Ashes

by Sophie H. Morgan

  “Mmm.” He unrolled a bandage and wound it around her upper arm, keeping the pressure on and securing it with a pin. Iron.

  “Trick.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t have silver in stock.” Sarcasm poured from him as thickly as antibac. “Put up and shut up.”

  “This is why I came to you: tea and sympathy.”

  “Maybe if you acted like a girl, I’d treat you like one. As it is, you want to be treated like a warrior.”

  There was nothing to say to that. “Humph.”

  “So how long did you chat?” Trick returned to the pressing topic of Shade, sliding the kit under his chair. He headed for a sink he’d built in, after complaining of how much clothing he’d had to toss due to bloodstains. Rinsing the antibac from his hands, he used an old bit of cloth as a towel. “Well?”

  “I don’t know; a couple of minutes. Then I attacked.”

  Eyebrows ascended his forehead. “The handcuffs?”

  “Well, we came to a bit of a standoff.” She could feel the heat of the blush that touched her cheeks.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Then he might have…kissed me.”

  He choked.

  She became defensive, tapping the arm of the chair. “Oh, like you’ve never kissed anyone?”

  “Not someone trying to kill me.” He paused, tilting his head. “Never mind. Point is, did you let him?” A frustrated breath whistled through his teeth as she studied her hands. “Ana.”

  “Not at first,” she insisted. Flames teased her belly at the memory of Cade’s kiss. “I had a plan, but it kind of…fizzled out.” Not that that sounds any better. “He caught me off guard.” Or that.

  She pointed at him in accusation. “You never trained me for that.”

  He snorted, wiped his hands over his face. “Okay, you kissed the merc who’s trying to kill you. Who might know you’re Liberty.” His sigh was heavy. “I probably don’t even want to ask, but when do handcuffs come into it?”

  Ana cleared her throat. Ran a hand through her hair. “He slid past my guard.”

  “I think we’ve established that. Wait.” Trick peered at her. “During the kiss? Oh, Ana.” His chest rumbled in a strange hiccupy laugh.

  “There’s more,” she mumbled, sure her face was as red as her hair.

  Stress carved fine lines around his mouth. “Hell, shoot it at me.” He waved a hand. “We’re already in the creek and the water’s turning pretty damn brown. Why not throw the paddles away while we’re at it.”

  Ana winced. Then, “He knew me before.”

  Chapter Four

  Alana.

  Cade’s eyes flashed open. A ceiling mottled with damp greeted him, the smell of stale crackers wafting from outside the fractured south-facing window. He had one thought.

  Why didn’t she kill me?

  She’d been missing for a decade, a decade of tough choices, harder decisions, and more blood and death than he could’ve imagined. Yet seeing Alana in the flesh, even for that blink of time, shredded him more than any of the missions he’d accepted from the Treaty since her disappearance.

  He hadn’t known it was her.

  How had he not?

  Ana. His Ana.

  Memories threatened of an ardent kiss, a declaration of love from adoring eyes.

  His jackal, the other half of his shifter soul, released a rumbling growl, rubbing up against his skin. Claws pricked his skin as he shoved the memories back into their prison.

  He went to move, determined to get after her before her trail faded, determined to do his duty. He jerked, arms fixed.

  Tipping his head, he studied the thick metal chains that bound him to the bed he lay on. A whisper of a snarl drifted from his lips. Bemused, he had to laugh.

  Same old Alana.

  Yet she’d changed. Her language had been littered with curses, a sign of the streets she’d used as a disguise. Her clothes were cheap and ragged. Shadows dug deep graves underneath her eyes.

  What the hell was she doing in the humans’ territory, in Edan? And why hadn’t she bothered to contact him at any point in these last ten years to let him know she was alive?

  His jackal charged around inside, sniffing for Alana’s scent like a junkie; it’d always had a serious affection for her.

