“I ain’t gonna beg you for anything, princess.”
Her mouth tightened, an obvious crack in her equanimity. “Don’t call me that.”
He half shrugged but didn’t apologize. “What I will do is cut a deal for the safety of our shooter. She didn’t know that was flesh-and-blood Daniel. She bought a capture-or-kill contract for your mech-clone, that swanky robot you tote around.”
“Don’t paint her, or yourself, as an innocent. Even if mech-Daniel had been the one out in California, even if he’d taken that bullet, your team would still be responsible for capital property destruction—he is stupid expensive—which would also draw my ire.”
Draw her ire? Fucking hell. Who talked like that? Kellen remembered right quick that he was holo-conferencing with the probable next War Minister of the continental government, exactly the kind of personage who’d have ire to draw.
“Lord knows we were real scairt of that.” You could take the boy out of Texas, but don’t even try to take the twang outta the boy.
“You should be. And grammar!” She flashed her famous sneer, the come-and-take-it sass she exuded in the political arena.
But then something shifted. She blinked, tilted her head, looked at him like she was refocusing, like something was confusing her. She sucked in a steadying breath before going on. “None of this explains you, or what has happened to you. Of every intelligent consciousness on the planet, goddamn it, why? How did someone like you get involved with sordid murder on a public street? I just…can’t even.”
“Been a long time, princess,” he said, and he couldn’t strip all the regret out of his voice. “You don’t wanna muck out old stalls.”
Her gaze had been direct until now. It dropped. She stared down at her folded, gloved hands. “Fine. Tell me about your shooter. A girl, you said?”
“Texas girl.” He nodded, though she wasn’t looking at him. “What y’all might call the rabble. She don’t know a damn thing about geopolitics or whatever you’re involved with these days. My guess is some deals you made got you on somebody’s wrong side, and those were the folk who put out the contract on Daniel. Mari, though, she ain’t a mover or a shaker. She blows up small-time hacking platforms for a living. Nice girl.”
“Her name is Mari?”
Was it his imagination or had Angela suddenly gotten really still? Even for a holoprojection, still. He shouldn’t be saying this, confirming his shooter’s name for the authorities, but something in her face, in her confusion, drew the words out like leeched poison: “Yeah. Mari Vallejo.”
Silence stretched for a long time. So long he imagined he could feel the movement of this station through space. Finally, she spoke, but in a totally different voice. Small. Cold as the vacuum outside. “I am told Damon Vallejo’s only child was named Marisa. You are moving in dangerous circles, my friend.”
Dangerous for whom? For him? Like she’d give two shits. He shrugged again. “Don’t matter who her daddy is. She still doesn’t deserve to be hunted by federales. They’ll put her down bloody without a trial just to make the shocker vid channels, and you know it.”
“What are you offering in exchange for her safety?”
“Was kind of hoping you’d suggest something.”
She pulled in a visible breath. “I will see what I can do for her, and in exchange…” she raised her head and pinned him with dark eyes “…you can owe me.”
That had been too easy. Way too easy. What game was she playing at? For the first time Kellen wished he hadn’t been so damn self-sacrificial. Heron ought to be here, with all his cloud resources whirring, sussing out her real motivations, looking for chinks in her armor and designs in her words. Scaring the bejeeezus out of her with that post-human glare.
A politico in her position had deals within deals going on, and if she was caving to his demands at this point in the negotiation, that meant she already had what she wanted.
So what had he given her? He couldn’t remember, even though their entire conversation so far was imprinted on his brain, word for word. Could she have misinterpreted something he said?
He pushed her offer, just a little push, to see how she’d react. “What does that look like, to owe the War Minister of this hemisphere’s biggest empire?”
“Confederation, not empire,” she snapped. “And I’m not the war minister.”
“Yet.” He shoved her ambitions into the space between them. Right where they’d always been. “You figure a politico whose contracted spouse is assassinated gets more or less sympathy from the power elite?”
One gloved hand pinched a fingertip in the other glove and rolled it. Nervous tic? “Just come out and say what you’re accusing me of.”
“Oh me, I’m just supposing in space,” he drawled.
“You never just suppose in space,” she returned. “You’re always fomenting something, and you never admit it. This has been a pattern with you since you had pimples and sang alto, and it’s not fair.”
“Quoth the fairest of them all.” A line from a tale of fairies, an illuminated relic they’d pored over late afternoons at the paper vault, the place they’d called a library, back when. Sun had slatted in through the desert dust, making it seem like heaven stroked the pages. That memory glowed golden still, and bringing it up right now felt like desecration. But if it spurred her to revealing what she was really after, he’d count the pain worth it.
Her gaze was fixed on her hands. She twisted one finger of her glove.
“We checked in before we did the job,” he told her softly. “You signed off on it, told us to go ahead. Mari put a bullet in what she thought was a mech-clone because you told her that’s what it was. Now why would you do that, princess?”
Her mouth moved, but no sound came out, and her gaze skidded to the side. Odd. Something was very off about her posture, her movement. For a minute he thought he might have cracked her defenses and she was going to tell him exactly what was going on.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about bringing her so low. Part of him just wanted to wrap his arms around her and hold her. Hell, all of him did, even knowing how little she’d appreciate such a gesture.
