Rip’s smile vanished. “I’m sure.”
The small woman slugged his shoulder.
“Ow.” He rubbed it.
His mother rolled her eyes. “That wasn’t even your injured shoulder.”
“My injured shoulder can take more abuse.” His renewed grin indicated she hadn’t hurt him at all, but good God. If Rykus kept up those almost boyish smiles, Ash was going to have to flee. She’d always been attracted to his presence, the imposing bulk of his muscled shoulders, the chiseled arms, the deliciously defined abs, but this easy-to-joke-and-laugh version of Rip did something else to her. This version made her yearn for something and someone who was so unlike herself she felt almost foolish to be standing there.
“Well,” his mother said. “Dinner is being set. You look like you’ve been living off ship rations for a decade. Markin.” She turned to her husband. “Introduce me to our other guests.”
Ash looked at the general and tried so very hard not to grin.
“This is Minister Prime Tersa,” he said, just managing not to growl out the title and name.
Tersa bowed a greeting. “Thank you for hosting us on such short notice, Madame Rykus.”
“Elia, please, and it’s no trouble. Thank you for bringing my son home to visit.”
“He was excited to come,” Tersa said.
Ash covered a laugh with a cough. It drew Elia’s attention, and the woman turned toward her. Since Ash was fairly certain the general wasn’t going to introduce her, she mimicked Tersa’s bow. “Lieutenant Ramie Ashdyn. You can call me Ash.”
“And you and Rhys work together?” She tried to make the question sound innocent.
“We…” Ash glanced at her fail-safe, who’d suddenly gone very still. “I met Rip on Caruth.”
“Rip?”
“Yeah. Rest-in—”
“I think I smell a wonderful dinner cooking.” Tersa took Elia’s arm. “We should enjoy the meal before it’s time for the mundane talk of business and politics.”
Artfully, Tersa guided Elia away. The general and Taya followed.
Ash looked at her fail-safe and let a small grin leak through her best not-quite-innocent expression.
Rip sighed. “There’s no use talking about it, is there?”
“Talking about what?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“You’ll spend dinner discovering the best way to get under my skin.” He didn’t sound angry or upset. He sounded like he had surrendered to the inevitable.
Her grin widened. “I’m already under your skin.”
He didn’t deny her words. He just nodded, then said, “My mom and sister are off-limits.”
If his tone had contained a warning or threat, Ash might have stuck to her policy of doing the opposite of what he wanted, but he’d made a simple statement, and it was obvious he loved and respected his mom and sister. He missed them, and their opinions meant a lot to him. Ash could play by that one rule.
“Sure,” she said, then she glanced at Jinston, who still stood guard beside her with all the confidence of an armed soldier facing an unarmed enemy. She held his gaze and her smile for a few deliberate seconds before turning back to her fail-safe. “That means it’s open season on your father and brother.”
Rip’s gaze dropped to her mouth. Briefly but long enough for her to feel the touch of his attention. His lips parted as if he was about to say something but thought better of it. He just rubbed the back of his neck, then turned toward the dining room.
“What about Jinston?” She stabbed her thumb toward the guard.
“Just don’t get shot, Ash,” Rip called back.
They had a human chef.
The only food Ash had ever eaten that wasn’t prepared by bots was during survival training and on a couple of missions when her team had received very shitty intel. She’d learned she was a horrible cook. So was Trevast, but Chakin and Kris had been able to scrounge up edible meals. Except that one time when Kris had mixed toca leaves with…
Ash almost doubled over from the sharp, unexpected pain. She should have been prepared for it, shouldn’t have let her mind wander to the past. This was just a rich man’s table spread. There was no need to compare it to times she’d shared with her teammates.
Beneath the table, Rip placed his hand on her thigh. She had stiffened. Her fingers were white-knuckled around her fork. Drawing in a slow, steady breath, she set the fork down. She didn’t look at her fail-safe, who always seemed to know when she was blindsided by memories. She focused on the three blue soft-shelled delicacies on her plate. What had Elia called them? Cambrin.
