Dragon's Honor

by Natalie Grey

  In his heart, Cade was a soldier, not an Intelligence operative. He wanted a target. He wanted to trust that the target was bad. He wanted to use his expertise to eliminate the target and protect his men. And that wasn’t a Dragon’s task. What Talon had excelled in was the use of secrets and lies—and the twists and turns of it had made Cade uncomfortable.

  You can’t charge in headfirst to take out a drug lord, Williams.

  Cade looked away.

  “This will be different,” Talon promised.

  Cade inwardly cursed the man’s ability to read anyone, anytime. He shot him a look.

  “It’ll be a nice, easy job.” Talon pushed himself up and began to pace in a slow circle around the podium, hands in his pockets. “The woman hardly leaves her penthouse.”

  “Tell me about her.” He might as well know what he was getting into.

  “Her name is Aryn Beranek. She’s originally from Ymir.” Talon paused significantly until Cade processed this. Their eyes met in the mirror.

  “How’d she get to New Arizona?” Idle curiosity, nothing more. In his brief time, he’d seen people smuggle themselves in a hundred inventive ways, and sell themselves in a hundred more.

  “Her husband brought her. Saw her on Ymir and fell madly in love, apparently. Quick courtship. Society found it … romantic.”

  Cade raised his eyebrow at the insinuation in Talon’s voice.

  “What?” Talon looked at him innocently. “Society finds fairy tales romantic. And if there’s one thing they respect, the society here, it’s clawing your way up in the world. A miner from the Warlord’s pet planet stealing an arms trafficker’s heart? It has a certain admirable quality to it.” Talon’s voice was more bitter than Cade expected.

  “Stealing, you say?”

  “Well, the man’s worth millions. Billions, probably, at this point.”

  “You know to the penny,” Cade said drily.

  “Only as of this morning.” Talon picked an imaginary speck of dust off his jacket. “Anything could have happened since then.”

  “And you really think this is romantic?”

  “I said admirable. Think about it—she could have settled for being someone’s mistress. One of the Warlord’s lackeys.”

  “How about the Warlord himself?”

  “She’s not his type.” Talon’s tone was suddenly flat, the voice of a man who knows too much and wants to remember none of it.

  “Been doing research on the Warlord?”

  Talon hesitated.

  “Miranda, a moment.” When the woman was gone, Talon looked over at Cade, his face expressionless. “Help me take him down.”

  “The Warlord of Ymir?” Cade demanded incredulously. “Are you insane?” And then it dawned on him. “Good God, Rift—was that what you wanted me for?”

  Talon did not nod; he did not have to.

  “You’re insane.” Cade wanted to laugh a bit hysterically. “You’re actually insane.”

  “And you’re tempted.” Talon tried for his usual debonair humor, but his fingers were shaking as he went to button his coat. “I … know things, Williams.”

  “What, something worse than enslaving a whole goddamned planet?”

  “What about killing them all?” Talon’s spoke lightly, professional interest in his tone, but when Cade looked over, the man’s head was bent, his jaw set.

  “No.” Cade shook his head. “I don’t believe it. Christ, who are you getting your information from?”

  “You know as well as I do that once a rebellion takes root, it’s almost impossible to eradicate.” Talon did not look over at him. “The Warlord knows it, too. If he’s not planning to do it that way, he should—and even if he’s not, he’ll get there.”

  “Who’s going to run his mines if he kills all of them?” Cade tried for a laugh, but he couldn’t manage to make one come out. He believed it, he realized in horror. Talon did not joke about things like this.

  But he wanted it to be a joke. His eyes fixed on Talon’s face, waiting for a flicker.

  “Slaves,” Talon said simply. He looked over. “Slaves who know what he did to the last set.”

  “He’d never get away with it.” Cade’s hands were clenched. “Every ship in the Alliance fleet would be there within a week.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Talon looked over at him.

  “Of course I’m sure! No one in hell is going to do that and go unpunished. He’ll be caught.”

