by Riley LaShea
“So, the part of your soul that was… purged?” It felt such an ill-fitted word, implying it was something Haydn should have wanted gone.
“If it was eliminated from the world entirely, it would upset the balance,” Haydn said. “So, instead, it clung to another soul. Reincarnated again and again through time, what I lost now resides in you.”
Of course, it did, Delaney had no choice but to accept. What lesser link could bind them on such a fundamental level that it ruled over both life and death?
“So…” She had no idea how she felt, let alone how she was supposed to feel. “The decent parts of me, they come from you.”
“Not exactly,” Haydn said. “As I understand it, your soul is your own, and complete. That which came from me is more of a rider. Without it, I am ruled by my baser instincts. With it, you are ruled by greater morality.”
Laugh stuttering from her lips, though she could find little funny about any of it, Delaney’s restless fingers, anxious to return to Haydn’s skin, were the most immediate contradiction of the theory.
“That’s your hypothesis, I assume.”
“It’s a fact,” Haydn replied, and, laugh tapering to a huff, Delaney turned her head, seeing the same black void that surrounded her on all sides, and marveling at Haydn’s arrogance in thinking she knew anything about who Delaney was or what she felt.
“You aren’t just a little more inclined to doing the right thing?” Haydn pressed.
“I don’t always do the right thing.”
She couldn’t even do the right thing two minutes before when she made the conscious decision to ignore everything she knew so she could experience touching Haydn, with absolutely no certainty as to how far she would let her hand roam given prompting or permission.
“You don’t go out of your way?” Haydn prodded. “You’ve never done anything others might consider above and beyond typical human behavior? Extraordinary?”
“No.” Hand going to her side, Delaney couldn’t scratch away the psychosomatic itch of other people’s opinions. Just because praise was given didn’t mean it was deserved.
“Now,” Haydn said, “I don’t believe you.”
He woke to a gurgle, a revolting sound, like someone gasping for air from the underbelly of a swamp. It took Garcia some time to recognize the sound came from him.
Steady beep drumming against his brain making it difficult to form thought, a sticky trail formed between his lips as he worked them apart, and his eyes took even more effort to open.
Room, bathed in dull brown, at last blinking into view, he could feel the wires winding, like serpents, around his arms, and, for a second, Garcia panicked, unable to tell if the needles shoved into his veins were for there for maintenance or incapacitation.
“So, you did wake up.” Recognizing the voice, Garcia wasn’t sure if it was friend or foe, but his inclination to flee still petered back into fatigue. Feeling Fiona approach from the dark periphery, he was too tired to turn his head to look at her. “They didn’t know if you would.”
“You shouldn’t have brought me here,” he said.
“Yeah, you’re welcome,” Fiona returned, and, though he would never admit it, Garcia was amazed to still find her there. And somewhat grateful. If he had woken alone, he imagined it would have taken considerably longer to determine whether he was patient or prisoner.
“What did you tell them?”
“Relax,” Fiona said. “They think I’m your sister and you were in a fight.”
“With who?” Garcia questioned.
“With me.” He could hear the pleased lilt to her voice. “They had no trouble believing I kicked the shite out of you.”
Accepting that, given the circumstances, it was the best thing the hospital staff could be told to think, Garcia didn’t complain. Pillow feeling unsupportive beneath his head, he tried to lift his arms instead, finding himself an experiment in robotics with wires attached from shoulders to fingertips.
“Here. Let me do it.” Fiona sounded more irritated than concerned, but, with no other offers of help, Garcia gave into her assistance.
“How long have I been here?” he asked once she made him almost comfortable in the firm bed. Those last few moments in the outside world embedded like a needling chorus in his brain, he was too aware of how it ended, what he failed to do, of the work that still needed done.
“Like thirty-six hours,” Fiona answered.
“Did you call Rasputin?” Garcia asked.
“Garcia,” Fiona uttered. “You almost died.”
