by Jaye McKenna
“They won’t get a damn thing out of me,” Cam said flatly. “I was a deep-cover agent. I’ve been conditioned against truth drugs and pretty much anything else they can try.”
The implications of that were unsettling, to say the least. “They’d take you apart,” Draven murmured.
“Maybe.” Cam’s expression was impassive, but the colors of fear flickered through his mythe-shadow. “But the trail stops with me. No one else would be implicated.”
Draven considered that while Cam paced the floor, tension crackling off of him and charging the air between them. “You’re giving me a headache, Cam. Quit the pacing. I need to think.”
Cam dropped heavily onto a chair at the kitchen table, but the electric tension didn’t subside. If anything, it was worse.
The decision to act was frighteningly easy to make, which Draven took to be a sign that his judgment was already badly compromised where Cam was concerned. He considered the pros and cons, weighed the risks, then grabbed his coat and pulled it on.
“What are you doing?” Cam asked.
“Coming with you. You said Miko wanted to see me. Once we’ve taken him to safety, you can give me a ride back to the campus.”
“For what? What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to fix it.”
“How?”
Draven gave him a faint smile. “What you don’t know, you can’t be forced to tell a Federation investigator. Or Cottrell, if he starts asking inconvenient questions.”
“Draven—”
“You do your job, Asada. Let me do mine.”
“What job?” Cam asked faintly.
“I’m your feral dog, aren’t I? Isn’t that what you told Cottrell?”
“How did you—?”
“I was in your mind. You let me in.”
“I let you in,” Cam murmured.
“Don’t worry.” Draven moved behind Cam’s chair, where he set his hands on Cam’s shoulders and leaned down to whisper, “The blood won’t be on your hands. That’s what I’m for.”
Cam shuddered. “I wish there didn’t have to be blood.” He leaned his head back against Draven’s chest and closed his eyes.
* * *
The moment Cameron was out of the flyer, Rafe said in a low, taut voice, “What the hell are we doing here? Why did he bring us to Draven? Is this where we’re staying?”
Miko unstrapped his safety harness, turned up the interior light so he could see Rafe, and dragged his backpack with him into the back seat.
“I wasn’t expecting you to answer,” Rafe said. “You don’t have to… I mean, I know it hurts you to be close to me.”
Miko shrugged and pulled his slate from his backpack. He turned it on and selected the text-to-speech app. It feels the same, whether I sit in the front or the back.
“I’m sorry,” Rafe murmured. “Do you… do you know what’s going on?”
Cameron is taking us someplace safe. I asked him to stop by here first because I wanted to see Draven.
“He hates me. Draven, I mean.”
You hurt him. Like you hurt me.
From the surprise on Rafe’s face, that possibility hadn’t ever occurred to him. “Is he like you?” Rafe asked. “Does he see dragons?”
Miko hesitated, not sure how much he should say. I don’t know what he sees. But he senses the mythe, like I do.
“That explains a hell of a lot,” Rafe muttered under his breath. “Do you know where we’re going after this?”
Someplace safe.
Rafe snorted. “You think there’s anyplace like that left?”
Maybe. I don’t know what Cameron has in mind. That was a lie, but Rafe didn’t need to know until they were there and safe.
“So what happened that it’s all of a sudden not safe for us to stay at the Institute?”
The investigator asked to talk to me. He wasn’t happy with the answers I gave him. He wanted to take me back to Earth with him, question me under Veritane.
“And that would be bad.”
Miko shrugged again. It could be. Changing someone’s identity, like I was doing for you, isn’t exactly legal.
He didn’t elaborate any further, but Rafe wasn’t stupid. His dark eyes narrowed. “Yeah, and given what you can do with the net, I’m guessing that’s the least of it. They’d probably love to get you in a lab.”
It was Cameron’s greatest fear for him, and Miko had been trying not to think about it. There had been flashes of it in the shards of the Pattern, but he couldn’t see enough to discern whether it was a probable future or an unlikely possibility.
“If it’s anything like what we came from,” Rafe said bluntly, “you don’t want to go back there.”
Miko was saved from having to answer by the door on the pilot’s side opening. Cameron glanced back at him as he climbed in, and then the door on the other side opened, and Draven got in.
Draven settled himself, then turned to give Miko a brief smile. Rafe got a nod and a very neutral, “Azziani.”
Rafe nodded back. “Draven.”
Miko glanced from one to the other, then sent to Draven,
The icy calm suffusing Draven’s mythe-shadow took Miko right back to DeMira’s estate. Those cool colors, that professional detachment… Draven was on a job. One of those jobs, like he’d done for DeMira, the kind that involved mysterious disappearances and bodies never being found.
Draven only shook his head slightly and turned around to murmur something to Cameron. His mind was closed to Miko, but his mythe-shadow burned with cold purpose.
There was a long mental silence. Draven’s mythe-shadow seethed and writhed with all the darkest shades of conflict. Finally, he replied,
Draven turned around slowly, meeting Miko’s gaze head-on.
Amber eyes narrowed dangerously, and the spikes of annoyance stabbing his mythe-shadow told him Draven didn’t appreciate that particular observation.
