Shades of Dark

by Linnea Sinclair

  “Sully, hang on.” I sobbed out the words as he stared at me with a curious detachment. “A med-kit. Burke’s ship. Five minutes. Then I can get you to sick bay.”

  “I am so sorry.” His voice was a whisper. His breath, shallow. “All I’ve done is hurt you.”

  “No, you haven’t!” His skin was clammy under my fingers. “You’re a strong Kyi. You can heal. Take my energy. Do it!”

  “I can’t, angel-mine,” he said so softly that I had to lower my head to hear his words. My tears fell, dotting his face. “We’re…not linked…anymore. You’re free, love.”

  “Sully, no. Please.” I brushed his face with kisses, my mouth touching the red writhing lines, the fading jagged streaks of silver.

  His breath stuttered, his eyelids fluttering.

  He was dying.

  “Sully, please, try!” I was sobbing uncontrollably, my heart tearing into a thousand pieces. I felt helpless, stupid, worthless, and so damned alone. What good was the pride of the Sixth Fleet now? The man I loved was dying. Because of me. “Breathe, damn you! You did it for Ren, you did it for Philip. Do it for yourself. Do it for me!”

  His eyes opened slightly. The fathomless obsidian, the infinite shades of dark faded to a dull silver. It took me a moment to understand. He was blind, his body failing as he slipped away from me. His breathing was labored. I folded my hand around his, bringing it to his chest. “Fight! Stay with me!” I squeezed his fingers.

  His mouth moved. There were no sounds.

  “Sully! Try!”

  “Chasidah.” A barely audible, raspy voice. But it wasn’t Sully’s.

  I looked through the blur of tears to where Del lay a few feet behind me. His eyes were clouded like Sully’s. Slowly he turned one hand palm up toward me.

  “Go to hell, Regarth,” I sobbed out, my voice breaking.

  “Rash’mh han enqerma,” he whispered. “I wronged my brother. I offer my life, for his.” He unfolded his fingers and a small glowing ball flared. “Take it.”

  Take it? “I…I can’t. I don’t know—”

  “Touch me. Touch. Him. The Kyi knows…the rest.”

  I had no time to decide how or why. I grabbed Del’s hand, trapping the glowing ball between our palms as I brought Sully’s arm over his head, his hand firmly in mine.

  “Rash’mh han enqerma,” Prince Regarth Serian Cordell Delkavra whispered again. “I shall walk as a Serian prince…among Serian kings.”

  Heat blazed through me, up one arm, through my heart, down the other. Heat. Life. Power.

  Breathe, Chasidah, Del told me, his words barely audible.

  I sucked in air, hiccuped out sobs. All my emotional duro-hards burst open—grief, rage, and fear pouring out.

  Suddenly, Del’s fingers went slack, sliding through mine. His lifeless hand fell softly against the floor. His skin was flat, ashen. There was nothing left. It was up to me now.

  I grasped Sully’s hand in both of mine. With every heated pulse I pushed, I breathed, I opened my heart, my soul.

  Philip had to say my name three times before I heard him. He dragged himself over to me, one leg badly shattered but the rest of him in bearable pain. Or so he assured me. It could have been worse. Del could have also broken his neck, crushed his body completely.

  I took one of my hands from Sully and reached for him.

  “Sully breathed for you.” I stuttered the words out. “Now I’m breathing for him.”

  “I know. I heard.” He pulled himself next to me, pain furrowing his features. He rested his other hand on Sully’s chest just as Sully had once done for him. “Will this help?”

  I nodded through tears once again flowing heavily.

  The cargo bay grew cold. An overhead flickered off, on, then finally off. Minutes passed. Hours, days, for all I knew. I had no concept of time. Philip and I leaned against each other for warmth, Sully’s fingers curled into mine, Philip’s hand on his chest. We breathed, we prayed, and we breathed again.

  I refused to let go. I refused to let Sully die.

  All that I am is yours. Stay with me, ky’sal-mine. Stay with me. And breathe, damn you. Breathe!

  “Captain Bergren!”

  I jolted awake. My head was on Philip’s shoulder but I still held Sully’s fingers.

  Philip inched around, his hand firmly on Sully’s chest. “Jodey!” His voice was thin, pain-filled, and tired. “About goddamned time.”