  Cade pushed out a breath, struggling to ignore the emotion strangling his neck like a noose. He was actually known as dispassionate among his fellow Blades. If the officials who ran the covert branch of the Treaty could’ve seen him, more than one pair of eyebrows would’ve been raised. His detachment was one of the reasons why he was forever being sent undercover for the Treaty as the violent merc, Shade. The justice assassin.

  Cade cursed soundlessly at the reminder. Head in the game.

  He would not be ruled over by the memory of a girl—not now that she alone knew his identity. He was on two missions, one a favor to the high ruler, the other a contract from his bosses at the Treaty. Kids had been disappearing from the Maze, from the Outer Boundary, and even from beyond the Southlands’ borders, their parents gutted and left for dead. Cade had been charged to sniff out the perpetrator, the whys and wheres of the case. And, in a world where hope was only a four-letter word, bring the kids back alive.

  And if that weren’t enough, there was Liberty. The terrorist. He hoped the two weren’t connected.

  Cade’s jaw worked as he thumped his fists against the headboard hard enough to dent the wall behind. Plaster dust puffed around him, dotting his hair like stars spread across the night sky.

  Alana was involved. That made the situation implosive. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—believe the possibility that the aggressive Alana he’d encountered could be the terrorist everyone was searching for. Liberty herself.

  He imagined Alana had been a sucker for the charismatic leader who probably spoke of righting wrongs and all that trash. She’d always been after adventure, sometimes risking danger and a good strong lecture from her old-fashioned parents to succeed. At an impressionable age, needing to make connections and survive, he believed his phoenix would have gone the route she thought best. Even if that road led to the deaths of several of the high ruler’s men.

  But he didn’t believe she could command something this big. This was beyond adventure; this was down-in-the-gut viciousness. It needed crushing at the root.

  Now the forbidden love of his youth had risen from the ashes.

  Cade ignored the dust as he thumped his head again. Fuck. There was no escaping the fact that an interrogation had to happen. He had to make her see sense. Make her reveal the leader’s identity. See if the kids had any connection to this brewing rebellion.

  Make her tell him why she’d disappeared without even a damn note.

  He gave a slight shake of his head. What in the seven territories had he been thinking today when he’d kissed her?

  The kiss had been a mistake, one as Shade he’d never made. He was always in control. Detached.

  Cade ran his teeth over his bottom lip, recalling the black moment of lost control. The jackal had been at the reins of that kiss. Apparently somebody hadn’t had any trouble recognizing the girl he’d once lived and breathed for.

  He had the taste of her now. That tart taste of honey and blackberries he’d forever associate with her, ever since she’d caught him off guard the night of her eighteenth birthday and changed the course of their lives.

  Hell. He hadn’t even recognized her scent.

  His jackal went nuts at the lingering honey perfume, scrabbling under his skin.

  Cade’s head fell back once more.

  She even looks different.

  She was leaner than he remembered, tougher, muscle sculpting her arms. She still carried herself with confidence, but there was a guardedness to her now, and an attitude that made her seem harder. A phoenix at ease with the violence-ridden
Southlands.

  He had to admit he found her quickness sexy. Of course, despite his determined will not to, what with the vast cavern of social class between them, even when she’d been eighteen he’d found her so.

  Her face was thinner, more like a fox, with a pointed chin and nose, distinct cheekbones and thick eyelashes. Cade mourned the luscious waterfall of hair that he remembered, that blazing mass of reds and golds that he’d wondered every day, every night, what it’d be like to wrap his hands in. Now her hair slashed to her chin. Another aspect defining her as a warrior.

  Yet her eyes hadn’t changed. Eyes that’d snapped at him at every turn, challenged and amused, shared secrets and desires. Eyes that had crackled after their kiss, then turned hollow with hurt as he’d pushed her away, stating that it had been a mistake. A beautiful amber, like the honey she tasted, smelled of. They‘d hardened, but enough of the spark that’d made her her remained.

  Cade spat a curse as he remembered the old longing, the grief at her disappearance, the sick worry that some bastard had made off with her. One thing was for sure: before anything went down between him and Liberty, he was getting answers.

  First he had to find her.

