by Kait Nolan
“Ian Ryker. Born Ian Padrig Colquhoun of the clan Colquhoun.”
“What is your affiliation?”
Once, that question would’ve drawn the Council equivalent of name, rank, and serial number. “I am riven. I am affiliated with no one.”
“Do you mean harm to anyone in this compound?”
“Unknown. I have insufficient information to answer the query. I have no known quarrel with this group. My priorities are personal.”
“What is your mission?”
“Protect Marley.”
“Why?”
There were a number of ways to interpret the question. He chose the most literal and felt the pressure on his mind ease. “She would have been collateral damage. I couldn’t allow that.”
“How did Marley get wounded?”
At his mind’s instinctive attempt to shutter the thought, he hesitated. Tara repeated the question, her voice shifting to ultrasonic tones that scraped his brain like razors. Something popped in his ears. Blood dripped, hot and wet, onto his shoulders. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he said, “Burned too much energy to help us escape from the squad of Shadow Walkers sent to exterminate me. You showed up, and I thought you were a threat. It tripped my instincts to feed, despite my better judgment. She was wounded in an illusion.” His voice sounded muffled to his own ears.
Tara dropped her voice to a whisper Ian couldn’t hear with his perforated eardrums, but he could read her lips. “I’m sorry.” Misery crackled around her. That was the difference between this woman and the Truth Takers who worked for the Council. They enjoyed the work.
He hissed a few breaths, shook his head. “Just doing your job.”
“Do you mean Marley harm?”
This he could answer freely. “I’d sooner cut out my heart.” Weary from the strain and the worry, he looked at her father. “Do anything you want to me, just tell me she’s alive.”
Harm pulled the earplugs and squeezed a hand on Tara’s shoulder. “We’re done here. Thank you, Tara.”
Ian’s eardrums reknit in time to hear the siren’s relieved breath.
As Tara rose to leave, Harm turned to her, his face softening. “You okay?” He knew this process hurt her, cared that it did so. Wasn’t that interesting?
“I’m okay,” Tara confirmed, and slipped out the door.
Harm took the chair she’d vacated and leaned forward to brace his arms against his knees. “So we’re clear, I could’ve pressed for more. I could’ve pressed for all. If your answers hadn’t been satisfactory, I would have.”
Ian tipped his head in acknowledgment. He hadn’t expected the restraint. Marley had to be alive. If she hadn’t survived, he had no doubt Harm would’ve ripped his mind open completely without compunction, no matter the cost to the siren for doing so.
“Your file didn’t mention you were one of the Made.” He said it in a conversational tone, as if they were shooting the shit over a bottle of Jack.
Ian wished his arms were free to cross over the runes that scarred his chest. His status as one of the first wraiths was not a fact he wanted to advertise.
“Is that why your illusory abilities can affect other Mirus? Nice job with the fire, by the way. I’ve never met one of the older wraiths, so I wasn’t aware it was part of your skillset.”
No wraith, Made or otherwise, should be able to affect other Mirus. Ian had no idea why his desperate ploy had worked. But he wasn’t about to share that piece of information.
“You’d have had access to that because of Matthias, I suppose.”
Harm inclined his head. “That file is a conundrum for me, Ryker. Absolutely everything in it says you’re the enemy. I have a duty to protect my people, and I have a really fucking hard time with the idea of letting a wraith, who can manipulate and presumably feed from other Mirus, loose among them.”
“You don’t trust the results of your Truth Taker?”
“Oh I do. You passed our vetting process. Therein lies the conundrum.”
“Vetting for what?”
“For ever seeing the light of day again.”
The Felis didn’t plan to kill him. Not at the moment, anyway. Despite his lack of equal footing, Ian decided to try for a little quid pro quo.
“Tell me, how does a leader of the Underground wind up being owed favors by someone so high up in the Council’s infrastructure?”
Approval flashed across Harm’s face. “Well done. Matthias did say you were sharp. What tipped you off?”