She let out the breath, and Rip withdrew his hand.
“Elia,” Tersa said. The prime was seated to Ash’s left, close to the general and his wife at the head of the table. “I heard you visited Mikassia last year. How did you like it?”
Ash looked up from her plate. Mikassia was a resort planet, a resort for the extremely wealthy. It was a two-week capsule from Javery, which in itself would cost a fortune.
Rip came from money and prestige. Ash came from Glory.
If Ash had half her self-confidence, she might be intimidated.
“We did,” Elia said. “It was a lovely vacation. We hadn’t been there since the kids were young.”
Rip met her eyes briefly, then resumed his meal. She could imagine her brusque, dauntless instructor storming a beach, but relaxing on it? It didn’t compute.
“How is their new space station coming along? I heard it’s spectacular.”
“It is,” Elia said. “It will be the largest, most advanced station in the KU when it’s finished. They say visitors won’t even want to leave its amenities to visit the planet. I doubt that, but it will provide more wealth for the planet.”
Because the planet’s so poor. Ash managed not to say the words out loud and concentrated on her food.
Apparently, there was a trick to eating cambrin. Everyone else cut into the shell with ease, efficiently and cleanly pulling it away from the single curved bone. Even though it was a native Javerian food, Tersa looked like she’d done this all her life. Of course, since she’d known they were making this unscheduled stop, she would have brushed up on her Javerian etiquette.
Across from Ash, Rip’s brother watched her saw at the so-called soft shell. She knew how to use a knife. What was wrong with the thing?
She checked to see if the blade was sharp. Hard to tell with the brown sauce.
Darek’s expression turned haughty. That needed to end, so she set down the knife and fork and—
Rip placed a hand on her arm, preventing her from picking up the shell with her hands.
“Flip it,” he said.
She lifted an eyebrow, silently saying I thought Darek was a legitimate target.
“Just flip it.”
Practicing civility, she picked up her utensils and flipped the shell. The knife cut through the meat like butter.
“Apparently it does have manners,” Darek said.
Rip slowly turned his head and stared at his brother. Ash would have sworn the air temperature dropped a dozen degrees.
“Occasionally I pretend.” Ash speared the meat, then popped the cambrin into her mouth. Holy hell, it was good.
Darek’s disgusted gaze shifted to Rip. “Does she do everything you say?”
“No.” He slid his knife through the shell.
“So the mystical loyalty training doesn’t work like the Coalition claims? How surprising.”
“Don’t be rude,” Taya said.
“I’m not being rude, I’m being cautious. Anomalies are banned for a reason. It’s irresponsible to bring a dangerous person to our home.”
Chill bumps broke out over Ash’s skin. Right now the most dangerous person at the table was Rip. He was a silent hell storm beside her.
To Ash’s left, Tersa continued her conversation with Elia, but there was a slight delay to her questions and responses, a hesitancy that indicated she was aware of the tension building on their end of
the table.
“The Coalition must really be hurting for bodies to allow her to pass your training program.”
“Careful,” Ash warned. She would put up with a lot of shit, but disparaging her time on Caruth crossed the line.
“You don’t have anything to say, brother? You let her fight all your fights?”
Ash used a roll to clean the sauce off her knife. “He knows I can defend myself. I’m more effective when I get good intel though. Rip, you should have warned me your brother was an asshole.”
“Lieutenant!” Now Tersa decided to join the discussion.
She focused on the knife in her hand, which was indeed very sharp. The extravagant overhead lighting glinted off the blade. “I’m being civil. So far.”
Rip finally looked away from his brother and glanced at her. He wasn’t the only one who caught her subtle threat. Jinston stepped forward and jerked the knife from her hand.
“I can reach theirs too.” She gestured to Tersa and Rip’s utensils.
Jinston’s gaze shifted from one knife to the other.