  Jodey Bralford and Marsh Ganton were running toward us. Just behind them were Ren and Verno. And three, no, five. No…I couldn’t count, but they were Nowicki crew and officers. And some from the Loviti.

  They tried to pull me away from Sully as they gently placed him on a hovering stretcher. “You don’t understand. I can’t let him—”

  “Chasidah, he’s alive.” Ren gently grabbed my shoulders. “Healing. He’ll make it on his own now.” He tried to pull me to my feet but my legs and back screamed in protest from sitting for a lifetime on the cold, hard floor.

  “You’re in no shape to walk,” Ren said, probably reading my painful rainbows. “Put your arms around my neck.” He picked me up as if I weighed nothing, his arms under my knees and back.

  “Philip?” I tried peering over his shoulder.

  “Captain Bralford’s doctor has him. He’ll be all right. Everything’s going to be all right. I promise.”

  Ren didn’t know. Sully was blind. Our ky’saran link was severed.

  And Prince Regarth Serian Cordell Delkavra walked with Serian kings in the crystalline depths of the Great Sea. Rash’mh han enqerma.

  No, things were not all right. They never would be. But Sully was alive. Philip was alive. And if that was all I ever had, it was more than enough to keep fighting for.

  The doctor on the Nowicki was honest. Her medical databases held very little on Stolorth Ragkiril physiology. She had nothing on human Kyis.

  “Mr. Sullivan’s body knows far more than I do about healing him,” Dr. Galan admitted. “So we’ve given his body everything it needs to work with. The rest is up to him.”

  “Will he regain his sight?”

  “I have no way of knowing, since a Ragkiril’s optics are augmented beyond a normal human’s. But if he doesn’t, it may be that his body shut down that ability in order to keep him alive. Overall, a small sacrifice.”

  But a big part of everything he was and could do as a Kyi. I thanked the doctor and headed down sick bay’s long hall for Sully’s room.

  He had the thermal sheet pulled up to his chest, med-broches plastered on his arms, shoulders, and no doubt other places I couldn’t see, pumping nutrients and anti-infectives into him. Giving his body something to work with.

  I stood by his bedside for several minutes, just watching him sleep, watching the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. That was the only thing that made any sense to me. Everything else that happened on the depot didn’t. At least, not yet.

  Some answers would come with the interrogation of Burke and his two ships’ crews. But others, I might never know.

  What kind of game would force Del to confront a powerful rogue Kyi, only then to give up his own life so that his enemy might live?

  “Study the Serians, study the Ayirr Dynasty, and you might understand,” Philip had said from his own sick bay bed, when I’d seen him an hour before, while Sully was still in surgery. “But then again, you might not. My aunt is still puzzling much of it out. Stolorth royalty thrives on flamboyance and conflict. They also have a very deep sense of honor. It makes no sense to us. But it does, very strongly, to them.”

  And why, how had Sully broken our ky’saran link? Is that what pushed him to the brink of death? Or was breaking it what kept him alive because it left him free to concentrate his energies in healing?

  And did he even care that he was alive? What had happened with Halemon only augemented his self-hatred, even though I knew now he was as much an unwilling participant as Halemon. Del had used them both. Another game.

  But his int
entions had never been to hurt Gabriel, his clan brother. Because in his culture, you shared your pleasure with your friends, your family. Del had taken the time to remove that memory from Brigitta Halemon’s mind. She’d never know she’d pushed one man to the brink of suicide. And, because of that, sent another to his death.

  Sully’s fingers twitched. I took his left hand, threading my fingers through his long, lean ones. I squeezed. He squeezed back and my heart jumped.

  “Sully?”

  He blinked, then blinked again, dark lashes shading silver eyes. He frowned. “Chaz?” His voice sounded rusty. His right hand came up and brushed over his face as if to pluck away whatever had cast him into darkness.

  It came away empty. The frown deepened.

  I squeezed his hand tighter. “You almost died, Sully. You’re still healing.”

  He turned his face toward me. His gaze zigzagged slightly. “You’re wearing your worry colors.”

  Base Ragkir and empathic talents were working. I took that for a good sign. “I’m worried about you. You’re a bit of a mystery to the docs here.”

  “Where’s here? Oh.” Another frown. “Bralford’s down the corridor. The Nowicki?”

