by Jade Kerrion
“And the two men?” Zara asked.
Danyael glanced over his shoulder. His profile was remote, perfect. Only his eyes betrayed his exhaustion. “They’ll be all right.”
Zara scowled. “How long did you knock them out for?”
“I don’t know. Channeling pain isn’t an exact science. It depends on their tolerance for pain; a few minutes, perhaps?”
Maya’s breath caught. Zara flicked her a quick glance. The woman’s eyes were glazed with pain, but there was something else there—bewilderment, most likely over why Danyael had spared her men and saved her life. If Maya had asked, Zara wouldn’t have known the answer either; most days, Danyael was still a goddamned mystery to her.
Zara settled for glowering at Danyael. “Judging by their breathing, we’re running up against the last few minutes of your inexact timer. We have to get out of here now, unless you rather I kill them?”
Danyael shook his head. He wiped Maya’s blood off his hands, then shrugged off his jacket. He wrapped its soft warmth around the injured assassin. “We’ll send help,” he promised Maya. “Hang in there.” His shoulders drooped in a silent sigh. “I…” His breath shuddered out of him as he turned his head toward Zara. “I need help. Please.”
Zara grimaced. That had to be a first. How sick did Danyael have to feel before asking for help? She had an irritated retort ready, but a glance at his face confirmed that he could not take much more.
Not now.
But definitely later.
Zara bit back the words as she brought him his crutch and supported him as he struggled back to his feet. Her fingers twitched toward her handgun as she glanced back at Maya, but Zara did not consider killing Maya in front of Danyael—at least not too seriously.
She would have to do it some other time when Danyael was not looking.
Maya, she suspected, would be more than happy to provide her with another opportunity.
The emergency room doctors at the local hospital extracted multiple glass fragments from Danyael’s arms and abdomen, before cleansing and bandaging the wounds. Zara’s stomach churned at the visible distress in the doctor’s eyes when he saw the rest of the long-term damage in Danyael’s left hip and thigh.
Even neutral bystanders knew that Danyael was in a bad way.
Danyael, as usual, said nothing about it and seemed grateful for the additional bandages and support given to his left leg. The doctor even redressed the wound in Danyael’s right shoulder, which was healing well.
The police stopped by the hospital. The inspector, a graying man with a thick mustache and a worried furrow between his eyes, glanced nervously at Zara. His gaze flicked to Danyael, then something changed in his eyes. The inspector drew a deep breath. Relief eased the tension out of his hunched shoulders.
Zara rolled her eyes. Empathic hocus-pocus.
The inspector’s voice was steadier than Zara expected. “We collected the evidence, including blood and bullet shells, but this woman…” He glanced down at his notepad. “Maya Serach. She wasn’t in the warehouse; neither were the two men whom you said were with her. We’ll check all the clinics in the area, the hotels too. The two guests at the Aman Sveti Stefan, Richard Grant and Sebastian de Beaufort, swear they met her only yesterday. Their story appears to check out.” He expelled his breath in a sigh. “For now, we don’t know where she is.”
Zara growled under her breath. If Danyael had minded his own damn business, Maya and her assassins would be dead, the threat eliminated.
But then again, when was the last time Danyael let her kill in cold blood?
Never.
He had been thwarting her at every opportunity. Only when Washington, D.C., was engulfed by Sakti’s terrorist attack, only when innocent people were dying beyond Danyael’s ability to save them all, did he not get in the way of her doing her job.
He was going to make her lose her edge.
The growl deep in her chest rose into a snarl.
The inspector scurried from the examination room, as did the doctor and nurses.
Danyael did not move. He did not always meet Zara’s eyes, but he was not afraid of her, and he never left her.
In another person, she might have interpreted it as love.
In Danyael’s case, though, it was probably pure stubbornness.
Checking out of the hospital required an inordinately long time and ground Zara’s patience down to a fine layer of nothing, but she waited until they were secure in their hotel room before bringing up the issue of Maya’s DNA. “I sent it off to Xin. She’ll have it in eight hours, and she’ll call as soon as she has the results.”
Danyael nodded, but said nothing.
He sat across from her, lengthwise on the couch. He looked tired—no doubt the day had been more strenuous than he had planned.
“Was that always your plan? Getting DNA samples?”
He nodded again.
She glanced down at her perfect manicure, as crimson as the blood she shed so easily. “I wondered why you went off with her. For a moment, I thought you were doing it to make me jealous.”
Danyael’s incredulous gaze flicked to her face.
“Then I realized it would never even occur to you to make me jealous. You still shun most human contact unless absolutely necessary.” She stamped down on the ache in her chest. “Why do you do that?”
Danyael shrugged. His gaze returned to the window. The scenery, it seemed, was an excellent excuse for occupying his attention. “At first, it was to protect myself. Later, it became habit. Connecting with others demands time and energy, and most days, I’m short on both.”
“And Laura?”
“It’s different with Laura. She makes no demands.”
That was the last thing Zara had expected to hear about her daughter. Laura Itani was the most willful, demanding toddler ever to pass through the care of the competent and experienced nannies Zara hired. But to hear Danyael say that Laura made no demands— “And what happens when she does begin to make demands? Will you cut her off then?”
