by Jade Kerrion
"Dinner is served," Xin announced with a smile. She blinked in surprise. Danyael's bedroom was not just another guest room in Lucien's mansion. It was clearly a room permanently set aside for Danyael and decorated in a style similar to his room in Lucien's Washington, D.C. home. Polished mahogany floors instead of plush carpet. Walls painted soft cream instead of the richer, darker hues that dominated the rest of the house. Small elements personalized the room, like the collection of old books, their frayed edges and marked spines suggesting that they were well read, arranged on the seat by the bay windows. Everywhere she looked, she saw evidence that Lucien cared enough for his friend to give Danyael the life he wanted instead of merely integrating Danyael into Lucien's own. She found the thought reassuring.
"Thank you," Danyael said. He took a harder look at her. "Xin?"
"Yup, that's right." She smiled at him. "I'd like to join you for dinner, if it's all right by you."
"Of course." He gestured at a table by the large bay windows and helped her transfer place settings, dishes, and glasses from the cart to the table. "I'm surprised Armand didn't come up with something more inspired for your dinner."
"He did," Xin admitted. "He was peeved when I told him I wanted what you were having."
Danyael chuckled, a low and amused sound. "You didn't have to match my meal."
"I know, but I wanted to." She sat across from him. "I feel weird eating something when I know that the person I'm eating with can't enjoy it. How are you holding up physically?"
"I'm doing much better." He gestured at his plate. "This is far more than I've been able to manage in the past few days."
"And emotionally?"
Danyael hesitated briefly. "I have no memory of you, and the personal questions you're asking are a little disconcerting. How much do you know about me?"
"Pretty much everything Zara knows, and then some. I have access to all kinds of confidential records, and I read a great deal more than she does." Xin leaned in and placed her hand over his. She was surprised when he did not shrink from the touch. "Danyael, I'd like to tell you that we're friends, but I know that will be pushing it for you, given how much you've lost in the past few days. At the very least, we are allies. We want to get Lucien back safely. The questions I'm asking...I want a sense of how you're doing, because you'll likely need all your strength in the next few days. Besides, if you think I'm being invasive, you should wait till Miriya gets here. Compared to her, I'm as subtle as moonlight."
Danyael laughed quietly. They ate in silence for a few minutes until Danyael broached the topic he had abandoned previously. "You asked about how I'm doing emotionally. I'm planning to get as much rest as I can. I should be all right in a few days."
"Define 'all right' for me, please. How close is that to top form?"
"About halfway there." Danyael shrugged. "I haven't been in top form for years, not since I started medical school. This is normal for me."
Xin arched a brow. Danyael was unmatched as an alpha empath, and his reputation was built on running at half strength? How much more powerful could he be if he did not have to simultaneously deal with the physical burden of empathic healing? It was frightening to contemplate. "How much time will it take you to recover fully? To get to top form?"
"More time than we can spare. Zara will tell you that I have a tendency to set back my recovery."
"Zara's not a good source for unbiased information about you."
He glanced sharply at her.
Xin kept her expression neutral as she asked gently, "Can you tell me what happened last night?"
He looked away. "What happened last night is between Zara and me."
"It's going to impact every interaction you have with her going forward."
"She can keep things professional. So can I."
"You can be professional and still be miserable." She was not sure if she was talking about Zara, Danyael, or both of them.
Danyael smiled bitterly. "Don't worry. It won't get in the way of what we need to do." In a transparent attempt to change the topic, he lifted his water glass to Xin and waited until the rims touched in a toast to the future. His smile transformed unexpectedly, stunning her into silence as the beauty he always consciously downplayed flashed into devastating fruition.
Her thoughts froze in midstream. Several seconds passed before she blinked in disbelief, finally shattering the spell Danyael had cast with a single smile.
