Shades of Dark

by Linnea Sinclair

  Del stood on Hayden’s left, his mouth twisting in a small but satisfied smile at the fear coming in waves from Hayden Burke. A different kind of symphony.

  If I hadn’t wanted those codes so badly, I would have walked away. I hated Hayden Burke. But I hated more watching Sully and Del draw power from Hayden’s fear. And I was not about to contact Sully through mind-speak and tell him to hurry up. The last thing I wanted right now was to experience what he was experiencing.

  “Tell me about that pretty encryption, Hayden.”

  Hayden’s voice, his fear, his anger exploded into my mind. I staggered against Philip as the series of letters and numbers that would unlock the Lucky Seven were etched in my brain. I knew them as well as Hayden knew them.

  But I knew so much more.

  I felt Sully’s raw hunger for the fear. I felt Del’s probing and slicing to make the emotions that much deeper, more intense. I felt them demand, I felt them feed, the Kyi surging, blossoming, expanding like an uncontrollable heat rushing through my body. It was heady. It was erotic. It was horrible.

  I pushed it away and suddenly felt Sully’s shock at my presence. He hadn’t realized I was part of his link with Del.

  And I felt Del’s gleeful satisfaction at adding one more riveting stanza to the symphony he’d been orchestrating since we found him on Narfial.

  Damn you, Regarth!

  She wanted the codes. She has them now, irrevocably.

  Sully spun toward me, one hand out, expression pained. Angel-mine, I’m so sorry.

  I backed up, teeth clenched, stomach threatening to heave. Philip’s hand closely tightly around my arm. If his link with Sully was open, then he’d felt what I had. If not, he probably was guessing what had happened.

  All of what you are is hers, Gabriel. All of you! Del was almost shouting. How dare you let her demand you be what you’re not? This is your right. And it is hers. He grabbed Hayden’s mind with his own and wrenched it.

  Abject horror shot through me, followed immediately by a surge of heat so powerful I felt it could lift me off my feet. I sucked in a hard breath, my body intensely alive, electric, and resonating strongly to Sully’s.

  Just like when we made love. But this time Del was there too.

  Del licked his lips and chuckled softly. A good student requires an even better teacher.

  No. Sully’s voice was rough and shaking with anger as he turned to Del. Damn you to hell! You will not use her like that. It ends now!

  Light flashed, a blinding surge of power. A hot pain seared my mind. Something else blistered against my skin. I screamed, dropping to my knees, hands on my head. Then Philip was dragging me backward out of the cargo bay. All I could hear was my own breath and the sound of my boots and his scuffling against the debris-covered decking as a harsh wind whirled over us. Lengths of old cable and ceiling tiles flew through the air. Philip and I finally found shelter halfway across the lower staging area, our backs against a pair of wide duro-hards that shielded us from most of the impact.

  I grabbed Philip’s arm and hauled myself upright. He was tight-lipped, his face holding a fury I’d never seen before. I knew why. “Del opened your link with Sully too, didn’t he?” I rasped out as a silent war waged in flashes of light just out of my sight, and an unholy windstorm whipped my hair across my face.

  “Go unlock Burke’s ship.”

  “They’re going to kill each other. I’m not letting that happen.”

  “You can’t stop them.”

  “Like hell I can’t.” I lunged forward.

  Philip yanked me back. “Regarth will use you to incite Sully. Again.”

  A flash of light flared so brightly I was forced to close my eyes. My heart stopped but there was another. A third. Sully was still alive. I knew it.

  I shoved Philip away. He caught a handful of my sleeve. “Chaz!”

  I pulled the Kyi-killer from its holster. “Sully was right. This stops. Now.” I jerked back, hard, then ran, heart pounding, mouth dry, praying for another flare of energy that told me the battle was still on. And Gabriel Sullivan was still alive.

  A wall of light poured from the cargo bay’s open doors, sparkling, roiling. I hesitated only a moment then plunged through, almost stepping on Hayden, who was cringing, cowering on the floor next to the bench. It was probably the safest place for him to be. I sprinted past him, my eye on two forms struggling with each other near the bay’s left wall.