  “No, he won’t.” There was absolute certainty there.

  The world shifted under Cade’s feet. He had seen Talon angry, seen him joking, seen him go into missions with feral anticipation. He had never seen the man as he was now, frozen by the same horror that gripped Cade.

  “I can tell you all of it,” Talon said softly. “There’s more here than you could imagine, Williams. But I need your word that you’re with me.”

  Yes. The word was in his mouth. How could he stand back now, when God knew how many millions hung in the balance? Countless deaths to be averted. Cade and Talon could take the man down together, a quick operation, indisputably good—

  This could not be real. There was no way it could be real.

  And if he went in now, Cade would be back where he’d started. He would become the man he had spent two years outrunning.

  “No.”

  “Williams—”

  “You know I’m the wrong one to ask.”

  “But you’re not.” There was fury in Talon’s voice.

  “I said no.”

  “You don’t understand how bad this guy is.”

  “I understand how the world works!” Cade rounded on him. “There’s always another bad guy, another person too deranged to be taken down by the law and there we go, shooting our way in. And you want me to say it’s all right, don’t you? You want me to believe you that this could possibly be real and go in there with God knows what kind of force—”

  “Williams, listen to me.”

  “No! When we do that, innocents die. Things go wrong. Can you promise me that no one’s going to get hurt here who shouldn’t?”

  Talon looked away, and that was answer enough.

  “Rift….”

  “Don’t say it.” He did not look back. “It’s my mission. You had every right to get out.”

  “Your intel—”

  “Is correct.” Talon bit off the words. “It is correct, Williams. I wouldn’t joke about this. Not this.” He looked down at the ground.

  “I don’t think you’re joking.” I think you’ve spent so long in the shadows that you’d believe anything of anyone. He didn’t say that. “But, Talon, everyone? It can’t be done. They would fight back, they would…” His voice trailed off. Talon’s eyes were haunted.

  “It can be done,” Talon said quietly. “He doesn’t have the weapon yet, but he will. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “It’s not—”

  “You don’t have to say anything. It’s my mission.”

  “Right.” But it didn’t feel right. Cade looked back at the mirror. Talon kept staring at the far wall.

  Then: “…Did you say this woman’s husband is an arms trafficker?”

  “I was hoping you hadn’t noticed that.”

  “I’m out.” Everything about this was turning into a nightmare, Talon’s words draping even this in a strange clarity. He had to get out.

  He went to step off the podium and found his way blocked by Talon.

  “No! No. Listen to me. There haven’t been any attempts on her life—or his, actually. In fact…” A faint frown crossed Talon’s face. “I’m not entirely sure why he wants a bodyguard. But he does.”

  “A big deal is going to put her at risk?” Cade guessed.

  “Unlikely,” Talon said, after appearing to consider it. He met Cade’s eyes again. “To all accounts, he’s head over heels for this woman—and keeping the shadier dealings to a minimum. And she’s not out running through the bad parts of town, she just stays in the penthouse
and goes to charity dinners.”

  “I’m going to be bored out of my mind,” Cade informed him.

  “You know what’s also boring? Freezing to death.” Talon’s mouth twitched in his customary humor. Whatever had happened before, whatever he believed about Ymir, it had sunk beneath the surface without a trace, and Cade knew he would never hear another word about it.

  He wished that didn’t make quite such a twist of guilt in his gut. It wasn’t real, he told himself. And so he tried to return Talon’s humor.

  “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

  “No. Williams, I let you walk out because it was the right thing to do. I’m not going to let you starve now.”

  What it was, Cade couldn’t say. Was it a flicker in the man’s eyes? The way he held his shoulders? Whatever it was, he didn’t doubt his instincts for a second. He might not have Talon’s talents for subterfuge, but even a Dragon couldn’t fool another Dragon.

  “There’s more to this.”

  “Yes,” Talon admitted, after a pause.

