by Natalie Grey
Colin and James. Cade had assessed them with a soldier’s eye when he first joined Ellian’s household, and he had found them lacking. Now he realized that he welcomed their hatred with a sort of grim anticipation.
Let them try to take him out. The one on the left betrayed a slight hitch in his movements that would hinder him when he reached for his gun. The other swung his head in a way that betrayed lost peripheral vision on the right. They were both highly trained, and no doubt deadly—almost the best money could buy.
Only it turned out they would be going up against the very best money could buy.
For two years, Cade had managed to push away the voice that sang in his head, the siren call of the fight. His heart beat faster at every threat, his muscles twitched. Until now, he had kept his vow, stilled himself even when blows rained down on him. Three broken ribs, two broken arms, seven stab wounds, and he had never so much as raised his voice.
Until now, however, he’d had only his own life to lose by not fighting.
He took a chance at the door, reached out to touch Aryn’s arm. There was a caution in his eyes. Don’t do this. Let it be.
She only smiled, acceptance in her eyes.
In the room, she waited as Ellian’s guards affixed blockers on each of the walls. One eyebrow was slightly raised; she was almost amused at his daring, that he would be foolhardy enough to block the Warlord’s own listening devices.
She flinched, however, when he rounded on her.
“Are you insane?” he demanded of her.
“No,” Aryn said flatly.
“You could have ruined everything.”
“The weapons deals, you mean.” When he stopped, comically, Aryn crossed her arms. One eyebrow lifted in triumph.
“What are you talking about?” Ellian asked her.
“Oh, come now. Everyone in this room knows. James and Colin have always known, I would expect, and so does Mr. Williams. You’re the Warlord’s weapons dealer. Quartermaster.” She shaped Cade’s word with care, and he knew she meant him to mark it.
“Aryn….” Ellian started toward her, his hands out, a placating smile on his face.
“You kept it from me,” Aryn said simply. Her face was expressionless now.
“Then how do you know?” Ellian’s gaze turned to Cade. “Did Mr. Williams tell you, perhaps?”
“The bodyguard you hired?” Aryn asked. For once she lied with easy grace. “Ellian, it’s been two years. I put it together long ago.”
And from Ellian’s bewildered expression, Cade knew she had pulled it off. The man was beginning to wonder.
“You lied to me,” Aryn continued.
Cade shook his head, and knew she saw it, but it was not enough to stop her.
“I protected you,” Ellian corrected her. There was a hint of anger in his voice.
“Oh? You listened to me telling you of the bombings. You knew I was terrified for my family. So who were you protecting, Ellian? Was it me? Or was it you?” She flung the accusation at him.
Cade was moving even before he knew why. The fury in Ellian’s eyes was unmistakable, and Cade knew he must go with the ploy Aryn had set up. The bodyguard you hired. He blocked Ellian with his body, hands out to Aryn.
“Ms. Beranek, I think you should go.”
“Mr. Williams.” Ellian’s voice was cold as deepest winter. “Step out of the way.”
“But, sir, she—”
“I will not ask you again.” Ellian waited for him to move. “This is between me … and my wife.”
9
Cade’s eyes were fixed on hers, and for a moment the plea there was naked. Don’t do this.
She had to. What was she doing, if it wasn’t helping her people? And as she would never convince the Warlord to stop this madness, she would need to convince Ellian. In any case, that would do more good, wouldn’t it? No one else controlled a whole planet, but there must be others who bought Ellian’s weapons. If she could change his mind now…
Even if she couldn’t, she had to try. If she spent her days cowering against his disapproval, keeping her mouth shut for fear of a fight, she would never be able to live with herself. So she kept her arms crossed and he chin up as Cade left, and she waited for what Ellian might say.
“You do not understand how the world works,” he said, once the door was shut. His voice was ugly.
“Don’t I?”
“No. You do not. You grew up sheltered. You cannot possibly begin to grasp the forces that run in human society.” He stalked toward her. “You don’t understand.”
She had intended to keep her voice low, lead him to a resolution. But at this, she snapped. They had all lied, every single one of them. They thought she was incapable of understanding—even Cade.
“You don’t understand,” she spat back.
It stopped Ellian in his tracks, and she pressed her advantage.
“You grew up poor, you said. You left people behind, the same as me. You said they resented you. But you know what the difference was? They weren’t being bombed. They weren’t being shot in the streets. They didn’t have the options between being killed, or sold, or going down into the mines every day, unpaid, knowing their debt to the Warlord grew larger every time they had to buy food. The people you left behind didn’t have to live, day in and day out, with the knowledge that everyone else in the world had left them to their fate because it was just too inconvenient to start a war with the Warlord. Your family and friends didn’t have to know that they’d been written off, that no one was even going to try to save them.
“And now you tell me that I don’t understand how the world works. I understand just fine, thank you. I know that when you’re poor, and you’re being worked to death or bombed into oblivion, that the only person you can rely on is you, because no one else is going to come help. Everyone’s going to shake their heads and say how sad it is, and then they’re going to go home to their warm houses and their families that have food in their bellies, and they’re going to thank God that it isn’t them. Isn’t that the truth, Ellian? Because I’ve seen it every day since I left. No one’s coming to help Ymir.”
