Flames of Hope

by Cassandra L Shaw

  Only women with suicidal or psychopathic tendencies looked at his scars and the bitterness etched into his face, and kept on looking. Most wouldn’t meet his gaze, and gave his chair a wide berth, as if he or the machine was surrounded by a repulsion force field.

  Other ex-Special Ops members recognized the look of a soldier who’d survived a triple tour, a look which revealed how little was left of a man’s humanity. Humanity was a resource that eroded every single day you survived in the abyss fed by constant mayhem and murder.

  When you were the weapon.

  The murderer. The assassin.

  What emerged to face the world was more prominent and horrid than even his physical scars.

  A woman with a head full of wild black curls appeared in the open door to the café. The woman stopped and looked inside and around till she saw Xylvar. Beautiful large slanted gray and silver eyes met and held his.

  He scowled. Gods, he was seeing her everywhere.

  Then he really looked. His breathing picked up, cold sweat coated his forehead and the back of his neck, and his chest burned with the ache of unreciprocated lust and love.

  Jaz.

  What perverse, galaxy-sized nut crush was this?

  Did Kaid have some of Xylvar’s gift? Did the Eli leader dig inside Xylvar’s head to discover the one women in the whole fucking world who could stroke Xylvar’s inner beast and then crush its bones to dust?

  He stared at her while he waited for lightning to pierce the roof and strike him dead. Jaz’s delicate beauty had matured and become less rounded. It took his breath away and scored his stone heart.

  Xylvar shook his head like a wet dog, trying to shake out the sudden, unexpected desire. Desire for a woman. Desire to go punch Kaid in the face.

  And then the lightning hit…and his brain started to sizzle.

  Jaz was an FBPI agent? How? When? And why the fuck?

  In Xylvar’s time, Jasmine had never shown any desire to be in enforcement. She’d focused on trying to build a career using her business degree. Sure, he taught her and Tony killer knife skills, self-defense, but only because he cared for their safety. Obviously, times had changed.

  Jaz, a full blood Eli, moved more fluidly now. Her stride held a predator’s edge, like an Eli who lived by fighting to stay alive.

  He held his inner battle in check and kept his gaze locked on hers. Leave. Leave. Leave, he urged her mentally. He could never work with her. With someone he’d cared for.

  He couldn’t work—wouldn’t work with Jaz, ever.

  Playing the game of outing extreme racists and terrorists could make staying alive a key issue. Or not staying alive.

  Xylvar knew the stakes, knew his own mad skills. Willingness to risk his own crap life was one thing. The life of the female he once loved, female predator edge or not, the woman who belonged to his childhood best friend, was a whole vault of credits different.

  His legs started one of their phantom aches that made him want to move them, chop them off, blast out his brains. Or run. The docs said it was the biometric inserts in his brain and spine talking. The inserts hadn’t helped much beyond giving him bladder and bowel control. Not the hoped-for result, but better than nothing, the surgeon said.

  Obviously, the surgeon was still able to use the lower half of his body.

  Xylvar bent and rearranged his legs, made sure blood could flow through the appendages.

  If he’d been found sooner after the blast, the medics could have repaired his spinal cord and the surrounding nerves. It wasn’t as if it couldn’t be done, but he wasn’t found for three days, so the usual surgeries were out. The lapse of time was his fault. He hadn’t notified his superiors of the timing or location of his planned attack on Dempster, the man he’d been sent to assassinate.

  Jaz recognized him. Through his emotional eye connection, he felt her shock at seeing him, face disfigured and wheelchair-bound, slide like a slick, black eel of horror up her spine. He flinched.

  Then her thoughts disappeared.

  Ah, so she remembered his little gift. And she also remembered what he’d taught her about blocking him.

  He flared his nostrils and sucked in a gut-punch breath. Why it shocked him to realize she was horrified at his state, he didn’t know. Act normal, you dick. He reached for his coffee and pretended he didn’t notice his hand shake when he lifted the mug to his mouth.

  Jasmine’s steps faltered, but then she shook her head and kept walking. Ah, she made the decision to proceed with the meeting. Big of her.

