by Natalie Grey
“No!” His shout rang around the room. When he got ahold of himself, it was only with an effort. “No. You will stay here. That is an order. I will not listen to another word about this.”
Why? Why, why, why— She left without a word, leaving the door open, striding away down the hallway with tears in her eyes. He was lying to her. She had failed him at something, she must have, and this was her punishment.
She had passed the airlock before the idea occurred to her, and then she turned and slipped down the corridor without conscious thought. There was no choice to make. If this target was dangerous enough for her father to fear that Tera would be defeated, Apollo would never manage to complete the mission. But she could. She would find out just what this target was saying, what rumors he was spreading, and she would wipe it all away with his death.
When the Haemon undocked seven minutes later, Tera was wedged in one of the cargo lockers, watching Apollo through slitted eyes as he set a course to Akintola Station.
3
Shadows cloaked this part of the station, and no one moved in the darkness. A freighter had left fifteen minutes before, loaded with supplies for the outer planets, and the dock workers were gone the second the airlock door closed, their long shift done at last.
Over the next few weeks supplies would arrive hourly from the planet’s surface to be stacked neatly against the back wall until the freighter arrived back, and the whole cargo bay itself slid forward to slide the cargo into the belly of the ship. But for now, it was the perfect place, entirely empty, and Talon’s team had—by Lesedi’s reckoning—approximately an hour before the next shipment arrived.
Talon leaned back against one of the support beams and tried not to fidget. It had been a maddening four days since Lesedi agreed to set up the mission. The Alliance brass were beginning to come out in support of their former comrade, and politicians, who had been on the fence for longer than Talon had ever known them to be, were agreeing with the military. They needed to be cautious, everyone said seriously, eyes grave as the cameras clustered around them, vying for the chance to hear a slip-up or a stray clue. It would be irresponsible, the politicians told them, to make accusations without proof.
He’d given them proof. Talon resisted the urge to slam his hand sideways into another of the columns. He’d spent more time sparring in the last few days than he had in the past month. He told them all he was toughening up Loki, but no one—not even the wide-eyed young man—believed it; for one thing, the gorgeous chaos of his combat was more than a match for Talon’s brutal efficiency. And that was good. With Nyx still recovering, Talon needed someone to keep him on his toes.
He heard a faint sound above him and resisted the urge to look up, clearing his throat instead, one of the signals Dragons used to communicate their position. A staccato beat answered him, the tap of fingers on steel, and he allowed himself to relax somewhat. Tersi and Nyx were in place to snipe. He did not check any of the others. He knew they would be in position; they didn’t have girders to climb, after all. In the shadows at the edge of the docking bay, he could faintly make out Loki’s shape, and he twitched his head sideways to tell the man to move slightly. Maybe that was why they tended to recruit Dragons older than Loki, Talon reflected: the oldest members of his team were far and away the best at lurking.
His team made little enough noise, but all of it died when a door on the far side of the room slid open and a lone figure crossed the room hesitantly. He wore the robes of a novice monk, but his disguise was laughably poor—no monk on a space station carried so much extra weight.
“Donnel?” Talon spoke out of the shadows, watching the man as he startled and whirled, looking for the sound of his voice.
Talon smiled. It was not for cruelty that he did this. Surprise, true surprise, was impossible to fake, and anyone with a strong tie to Akintola’s underworld would hardly have been surprised to hear a voice from the shadows. Indeed, as Talon moved into sight, he saw the man’s throat bob as he swallowed nervously, and his eyes widen at the sight of the weapons. He looked terrified.
“What have you brought for me?” Talon held the man’s eyes. He could have made him more comfortable, of course, but it was to his advantage to keep the man scared. Scared people told the truth.
“First, show me the money.” Donnel’s voice was panicked and high. His eyes darted around the docking bay. “Where is it?”
“It’s here.” Talon smiled. “A very high price, I noticed. Was there … a bidding war?”
“I can’t tell you that.” The man shook his head, swallowing again, and then apparently thought better of his deflection. “There was. Lots of people want this information.”
He was lying. It was plain in every motion. He wanted safety, perhaps. Yes. He looked like that was what he wanted.
“You’re planning to buy guards with this?” Talon gestured at last to the cash. He’d placed it on the far side of the room, where Donnel would have to turn his back to get to it.
The man’s frightened glance said that he knew better than to do that. “Yes,” he said finally. “Once I got off-planet, I knew—”
The words were studied; Talon practically felt the leap of alertness in the Dragons as they sensed the lie. So Soras wasn’t on a planet, then?
“Knew what?” Talon asked, his words soft.
Donnel heard the threat. He swallowed convulsively. “I’m not going to say anything more until you find me protection.”
“Money like that should be able to buy you the best,” Talon said negligently. “Or nearly the best.” Dragons were the best, and they could not be bought.
Except once, and Cade only protected one person.
He let his gaze sharpen. “Where is Aleksandr Soras? Where is the Warlord?”
“I can’t tell you here. I need protection first.” The man looked around himself wildly. “Anyone could be here.”