“Your shaman took just a little too much glee in the idea of outwitting the Council.”
Harm looked behind Ian to where Corin still stood, gun steady.
“Guilty,” he admitted.
“And,” Ian continued, “if Marley is potential leverage to them, it means you’re someone they don’t trust. Who else but the Underground?”
“Ah. Close but not quite. Insofar as the Council is concerned, I’m dead.”
“But Matthias knows otherwise. Why is he keeping that secret?”
“I made his career.”
Ian digested that, sorting through what he remembered of his commander’s rise to power. Matthias had shot up the ranks for taking down one of the largest human trafficking rings in the Mirus world. That had been some twenty-five or thirty years ago.
“Charon. You had something to do with his taking out Charon. Why haven’t I heard of you?”
“The kind of deep cover I was running, the Council made sure no one knew I existed. Before or after. It wouldn’t do for the public to know the Council had a sanctioned agent operating as a top lieutenant in such a widespread criminal organization. They murdered my mate. Robbed me of my family. After that, I cared nothing for credit. I only wanted retribution.”
It didn’t seem prudent to point out that he’d walked away from the last of his family when he’d had Marley’s memory wiped. “How did you even have a family working that kind of case? You wouldn’t have even had the chance to meet—” Ian cut himself off. “Marley’s mother was human. She was one of the trafficked women.” He could see from the expression on the other man’s face that he’d nailed it. Which meant Marley’s mother was executed because his Charon bosses found out that Harm had rescued her. Men like that wouldn’t have executed a child. They’d have found and sold her, knowing that would be a far greater punishment for Harm’s betrayal. That was the life he’d protected Marley from.
Christ.
Harm leaned forward again. “For the last twenty-five years, I’ve done what I thought was right for my daughter. Do you have any idea how much you have fucked things up? If not for you, Marley would have been a simple retrieval mission, grabbed straight from her apartment and brought safely back, cloaked, before anyone was the wiser.”
Ian lifted a brow. “You really think she’d have gone willingly with the warlock? Without any knowledge of our world, of you?” He shook his head. “You don’t know your daughter. She’d have fought, and she’d have run. And she wouldn’t have evaded the Hunter for long without some assistance.”
“Is that how you justify your involvement?”
“I don’t have to justify myself to you.”
Harm’s eyes went feline again. “You were the perfect soldier for centuries. Matthias said you were one of the best. And yet you broke our world’s greatest law, put yourself and your career on the line to save her. I want to know why.”
“You put your case, your cover, and your career on the line for her mother. You know why I did it.”
Abruptly, Harm stood, shifting toward the door moments before it banged open.
“What the hell are you doing to him?" Marley flew inside, temper crackling around her like a lightning storm as she ranged herself between them.
“Having a conversation,” said Harm mildly. He looked to the warlock who hung back at the door. “What is she doing here?”
“She inherited your ears and a damn good portion of your scary, even without the claws. Tara said he passed, so I didn’t see
any reason to stop her.”
Ian could only stare at her, flushed with health and fury, fists balled and ready to strike. A dream.
“For God’s sake, let him loose.” When no one moved she snarled, “Let. Him. Loose. Now.”
At a resigned nod from Harm, Corin set about unlocking the shackles. Marley bounced on her feet, eyes tracing every inch of Ian, her temper growing darker by the moment as she cataloged his wounds. As soon as he was free of restraints, Ian sprang from the chair, reaching for her. His bad leg buckled. Marley caught him, and the impact jarred his shoulder, made it scream, made her real. Pulling her tight against him, Ian buried his face in her hair.
“You’re alive. Thank Christ.”
Marley held on, her arms vising around him. “God, I was so worried.”
Ian choked on incredulity and pulled back to see her face. “You were worried?”
“You weren’t there when I woke up. I was afraid of what they might’ve done to you.”
He cupped her cheek. “They didn’t do anything to me.”
