Shards of Hope (9781101605219)

by Singh, Nalini

  Thanks to Sophia’s husband Max’s friendship with a member of DarkRiver, Sascha had come to know Sophia well, and to like her even more. This time, she’d thought, her mother had chosen someone both strong and loyal.

  “The surgeons have the bleeding under control,” Sophia told her, coming forward to take Sascha’s hands in her own. Fine black gloves covered her skin to negate the possibility of skin contact, Sophia’s shields problematic as a result of the work she’d done scanning the minds of the vilest criminals. “They’re hopeful.”

  Sascha held those words to her heart. “I never imagined I’d be here,” she said to her mate when Sophia went to get a glass of water. “I never thought my mother could get hurt, she’s so strong and ruthless.”

  It wasn’t until some time after her defection from the PsyNet that Sascha had begun to understand that Nikita wasn’t as one-dimensional in her pursuit of power as Sascha had once believed. This past year, she’d consciously looked at Nikita’s history and realized that, while her mother had always liked power, she’d gone into hyperdrive twenty-nine and a half years ago.

  After the birth of a cardinal E daughter who needed every protection her mother could provide.

  It was Nikita who’d sent her the book that gave her some idea of the scope of her empathic abilities. And it was Nikita who’d made sure Sascha survived to adulthood in a world hostile to empaths. Nikita wasn’t “good,” would probably never be good, but she’d been as much of a mother to Sascha as she could be, given her own experiences and the state of the world while Sascha was growing up.

  Lucas cuddled her close, his touch, his scent, the warmth of his body her own personal anchor. “One thing I know about your mom, kitten. She’s as tough as an old wolf. I figure she’s probably snarling at the surgeons right now.”

  Surprised into a wet laugh, Sascha looked up when the doors opened again. She wasn’t entirely surprised to see the man on the other side. Her mother and Anthony Kyriakus had always spoken more than Nikita did with most other Psy. Sascha had never picked up a deeper emotional tie, but then, they both had titanium-strong shields. And both had come of age in Silence.

  “Your mother,” Anthony said, “is she stable?”

  “They’ve controlled the bleeding but she’s still in surgery.”

  Not saying anything further, the head of PsyClan NightStar took a standing position not far from the doors, his hands behind his back and his patrician face set in expressionless lines. Yet Sascha was certain there was emotion within. His mere presence here confirmed it. That emotion wasn’t directed at only Nikita, either. This powerful and apparently Silent man hadn’t ever given up on his daughter, for one. Faith had left the PsyNet, but unlike Sascha, she’d never been cut off from her family unit. Anthony had kept her safe.

  The same way Nikita had protected Sascha as a child. Nikita’s tactics hadn’t been maternal, hadn’t been gentle, but they had kept Sascha safe.

  Don’t ever be anything but perfect, Sascha. This is the result of failure.

  Nikita had taken Sascha to a rehabilitation center as a child, shown her the mindless husks of those who’d been psychically brainwiped. As a warning, it had been stark and merciless—and it had stuck. It was fear that had spurred Sascha to build intricate shields nothing could penetrate. “I love her, Lucas,” she whispered. “I think she did the best she could, given her own life experience.”

  “It’s all right, kitten. You’re permitted to love her.”

  “She’s not a good person.” Nikita had done terrible things, things that could never be forgiven.

  Lucas’s hand curved over the side of her face and into her hair. “You can love someone while being aware of their flaws.” He shook his head, his green eyes suddenly panther-bright. “I hate that word, but it’s the only one that comes to mind.”

  She knew the reason for his aversion to the word flaw. For so long, it had been used to describe Sascha—she’d used it to describe herself. “I can’t forgive her the horrible things she’s done . . . but I still love her.”

  Sophia returned just as the doors to the operating suite opened.

  “Councilor Duncan’s surgery was successful,” the white-haired surgeon said, using Nikita’s former title. “She’s currently being moved to a recovery room.”

  Sascha’s heart thudded. “I’d like to see her.”

