by Natalie Grey
“Cade!” A figure hit him from the side, tiny but fast, and he went over. He caught a glimpse of Aryn, her hands outstretched where she had pushed him, and behind her, a would-be attacker sprawling into the space Cade had occupied a moment before. A serrated blade skittered across the floor as Aryn reached out to help him up. “Are you hurt? Did they get you?”
Behind her, the attacker pushed himself up and grabbed her away, another knife appearing against her throat.
No. Cade’s gun was in his hand, but the man’s eyes met his, and a tiny shake of his head confirmed Cade’s worst fear: this was a trained killer, no green bounty hunter looking for some quick cash. If Cade moved, Aryn would die.
But as he watched, his world narrowed to Aryn’s terrified face, the man turned his head slightly, a gesture Cade recognized. The assassin was listening to something being said into an earpiece, and a moment later, he bent to whisper in Aryn’s ear. A second later she was released and the man shoved her hard in the back. She stumbled forward as something heavy hit Cade on the back of the head.
The world went black.
He came to with Aryn’s arms around him awkwardly and the hard floor of the terminal beneath him. Her face swam into view slowly, her hair falling to curtain them, her eyes filled with tears. Her lips were moving, but he couldn’t hear what she was saying…
“Cade?”
“Hey,” he managed softly.
“Oh, my God.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Can you see me? Can you move?”
He started to push himself up and winced. His head hurt like crazy.
“Don’t.” Her arms were around his torso. “Don’t try to stand yet. Cade…”
“What was that?”
“It sounded electrical.” Her brow furrowed. “You went down like a sack of bricks. Heavy bricks. You’re really big, you know that?”
He managed a weak laugh and regretted it when pain stabbed through his head.
“What … did he say to you?”
She sobered at that.
“He said not to go on the transport—to stay here, where I was safe.”
“What?”
“He said they’d been hired to kill me.” She frowned and bit her lip. “But it got called off.”
“Huh.” He stared up at the ceiling.
“What?” She was looking down at him.
An interesting question, that, and one his sluggish brain wouldn’t provide an answer to just yet. The warning made no sense. Everything about this, including the fact that Cade was still alive, suggested that they had only meant to scare her. Her, and the more he thought about it, him as well.
But he was having trouble thinking about that, because it had just occurred to him that Aryn must have dashed to catch him as he fell, trying to keep his head from hitting the ground. And before that, she had tackled him to get him out of the way of a knife. He looked up at her frown and saw her face soften.
“Are you really all right?” she asked him quietly.
“I think so.”
And then the moment shattered.
“Aryn!” Ellian’s voice was strong, parting the crowd, and Cade saw Aryn’s head jerk up.
Ellian’s two guards came to haul Cade up, and he saw the dislike in their eyes as he straightened and stepped back, pulling at his cuffs. His head was spinning, but he was not about to admit that he needed help—not to these people, not when they looked displeased to have found him with his head cradled in Aryn’s lap.
“My love, they had a knife at your throat,” Ellian was saying. His hands were around Aryn’s arms and he held her close, oblivious to her hunched shoulders.
As Cade watched, forcing himself to stillness, Aryn laid her head on Ellian’s shoulder and the man enfolded her in his arms. He bent his head to whisper and listened for her answer, something so low that Cade could not hear it. The man’s answer, however, was instantaneous.
“No.” He shook his head. “I can’t possibly allow that, my love.”
“But—”
“Aryn.” His tone was sharp. “Do you understand what just happened?”
No. Cade saw the answer on her lips, an echo of his own, and suppressed his smile. Aryn seemed to understand instinctively that this didn’t make any sense.
And Ellian should understand it, too. Cade narrowed his eyes slightly, studying the man’s face. Ellian’s pupils were dilated, his hands clenched where they held Aryn close to him. He was certainly in the grips of emotion, even if Cade knew no more than that.
“I nearly lost you,” Ellian said into Aryn’s hair. “I won’t take that chance again. Here, follow James to the car, my love. I want to have a word with Mr. Williams.”
Aryn’s eyes went to his, and Cade gave a tiny nod, one he hoped Ellian did not see. She left, looked down, shoulders rigid with the effort of not looking back, and Cade looked up into the coldest eyes he ever hoped to see.
“You failed,” Ellian told him, his voice ugly. “I told you Aryn was the most precious thing in the world to me, and you left her alone? You let her go into the crowd without you?”
Any explanation would be useless. Cade bent his head. He should walk away. The chance was there, and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if he stayed, he would be lost.
But he could not leave her.
“Give me one more chance.”
When he looked up, he saw the faint smile that crossed Ellian’s face. The man held Cade’s eyes for a long moment, and Cade wondered just how much he saw.
“Very well.” Ellian sounded almost pleased. “One more chance, Mr. Williams.”
31
In the cab, Aryn sank back against the seats, shuddering.
She only had a few seconds before Ellian was back, and so she could not think about the press of metal against her neck, the sight of Cade dropping to the floor, the sound of his voice while he ran for her—
Her fingers were shaking so hard that it took her three tries to open the comm unit.