  He eyed the shackles that clamped like greedy teeth around his wrists, again the edge of a smile flirting with his lips. She’d bound him tight enough that it would be tough to grasp the chains to yank on them. Tough, but not impossible.

  His phoenix knew what shifters were capable of. Either she’d forgotten, which he found difficult to believe, or she wanted him to get free.

  Catch me if you can?

  Musing on the possible undertones, Cade maneuvered his wrists so the pads of his fingers brushed the solid metal shackles. While he could shift into his jackal and allow the animal half to escape, to rule, tracking Alana required both the animal instincts and the human logic. It’d be best if he remained human for now.

  He tugged once to ascertain if he had a firm enough grip. He drew in a long breath. His jackal stilled.

  With a good wrench, he heaved on the restraints, pitting his strength against the brittle plas-wooden bedframe. No contest.

  With a complaining crack, it split into jagged pieces.

  Now bound to pieces rather than the whole, Cade concentrated on breaking the shackles, shrugging off shards of wood that attempted to splinter his skin through his sweater. As he strained at the manacles, his hair swung forward to curtain his face, sticking where sweat gleamed on pale skin.

  An exultant chink rang out as manacles fractured. Cade threw the cracked chains onto the flowered duvet, the cheerful pattern out of place in the barren bedroom. Sliding to the edge of the bed and off, Cade strode out of the room, only to pause in the doorway. His body hummed in stillness, jackal alert. He scanned the room for any clues to where Alana could have gone to ground.

  He noted the few possessions, the general knickknacks and everyday objects that spoke of a lean existence. A tattered red cushion given pride of place in the armchair, a gray woolen rug with a hole worn in the corner. Even the bed, which he’d now given the final push toward death, had clearly been scavenged. It made something in his gut tighten, his throat burn with emotion forbidden to his duty.

  And beneath it all ran the teasing scent of honey. Cade rested one shoulder on the doorframe. A flinch traveled through his body like a flash-gun bolt, making his lips form a soundless moue of pain.

  Glancing down, hand moving by instinct to cover the stark stab wound that steadily bled through the sweater’s material, Cade scowled at Alana’s handiwork. Hell hath no fury like a phoenix scorned. Thankfully, shifters, like most Others, healed within hours. He easily dismissed the pain, focusing back on his prey.

  While shifters were known for their ability to transform into their animal selves and for their brute strength, jackals were famous for their hunting skills. That was, after all, one of the reasons he’d been recruited by the Treaty.

  His jaw clicked as he manipulated his jaw, considering his quarry. She wasn’t like his usual targets. It wouldn’t be easy. Alana defied the term easy. Even when he’d been introduced to a ten–year-old poppet with huge amber eyes and a scowl between her dainty eyebrows. She’d kicked the sixteen-year-old him in the shin, and they’d had a complicated relationship ever since.

  Cade extracted his prized spearmint gum from his trouser pocket, carrying it with him everywhere on the grounds that it helped him think. Drifting around Alana’s house, taking her distinctive scent into his nose, he crumpled the gum wrapper in his fingers. The rustling echoed like an anticipative drum roll.

  Slipping a stick of spearmint between his teeth, he began to chew.

  The day was as bright as it would get. Noise was a buzz of excitement and awe, cultivated tones mixing with lesser flat vowels and consonants and the occasional squeal from a giggling child. The street in the Outer Boundary had been blocked off, members of the Prosecution squad placed every five feet to keep the peace. Their black uniforms gleamed in threat as their eyes scanned for trouble.

  Applause wound its way through the crowd gathered before the concrete skyscraper, politer than a curtsey to a king. The ’crats had turned out in droves and in their finery, a sea of butter-soft leather, fur muffs and jauntily placed hats. The men hooked trendy taser-canes onto the crooks of their elbows and nodded in approval, outfitted in suits lovingly adapted for their frames. Several children clutched flags in hands that waved furiously, the symbol of two swords clashing in deep blue on ice. Edward’s symbol.

