Shards of Hope (9781101605219)

by Singh, Nalini

  “It’s also more durable,” Aden pointed out. “And easier to disassemble.”

  “Of course. They must remove the panels during clear weather.” They were leopards, after all, likely prowled freely along the branches of this tree and those of the other forest giants around them.

  The dining aerie was located in a smaller tree to their left, though “smaller” was a relative term, given the size of the trees.

  Just after they’d made their way inside and hung their jackets on the hooks by the door, a small changeling child ran over to Zaira. It was female, she thought, its curly black hair tousled and standing up every which way, and its body clad in what looked like pajamas with feet. The pajamas were pale yellow fleece with white sheep on them.

  Around two years of age, she judged. Possibly two and a half.

  The child also appeared to have clawlike scars on the right-hand side of her face, but a second look made Zaira question their origins. It didn’t appear as if she’d been mauled; the marks were integrated too flawlessly into her skin and facial features. As if she’d been born with them . . . and then Zaira recalled an image she’d seen of Lucas Hunter.

  The DarkRiver alpha bore identical markings. Either the child was somehow related to the alpha or this was a changeling genetic quirk.

  “Hi!” the child said, staring up with yellow-brown leopard eyes against skin of a glowing deep brown.

  Zaira didn’t know how to interact with children but she replied to this one so as not to offend their hosts, many of whom were in the room. “Hello.”

  The child pointed. “Pony!”

  “Yes.”

  That was when the child raised its arms with a bright smile.

  Zaira had no dealings with children. Not even Arrow children. “What am I supposed to do?” she said to Aden.

  “Pick her up.”

  “Like a sack of supplies?”

  “A bit more carefully.” But he was moving even as he spoke, going down on his haunches to say, “How about me instead?” He opened his arms and the child went right into them.

  Absolutely no sense of self-preservation, Zaira judged. “She’s taking a risk.”

  “She doesn’t have to worry about risk management—do you know how many eyes are watching us right now?”

  Zaira scanned the room without appearing to do so, acutely aware of her lack of telepathic senses. Aden was right—the changelings seemed to be going about their business, talking and eating, but they were keeping a close eye on the situation at the entrance. Zaira knew how fast changelings could move, realized that should either she or Aden appear the least threatening, they’d be under attack from multiple sources in a split second.

  Having made that determination, she made sure to keep her distance from the child Aden carried easily in one arm while she babbled in his ear. Since Aden had that arm and hand busy, she put food on his plate while he held it out, then filled her own, the food items available from a community table against the left wall.

  “Pony!”

  She turned to find the child stretching its arms toward her. “I will never again wear this T-shirt.”

  Her words made the child giggle and stretch even farther out of Aden’s arms, as if she’d launch herself at Zaira.

  “Aden.”

  “For the good of the squad.”

  “It won’t do any good if I drop her on her head.” Zaira liked small, delicate things, was very careful with the treasures she collected, but none of them was a living being. She didn’t trust herself with living beings. She killed living beings even when she wanted to save them, admire them.

  “As I’ve seen you handle a laser pistol with rock-steady hands, I think you can handle a child.”

  Zaira wasn’t so certain, but, placing her plate on the nearest table, she gathered the child into her arms, copying Aden’s hold in order to support the small body. However, she quickly realized she couldn’t hold the child in one arm as he’d been doing—her muscle strength wasn’t the same as his, and the child was heavier than it looked.

  “Hi!” It grinned at her before throwing both arms around her neck and ducking its head against her own, the softness of its hair brushing her neck.

  Frozen in place, she stared at Aden. “Now what?”

  Chapter 17

  A CHANGELING FEMALE appeared in Zaira’s line of sight just then, her hair and the shape of her face making it clear she was the child’s mother or other close relative. “I’m so sorry,” she said with a smile that didn’t seem apologetic at all. “She loves ponies. Come on, cublet. Let Zaira eat.”