  Still base Ragkir talents or something more? Two seconds later I heard Jodey’s voice call Philip’s name. “The Nowicki,” I confirmed. “The Karn’s hitching a ride in one of their shuttle bays. We’re towing both of Burke’s ships.”

  Sully closed his eyes and was quiet for so long I thought he’d fallen back asleep. Then: “Hayden’s in the brig.”

  “And talking.” He was. Jodey hadn’t even had to push very hard. All he had to do was mention Sully’s name and Hayden told everything he knew. He didn’t know Sully was injured. He thought he’d be facing a fully phased Kyi.

  “Did he tell you he killed my mother?”

  I straightened, surprised, and I was sure my worry colors flared. “No. I don’t think Jodey asked him about that.”

  “Ask him.” Sully ran his right hand over the bed rail, his fingers finding the bed’s controls. “I only found part of the story,” he said, angling himself into a sitting position. The thermal sheet slid farther down his chest. “He knew she was putting me back in as heir. Not the Sullivan inheritance. Hers. Rossetti. But there was more. I just couldn’t…” His voice trailed off. He closed his eyes again.

  “You’re tired,” I said softly, my thumb stroking his fingers. “I’ll come back later.”

  “No, Chaz.” He gripped my hand tightly. “I…it’s damnably inconvenient being blind. I can’t pick up on the things I normally do. I can’t read you. I can’t hear you at all in my mind. There are several very large gaps in my head right now.”

  “I think you put them there. You severed the ky’saran link.”

  “I didn’t sever it.” His voice dropped to a deep rumble. “I gave you to Del.”

  Confusion flooded me. “You…why?”

  “To keep you alive. I thought he was going to kill me. So I transferred your link to him. Not ky’saran. A basic life link. That would keep you alive long enough so you could…fry his fucking brains with the Kyi-killer.”

  Gregor’s research surfaced in my mind again. The only way to break a ky’saran bond without killing both parties was to transfer one of those linked to a third Ragkiril who was of greater strength than the original bond pair.

  Del hadn’t lied when he said Sully had given me to him as a gift.

  “I didn’t know what would happen to you if I hit Del with a charge from the gun while you were linked to him,” I admitted. “We had no data on the weapon. Bargaining for your life was the only thing I trusted.”

  “My life wasn’t worth bargaining for, Captain Bergren.”

  I eased down on the edge of his bed. “I don’t happen to agree with that, Mr. Sullivan.”

  Sightless eyes watched me closely. I tried to put all my hopes, my love, my desire into my rainbow colors.

  “How can you still love me,” he asked quietly, “knowing what I am?”

  “Because all that I am is yours. And all that you are is mine,” I answered, equally as quietly. “The good and the bad. The fears, the hopes, the desires.”

  “I have done unforgivable things.”

  I shook my head, belatedly realizing he couldn’t see the movement. “Del did them, and tried to force you to accept them as what you are. But you’re not Serian, you’re not Stolorth. You’re a Kyi, a human Kyi, who loves deeply, is fiercely loyal to his crew and friends, and who has no tolerance for cruelty and injustice.”

  He reached up blindly for me. I brought his hand to my face. He traced my jaw, my lips, my cheeks much as Ren had months ago. Seeing me in the only way he could now.

  “A Kyi who is highly motivated,” he whispered, “by the pleasure of one extraordinary, incredible woman. A woman he loves beyond all measure.”

  He lowered his hand, finding my arm, then hesitantly tugged me toward him. I went willingly, covering his mouth with my own, letting lips and fingers say what words often could not. But gently because he was injured, and tenderly because both our hearts were hurting.

  It would be a time yet before he would have the strength to be in my body. He might never again be able to be in my mind.

  It didn’t matter. All that I was, was his. And all that he was, was mine.

  And that was something worth fighting for.

  Winner of the prestigious national book award the RITA, science fiction romance author Linnea Sinclair has become a name synonymous for high-action, emotionally intense, character-driven novels. Reviewers note that Sinclair’s novels “have the wow factor in spades,” earning her accolades from both the science fiction and the romance communities. A former news reporter and retired private detective, Sinclair resides in Naples, Florida, with her husband, Robert Bernadino, and their two thoroughly spoiled cats. Readers can find her perched on the third barstool from the left in her Intergalactic Bar and Grille at www.linneasinclair.com.