  Cade lolled in the shadows created by a doorframe’s overbite, shoulders propped against the concrete, his mind set on the scene instead of the chill that snaked frosty fingers through his plas-leather jacket. His jackal bumped against his skin as it recognized the human at the front of the mass, a fizzy energy winding its way through Cade’s limbs. A sign that the hunt for truth had begun.

  The high ruler stood before the crowd, ahead of the ribbon stretching taut across the entrance to the skyscraper. His hair, the same shade as genuine mahogany, glinted in the early morning sun, a few gray hairs beginning to intertwine with the rich brown. Handsome enough according to the gossip screenshows, Edward’s most startling feature was a beak of a nose that was stamped on coin to coin in the Southlands, one that had passed from him to at least one of his twin sons. His frame was tall and muscled, strength surrounding him like an invisible, impenetrable barrier.

  Beyond him hulked his flame demon bodyguard and a human with a neatly trimmed blond goatee who stood with his hands clasped together and his stance wide. A white lab coat fluttered around his thighs in the light breeze as he trained his gaze on the high ruler.

  A laugh as sumptuous as sin rolled from Edward’s lips as he held up his hands. “Please. You do me too much honor.” He gestured behind, turning three-quarters to regard the tower. “My friends, today we celebrate another milestone in battling our constant woes as humans. Already we are fighting on all sides to keep the monster of poverty in all its horrific forms at bay. Today, today, we slice off another head of the hydra.”

  Further applause, a few whistles from those who inhabited the Outer Boundary.

  Edward’s smile creased his pale cheek. “This hospital will tend to those in need, be they suffering from minor or major injuries, and will never lock its doors against the desperate. For your children I have slaved over the twenty stories, sweated blood over each concrete block that has created such a fine tower of strength.” He paused, raised his hands slightly. “I have dedicated my rule to helping those less fortunate, and am determined I shall die myself before I allow the human race to suffer for all of time. Eventually we will beat back those tyrants that shackle us humans, make our frail bodies tremble. Today we leap forward in our evolution.”

  Cade’s eyebrows inched up. Edward’s speeches were like a painting, bold and brash, splashed with hot color and passion. And barely decipherable.

&nb
sp; Edward slid the ceremonial dagger from atop the navy velvet cushion the lab-coated man proffered. With a nod of thanks, the high ruler raised it so the six-inch blade caught the sunlight and spun it so light touched the crowd.

  “I declare this hospital…open for business.”

  He sliced the dagger through the ribbon as ruthlessly as a general of war.

  The dozens of humans gathered cheered their approval, the hubbub climbing in pitch as neighbor turned to neighbor.

  Edward swiveled to white-lab-coat and shook his hand, smiling. Their heads inclined when a photographer, complete with the latest point-and-promote gadgetry, snapped their picture. Within thirty seconds the photograph would be splashed across the holo-screen, promoting the hospital’s opening. Within minutes, Cade predicted the hospital would be overrun with those who needed aid. And if Maze-dwellers crept out of the dark, they too would be welcomed.

  This was the man to whom Cade owed a favor. Owed his life. He was proud to help such a leader.

  For now, he needed to wrangle a private talk with the celebrated human.

  Cade peeled his rangy form off the doorframe, slipping between the people assembled, head down, eyes remaining on Edward.

  The high ruler had paused at the front of the mob, shaking hands and lingering to take personal pictures with those who begged. Their primitive point-and-shoots would be worth a fortune to those who succeeded. Edward was as popular as a warlock rock band and twice as influential. A picture might be worth a thousand words, but to Outer Boundary and Maze-humans, a picture would be worth a year’s amount of food.

  After he’d tossed a little girl high enough in the sky to tease a laughing shriek from her and her parents, Edward shot one last wave to his people before falling in line with his bodyguard. Another man joined, one who’d stepped out of the white stretch hover-limo idling near a run-down café that offered what passed as food “all hours of the day”.

  A Prosecution officer held aloft the tape for the high ruler and his entourage to duck under, warning off those who followed with a light tap on the taser-stick tied to his waist.