“Of course not.” Danyael turned to Zara with a smile. “It’s different. She’s different.”
“Then you’ll keep coming by every Sunday morning.”
He nodded. “As long as I can.”
“What does that mean?”
Danyael looked out of the window again.
Zara scowled and strode over to him. She knelt beside the sofa and turned his face back to her. “Stop evading the conversation. What did you mean by ‘as long as I can’?”
“Nothing. Just a feeling.”
“What kind of feeling?”
“I’m…tired. I think life is finally catching up with me. I’ve cut back on healing at the clinic, but most days, it’s still more than I can handle.”
“You’re pushing too hard.”
“I’m not. For the first time in my life, I’m consciously trying not to give more than I have to, but I’m still exhausted.”
“And the nausea.”
“Constant.”
“You’re not eating well.”
“I’m trying.”
“You’re not resting well either. Why else would you have left the clinic that night at midnight instead of 8 p.m. when it closes?”
“Eight p.m.?” He laughed, the sound ironic but not bitter. “The waiting room is always still full at 8 p.m. Most days, we manage to close by ten, but that day, it was an emergency. A woman was in early labor. Too early, in fact. The baby wasn’t ready; I had to stop it.”
“You mean you went back to the clinic to meet them?”
Danyael nodded.
“You’re crazy, you know that? You’re paid minimum wage—less than minimum wage if you actually consider how many hours you put in. You don’t have to go out of your way to overwork yourself.”
“These are people, Zara. They need help, and they have nowhere else to go. Do you think they would stop by the free clinic if they had any other resources?”
She rolled her eyes
. “Oh, Danyael, you are so naive. Do you know that the free clinic in Anacostia is known as the place to go if you want to get real help from a real doctor? Your nurses are too overloaded to check patients’ addresses, or you’d see how many people actually live in McLean or drive in from Fairfax County. They brave Washington, D.C., traffic and Anacostia’s dubious reputation just to see you.”
“They what?”
“You didn’t know? They even dress down, deliberately, in an attempt to blend in with the people who actually live in Anacostia.”
Danyael laughed. “That explains all the guilt I’ve been sensing for the past six months. I couldn’t figure it out.”
“And you didn’t ask.”
“It’s not my business, Zara. I’m not a priest listening to confessions. I just want to do my job the best I can and go home.” He chuckled again, the sound amused. “I’m glad.”
“You’re glad they’re adding to your workload without adding to your pay?”
“It’s good to know people were willing to travel all that way to see me.”
The wistfulness, the gratitude in his voice struck a chord in her. “You weren’t sure you were doing any good?”
“Sometimes, it’s hard to see beyond each day, especially when it’s an uphill slog. Most nights…”
“Well?” she asked when it seemed clear he was not going to say more.
“Most nights, it’s difficult to get comfortable enough to fall asleep. But I’m grateful, Zara,” he said quickly, as if trying to reassure her, or perhaps himself. “I’m grateful to be in my apartment, grateful to have a job.”
Grateful to not be drugged and tortured in a maximum-security prison.
He said nothing of the part she had played in capturing him and sending him to prison, but did he often think about it?
She did.
She could not get it out of her mind.
Twenty-eight months earlier, Zara, Galahad, and Miriya had pursued Danyael to a remote state park in West Virginia. They had made a pact with Alex Saunders to deliver Danyael to the Mutant Affairs Council in exchange for Galahad’s freedom. Danyael had already been wounded by Lucien—thick layers of bandages around his thigh keeping his blood from staining his denim jeans—but he had found other allies, alpha mutants who had chosen to stand with him.
Danyael could have escaped. There was nothing Zara, Galahad, or Miriya could have done to stop him, but when Galahad was flung into the icy river, Danyael had been the only one close enough to save him.
Danyael had already been turning away, but their eyes—hers and Danyael’s—met across the bridge. Turmoil churned in his dark, expressive eyes, then heartbreak. She saw that instant when he chose her over himself.
No, her mind screamed in denial—of what, she was not certain. Denial of Danyael’s choice? Denial of the consequences? Denial of what it would mean—for her?
But no amount of denial could alter the truth. Danyael had leapt into the river to save Galahad. Not for Galahad’s sake, but for hers.
Weakened by the effort of saving Galahad, Danyael had not been able to defend himself when the Mutant Affairs Council came for him. His only means of defense against insurmountable odds would have killed her too. He chose again, and once again, he had chosen her.
His choice plunged him into the hell of ADX Florence.
Did he regret his choices?
Anyone else would have.
Love had done nothing to protect Danyael during the fourteen months he spent at ADX Florence, drugged and brutalized beyond human endurance. He had emerged broken—permanently. Some of the shattered pieces he had painstakingly repaired, but it was never quite what it was before.
His irrational fear of water was proof enough.
She had been responsible for his breaking.
If she had realized her feelings sooner, if she had stuck with him, fought with him instead of betrayed him, surely they could have found a way out together. She had never lost. Never failed. They would not have failed, not even with the insane odds stacked against Danyael.
But that day, Danyael had lost, terribly, viciously, and she had been a key contributor to his loss.