Danyael possessed far more than mere good looks. Not even Galahad could get that kind of reaction, despite being physically identical. Her reaction to Danyael was evidence, if she ever needed it, of the unmatched power of an alpha empath. Xin watched Danyael with caution and healthy respect as they drank to their renewed friendship.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Danyael looked up, a pair of sunglasses shielding his eyes from the swirling winds as the helicopter descended on the helipad of Lucien's super yacht. Galahad and Miriya climbed off the helicopter. The moment could have been incredibly awkward, but mercifully, it was not. Xin had suggested daily videoconferences while waiting for Lucien's yacht to arrive in Fort Lauderdale. Ostensibly they had talked through various scenarios and approaches, but Danyael had caught on that Xin wanted to cut through the time needed to get him comfortable with the others again.
The hours-long videoconferences had helped. As they argued over the nuances of their individual strengths and weaknesses and how various team combinations worked best in different scenarios, he rebuilt the trust he must have once had in them. The cautiously growing friendship was a natural extension.
He tugged off his sunglasses and extended his hand to them, first to Miriya and then to Galahad. "Welcome to Summer."
"Summer?" Miriya laughed aloud. "Did Lucien Winter really call his yacht Summer?"
"He thought it was outrageously funny when he named it." Danyael's gaze swept over the 165-foot long behemoth equipped with helipad, two swimming pools, a spa, and more than enough space to accommodate twelve guests and twenty-five crewmembers. He looked at Galahad. "I like what you've done with your hair. And your eyes."
"Do you?" Galahad grinned. The lightness of Galahad's spirit was stunning and refreshing. Smiles and laughter came easily to him, far more easily than several days earlier, as Xin had noted to Danyael privately after one of their videoconferences. The superficial similarities in their personalities were fading as Galahad came into his own, no longer trapped in a situation over which he had no control.
At least one of them was making progress.
Danyael returned the smile as he led the way off the helipad and toward the upper deck of the yacht. "It'll certainly surprise Zara."
Galahad kept pace beside him, leaving Miriya to bring up the rear. "I didn't think we needed to confuse people any more than necessary, nor to draw attention to ourselves. Besides, this is your face."
"It's yours too." Danyael felt no resentment, which surprised him, just weary resignation interlaced with mild amusement.
"You have the first claim on it."
Zara was surprised, leaping to her feet as they entered the conference room together. Her eyes flashed wide with shock. She burst out laughing as she stepped gracefully around the table and into Galahad's waiting arms. "Wow." Her smile was warmly amused, her gestures intimately affectionate as she dragged her fingers through Galahad's now dark hair and gazed into his green eyes. "It's a good look on you."
"Glad you like it."
Miriya and Zara glared at each other across the room. "I'm going to kill you later," Miriya promised Zara by way of saying hello.
Zara did not pretend to misunderstand. "You'd be taking the wrong side then."
"Am I?" Miriya countered.
"Miriya," Danyael intervened and switched to a silent conversation, his mind to hers. This is between Zara and me.
You freaking idiot. Why don't you just tell her the truth?
If she doesn't remember, it doesn't count as the truth. It's just my version of what happened.
<
br /> How do you function with such a flexible definition of "truth?"
You ask me that after all the lies I've been told? After the truth was yanked out from under me? Lucien's right. Sometimes lies are easier to live with. She can keep hers.
God, you men are so stupid. Miriya slouched into a chair, her posture mutinous.
"If we're all done saying hello, maybe we should get started," Xin suggested as she looked around the table.
"Was it like this, back in D.C.?" Danyael closed his eyes against the concurrent pounding in his skull and the tension gnawing at his shoulder and back muscles.
"We started out politely, but things did degenerate by the end," Xin confirmed, much too cheerfully for his taste.
Miriya chuckled. "Lucien rolled his eyes a lot," she told Danyael in response to his unvoiced thoughts.
That answer won a rare smile from Danyael. "What do you have for us, Xin?"
