by Natalie Grey
“Nyx…”
“Go find her.” Nyx’s face softened, and then she gave the same sharp, feral smile that Talon had. “Kill that bastard, and then come find us. We’re going to burn the whole thing down.”
31
The door closed behind her with a soft click and Aryn stood on the threshold, watching Ellian work. He took a few moments before he looked up, and whether it was to compose himself or let her sink into her fear, she did not know. She repeated the litany to herself over and over: he doesn’t know where I was. He doesn’t know that I know about Cade.
“Ellian?” she said finally. She made her voice as small as she could.
“Aryn.” At last he looked up, and there was no warmth in his face.
“Are you very angry with me?”
She had meant to spur him to anger, but doing so went against everything she had learned in the past two years. It was not acting when she flinched away from him as he crossed the room in four strides, one hand clamping around her arm, his eyes burning down into hers.
“Am I angry?” he asked, his voice deathly quiet. “Am I angry? Oh, yes, Aryn, I’m very angry.”
“He told me lies,” Aryn whispered. “I’m so sorry, Ellian. He told me terrible things about you and I believed them and I know I shouldn’t have. And then the Warlord took me and I thought I was never going to see you again and I told him—I told him you wouldn’t save me, that you shouldn’t.” She looked down, her lips moving silently. He doesn’t know. “I’m so sorry, Ellian, I should never have….”
“Agreed to leave with Mr. Williams?”
She could not waver now.
“It was wrong of me. You’ve been so kind.” She looked up at him. “And when he was telling me all those terrible things about you, I shouldn’t ever have believed it. And I know you can’t forgive me for that, but I had to come say I was sorry. I had to.”
“And what did you tell Mr. Williams about where you were going?” His voice was still hard with distrust.
“Ellian….” She looked up, as if uncomprehending. “He’s dead.”
“What?” She saw the leap of joy in his eyes. His fingers tightened on her arm and when she whimpered in pain, they released only fractionally. “When?”
“When the Warlord took me.” She’d decided on this as she paced, waiting for Colin to come retrieve her. It was best if Ellian thought she knew nothing. “They killed him, Ellian.”
For a moment, she thought Ellian would tell her the truth. Then a cold smile flitted across his face. It was replaced almost instantly by bitterness.
“So now that your lover is dead, you thought you would come back to me?”
“Ellian, I—” He didn’t know what had happened in the spaceship. Couldn’t.
“You agreed to run away with him. Minutiae don’t concern me.”
“I know.” Aryn looked down at her hands. “And I’ll go. Whatever you send me, whatever terms … I’ll take them. You needn’t worry I’ll fight you for anything. I just had to say I was sorry.”
What she really had to do was get to the gun on the table, and how was she going to do that? There was really only one option. She bent her head and let herself shake with tears, letting the words out twisted as if she were crying. She mumbled something.
“What did you say?”
“I made a mistake,” Aryn whispered, letting her shoulders shake with a pretended sob. “And I’m so sorry, Ellian, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t ever have believed him, you were just so distant and I thought … I let him make me think….”
Her head slammed back against the wall as Ellian’s fingers came up to her throat.
“I am an arms trafficker,” he said simply. “I’ve been supplying the Warlord for fifteen years. Everything Mr. Williams said was true, and he doesn’t know half of what I’ve done. And what do you think of that, Aryn?”
Spots were appearing in front of her eyes. Aryn gasped and choked, fighting every urge she had to go for his eyes, kick him in the groin. She couldn’t start a physical fight; she wouldn’t win it. She had to hold out until she could get the gun.
“Doesn’t—matter—” The words came out garbled. Had she miscalculated? Was he actually going to kill her now, like this?
“What?” His fingers loosened, and Aryn slumped to her knees as Ellian stepped back.
He wanted to possess you. Cade’s voice rang in her head and she spat bile onto the ground. She could not do this. She could not say the words.