  At five-seven, she was on the short side for an Eli female. Her bright blue, tight trousers and the soft lace of her loose top somehow highlighted her abundance of curves. Her whole being seemed relaxed, she strode as if she owned the fucking universe and all its distant galaxies.

  As she neared she eyed him from head to the point hidden behind the table, then pulled out a chair opposite and sat. He tried not to stare at her, tried to act as if seeing her was no surprise.

  What he needed to do, right fucking now, was piss her off. End the meeting. Force her to leave before they played the how’s it going, what you been up to? farce. Somehow, he needed to find a way to make her refuse to work with him.

  But he’d promised Kaid to play nice, dig out some of the manners he used long ago, or at least pretend he’d possessed them once upon a time.

  She met his cool look, then slid hers down to the where his right hand gripped his chair’s arm. He caught the shimmer of tears in her eyes.

  “Xylvar Johanneson. I told you to stay safe.” Her softly, husky voice went well with her wild hair. Of course, that could just be his opinion.

  “I wasn’t yours to boss around.”

  She met his eyes once more, and never faltered while she gave him a forced smile. She wasn’t thrilled about being here. Sensible. The urge to tell her to run, to run far, far away, hit him so hard it momentarily stole his voice. Something told him she would not survive an association with him, that her life would be forfeited.

  “Jaz, listen. What the Katoom Elis are planning is dangerous. I want you to go back to Kaid and tell him you want no part of working with me or on the project.” Sifting through the dregs, the back door and underworld of cyberspace, wasn’t without danger. All cyber entry left a stain, and a stain could be traced, hacked, the source’s location found by those with similar skills to Xylvar’s and those Jaz might now possess.

  She blew out a breath he hadn’t realized she was holding, and her posture softened.

  “A lot has changed in the ten years since we parted ways. I’m FBPI-skilled. I can handle myself.” He heard the unspoken and you.

  She leaned closer and ran a shocking, electrically charged fingertip down the scar that bisected his cheek. “It suits you. You always were too pretty.”

  He flicked her hand away, the way he’d shoo an annoying insect. “Pretty, I ain’t. And don’t touch me.” He hated to be touched, and her touch was a searing brand he didn’t need to feel. Had never needed to feel. Being in love with your best friend’s girl was just too underhanded. It was why he walked and hadn’t seen Jaz or Anthony for a decade. An entire lifetime.

  A man could only take so much, then and now.

  He ran a palm over the roughness of his jaw, dropped it to the table, and started tapping his finger. Working with her was impossible. He’d make her choose a different path. Time to ignore Kaid’s orders to be nice, and be himself.

  He lifted the side of his lip, pulling the scar bisecting the right of his face. It wasn’t a good look. He’d perfected the vicious snarl deliberately. “Not matter what Kaid said, I don’t work with the Federal Bureau of Preternatural Investigations. Go home to Anthony and make pretty babies.” Maybe they already had. He didn’t want to know

  He felt her mental barrier tighten, and lost sight of even more of her emotions. He gave her another, smaller lip lift to show he noticed. “I didn’t think you’d ever return to clan.”

  She stared at Xylvar with her incred
ible, stormy eyes and arched her dark brows a little. “How do you know Kaid?”

  Shit, the trace of disdain in her voice almost made him smile. “Did a favor for him not long ago. Do others when he asks.” And Kaid liked his work. Didn’t think much of him as a person, based on the recent lecture about how to treat people, and women in particular. But, he certainly liked what Xylvar could provide.

  Yeah, couldn’t blame the leader of a clan for thinking he’s slime. The first time Xylvar met Kaid and one of his sidekicks, the shy Dan, Xylvar had demonstrated his manners needed a major upgrade. Too bad his system was no longer accepting them.

  She gave him a small, cynical smile that drew his gaze to her soft, pink, unstained lips. She had one of those mouths that almost made a perfect bow, except her bottom lip was too full, with a sexy dip in the middle. He hadn’t kissed a woman for three years. Or ever tasted Jaz. Crap. Idiot. What did it matter? Kissing would get him and her nowhere. Besides, she kept tracing his face with her gaze, telling him she’d be repulsed by his touch anyway, so kissing would be not only out—but moot.