“I have to call it off.” She hoped they were listening. She hoped no one else could hear. “I’ll find—I’ll find you another way. Not today.”
She slumped back against the seat and watched as Ellian strode away from Cade.
But he did not come right to the car. She watched, frowning, as he stopped inside the door and stared up at the sky outside the terminal. His lips weren’t moving, so he wasn’t on a call. What was he doing?
He was a damned fool. Ellian stared up at the sky and tried to remember how to breathe. He was a fool. Aryn should be dead, that fucking bodyguard should be dead.
All of this should be over, so he could find another woman to distribute his money at charity dinners and laugh politely at his business partners’ jokes. He wouldn’t stop the rumors, and so people would whisper that he’d had his last wife killed, the one he loved more than was wise. He’d killed her.
The next one wouldn’t dream of disobeying him.
And instead … instead, he’d seen the video feed of Aryn with the gun at her back, looking at Cade not just like he was the only one who could save her, but as if, with only a few seconds left in her life, Cade was the one she wanted to see.
He’d seen her shove an armed man out of the way for the man. He’d seen her with the knife at her throat.
And he’d choked. He’d called it off, a few terse words into the comm units, knowing the look Christian would give him when he got home. Stupid, weak—
He’d even been so turned around, so panicked at the thought of her lying dead on the ground, that he’d hissed those words at Cade: you failed, you left her alone. His own plan to kill her, and he was still furious.
But he’d scared her. She wouldn’t do anything like that again, if she even had to start with. Christian might be wrong. And even if he wasn’t, what harm could she really do? He could feel the way it was eating away at him like a poison, corroding the way his mind worked. He was always precise, logical to a fault. And now….
She wouldn’t do it again, he told
himself.
With renewed purpose, he brought his comm unit up to his lips. “Take them out. Take them all out. Move on the Niccolo.”
“Yes, sir.” Did he hear reproach in Christian’s voice?
She won’t do anything like this again, Ellian wanted to say, and he tried his hardest to believe it.
But if he believed that, why had he let the bodyguard stay?
His hand clenched, and then he smiled. Hurting Williams, something Ellian already wanted to do, would make an effective demonstration to Aryn.
She would understand how things had to be.
“She called it off?” Nyx stared at Talon. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Something happened in the terminal.” Talon looked over to where police cars were pulling up and there was an unusually wide, cleared space in the throng of people.
Tersi looked up from where he was shoving one of the carts back into the shadows of the terminal. “Cade?”
“I don’t know.” Talon shook his head. “We have to move.”
“If he’s on our team, we have to go back.” Loki looked horrified.
“Kid—” Aegis began.
“No, he’s right.” Talon jerked his head. “Jim, Gomer, you come with me to … shit.”
The team paused, looking around, and a moment later, the rest of them heard it, too: the sound of too many feet running, with the hollow clunk of body armor and weapons.
“Cover,” Talon barked.
The crew scattered. Nyx was up the gangway of the Niccolo, readying her rifle. Aegis hauled Loki up with him onto the top of the ship. Tersi melted into the shadows behind the crates with Jim.
They came in a rush, surprisingly coordinated for mercenaries. Four abreast, the lines split at each doorway for layers of two to flow around the edges of the room. Riot shields came out, commands were called, and the lines hunkered down.
Two hundred? Four hundred? Talon did a quick scan. Too many, and too many by a large enough margin that the exact numbers didn’t matter.
Alone, in the middle of the courtyard, he was easy pickings for a grenade, or a volley of gunfire, but they weren’t quick enough. He took off with a roar and slammed himself into the row of shields.
They hadn’t braced, the idiots. The line caved and buckled, and he was in the middle of the crowd, flinging mercenaries bodily into one another and lashing out as fast as he dared.
Grab, takedown, shoot.
Grab, takedown, shoot.
Grab, takedown, shoot, steal weapon.
Talon weathered a blow to the back of his head and turned with an elbow strike, taking the man down. He could hear screams as Aegis and Loki dropped into the fray. Talon would have liked to see what Loki was getting up to and Aegis, well….
There was a reason they’d called him Aegis. The way he fought with a shield was a thing of beauty.
There were too many of them, but was it worth it to call in the Ariane? Could they trust—
In a surprisingly coordinated move, eight of the mercenaries grabbed for Talon, wrenching his arms out, anchoring his legs. He yelled, pure fury, but he didn’t have his armor, and he didn’t have his gun.
No killing blow came. In the sudden silence, the crowd parted and a man in a suit strolled onto the launchpad. Christian. Talon marked him, and made a silent vow to kill him painfully. He could have waited to make that vow until he saw what the man was going to do, of course, but it was a pretty safe bet that it was going to be something reprehensible.
“You work for the Warlord of Ymir,” he said, before the other man could get a word out. “Killing me won’t keep the world from knowing that.”
Christian studied him thoughtfully.
“I think you have a rather inflated sense of your own worth. I thought Dragons were never defeated.” He held up a hand, and another set of soldiers rushed into the room. “You won’t win. But I admit I’d very much like to see you try.”