“For a reason.” Garcia groaned at the unexpected bolt of pain as he tried to shift to a position that felt less vulnerable. “Call him,” he gasped, ending up back where he started.
“For what?” Fiona asked.
“Tell him what happened,” Garcia said. “See if he knows what to do.”
“You just had major surgery,” Fiona returned. “What you need to do is rest.”
“I’ll rest when it’s done,” Garcia declared. “Call him.” Demand hanging between them for a moment in which Fiona made no move to do anything, Garcia, at last, acknowledged he was in no position to be making demands. “Please,” he added, and the trace of humility evidently all she was waiting for, Fiona pulled her phone from her pocket. Discovering it without signal, she moved to the phone on the bedside table with a sigh, looking to Garcia to recite the number once more, and he was relieved to find, waylaid as he had been by the deraphs’ visit, he still had a memory for details.
At the tinkling ring of the phone on his desk, Cain was slow to answer. Tone dedicated to one person, he knew what the call would be about, and didn’t want to know more.
When Haydn hadn’t come back, he was halfway in the clear. Of course, that half always had been the lesser threat. Though Haydn might not consider herself munificent, Cain had known for many centuries that she was, whether by fluke or design, which made going against her the safest of two hazardous routes. If he had done to Lilith what he had done to Haydn, he could only imagine the condition he would be in.
As long as he heard nothing, it was all just conjecture. There was nothing to tell. Once he heard from the caller, though, there would be no choice but to report. Which meant Lilith would go looking for a new way, and be that much closer to discovering she didn’t have the leverage she thought she did. She might even buy Cain’s delivery of Haydn’s false innocent as a mistake. Maybe. With Lilith, though, even mistakes were punishable offenses.
“Yes.” Cain knew he could afford to make no more.
“How do we find them now?” the woman asked after a quick briefing on the status of the deraphs and Garcia’s unfortunate condition.
“You don’t,” Cain replied. “If they have their innocents, you will find them only if the deraphs want them found.”
“Then, what do we do?” Garcia’s query warbled out of the background after the woman relayed what Cain told her.
“You do nothing,” Cain said, and, in the private surroundings of his office, he allowed himself a smile. Knowing all too well holding one’s own under Lilith was not an easy feat, he could never appreciate Haydn’s ability to do so publicly, but he would always acclaim it in private. “Tell Garcia to get well soon.”
Phone falling back to its cradle, Cain curled the cord around his hand and yanked it out of the wall. He knew when Lilith dragged him into this Haydn would find the means of protecting herself, of protecting her clan. He also knew there would be inestimable losses before she did. Glad that part was through, Cain had only one issue left to consider - how long he could wait to tell Lilith without repercussion.
“What did he say?” Garcia could tell the conversation had ended before Fiona even had the chance to let the receiver slide from her shoulder.
“He said it’s over.”
Never her fight, after witnessing the outcome for Armand and Jim, she felt some relief in knowing it was unwinnable as she hung up.
“Don’t lie to me,” Garcia said.
&
nbsp; “I am not lying to you. Jesus Christ, Garcia. You did what you could. Let it go.”
“Let it go?” She knew it was the wrong thing to say, and all hope that the pain would constrain Garcia was lost as he, as always, determined the fight more important than anything else, including his own survival. “Don’t tell me to let it go. You have no idea why I do this.”
“I do actually.” Fiona was glad to finally get the opportunity to enlighten him to the fact. All these months, she had let him think he was keeping his secrets, keeping her on the outside, had let him feel justified in his distrust by his impeccable motives. “Your unit was attacked in Kabul. No one was expecting it, and you were off fucking around with Armand and Jim. When you got back to camp, your entire unit had been killed, and you saw a woman in the firelight. She was the only one there, no guns, no army, and when she saw you, she smiled before she took off at a speed no human could go. Since you’d been in the tank all night, you were all so pissed, Armand and Jim didn’t believe what they saw. But you did. And you wouldn’t stop until you figured out what it was that killed them. And you believe you did. But you don’t really know.”
