by Natalie Grey
She was clearly going mad. Nyx had fallen in love before, or at least she was fairly sure she had. Certainly, she remembered the sweet rush of anticipation and the thrill in her blood when she saw someone she cared for. Somewhere in the past six years, however, all of that had gone by the wayside. She was never in one place predictably enough to see someone, and her various girlfriends over the years had been worried for her safety even when she was just in the Navy. What would they think about a Dragon’s life?
And the truth was, she hadn’t missed it all that much. Going out to bars, hoping desperately that someone would like what they saw enough to go home with her? She’d met enough people in whom she had no interest at all to realize the odds of stumbling across her perfect woman were slim to none. It just wasn’t a good use of her time.
Now, to her disquiet, she realized that she had been missing something—that every time she told herself it wasn’t worth the effort, that reassurance was made to quiet a pang of loneliness. She wanted someone to laugh with, someone who looked at her with tenderness in their eyes. Someone to share adventures with.
It was all Talon’s fault, she reflected. Or possibly Cade’s. Two of her comrades had fallen in love in the past few months—disgustingly, head over heels, all-consumingly in love. They’d mooned about, brooding and frowning and clearly in great pain … and more alive than she’d ever seen them.
Yes. She was going to blame them.
“Boss?” The voice in her earpiece recalled her.
“Mm?” She kept her voice low.
“They’re about at the right door, and they’re being tailed by those two bodyguards.”
“Damn.” Nyx tapped something on her wrist to open the channel. “Esu, Loki, you’re about to have company, stay hidden if you can. Everyone else, we’re still going for that cavern. Stay low.” She jerked her head at Jester and they made their way for the low wall that separated the walkway from the gardens.
She heard Mala’s voice, and then footsteps.
“It’s a perfect location.” The woman’s voice carried polite interest, the sentiment both bland and open-ended.
“I can’t believe the planet’s never been properly settled.” Their host sounded almost bored. “Teams can keep the launch pads cleared. But people seem to be incredibly superstitious about forests. There’s an entire settlement that was abandoned because people thought it was haunted. In this day and age, who believes that sort of thing?”
“People will believe almost anything,” Mala said with a laugh. “We get all sorts of directives to investigate things that are no more than garden-variety conspiracy theories. The only interesting thing about them is that they keep cropping up.”
“Truer words were never spoken. This way, my dear.”
Nyx, who had crawled along the wall, hunkered down in the shadows as they detoured across the garden. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the movement of the other Dragons cease.
“Now, I’m afraid I must ask you….” The man seemed genuinely regretful. “Are you sure your Dragons are quite tame?”
Thankfully, Mala had a quick wit. “Tame? Hardly.” There was only a flicker in the woman’s voice. “Leashed, however? Yes.”
He laughed, but there was still a certain reservation in his tone. “If they decide to turn on you … well, look what happened to Mr. Soras.”
“Dragons are more pragmatic than you might think.” Mala’s voice was unsure, but it strengthened.
“How do you mean?”
“I mean that they are in alignment with us for this endeavor. Soras’s mistake, as I understand it, was deliberately deceiving them. You have nothing to fear.” She trailed off, as if remembering that she did not actually know what she was about to see, and Nyx swallowed. She could only pray the chamber was not stuffed with, for instance, slaves.
Although, in that case, the man would hardly live long enough to know Mala had lied.
“Interesting. Well, then. A moment while I get the doors open.” Nyx heard the faint tap of fingertips on keys, and the doors opened.
As the man’s footsteps receded, she saw the two bodyguards take up position at the heavy doors. Launching herself out of the undergrowth with as much silence as speed, Nyx threw one fist into the jaw of the guard on the right, the rough metal patch on her first two knuckles grazing his skin and releasing a sedative into his blood. He collapsed and she levered him down quietly as Jester did the same for the other one. They propped the doors open, and Dragons materialized around them to bind the wrists of their opponents.
Quietly, carefully, the Dragons crept down into the heart of the cavern. She could hear their host talking quietly, his tone earnest, but everyone froze when Mala gasped aloud.
Fear shot through Nyx and her gun was in her hand before she had time to think.
“Yes, isn’t it magnificent?” Their host was smiling, she could tell from his voice.
“Saints Peter and Joseph,” Mala murmured. “You’ve … this has….” Nyx heard the incredulity in her voice. “How long have you been doing this?”
“A year and a half.” The man sounded exceedingly pleased. “I’m not certain whether or not they’ve noticed.”
“They have.” Mala’s voice was sure.
“What?” The man sounded almost frightened.
“Their expected values keep wavering, but they’re never on point any longer. It’s causing fluctuations in the market….” Mala’s voice trailed off. “How do you pick how much to take?”
“Whatever is easily accessible, nothing more.”
She had to know what was going on. Nyx crept closer, her gun raised, and peered into the room. When she saw the pile of pockmarked metal, she nearly swore aloud. This wasn’t some low-level smuggling operation, drugs or people or even food. Somehow, they’d managed to stumble directly onto a piece of what they’d been researching.
