by S. E. Smith
It remained to be seen which was true. But for better or worse, the new queen had claimed many of the remaining Talented. Teegan had felt it. It brought her to her knees, the shockwave nearly causing her to black out.
Her eyes flicked back to Cole. “The shockwave,” she said.
He nodded. “I lost my grip on his mind. Only for a few moments, but…”
“That’s all he would need.”
She started to move past the shock. Deacon was free. Memories pushed at her, but she shoved them away, refusing to deal with them now. Not here. Not with Cole.
“Six days.” Anger built within her as she counted back to the claiming in her mind. “He has a six-day head start.”
Cole looked back without flinching. His expression remained neutral. “You wouldn’t take my messages.”
She wanted to scream at him, to rage, to release her pent up emotions at a handy target. But he was right. She spun away from him, threading fingers through the heavy curls of her long black hair.
She couldn’t use her Talent here. Bond-mates were unique. Somehow their link allowed the kith to speak telepathically, even in a mental construct like this. But Teegan’s other Talents were useless as long as she was in this dream that was quickly becoming a nightmare.
“You have to let me wake up,” she said.
“Teegan—”
“I can’t track him here!”
Cole paused, considering her. “So, you’ll come with me?”
She closed her eyes. She could feel her heart pounding too fast, but couldn’t tell which emotion was driving it. Her dread of Deacon and what he might do, or her fear of what the next days with Cole would mean.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll come with you.”
“My ship is fueled and ready to go.” Cole’s voice reflected his relief. “I’ll be waiting at your family’s landing platform.”
She nodded, not even turning around. She stared outside at the snow still falling. Cole’s presence faded first, and a moment later so did the snow. Then her house dissolved in a blur, and Teegan found herself sitting bolt upright in bed, her blankets tangled around her. Ember had already woken and jumped down to the floor. A flash of silver and red as the kith disappeared around the corner, her nose to the ground. Checking the house and grounds for an intrusion.
Teegan let her go. Ember would feel better once it was done, and truthfully, so would she. The chances of Deacon coming here were so remote as to be laughable. No one landed on Tarssis without permission, and he had no way of knowing where she was.
Unless he read it in Cole’s mind.
The thought sent a shiver through her.
No. Now was not the time to give in to paranoia. She scrambled from the bed and hurriedly dressed. She took no time to care for her appearance, barely delayed long enough to pack and grab a nutritional bar.
She hadn’t been on a hunt in seven years. Not since the last time she’d seen Cole. And Deacon. Not since losing her brother, her first consort, and two best friends.
She’d been on the verge of choosing Cole as her second consort when everything went to hell. Instead of gaining a life, a family, she lost it all. Multiple partner relationships had become more common in recent years, among both the pirates and Hunters. No one had been more surprised than Teegan when she realized her feelings for Cole were just as strong as what she felt for her first consort, Jarus. It had taken more than a year of working closely together before she felt ready to make that choice, until she was sure Jarus and Cole were as ready as she was. And then it was too late.
Her hands shook as she buckled a disruptor to her thigh. She was about to hunt the man who stole everything from her. She stopped in the doorway, leaning over with her hands propped on her knees, struggling to breath. For a few awful seconds she thought she might vomit, but Ember brushed against her and the feeling faded.
Teegan? Her bond-mate sounded worried.
“I’ll be all right.”
Perhaps someone else should take this hunt.
“No one else would find him.”
Ember padded silently beside her as they stepped outside into the summer sun. It was already warming into a hot day, and it was barely morning. Sweat trickled down Teegan’s back beneath the long sleeved, armored shirt she wore. It was flexible and light, as armor went, but still heavier than regular clothing.
Maybe we shouldn’t, either, the kith said as Teegan sealed her house.
“I’m not leaving that man to roam the universe unchecked.”
Then I’m glad Cole will be with us.
Teegan hesitated, but then shrugged. Ember was right. Doing this alone would be impossible. “Me too.”
Good. Ember licked her hand, a gesture of love and approval. It’s a start.
But a start to what? Teegan wasn’t so sure she wanted to know.
Two
Teegan held herself with so much tension she looked tight enough to snap as she took the co-pilot’s chair. It hurt to watch, so Cole focused on the pre-flight check instead. He swore to himself, wishing for the thousandth time that any other circumstance could have been the catalyst to bringing them back together.
Of course, nothing else would have been dire enough. Mother knew he’d tried over the last seven years, but Tey had stubbornly ignored his every attempt to reach out. It didn’t matter that he’d given her the space she so clearly needed, or that he’d tried to offer unconditional support in the wake of her losses. It didn’t matter that his specialty was healing the mind.
It didn’t matter that he loved her. Sometimes, he thought that was the most damning thing of all. The thing she couldn’t abide. And after what had happened, could he blame her?
All of his frustration drained away. He snuck another look at her, and noticed Ember curled up on the bench behind them. Back in the same place she’d occupied on their last space voyage together, nearly a decade ago. He nodded toward the kith-vos in greeting, and she closed one blue eye slowly and opened it again in what he could only describe as a deliberate wink.
Well, maybe he had at least one ally.
