“We need to talk, don’t we?” He said the words with so much gravity something inside her cinched up tight.
She wanted to stand, to walk away and avoid this conversation. She looked toward the door, steadied her expression, then looked back at her fail-safe.
Some of his infallible military self-control vanished. “You’ve always known how I feel. Saying it out loud didn’t change anything.”
“Saying it out loud when you did changed my actions. It was strategic, Rip. Dirty.” Her words came out vindictive. He didn’t deserve that, but it was easier to be angry than to deal with her feelings.
“You were going to get yourself killed,” he said.
“I had everything under control.”
“You didn’t.”
“I had an exit,” Ash said. “If you’d given me time to take it—”
“Did you mean what you said down there?”
“Yes.” She slung the answer out before he finished the question.
It looked like she’d punched him in the gut. His shoulders slumped forward, and his pained gaze dropped to the floor.
“Wait.” She made herself calm down and focus. “Did I mean what?”
He drew in a slow breath before he met her eyes. “Do you want me to command away your feelings?”
Oh. That. Shit. She’d said those words because she’d been hurt and pissed. He’d risked his life to help her in the recyc tunnels, but the second he’d crouched there at her side, he’d morphed into the cold, professional soldier. It was how he’d been treating her since they’d boarded the Kaelais—for the most part, at least—and she was sick of it.
“Seeker’s God.” He stood, then ran a hand through his short-cropped hair. “Maybe this was a mistake.”
It felt like the knife wound in her side had opened up.
She stood too. “No—”
“I should have refused this assignment.” He moved away from the sitting area. Ash followed.
“Rip—”
“You needed more distance.”
“Rip, we’ve been over this.”
“We have to admit the possibility—”
“Stop.”
“—you might not know what you want.” His expression was stoic when he met her gaze, and it felt like she was being yanked a hundred different directions. She was afraid of admitting how much she needed him, but she was also terrified she would lose him.
“You wanted to run in the tunnel,” Rykus said. “You stayed because of the loyalty training.”
“I stayed because of you.”
“How do you know?” His demand tugged on her puppet strings.
She shoved one of the metal chairs into the desk. “I know myself.”
“The brainwashing rewired your subconscious.”
“I’m loyal to the Coalition.”
“You’re loyal to—” He clenched his fist, raised it to his chest before he shook his head and lowered it. “I don’t want to argue.”
“Good.”
“Ash.”
“Don’t ‘Ash’ me.”
“I… Fuck.” The last sound was more an exhale than a word.
“Now you’re getting somewhere.”
His expression morphed from hot and angry to tired and exasperated. Something about that openness, the raw emotion, deflated the fire from her lungs too.
He stared at the chair she’d shoved into Tersa’s desk. “How did you do it?”
She frowned. “Do what?”
“Escape Javery.”
“Javery?” She heard the awkward pinch to her voice, felt a hard yank on her free will.
“Yeah.” He looked up. “How did you escape a planet when its grand general ordered every soldier, spacer, and citizen to shoot you on sight?”
“Shoot me on sight?”
“That’s a small exaggeration but yes.”
Taya. The name was on the tip of her tongue. On the return trip to the Kaelais she’d made the decision not to tell Rip about his sister. But that choice felt ancient and brittle, like it had been made by a weak-willed Ash in an alternative dimension.
“Ash?”
She backed away when her fail-safe touched her shoulder, trying to reclaim the version of herself that belonged in this universe.
Her heel hit Tersa’s desk.
“I don’t want to tell you.” Her heart slammed against her chest, every beat trying to knock Taya’s name from her mouth.
“Okay.” Rykus held his hands up, palms out, calming, conceding. “Okay. Don’t tell me.”
The vise locking her will in place shattered with his words.
She drew in a long, steadying breath. He’d asked when she’d slept last. She couldn’t remember. She’d closed her eyes a few minutes the night that Hauch didn’t quite kick her ass, but that hadn’t been enough, not even with a booster in her system. She was more exhausted than she realized. She only struggled this much with the loyalty training when Rykus gave her compulsion-backed commands or when she was half-dead.
“Ash, the loyalty training—”
“It didn’t make me stay,” she said. “It doesn’t control everything I do. I can resist it.” When I’m not exhausted. “I’ve been resisting it every minute of every day since you became imprinted in my mind.” She fought down the sense of vulnerability that ricocheted through her chest and met his gaze. “I’ll fight for us, Rip. You have to decide if you’ll fight too.”
He was moving before she finished her sentence. His arms wrapped around her.
“Thank God. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.”
“Probably have a much more promising career.”
Rykus chuckled. “You’re worth a court-martial.”
The heat of his body sank into hers, and the scent of him on his uniform, the aftershave he used… Up close like this, he smelled like sin and sex and seduction.
She eased back. Looked up at him. His breathing had changed. His eyes dilated. The way he parted his lips suggested he wanted more than just to hold her.
And Ash wanted more than just to be held.
She rose to her tiptoes.
Rykus leaned forward, but then he stopped. His eyes darted to the sitting area to the right, then to the desk behind her.
“Tersa’s office,” Ash murmured. “This could be fun, Rip.”