  The whirlwind had stopped, the energies that had poured outward now returning to the two men. Lightning flashed so brightly that my eyes stung. I swiped at them with my sleeve as I ran past broken duro-hards and servostairs. I saw Del stumble, saw Sully barrel into him, body and energy surging forward. Then Del was down, panting, blood dripping from his mouth. Sully shoved another rush of energy at him. But Del rolled sideways, swinging a swath of star-filled energy as he did, catching Sully’s legs, whipping him around. This time he stumbled, crashing against a lopsided set of servostairs. Del was up, moving, a wall of blazing energy in front of him like a force field. Sully’s left arm and leg were trapped in the twisted metal. He wrenched against it and for a second nothing happened. Then the wreckage flew at Del.

  Del dropped and rolled again. A wave of energy crashed back against Sully, pinning him to the floor.

  I was running flat out now, lungs burning. I saw the problem. Sully was a street fighter, used to the physical. Attacking with the Kyi wasn’t his instinctual response. Del had spent twenty years learning to fight with the power of the Kyi. It had nothing to do with who was the more powerful. Del had the expertise and instincts Sully lacked.

  I was close enough that I could see long gashes in Del’s coat, energy spewing through. I could see blood dripping down the side of Sully’s face. I skidded to a halt ten feet from them, and locked my arms. “Freeze, Regarth, or I’ll fry your fucking brains!”

  Del turned, one arm still out, energy flowing from his hand, locking Sully down. His smile widened to a broad grin. “This is delightful. Gabriel, your ky’sara has come to play. And she’s brought Tage’s new toy.”

  A new toy I knew dismally little about. If I shot Del, the outflow might also harm Sully. I tapped the laser-sights on. A small red dot appeared on his chest. “Let him go, Regarth. Take Burke’s ship and get out of here. And never come near us again.”

  Chasidah. Sully’s voice was strained. Get. Out. Now.

  “You’re giving me Burke’s ship? You mean, you don’t want to kill me?” Del shook his head. “Angel, where is your passion?”

  “Under control.” Which was exactly what Del didn’t want. He wanted to feed on a ky’sara’s anger, fear, and desperation. He got Captain Chasidah Bergren, pride of the Sixth Fleet, instead. “I’m not your plaything. Death is not a sport I take pleasure in. Let Sully go. Leave.” I kept my tone even, my mind blank, my duro-hards permanently shut. “Now, Regarth.” I stepped closer.

  He sighed, lowering his hand. The silver energy faded but only slightly. Sully struggled to sit, pulling himself up on one elbow, panting. But Del’s energy still pushed against him.

  “All the way, Regarth.”

  “If I release him, lover, he’ll kill me. That would be unpleasant.”

  “Do as she says, Regarth.” Philip’s voice—and hard footsteps—boomed across the cargo bay. “You can call a sen’mral. A truce of brothers. It’s inviolate. No one kills anyone. Protection in the code of the clan.”

  I’d never heard of a sen’mral, but I trusted Philip’s research. And I wanted a truce. I didn’t want to press the trigger of the Kyi-killer while Sully was linked so strongly to Del. I was very aware that by doing so, they both might die.

  Del looked at Sully, one brow arched. “Would you grant me that, Brother? A sen’mral? A ship, my freedom? Your gift to your guri?”

  Sully nodded slowly. “I would so love to kill you,” he said hoarsely, “but that will have to wait for another lifetime. So yes, a sen’mral. On my word. And yours.”

  I wait
ed, holding my breath. Del made a fist, bringing the energy back to his hand with an almost palpable snap. Philip, Norlack rifle aimed at Del, was a few feet from my side. Sully pushed himself onto his knees.

  Del’s hand swung down. My world exploded, again.

  I sailed backward, blinded, lungs burning. I hit the floor, a cargo crate, something with sharp edges, something that dug into my spine. I yelped, hearing someone cry out as I tried, blinded and near retching from pain, to get my feet under me, but it was like trying to claw through a bulkhead. That made no sense, but I managed to pull myself to my knees. I swiped at my face until my vision was merely blurry but I could see. And I saw Del standing, energy rolling from both hands, circling me, holding me in place. I was kneeling, but I felt as if I were pushing against the outflow from the thruster engines on a heavy-air fighter. I could get…only…so…far.