  “What is it?” Cade bit off the words.

  There was a pause.

  “Take it or leave it,” Talon said finally.

  It took all of Cade’s self-control not to put his fist through the mirrors.

  “I’ve spent too long staying away from all of this just to—”

  “Take it or leave it, Williams.” And when Cade said nothing, Talon’s voice dropped. “You know it’s not supposed to end for you in some slum on New Arizona, freezing to death at 26. So help me, God, if you won’t take this job, I will have you carted out of here and locked in a hotel room until I can come back to see if you’re more compliant.”

  Which would be charity. And Talon knew he did not take charity.

  Goddammit.

  “Fine. I’ll meet with the arms trafficker.” Cade put as much acid as he could into the words. “And I will decide whether or not to take the job.”

  “Just tell the taxi driver whether or not to go to the hotel on the way back, it’ll be easier that way.” Talon, when the mood took him, had a deadpan to put all others to shame. “Now go get a cab.”

  “My hems aren’t done.”

  “They’re pinned, it’s good enough. Go.”

  Cade grimaced as he folded into the little car outside. He could do space missions without a flicker, but something about cars flying around in a gravity well just seemed wrong to him. He clutched at his hand rest as the car took off, entering the ferry lane to climb up the side of the Diamond Tower. Even the interior of the ferry lane had been kept polished.

  These people had too much money.

  Deposited at the correct penthouse, Cade strode to the door and was greeted without a flicker.

  “Mr. Williams, Mr. Pallas will meet you in the room on the left.”

  “Thank you.”

  Cade made his way into the room. For a moment, he noticed none of the finery: his eyes swept to the corners, up to the ceilings, noted the shadows and the alcoves—anything and anywhere there might be a weapon or an assailant. When his eyes at last came to rest on the textures and colors of the room, he barely suppressed a whistle. Someone had gotten marble—actual marble for the floors and Vorekan sapphires for the chandeliers, glittering their strange blue-green. Wall sconces lit the room softly with golden light, and in the corner…

  Her. He knew instantly who it was. She was turned away, watching the city from the floor-to-ceiling windows, clad in a blue gown set off perfectly by the chandelier. From the elegantly piled hair to the diamond necklace, there was no doubt in Cade’s mind that this was the trophy wife, the admirably ambitious young woman Talon had described.

  She was also sad. In the faint curve of her shoulders, the downward tilt of her head, Cade saw someone who was completely, utterly alone—someone terrified, sliding into the same silent oblivion he felt as the world passed him by without a flicker of recognition. Unexpectedly, he felt a deep swell of sympathy.

  “Aryn Beranek?” he asked.

  She turned, and the illusion hung for a moment. A pale oval of a face, jaw slightly too sharp, her full lips pale, a nose with the slightest tip-tilt to the end of it. Blue-grey eyes were set deep below brows with a sharp peak to them. Everything about her was just the tiniest bit wrong for her station: face too angular, mouth too wide, brows too full, nose not quite straight. She looked lost, a woman who had wandered into a fairy tale and had no idea what to do with the jewels and the silk, and he could see nothing but the plea in her eyes, beyond words.

  The transformation began slowly, her shoulders dropping back, neck lengthening, chin rising fractionally. Her chest swelled with a deep breath, small breasts pressing against the décolletage of her blue gown, a smile beginning on her lips.

  Desire hit him like a blow. In that moment, she was perfect, a woman of warmth and love and honor, above all, honor—how he knew, he could not say. She was a woman with no ability to lie, or cheat, or steal. A woman he wanted to protect against the ravages of a world that knew all too well how to destroy people like that. He wanted to feel her nestle her head against his shoulder, he wanted her in his arms—

  And then the smile came to her mouth, and the illusion shattered. It was a perfect curve of those beautiful lips, set off by a coquettish tilt of her shoulders, and it was entirely false. It did not for a moment touch her eyes, and Cade fought the urge to walk away, out of that house, and never look back. She was false woman, pretending at innocence and sadness.