“What else could she have been?” His big mystery revealed as no more than gossip for the rumor mill, Garcia had nothing else to hide from her.
“Even if it was a deraph,” Fiona said, “what makes you think it was these deraphs, the ones you keep going after?”
“They deserve justice.” Garcia proved he had no reason to believe it was someone from their local deraph sect. More than five-thousand kilometers from the scene of the attack, he was just content to kill any deraph he could find.
“They do or you do?” Fiona asked. “It’s not easy to be the men left standing when your entire troop is murdered. They called it a hostile attack, blamed it on the opposition army, and cleared you, but, no signs of enemy fire, no logical explanation for their deaths, no one ever quite looked at you the same either, did they?”
“How do you know any of this?” Garcia was clearly tired of the line of questioning. Squirming against his pillows, he looked as if any physical pain he felt was nothing compared to the pain of Fiona knowing more about him than he wanted her to know.
“Armand may have been a devout pain in my ass, but he did at least trust me,” Fiona said. “More than you, at least.”
“Why are you even here, Fiona?”
“You know what?” He made a damn fine point, and Fiona wondered what else she was expecting. Gratitude? She’d have better luck getting monetary reward out of him. “I have no idea.”
“It doesn’t mean I want you to leave.” The frantic declaration stopped her as she headed for the door.
“Then, what the fuck do you want, Garcia?” Fiona turned back, flinching at the familiarity of his fear.
He wouldn’t answer her, or couldn’t, but she didn’t need him to say anything. She too had hit bottom once, after a mission went bad in the Congo and her entire team left her for dead. Waking alone in the hospital, no one to come see her, no one even to call, she realized that was how she was going to go one day, just dead weight tossed aside and abandoned. It hadn’t been long after that Slade’s phone call came in, with its mission that brought her closer to home, to her family, and it felt like a lifeline.
Until then, Fiona didn’t know she had been reaching out for one.
Not sure Garcia had it in him to reach out, Fiona was equally unsure when she had been burdened by empathy.
“Get some rest, Garcia.” She wasn’t going to stick around either, not when she knew him well enough to know he’d want something from her or start acting like jerk again as soon as he got his strength back. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Released by the automatic glass doors a few minutes later into the cold night, Fiona pulled her gloves on and buttoned the collar of her coat. Jacked car spent by the possibility someone had reported it stolen by now, she had no choice but to walk, knowing it wouldn’t take long in the city to come across a place she could afford to sleep with the cash she had on hand. Not particularly wanting to share a toilet with strangers, she wanted to share a room with Garcia for the night even less.
Just as she spotted the sign, with its one missing letter, for the hostel ahead, her phone beeped. Sliding it from her pocket, Fiona watched the missed call and voice mail icons populate at the top of the screen, no clue who was left to try to reach her.
Pulling an unknown number into view, she glanced around the empty streets to ensure she still walked alone. Not exactly uncommon in her line of work, anonymity wasn’t always a good sign.
Worry turning to slight contempt when she started the message and the voice proved recognizable, Fiona found it fitting, like some sort of crude physics, two opposing forces barreling down upon the same point. Done listening when it became clear the caller wanted something from her too, she killed the line, shoving the phone back into her pocket, and stalked toward the sign for the hostel, wondering just how many assholes she was going to have to deal with in a single night.
20
Willingly returning to one’s own captivity was a special brand of insanity. Even knowing what was at stake, who was left behind, and that any effort to escape would get her nowhere, climbing into the boat and allowing Haydn to transport her back to her secret lair felt pathetic.