She needed to. All that mattered was the gun. All that mattered was calling off the army. She took a moment before looking up.
“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered.
“Why not?” Ellian looked down at her coldly.
“I don’t … I don’t….”
“Why. Not?” He crouched down, his hand casually closed in a fist. “Answer me, Aryn.”
“I love you.” The words came out panicked. They weren’t convincing. But they didn’t have to be. She flinched from the blow when it came. “I love you,” she whispered again. There was blood in her mouth.
“No, you don’t.”
“I love you.”
“Don’t lie to me. Tell me the truth.” He yanked her head up.
“I can’t go back,” Aryn whispered. She let the horror of the mines fill her mind and there were tears in her eyes, desperate. “Don’t make me go back to the mines. I can’t go back. I don’t have anywhere to go.”
She had not wanted this to work. Deep down, she had wanted Cade to be wrong. She hoped Ellian would melt at this, and tell her what he had always told her: that it did not matter if she loved him or not. That he only hoped. She had wanted him to say that he did not mean to trap her, but to free her.
But when the smile spread, cold, across his face, she knew she had been wrong to hope.
“That’s right,” he told her. “You don’t have anywhere to go but back to the mines. And I’m afraid you’ll have to go, Aryn. I can’t trust you, you see. You proved that.”
“No! You can!” She crawled toward him, hating herself. She was crawling toward the gun, she told herself fiercely. But even acting this out was making her want to cry. “I swear you can. I’ll never betray you again.”
“Why did you betray me the first time?”
“Because I was stupid.” It wasn’t true, wasn’t true, wasn’t true. She was just telling him what he wanted to hear.
“And how do I know you won’t do it again?”
“Because you’ll be dead,” a new voice said.
Ellian whirled, and Aryn’s head jerked up. Cade sat in Ellian’s desk chair, a bloodstained knife in his hand. He held it up.
“You’ll be pleased to know that Colin was far more loyal than James. Still is, I’d imagine—he’s not dead, don’t worry.” He smiled coldly at Ellian.
“You’re not wanted here, Williams. Haven’t you heard? She told me she wants to come back.” Ellian smiled. “She knows she has nowhere else to go. She knows you can’t offer her what I can.”
“And what can you offer her?” Cade asked.
“Ymir.” Ellian smiled as Aryn’s head jerked up. “Oh, did you think I stayed for you, Aryn? No. You were just a distraction. A convenient way to throw the Warlord off the scent. You should thank me, though. After all, you must know that I’m the only reason the districts aren’t dead now.”
“You expect us to believe that?”
“Of course. He wouldn’t be the first to kill his workers and replace them with new ones. Of course, he’d be one of the first to do it on this scale. On purpose. He really has lost his mind, you know.” Ellian smiled. “But that won’t matter for much longer. I won’t allow such waste when I sit in his place. Although I might make an example of Williams, here.”
“Try it,” Cade said, with a smile that chilled Aryn to the bone.
“Mmm. I think you’ll find, if you look, that there are traps in place for just this sort of eventuality. I keyed them to you. I, unlike the Warlord, am not fool eno
ugh to believe my enemies are weak.”
“You…” Aryn tried to push herself up.
“Stay there.”
She sank back down, looking down to hide the hatred in her eyes.
“You see, Mr. Williams? She obeys. Glorious, is it not? You were a fool to love her. She would never have loved you back.”
It’s a lie, Aryn pleaded silently. Don’t believe him. She looked up to Ellian.
“You can’t defeat the Warlord,” she whispered. “We should go, while we have the chance. Go before he figures out I escaped.”
“He’s rather more concerned with the troops at his doorstep,” Ellian said, sounding satisfied. “Don’t worry. They’ll be at the palace soon. His road to the launch pad is cut off. He has nowhere to run. And then, my dear, your plan will come to fruition.”
“My plan?” She was just as lost as she sounded.