A flicker of dark amusement twisted through Miko’s mind, and he pulled his own mythe-shadow in tightly to shut it out. He’d known what Draven was all along, but always before, Draven had been acting on someone else’s orders. Like Miko, he’d done what he had to in order to survive.
This time, it was different. This time, he was doing it for Cameron because of Miko. Which, by Miko’s reckoning, dropped the burden of guilt squarely on his own shoulders.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
At the heart of it, all he’d ever wanted was to be safe.
But was his own safety worth the life of an innocent man who was just doing his job? He didn’t have an answer for that, and it wouldn’t even occur to Draven to frame the question.
“Miko?” Rafe sounded worried. “You okay?”
Miko didn’t bother to reach for the slate. Instead, he wrapped his arms tightly about himself, burrowed down into his heavy winter coat, and huddled in a miserable knot as far away from Rafe’s burning mythe-shadow as he could get within the close confines of the tiny flyer.
* * *
It was with an intense feeling of relief that Cam set the flyer down outside the sprawling log cabin where the McKinnon family made its home. The hour-long flight from the island to the sparsely populated wilderness north and west of Iral had been silent, with an uneasy tension resonating between Draven and Miko.
“I’ll stay here,” Draven said as Cam unbuckled his safety harness. “The fewer people who see my face, the better.”
“I’ll leave the heater running,” Cam said. “We could
be a while. I may have to do some fast talking.”
Draven undid his own safety harness and turned to Miko, holding up one hand. Miko didn’t return the gesture; he kept his hands close to his body, giving Draven nothing more than a resentful glare.
“Don’t take on burdens that aren’t yours, little brother,” Draven said as he lowered his hand. “There’s far more at stake here than your safety. Trust me on that.”
Miko pressed his lips together and exited the flyer without even a backward glance. He headed toward the house, back stiff, shoulders rigid, Rafe trailing along behind him.
Cam glanced back at Draven, then turned to follow Miko and Rafe.
Anja was expecting them; Miko had sent her a message before they’d left the Institute. Cam had no idea what he’d told her, but she didn’t look too surprised to see Rafe, so Miko must have explained at least some of the situation.
“The likeness is amazing,” she commented as she led them into the brightly lit kitchen where Marek, her brother and business partner, was pouring coffee. “When Miko said he was bringing his brother, I didn’t realize they were twins.”
“Yeah, kind of threw me, too, the first time I saw Rafe.” Cam, Miko, and Rafe took seats around the large farmhouse table that had seen so much in the way of laughter and tears since he’d been welcomed into the McKinnon family well over half a lifetime ago. “Mom and Dad here?”
“No, they’re in Iral for a pro-psion rally. They’re staying with friends for the night.”
“How much did Miko tell you?”
“Not a lot,” Anja said. “He said he’d found his brother, and that a Federation investigator was asking awkward questions. He asked if I could hide them both.”
“That’s the gist of it,” Cam said, and filled in the rest of the details while Marek brought coffee for everyone.
Before he’d even finished, Anja was shaking her head. “We can smuggle Miko and Rafe up to the Wanderlust, no problem,” she said. “But I’m not sure where we can take them. Alpha’s demanding registration of psions, and I’m afraid it won’t be long before the rest of the Federation worlds follow suit, if they haven’t already. Soon, there may not be anywhere that’s safe for our kind.”
Marek tugged on his long, blond ponytail, a nervous gesture he’d had ever since Cam had first met him. “And what about you, Cam?” he said in his slow, easy drawl. “What are you going to do when you’ve got a Federation investigator breathing down your neck?”
“He’ll be questioning you, once he realizes Miko’s pulled a disappearing act,” Anja added. “And even if you can put him off this time, his suspicions are already aroused. He’ll be back. Or they’ll send someone else.”
“I fully expect to be questioned at some point,” Cam said with a grim smile. “Though I doubt they’ll get anything useful out of me.”
The color drained from Anja’s face, but Marek frowned. “Meaning what, exactly?”
Before Cam could answer, Anja said, “When he was an agent, he worked deep-cover ops. He’s been conditioned against interrogation.” Her worried hazel eyes fixed on Cam. “Jesus, Cam, you need to be on the shuttle with Rafe and Miko. If they take you in for questioning, they’ll destroy you.”
He’d already thought about that. Too damn many times since Miko’s ill-fated interview. “Believe me, I’m aware of the risks.”
She gave him a long, appraising look, then said, “Let me and Marek have a quiet word.” Anja got to her feet and beckoned to her brother.
Cam watched them leave the kitchen, struck, as he often was, by the differences between the eldest of the McKinnon brood. Anja and Marek had exactly the same hair and eyes — blond and hazel — but that was where the similarity ended. Like their father and brothers, Anja was tall and muscular, while Marek took after their mother, who was small and slender.
“Will they take us?” Rafe asked in a low voice.
“Yes,” Cam said without hesitation. “They’re probably arguing about who’s going to make the shuttle run and who’s staying behind.”