He touched her cheek. “You and your inappropriate locations…”
It wasn’t a rejection.
She kissed him, and damn, this was what she’d been craving, what she’d been missing since they’d left the Citadel. Rykus’s mouth on her mouth, his body hard against hers. When he committed, he didn’t do anything halfway. He owned the kiss, controlled it, controlled her, and hell, she loved bending to his will, taking each taste he offered, surrendering each breath he stole. He burned her up from the inside.
She tugged at his shirt. He murmured some warning she didn’t care to understand. His hands were on her ass, pulling her tight against him but preventing her from removing his clothes. She nipped his lower lip, and he squeezed her butt, then lifted her up to sit on the edge of Tersa’s desk.
Wrapping her legs around his waist, she locked him in close, forcing him to follow her down when she leaned back.
He braced a hand on the desktop.
“Seeker’s God, Ash. You…” He drew in a breath. Breathed it out. Drew in another. “You’re killing me. Not here. Okay? Not here.” He looked into her eyes. He looked like he was in pain. When she moved just a little against him, his sharp inhalation confirmed he was. She loved breaking this man apart.
“Coward.” She unlocked her ankles, giving him an escape.
His laughter came out strained. “Yeah. I am.”
She couldn’t take her eyes off his almost boyish grin. She’d found him, the man she’d undressed on the Fortune’s Citadel. When he was like this—relaxed, carefree and careless—the loyalty training didn’t exist. She was just a girl, a girl with no past and no ties and no compulsion to complicate things.
He kissed her again, tender and brief though she attempted to give it a sharp edge.
Still smiling, he eased back, tucked her hair behind her ears, then found the small, almost hidden braid underneath the dark locks. He let it slide through his fingers.
“I’m going to need a minute to…” He cleared his throat. “To, uh, recompose myself.”
She leaned in close to his ear and breathed, “I hope it takes more than a minute.”
He tried to make his heated expression look angry, not turned on. Ash smiled, then sauntered to the sitting area and curled up on the corner chair. Truth was, she might need hours to come down off this.
With almost uncanny timing, the door slid open and the minister prime entered her office. She stopped after a few steps, looked at Rykus then at Ash. When her gaze went back to Rykus and unmistakably dipped to his crotch, Ash choked on a laugh.
Tersa looked accusingly her way. “Next time I’ll leave my assistant instructions to remain in the room with you.”
Ash opened her mouth to make a quip but stopped when Rykus gave her an emphatic shake of his head. She answered it with a half-innocent smile.
Tersa sighed. “Sit, Commander. If you can.”
His face twitched, but he made his way to the sitting area and sank into a chair. Tersa approached too, and when she sat straight-backed directly across from Ash, Ash prepared for a barrage of condemnations.
“How are you, Lieutenant?” Tersa asked.
Well that was a different line of attack.
“I’m not in restraints,” Ash said.
“You were injured.”
“A minor knife wound. The Javerians were happy to stitch me up.”
“I spoke to your med-bay doctor. Your blood tests were abnormal. He indicated that, even with your injury, an anomaly should have recovered to normal levels by now. He’s given you orders to rest.”
Ash shrugged. “And you gave me orders to appear here.”
“I need you at one hundred percent when we meet with the Sariceans.”
“No problem.”
The prime made a noncommittal noise. “I assume we confirmed that you can, indeed, detect telepaths. What happened on Javery?”
Ash rubbed the back of her neck, remembering the pressure she’d felt there. “He… scanned me, I think.”
“Scanned?”
“I don’t exactly have the right terms to describe it. I think it was routine, like he always scans the people in a room. He was surprised I responded.”
Tersa leaned forward. “You communicated?”
“No. Not really.”
“Then how do you know he was surprised?”
“He felt surprised.”
“And he ran,” Rykus murmured. He was sitting with an elbow propped on the armrest, one finger crooked over his mouth, watching their exchange.
Tersa rested her elbows on the arms of her chair as if settling in for a long conversation. “Tell me exactly every word or thought you exchanged.”
Ash rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “I’m sorry I don’t have a mental recording of it all. I was attempting not to drown or get shot.”
“Do your best.”
“Fine. The conversation went something like this: Who the fuck are you? Stop fucking running.” She deepened her voice to mimic the telepath’s mental impression. “Stop fucking chasing me.”
“And then he apologized,” Rykus said.
Tersa’s gaze snapped to him. “What?”
“He apologized,” Rykus repeated. “After he took down Ash and before he escaped.”
“He’s not a direct threat to us,” Ash said.
“Not a direct threat?” Tersa’s eyes widened. “Commander, have you both been brainwashed by the enemy?”
“No.” His voice was rough, almost threatening. Tersa must have picked up on the warning. She turned back to Ash and said, “Okay. Tell me how you know he isn’t a threat?”
“I don’t know how I know it. I just do. He didn’t expect me to respond to his scan, and when I did, his first instinct was to run. He had a preplanned escape route—a good one—and he’s dropped off the grid.” She was guessing on that last part. The telepath had been competent. He’d gotten away from her; she was almost certain he had the ability to get away from Javerian forces.