“You told me that I need not deal with those who treated me as he did, do you remember? And I realized you were quite correct, even if you did not know it. The Warlord is only one of dozens who treated me as a servant when his whole dominion was based on what I could do for him. He would never have survived if it hadn’t been for me, but he thought he could suffice by throwing me scraps. He was wrong. I will take his place instead of his paltry offerings.”
“Overthrow the Warlord, and people will only know it’s possible,” Cade told him bluntly. “You’ll be dead within a week.”
“Only if people know,” Ellian told him simply.
Aryn, watching Cade’s face, saw that he was as lost as she was. Ellian laughed, delightedly.
“Your sense of honor does you no favors, Mr. Williams. It drove you to defend her. It dropped you into my grasp and from there into the mines. And now you’ve come back. You had to know I would kill you if you did. All because you cannot see the greater picture. Ellian Pallas is not going to win today. He is going to die—bravely, fighting for the woman he loves.” Ellian swept his hand out to Aryn, a sneer on his face. “And the Warlord will crush him and his army, and the underworld will know that no one can stand in the Warlord’s way. And so when I take his place, they will give me the respect they never did before. I will rule here. Not as he did, pressing the people into rebellion. They will find I am suddenly kinder. The teeth will be drawn from this pathetic rebellion. And I will rule.
“And now, Mr. Williams, if you’ll excuse me. I’m very busy and don’t have the time to make sure you won’t try to kill me. So—”
“You won’t get away with it,” Aryn whispered. She had to keep him talking. She had to hope that Cade would see the gun, would understand.
“Not now, Aryn.”
“She’s right.” Cade smiled cruelly. “And even if you do, Pallas, it will all turn to ashes. You know it. You know you’re just as weak as I am.”
“I am nothing like you,” Ellian gritted out.
“Oh, but you are.” Cade sounded delighted. “Haven’t you realized yet? You do want her to love you. You say you want obedience. You told me you wanted Aryn to hate you. But someday, in a quiet moment, you’re going to look down at her while she’s in your arms and realize she’s thinking of me.”
“Shut up.” But Ellian was frozen, his eyes fixed on Cade.
Aryn eased forward, gesturing with one hand to tell Cade to keep going.
“She’ll bite her lip to keep from screaming my name,” Cade said softly, cruelly. “You’ll know that every time you go to bed with her—”
“I said shut up! You think you’ll win, Williams? You’ll be dead. And I’ll—“
The gun went off with a roar that half-deafened her, Ellian jerking sideways with the force of it, and Cade’s knife lodging in his throat as he went down. Cade dove as spikes exploded out of the wall behind him, shooting through the space he’d occupied only a moment before. He crawled to yank out Ellian’s earpiece, and grabbed Aryn’s hand to run for the door. They burst into the hallway as she turned, another shot jolting up through her arm.
“Aryn, we have to move.” He was holding the radio, yelling into it to tell Talon that Ellian was dead.
She could not stop. Her hand bounced as the gun went off again. Again. Again. She shot as the sounds of gunfire echoed nearby, shouts of soldiers and guards, and the high yells of resistance fighters. She shot as she heard Cade’s voice, cold and precise, saying into the earpiece that Ellian Pallas was dead, that the troops should fall back. She shot until there were no more rounds left. And then she dropped the gun onto the marble floor and Cade folded her in his arms, rocking her back and forth as she sobbed.
“I…”
“Shhh.” She felt his lips press against her hair. “It’s over. It’s over. We just have to get out of here, Aryn. Can you run with me?”
She couldn’t find words. She nodded jerkily and he kissed her again.
“I’ll keep you safe.”
She could see nothing but his gaze. She reached out for his hand, and they set off down the hallway together, distant gunfire echoing in their ears.
32
The hallway was a mess of screaming and gunfire. The marble and mirror-paneled walls of Versailles, it turned out, reflected an incredible amount of noise. Talon directed a burst at the Warlord’s troops, their backs set against the doors of his study, and when they hunkered down, he waved Aegis and Loki forward.