  Aryn Beranek was everything he had feared.

  9

  Clark Wheeler was potbellied and far too loud for India’s liking, but she had to admit after a few hours in the man’s company that he knew his stuff. Without stopping to think, he’d marked down the most dangerous streets, his guesses of where there were hideouts, and the houses of known resistance fighters.

  When asked why he hadn’t yet killed them, he snorted.

  “Eddis. The man doesn’t want us ‘making enemies.’” He gave her a look.

  “And what do you think, Officer Wheeler?” She linked her hands behind her back and watched him.

  He swallowed, suddenly aware that he was on the spot.

  Suddenly realizing there was a predator in the room, and she would not go easy on him like that fool, Eddis.

  But he drew himself up—good, she couldn’t stand sloppiness—and his lip curled slightly as he answered her. “They’re rats,” he told her. “They got jobs, they got food. People all over don’t have stuff like that. But they’re building bombs, they’re blowing up police who are just there to do their jobs. They complain, all the damned time. And we aren’t here to make friends, we’re here to keep the peace. So I think the same thing you do—I think Eddis is an idiot.”

  “You presume, Wheeler.” She made her voice a whip crack, and put her palms flat on the desk as she sat. She studied him, noting the sudden pallor when she spoke, and the way he was holding himself still to wait for her orders.

  When she said nothing, he swallowed. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

  “Mmm.” India looked around herself. The dossiers were still not ready and Eddis was presiding over the case of a bread thief who claimed he wasn’t guilty.

  In other words, wasting his time instead of helping quash the resistance. It was something she would not hesitate to note in her report when this was all over. For now, she at least had Wheeler. He might be a suck-up, a man who hadn’t had the strength of will to do what he knew he should when his captain gave the wrong orders….

  But that was why India was here. Most people in the world, after all, were followers. They needed a leader who was willing to do what was necessary.

  “Tell your team to get ready,” she told Wheeler. “I’ll be seeing the entire district over the next few days. We will start now.”

  Samara melted into the shadow of a doorway, trying to look, above all, as if she were waiting for someone. She tried not to let her fingers drift to where the knife was concealed against her
lower back. She couldn’t draw attention to it—to anything about herself. Who knew what guards might be watching the video feeds?

  They were moving up the street in what Jacinta had always called a “leapfrog” pattern, for reasons Samara couldn’t entirely understand. It was apparently based on a game that was modeled after something frogs might or might not have done.

  Also, Samara had no idea what a frog looked like.

  Regardless, the pattern was sound. Moving in multiple groups kept them from standing out in the crowd, and checking in with one another regularly made it easier to tell within seconds if something had gone wrong.

  Stefan moved into position and, after a pause, the rear group began to move forward. The walked together, occasionally looking up, trying to appear for all the world as if they were just off-shift miners coming back from the commissary.

  The guard tower was dead ahead, a building Samara avoided if she could help it. Off-shift guards slept one night in Kell District, and one night in the barracks, to provide immediate backup in case there was a riot. Together, the on-shift and off-shift guards had more manpower than the resistance, and so generally, the resistance avoided the epicenter of the guards’ territory.

  What they were doing now was both unusual and perhaps suicidally bold.

  Stefan and Samara had stayed up far into the night, considering their options, and only one plan made sense: someone had to draw the guards’ attention, or the camera that watched over the communications relays would never turn away to allow them to place the device. This left the question of what type of distraction would be enough to turn the camera for, but not something that would get them beaten to death in the street, and Stefan had decided to pretend to be sick.

  What if they decide to just let you die?

  They’ll at least want to watch, right? He had smiled, but it wasn’t really funny that the guards would want to watch someone die for entertainment value, and neither of them laughed.

  Nura swung her bag, loaded with potatoes and flour and the tiny, delicate device in its little box, over her shoulder as she walked into position, and Stefan nodded to Samara before he lurched out into the street.