  The child—the cub—clung on tighter. “No.” A puff of hot air against Zaira’s neck. “My friend!”

  Lips twitching, the other woman raised an eyebrow. “She can be like a barnacle. You mind?”

  “No.” Alarming or distressing the child would hardly create goodwill, and right now she and Aden needed RainFire’s assistance.

  “Be good, Jojo.” Leaning in to kiss the child’s cheek, the woman stepped back and returned to another table.

  “Jojo good,” the child said into Zaira’s neck. “Zai good?”

  Surprised the cub had so quickly picked up on her name from the context of the conversation, Zaira sat down at a table and looked at her new companion with more interest. “Not always,” she said with utmost honesty. “I can’t always control myself.”

  Sitting up in her lap, the child stared at her, frown lines marring her forehead above eyes that had shifted to a soft brown. A second later, she clapped. “Cookies!”

  As the word seemed apropos of nothing, Zaira downgraded her estimation of Jojo’s intelligence until Aden said, “Do you find yourself unable to control yourself around cookies, Jojo?”

  A firm nod from the black-haired girl. “Cookies. Nom nom.” She made chomping movements with her jaw and mimed putting cookies into her mouth with hands that suddenly had tiny claws at the tips of her fingers.

  Zaira looked at Aden. “Are all children this small this intelligent?”

  He wasn’t the one who answered.

  “Kids are full of surprises,” Remi said, taking a seat across from them. “Good morning, Jojo.”

  Beaming, Jojo pushed herself up by bracing one hand on the table and blew kisses at Remi.

  The alpha grinned. “This one, though, she’s a smarty-pants.”

  Plopping back down in Zaira’s lap, claws retracted, Jojo reached out and took a triangle of toast off Zaira’s plate. She made a face after taking a bite. “Pea butter?”

  “Gimme.” Taking the slice, Remi put some kind of spread on it from a small jar on the table. “There you go, complete with peanut butter.”

  Happy, Jojo relaxed against Zaira and busied herself eating. The small, warm weight was . . . odd. Picking up an undoctored slice of toast, Zaira was very careful with all her movements so as not to inadvertently harm the child.

  “She won’t break, you know.” Remi’s stance was unaggressive, his arm placed easily over the back of the chair next to his. “Jojo’s a leopard cub, probably has bones stronger than yours.”

  “Her spine remains fragile. I could snap it in a second,” Zaira said before she remembered she was supposed to be blending in.

  The growl that rumbled from Remi’s throat had Jojo going still. Zaira did, too, aware of Aden ready for a fight beside her.

  “Apologies,” she said before the situation could escalate. “I didn’t mean I would harm the child. I was just pointing out that you’re all being very trusting in allowing me to hold her. You should be more careful.” Jojo was tiny, easy to harm, easy to break.

  Remi’s eyes remained leopard as he stared at her, but the growl was gone from his voice when he said, “You couldn’t lay a finger on her before you’d be dead.” Absolute conviction. “The fact that you’d warn me about yourself tells me that even if we had tr
usted you, we’d have been right to do so. Do you kill children, Zaira?”

  “No, only adults.” Ming LeBon had twice ordered her to retrieve a child he’d wanted to experiment on. Both times, Zaira had seen to the child’s safety, well aware Ming needed her covert skills too much to punish her for her actions.

  Remi’s lips curved, his gaze flicking to Aden. “Is she always this honest?”

  “Yes,” Aden said from beside her, his shoulder brushing hers.

  “Lying wastes energy.” Zaira ate another bite of toast. “Also, it’s pointless. No one would believe it if I smiled and wore frothy clothes and pretended to be helpless.” She was dead certain the alpha hadn’t fallen for her weak act in the infirmary so there was no point in carrying on the subterfuge.

  Remi chuckled, the sound making Jojo laugh, her face smeared with the spread on her toast. The sound was high, soft, and it was a sound Zaira had never heard from an Arrow child. She didn’t know if children with vicious psychic abilities could ever be this carefree, but as she watched Jojo laugh, she began to truly understand Aden’s vision for the squad.