The poor bastards had no idea of what was going to hit them. Talon dimly picked out the sounds of them reloading and calling to one another….
And then the screaming started.
He waited three beats for every eye in the house to turn to the spectacle of Loki working his way through the soldiers, and then he and Sphinx burst from cover to back up the other two.
Amateurs. They had tried to keep themselves sharp, but keeping them locked here on Ymir meant that they hadn’t acquired the experience of fighting in wars. They looked toward the big disturbance … not toward what might be coming next.
Sphinx’s legs came up on the last stride and she punched them forward into one of the awestruck Kell mercenaries, leaping the barrier as she did so. He hit the wall so hard it shuddered, and he slid down it limply. She landed neatly, sank into a crouch … and waited.
Sphinx had always been exceptionally patient.
One of the others gave a scream and charged her. She stepped neatly to the side and let him plunge headlong into the crowd of other mercenaries, rifle coming up to take him out—and send the rest of them running for cover.
They were frightened, running scared, and Talon’s lip curled. He, too, hurdled the barrier, and grabbed one soldier by the shoulders of his armored vest, bashing his body against the wall once, twice, three times—
The man sagged heavily and Talon hauled him up and kicked him into the crowd in the other direction.
“Surrender is an option, you know!” They clearly didn’t want to be here. It baffled him that they were still fighting. “You clearly hate this dude.”
“For the Warlord!” came a scream.
“For the Warlord!” the rest echoed back.
“Well, it was worth a shot.” Talon drove his fist forward into another’s face so that their head snapped back. He drew his sidearm and took out one of the remaining few on this side, then another.
Only one left, and his earpiece crackled.
“Pallas is dead.” Cade didn’t even try to hide the satisfaction in his voice. “The troops will back off in a second.”
“Good.” Talon tilted his head at the last soldier, who was shaking all through. “You could just put down the weapon and leave, you know.”
“What?”
“Not you. You pick up a weapon and come join us.”
“I’ll be there in a few.”
Hearing the conversation, and very erroneously believing Talon to be distracted, the Kell soldier raised his gun toward Talon. Slowly. As if he weren’t quite sure he wanted to do this. Talon’s shot carried him over backwards, and Talon grimaced at the body.
“I gave
you a fucking option.”
“Boss, stop talking to dead people!” Nyx was laying down cover fire from her corner. “It’s just weird.”
“Did I ask for your opinion, commander?”
“No. But, being a good XO—sec—” there was a burst of gunfire and a scream “—I not only offered helpful advice, I took out the person trying to sneak up on you.”
“Well, thank you for that second one, at least.” Talon skidded into cover with Sphinx, who had cleared her section. “We’ll work on your definition of ‘helpful.’ And also your sense of when you should be sharing these things.”
“She’s right,” Aegis muttered.
“Commander Alvarez, have you started an insurrection among my crew?”
“Sorry.” She didn’t sound particularly sorry. “If I kill an awful lot of mercenaries, will you forgive me?”
“You know, I might.”
“One sec, then. Loki, duck!”
There was a pause, and then the boom of a grenade. Chips of plaster and wood rained down on them.
“Good, good.” Talon peered up over the barricade and switched on his comms. “Okay, I’d say we’re down to about half the original number. Loki, you circle to meet Jim. Aegis, you and Sphinx, with me. Ready?”
“Ready.” Team 9’s voices filtered back.
“All right, then. Move.”
He could hear the gunfire in the hall, and the crash and boom of explosives, and Aleksandr Soras swore as inventively as he could.
These weren’t Pallas’s mercenaries—they were Dragons.
And when had they landed? How had they gotten on planet, for God’s sake? No ships had gotten through his defense network—
Or had they? They must have. The only other ship to land here had been….
He stopped, and a yell of fury built in his chest. They had come on the Niccolo. With that resistance bitch. He should have killed her with his bare hands when he had the opportunity. He should have known she’d be trouble.