by Natalie Grey
Lesedi’s eyebrows shot up. “You’ve got some brass ones. Ellian is—”
“Someone who prefers stone cold revenge, which hopefully takes more time than it takes me to to kill the Warlord. I’ve thought this through.”
“…Yes, clearly.” Lesedi rolled her eyes. “All right, what do you want for access to his study?”
“Lesedi.” She heard the sound of an airlock opening, and guessed he was going into his ship. “I’m sending you the frequencies.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“But I am.” There was the sound of another door opening, and footsteps on metal. “You know very well that you haven’t been charging me as much as you should have for my information.”
“Maybe I’ll invoice you,” Lesedi said tartly. Generally speaking, warm sentiment wasn’t her forte. She preferred humor and competence. It was why she got along with Dragons so well.
She got the sense Talon understood, because she could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke. “All right, then let’s put it this way: you want to take him down as much as I do. I need your help. For your help to be useful, you need the best possible information. Ergo….”
Lesedi gave a small sigh. “That works.”
“Excellent.” There was the sound of crystal and soft piano music.
Lesedi frowned. “Where are you?”
“Oh. Tailoring shop.”
“…What?”
“There’s a plan,” Talon said, unconcerned.
“And what is that plan?” She was squinting into the distance, amused.
“Well, one part of it is a mystery for now—to you, not me, I hear you getting ready to be sarcastic over there—but the other part is recruiting a team I trust.” There was a pause. “You didn’t ask who’s going undercover with Pallas.”
“I didn’t, did I? Aegis?”
“No. You know he’d as soon smash all the crystal as pretend to pander to a billionaire arms dealer.”
“Mmm, very true. Sphinx?”
“Nope.” Talon was grinning again. “Cade Williams.”
Lesedi laughed incredulously. “You managed to recruit Williams back?” At the minute hesitation, she felt her face settle into a frown. “Talon….”
“Well.” He drew the word out. “Not yet.”
“Let me get this straight: you told Ellian Pallas, a notoriously vengeful arms dealer, that Cade would be showing up there for some purpose—”
“He wants a bodyguard for his wife. One moment.” He put his hand over the comm unit, but Lesedi could still hear his voice. “The gold, I think.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Part of the mystery, remember? Anyway, Williams is going to be his wife’s bodyguard.”
“And Cade doesn’t know this yet.”
“Not precisely.”
Lesedi didn’t know whether to sigh or start laughing. “You’re insane.”
“Only way they make Dragons,” Talon said, unrepentant. “I’ll send the frequencies and be back in touch when I know more.”
He hung up before Lesedi could say goodbye, and she looked down at the comm unit with a wry grin. “Good luck,” she said to empty air. “You’re going to need it to get Williams back.”
4
“Cade Williams?”
The words came through the haze of smoke and drunkenness like a hallucination. Cade knew that voice. He was never, ever going to be able to forget that voice, and it had to be a hallucination because there was no way in hell the owner of that voice had chased him across three systems only to walk into a dive bar on the lower streets of New Arizona. So he went back to his drink.
He picked up the glass and stared at it. It was a scotch he’d been nursing for about three hours now, and not just because “scotch” seemed to be a loose term for colored grain alcohol. When he finished his drink, he had nowhere to go. And in the ever-drifting snow of New Arizona—he’d never figured out if the name was born of ignorance or irony—he needed to stay indoors as long as possible. The cold was fierce, and whatever acid was in the water on this planet, it would burn his skin raw in less than a night.
And if he didn’t get ten thousand credits to Osiris within a week, he was a dead man. But one thing at a time. Cade shook his head and let the moment slide away from him, a tiny drift into memory and nothing more.
“Williams,” the voice said again.
That was definitely not a hallucination. Cade’s eyes traveled along the arm that had come down on one side of him. Callused fingertips, last joint of the right index finger missing, the hint of a tattoo poking out from under a blue cuff. The arm underneath the suit jacket was well muscled, leading to broad shoulders and a clean-shaven jaw, and with a sinking feeling of dread, Cade looked up at one of his worst nightmares.
“Lieutenant Rift.”
“Actually, it’s Major now.” Talon’s face was expressionless, as it almost always was. He watched as Cade’s eyes traveled over the understated suit, across the planes of the handsome face. At last, sensing the question Cade would never ask, he flipped over the hand on his resting arm. There, glimmering in the faint light, were blood-red cufflinks.
A Dragon always wore red.
Talon absorbed Cade’s bitter smile in silence.
“You look surprisingly well.” Cade looked down into his scotch and considered drinking the rest in one gulp. The pours in this bar were generous, and with the alcohol being of dubious provenance, a gulp might well kill him. Right now, that wasn’t seeming so bad. It was all coming back to him, without warning, as it always did. He’d known the moment he heard the voice that this was going to be a bad night, even worse than he’d thought.
And he’d already thought it would be pretty bad.
There was screaming at the corner of his mind, the flashing of the lights in the bar taking on a reddish hue, the emergency exit sign too clear a reminder.