"Reconnaissance images, courtesy of Lacrosse." Images, far less grainy than anyone had expected considering that they were taken from space, projected on the screen. "A gated compound, about four acres. Multiple small buildings, but the main one sits on approximately fifteen thousand square feet of land. It has two floors, and likely a basement too, so potentially up to forty-five thousand square feet. It's owned by Cloud Enterprises, one of the business arms of Purest Humanity."
"What?" Zara leaned forward. "Jason Rakehell?"
"Look." Xin strove for moderation after a cautious glance at Danyael. "We don't know if Jason's behind this."
"Jason is president of Purest Humanity. Who else would be behind this?"
"Purest Humanity is the largest pro-humanist organization in the United States. It has revenues and operating budgets larger than some major public corporations. Jason's not privy to everything that goes on in there. They've been known to lease out that building for company retreats and the like."
"Well, is there a lease on that building?"
"No, but it could have been negotiated off the books."
"Well, if they're pro-humanists, we know we won't be going up against mutants."
"This doesn't make sense," Danyael interjected. "Pro-humanists hate mutants, clones, and in vitros equally. I've done nothing to draw their attention to me. Why would they kidnap Lucien to get to me?"
The response was a united wall of deliberate silence. He gritted his teeth as the now-familiar sensation of grinding frustration pitched in his stomach. His dark gaze shifted among them, finally settling on Zara. "What did I do?"
Zara shrugged, the motion indifferent, but her words were carefully chosen. "Pro-humanist groups, most especially Purest Humanity, hate Galahad far more than they hate any derivative. You're one of the genetic donors for Galahad---the most visible and obvious one. What's not to hate?"
Everything she said was an indisputable fact, yet he felt her emotions twist with guilt. She was lying. He knew it, and he could not do a thing about it. "That's not worth Lucien's life," he said. Damn you, Luce. Why couldn't you stay out of it?
"I couldn't agree more," Zara replied. "We don't know for sure who's in there, but we are up against technology and people. Let's nail the technology first. As for the rest, we'll improvise and trust that we're bigger, faster, and better than they are."
"That's a lot of trust," Xin murmured. "Especially when they have more people than we do."
"You don't know that for a fact," Zara said.
"No," Xin conceded. "But there aren't too many positive integers smaller than five. I think you need to bring the local authorities in on this."
Danyael shook his head. "No publicity. Lucien's parents were explicit on that point."
"There's a world of a difference between publicity and security. The Bermudans don't want bad press any more than the Winters do. They'd do anything to keep the heir to the Winter fortune from getting killed on their island."
"We're not getting the authorities involved in a place like this where loyalty can be purchased for a month's salary," Zara said. "We've got enough issues as it is. I can't afford to constantly watch my back."
"You've got an entire agency of mercenaries on your payroll. Call them in, for God's sake." Xin pushed to her feet and paced the room. "This lone-wolf mentality has to end before you get yourself killed."
"If I were a lone wolf, I wouldn't be in this room, trying to debate the finer points of strategy with the four of you," Zara pointed out. She cast Danyael an irritated look. "And you stop messing with my emotions."
"I'm trying to keep things calm. We'll get nowhere if we turn on each other," Danyael said simply. "Let's focus on Lucien."
"Right." Zara visibly ground her teeth, inhaled deeply, and said, "Lucien's out of time. His parents aren't going to sit around and wait much longer. Once they come into play, all hell is going to break loose. If the kidnappers catch wind of the fact that we're here, they'll move him again, and we're back to square one. We have to pull Lucien out ASAP."
"Does the fact that this is a trap mean absolutely nothing to any of you?" Xin demanded.
"I'm getting Lucien out, regardless," Danyael said, his voice quiet.
"Danyael, this is a trap for you."
"Lucien saved my life. I owe him everything."
Xin shook her head. "That's a dangerous attitude. It's one thing if you're a half-rate doctor working at the free clinic in Brooklyn. It's something else entirely when you're one of the most powerful alpha empaths in the world."