Tersa studied Ash. Ash studied the fingers Tersa unconsciously tapped on her armrest. She felt the prime dissecting her, pulling apart her motivations, her abilities, her loyalties.
“Commander,” Tersa finally said. “Are you certain Ashdyn hasn’t been compromised?”
Ash fought the urge to lean forward and slam her fist down on Tersa’s tapping fingers.
“I’m not compromised,” she grated out.
“You were exposed to a telepath and were compromised before,” Tersa said. “It’s a legitimate concern.”
“She’s fine,” Rykus said.
Tersa’s perfectly sculpted eyebrows arched. “And is that your brain talking or your”—Tersa’s gaze dipped to his lap—“gut?”
Rykus moved to the edge of the chair. The intense fire burning in his eyes made Ash dig her fingernails into her palms. It was a weak attempt to distract her from the turmoil reconstructing her insides. Her fail-safe was pissed. The loyalty training demanded she eradicate the source of his anger.
“If you’re that worried about Ash being exposed to a telepath,” Rykus said, “then she shouldn’t go to Ysbar Station.”
“It’s crucial we know if the Saricean delegation has been infiltrated.”
“Are you expecting her to turn on us?” he demanded.
“I’m expecting you to know if she’s under another’s influence,” Tersa said. “And I expect you to take the proper measures if she is. Your reluctance to use compulsion is a problem. You should have stopped her from running on Javery.”
He leaned forward, his dark eyes level with the prime’s, and rumbled, “I did stop her from running.”
Before Tersa could say anything more, he stood and exited the office. When the door slid shut behind him, Tersa blew out a breath and slumped.
“How many people did you trample to get to where you are?” Ash asked.
Her gaze flickered up. “As few as possible, I hope.” She paused. “I need Rykus.”
“And here I was thinking you needed me.”
Lips pressed firmly together, Tersa rose and walked to the beverage bar built into the wall. “What are your intentions with him?”
“Would you like me to describe them in detail?”
Tersa threw a glare over her shoulder, then took out two glasses from under the counter. “I need him to be more than just a soldier.”
“You’ve already gotten one speech out of him.”
“Keeping the Coalition together will take more than that.” She poured amber liquid into the glasses and returned to the sitting area. “Despite your best efforts to destroy the relationship between our governments, I believe Rykus could convince the triumvirate to ally with us.”
Ash took the glass she offered. “Isn’t that what your little side trip was designed to do? It failed.”
“We were close before your escape.” Tersa took a sip of her drink, swallowed hard. “And Rykus didn’t attempt to sway his father.” She leaned forward. “I need you to convince him to try. Convince him to try, and I’ll overlook this little”—she waved a hand at Ash—“thing between you.”
Ash’s laugh was short and derisive. “You’ll overlook it anyway, and I don’t take well to threats.”
“I’m not threatening you, Ashdyn—”
“It sounded like a threat.”
An exasperated sigh left Tersa’s lips. “I’m asking for your help. Tell Rykus he needs to return to Javery. Convince him he can serve the Coalition best by becoming a diplomat.”
“If you think that’s going to happen, you don’t understand our relationship. Rykus is my fail-safe, no
t the other way around.”
“Oh, please. I’ve seen your record. You defy him as a matter of course. It’s like you have an allergic reaction to the loyalty training and the side effect is doing the opposite of what he wants.”
This time Ash’s laugh was genuine. “You’re funny. I’ll try really hard to keep you alive on Ysbar Station.”
Tersa stood when she did.
“Just think about it, Ash. You have more sway over him than he has over you. Despite our failure today, the fact remains: if I can bring Javery into our alliance, other neutral nations will follow. With the Sariceans threatening us and the reach and motivation of the telepaths unclear, it’s important the Coalition appears strong.”
Ash agreed completely but wouldn’t make promises. Instead of responding, she headed toward the door.
“Lieutenant.”
Ash turned.
“I expect you to sleep tonight.”
She let a smile spread across her face. “We’ll see.”
19
Ash would have loved to go straight to bed—Rykus’s bed preferably, but her own bunk would do—but Tersa’s mention of the need to strengthen the Coalition had left her anxious. She’d endured hell to keep the existence of telepaths from spilling into public knowledge. That’s why she’d kept the cipher from Rykus and the rest of the Coalition’s investigators when she’d been imprisoned on the Obsidian. She’d believed the Sariceans’ files revealed the existence of telepathy. It had only been later that she’d discovered she was wrong. Trevast had known telepaths existed long before he’d reviewed the stolen data. Ash needed to know what he knew. She needed to know it now.
So she tracked down the one person who might be able to help.
Teal was on rec deck, sitting in a rest area that overlooked the weight lifting equipment. Her feet were propped up on the table, and she leaned back in her chair reading something on her flattened comm-cuff.
Ash slid into the seat across from her and smiled. “I believe I owe you a thank-you.”
Teal’s eyes narrowed but didn’t leave her cuff.
“I didn’t get you into trouble, did I?”
“You might attempt to sound sorry.”
Shades of Honor (An Anomaly Novel Book 2) Page 18