  And my rifle, my gun belt, and the Kyi-killer were out of reach, lying in a torn and tangled heap fifteen feet or so on my right.

  A groan sounded on my left. I forced my head in that direction. Philip, sprawled on the floor near the base of a wheeled loader, his right leg twisted at an impossible angle, just like our attackers in the stairwell on Narfial. My breath caught in my throat. I’d slammed into a crate. He’d been tossed against a heavy-loader. The shattered leg was probably the least of his injuries. But his chest moved. Del hadn’t snapped his neck. He was alive.

  I had to find some way to get him, but…Sully. Where was Sully?

  I turned slowly back to Del, seeing what I’d missed with my blurred eyes the first time. Sully, facedown, about twenty feet from Del’s left. Blood pooled around his slack mouth. His eyes were closed. No lightning raced across his skin, no silver haze edged his coat.

  God, no.

  Bitter rage rose in me, fear right behind it. I clamped down the fear, but the rage fed me and I let it. I didn’t care. Del wanted a symphony. I’d give him the biggest fucking orchestra he’d ever heard.

  “What would you do, Chasidah Bergren Guthrie Sullivan,” Del asked me softly as I turned back to him, “to keep them both alive?”

  His taunt from that day on the Karn’s bridge. Only now there was another life at stake.

  “Same answer as last time. I’d kill you.”

  “Ah, the passion returns.”

  “You agreed to a truce. A pact.”

  “Yes. Gabriel lives. I’ll even grant you Philip. In return, I get my freedom, a ship, and the required offering of a student to his guri.”

  I suddenly knew what that was. The article on Kyi-Ragkirils from West Baris University had detailed how a forty-first-century Ayirr Dynasty guri had demanded the transfer of a ky’sara to him as a gesture of submission from his students.

  “You’re Serian, not Ayirr,” I spat out.

  “And this is far from the forty-first century, but old traditions die hard. Shall we go?”

  The silver haze lessened around me. I leaned slightly forward on my knees, as if the sudden change disoriented me. I felt for the knife in my boot. Still there. In my pocket was the small hand laser I’d taken earlier from the lab ship’s security officer. And I had my Grizni.

  It might be hours. It might be weeks. It could be years. But I would kill him.

  I raised my face, the pain on it very real. “You just tossed me halfway across a cargo bay. Pardon me for not getting up and dancing at your command.”

  “My apologies. I do prefer pleasure to pain. But the latter has proven to be instructive at times. And the healing is so delightful.” He stepped closer, the Kyi’s pressure reducing in intensity again. He held out his hand but no energy erupted from it. He was offering to help me to my feet.

  “And yes, of course I know you have the Grizni and are fantasizing about stabbing me, but I won’t let you right now. I promise after a few weeks, you won’t want to. There are other, equally as exciting ways to transfer energy.”

  I ignored his hand and shoved myself to my feet. Silver energy traveled with me. “Let’s say I agree to go with you. How do I know you won’t leave them here to die?”

  He looked at me as if my question was beyond inane. “You understand so little. Because it’s not my intention to kill Gabriel. This,” and power surged over his clenched fist, “is what we are. How we grow and learn. Gabriel will heal and be the better Kyi for what’s happened here. At some point, he may even challenge me and get you back. Probably in the next few months. And I look forward to it. He is extraordinary. I’m honored to call him my student, my friend.”

  His friend? Dear God, it was all a game to him. Like lovers playing with loaded weapons on their wedding night.

  “They need medical help,” I said. “Now.”

  He shrugged. “You can contact Ganton and Captain Bralford once we clear dock.”

  “Not good enough.”

  Del’s mouth curved. “Stars, but you are a delight. I could take you this minute, completely. You’d be powerless to stop me.” He flicked his fingers. Silver haze raced over my body and for a moment I couldn’t move. Then it faded again.

  “Like Brigitta Halemon?” I asked, hooking my thumbs into my pockets. A casual move I hoped he didn’t notice. “But that didn’t satisfy you, did it? Or we’d not even be having this conversation.”

  “Point conceded, angel. So tell me what will please you. With what promise can I entice you onto my ship and into my bed?”

  “Contact the Karn and the Nowicki now. Keep Philip and Sully alive until they arrive. When they’re twenty out from dock, I’ll leave with you.”