And that was when Talon caught the motion in the corner of his eye: a man creeping through the shadows at the side of the docking bay. Interesting. Talon turned his attention back to Donnel with renewed interest. Had the man, in fact, made the grave miscalculation of contacting someone else? He was frightened enough for it.
Or had he, as Lesedi suspected, been the front for an attack on Talon himself? That would also explain why he wanted to run.
“You’re safe here,” Talon told the man, enjoying the little leap of fear in his eyes. “And there’s no need to fear. Anyone who helps me in this will be kept safe.” He made sure that his face told the second part of that story, and watched the man blanch.
Yes. Donnel was in on this.
He was going to enjoy killing this man. Talon tried to keep the leap of predatory interest out of his eyes, but he knew that his fingers twitched toward his gun. The Warlord of Ymir was not some unknown. He was the most notorious man in allied space. Anyone who served him, anyone at all, deserved a painful death.
“So, tell me.” He began to walk, circling toward the figure in the shadows. “Why haven’t you gone to the Alliance with this information?”
“They … don’t want it.”
“Oh?”
“They don’t want him implicated. They…” Donnel searched for inspiration. “They know where he is.”
“Oh, Donnel.”
“What?” The man actually looked like he was going to throw up.
“We were getting along so well. You were even telling the truth, there, for a moment. Weren’t you?”
“I don’t … I don’t know what you mean.” The man began to back away, his hands up. His eyes focused on something over Talon’s shoulder and then slid back, a sickly smile on his face. “Don’t hurt me. I can tell you everything. Right—”
Talon did not wait to hear the rest. As the assassin launched himself out of the shadows, Talon was already spinning, foot lashing out to catch the man in the chest. The assassin went sprawling, drawing a gun as he slid. His aim was precise, bullets slicing through the air where Talon had been a moment be
fore. The next shot missed Talon by a hairsbreadth, the force of the bullet slicing rippling over the top layer of his armor, and Talon reversed course instantly, knowing what was coming, looking over his shoulder as an explosive round flew past with a whistle.
Talon looked over and saw the assassin cursing as he readied another weapon. He was a quick shot, and well prepared … but sloppy. He hadn’t reckoned on needing to fight this all out, and there was a flash of fear in his eyes now.
“The Ariane is under lockdown,” he called now.
“More Dragons in the space station, then,” Talon called back. He ducked behind a pillar as a shot exploded overhead, and listened to the man reload. “Seems like a miscalculation on your part.”
“Your miscalculation. Did you think eight dragons could hold off the mercenaries on this station? They’ll be at the ship in two minutes.”
It was almost the perfect thing to say. Two minutes was just enough to make Talon turn and run, and the fate of his crew was the one thing that would set him off balance. And, of course, with the Warlord’s resources, it could easily be true.
But this man seemed to think he was going up against a normal soldier, a man who might be swayed from the right action by emotional turmoil. If Talon’s crew were not in danger, the only possible course of action was to take this man out—and if they were, it would hardly do to have an assassin on his tail as he went to their aid. The man had miscalculated.
“Well, then, let’s finish this so I can get back.” Talon angled his voice to echo in the docking bay, and he heard the other assassin’s footsteps stop, wary, as he tried to figure out where Talon was.
“Come out,” he called.
“Come find me.”
“You’re a coward, Rift. Just like he said you were.”
“I highly doubt that.” Talon grinned as he loaded the pistol. The man could hear that, he was sure.
“If you won’t come out, maybe I’ll join them on the ship, and come back for you later.”
“Oh, you don’t want to do that. In fact—”
The sound of the impact was sickening. Bones crunched, and a strangled cry escaped the man’s throat as he died. A shot rang out, and at the far side of the docking bay, Donnel collapsed onto the floor.
Talon was out, gun drawn, in a moment, ready for anything—
Except this.
The woman before him had skin of a warm copper, shining faintly in the dim light. Her mouth was full, her brown eyes just slightly slanted, her dark hair pulled back tightly. For just a moment, Talon saw her in motion, spinning to check for more enemies. Her movements had all the grace of a dancer and the tiny stutter-jerk of reflex enhancements. Then she looked back, and he saw her take in everything about him. It was a professional’s once over.
She looked unsettled by what she saw. Her gun clattered to the deck.
“I’m with you.” Her voice was uncertain. “Don’t shoot. I’m with you.”
That voice was not what he had expected, and it was not her real voice—she was pitching it to make herself seem less dangerous—which, given what she’d just done, was ridiculous. Talon narrowed his eyes faintly. How had he not heard her moving in on the fight? How had none of them heard her?
“Who’re you?”
“I came to help you,” she said earnestly. “Aleksandr Soras sent that man to kill you.”
“As you’ll no doubt have noticed, I was holding my own.”
“Well, yes, but…I thought it would be wise to hurry things along.” At last, her eyes sparkled with something genuine. “I put a block in the system, but there will be a lockdown on your ship in about ten minutes. And yanking one’s way out of docking clamps leaves such nasty scratches on a ship’s hull, don’t you think?”
He laughed, a genuine laugh. “Anything else?”
