Zara

by Jade Kerrion

  The infirmary was connected to the main building by a long corridor intersected with locked doors. The warden said nothing as he escorted her through those doors. He paused and gestured to a reinforced glass panel set in a steel door. “There he is.”

  “Let me in.”

  He sighed. “Only those with psychic shields—”

  “I don’t need psychic shields. I’ve learned how to be around Danyael without them. Let me in.”

  The warden shook his head. “Fine, it’s on you. Don’t touch him. It’s all he needs to kill.”

  She knew that too.

  The warden held his security badge against the lock, and it clicked. Zara opened the door and walked into Danyael’s room.

  She felt nothing.

  It was the first hint that something was terribly wrong.

  She should have felt something. Danyael was an alpha empath. His unshielded emotions should have driven her to tears, squeezing hurt and pain out of places she could never have imagined possible. Instead, an emotional void greeted her.

  The room was silent except for the quiet and regular beeps of the machines monitoring Danyael’s erratic heartbeat and low blood pressure. She approached the bed and looked down at the unconscious man.

  She almost did not recognize him. Danyael had lost a great deal of weight in the six months since she had seen him. His pale blond hair, shaved to a thin layer of fuzz, accentuated the gauntness in sharp lines of his features. He had been good-looking once—how could Galahad’s physical template be anything less than beautiful?—but now, he looked emaciated, like a man detained too long in a prisoner-of-war camp.

  Her breath caught sharply. “What happened?” she heard herself ask the warden who had accompanied her into the room.

  “Heart attack.”

  “How?”

  The warden shrugged. “Probably had a series of strong shocks. His heart couldn’t take it.”

  “What do you mean ‘strong shocks’?”

  He pointed to the silver collar around Danyael’s neck. “When he’s in his cell, a current runs through the collar every sixty seconds. The strength varies. Don’t want him to get used to it and anticipate it.”

  Zara’s jaw dropped. “To what end?” How could that kind of deliberate cruelty have any purpose other than senseless torture?

  The warden frowned. “He’s an alpha empath. We have to keep him under control.”

  “Danyael breaks under kindness. All you had to do to keep him under control was say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’”

  He snorted. “You have no idea what he can do.”

  Oh yes, she did. She had seen firsthand Danyael’s ability to drive people to suicide with little more than a touch, although each time he had acted only in self-defense or to protect the ones he loved. He had done nothing to warrant life imprisonment, let alone this kind of torment.

  Oh, God. Danyael, what are they doing to you?

  Blood had dried in the deep cracks in his lips. Steel handcuffs bound his chafed wrists to the steel rails on either side of the bed. Deep purple bruises stained the skin on the inside of his elbows. “What’s this?” she asked.

  “Methaqualone injections. If he’s aware enough, he fights the needles going in.”

  “You’re sedating him?”

  “We have to. He’s dangerous.”

  It explained the emotional void. Danyael’s central nervous system had been depressed into a near comatose state. Did Alex know what was happening to Danyael? Did he care?

  She shuddered and closed her eyes as a familiar sensation brushed against her skin. Danyael. He was regaining consciousness. His empathic powers swelled like a tidal wave dredging the ocean depths, threatening the safety of the shoreline. Emotions too complex to tease apart, too vivid for words, clutched at her and threatened to drag her down into a place where she could no longer think, only feel.

  Dimly, she heard the warden shout for backup, his voice somehow muted relative to the tiny clink of metal that punctuated her awareness. Danyael’s hand strained against the handcuff as he reached for her. His eyes flashed open, large and dark against the pallor of his skin. His irises were dilated; his gaze so unfocused that she did not think he could actually see her.

  Tears trickled, unchecked, down her cheeks. She reached out. For a moment, her fingers brushed against his before the warden yanked her away from him.

  “Don’t touch him.” The man fumbled with a remote control and pressed a button.

  Danyael screamed. The guttural cry from his damaged vocal chords was no louder than a croak, but his body arched, convulsing from the electrical current surging through it.