Sure enough, it was only a few minutes before Anja returned. “Miko, if you and Rafe are ready, we can leave immediately,” she said. “It’ll take a while to get set up, though. You’ll be traveling as cargo so we can avoid the spaceport security checkpoints.”
Miko turned to Cam and signed, Tell her we can pass through the checkpoints without raising any flags. I’ll make sure there aren’t any records of us being at the spaceport tonight.
“Miko says he can get you through the checkpoints,” Cam said. “You won’t need to bother smuggling them.”
“You’re sure?” Anja looked doubtful. Miko gave her a solemn nod. “All right,” she said slowly. “I’ll be taking them up to the ship, and Marek will stay here and keep tabs on the situation. Are you sure you don’t want to come with us, Cam?”
It was a tempting offer, but… “I have responsibilities here, Anja. I can’t leave unless I know my people are going to be safe.”
“You’re too damn much like Dad.” She hugged him hard. “Be careful. If things get bad, call me. I’ll be there.”
“Thanks. I hope it won’t come to that.”
“I hope so, too,” Anja said soberly, “but it never hurts to have a backup plan. I’m just going to grab my stuff, and we’ll be on our way.”
When she’d gone, Cam turned to Miko. “Are you okay? It looked to me like you and Draven were having a disagreement.”
Miko hesitated, then signed, He calls himself your dog. I thought he might be more than that.
“I… I’d like him to be, but I don’t know if he knows how to be more than that.”
Tell him… Miko nibbled on his lower lip. Tell him to be careful.
“I’ll tell him.”
You be careful, too.
“I will. I promise.”
The slender arms going around him and pulling him into a fierce hug were a surprise. Cam hugged Miko back and whispered, “It’ll be okay.”
When he finally pulled away, Miko regarded Cam with a sober expression and signed, Will it?
“I’ll do whatever it takes to make it okay.”
Miko didn’t say anything more. Rafe thanked Cam for helping them, and all the while, Miko hugged himself tightly, amethyst eyes fixed on Cam as if he were memorizing every detail, convinced it was the last time he’d see him.
* * *
It was after ten when Cam landed the flyer on the pad behind the residence building. He let himself and Draven in through the back entrance, and with Cam leading the way and Draven scanning the halls, they made it to Cam’s apartment without running into anyone.
Cam locked the door and led Draven to the bedroom. He pulled the lock box out of the closet and set it on the bed. The print-lock opened to his touch, and after he’d lifted the lid, he stepped aside. “Take whatever you need.”
Draven let out a low whistle at the selection of equipment. Of course he went straight for the semi-automatic pistol, and the sight of him checking over the weapon with cool, professional competence drove home to Cam exactly what he was doing.
I’ve just ordered a hit on an innocent man.
Even if he hadn’t said it in so many words, he knew what Draven intended, and was helping him get what he needed to do the job.
Pat’s right. I’ve strayed so far outside the box, I can’t even see it anymore.
Draven slapped a magazine into place and stowed several more in various pockets.
“You really think you’ll need that much ammunition?” Cam asked.
“I hope not, but there’s no way of knowing,” Draven said flatly. “I’ll need a flyer and the coordinates for your lodge.” He handed Cam the slate he’d been using and continued going through the equipment while Cam typed in the coordinates for him. When Cam handed the slate back, Draven had set a stunner, a couple of sonic disruptors, and a tool kit on the bed next to the pistol.
“Steal a flyer from the vehicle pool.” Cam said, brushing his fingers over the soft l
eather case of the tool kit. “Everything you need to do it is right there.”
Draven flashed him a feral grin as he stowed the things he’d set aside in various pockets. “I knew you’d come through for me, Asada.”
“Do you… what else do you need?”
“You.” The grin was gone, and Draven’s arm went around him, dragging him close. Then his mouth was on Cam’s, and Cam forgot everything else for a few, blissful moments.
The kiss was too brief. Tender but fierce, it tasted like regret and felt like goodbye. It left Cam breathless, made him want more, and when Draven finally released him, he sagged against the wall.
Draven leaned in and pressed his forehead against Cam’s. “You’re shaking.”
“So are you. Draven, I—” Warm fingertips against Cam’s lips silenced him.
“Don’t,” Draven whispered. “Don’t name it.”
“I… I won’t.”
Draven’s eyes met and held his for a long moment. Those warm, amber eyes were all he could see. Something far too soft to ever be associated with Draven ghosted through him: a whisper of emotion that spoke of a spark of light and warmth, affection for a kindred spirit, and regret for what might have been.
Cam’s throat tightened. Had he really thought this man was cold? That he didn’t know how to be what Cam wanted him to be?
He was that already, Cam realized. That and so much more.
Before he could say another word, Draven pulled away and left the room without a backward glance. As he heard the sound of the apartment door closing, Cam realized that he might never see Draven again.
The knowledge sat like a lump of cold lead in the pit of his belly. So much he hadn’t said…
Except… there was no need to say anything. Draven already knew it all. He’d been inside Cam’s most secret self.
Like a thief in the night, he’d crept in, seen himself reflected in Cam’s deepest soul, and made off with his heart in the process.
“Be careful,” Cam whispered to the empty room.