“You’re bleeding from the ears, Ian.”
“It’s nothing. I’m fine. But you were—” The words caught in his throat.
“I’m fine. The doctor gave me stitches and a clean bill of health.”
“Stitches,” Ian said. Mere stitches wouldn’t have repaired the damage from the stab wound.
She eased back, lifted the edge of the over-sized scrub top to reveal the bright pink line of fresh scar tissue. “Fine,” she repeated.
She shouldn’t be fine. The binding hadn’t worked. At least not the way he’d experienced before. If she was healed—and it seemed she was—the spell had done something else entirely. He needed to think about that, to process it. But there were more pressing concerns.
He looked Harm. “You have someone here who can cast a cloaking spell?”
“That would be me,” said the warlock.
“You should have it done immediately,” Ian told Marley.
“What about you?”
Ian ran a hand down her arms, resisting the urge to pull her in for a more intimate embrace. “I don’t need one. They can’t track me like they track you. This is the thing we’ve been after.”
“I’m not going without you.” She lifted her chin in a mutinous expression Ian was positive she didn’t realize was a mirror of her father’s.
Harm nodded his assent. “A minute, Ryker.”
“A minute,” Marley repeated, glaring at her father for emphasis before moving to the shaman.
At the door, Corin asked, “You aren’t afraid of needles, are you?”
Her faced paled a little. “Only when I’m the one wielding them. Why?”
“Because you’re about to get inked,” said Corin cheerfully and offered his arm. “Got any tats, Marley?”
“No. I’m not averse, but I could never make up my mind what or where.”
“I am a fan of the classics,” he said. “Double hearts on butt cheek or biceps?”
The door shut on Marley’s surprised snort of laughter.
“If you truly care for her,” said Harm quietly, “you’ll just walk away. You know it’s what’s best for her. Don’t make the mistake I did. Don’t be selfish enough to think the worst won’t happen. Because it will. It’s not worth the risk.”
Ian closed his eyes for a moment, saw again the pool of blood surrounding her. His fault. He saw, too, Alarik’s face as he aimed for Marley’s heart. A bullet he couldn’t have stopped.
He met Harm’s steady gaze. “I’ll do what’s best for Marley.”
Chapter 14
Marley swiveled in front of the dresser mirror and examined her new tattoo. Courtesy of some kind of healing spell, the ink was set and perfect, the edges crisp. Diego had explained that the elegant, hard-edged symbols were sigils for invisibility, hiding her from prying eyes on every plane. Everyone in the compound had them in one guise or other, each slightly modified for the bearer. Hers were artfully masked by a cherry blossom branch she’d designed herself that Diego had executed with brilliance down the left side of her back. Studying the bold twists and curves, she decided that, after everything she’d been through, it was exactly right.
Exhaustion dragged at her limbs as she shrugged back into the robe someone had loaned her. Passing out for a week on the bed behind her was high on her priority list, but that could wait until she’d talked to Ian and found out how the “conversation” had gone with her father. He’d headed straight for the shower when they’d been shown to their quarters somewhere in the subterranean caves making up the compound.
The bathroom door swung open. Ian stepped out in a cloud of steam, already dressed again. He paused when he saw her. “I thought you’d be sleeping.”
“Not yet.”
Misery rolled off him in waves as he crossed the room to his pack. She could feel it as certainly as she felt her heart beating with a quick rat-a-tat of anxiety. She moved to him, slipping her arms around his waist and laying her cheek against his stiff back.
“What did my father do?” she asked.
“He held up a mirror.”
Frowning against his back, she said, “What does that even mean?”
Ian sighed and turned, gently loosening her arms and stepping away. “It can wait. You need sleep.”
He wouldn’t look at her, but she could see the strain in the line of his back, the weariness dogging each step he took away from her. She wanted to touch and soothe, but he seemed brittle somehow, so she let him pace.