  “We have to wait for her to wake. I’ve given her the prearranged psychic command passed on to me by her personal medic.”

  “How long will the healing process take?” Sascha knew her mother; Nikita would hate being laid up, though she might not put it in those emotional terms.

  “Because of the depth and nature of her injuries, we made the decision not to use fast-healing techniques. It’ll allow for a complete and more stable recovery, but it will take some time.”

  Sascha thanked the surgeon for the information, then waited while he went to check on the state of Nikita’s consciousness. It was a half hour later that a nurse came to fetch Sascha. About to enter through the doors to the surgical ward, she paused and glanced over her shoulder at Anthony. I’ll tell her you’re here, she said after a polite telepathic knock. You’ll wait? It seemed important that he do that, that he not leave.

  Yes.

  Lucas walked into the surgical ward with her, checking Nikita’s room for threats before allowing her to step in. Closing his hand over hers when she would’ve gone in, he tugged her close. “Don’t feel guilty for loving her.” His own love for Sascha pulsed through the mating bond. “At this instant, she’s simply your mother and you’re her cub. That’s a bond that’s difficult to break.”

  Turning her head to kiss his palm, Sascha took a deep, shaky breath and walked in.

  • • •

  GROGGY from the aftereffects of the deep sleep into which she’d put herself during the surgery, the pain from her wounds requiring her conscious attention to manage, it took Nikita’s eyes a full minute to zero in on the woman walking toward her. She didn’t, however, need the visual cue. She’d known who was at the door the instant it opened.

  Sascha. The only child she had ever borne. The cardinal who everyone had told Nikita was flawed, but who she’d known was a power who could not be allowed to come into her own. To do so would equal her death. So she’d crushed her child, and in so doing, saved her life and forever lost her.

  “Mother.” Sascha closed her hand over Nikita’s, her fingers warm.

  The contact was jolting. Nikita rarely touched anyone, and she hadn’t touched Sascha in years. It was the way she’d been brought up to be, until nothing could alter the foundation of her nature. “Why are you here?” The words came out a croak.

  Sascha didn’t let go, didn’t step back. “I wanted to see that you were all right.”

  “Not safe.” Nikita had done everything in her power to disassociate herself from Sascha, to convince the world her child meant nothing to her, but Sascha’s presence here could negate all her careful groundwork. “Find you.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew she’d betrayed too much, her brain yet sluggish.

  Sascha’s hand tightened on hers. “I’m an empath, Mother,” she said softly. “I understand.”

  Nikita met the white stars on black that was Sascha’s cardinal gaze and allowed herself to live fully in this moment when her daughter was with her and Nikita didn’t have to pretend she didn’t matter. “You are well?”

  “Yes.” Sascha’s lips curved shakily. “The baby’s in good health, too—getting bigger every day. More mischievous, too. Yesterday, she smooshed her hand right into a chocolate mud cake after I turned my back for a minute. Had chocolate frosting all over her face.” A laugh that made her eyes fill with sparks of color. “Her mother’s daughter.”

  No one could say that about Sascha. Where Nikita was hard, Sascha was gentle. Where Nikita’s conscience was a fluid thing that had led he
r to make decisions that ended lives and destroyed careers, Sascha would sacrifice her own life before harming another being. And where Nikita had shoved her child out into the darkness, Sascha would hold on tight to hers no matter what.

  “Does your child look like a Duncan?” Nikita had seen visuals captured by photographers she’d contracted, but they were all from a distance.

  Sascha nodded. “And a Hunter. She’s the best of both me and my mate.” A pause. “Would you like to meet her? I can bring her.”

  “No. Not safe.” Nikita drew her hand away. “Go.”

  Instead, Sascha touched her hand to her hair. “I’m glad you’re okay, Mother.” Leaving when Nikita said nothing, she closed the door behind her.