  “You’ve changed.”

  “You think I would be the same young fool?” He looked at his chair. “That the armed forces, especially Special Forces, and then nearly blowing myself to bits wouldn’t change me?”

  “I never knew what happened to you. Anthony and I tried to find you, but even your mother refused to tell us.”

  “I’d moved on. Ma knew that.” His mother passed away eight years ago from a Mule overdose. Nothing surprising there. His father, the son of the leader of the largest Eli clan in the Americas, went the same way. Except he’d taken himself out when Xylvar was nine. At least his mother managed to dodge death until he became an adult. He started tapping the table with his fingernail.

  She looked at his finger, gave it a slight glare. “I never understood what we did wrong.”

  “Like I said at the time, it wasn’t you or Anthony. It was all on me. I needed a different life. Space.” Tap, tap, tap. To get away from you.

  “I don’t mean the physical. Your whole persona feels darker. Lightless.”

  “My light went out years ago.” He’d discarded it at her feet the day he left.

  “This is different. I mean, even the blind can read braille. You’re bitter, self-loathing, angry, and you think everyone is less than you.”

  Such a critical person shouldn’t have such fine, delicate skin, such a sexy voice. “You forgot crippled.”

  She raised those two perfectly arched brows in unison. “That’s the least of your problems, or at least it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  She’d changed too, into a bitch. Fun.

  “So, you work for the FBPI?” He made sure his disgust at the bureau spun his words into an accusation. Top-heavy with paper-pushers, the organization did little to impress Xylvar. Sure, they’d helped Katoom’s Eli clan recently, but Xylvar bet they’d only done it because countrywide media were watching the area. When an audience watched, you performed. Even trained monkeys knew how to dance with a cup.

  “The FBPI pays well, gives me purpose.”

  Xylvar continued to tap the table with his index finger’s nail. “I thought building a business empire was more your cup of greed.”

  “Tried it, wasn’t me. Did some more self-defense training, discovered a talent for beating people up. Like working in a team.”

  “I like working alone. Being alone. No disappointment or expectations.” Tap, tap, tap, tap. He liked the cool smile she gave him, the one that called bullshit.

  “So now we’ve established I’m a changed man—for the better, I’m sure—let’s move on.”

  She watched him a minute and seemed to come to some decisions. “You said you did favors for Kaid, yet you no longer appear to be the doing-favors sort. What do you get out of it?”

  “Ah, I’m read so easily. I got what I wanted by doing the first favor, after…well, let’s just say the Eli is generous with his credit rewards, and credits are hard to come by.” The first favor had proved a great relief. A barbed thorn in his pride that had long festered. A boil that, thanks to Kaid and the Katoom Eli clan, at last exploded, leaving unhidden scars.

  “Today I’m here to see if I care to work with you and to do a friend a favor.” There was more she wanted to say but didn’t, and because she put up a barrier he couldn’t read what it was.

  “Kaid Sinclair is the friend?”

  “I went to school with Bliss, before my family and hers left clan.” she shook her head, and those damn curls bounced all around the place. He remembered the silk of them. He wanted to grab a handful, pull her face to his.

  Pointless.

  “Then I ran into her a few times in various business courses at college. Heard she’d mated to Kaid, and came to see why…and here I am. A renewed clan member.”

  He unclenched his fist and looked at the soft glow of silver tracing through his veins. The emotional telltale of the Eli species could be such a bitch. At least she would believe it was his anger, not desire, that brought out the silver.

  “So, how do the Katoom Eli clan see us working together?” He’d been given a version, and he wanted to see if hers matched, since he had to come up with a way to void the idea.

  Kaid would spout whatever he needed to get the information he wanted. Xylvar respected the man for doing whatever needed doing to keep his people safe, but Xylvar, while willing to work for the credits, liked to know which song would really play in the background.