  • • •

  ADEN didn’t monitor Zaira while he conversed with Remi. He knew she wouldn’t harm the child. Because Zaira, as she’d said herself, wasn’t a psychopath. She was simply wired differently. Put her in charge of a group of children and she probably wouldn’t touch them or comfort them without prompting. But she’d make sure they were protected from all harm, even if it meant giving up her own life. Not because they were children, but because they were weaker than her.

  Zaira’s weakness was weakness.

  If she was sent against a target who was vulnerable to the extent that she considered the person unfair prey, she wouldn’t move. She might assassinate a pedophilic CEO without an eyeblink, but she’d refuse to touch a teacher who had angered someone in power. Then there was the hacker she’d saved even though the younger woman had been attempting to break into Arrow Central Command, and the outwardly respectable doctor she’d executed.

  It had turned out the doctor was killing vulnerable patients after getting them to sign over their estates to him. Unlike in that case, Aden didn’t always understand the judgments Zaira made, but he knew that children were simply never on her hit list. Perhaps because she remembered the helpless child she’d once been, the one no one had helped and everyone had hurt.

  “How’s the head?” Remi asked in a deceptively laid-back tone.

  “Problematic,” Aden said, since it was clear the alpha had an idea something was seriously wrong.

  An incisive look. “Yep, that’s the truth.” Seeing the question Aden didn’t ask, he shrugged those big shoulders. “For all I knew, you’d recovered and were staying here for reasons of your own. Spying maybe. What the hell for, I don’t know—we’re a dot in the ocean when it comes to changeling pack hierarchy.”

  Aden had a feeling it wouldn’t remain that way. While he’d waited for Zaira to wake yesterday, he’d heard the alpha mention Lucas Hunter to Finn. The DarkRiver alpha was a power and he clearly respected Remi if RainFire had direct contact with him.

  “I am spying in a sense,” Aden said, deciding to lay these cards on the table. “This is the first time any active Arrow has been inside a changeling pack.” Judd lived in one, but his loyalty to SnowDancer stopped him from sharing information about the pack with the squad.

  “Nothing much to see.” Remi smiled thanks at an older packmate who gave him a mug of coffee on her way across the room. “We’re a big family.”

  “A family with rules.”

  “Of course.” Putting down the coffee after taking a long swig, he said, “You Psy, you think you’re the only ones with control issues, but we have these.” His claws sliced out to dig into the tabletop as if the hard wood was made of butter.

  Jojo clapped. “Meow! Meow!”

  Shoulders shaking, Remi shook his head. “We don’t go ‘meow, meow,’ Jojo. We go ‘grr.’”

  “Grr.”

  Remi retracted his claws to the little girl’s laughter. “Those claws are only the start of it. If two Psy fight, you might go mind to mind, but we go claw to tooth, can rip out each other’s throats if we’re not careful. That’s why we need rules.”

  “No biting,” Jojo input into the conversation. “Bad Jojo.” A sad face.

  Reaching over, Remi tapped her on the nose. “You took your punishment. You going to bite again?”

  The little girl shook her head and lifted her arms.

  Remi plucked her from Zaira’s lap and into his own, using a washed-soft white napkin to clean her face before holding her against his body . . . where she turned into sparkles of light. Aden watched, having never seen the transformation close-up. Beside him, he was aware of Zaira sitting stock-still. And then where the child had been was a very small leopard cub trying to climb up Remi’s body.

  Laughing, the alpha lifted her up onto his shoulder, where she curled happily, her tail hanging down Remi’s chest. “There goes another set of pajamas,” he said, but his tone made it clear he wasn’t worried about the clothing loss.

  “You spoke of punishment,” Aden said, seeing in the child’s response to the alpha an answer to a problem for which he so far had no solution. “How do you punish a child so she isn’t broken or hurt? Especially a child that could do serious damage?”

