him—a mystery solved, part of the world revealed. And he’d solved truly awful puzzles before. Where were the slaves? Where were the drugs? Why was one man on the transport acting strangely? Solving puzzles meant facts, and facts meant he could act.
Except, of course, now. Now, he was filled with a blank sort of horror and a rising fury.
“Cade? Please. Please say something.”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” He gritted the words out from beneath clenched teeth. She couldn’t possibly have known that she was getting herself into, but good God, shouldn’t she have had at least the smallest inkling of it? Shouldn’t she have realized, if she thought for even a second, that she was getting in way over her head? That….
But of course she hadn’t thought. She’d acted on impulse, like the pampered little trophy wife she was. She was sheltered from the worst of the Warlord’s excesses, Ellian had said, and clearly it was true. Someone ought to have told her before now, because she was going to learn her lesson very quickly.
And she probably, he thought, wasn’t going to survive it. He felt entirely detached from the situation for a moment. What an unfortunate mistake on her part. She was going to die now.
Then the world snapped back into place. She hadn’t known. This was the anger talking, the anger that always seemed to beat in his blood now, coming in a rush he could neither predict nor resist—only escape from by shoving it away and going cold.
But he preferred that, both the anger and the detachment, because the alternative was the deep, yawning black and the deadening knowledge that he would spend the rest of his life like this, waiting and watching for danger, scanning the faces of the ones who passed him by in the street, even when every last one of them was oblivious, defenseless, no threat at all….
And all the while, the gap between him and the world grew larger, year by year.
Aryn was the one who had made him forget all of that. And now it turned out she was just like the rest of them.
“Cade.” Her hand touched his arm, and he jerked away out of reflex. He sank his face into one hand, rubbing at his forehead.
“Give me a second.”
She hadn’t known. How could she have? And even a day ago, he had felt a swell of pride at her bravery. She was taking meaningless luxury and turning it into help, wasn’t she? She hadn’t curled into a little ball when she found out Ellian’s true nature, or even slunk back to Ymir in disgrace. She had taken the resources at her disposal and she was going to do something meaningful with them. She had only overreached herself. That was all.
The anger came too quickly now. It always did.
“Aryn.” He spoke her name before he looked up, and felt her worry like a blow. “This was well-intentioned, but it will kill you. We need to turn this ship around and go back.”
“No.” The answer was reflexive. “No, we don’t. I won’t do it.”
“If you d
eliver these weapons to Ymir—”
“They’ll have a fighting chance!” Her voice rang out wildly. “Don’t you see?”
“I do see. And Aryn, I know more about this than….” He looked away. “You don’t understand what you’ve done. You want to help them?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Then go back.” He tried to decide whether or not to tell her, but the words came out before he could make up his mind. “The resistance is doomed,” he told her flatly. “There’s a chance that—well, never mind that.” Now was not the time to tell her about Talon’s involvement. It would only give her false hope. She, Aryn, needed not to be on Ymir right now. “If you do this … you’ll just be one more body.”
And I can’t live with that. Those words, of all of them, stuck in his throat. The only ones she might have understood, and he couldn’t seem to say them.
Her face had gone white, but she didn’t back down. She stared at him with pure fury in her eyes, and her chin lifted.
“Then I’ll be one more body.”
“Aryn!”
“No, you listen! I am not going to sit here for the rest of my life and know that I did nothing. I left them there and ran away with the Warlord’s—” She searched for the word.
“Quartermaster?” Cade supplied.
The look she shot him said she was far from happy for his intervention.
“Aryn, you did. And you said they let you. And do you know why?”
She narrowed her eyes, but curiosity got the better of her.
“Why?”
“Because they love you.” He had never met a single one of these people, and yet he had never known anything with such certainty. “You know what Ellian said to me that first day?” She flinched, but she needed to hear this. “He said he could no more have left you on Ymir than he could have snuffed out a star. Of all the things he told me, Aryn, that one I believe. And I believe that’s why your family let you go. That’s why they lied. You had a way out, and they knew there was no hope for them. No one could know you and not wish you that happiness.”
Her eyes filled with tears, but she did not come to him for comfort. She did not, he saw, want comfort. “They were wrong, then.” She wiped at her eyes. “It wasn’t a kindness to lie to me. It wasn’t their right. I should have known.”
“If you had known….”
“I’d have done something like this sooner,” she said flatly. “Or I suppose I might have stayed with the resistance.”
That shocked him into silence.
“Are you surprised?” she asked him bitterly. “Did the Dragon not figure it out?”
He watched silently, at a loss. There was venom here he could not name, and a flush building in her cheeks. Her hands were clenched.
“You may think it’s a lost cause,” she told him, her voice low and ugly. “And maybe it is. But in this war, you don’t pick your side because of who you think will win. You pick it because it’s right. And if they’re going to die, then I’m going to die with them. I will do anything in my power to make the Warlord pay.” She crossed her arms, satisfaction on her face. “And Talon is going to help me.”
It felt like he’d been doused with ice water.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“Talon is going to help me,” she repeated.
And ‘Talon’ was not a common name.
“Talon Rift?” he asked her, and she swallowed. Her nod was fractional. “Is he on the ship with us?”
Another nod.
Dear God, what had he stumbled into?
The click of the door behind him was perfectly timed.
But it would be, of course. Talon would have been listening. Cade was at Aryn’s side before she could react, half-throwing her across the bed to sprawl on the floor as his gun came up, Talon’s head in his sights.
2
“You son of a bitch.” Cade’s voice was filled with a rising fury. He had gone cold and still.