  Expecting it to stay that way for a considerable period, she found it opening again within the span of two minutes, the man who entered familiar. Nikita felt her body stiffen. She was used to speaking to Anthony as an equal. Right now, she was vulnerable, weak. “Is there a problem the Coalition needs to handle?” she asked in an effort to gain the upper hand.

  Anthony halted beside the bed. “No.” He scanned her with cool brown eyes that had always seemed to see right through her. “You’re in significant pain. Why are you conscious?”

  “Do you really expect me to allow myself to be unconscious in an unfamiliar environment?” The only reason she’d put herself under during the surgery was that she knew Sophia and Max would make certain she had guards throughout. Those two might argue with her more often than they agreed, but they would also never stab her in the back.

  Max and Sophia had integrity stamped on each and every cell in their bodies.

  The trade-off of having to accommodate their viewpoints in her decisions, even when the accommodation equaled less profit or power, was worth it. Because there were very, very few people Nikita could trust in this world. She wasn’t about to discard two who had agreed to work with her on the proviso that they would immediately sever their contracts should she act against their conscience.

  Who knew, after long enough under their influence, she might even become an honorable person. Like the man who stood looking down at her. Anthony was ruthless, but she knew he had never crossed the lines she had. He protected where she destroyed.

  “I’ll make sure you’re safe,” he said, voice hard. “Go under.”

  Other than Max and Sophia, Nikita didn’t trust anyone to watch her back. Well, except for Sascha—her child didn’t have the killer gene. Anthony did. “Pain is nothing.”

  “If I wanted to kill you,” he said, “all I’d have to do right now is rupture your healing wounds. You’re too weak to stop me.”

  Nikita wanted to disagree, knew she was wrong. “Why did Sophia allow you in here?”

  Anthony just looked at her.

  Turning her head, Nikita stared at the wall . . . and then she closed her eyes and put herself under, where the pain didn’t stab at her.

  Chapter 64

  ZAIRA WENT TO see Ivy ten hours after the tears that had broken things inside her. Aden had stayed with her throughout, only leaving to go to New York an hour past. Blake remained in the city, but Amin’s team was having trouble pinning him down and he wanted Aden’s input on their strategy.

  The one good thing was that Amin was dead certain Blake hadn’t committed any further murders, too focused on keeping himself alive. Meanwhile, BlackSea had left Venice, taking Olivia with them; Aden had authorized her release when medical scans showed the woman had neural damage to her memory centers. Distraught, she remembered her child, but she had no other useful information.

  And that child, to Zaira’s intense frustration and anger, remained among the missing. Miane hadn’t said anything and neither had Zaira when she farewelled the BlackSea alpha, but they both knew Persephone’s time was running out at a critical pace, if she was even still alive.

  “I need to find her,” Zaira said to Ivy as she helped the E . . . helped her friend put together a secondary trellis for her berries. “The idea of her caged that way, to die without ever seeing daylight again.” She shook her head. “No.”

  Ivy’s face was somber. “You’re doing everything you can,” she said. “Vasic’s kept me up-to-date with the search efforts—I know you have data crawlers in the Net and online, and that the word has gone out among all Arrow contacts worldwide.”

  “It might not be enough.” The renewed rage inside Zaira was rigid and tight and red. “These people are smart, Ivy. It’s like they watched Pure Psy and other groups implode and learned from their mistakes.”

  “A cold mind behind it all?”

  “Subzero. Aden says that doesn’t rule out the other races—simply because they were never Silent doesn’t mean they can’t be evil or calculating. The person at the top of the food chain could be Psy or human or changeling.”

  “Yes, that’s true.” Ivy was quiet for a minute as she hammered in a nail. “I can sense a certain level of emotion at all times and I’ve passed humans and changelings on the street and just felt like shivering.” She did so now, as if in sensory memory. “Bad people are bad people, full stop.”

  Ivy’s words touched too deeply at Zaira’s own fears. “I need to know if I’m bad inside,” she forced herself to say as she took the hammer from Ivy, her ruby ring sparkling in the light.