He closed his eyes, clenching his jaw until he thought his teeth would give way. He had to keep breathing, or the memories would take him, and the world would devolve into the chaotic mess he so feared, every face reminding him of the pods, the children pounding on the glass—
He was going to be sick. His stomach heaved.
“Should I go?”
“No.” Cade’s answer surprised even him. He opened his eyes and looked down into his drink again. He could force the world back into its neat shapes if he tried hard enough. In the vacuum of space, in the long silences of a courier’s job, he’d learned to face his fear and press it away.
He could face this, too.
“Okay.” Talon sat, pulled reflexively at both cuffs, and looked over at the bartender. “What won’t kill me here?”
“Don’t try the scotch.”
“I see.” Talon watched as the bartender ambled over.
Her eyes marked the cut of his suit and the look of his face, and, with a flicker, the cufflink. Interest faded—bartenders knew trouble. She raised an eyebrow.
“One beer,” Talon said.
“What kind?”
“Surprise me.”
“You’re going to regret that.” Cade could hear a laugh in his voice.
Dammit.
“I know.” There was a flicker of a smile, gone in an instant, and Talon leaned forward on both arms and looked over. “So what happened?”
“I lost my job.”
“Which one? Postman? Busboy?”
“You’ve been keeping tabs on me?” It shouldn’t have surprised Cade, but it did.
“Of course.” Talon took his beer but didn’t drink. So quietly that Cade could hardly hear him, he said, “You’re one of my guys.”
“I’m not.” The answer was instantaneous, accompanied by a wave of revulsion so deep, Cade very nearly lost what little dinner he’d been able to scrounge. He was not that man. He was not. “ Not anymore.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t.” Even knowing his words would hurt, Cade couldn’t keep them back; hi
s own pain was beating at his temples. “I walked away. You don’t owe me shit anymore.”
“And you don’t owe us shit, either.”
“Yeah, you pulled strings. I know.” Cade resisted the urge to throw his glass at the back wall.
“Williams, I kept tabs on you because I care about you.” Talon held up a hand to forestall protest. “You know how many guys walk off the team swearing that they’re never going to kill again? Won’t even kill a spider in their bunk, they say. And we let ‘em go. And half of them come back, and half of them go the other way.”
“My way.”
“No.” Talon looked over at him. “They go back to fighting, but for the bad guys this time, and sometimes I meet them in a dark alleyway, and I turn a weapon on someone I trained. And I win, Williams, because I’m better. I kill the guys who walk away from me, one by one.” He looked over at Cade, and Cade was surprised by how raw his expression was.
Something had happened. Something recent. Cade swallowed back the question of what it was. He wasn’t one of Talon’s team anymore.
Talon’s eyes tracked the expression in Cade’s eyes, and Cade was fairly sure he had seen both the question, and the choice not to ask. He didn’t mention it, though. “So I keep tabs on the ones who leave. Used to be because I cared. Now it’s because I want to know when I’ll meet them. You, I keep tabs on because you’re the only one who never got back in the game.”
“Can you blame me?”
“Is that what you’re taking from this? No, Williams. I don’t blame you. I’m damned impressed, actually. You’re wishing I hadn’t come over to say hello, aren’t you?”
“Take a drink of your beer.” That would be a suitable punishment.
“Right.” Talon complied and winced. “Look. I didn’t do it to bring anything up, okay?”
“It’s a little late for that.” The screams would be echoing in his head all night.
“Breathe.”
“Working on it.” Cade downed his scotch in one gulp, feeling the burning in his throat and welcoming it. “Goddammit. Why the hell don’t they warn you before you sign on?”
“They think they don’t need to. They do a psych test.” And the evasion was there, lingering in his voice.
Cade felt a wash of fury.
“I didn’t pass, did I?” Cade rounded on Talon.
“You passed.” But there had been an infinitesimal hesitation.
“Fucking hell. You tell me the truth. Right now.”
“You were out of range…on a few things.” Talon looked him dead in the eyes. “But you were good. You know how good. So we made an exception.”
“Jesus, Talon…” Always forgot to use the last name. One of the only things he couldn’t do right in the military. That and keep sleeping well after killing people, apparently. “You know there’s no room for error in the Dragons. Why’d you…” And then his voice trailed off, and he asked the question he’d been meaning to ask for two years. “How? How do you do it?”
Talon didn’t answer, just pushed the beer over. His eyes were following Cade’s jaw, the dark brown beard obsessively neat over a sharp jawline, the strong brows, the eyes that were too brown to be green and too green to be brown.
“You look well,” he said at last. “You’re not drinking. I mean…not badly.”
“You just gave me a beer.”
“You were right, I regretted ordering it. Williams, what’re you doing here?”
“I told you, I—”
“You lost your job. But isn’t there anyone? A woman, maybe?”
“A woman.” Cade gave a strangled laugh. “What sort of woman…” His voice trailed off, and Talon didn’t interrupt him. The question wasn’t what sort of woman would want him—the richer ones would fall all over themselves for a Dragon, even a former Dragon. The question was what kind of woman he could ever trust.
Once, he’d seen himself settling down with a wife, a family. Children to tell about his exploits, a wife who would worry until he reassured her with a kiss that he was home and safe. He would retire into something safe and boring because a safe, boring career was its own reward, and he’d come home each night to a woman he adored.