“And I got you out of there!” he hissed.
“Yes, while you lied to me about who you were and what you did. You lied. There’s no way around it, is there? You knew better than to tell me what you did for a living.”
“I saved your parents,” he said, and the threat was so obvious that Aryn had to clench her hands to keep from lashing out.
“Yes. You did, didn’t you? And you were kind to me.” Her voice was shaking now. She could see the path before her, and she almost thought her chest would break open, it hurt so much. She could not look at Cade. “And I’m grateful, Ellian, every day. You took me away without expecting anything from me, do you remember?”
Her voice was shaking, but she had to see this through. He was the only one who would help now. She would smile at the devil himself if that was what it took.
“I don’t understand,” she said softly. “I don’t. I can’t see how that man, the one who took all that time to show me how the showers worked, to hold my hand while we walked through the city, to hold me while I cried for home—how that man can bear to deal with the Warlord.” She held Ellian’s gaze desperately. “You’re better than that. You know what he does to people.”
“Aryn….” He swallowed hard, and she knew her words had touched something. He tried for a smile. “You know that if it weren’t me, it would be someone else.”
Disappointment struck, and she tried to keep it from her face. He wasn’t listening, and she had to plead with him again, and she felt part of her waste away when she said these words. How had it taken her two years to realize what the lies did to her?
She reminded herself that it did not matter. Nothing mattered but what Ellian could do for them all.
“Ellian…” She stepped close, trying to shut out Cade’s face. If she pretended, she could do this. She put her hand up to his cheek. “Don’t you see?”
&n
bsp; “What?” He trembled under her touch.
Victory, it turned out, felt remarkably like defeat. Aryn tried to smile.
“I love you.” Behind him, she saw Cade close his eyes briefly. She could not stop now. “I love you,” she repeated softly. “I started falling in love with you the moment you told me I didn’t have to. You’re a man of honor, Ellian, you always have been—and that’s why I love you so much. You just haven’t seen what’s been happening here, that’s all. And when you do…” She took a breath and made her play. “When you do, I’m sure you won’t be able to keep working with the Warlord.”
Their eyes locked together.
I’m sorry, Cade. I’m so sorry.
“Aryn.” Ellian reached up, covering the hand that cupped the side of his face. There was pain in his eyes…and something she hoped was love. “Now that you know what I am, do you see why I insisted you must have protection?”
“Yes.” She saw all too well.
“The Warlord does not take kindly to those who walk away from him.” Ellian’s face was grave. “He could ruin us. Aryn, he could hurt you to get back at me.”
“You’ll never let that happen,” she said, almost recklessly.
“We’ll have to take your parents and go,” he told her. “We won’t have any of the luxuries you love.”
“I don’t mind.” It would feel better that way, actually—not to be surrounded by what she now knew was blood money. And she didn’t have the first idea what to do with any of those luxuries, in any case.
It was so close to working…
“Aryn, I worry about what will happen if I do this.”
At last, something appeared in her mind: his own words, only a few days past.
“Didn’t you say you don’t like to work with him?” she asked. “With any of them. You said they treat you like you aren’t their equal, even though they couldn’t rule without you. Ellian, why settle for their scraps?”
It worked better than she could even have hoped. As she watched, Ellian looked away, his face going blank. His mind was racing, she could tell, his thoughts leaping ahead as they always did. She had learned that Ellian’s mind went faster than speech. His intelligence was what had guided him to the top.
“Yes, indeed,” he told her quietly. He looked triumphant. “Why settle for their scraps? My dear, you are cleverer than me by far.”
“What?” Something was going on here that she did not quite understand. She looked at him warily.
“You’re right,” he said simply. “All these years, this masked Warlord ruling a planet, doling out little scraps of money. All of them, doing the same. And me, bowing and scraping for each little piece of the profits.”
He sounded so bitter that she was truly frightened.
“And look how you rose,” she reminded him.
“At the cost of my pride,” he reminded her. “And one should never sacrifice that. It is more precious than anything.”
If only she could agree. She tried to keep from slapping him. There were more important things than pride—like, for instance, thousands of lives on Ymir. But if it suited him to believe this…if it drove him away from the Warlord…
“Precisely,” Aryn said. She swallowed back any other words that might bubble up. So will you do it? Will you tell him there is no deal between you?
She did not need to ask. He saw it in her eyes.
“I will do it,” he told her. “You were right, Aryn. You’re always right.”
She caught a glimpse of Cade’s face and was startled by it. The pain had been wiped away by distrust. He was staring at Ellian as if the words were a lie.
Aryn studied Ellian covertly. No. It was true. He did not have any of the mannerisms of evasion she had learned to see.
“Thank you, my love.” Part of her, very distantly, seemed to be sobbing. She ignored it.
“As long as I have a woman I can trust at my side,” Ellian said simply, “I need nothing else.” His eyes were cold, but his lips were curved in a smile.
