Shield of Winter

by Nalini Singh

  "Come on, Rabbit"--she threw the stick--"fetch!"

  As Vasic watched her encourage their ecstatic pet, her delight music in the air, he said, "This wasn't meant to be my future," to the man who walked up to join him.

  Aden had arrived in the city on a high-speed jet-chopper a half hour ago. Now, his partner stood with his gloved hands on either side of the tailored black winter coat he wore open over a suit of the same color, his shirt white. It was camouflage for an urban environment.

  "Are you sorry for the change?"

  "No." Not far from them, Ivy lavished Rabbit with affectionate praise when he ran back with the stick. "I'll never be sorry for Ivy." He'd fight the world for her, and he'd battle like a gladiator against the results of his formerly self-destructive instincts. "There's one more option we haven't explored when it comes to the gauntlet." It was something he'd realized during the outbreak this morning, when Dev Santos's team had taken primary responsibility for ensuring calm. "The Forgotten have certain unusual gifts."

  "I already checked it out." Aden's eyes followed Ivy's arm as she took the stick from Rabbit after a play fight and threw it again. "Their medical tech has gone in a different direction. Santos did say he might be able to assist using an ability about which he'd tell me nothing."

  Vasic braced himself for bad news. It could be nothing else if Aden hadn't already shared it with him.

  "He did a field test in the aftermath of the outbreak, while you were both in close proximity." Aden glanced at him, shook his head. "Whatever his ability, he says it's too rough yet to work with such complex computronics."

  Having processed the information as Aden gave it to him, Vasic moved on. Time was the one commodity he didn't have. "Keep the surgeon on standby. I don't know if the gauntlet is going to last the full eight weeks Bashir initially predicted."

  Aden didn't argue with his order. "Have you told Ivy the risks?"

  "Yes." Vasic paused. All his life, he'd shared data with Aden almost automatically--his relationship with his empath, however, was new territory. Ivy, he said telepathically, will it break your trust if I talk to Aden about our relationship?

  She shot him a look over her shoulder, eyes bright. No. I plan to complain about you to Jaya. Laughter in her mental voice as she turned back to watch their courageous little dog race toward her. Just don't go into detail about how we make love. A pause, her body suddenly motionless. What exactly did you ask Judd Lauren? Only about the control issue or--

  He sent me his research file on sex.

  Vasic could see her turning red even from this distance. Her mental groan was mortified. I will never be able to look him in the eye again, she said, face in her hands. Fine, talk to Aden about it if he needs the information. I hope he does . . . I hope he finds what we have.

  So did Vasic. "Ivy," he said to the other man, "expects me to talk to her, and so I do. I'm learning not to keep secrets."

  Strands of Aden's straight black hair slid across his forehead in an undemanding breeze that didn't dislodge the snow from the branches above. "Is it difficult?"

  "Sometimes." Vasic didn't always do the right thing, but with Ivy, that never meant rejection. She wanted to make mistakes with him, was forgiving of his own. "Being with her is the most complex, most fascinating operation of my life."

  And it was one he knew would only grow more intricate with time. "Some would say this is the punishment for my crimes," he said into the quiet broken by Rabbit's excited bark as he ran for the stick again. "To be given happiness only to have my own choices steal it from me."

  His friend looked at him. "Is that what you believe?"

  "No." Once he might have. No longer. Because to do so would be to believe Ivy was being punished, too--and his Ivy had done nothing to deserve the pain that made her cry in her sleep.

  Each tear was a drop of acid directly on his soul.

  "The recent media coverage of you," Aden said into the silence that had fallen between them. "Can you handle it?"

  "It doesn't concern me." Vasic didn't need to be underground, not like those of his brethren whose lives would be placed at risk should those men and women be identified as members of the squad.

  "No." Aden reached down to pick up Rabbit's stick when the dog raced over to drop it at his feet. "Can you handle being the public face of the squad?" Throwing the stick past Ivy, he dusted the snow off his hands.

  Vasic stared at his partner, Aden's words making no sense. "We don't have a public profile, and if we did, you're the best one to take that position."