Even so, he still loved her. She knew it, even though he would never admit it. Never again.
She didn’t understand him. She didn’t think she ever would. And now that she knew she loved him, she was trapped in the most wretched place. The words caught in her throat.
There was no room for I love you. Not before I’m sorry.
And Zara had not yet told him she was sorry.
She knew he would never hear her over the deafening echo of her betrayal.
The rest of the evening had passed in separate silence. Danyael had retreated to his bedroom after a meager dinner, leaving Zara alone with an endless litany of what-ifs. The lost potential and unfulfilled possibilities of Danyael’s life galled her. She saw no way to reclaim them—and that irritated her even more.
The night had ticked over into a new day when Zara’s cell phone rang, the tune customized to the caller. She snatched it up immediately. “What do you have for me?”
“What?” Xin sounded bemused. “No ‘thank you for working through the night to get this information for me’?”
“It’s mid-morning here, your highness,” Zara replied sarcastically. Xin, a NSA analyst who worked for Zara on the side, was the clone of a Shang dynasty queen. Xin was a genius with data and happiest in front of her network of computers, but she also knew her way around the back halls of government—where the real decisions were made.
It made Xin an invaluable ally—and the absolute last person Zara wanted as an enemy.
Zara could almost see Xin shrug as she replied, “It’s still the wee hours of predawn in D.C.”
“How are things there?”
“Quiet now that you’ve taken the source of the furor away from the city.”
“Danyael?”
“It seems that it’s always about him even when he doesn’t want it to be about him.”
“He’s an alpha empath. I don’t think he was given a choice in the matter. What did you find out?”
“I traced Maya Serach’s genes back to a laboratory in Israel.”
Her jaw dropped. “What?”
“She was made in a lab.”
Zara’s thoughts raced through the implications. “Was she designed, like Galahad, or is she a clone?”
“That’s what I can’t figure out. The lab’s files are secure. Hacking them will take a while,” Xin said. “If you want information, you and Danyael will have to go straight to the source—Atheq Laboratories, Jerusalem.”
7
Jerusalem was not quite like Tel Aviv—gleaming new against the blue of the ocean. Jerusalem was like an ancient matriarch, affectionately watching a younger relative frolic in the sun, content to wait until both age and grace settled the latter.
The old city of Jerusalem was as charming as any medieval European city. Shops, seemingly as long-standing as the city itself, lined the crooked streets. Owners hawked their wares—and that was when Danyael discovered that Zara spoke Hebrew. She negotiated down the price of a trinket, likely on principle, because she paid the full price, and a bit more, as a tip.
“Israel is a guaranteed hotspot.” Zara accepted her purchases from the effusive storeowner. “Why wouldn’t I speak Hebrew?”
“Then you speak Arabic too.”
“Of course.” She handed her recent purchase to him. “For you.”
“Me?” He turned over the large stone in his hand. Polished smooth, it gleamed blue, green, and turquoise.
“It’s an Eilat Stone. Israel’s national stone. It’s a combination of azurite, malachite, turquoise, and…something else.”
“Chrysoccola.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “If you knew, why did you ask?”
“I know what it is. What I don’t know is why you’re giving it to me.”
“It’s supposed to calm and balance the spirit. Even inspir
e.”
He chuckled. “And I need it?”
“I’ve never given you anything.”
Zara’s tone was matter-of-fact, but shock stopped Danyael in his tracks. “I… You gave me the photograph of Laura.”
“Oh, the one I handed you after informing you that you were a father? I don’t think it counts.”
It did. It was the only photograph he carried in his wallet. The one he always looked at after a long day. The one that evoked memories not only of the loving and lovely toddler, but of her much more complex and complicated mother.
His grip tightened on his crutch. “Zara, what are you doing?”
“Hmm?” She stepped into a turn. Framed by the radiance of the setting sun, she was stunning—a beautiful woman in a flowing indigo dress. He knew she was fully armed, but he did not see so much as a hint of the guns and daggers she carried beneath that elegant drape of dark silk. “What do you mean?”
“Why are you changing the rules?”
“There are rules?”
He fought to stifle the sigh, but it whispered out of him anyway. “We went through this two years ago.”
“Went through what…exactly?”
Falling in love. Realizing it was a terrible idea. Taking your love away. “I can’t do this again.”
“Do what, Danyael?”
“You don’t want to love me, Zara. You know it’s safest to stay away.”
“Because you—the alpha empath—don’t always have perfect control over your emotions? I already know you love me. You told me, remember? Just before you asked me to kill you.”
“Which you promised, but didn’t do.”
She shrugged flippantly, but her emotions roiled. He wondered why. Her tone remained light. “Looking back now, aren’t you glad I didn’t?”
Yes—but that was not the point.
The point was that he couldn’t trust her, and she didn’t want to love him. Why would she drag them both back into that hell?
He turned the stone over in his hand. Everything that was wrong with him couldn’t be fixed by a single stone, however pretty. He was long past fairy tales and genie wishes.
Danyael sucked in a deep, unsteady breath as Zara’s emotions flayed him like hurricane-force winds. “It’s just a stone.” Irritation laced her voice.