The act had already begun and she could not change course now. Still, it was all Aryn could do to lift her chin and smile back.
10
James stood outside Ellian’s room, listening to the angry whispers inside—and Aryn’s voice, pleading. His lip curled. In his past year as Ellian’s body guard, James had seen that the man was a fool. He believed his money could buy him anything. He believed it could buy him the love of his wife, and he believed it could buy him the loyalty of his servants.
Well, if the rumors were true, Aryn’s head had been turned by her own body guard—and, as to the loyalty of the servants, there were people far more powerful than Ellian … like, for instance, the man who owned this palace. Those people could give James more than a salary, more than just a taste of the life Ellian lived.
When he first noticed that things were going wrong, James had sensed his opening. Ellian worked only for the Warlord. If things were going wrong but he wasn’t dead yet, it meant he was lying to his employer.
Which meant James had an opening. He had sent a message from the launchpad when he arrived with Ellian, and now he waited. The comm unit at his wrist buzzed, and he tilted it up surreptitiously so Colin wouldn’t be able to see.
I would be delighted to meet with you. Bring her.
James smiled, and his head turned slightly toward the sound of Aryn’s voice.
Ellian really should have known better than to trust anyone who lived in his house. Did he think he was being kind to give James a salary and a little room? Did he not realize, as he enjoyed his priceless food and drink, as he draped Aryn in jewels and silk, that his servants could never be content with the pittance he threw their way? A “generous” salary was nothing compared to Ellian’s wealth.
Short-sighted people thought of Ymir as a dangerous place, but smart people, people like James, knew that Ymir was a paradise. When he served the Warlord, he would have far more than Ellian could ever give him. He would have every luxury the world could offer.
The man was a fool. The Warlord gave a cold smile as he stared at the message. This man thought he was bargaining his way up in the world, and for what? A few nights with his employer’s wife, some jewels, bottles of wine? He thought the Warlord was so rich that his followers would get any extravagance they wished.
The Warlord was rich enough to do that … if he wanted.
But he didn’t want to. The last thing he wanted was a fool like James creeping around his palace, deciding he wanted more and more—because a man like James was never satisfied. He was too much of a fool to realize that what he wanted wasn’t Ellian’s life, with a beautiful, biddable woman on his arm.
He just wanted. He wanted anything and everything he didn’t have.
And so the Warlord was not so much of a fool as to leave the man alive once he’d served his purpose. James would turn on him as well, in time—and probably sooner rather than later, when he realized that all of his newfound wealth didn’t make him happy, after all. The Warlord had seen it happen enough times to know what was coming.
So he would give James everything he wanted … for a night. Maybe two.
And then a little poison in the wine, a little accident in the hallway.
…Or maybe he’d let Aryn stumble upon a weapon, and have her kill the man. The Warlord paused, much struck by the idea. He gave a cold smile. Yes, that would be quite poetic. Let James have everything he wanted, and then let it kill him.
Fool.
It took care of Ellian, at any rate, which left Talon Rift and Alina Kuznetsova to deal with. The three who had run when they got the orders—those could wait. They weren’t coming for him. They probably had not put two and two together.
But Rift and Kuznetsova were dangerous, and he wondered … he wondered if they knew.
The assassin you had, Ellian had said. The one who killed Hoa.
Not her.
His hands clenched. His pleasure over James’s defection was entirely gone.
> The memory of Hoa’s death should feel like victory. Tera had been so young, but so sure. She had proved her worth a dozen times over.
And instead of feeling proud of her, instead of feeling only satisfaction at the man’s death—after all, he did have to die, he was going to be a problem—Aleksandr Soras had looked at his daughter’s innocent face and felt a twist of guilt.
She was good at this. He’d known since he first saw her on Osiris that she was something special, and her teachers had left within a few years, saying they could teach her no more. She saw the world with the same simple logic he did: if it needed to happen, there was no use whining about the morality of it. He told her Hoa needed to die, that he needed the man’s place, and she understood.
Or so he thought. And then she had appeared, slipping into his study where he watched the news coverage of Hoa’s death, and she said to him,
“He had to die. He failed to protect the people. You’ll do better.”
He could have killed her. She trusted him. Put her under, tell her it was for a surgery, and kill her quietly, with no fuss, no pain. He wasn’t cruel, but he knew what he’d created, and he knew it was dangerous: a weapon of her caliber, and with some twisted sense of honor.
He already had Dragons, for God’s sake.
She was going to be a problem.
But he couldn’t do it. To his own horror, he couldn’t bear the thought of her being gone. He remembered how small she’d been when he walked with her to his ship on Osiris. He remembered how determined she had been to learn languages and math and physics and weapons.
She was his daughter. He couldn’t hurt her.
He even wanted, more than he could bear, to be the man she thought he was. He had never stopped wanting it, in fact. He had lied to her on every mission after that: why the target had to die, what they had done. He lied knowing that she might figure it out at any time, and each time she didn’t, each time she believed him without question, the guilt twisted harder in his stomach.
And now … now he was paying for not teaching her better how the world worked, or getting rid of her when he had the chance.