"I don't understand. I know you want to get Lucien out as badly as I do. Why are you pushing back?"
"I don't think it's possible for anyone to want to get Lucien out as badly as you do, but yes, I do care for him, and I want him out. The reason I'm pushing back is because everyone is charging forward without thinking."
"Why think? We don't need to. We're alpha mutants." Miriya's chuckle was distinctly self-mocking.
Xin sighed.
Galahad spoke up for the first time. "Xin's right, though it doesn't change the fact that we have all of twenty-four hours to get Lucien out. So what else do we know about this place?"
"If you're counting on technology to give you an edge, don't," Xin said. "The building is old, and there's nothing high-tech about it. That means I can't hack it. You're going to have to break into it the old-fashioned way---pick locks, break windows. I haven't found any cameras that I can access remotely, though there is a steady feed of data moving between the house and BioScan."
"BioScan? That's the biometric security company," Zara said.
"Exactly. Something in there is scanning for brainwave patterns. My best guess is that when you find it, you'll find Lucien."
"Can you disable it?"
"Only if you can find the key."
"The person who can get through?"
"Right. Once I have the identity of the key, I can reverse-engineer the code for the door and then disable it. Find whoever's in charge there. That person's probably the key."
"Right. We'll do that. And you'll be able to monitor the data flow from the yacht?"
"Easily. Lucien has state-of-the-art technology on board. I know Miriya will be able to stay in touch with everyone, but for the less telepathically able, I have waterproof microphones and audio receivers."
"Waterproof?" Zara echoed.
Xin shrugged. "There's a whole lot of water between this yacht and that island. How exactly were you planning on getting there?"
* * *
By early evening, the group had a workable plan. The details they could improvise upon. Danyael left the others to enjoy their dinner beneath the sparkling chandeliers in the dining room and wandered off to the upper deck. The sun had set, the sea a dull grey against the darkening sky. He quietly paced barefoot across the polished wooden deck, crossing to the bow of the ship to lean against the rails. His hands clenched tightly into fists as he struggled to steady his breathing. The weight against his chest was crushing, unrelenting pressure. If he did not know better, he might have imagined that he was havi
ng a heart attack.
He did know better. It was just stress, a lot of stress. Let go.
The unbearable tension transformed into stabbing pain that doubled him over. He inhaled sharply and breathed out shakily. Ineffectually, he pounded his fists against the rails, breathing hard and shuddering until the pain passed. He closed his eyes and kept them closed for several long moments. As he slowly opened them, his hands finally relaxed.
God, how long had it taken?
Too damn long. Not ready. I'm not ready for this.
The sensation of approaching emotions flickered, like a tickle against the back of his head. Not Miriya or Xin. They used psychic shields around him, and their emotions were subtly muted---hard, though not impossible, to pick out. Not Zara. He knew her emotions intimately. Blindfolded, he could find her in a crowd. Not the crew. They knew his solitary habits enough to leave him alone until he sought them out.
Galahad, then.
"Great view." Galahad's pace was measured as he strode across the deck to join Danyael. He did not look at Danyael but stood beside him as they gazed out over the ocean. "Would you like to join us for dinner?"
"I'm not hungry."
"Not hungry, or can't eat?"
Danyael smiled without humor. "There's not a whole lot of difference, in practice."
"Try," Galahad insisted. He pulled an apple out of his jacket and tossed it to Danyael, who caught it easily.
For a long silent moment, Danyael stared at the fruit. With a quiet sigh, he bit into it. The slightly tart, pleasantly sweet flavor flooded his mouth. He closed his eyes, savored it, and prayed he would be able to keep the apple down.
"Xin says you've hardly eaten all day," Galahad continued.
He kept his tone casual, and Danyael appreciated it. "I didn't realize she was keeping track."
"Everyone is. What's bothering you?"
Danyael shrugged, the motion graceful. "I'm thinking about tomorrow." An entire world of worry encapsulated in four words.