  Someone else screamed. A stunned moment later, Zara realized it was her. Danyael’s anguish tore through her, his helplessness, his fury. The emotions swamping her—his emotions—pleaded for the mercy of death.

  If she had carried her handgun into the prison, she would have put a bullet in his head, but she could only watch—helpless, furious—as his body slumped on the bed, once again purged of consciousness.

  A medical technician plunged the contents of his syringe into Danyael’s veins. Within moments, the whirlpool of Danyael’s emotions dissipated beneath the chemical cocktail.

  The warden turned to her. “Are you all right? God, you’re lucky to be alive. He touched you. He could have killed you.”

  Danyael could have. But he would not.

  Alex had once told her, “Danyael will not consciously or willingly harm you. That’s why you’re the only one who can bring him in. No one else has any emotional claim on him.”

  She still possessed that hold on him. She had felt it when their hands touched. In spite of everything they had both done to wreck their relationship, he still loved her.

  Would he still care for her if he knew she was carrying Galahad’s child?

  She brushed aside the flustered concerns of the warden. She was fine. She could walk. She was leaving, and hell no, she would not be quiet about what she’d seen if someone asked. The warden looked furious but did nothing to detain her. Whoever had given her permission to see Danyael obviously outranked the warden in the grand scheme of life.

  She would have put her money on Xin.

  Her smartphone buzzed like an alarm clock on crack the moment she stepped outside the doors of ADX Florence. She rolled her eyes. The warden would be pleased to know that the prison’s wireless suppressor devices worked great.

  Zara scrolled through a half dozen missed calls. A Washington, D.C., phone number. No messages.

  That’s right. Keep moving. Do something, anything, to keep from thinking about—

  The swell of emotions she had been fighting to contain overwhelmed her. Tears blurred her eyes. Willpower and pride got her back to her car when her legs would have given out beneath her.

  She slid into the leather seat. Her phone rang but she tossed it aside. Stop crying, damn it. Stop, stop, stop.

  She had made her choice six months earlier. She did not love Danyael; she did not want him. He was an alpha empath, a goddamned emotional train wreck. He was reserved to the point of social incompetence. He was a coward, on the run from his past. All he did was watch from the sidelines, afraid of life, afraid of himself.

  None of her reasons for rejecting Danyael had changed.

  Other memories—different memories—of Danyael pricked her, but it was easier to ignore the evidence of his courage and compassion than to accept that they changed her perspective of him. It was safer to disregard the facts that could alter her response to him.

  He was in a super maximum-security prison for life. It did not matter what she felt for him. What difference did it make whether he died in twenty days or twenty years?

  Twenty years of torture. An electric shock every minute for twenty years. Zara swallowed through the lump in her throat. She could not even do the math in her head. Nothing Danyael had done warranted that kind of torture.

  What can I do?

  Rationality fought down the co
mpulsion to save Danyael.

  He is nothing to me.

  I made that choice six months ago. I stand by it.

  The phone rang again. Zara stared at it; time to get back to the real world. She had to force Danyael out of her mind. Tugging down on her sunglasses to conceal her red-rimmed eyes, she accepted the call. “What is it?”

  A cultured female voice responded. “Good afternoon, Miss Itani. Can you please hold for Admiral Falcón?”

  Zara gritted her teeth. It would be absurdly childish, she supposed, to hang up out of principle. Besides, those government types were obnoxiously persistent. They would keep calling until they finally got her to listen.

  A strong male voice came on the line. “Zara?”

  “Cristóbal.”

  He sighed.

  Zara snorted. “Were you expecting me to say ‘Admiral Falcón’ or ‘sir’?”

  “I know you better than that, Zara, but I was hoping for Uncle Cris.”

  Her mother’s brother probably deserved the title, but why make it easy for him? Scowling, she ignored the niggling certainty that her recent encounter with Danyael had soured her mood. “Why are you calling?”