  "The decision is now out of our hands." Taking a thin datapad from his pocket, he passed it to Vasic just as Ivy returned to them.

  She leaned against his side to look at the screen, her cheeks glowing and a panting Rabbit resting at her feet. Every inch of Vasic's body was sensitized to her presence, her warmth seeping into his cells to ease the ice-cold places inside him, the soft curve of her breast pressed against his upper arm. With any other woman, it would've been an intrusion. With Ivy, it felt natural . . . normal.

  Shifting his arm, he wrapped it around her shoulders.

  "That's an incredible photo."

  He followed the copper and gold of her gaze to see that the image on the datapad was of him. He had a baby cradled against his chest and a hand shoved out behind him as he held off two of the infected armed with broken glass bottles. Blood dripped from his temple where he'd taken a hit at some point, and his T-shirt was torn, the gauntlet visible because he'd taken off his jacket to wrap the infant in it, having caught her as she was thrown off a third-story balcony in an act of insane violence.

  "What do you see when you see that photo?" Aden asked, his question directed at Ivy.

  "Vasic being the strong, extraordinary man he is." She rose on tiptoe, and Vasic angled his head down. Her lips brushed over his jaw.

  Aden took in the interaction, wondered if his partner had any comprehension of just how far he'd come. "If you didn't feel positive emotions toward him already," he said to the woman who was Vasic's, "what would you see?"

  Ivy focused on the image again, frowned. "I'd see the same. A strong man protecting the vulnerable."

  "That is what the wider population sees as well." Tapping the datapad, he brought up the hereto hidden headline: "A Silent Hero."

  There was more, the feature article illustrated not only with that first image, but with several others of Vasic taken during the recent outbreaks--as well as a photograph from when he'd rendered assistance after a bomb blast masterminded by Pure Psy in Copenhagen and another from the group's attack in Geneva.

  Vasic was wearing his Arrow uniform in both those photos.

  "The media has connected you to the squad," Aden said, "and by doing that, they've given the squad a face, a name."

  "We don't play for the media, Aden. Even if that's to change, I'm the last person you should put in that position."

  Ivy spread her hand on Vasic's chest, her smile rueful. "I adore him," she said to Aden, "but he's right. Vasic's not exactly the chatty media type." Her eyes danced. "In fact, I'm not sure he knows how to chat at all."

  Vasic squeezed her. "I'm going to find a manual."

  Bursting out in laughter at what seemed a reasonable statement to Aden, Ivy tried to speak, gave up. "Sorry," she said almost a minute later, her voice still tremulous with laughter and inexplicable tears rolling down her face. "Your partner has a sly sense of humor."

  I didn't know you had a sense of humor.

  I appear to be growing one. Vasic shifted back to vocal speech after using his thumb to wipe away Ivy's tears. "The media. Why?"

  "We need to adapt," Aden said in an echo of the promise the entire squad had made when Silence was about to fall.

  To adapt. To survive.

  "The squad has always been a shadow in the Net," he continued, "the whip used to terrify the population. Right now, people are in shock, but sooner or later, if we survive this infection, things will come to an equilibrium." Aden met eyes of cop
per ringed with gold, then those of cool gray. "When that happens, people will seek someone to blame." The psychology of it was clear-cut. "We're a big target."

  "No one can touch us," Vasic replied.

  "No, but they can touch those who are our own." Aden looked deliberately at Ivy.

  Chapter 54

  "IF ANYONE IN the squad intends to have a life beyond Silence, we need to rehabilitate"--Aden paused, conscious of the incongruity of using that word--"the perception seeded into the minds of the population that we're murderers and assassins. That might be true, but it isn't going to be useful going forward."

  Ivy's eyebrows drew together. "Don't call the squad that," she said, her voice fierce. "Don't say it about yourself, either."

  Aden held Ivy's gaze. "We're killers, Ivy. That can't be altered."

  Aden. Vasic shook his head very slightly. Don't remind her of something she appears to have forgotten.

  But it was too late, Ivy stepping forward to face Aden. "You were assassins, black ops, whatever you want to call it. You took orders. And yes, you should take responsibility for your actions, but you were also drafted as children and programmed to take those orders, do those acts." Voice low and intense, she continued before he could interrupt. "That gives you the right to cut yourselves some slack. You're trying to change things now--you've put your lives on the line again and again and again to help the defenseless."