  “Tell me that’s not how you train your children.” Snarling anger in Remi’s words.

  “It’s how we were trained,” Zaira answered. “Now we want to change things, but we must have a framework.”

  • • •

  REMI couldn’t imagine harming any cub, any child. Whether that child belonged to his pack or not. Deeply disturbed at the idea that the Psy had done—might still be doing—that to their young, he picked Jojo up from his shoulder and held her against his chest. Curling against him, she began to purr, the contented sound easing his leopard’s agitation.

  “Punishment depends on age,” he said when he realized the Arrows were serious and waiting for his response. “For the littlest, making them sit alone in a corner without toys for a few minutes is enough.” He stroked Jojo’s soft fur, her body fragile under his touch. “They don’t really remember what they did wrong if the punishment goes on any longer, but if we’re consistent in punishing them for bad behavior in that way, they eventually make the connection.”

  “A kind of conditioning,” Aden said.

  Remi shrugged. “It’s about instilling discipline, teaching in a way that suits their age and ability to learn. You want to call it conditioning, go for it.”

  Aden and Zaira looked at each other, and while their expressions didn’t change, it was clear they were silently considering the matter as a pair. Remi wondered if the two knew how often they did that. If they hadn’t been Psy, he’d have thought they had something going on. Then again, things had apparently changed for the Psy race recently—for all he knew, these two were having dirty, sweaty sex every night.

  His leopard grinned at the idea.

  “What about older children?” Aden asked after about thirty seconds.

  “Longer periods of time-out usually work for those of elementary school age,” Remi said. “We also start limiting privileges.” He rubbed the spot between Jojo’s ears and her purr increased. His own leopard purred in his chest in reply.

  God, he’d missed cubs when he’d been roaming alone, missed the sense of family that was at the core of a healthy pack. He’d needed those solitary years to realize how little such an existence suited him, but every now and then, he wanted to give himself a swift kick in the ass for taking so long to understand his own intrinsic nature.

  “Older cubs also start being hauled up in front of the maternal females, or the alpha, for bigger transgressions.” His grin grew wider at the memory of his teenage years. “I was once assigned to dig outdoor latrines for a camping trip, the
n fill them back in. By myself. In winter.” The ground had been like rock. “At least it didn’t smell.”

  “What did you do to earn the punishment?”

  Aware of the sharp little ears listening to him, he shook his head instead of answering Aden’s question. “Doesn’t matter. And the details of specific punishments don’t matter—what matters is that the cubs understand they did something wrong, and that people care enough to correct them.” Kissing Jojo on top of her head when she rose up on her feet, he put her on the ground.

  She padded over to her older brother and began to pretend-attack his leg.

  The teenager pretended to growl back.

  Seeing the Arrows watching the interplay, he waited until they returned their attention to him. “The most important thing,” he said, “is that the child knows he or she is loved, is wanted, belongs. It makes the toughest punishment bearable.”

  He held Aden’s gaze, the other man’s expression unreadable. “It’s the alpha’s responsibility and his privilege to create that environment—we are the guardians of every heart in our care.” Aden Kai might not be changeling, but he was an alpha and he held within his hands the power to change his people from the inside out.

  • • •

  THE most important thing is that the child knows he or she is loved, is wanted, belongs.

  Zaira didn’t know what it was to be loved, didn’t understand the emotion, though the insane girl in her had often pressed its hands to the windows of her eyes in wordless yearning as it watched those of the other races. Living in Venice, Zaira had seen fathers and mothers with their children, siblings laughing arm in arm, lovers walking wrapped in one another, and she’d sometimes imagined a future in which she, too, had someone who liked to be with her just because she was Zaira.

  Her brain had trouble with that concept, but oddly the rage creature coveted it. Even when it appeared to Zaira that love was as huge a thing as rage, that it would fill her up should she ever understand it.

  Not far from them, the boy Jojo had “attacked” was laughing as he picked her up by the scruff of her neck and nipped at the tip of her nose.