  “He wants me to work alongside you. We both have cyber skills, and I’m good at background decoding and finding the floating remnants of deleted posts. Some apparently simple messages can have a whole different context. With you hunting for threads that might lead to Pure sympathizers and recruits, I can hack in and study their link messages, find the echoes of the deleted posts. Once we have some idea of who these maybes are, it’s your job to find those individuals and do your stare-in-the-eyes trick to find out what they know.”

  “You knew Kaid was setting you up with someone with that gift and you never thought of me?”

  “I did, actually, but I’ve met enough people around with gifts, I decided it couldn’t be you. Coincidences don’t really do it for me.”

  “Well, all your skills are unneeded. It’s what I do now. I don’t need to work with you.” Or with someone who made him regret his accident even more ferociously than he already did.

  And it came again, that unbidden chant in his head. Run, Jaz, run. Time to get her away from him.

  Though dying wasn’t a big issue for him, for Jaz he wanted a long life full of love and laughter. All the air in his lungs whooshed out as if he’d been hammered in the solar plexus by a kickboxer. She already had that man in her life. Anthony.

  Always. Fucking. Anthony.

  Like before. Xylvar had to get away from her.

  Jasmine kept talking. “Kaid thinks it will speed things up. We have skills that will pair well. He hopes through our research to find ways to infiltrate and meet some of the Pures.”

  “The Pures use only those capable of benefiting the movement. A damaged part-Eli isn’t going to entice them to exert themselves to find out if I’m useful.” And he wasn’t going to demonstrate for anyone how much he could still do, even from a wheelchair. He needed those skills to be unforeseen, unexpected, and unpredictable.

  “You could offer some sort of training. Something you learned while in Special Forces. Help others deal with their disabilities.”

  He started to tap again. “My specialty was hand-to-hand combat—not team building and hugging out your angst.” He was also an explosives expert. Or, since he’d been the one half blown to ashes, maybe not such an expert. “This is a waste of time. I have no need to work with anyone. Truth is, the way I dig into people, you’d be safer not to be involved. Kaid has no right to risk your life this way.”

  Xylvar would not be responsible for her safety. What the hell was Anthony thinking, letting her work with such
people? Xylvar could still work for Kaid. Not full time, as Kaid suggested, but on a pro-rata basis, like he did now. He’d scrounge, live like shit, save, and pray.

  “Go home, Jaz, keep out of my life.”

  Jaz’s hard glare blasted him between the eyes. “Fine. I have no desire to work with someone who hates the entire world population.” She waved off the waitress approaching with a notepad, pushed up from her seat.

  “Say hi to Anthony.” He had no idea where that came from.

  She gave him an odd look, then leaned over the table. “I missed you. Now I see I missed nothing.” She turned and, with a probably-unconscious roll of her hips, stormed out of the café.

  Xylvar watched his chance to start his treatment walk out the door. Xylvar Johanneson worked best alone anyway. And his Jaz would stay safe.

  His legs started their painful twitching again. For phantom pain, it sure hurt like the real deal. If he lived much longer, that pain best be gone, and he better be fucking walking.

  Time to contact Kaid Sinclair and explain he wouldn’t be of any use to the Pure’s so it would be impossible for him to infiltrate the group, so Kaid’s plan would not work. He’d also make sure Kaid and Bliss didn’t use Jaz in their plans.

  He prayed with her work she’d have to move a long way away from Bozeman. He needed distance from the woman who spoke to the remnants of his shattered manhood. One who made him desire things taken by a dodgy incendiary device. He needed distance from the woman who made him want.

  Safer for her.

  Saner or him.

  For he knew the wanting destroyed

  5

  Chapter Five

  When Kaid summoned her, Jasmine walked toward a log lodge, nestled beside a rocky creek. Her private link vibrated softly in the pocket of the bright red jeans she bought at Bliss’s boutique. A coded message from Rich, the main operative she worked under in the FBPI. Her forehead tightened. Why would he contact her when she taking the department-enforced leave the bureau’s shrink said she needed?