The room was full of Gerren’s Ore.
“With this,” the man was saying, “we can put pressure on the leader.”
“You know who it is?” Mala looked over sharply.
“You’ve been looking, too? I knew I was right to choose you. And no, I do not yet know. But I have my intermediary. The market fluctuations you speak of can only help us. All it takes is the suggestion that they’ve lost control of the operation … and we can demand whatever we wish. Either way, we have this.”
“Indeed we do.” Mala’s face was still dumbstruck as she gazed out at the room.
“You know, for a long time, I rather doubted the intel that you were involved at all.”
“Oh?”
“Well, when you dropped off the radar for—”
“What’s that?” Mala asked, cutting him off. Nyx swore under her breath. The man had been about to let something slip; now was not the time for Mala to get interesting in the mechanical workings of the storehouse.
But, at the very least, his distraction afforded her an opportunity. Stepping out of the shadows, she cocked the gun and stepped between Mala and her host.
“Hello,” Nyx said pleasantly. She smiled. “You’re going to tell me everything.”
15
Cade padded down the hallway and eased open the door to the bedroom. He had waited until Aryn fell asleep. Then he’d slipped away to the library to keep working. Talon and the rest were taking a break, perhaps swimming out in the moonlit ocean, perhaps sleeping, but Cade couldn’t let this go.
He, of all people, could not let this go. He had walked away from this life when he wasn’t sure he could be completely loyal, when he wasn’t sure Talon could rely on him. To know that people had willingly signed on with the Dragons when they didn’t even intend to be loyal in the first place….
He’d spent hours poring over the dossiers, and he was fairly sure he had a good idea of who might be the traitor on each team. It wasn’t anything obvious, and there wasn’t anything that connected the four individuals—or, if there was, he couldn’t see it.
It was just a hunch.
Now, having resisted the urge to go shake Talon awake and bring him back to the library to keep working, Cade was going to try to sleep, himself. He’d laid the dossiers out where any of the others could see them, and, as he had now identified his suspects, he felt calm enough to sleep.
The light clicked on and Aryn regarded him from the bed.
Oops.
But she surprised him. “So? Did you all figure out who they are?”
“Who … who are?” Bluff, Williams. Bluff hard.
She gave him a look worthy of Alina. “Who the rogue Dragons are. So you can take them out.”
“How do you—we’re not looking at that.”
“Sure. You and Talon are just sneaking away for … you know what, I’m not going to go there. Cade. We know.”
“‘We?’”
“Tera and I.”
“Ah.” Cade considered his options. The best defense, it was said, was a good offense. “Well, I don’t know what Tera thinks she overheard, but Talon and I are just discussing old Dragon stuff. Not looking into any rogue Dragons. Certainly not planning to take them out.”
She leaned forward to look at him, until her nose was nearly touching his, and he stared back, trying not to grin.
Then she said, with a smile like a cat that had the cream, “Well, that’s a shame. I thought we’d be working together on this. I already invited Tera onto the Io so you and I could help her with her share of the targets.”
“You what?” Cade scrambled off the bed and stared down at her.
“You heard me.” She stared up at him, biting her lip to keep from smiling. “I asked her to come be our live-in assassin. You’re not the only one who knows how to sneak around, Williams.”
She knew just the sort of thing to say to nettle him, but it was a game and they both knew it. Cade laughed as he crossed his arms and tried to mock-glare.
“I do not sneak.”
“You sneak everywhere. And you’re terrible at it, you know that? You’re 6’4”, you’re not hard to spot.”
“Listen, Beranek, I’ll have you know I can sneak very, very well.” He had crawled onto the bed until his face was right next to hers again.
“No, you can’t.” She was trying desperately not to laugh.
“Oh, really?” Cade pushed her onto her back and grinned down at her as she gave a little shriek. “If I were sneaking well, you’d never see me, so how would you know?”
She was laughing now.
“You wouldn’t,” Cade reminded her. “I could have been following you and Tera around, not you following us. Dirty trick using her, by the way.”
“I’m delegating. It’s good management.” She was still giggling.
“Uh-huh.” He dipped his head to kiss her. “So, tell me … when did you start trying to sneak around after us and listen at doors? Us, your two absolutely blameless boyfriends.”
“Blameless!” She thumped him on the chest. “This was supposed to be a romantic vacation.”
“Says the woman studying orbital mechanics.”
“You don’t find that romantic?” Her face was absolutely innocent. “Because all the magazine articles I read about turning men on said that reading physics books is, you know, the hottest thing you can do.”
Cade broke. He buried his face in the covers next to her shoulder and shook with laughter. She was stifling her giggles against his shoulder and when he rolled onto his back next to her, she looked over with an easy grin and reached out to take his hand.
He kissed it. “So, you invited Tera to stay?”
“Yeah.” She propped herself up on one elbow. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Of course not.”
“You’re sure? You weren’t all that pleased when Talon involved us in the last mission.”