  Features set in a dark frown, Ivy tightened the printed cotton scarf she was using to keep her hair off her face. “Of course you’re not,” she began, her voice getting that fierce tone it always did when she was about to launch into a defense of Arrows. Ivy didn’t think the squad should forget what it had done under Ming and pretend it had no blood on its hands, but she also believed that since this was the first time all of them had ever had a chance to make a free choice, that choice should be what defined them.

  “No, I’m talking about—” Zaira shook her head, started again. “I cried,” she said and because it was too hard to go on right then, covered her pause by hammering in a nail to strengthen the supports. “I haven’t cried since I was three years old and I decided crying didn’t help anything.”

  “So you just stopped?” Ivy held the support brace in place as Zaira pounded in a second nail.

  Putting down the hammer, Zaira tested the brace to make sure it would hold. “Yes.”

  “You were one tough little girl.”

  Zaira helped Ivy lift up the trellis and get it into position, the posts going into the holes Vasic had already dug for them. “I had no choice.” Crying weakened her and she couldn’t afford to be weak. “Why are you building this anyway?” she muttered as the two of them fought to get the posts exactly in place. “Vasic could’ve pushed all these nails in within a minute, got the trellis positioned in less time.”

  “Doing orchard maintenance helps me think, clears my head.”

  “Martial arts does the same for me.” She glanced around. “Where’s your shadow?” She’d become used to Ivy’s small white dog.

  “Vasic took him to the valley,” Ivy said with a smile. “He’s great with the children.” Posts finally in position, she asked Zaira to hold up the trellis while she poured in the fast-acting eco-plascrete that would set it in place.

  “Tears are a release,” the empath said as she worked. “Think of it as your body flushing emotional toxins.”

  “Aden said that, too.”

  “How do you feel now, after the tears?” Ivy finished one post, moved to the second.

  “As if I’m walking on thin ice and could crash through at any moment, but I can do my job.” She turned her eyes to the orchard, the trees bright with new green leaves. “Aden needs me to be strong, to be sane.”

  Rising to her feet, Ivy said, “Aden just needs you.” A soft statement potent with empathic power. “He’s always been so alone, Zaira, deep inside where even Vasic couldn’t reach.”

  “It’s the responsibility.” He carried an impossibl
e amount on his shoulders, had done so since he was a child. “Have you ever met his parents?”

  “Only once.”

  “They’re relentless,” Zaira said. “Nothing matters but the squad. Nothing.” Not even their son. “They taught Aden it was his responsibility to lead the rebellion and then they left him.” Just abandoned him for their cause. “He was a child.” Zaira’s rage burned.

  Reaching over, Ivy touched her fingers to Zaira’s cheek. “I can take some of your anger away temporarily, but the truth is that it’s a part of you. You have to learn to manage it.”

  “Can it be done?” Zaira looked into Ivy’s coppery eyes, knowing Ivy was too honest to be able to hide her true reaction. “Or am I insane?” All this time, she hadn’t asked the question because she thought she knew the answer, and it wasn’t one she wanted to know. Now she had to fight this enemy and, to do so, she needed to know its face.

  “I have to read you,” Ivy said, voice gentle.

  Bracing herself, Zaira nodded. There was, however, no feeling of intrusion even as Ivy’s eyes turned obsidian in a display of quiet power, the black streaming with sparks of color Zaira might not have expected if she hadn’t seen the eyes and minds of other empaths. The PsyNet was already “infected.” Rather than being the stark black-and-white landscape it had been for so long, it was now a black sea webbed with fine gold strands, the space in between glittering with stubborn glints of color.

  “It’s not working,” Ivy said at last, rubbing her fingers over her temples. “Your shields are significant and, I think, instinctive on such a deep level that asking you to force them down will only hurt you.” Eyes still an obsidian shimmering with color, she held Zaira’s gaze. “What I can tell you is that I get no sense of ‘wrongness’ from you, for lack of a better word. I’ve always sensed that with the mentally ill.”