  "At what point," Aden said, "is that enough to erase the past?"

  "Never," Ivy said softly. "We all have to live with our past, but it doesn't have to define us." She shoved a hand through her hair, her loose ponytail unraveling to leave her face haloed in curls. "What you're doing now that you've broken the chains? Those are the real choices, the ones that will define you."

  Vasic looked from one to the other. Ivy, who reached parts of him he hadn't known had survived until her. Aden, who'd refused to consign him to the abyss. They were the two most important parts of his life, and now they stood with him, Ivy's fierce refusal to let him fall--let any of them fall--coming up against Aden's iron will.

  "Why fight for us?" Aden asked, his tone quiet. "Vasic, I understand. He's yours. Why do the rest of us matter?"

  "Because you're his family, and because whatever you may have done, you paid the price for it in the kind of pain no child should have to bear, in not being allowed to even exist." She touched her fingers to Aden's shoulder. "Enough, Aden." It was a gentle plea. "This isn't only about rehabilitating the public's image of the squad, but your own image of yourself and your Arrows."

  "Would you welcome other Arrows to your home, Ivy?" Aden asked. "Would you truly treat them as family?"

  "Of course," she said as if the answer was self-evident, as if every woman so blithely welcomed a squad of trained killers into her home.

  Rabbit got up and ambled ahead at that instant, and the three of them followed.

  "That's another reason why Vasic must be our public face," Aden said a minute later. "You humanize him."

  Vasic waited for Ivy's response, wasn't expecting it to be laughter. "Did you throw me and Vasic together to get this outcome?" Her fingers petted his back under the jacket, and he knew she wasn't offended at the idea.

  "No. But now that it's happened, I'll use it."

  Vasic didn't interrupt his partner; he and Aden had too much trust in each other for Aden to place Ivy in any kind of danger.

  "The human and changeling media," his fellow Arrow continued, "is very good at picking up the nuances of interpersonal relationships." Taking the datapad, he brought up an article linked from the first. It wasn't as long, but had a number of pictures.

  The first was of Ivy on her knees in a street overrun with the infected, bleeding from her ears.

  "That's from right back at the start," Ivy murmured.

  The other images had a far different tone. Vasic's hand on Ivy's lower back as they took Rabbit for a walk. Ivy's face quiet with a trust that pierced him to the core as he lifted her in his arms when her strength ran out. Ivy laughing with her whole body on the doorstep to their apartment building, her hand curled around his upper arm.

  "The public," Aden said, "is fascinated by you and your relationship. We can use that."

  Ivy made a face. "I want to help the squad, but I don't want to live our relationship out on the world stage."

  "That'll never happen." Vasic had no intention of allowing any intrusion.

  "I don't expect you to," Aden replied. "To do so would look false, and the reason you've caught their attention is that you don't look false together."

  "Then why," Ivy said, "are you telling us?"

  "So you know you're being watched." Aden looked down at Rabbit as the dog dug up a fresh stick with unerring canine instinct and came to drop it at his feet. "Why does your pet think I'm his personal stick thrower? I'd expect that task to fall to Vasic."

  Lips twitching, Ivy bent to rub Rabbit's head. "He's testing you out. He already knows how Vasic throws--Rabbit likes variety."

  Aden threw the stick. Multiple times.

  Passing through a patch of sunshine ten minutes later, after Rabbit had decided to give Aden a break, they shifted to the right to allow a jogger to pass. The blonde shot Ivy and Vasic a dazzling smile, calling out, "You're both amazing for what you're doing!" as she passed.

  Ivy sighed afterward. "I guess we can't just ignore the media."

  "No," Aden confirmed.

  "It's not just about the squad's image, is it?" Vasic said as Ivy walked on ahead to make sure Rabbit didn't venture into the more heavily trafficked areas. "It's about the squad." He'd known his partner too long not to pick up the unspoken subtext.