“One hundred and fifty-seven mercenaries,” she said promptly, her head tilted slightly. “At last count. We should go.”
“In a moment.” Talon moved closer, his weight on the balls of his feet. “Who are you? And how do you know about the mercenaries?”
She waited until he was close, until he could see every curve and arch of her face clearly. Her eyes searched his, drifted to where his hand was still on his pistol, and he saw her choose her words carefully.
“Because I defected,” she said. “Aleksandr Soras … also sent me.”
4
Tera braced her feet, gritted her teeth, and yanked with all of her human strength. The handcuffs, attached through the wall to something she could not see, constricted painfully and she bit back a yelp.
“Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit.” She leaned over her hands and peered at the mechanism as it released. Pressure sensitive, designed to constrict when she pressed against a tiny mechanism on the top of the cuff. She pondered, biting her lip, then curved her palm and tried to hold the mechanism in place as she slid one hand out. Despite her intentions, the disk of metal wobbled and the cuffs closed once more.
“Ow.” She clenched her fingers until the mechanism released, and then slumped back against the wall with a sigh.
She wasn’t planning to escape yet, but she needed to know that she could—and she needed to know whether she could do so without exposing just how upgraded she was. Normally, she had a set of lock picks that she stored in the small of her back, easily accessed by shrugging her shoulders a certain way to get the pouch to drop free. With those, she could have undone these cuffs in a few moments—but her fingers were too large and too clumsy for such a task, and the Dragons had made very sure that she had neither weapons nor tools.
Damn them. Damn them and their smug looks as they took the lock picks, the knives, the guns, the explosives, the nightstick, and her identification. She was strong, but not strong enough to hold off eleven of them, even if she felt vindicated by the fact that Apollo had gotten the number of the crew wrong.
He really was useless. And he killed cruelly; she was not sorry in the least that she had taken him out.
Truth be told, though, she was almost happy to be stuck the way she was now. All her life, she’d been pitted against people like him: cruel, self-serving, greedy, and above all, soft. She’d looked carefully at each life she took, and in every case, she had known beyond a doubt that the world was better without her target alive. She shuddered to think of some of the things she had seen, and she certainly regretted none of her actions—she still remembered the children she’d freed when she took out one of the last targets—but all her life, she’d wondered what it would be like not to be alone in the shadows. She’d wondered what it would be like to fight someone like her.
And now, after weeks of inactivity, of being helpless to save Aleksandr from his enemies, she at last had the chance not only to do so, but to match wits with soldiers who were very clearly some of the best.
With Dragons. She felt a tiny thrill. Aleksandr had not said that it was Dragons. And in overhearing that whispered conversation between him and Apollo, Tera would never have guessed just what she faced in Talon Rift. She felt her brows draw together, chewing on one lip as her fingers kept fumbling at the clasps on the handcuffs.
She expected Rift to be an official, but there was no mistaking what he was. He moved with ease, light on his feet even in armor that must weigh at least 20 kilograms. She had seen—she knew she had seen—the flash of both amusement and irritation on his face while Apollo fumbled for his weapon. She’d known more about the Dragon in that one moment than she’d ever learned about anyone else in all her years. Talon Rift was used to winning because he was the best. And he was as wearied by it as she was.
It was enough for kinship between them.
Now, if only she could figure out why she kept picturing his face. Why she kept going over the curve of his mouth and the clean line of his jaw and the quirk of one eyebrow. His eyes were blue and green and gold all in one, a dizzying array that made her yearn to find a name for the color even when she knew she could not. She had seen many faces in her time, faces tha
t captivated her: refugees, slave traders, beggars, other assassins.
This time, it was … different.
So lost was she in thought that when the door slid open, she was still picking at the locks. She should have heard the footsteps. She should have known he was coming.
Of course it would be him. And why, why, did she feel a flash of something like fear when she looked up into those eyes? Tera was not afraid of anything or anyone.
“Trying to get out of the handcuffs?” His voice was amused rather than annoyed. He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed as he surveyed her.
Docile. She was supposed to be docile. She had to win his trust.
“No.” She dropped her hands at once and dipped her head, studying him through her lashes rather than meeting his eyes.
He said nothing to that, only crossed the room, eyes fixed on her as the door slid shut with a soft snick. She could hear, if she adjusted the implants, the faint breath of one—no, two—other soldiers outside the door, but her eyes stayed on Rift, tracking him in her peripheral vision. He was the main target.
And unfortunately for her, she still had to figure out why he was hunting down Aleksandr.
“So.” He looked at her. “You say you defected.”
She nodded. She could swear she’d heard warmth in his tone when he arrived at the door, but there was none there now.
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t simply take you at your word.”
“Of course.” She dropped her voice. She had watched the world for a very long time. She knew how to speak so that no one paid attention. So that they spoke their own thoughts without interruption from her.
This man, however, only waited. When she risked a glance at him, she saw him sitting on the bench at the other side of the cell, elbows on his knees. She could swear that there was actually something burning behind his eyes, and she resisted the urge to swallow convulsively.