  “SEAL Team Three is heading out to Beirut tomorrow.”

  “Nakob.”

  “Right. They’re going to bring back the girls kidnapped by Nakob, and they need to do it with no fuss. Things have been quiet in the Middle East for a while; we don’t want to stir up trouble. They could use a local guide.”

  “Local? I live in D.C.”

  “You visit Lebanon every year and speak fluent Arabic and Lebanese. I’m told you have a host of local contacts.”

  “Your FBI friends got chatty, huh?”

  “No, your father did. He was worried about you.”

  “What for?”

  “Because rationality doesn’t get to dictate who we love, or why. He knows what you’re capable of, but in the end, you’re still his baby girl, his only child. But I’m not here as your uncle or to talk about your father. I’m here on behalf of the U.S. Navy, offering your usual fee, plus promissory notes to get you out of trouble the next time you run afoul of the government. Are you in?”

  “Sure. Where and what time tomorrow?”

  “Langley Air Force Base. Eighteen hundred hours.”

  “I’ll be there.” She would not have to cancel her mid-morning appointment with her ob-gyn. “Do I have to bring anything besides my weapons and SPF 50 sunscreen?”

  “Manners wouldn’t hurt.”

  Zara laughed. “Oh, I’m always polite to trained killers, especially those with a government-sized budget funding their training.”

  “Zara—”

  “I promise not to recruit any of your SEALs for Three Fates, at least not until they’ve completed their time with the Navy.”

  “I guess that’s the best I can hope for. Good luck, Zara, and come back safe. Your father would never forgive me if he even knew we’re having this talk right now.”

  Probably not. She disconnected the call. Cristóbal Falcón’s timing was perfect. An escapade into Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley would take her mind off Danyael’s insolvable situation. Hunting Nakob would provide an even greater diversion.

  Nakob was an equal-opportunity terrorist cell active in Lebanon and Syria, frequently crossing borders to annoy Christians, Muslims, and atheists alike. Two weeks prior, they had kidnapped fifty female students from a private high school in Beirut and taken them somewhere.

  The “somewhere” was the problem. No one knew where, although Zara wondered how a terrorist splinter cell—at least twenty strong—and fifty girls could possibly remain unnoticed. The Lebanese government was criticized for its inability to find the missing students. Last she heard, the government was consulting with “international experts,” which apparently included the U.S. Armed Forces. No surprise. The U.S. ambassador’s daughter was among the girls taken.

  Her phone rang again, its tone customized. An image of Danyael—no, Galahad—flickered through her mind. She shoved it aside as she accepted the call. “Galahad.”

  “Zara.” His unaccented voice, a melodic tenor that usually had women sighing in delight, no longer triggered the delicious thrill of anticipation in her. “I went by your townhouse this morning, but you weren’t there. How was your trip to the west coast?”

  “Lucrative.”

  “Will you be back in D.C. tonight in time for the Great Gatsby Ball?”

  Damn it. She had forgotten about the annual summer gala hosted by the International Club of D.C., and that she had promised to attend it with Galahad. Her flight would get her back into D.C. with just enough time to make it a crazy scramble. “Can you pick me up at eight?”

  “Yes, of course. It’ll be amazing. Everyone will be watching us.”

  She could not even muster a smile in response.

  Galahad had spent the first twenty-five years of his life as a prisoner and test subject at Pioneer Laboratories. He was an exceptionally fast learner, but twenty-five years of social and emotional maturity was too much to expect from six months of freedom. He was a child—

  Something tickled low in her abdomen. Her hand rested against the fluttering sensation. Not nerves. She knew better.

  —and now a father.

  The only man she knew less emotionally equipped to be a father was Danyael.

  She would have hurled her phone through the windshield if the car hadn’t been rented. What was it about her that attracted such basket cases?

  Then again, she was something of a basket case herself. Like attracted like.

  “I’ll see you tonight,” she said. She hung up and ground her teeth. God damn it. Whatever I did in my past life to deserve this, I hope it was worth it.