  Aden paused beside a statue half-buried in snow. "Seeing Krychek connect with Sahara Kyriakus was a positive sign, but he wasn't trained with us, didn't grow up with us."

  "Judd is one of us."

  "He also had a family to anchor him."

  While the majority of the squad, Vasic completed silently, had been cut loose from those ties. His relationship with Zie Zen didn't alter that; it had begun after his childhood ended, and his great-grandfather had never been able to treat him as a child who was part of the family unit, only as a foot soldier in the war.

  "Judd gave the others hope," Aden said quietly. "You make them believe in that hope."

  It was the last position in which Vasic had ever expected to find himself. "I'll speak to Ivy about how open she wishes to be about our relationship when it comes to the squad." He didn't think his sweet, generous empath would mind the attention of men and women who sought to understand love, but the choice would be hers.

  Nodding, Aden glanced at the sleek timepiece on his wrist. "I'd better head to my meeting with Santos."

  "About their handling of the outbreaks?" The Forgotten teams had done a stellar job, as had the other groups in the city.

  Aden shook his head, angled his body to face Vasic. "Zaid set up the Arrow squad to protect Silence, but he also set it up because Psy with certain abilities fit nowhere else."

  Too dangerous, Vasic thought, too unpredictable. Now, he saw where Aden was going. "The Forgotten are having the same problems," he guessed. "How did you get Santos to trust you?"

  "I think it was a combination of necessity and the fact he's seen the work we're doing to protect the Es." Aden pushed a hand through his hair. "Whether they can adapt our training protocols for their own abilities is an open question, but it's a starting point. And they may develop techniques we can use in turn."

  It also gave the squad another ally in the world, the reason why Aden had made time in his brutal schedule for this meeting. "Do you need a teleport?"

  Aden shook his head. "I'll walk."

  Rabbit stared mournfully after the other Arrow before dropping his new stick at Vasic's feet. Picking it up, he threw it far enough that Rabbit had to race, but the dog caught it, came back with his tail wagging. They played a little more before Rabbit abandoned the game in favor of jumping in the snow again.
/>
  "Aden believes our relationship gives hope to other Arrows," he told Ivy. "If he's right, and Aden is always right about the squad, it'll mean the others may be inquisitive about us."

  Ivy halted on the edge of the frozen expanse of the Reservoir as Rabbit explored the roots of a nearby tree. "I don't mind--family members are often nosy." Her smile in her eyes, she searched his face. "Does it bother you? I know how private you are."

  He put his arm around her, buried his hand in the warm silk of her hair. "I would bleed for the squad, lay down my life . . . but now he asks me to share the one thing that is mine."

  "You'll do it though, won't you?"

  "Yes." Because he understood what it was to be in the gray, in the nothingness. "You're my hope, Ivy, my beacon home on the darkest night."

  "Vasic." Eyes shining wet, she cradled his face in her gloved hands, her kiss heartbreakingly tender.

  Vasic didn't know if he'd ever become used to the way Ivy touched him--as if he wasn't stained with blood, as if he had the right to her affection, her care. But one thing he did know was that he didn't want to be out here any longer. He wanted to be alone with her, to strip himself to the skin and press himself to the giving softness of her.

  Grueling as the past week had been, they'd found the energy to make love in stolen moments between outbreaks. His favorite part was Ivy's laugh when they got something wrong, like when they'd clumsily bumped noses yesterday afternoon in the heat of passion. According to her, they were on training wheels.

  He'd never had so much fun making mistakes.

  "I read a manual when I couldn't sleep last night," she whispered now, not startled by the sudden 'port back to the apartment. "Are you too tired to let me experiment on you?"

  "I told you not to read any manuals yet," he chastised, but didn't stop her when she pushed off his jacket and tugged up his T-shirt. Peeling it off to drop it to the floor as Rabbit gave a long-suffering huff and wandered out to the living area, he stood in place and let her explore.

  It was deeply pleasurable torture.

  "You are so beautiful." Rubbing her cheek against his pectorals, she leaned back to run both hands down his chest, a sigh leaving her lungs. "I could do this for hours." A glance up through her lashes. "Women called you a 'hunk' in the comments to the Signal article."