He cleared his throat, giving Teegan his full attention. “So, where are we headed?”
She frowned, her hands clasped tightly together in her lap. He didn’t think she was aware of it, or of how her knuckles shown pale through her dark skin as her fingers gripped together. Hunting wasn’t an exact science, a fact he knew well from their previous trips. So much depended on the strength of the Hunter’s mental imprint of the target, on the distance between them, on the force of Talent involved. Teegan was gifted, but she was working alone now. She had no pack to draw upon.
It was certainly not a factor he planned to bring up anytime soon.
“I’m having trouble getting a sense,” she admitted after a moment.
“You need to relax. You’re too tense.”
The glare she shot his direction could have melted metal. He shrugged in response, unperturbed. Teegan being angry with him was nothing new, after all.
He is right. It was unusual for Ember’s thoughts to be spoken so openly that he, too, could hear them. The kith was choosing to share them with Cole. He didn’t look in her direction, didn’t dare bring Teegan’s attention to her bond-mate’s inclusion of him. Hunters could get pretty protective of their kith, and the last thing he needed was another thing to fight with her about.
Still, he took Ember’s attention as a good sign. If Teegan had truly hated him, that emotion would likely be mirrored by her companion.
“All right.” Teegan blew out a breath, rolling her shoulders as she tried to release tension.
Cole had the urge to help, but knew any effort from him would likely result in the opposite reaction. For a moment, he indulged in the memory of a time when that hadn’t been true. When he could’ve brushed her mind with a light mental touch and helped quiet her worries and fears. When he might have moved aside the heavy braid of dark hair falling down her back and massaged her shoulders and neck. When she would h
ave welcomed either action from him.
Then he pushed it aside. That was a long time ago.
Teegan’s eyes were closed, allowing him the opportunity to study her and note any changes. There were a few. She’d lost weight, her curves a little less curvy. He frowned, not liking that. It made him wonder how unhappy she’d been. If she talked to anyone or just isolated herself. He got the impression from things her mother had carefully not said that the latter might be true. Her hair was longer, and just as unruly. Already it fought to free itself from the braid she’d tamed it into, curls springing free to frame her face. There were a few new lines, especially around the eyes, but otherwise her deep coffee skin was as smooth and luminous as he remembered. Her full lips were pressed tightly together, and he could see her angular jaw flex as she worked. She looked tired and afraid, but determined.
His jaw clenched. He hated seeing her afraid. But he had no doubt she’d do her part. Teegan never backed away from anything. Except you. The traitorous voice in his head was his own. Ruthlessly, he silenced it.
“I need a star chart.” Teegan’s voice interrupted his thoughts, and he quickly called one up for her. The image was three dimensional and filled the cockpit with a faint glow, systems lit with blue light, and planets showing yellow or red based on whether or not they were occupied. A few green space stations and colonized asteroids dotted here and there.
Teegan glanced at him as she opened her eyes, a quick flash of amber eyes. “Thank you.”
He nodded, saying nothing.
She studied the chart for a moment, rotating the view. “Here,” she said at last, pinpointing a location. He stared.
“Haven? Deacon went to Haven?” Horror made his words sound harsher than intended. Haven was a space station under pirate control, right on the edge of Commonwealth space. They moved a lot of black market goods through there.
But that wasn’t the part that concerned him. The place was huge, home to at least thirty thousand people. Families.
“I won’t know until we get closer, but that’s the general direction.” Teegan hesitated. “He might have bypassed it altogether. Or just stopped to change ships.”
True. Deacon had stolen one of the two corvettes permanently docked at Black Rock. Cole and Teegan were sitting in the other. Haven would be an ideal place to dump the stolen ship and obtain a new, less traceable craft. In addition to the pirates who ran the place, it was popular with smugglers and mercenaries from the Commonwealth looking to find or offload difficult cargo.
Cole swore. If Deacon had gone to Haven, he could only hope that nothing triggered him while he was there. He was an extremely unstable personality. A telekinetic, he’d spent a great deal of his life focused on the human body. Not a biokinetic, the rarest of the kinetic gifts, which naturally applied itself to cell manipulation and healing. But Deacon had been a surgeon, one who honed his telekinesis as a tool to aid in his profession. Once, he’d had the reputation for doing the impossible.
Until a bioweapon killed his wife and daughter, and he’d been powerless to save them. A lot of Talented women died when Matera-D was unleashed on the pirate population, the virus killing indiscriminately as it targeted the unique genetics of Talented women. Many people grieved.
Deacon broke.
Cole had seen exactly what the man was capable of. Not just in application, but in every twisted memory in Deacon’s mind. Before Teegan and her team tracked him down, he’d been on a path to revenge, and he blamed the Commonwealth for the death of his family. The things he’d inflicted on those he’d targeted were raw and horrific. The work of someone in deep psychological pain determined for others to feel it as well. Cole didn’t want to imagine what would happen if he unleashed that pain on the station.
“If he kills in such a populated place, he’ll bring station security down on him. He has a mission, a goal. And he’s always been very controlled.” Teegan didn’t look at him as she spoke. “I’m sure he won’t do anything to jeopardize that.”