“Perhaps we should retire to the spirit room?” Elia started to rise.
“You joined the Coalition to piss Dad off,” Darek said. It was ironic that he so closely shared his father’s personality. He looked more like his mother—sharp cheekbones, blue eyes, leaner frame—but the mouth? The pinched disapproval matched the general’s perfectly.
“I made a commitment to the Coalition and to the Fighting Corps,” Rip said. “I didn’t enlist in the military for the minimal number of years just so I could check a box on my political resume.”
Darek laughed. “Ah, that again. You think everything I’ve done is showmanship. That’s funny coming from someone who turned himself into a hero by showing up at his own funeral.”
“He didn’t know it was his funeral,” Taya said, trying to defuse the tension. “The politicians set him up.”
“And yet here he is fraternizing with politicians when he claims to hate them.”
That was a good point. Ash swung her attention from Darek to her fail-safe. She wanted to explore that thread, to ask what Tersa had said to convince him to come dirtside, but Rip’s jaw was clenched tight.
“Every time you make a decision,” Darek continued, “you ask yourself if it will piss off Dad. Joining the Coalition should have been enough of a revenge, but you pushed it further. You volunteered to train anomalies. Killers.” He leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. “And still you needed to twist the blade further. So you found her. Are you screw—”
A roll hit him square in the forehead. He looked at Ash, shocked.
“You don’t want to finish that sentence.” She kept her tone light. “I know Rip really well. He’s about two seconds from exploding, and no one wants to see that, especially your mother. Your dad…” She glanced at the general, who sat at the head of the table wearing a scowl he’d likely used a hundred times before to silence squads full of war-seasoned soldiers. “Well, Rip likely inherited his temper from somewhere.”
Tersa set down her napkin. “I think we’ve disrupted things enough for tonight. Elia, that suggestion of drinks in the spirit room sounds like a good one. Will you—”
“The Firsts are here,” General Rykus said. His gaze was hard, merciless, but somewhere beneath his grim expression, Ash saw regret. He wanted Rip back in his life, but he wanted it on his terms, and he was too proud to beg. He was where Rip got his valor from, his steady sense of duty, his unmovable willpower. He was the type of man who immediately earned respect. So what had he done to lose that respect so completely from his son?
“We can address your concerns, Prime Tersa, then you can leave.” The general rose. His wife and Tersa did as well. Rip and Darek looked like they were waiting for the other to make the first move. Taya must have seen the same thing. When Ash met her eyes, they exchanged a brief smile. Then they both stood. That got the other two moving.
As they left the dining room, Ash rubbed the base of her skull. Jinston was practically breathing down her neck.
Rip touched her arm, urging her forward. She ignored Jinston and followed the general into the antechamber. The other two members of Javery’s triumvirate entered the room, their security detail in tow.
General Rykus greeted the First Citizen and First Prefect. They spoke quietly in Javerian. Ash picked up a few words and phrases, but it wasn’t the conversation she overheard that told her what they were discussing; it was the hate-filled way they looked at her. Javerians really did despise anomalies.
It was fucking annoying. Two percent—two!—of anomalies snapped. And no loyalty-trained anomaly had since the brainwashing had been put into place. That’s why some anomalies signed up to go to Caruth. All the suspicion made them paranoid, and they wanted assurance they’d stay sane.
She rubbed the back of her neck, agitated. This planet was going to drive her mad.
“Ash?”
“What?” she snapped at her fail-safe.
He studied her a moment, then asked, “Are you okay?”
She frowned. She must be more edgy than she thought if he picked up on it.
“I’m fine.” She dropped her hand to her side.
When the general told them to follow, Ash’s hand went back to the prickling skin on her neck. She took two steps in the direction General Rykus indicated, then she froze.
Slowly this time, she lowered her hand.
She turned, gaze scanning the room until she found the source of her discomfort.
A man. Armed and in a solid black uniform.