  If you loved Shades of Dark, be sure not to miss RITA Award–winning author Linnea Sinclair’s next exciting adventure set in the same riveting universe:

  Coming in spring 2009 from Bantam Books

  Admiral Philip Guthrie is in an unprecedented position: on the wrong end of the law, leading a ragtag band of rebels against the oppressive Imperial forces. Or will be, if he can reach his command ship—the intriguingly named Hope’s Folly—alive. Not much can rattle Philip’s legendary cool—but the woman who helps him foil an assassination attempt on Kirro Station will. She’s the daughter of his best friend and first commander—a man who died while under Philip’s command, and whose death is on Philip’s conscience.

  Rya Bennton has been in love with Philip Guthrie since she was a girl. But can her childhood fantasies survive an encounter with the hardened man, and newly minted rebel leader, who it seems has just become her new commanding officer? And will she still be willing to follow him through the jaws of hell once she learns the truth about her father’s death?

  Here’s a special preview.

  coming spring 2009

  The passenger docks on Kirro Station were cavernous, dimly lit, and bitingly cold. It took forty-five minutes for the Starford Spacelines transport ship to regurgitate Rya’s duffel out of its cargo holds, along with the rest of the passengers’ baggage. By that point, Rya had already turned up the collar on her leather jacket and tucked her hands under her armpits, releasing them only to make a grab for her duffel on the shuddering, rumbling baggage belt. Then she knelt, fished her dark blue Special Protection Service beret out of the side pocket, and removed the rank and service pins. She pulled the beret over her perpetually unruly hair. Some people might look twice if they knew what the beret symbolized. This was, after all, a recently declared Alliance station. Imperial Fleet in all its flavors, including Imperial Security, was not welcome.

  But the overheads were weak and those milling about the baggage collection area of the passenger terminal appeared as bleary-eyed as she was
. The beret could be mistaken for black. The service pins were deep in her pocket. And her scalp was goddamned frostbitten. She was going to wear her beret, for what little good it did.

  It was better than nothing.

  The two-day flight from Calth starport had been dismal, with crying infants, hacking old men, and one painfully thin woman who snored like a half-ton freight-loader grinding gears.

  Kirro Station was equally dismal. Umoran had been hit hard with financial failures after the grove cankers and lack of support from what was once the empire. Exports were down. Imports were priced like luxuries. More than half the food kiosks in the passenger terminal were abandoned. Those still open offered few selections at ridiculous prices.

  She overpaid for a half mug of sweet tea and, clutching it between chilled hands as the duffel’s strap dug a furrow into her shoulder, headed down the long corridor to find the waiting room for the shuttle to Seth.

  She passed a few stripers, armed and watchful. Seven months ago, she might have stopped to talk about the job with one or two. She was law enforcement, as were they, although her jurisdiction as an ImpSec officer had been on a much larger scale than station security. Now she played civilian, letting her gaze pass over them as if a man or woman armed with a rifle was nothing more than an interesting curiosity. Though she did wonder if any of them were former ImpSec like herself.

  Out of habit she studied their weaponry more than their faces. No Carvers here, not even Stingers. Standard-issue Mag-5 pistols. Rifles were boring Blue Surgers. She’d trained on them, could dismantle them in her sleep, which, in her opinion, was all they were worth. But yeah, get shot by a Surger, it still hurt like a bitch and could put you flat-out dead if someone’s aim was good.

  That’s why she liked working for ImpSec. They carried Carver-10s, minimum. Carver-12s on shipside duty. She’d even heard of 15s when they worked the rim or were assigned to an admiral’s personal protection. Totally apex, to quote her friend Lyza, who was by now sleeping in Rya’s bed in Rya’s apartment, possibly even with Rya’s former lover.

  The shuttle waiting room was crowded. Not surprising. According to the schedule board, the room serviced three shuttles: dirtside to Umoran and the moon colony, and spaceside to the Seth shipyards. She wondered how many of those huddled down on the hard seats had seen Commander Dina Adney’s coded transmit on available crew positions for the new AIR fleet. A lot, probably, because this was Calth, and Calth had almost entirely withdrawn from the empire after the dissolution of the Admirals’ Council several months ago.