Talon, whoever he was, did not draw his weapon. His hands were up, his eyes locked on Cade.
Neither man was paying her the slightest attention. Wincing, Aryn pushed herself up off the ground. Her breath was coming short. She had to admit she admired the results of Cade’s quick action—she just wished, considering that Talon didn’t seem to be armed, that it hadn’t been quite so painful.
“Listen to me.” Talon’s voice was quiet, but commanding. Like Cade, he was broad-shouldered, holding himself with the grace of a large predator. Like Cade, he seemed to own any room he walked into, not in command, but in knowledge. He wasn’t looking at her, but Aryn was quite sure that he knew exactly where she was. She wouldn’t get a foot toward him before she was dead.
“I know you’re angry,” Talon told Cade. “Let me explain.”
“There’s nothing to explain,” Cade hissed back.
“He’s not armed,” Aryn protested. This was the mild-mannered contact who had gotten her the guns? Something didn’t add up. She had to know the truth.
“Oh, he’s armed,” Cade said flatly. “A Dragon is always armed.”
A Dragon? Aryn pushed herself to her feet, furious. She didn’t even think, just launched herself at Talon.
She was slammed sideways onto the bed, and Cade caught her before she sprawled, yanking her against his chest. She could feel his heartbeat racing against her cheek. He shielded her with his body, turned away, his gun still pointed. She would bet, she thought somewhat woozily, that it had never wavered, even as he held her back from Talon.
“You were always the best.” Talon’s voice sounded amused. “Put the gun down, Williams, I’m not here to hurt anyone. I’m on your side—both of you.”
“Like hell you are,” Cade said, his voice low.
She was glad Cade didn’t believe him. Her head still clearing, Aryn curled against the warmth of his chest. She had been angry about something….
Her eyes snapped open, and she craned around Cade to glare at Talon.
“I don’t want your help.” She was clenching her hands in Cade’s shirt to stay upright, which she had to admit wasn’t the most dignified way to yell at someone, but, well, this was what she had to work with. She looked at Talon grimly. “Not your help. Not yours.”
Both men looked at her, surprised.
“You … hired him,” Cade reminded her.
“Before I knew he was a Dragon.” Aryn pulled herself away with an effort, and a twinge of regret.
“You see?” Cade’s smile was bitter. “Even she knows better than to trust you. Aryn, stay behind me.”
“She knew very well what the odds were when she got involved.” For the first time, there was the hint of anger in Talon’s voice. “Let me speak, Williams, and for God’s sake, put the gun down. It’s ridiculous, and you know very well that if I meant any harm to you, I’d never have tried to take you on in a fight.”
Slowly, reluctantly, Cade’s arm dropped.
“You’re going to believe him?” Aryn demanded. “He can’t be trusted.”
“Aryn, Talon was my commanding officer.” Cade shook his head. He looked back warily at Talon for a moment. “I’m not sure what he’s doing here, but the fact is, if he wanted us dead … we’d be dead.”
“No, the fact is, unless we want the resistance wiped out, we need him dead!” She threw her arm out, pointing. “He’s not going to help us! I’ll do it if you won’t.”
“Ms. Beranek.” Talon’s voice was dry. “While I have only admiration for your many fine qualities, I must inform you that I do not take kindly to people trying to kill me.”
“And I,” Aryn shot back, “do not forgive the Warlord’s pets. Cade, give me the gun.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“He’s a Dragon!” Aryn scrabbled at his arms. Cade held the gun away from her—easily, damn him. “Everyone knows what they are!”
“What? What does that mean?”
“Cade. She’s right.”
Aryn and Cade turned
back at the same time, and Aryn felt her eyebrows rise. This, she hadn’t expected.
“Someone,” Cade said, his voice deathly soft, “had better start explaining things.”
“If you recall, that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to do since I came in the door. May I sit? Ms. Beranek, don’t shoot me, please.”
Aryn crossed her arms, watching as Talon pulled out the desk chair and sat. He was dressed simply, in the sort of undersuit dockworkers wore, black pants and shirt clinging to his muscular frame, but a hint of red glittered under one black cuff.
“Now,” Talon said quietly. “Williams, tell Ms. Beranek why the Dragons have never managed to overthrow the Warlord.”
The look Cade gave him said he was pretty sure this was a trap, but he complied.
“We tried,” he told Aryn shortly. “More than once. I wasn’t on those missions, but every Dragon knew about them. We were supposed to go in and clear the way for an infantry assault, but it never worked. We’d land, get a few targets in … and then the brass would tell us to pull out. They said Intelligence told them the mission was a no-go. But we tried, Aryn. We were the Dragons, we were never going to give up on getting Ymir back. And that’s why I told you what I did.” His voice strengthened. “If we couldn’t take out the Warlord … what chance do you think the resistance has?”
Her mouth fell open in disbelief. He couldn’t possibly think…
“I think you can see he’s not lying to you, Ms. Beranek.” Talon looked almost pitying. “And while I hate to do this, well … now it’s your turn. Tell Williams the truth. Tell him what every citizen on Ymir knew before the Dragons did.”
When she looked into his eyes, she saw the fury there, and something unlocked in her chest. Talon was telling the truth. And that meant….
She closed her eyes. Only half of her believed this could be real, but she didn’t want to be the one to tell Cade this.
“Aryn?” Cade whispered.
“Cade, I don’t…” She had to find the words. “I don’t know what they told you. I don’t know what happened. But I saw those missions. I saw the Dragons come, and I watched them kill people. But, Cade, those weren’t the Warlord’s people that they killed.”