He’d given up on that dream without even realizing it—and right now, it was so far away that he couldn’t imagine how he would ever get it back. And from Talon’s silence, he understood because he’d come to realize the same thing.
They sat in silence for a moment.
“But why freeze to death?” Talon asked softly. He sighed, hung his head for a moment. “ Forget everything else. You know we’d have you back in a second, no questions asked.”
“No questions asked because you know all my secrets. You’ve been running my name through the search for two years, right?”
“Does it matter? I’ve kept them off your damned case. They go after people, you know. Offer them money, offer them rank. Anything they want. We don’t like to lose Dragons. I’m not going to do that. I’m just going to ask. Come on, Williams. Come back.”
“No.”
“We need you.”
“Like hell.”
“Listen to me.” Talon leaned close. His voice was urgent. “I need you. All right?”
“You? Why, are you in love with me?”
To his surprise, when Talon looked over, his eyes were haunted. He was beyond jokes, that look said. The warmth of the past few minutes was gone, and urgency was all that remained. “I’m surrounded, Williams. I don’t know who to trust.”
“What?” At that, Cade looked over at him. A Dragon squad was fanatically, mythically loyal to their leader. There was nothing, it was said, that could break the oaths they made while they stayed in the unit. It was part of why he’d walked away, the knowledge that he couldn’t follow orders anymore. That Talon was here, now, with the signet of the Dragon and asking Cade’s help was…
It was a ploy. It had to be.
“You’re lying to me.”
“I swear to you I’m not. Listen to me. I need your help taking someone out.”
“I said no.” But Cade was wavering, and Talon knew it—the man could sense weakness like a bloodhound.
“You don’t want to fight. You don’t want to kill. I get that.” Talon’s voice was soft, persuasive, and even though Cade knew every trick he was using, the tricks still worked. “No one wants to kill.”
The moment was broken.
“A Dragon wants to kill, doesn’t he? Get set loose on the enemy and just…” The beer glass shattered in Cade’s hand and he brushed the remains off the other side of the bar. His hand was bleeding. “You made me feel bad for slave traders! For drug lords. For—”
“I need your help.” Talon’s voice was desperate. “If this guy gets away, millions are going to die, do you understand me? Williams, you never wavered. Not once. You knew what was right and you stuck to it.”
“I wavered.” Screams echoed in his head. “Once. And I pay for it every day, and it will never be enough.”
“And you left. You questioned me right there on that ship, do you remember? You want to know why I took you even after your psych test, Williams? It’s that. That’s what a Dragon was meant to be. Justice isn’t soft; justice isn’t kind. Justice is fucking brutal. But you were the only one who never lost his way. Maybe…” Talon’s voice broke. “Maybe you were right. On that mission.”
“Maybe?” Cade could hardly speak for bitterness.
“Okay. You were right.”
“That’s why I walked away,” Cade said quietly. “Because ‘right’ won’t bring them back.” He put his money down on the bar and left. The cold air hit him as he opened the door and he steeled himself. It was going to be a long, long night. At least he didn’t have anywhere to sleep—he couldn’t have if he tried.
“Cade.”
His first name, and the first sign of genuine desperation that he’d seen. He turned.
“I have something else for you if you want it.” Talon gestured back toward the lights
of the city.
“What is it?” Cade didn’t move.
“Come with me. I’ll tell you, buy you a meal. You want to walk away, you can.”
The cold was already seeping into his shoes, the skin on his feet burning. Cade wavered. He took one more step away.
He was so tired. So tired of running. So cold. So hungry.
He gave a heartfelt curse under his breath. Then he turned around and followed Talon back to the glitter and wealth of New Arizona City.
5
“Oh, come on, don’t look so sad.” Samara’s voice was teasing as it echoed out of the speakers. The camera couldn’t catch anything beyond the familiar outline of her face, but Aryn could see that she was smiling—that broad, face-cracking smile Aryn hadn’t seen in two years.
You’re not telling me everything, Aryn wanted to say. I’m sad because I know it’s much worse than you’ll admit.
By mutual agreement, they did not talk about the resistance. It wasn’t safe, not with the Warlord’s monitoring. If his lackeys could ID Samara, she and her family were as good as dead.
Not to mention, Aryn had never told Ellian about her past in the resistance. She had never been brave enough.
But Samara looked drained, exhausted by fear, and Aryn was afraid and ashamed. She had spent too much time trying not to think about Ymir, and now she felt … like shit, frankly. Samara had been working herself to death in the mines, working with the resistance, and Aryn was sitting here in a dress that cost enough to feed a family on Ymir for a year.
“Please smile,” Samara said now, and so Aryn did.
She always smiled, whether happy or sad, excited or exhausted. Over the past two years, she had learned to smile all the time, no matter how overwhelmed she was, or how out of place she felt. Now, surrounded by softly-lit opulence in the form of marble, crystal, hand-piled carpets, and diamonds around her neck, speaking to a woman who’d just completed an 18-hour shift in a mine, she felt even more out of place than she did at charity events and society dinners.