  3

  Her doorbell buzzed at precisely 8 p.m. Before heading downstairs, Zara paused in front of her dressing room mirror. She had tucked the long, dark waves of her hair into a chignon, leaving a few tendrils free to frame her face and neck. The flowing satin skirt of her burgundy cocktail dress artfully concealed the Glock 26 strapped to her inner thigh.

  Zara turned to examine the slim profile of her body. No one would ever have suspected or believed that she was pregnant. She was painfully aware, however, that she was. Now that she knew what those flutters were. She felt them several times a day, usually when she was sitting or lying down. It appeared that the fetus objected to stillness.

  She drew in a deep breath. Her reflection returned the alluring smile. By the time she opened the door for Galahad, the baby was tucked away in the recesses of her mind—an inconvenience of little consequence.

  In spite of her undecided feelings for Galahad, it was easy to smile at him. After all, she appreciated beauty, and that he possessed in abundance. His pale blond hair, styled in the latest fashion, accentuated his sculptured features and underscored the unusual darkness of his eyes. His tuxedo emphasized his broad shoulders and muscled torso.

  His smile flashed. “Ready to stun the world?”

  Practice kept Zara’s smile fixed in place. When in truth, her fingers twitched with the need to hit him. Galahad owed his looks and physique to Danyael, but the attitude was entirely his own, and it was wearing thin on her. The chauffeured limousine Galahad escorted her into was Lucien Winter’s; Zara recognized it from the embossed “W” on the license plate. Apparently, Galahad had staked his claim on Danyael’s former best friend too.

  What hadn’t Danyael lost to Galahad?

  She refused to answer her own question; she knew she would not like the answer.

  “I’ve missed you,” Galahad said as the Rolls-Royce Phantom pulled away from the curb. He extracted a distinctive light-blue box from his jacket pocket. “Tiffany & Co.,” emblazoned in black letters, scrolled across the top of the case.

  Zara lifted the cover. A teardrop-shaped black opal, framed by diamonds, refracted red, green, and blue—dazzling gem-like hues glistened within its midnight heart.

  “It reminds me of the many facets of you,
” Galahad said as Zara lifted up the pendant by its platinum chain to examine it in the dim light.

  Zara turned to allow him to fasten the clasp around her neck. She ran her fingers along the pendant’s diamond edge; the opal lay cool against her skin. She was not a connoisseur of jewelry, but she knew Galahad’s gift was not just expensive; it was ridiculously expensive.

  “What inspired this gift?” she asked.

  “You did.” He smiled. “Will you be in town next week?”

  “No, I’m leaving tomorrow evening. I’m traveling out of the country.”

  “You’ll spend the night, then?” He raised her hand to his lips and brushed a kiss over her knuckles.

  Something caught in her throat. “We’ll see.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  Everything. Her internal debate lasted only a second. “I saw Danyael.”

  Galahad stiffened. “Why?”

  “Why?” Zara echoed. “Not ‘how is he?’”

  He did not respond.

  She stared at him. “You’re jealous of him.”

  “No, of course not.” Galahad’s response was too quick. “No reason to be. What does he have that I don’t?”

  The ability to move me. Her chest tightened at the response from her heart. The truth is such a bitch.

  Moments passed in silence until Galahad broke it. “How is he?”

  “Why ask? You don’t care.”

  “But you do. Why?”

  “What the hell do you mean why?”

  “What is he to you? You knew him for a week. We’ve been in a relationship for six months, but instead of coming back to me, you went to see him.”

  The venom in her voice coiled into a purr. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

  “No one can. You don’t listen. You ignore facts that are right in front of you.”

  “And what are those facts?”

  “That Danyael is an alpha empath and you cannot trust anything you feel when you’re with him. He can conjure love with a touch and inspire suicide with a touch. You’re crazy if you think your feelings for him are real.”

  Everything Galahad said about Danyael was true. Was she crazy? Did Danyael even know how to love?