  “You sound as if I know exactly where those ships are.”

  “I think you do.”

  His smile broadened.

  “Just as I think—no, I know—you’ve controlled Nayla Dalby.”

  That warranted a raised eyebrow. “I hadn’t realized I was so transparent.”

  He wasn’t. It was just that pieces fell into place as I watched his fascination with female captains, or women in position of command. Women who could challenge him. I’d recognized that other female presence in his mind earlier. Not a captain but a commander. Dalby. At the helm of Del’s “sweet little ship” that he’d bought from an Elarwin. The same Interceptor that had challenged us before Narfial.

  I also remembered his comment about Dalby when Philip brought up her theft of Fleet’s codes. He knew how to deal with her, he’d said. But the first time he said it, it was mind-speak. And I’d felt that frisson of excitement from him, that sexual hunger that needed sating.

  But Dalby brought the Serian prince something more: information on what the Farosians were doing. For a Serian wanting to rule Baris again, controlling the Farosians was almost a requirement.

  It also told me how he’d known so much about Sully and me when we arrived on Narfial, yet he’d been surprised to learn Sully was a Ragkiril. Gregor, who fed information to the Farosians, hadn’t known.

  “You’re predictable, Regarth. Predictable men make the worst lovers, but I’ll deal with that and you to get what I want. Philip and Sully, alive and safe.”

  He brought one hand to his chest. The other was still out, still wrapping me in a light but unbreakable stream of energy. “Your words wound me.”

  “The best way to a man’s heart,” I told him, “is one clean shot from a Stinger—”

  “—at point blank, set to kill.” Sully’s voice rasped hard to my right.

  I wrenched around in my small silver-edge space. Sully was propped up on his elbows, blood coating half his face. The other half blazed hot with lightning. He clutched the Kyi-killer with both hands, his mouth drawn back in a grimace. Not just from the pain of his injuries, but from what he held in his hands.

  “It’s time to end this,” he said harshly.

  “You can’t—” Del opened his right hand but stopped, frozen, his fingers still curled. Surprise flickered across his features. He stared at Sully. Sully’s long coat, the containment field, was gone.

  “I can,” Sully said, energy spiralin
g around him, licking up into the air like hungry flames, giving him what he needed to hold Del in stasis. “Not for long, but long enough for Chasidah to get out of here. Release her.”

  “You will tire. Time is on my side then, Gabriel.”

  “It’s not.” Sully touched the laser-sights. The red dot blossomed at Del’s throat, jerked down to his chest, then up again as Sully’s hands trembled. “Unlike Chasidah, I have no problems with killing you right now.”

  “Do it and you’ll kill yourself. That’s not how the game is played.”

  Del didn’t understand. Sully wasn’t playing a game here. “Sully, don’t!”

  He ignored me. “As I said, it’s time to end this.”

  “Don’t be idiotic. Then neither of us win. I thought you loved her.”

  “I do, beyond all measure.” Sully’s voice was strained. “And I have nothing to offer her but pain. A life with an unholy demon who can barely control his hunger. Who is so desperate for power, he allies with one who’s even worse. You may be the devil incarnate, a true prince of hell, but you’ve made me your brother. The Empire will fare much better will both of us dead.”

  My throat tightened. “Damn you, Sully, no!”

  “I’m already damned, angel-mine. And it’s time.”

  No. There were options. My fingers found the small hand laser. I didn’t know if it would pass through the energy field Del had around me, but I had to try. He was focused on Sully. I could—

  Don’t interfere! Del’s voice came hard and abrupt in my mind. The field around me flared, pushing air out of my lungs. The laser fell through my fingers.

  And a blast of energy streaked by me. Del’s body arched backward from the impact. His knees buckled, his legs crumpling as a red lattice writhed across the startled expression on his face then down his shoulders, clawing its way around the small charred hole in his chest.

  The silver haze around me vanished. I was running, screaming Sully’s name. I dropped to my knees next to him. He was on his back, gasping, the crazed red lines racing frenetically over his skin. One hand still clutched the pistol. I yanked it from his fingers, shoved it down by my feet. I took his face in my hands. Tears streamed down my cheeks.