“Was I thinking so loud?” Cole hadn’t meant to project his worries so she would pick up on them. Surely she had plenty of her own. She flashed him a smile that squeezed his heart, it was so like how she used to look at him.
“No. But I know you, Cole. I know how to read you without looking into your thoughts.”
He held her gaze for long enough that the moment grew uncomfortable. She looked away, tucking a curl behind her ear. It was just going to spring back free a few seconds later.
He grinned when it happened. Some things, at least, hadn’t changed.
“What are you smiling about?”
“Nothing.” He focused back on the astrogation panel, and entered the coordinates to plot the jump to Haven. “We’re three jumps out.” It would take several hours to complete them, to move through otherspace, the place that existed outside of time during space jumps. Normal propulsion would have taken years, decades to reach Haven. But a handful of jumps through otherspace made those light-years go by in a blink. “You should get some rest while we’re in transit, if you can. There may not be much chance to sleep after this.”
She shivered, a whole body shudder that had Cole frowning in worry.
“I can handle it,” she said stiffly.
It pissed him off. “I didn’t say you couldn’t. I’ve never thought of you as weak or incapable, Tey. You know that. But Deacon’s no joke, and honestly, I’m a little worried that you’re going to have trouble leaving the personal out of this.”
Her amber eyes spit fire when she looked at him. Here we go. Teegan yelling at him was at least an expression of emotion. Anything was better than that cold silence she’d spent the last seven years treating him to.
“I said I’ve got it. You don’t need to worry about me. You don’t need to think about me.”
“It’s about nine years too late for that.”
She flinched, but he didn’t wish the words unsaid. Pretending their history had never happened wasn’t going to be good for either one of them. And damn it, he was tired of not talking to her, of never having the chance to say any of it.
“That part of my life is long dead.”
“That is such bullshit, Tey.”
Furious, she leaned toward him. And all he could think about was how good she looked, how alive, with her eyes snapping fire, and a dark flush of anger darkening her cheeks.
“You don’t get to decide.” She bit the words off, she was so mad.
“Yeah? Neither do you.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You think because you want it to, the past just disappears? Trust me, Tey. I know better than anyone that you can’t outrun the past. It’s forever a part of you, whether you want it to be or not. Especially the big stuff. Family. Death. Love. You’re trying to forget all three. How’s that working out for you?”
She stared at him mutely as the seconds ticked by. Then she shoved out of her chair and stalked back to the rear cabin, where passengers or extra crew usually strapped in.
“I’m going to sleep,” she said, like it was her idea in the first place. “Wake me when we get there. And don’t talk to me before.”
“Fine.” He glared at her retreating back. Ember jumped down from her spot on the bench, giving him a reproachful look.
It’s better of she gets this out of her system now, he sent on a tight telepathic thread, just for the kith.
She stopped in the entryway of the hatch leading out of the cockpit, surveying him with those blue eyes that seemed at once guileless and ageless. Maybe. The word sounded cautious. She hurts, Cole. Don’t hurt her more.
Then she turned with a flick of her tail and was gone. He stared after her.
“I’m trying not to,” he muttered to no one at all. “But sometimes old wounds have to bleed again to be cleansed.”
Three
Teegan’s dreams were full of memories. First it was Joras, and even asleep her heart broke a little to see him again. Lean and athletic, her consort had been
classically handsome, with sharp, angular features that somehow managed to be masculine and beautiful at the same time. Sometimes when she was awake, she tried to remember his face and couldn’t picture it clearly. In dreams, he was as flawless as if he stood next to her. Some part of her recognized that it wasn’t real, and maybe that’s why joy turned to sorrow, and sorrow turned to nightmare.
When the dream turned, Joras was joined by the others. Her brother, Lorn. Her friends, Micah and Nathan. Her pack. They’d run together for six years. Twenty-seven successful hunts. And one failure.
Technically, even that hunt succeeded. After all, Deacon was captured. He was taken, sent to Black Rock, held by Cole. But Teegan could never look at it as anything but a terrible mistake. A failure that cost her team their lives.
By the time Cole shook her awake, she was cradling Joras in her arms, begging him not to go. Blood soaked her shirt, covered her hands. And Joras was already gone, his mental imprint fading from her mind.
She sat up, blinking away the images, struggling through the grief and loss clogging her throat. Fortunately, Cole was already moving back into the cockpit.
“Coming out of the last jump,” he said over his shoulder.
Teegan took a deep breath and let it out. “Great.”
She spent the next few minutes strapping in to the seat, and making sure Ember was secure in the sling beside her. She smiled faintly, fingering it. Cole must have put it up. But then, this was hardly the first time he’d traveled with kith. Ember was nestled safely within the pouch, which was secured to the seat beside Teegan with several safety straps. She peered up through the opening in the top.
You slept poorly.
I slept about as well as I expected, given everything that’s happening.
You haven’t had the dreams in a long time.
No. Teegan glanced at Cole’s back as the ship came out of the jump. I haven’t. Her stomach did a flip as they came out of otherspace, time seeming to stretch for a small eternity as it always did.