“Same to you,” a new voice called.
Heads swiveled, and Talon’s eyes widened.
Alina Kuznetsova was standing on the ledge of the terminal. The gun she wielded would have been unusually large for anyone, but was ridiculously large on her, and as Talon watched, ten more Dragons came to stand at intervals along the ledge. Their weapons were ready, and their first targets were in their sights.
The mercenaries murmured, and the hands on Talon’s arms loosened fractionally.
“Now, now, gentleman, the way I see it, this can go two ways.” Alina crouched down and stared at them, her voice projecting out of the launchpad speakers. “The first way is that you realize you’ve already been paid and no one could really hold you accountable for not taking on two Dragon teams, so everyone goes home to a nice meal and a happy family. The second way….” She gave a gesture and the Krasniy Oktyabr rose to hover just above the edge of the terminal, guns trained squarely on the the courtyard. “Is that a few of us die killing every last fucking one of you.”
The mercenaries looked at one another, and then back to her. A few of the younger men were arguing, but the man in charge shut them up with a sweep of his hand and a look, gave a single nod to Alina, and spoke a command into his comm unit.
They were gone within seconds….
Leaving behind the crouched figure of the man in the suit. To Talon’s surprise, Loki made his way across the courtyard to offer the man a hand up. A flick of the kid’s fingers turned his comm unit on.
“So.”
The man in the suit looked around himself at the soldiers, then back to Loki. “I will give you—”
Loki cut him off. “One of the mercenaries mentioned your deal with them. About me.”
The man went still as a statue. “I—”
That was as far as he got before Loki’s fist shot out, crushing the man’s windpipe. He was down on the ground, writhing, choking, and Loki only looked down at him with the sort of vague annoyance of someone who thinks they might have dog shit on their shoe.
“I’m not the first one you made that sort of deal for, am I?” he asked the man. He took out his gun. “I could make it clean, you know. Quick. But I don’t think you deserve that.” He walked away, leaving the man lying in the dirt.
At Talon’s side, Alina was watching, tilting her head to the side. “Should we start recruiting on farms, do you think?”
“Perhaps.” Talon watched as a member of Alina’s team emerged from the shadows to give Loki a rough hug.
“Victory,” Alina said, with a nod to the woman. “That’s what I call her. Almost her name, anyway. She and your man were at Selection together.”
Talon smiled slightly. “So, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Soras is out for your blood. I take it you knew that.” She raised a single eyebrow. “And the way I see it, there are a couple of reasons that might be: the bad one, and the really bad one.”
“It’s the really bad one,” Talon said blandly.
“Well, then.” Alina gave a cold smile. “Count us in. That bastard is going to pay.”
32
“And then when they called me…” Ellian drew a shuddering breath. “They said it was a warning, but I was so worried. A warning to me could have meant your death.”
Aryn closed her eyes. She wished he wouldn’t keep saying that. Whatever tenuous self-control she had was rapidly evaporating as Ellian talked, especially now that she finally understood that someone might very well want to hurt her to get back at him.
Someone like Samara. Someone like Aryn, two years ago. Lord, she’d been such a fool. She was supposed to be fighting people like Ellian, not marrying them.
She would make it right, she promised herself. She had a debt, and she would repay it.
“Aryn?”
“Yes?” Aryn looked over at Ellian. She managed a smile. “I’m sorry. I was…thinking.”
“You must rest when you get home.” Ellian’s voice was decisive. “You’ve had a terrible shock, my dear.” He slid closer to her on the seat, his
eyes on hers, and cupped the side of her face gently.
She tried not to move. She had not let him touch her in days, finding clever ways to leave dinner early, ducking out of shared parties. She knew she could not get away with it for long—the rumors would start soon if they had not already—but she could hardly bear to be in the same room with him, let alone feel his skin on hers. He let her believe he was the man who had saved her. He was a liar. And he had the deaths of thousands on his hands, if not more.
“I’ll rest.” Aryn nodded jerkily. “I remember it being hard to sleep on the flight here. I’ll stay overnight and leave tomorrow.”
“What?” He drew back, his eyes narrowing. “You aren’t … you aren’t still going, are you?” He looked panicked.
“Of course I’m going,” Aryn said. On the floor of the terminal, Cade’s head cradled in her lap, she had feared for her life—and then, a few moments ago, she had decided that it did not matter. If someone would hurt her for what Ellian was, then they were almost on her side. She would not let those threats, of all things, stop her from doing what must be done.
“Aryn, it is too dangerous.”
“It isn’t,” Aryn said simply. “Whoever it was, if they wanted me dead, I would be dead.”
“But—” He broke off and looked out the window, his face becoming expressionless, as it did when he thought. He did not look at her for a very long time, and they were already climbing the side of the Diamond Tower when he said quietly, “If you wish.”
“Ellian…” He looked halfway between sad and triumphant, and she could not understand it. When he drew her face close for a kiss, there was no way to resist, not without sparking his anger. She held herself very still, letting his lips press against hers. It felt like an eternity before he released her, and she scrambled out of the car as soon as the doors opened, desperate for fresh air.