Cade sighed. He looked up at the ceiling and considered. She was right, he hadn’t been pleased. Everything had happened so fast, from him clinging to his vow never to fight again, never to kill again … to being part of the assault on the Warlord’s palace. And when Talon had needed their help again so soon, Cade had been forced to face the fact that this was always going to be a part of his life.
The surprising thing was….
“I don’t mind,” he said. He was referring to more than Tera’s presence on the ship, and Aryn’s small nod told him she knew that. “I spent two years trying to prove to myself that I could stay out of it all.”
“And?” She looked at him curiously.
“And there’s more to life than that,” Cade told her. He shook his head slightly and took a deep breath. “I’d rather live with regrets, knowing I did all I could to stop evil—knowing I stood for something and protected what I love—than end my life with no stains on my conscience … but having done nothing.”
It felt good to say. In fact, it felt like there had been a crushing weight sitting on his chest and now it had been removed. When he looked over, there were tears in Aryn’s eyes.
“I love you,” she said quietly.
“I love you,” Cade echoed. He pulled her close for a kiss. “And I will never stop trying to protect you, but I’m not going to try to keep us out of all this anymore, either. If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind,” Aryn said instantly. “Talon’s good people. So’s Tera—and the rest of them, I’m guessing. The ones who are here.”
“Yeah. I’ll introduce you tomorrow.”
Aryn nodded. “They’re our people,” she said. “It’s what you do.” She smiled. “Anyway, I like Tera.” Cade looked at her quizzically, and she shrugged. “She makes me laugh, she makes me see the world differently. I look forward to talking to her, even if sometimes she says things that unsettle me. She makes me feel….”
“What?” He reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Like it’s okay just to be me,” Aryn said. “Not be a soldier, not be … whatever. She’s exactly who she is, if that makes sense—exactly who she wants to be, no pretenses, no lying. I like that. I want to be like that.”
Cade kissed her, and saw her hide a yawn.
“Mmm. Well, then, I’d be glad to have her. For what it’s worth, I feel the same. But also, and very importantly….”
“What?” She looked curious.
“Sleep.”
Aryn laughed and pulled the covers back for him, and she snuggled against his side to drift off as they listened to the waves breaking on the beach.
I’d rather live with regrets, knowing I did all I could to stop evil—knowing I stood for something and protected what I love—than end my life with no stains on my conscience, but having done nothing. He had never spoken truer words in his life, and Cade felt the tension of the past few weeks ease at last.
He drifted off to sleep with a smile on his face.
On the roof, Tera wrapped her arms around her knees and tried not to cry.
She hadn’t intended to listen in—or, at least, she hadn’t been outside with that intention. She’d climbed up to the roof to get the lay of the resort and spend some time alone in the night air.
When she heard Aryn’s shriek of laughter, she had paused to hear whatever joke Cade was telling. The way those two were with one another, so sweet, so gentle—it wasn’t for her, but it worked for them. Tera liked seeing it.
When she heard Aryn talking about her, she’d stayed. She wanted to make sure Cade was really okay with her being on the Io, after all.
And he was, so why was she crying now? She never cried over things like this, did she? She hadn’t been lying when she said she’d like living on the Io, so why did it feel so good it hurt, really hurt, that they wanted her there, too?
She’d never had friends before.
There was a sound behind her, deliberately made, and Talon came to sit with her. He rested his arms on his knees and stared out at the sea, carefully not looking at her until she had her equilibrium back enough to smile over at him.
“I brought blankets.” He nodded back behind him. “In case you want t
o sleep here. We could watch the sun rise.”
Tera smiled and reached over to squeeze his hand. “I’d like that.”
16
Mala’s footsteps rang on the metal grating that ran around the outside of the armory’s floor. This was her twelfth circuit of the room, and she was learning just how to place her feet on the edges of the grating squares to make very satisfying clanging noises. She alternated between squeezing her hands into fists and locking them behind her back.
“Maybe you’d like to hit the punching bag.” Tersi’s voice was soft, but it still startled her. He’d taken a seat on one of the crates, and had been a silent presence since then. In point of fact, she’d forgotten he was here; it was unsettling to realize just how quiet he could be.
Mala looked over at the punching bag. She knew how to punch, but not properly. All she’d ever been good at was running, and learning a fighting skill would have been one eccentricity too many on Seneca.
Seneca, where they already knew she wasn’t what she seemed; Mala was realizing now just how thin her deception had been.
Tersi was still staring at her. What had they been talking about? Punching bags.
“No, thank you.” Somewhere, she found the polite words.
The man only stared at her. He looked slightly out of his depth, as if he wasn’t quite sure how to comfort civilians, and Mala felt yet another wave of guilt. The crew had been so kind to her—especially this man with the light brown hair and the eyes that were so sad when he thought no one was paying attention to him. Mala, used to studying the minutiae of others’ movements so that she could copy them, had noticed that this man moved with a tinge of exhaustion, as if each move pained him, and that he liked to push himself past his limits. It was why she had decided to stop here on their tour of the ship, not even caring what the room was.