Even more pathetic was accepting the hand Haydn offered once they were docked at the castle, and the exhilaration that went through her when Haydn pulled her just a little too close. Justifiable now - tied by their very souls, what else could she expect to feel? - Delaney resisted the impulse to give in, forcing herself to take the step back she so badly needed.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Well, I figure, fish you out of the boat or out of the water.” Haydn made no effort to add to the distance between them. “This way saves us both wet clothes.”
“Well, for that too.” Delaney smiled in spite of herself. “But I meant for taking me to get supplies. I know you don’t really want us here any more than we want to be here. I know this is necessity for you, and you don’t have to do any of this.” For, if it was only a matter of survival, the deraphs could accomplish it with limited food and cold stone floors. “I just hope I got everything we needed.”
“We can go again,” Haydn offered, and, far too eager at the suggestion, Delaney recognized the danger in it. “Or you can always make a list.” Haydn picked up on her unease. “And I can send someone.”
Delaney was certain that would go over well, the deraphs having to wait on them, as she was sure it had when Haydn sent them to run errands on their behalf the last time.
“Thank you,” Delaney said again.
“You’re welcome.” Haydn’s tone, and all that it carried, completely unfair, her slow blink revealed little, but the step that carried her nearer Delaney was less subtle. Hands sliding into the pockets of her coat quashing the notion that Haydn would touch her, the breast that brushed Delaney’s arm still felt rather intentional. “Any time you would like to demonstrate your appreciation, you just let me know.”
Not sure which the statement intensified more, her frustration or her arousal, Delaney sighed at the overbearing sensations of both.
“I understand why we’re here. I hate to admit it, but I do. But do you have to toy with me?”
When Haydn turned into her, fronts of their bodies brushing, it was almost sadistic. The things she said, the slight touches, the way she forced Delaney to feel against her will. Kidnapped and captive, nothing felt crueler than the way Haydn controlled her senses with scarcely more than a look.
“I am not toying with you.” Delaney tried to move away, but the softest of caresses against her back kept her in place. “From the moment I touched you, I have wanted nothing more than to claim you, to lay you down and mark you with my scent so no one would dare try to take you from me again. Believe me, it is far from a game.”
Nerves lashing at the spots where Haydn’s hand and eyes touched, Delaney couldn’t feel th
e rest of her body as Haydn let go. Her own desire easy to discount - deraphs were innately seductive creatures, even without a connection, and human will was weak - Haydn’s was less so. There was no natural state that explained why Haydn would want her, or how Delaney felt finding out she did. Completely powerful, and even more powerless, because, knowing what she felt was reciprocated, it made it that much harder to resist.
Head someplace else as she passed the two deraphs Haydn must have sent to retrieve her purchases on the stairs and made it back to their assigned living quarters, Delaney failed, for a moment, to recognize the company her fellow captives kept.
“Is everything okay?” Vicar Bryce came up to her, and Delaney pulled her eyes from where Kiara laughed at the deraph who had claimed her as his their first night at the castle
“What?”
“Is everything okay?” Vicar Bryce asked again. “You were gone a long time.”
“We had to wait for sundown,” Delaney returned. “Kiara.”
Only then noticing she was back, Kiara jumped up from the floor and ran to Delaney’s side.
“Have you eaten?” Delaney kept her eyes on the deraph who’d been sitting on the floor with her as he tossed his long brown bangs and got to his feet. Picking Kiara up, her arms tightened as the deraph came toward them.
“We have,” Vicar Bryce answered.
“Well, I should still show you what I got,” Delaney uttered. “All of you.”
Declared loudly enough to interrupt the others, the deraph talking to Heidi and the one talking to Ellis rose as well, starting their retreats as the humans gathered closer to learn about their plunder.
“Bye, Kiara.” Stopping to grin at her, the deraph who’d been playing with Kiara looked very much like the overgrown star of a boy band, and, Delaney suspected, were Kiara ten years older, she may well have thought him dreamy.
“Bye bye, Brooks,” she said, and Delaney didn’t realize how much it tightened her grip until Kiara started to wriggle in protest.