Shock reverberated on his face and in Ash’s mind. His jaw went slack. His face paled. He retreated into another uniformed security guard, who said something Ash didn’t catch.
The man muttered an apology. Backed up farther.
Then he turned and fled.
“Stop!” Ash lunged after him.
Jinston lunged after her. She kicked his legs out from under him, elbowed his face, then with the rest of the Javerian security forces calling out warnings, she sprinted after the telepath.
13
“Ashdyn!” Tersa yelled at the same time Rykus’s father bellowed, “Stop her!”
Rykus cursed, raced the guards to the exit, beat them there.
“Don’t shoot!” He shoved the closest man away from the door.
Five weapons swung toward him.
“Hands on your head!” the men shouted.
“I’ll get her back.” He held his hands away from his body, backed toward the exit.
“On the ground!” Jinston barked, blood gushing from his nose.
Rykus looked at his dad. “I’ll get her back!”
“Rhys,” his old man warned. “Don’t—No! Hold your fire!”
He half expected a bullet in the back when he spun toward the exit, but the men followed his father’s order.
He sprinted out the door. The Firsts had come in through the back entrance. A stretch of concrete separated the residence from a tall, white knockout fence. One touch would shock a man unconscious. But the barrier was built to keep people out, not in. Ash flew through the air from the roof of a parked skimmer, landed with bent knees on the other side, then disappeared into the dark woods.
“Ash! Stop!”
The Javerians wouldn’t care why she was running. They’d kill her on sight if he didn’t get to her first, but Ash didn’t hear him. Cursing, he funneled everything he had into his legs, leapt to the roof of the skimmer, then sprang across the gap to the fence.
He came closer than he liked to admit to stunning himself unconscious. The fence hummed as he cleared it, and his landing wasn’t half as clean as Ash’s. He fell forward. His shoulder slammed into a tree that ripped through his uniform and skin. Stumbling back to his feet, he charged into the darkness where Ash had disappeared.
Branches slapped at his face. He was moving too fast to note a trail, but the wood was only a hundred meters deep, the largest barrier granted between official residen
ces and the rest of the populace. Ash’s target would want to get lost in the city where authorities couldn’t easily close in on him.
The trees cleared, spilling him out onto a ten-meter slab of concrete interrupted only by the metal drainage grate running through its center. Javery monitored the rims of every major city, using visual recognition as well as comm-cuff signatures to monitor who entered and departed. Most people stayed away from the city-rims. The slab he stood on was deserted. No sign of Ash or her target.
Where the hell are you?
He scanned the tall white walls of the outer buildings and the brightly lit streets and alleys between them. Instinct took him two steps toward the nearest path, which would lead to the crowded streets of the night market. That’s where he’d go to disappear.
He shifted into a jog. Then a run.
It was complete luck that he saw the crooked grate. He’d glanced over his shoulder to check for pursuers, and when he swiveled his head back toward the city, his peripheral vision caught sight of a triangle of pure black where there should have been a crosshatch of metal.
Ah, hell. The bastard had gone into the water recyc tunnels. And Ash had undoubtedly followed him.
Rykus sprinted to the open section of the grate, which should have been securely locked to prevent idiots from entering the underground. A siren should have been assaulting his hearing too. The water recyc tunnels were damn dangerous, especially after the passing of a torrent. He’d seen the Kampeshu Torrent moving east, and sure enough, when he slid down the ladder, he splashed into cold, ankle-deep water.
Usually there would have been no water where he stood, but the Kampechu Torrent was the largest on the planet and the slowest moving. Its rains overfilled the deep channel in the center of the tunnel. Any deeper and the strong current would have whipped his feet out from under him.
Dim white lights outlined the central channel beneath the extra centimeters of water. Blue lights highlighted the tunnel walls. Rykus’s eyes were adjusted enough to the relative dark to see that both ends of the tunnel were clear.
Shades of Honor (An Anomaly Novel Book 2) Page 13