Even knowing she’d tell him to go away. Leave me alone, then. I lived this long on my own. I’m good at alone.
“This life isn’t easy,” she said at last. She raised her face and met his gaze directly. “I have seen things I now can see no more.”
Something clicked in the back of his brain, a cog of memory sliding into place. Gold dust sunlight and books spread wide over their knees. Her forest-fae eyes alight in mischief, reading bad poetry out loud till they both convulsed in laughter. Damn. He hadn’t expected the memories to hit this hard, but that one was a sucker-punch.
He took a steadying breath and followed her down the path. “Been a rough day for you, I reckon.”
“Yes.” The telepresence setup they were using didn’t allow folks to transmit emotions, but she didn’t need one of those fancy rigs. He could see all of it on her face: the weariness, the loneliness. “Tell your shooter to lay low for a few days. I will be in contact with my demands.”
She raised a hand, an easy gesture, as if she were waving good-bye. Her fingers cricked, and he deliberately did not focus on her hand. He met her gesture with its mirror.
The headset vibrated, indicating the termination of their link. The tether on the helm pulled, like it would retract up into the ceiling, but Kellen paused it with a command word. Rewound the convo. Played it back. There. Right there. Well, I’ll be damned.
She’d raised her hand, slim in its bio-deterrent glove. Its smart-fabric bio-deterrent glove.
She’d scratched letters onto the palm, or she’d planted them there on purpose, a stain that would erase itself in moments but for right now shone stark against the black fabric. A secret message just for him.
He knew exactly what it meant. Emo
tion clogged his throat, but he swallowed past it. Looked again at her hand, her fathomless eyes, the soft set of her mouth as she waved good-bye.
He thought of her other good-byes, and the last one.
After a long while standing there in the silent sphere, he erased the session, trapping it and her message in his memory:
worthdarkwords13
Order Vivien Jackson’s next book
in the Tether series
Perfect Gravity
On sale November 2017
DATING THE UNDEAD
V-Date: The Undead Dating Service
It’s Bridget Jones…with vampires
Silver Harris is done with men. But when she shares a toe-curling kiss with a sexy Irish vampire on New Year’s Eve, she decides maybe it’s human men she’s done with… Logan Byrne can’t get that kiss out of his head. So when his boss assigns him to spy on V-Date members, Logan isn’t sure he can go through with his mission—not if it means betraying Silver.
In the tight-knit London community of centuries-old vampires, history and grudges run deep, and dating the undead can be risky business.
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A PROMISE OF FIRE
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Catalia “Cat” Fisa lives disguised as a soothsayer in a traveling circus. She is perfectly content avoiding the danger and destiny the Gods—and her homicidal mother—have saddled her with. That is, until Griffin, an ambitious warlord from the magic-deprived south, fixes her with his steely gaze and upsets her illusion of safety forever.
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VIKING WARRIOR REBEL
Second in a hot paranormal romantic suspense series featuring immortal Viking warriors by author Asa Maria Bradley
Astrid Irisdotter is a Valkyrie, a fierce warrior fighting to protect humanity from the evil god Loki. She’s on an urgent mission when everything goes hideously sideways. Undercover agent Luke Holden arrives on the scene just in time to save her life—and put his own on the line.
Luke may have saved her, but that doesn’t mean Astrid can trust him. Tempers flare as they hide secret upon secret from each other, but Astrid’s inner warrior knows what it wants…and it will not take no for an answer.
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MY WILD IRISH DRAGON
One job opening, two shifters = Sparks fly
Dragon shifter Chloe Arish is hell-bent on becoming a Boston firefighter. She knows she has to work every bit as hard as a man—harder if she wants their respect. Born into a legendary Boston firefighting family, phoenix shifter Ryan Fierro can’t possibly let someone best him on the job. He’d never hear the end of it. When a feisty new recruit seems determined to do just that, Ryan plots to kick her out—until their sizzling chemistry turns explosive…
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“Truly entertaining.”
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WOLF UNLEASHED
SWAT: Special Wolf Alpha Team delivers action-packed paranormal romantic suspense
Lacey Barton can’t deny her attraction to gorgeous SWAT officer Alex Trevino, but she’s busy trying to discover who’s behind the brutal dogfights sending countless mauled animals to her veterinarian office. The trail leads Lacey to a ring of vicious drug dealers and suddenly she’s right smack in the middle of a SWAT stakeout. With Lacey in danger, Alex’s wolf side is unleashed. But when she witnesses Alex shift, she’s even more terrified… Now it’s up to Alex to crack the case—and earn Lacey’s trust and, ultimately, her heart.
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UNDISCOVERED
After centuries in darkness
The Amoveo dragons are rising
A long time ago, Zander Lorens was cursed to walk the earth stripped of his Dragon Clan powers. Now Zander relives his darkest moment every night, trapped in a recurring nightmare. By day, he searches for a woman who may be the key to ending his torment.
Rena McHale uses her unique sensitivity as a private investigator and finder of the lost. By day she struggles with sensory overload, and by night her sleep is haunted by a fiery dragon shifter. Nothing in her life makes sense, until the man from her dreams shows up at her door with a proposition…
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