“So do you. And I’m thinking that’s not likely with those deep thoughts kicking around in your brain. Tell me what’s worrying you, Ian.”
He fisted his hands. “I don’t know how to protect you.”
Whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t that. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve been protecting me for the better part of a month. I’ve lost count of the number of times you’ve saved my life.”
His temper lashed the air as he spun to face her. “And endangered it. I took you into shadow, where you got attacked by a goddamned shade. I failed to properly anticipate the actions of the squad and nearly got you shot. Would have gotten you shot if not for Diego. Would have gotten you captured if not for burning through all of my power reserves and leaving myself so empty that at the first sign of the next threat, I pulled you into my worst nightmare, where you nearly died.”
She’d made a mistake, she realized, in waiting to talk to him until after she had the cloaking spell inked. The guilt had taken hold and was eating him alive. Her father had probably helped that along, damn him.
“I understand you went through something horrible,” she began. “That when you were changed, those bastards took someone from you who you clearly loved very much—”
“They didn’t kill her. I did. I fucking drained her dry, ensuring her last moments on earth were nothing but pain and terror. I nearly did the same to you, Marley. Do you understand that?” His words, his face, were hard, calculated to push her away.
Of course she understood it. The pain of the wound had been real. The blood, real. Just as she understood his sacrifice was real.
“I understand you were willing to enslave yourself to me in order to save my life, no matter the cost to you. I understand that we are bound, that I survived because of you. I survived, Ian. We both survived. And if you think I’m going to let you torture yourself and talk yourself into walking away because you feel guilty about the fact that you aren’t perfect and can’t control the world, then you’ve got another goddamned thing coming.” She crossed to him and cupped his face to make certain he met her eyes. “Living is risk, and I’d rather take the risk than lose you.”
Ian flinched away, backed across the room. “How can you even stand to touch me? You were there. You saw what they did. How can you look at me and not see the thing that lives inside me?”
“Yeah, I was there. I saw how they tortured you, what you endured, what you survived. They made you what you are, but they didn’
t change who you are. Against all odds, you retained your humanity.” Though he was shaking his head to refute her words, she rolled on. “You want to know what I see when I look at you, Ian? I see a man of honor and integrity, who puts others ahead of himself. I don’t see your scars or the beast inside you, I see you. I love you.”
Ian didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
The words hung between them, a barrier rather than the tether she’d hoped for. She’d thrown herself right off that cliff, expecting him to catch her, and she was plummeting in the worst possible way. Her chest tightened and her limbs tingled with the need to wrap around her torso, protection against this unexpected lack of response. Rather than give in, Marley steeled her spine, ignored the heat in her cheeks. “Maybe you can’t believe that. Maybe you think everything between us has been some kind of adrenaline-fueled Stockholm syndrome or something. But I’m telling you, it’s not. At least, not for me.” She took a breath. “Now if I’ve completely misread you, if you don’t care for me, don’t want me, then—”
She didn’t get a chance to finish. Ian yanked her to her toes, covering her mouth with his. He could move so fast when he wanted to.
Her heart leapt in surprise, in relief. Oh, thank God. Thank God, he caught me.
He assaulted her mouth with the same focused attention he gave everything. It wrecked her system, shot her careening into lust and then straight on to need. She speared a hand into his hair, fisted the other in his t-shirt to drag him closer. When she nipped his lips to goad, he gentled, easing back, pressing his forehead to hers. She whimpered at the loss.
“Never think I don’t want you.” His breath wasn’t altogether steady. “You’re the only thing that matters to me. But—”
Marley nipped his lip in reproach. “The buts don’t matter. Only this matters.”
She tipped her mouth to his again, intent on devouring, but he pulled back.
“Just…just slow down. Be sure.”
Marley stepped back, keeping her gaze steady on his. “I’m very sure.” She loosened the tie on the robe, let it fall open.
Ian’s eyes flared silver, his breath caught.
