by Isabel Wroth
It confused her even as it comforted her at the same time.
By the time they made it back to their quarters, Cassie was so off balance she could barely look at him when he carefully set her down on the carpeted floor. She threw out a weak thank you and hustled for the only thing she could think of to gain some solidarity. In her little holo-room she had control, she had data and information to process that did not require emotions.
Falken followed her and leaned his shoulders in the doorway, watching her as she sat at her console and started to go over data she had gone over a thousand times before. He didn’t say anything or ask her what she was thinking. If she was okay. If she needed anything. He simply watched and waited patiently for her to find her footing again.
When he did speak, it made her pulse surge.
“I have arranged transport for us to return to S7 tomorrow morning. Record Keepers from S4 and S9 will be joining us, along with the previous team of warriors.”
Cassie nodded, flicking through her scans and programs to see if any of her little traps had been set off. Wondering if any of those warriors on his little team, were part of his network of spies. Anything to focus on other than the deep rumble of Falken’s voice.
“Good. Fine. That’ll be…great…”
Cassie’s voice trailed off as a pattern emerged that she hadn’t seen before. A thought following, that she hadn’t considered either. She must have been quiet or non-responsive for some time, as she suddenly felt a large, warm hand caress the length of her spine and jolted to find Falken crouched on his haunches beside her with a curious frown on his face.
“Find something?” he asked carefully.
Cassie had to clear her throat to speak, detesting the way her body melted so readily when Falken was this close. “Uh, yes. Maybe.”
Needing more space, she swept her hand through the air and moved the information from console to wall, the data now floor to ceiling across from her in the most convenient way. She got up and stood in front of all of it, feeling Falken do the same, standing just behind her to the left.
Sinking into a familiar rhythm, Cassie reached out here and there to move files around in the order they made most sense to her. Compiling data, sifting through it until that thought she’d not had before, became more of a conclusion.
“Falken, if someone were to ask you to describe Sarazen military tactics in ten words or less, what would you say?”
She could hear the distraction in his bold, one word answer. “Aggressive.”
“Your um, activities aside, all this intrigue and games then would be considered abnormal, yes?”
“Abnormal?” Falken questioned, moving now to stand shoulder to shoulder with her. Well, her head was at his shoulder.
“Yeah. The research I did manage to do on the last few major Sarazen battles for territory, the antagonists weren’t exactly subtle. To put it roughly, if an opposing clan wanted land or status, they boldly proclaimed it and aggressively fought for it. No subterfuge, no hiding. If the Blackpaw clan wanted land from the Bluestripe clan, they killed the Bluestripe’s strongest warriors, moved in and took over.”
Falken cleared his throat as he rubbed his hand up over the dark blue markings on his skull. His Bluestripe bloodline evident there in the bold indigo lines. “That is a rough but accurate description.”
Cassie paused for a second, chewing on her thumbnail as her eyes jumped from file to file, considering the different options. Discarding a few unimportant details, adding to the whole. Finally, the pieces started to fit together.
She looked over to find Falken staring at her board with an intent frown, trying no doubt to see what she was seeing. Eager to see just how well they could work together to solve this, Cassie waited, watching Falken reach out to carefully sort through each file. His pace picking up when he finally must have noticed the links.
He isolated one file, then another until he had the same ten files she had visually picked out of the whole, floating in the center of the collection. After a moment or two, he stepped back and folded his arms across his chest, one hand rubbing across his jaw.
“You changed the parameters of your search.”
Cassie inclined her head and wiggled her fingers at the different folders. “My programs have been looking for similarities to connect individuals. Bloodlines, sex, military history, medical record data. I just haven’t looked at it recently to have noticed. All ten of these warriors were implanted with the Adiveeze technology. They were also previously wounded while stationed on S6 and treated by the same medic. It may be nothing, it may be something.”
Falken pinned her with a look of surprise and no small amount of appreciation. “It is certainly something, Cassie. A possible beginning to all this madness. We must take this to Brennaugh.”
Cassie held her breath as she waited for Brennaugh to say something. The scarred military commander was reviewing her data with an unreadable expression. His natural stillness coupled with the tight web of scars covering his face made his inner thoughts impossible to predict.
She had just shared the latest discoveries she and Falken had made with Brennaugh and now waited for the commander to say something. A glance at Falken didn’t help much in the way of deciphering which way the wind was blowing. He hadn’t said a word while Cassie had reported her findings to Brennaugh, he had just stood at her side, smiling slightly.
Nerves shot, muscles knotting in her shoulders as her brain started rapid fire producing ideas and rolling through all the data rocking around in her head. Deciphering, placing patterns, pulling knowledge from the information download Ga’rae had streamed into her subconscious. There was data still missing, data she hoped Brennaugh would be able to provide.
Finally, unable to stand the silence a moment longer, Cassie rocked forward on her toes. “Tarek must have taken my suggestion about security clearance to heart. I haven’t been able to locate the medic because I lack the proper codes to search the database.”
Brennaugh didn’t look away from her data. “Codes are not needed.” he stated tonelessly. Reaching up to rub at his jaw. Cassie caught the glance Falken shot her that was every bit as confused as she felt. “I know precisely where this medic is.”
“Dead?” Falken ventured, making Cassie’s shoulders drop with disappointment.
Brennaugh hummed. “Not yet. He is currently stationed aboard the eleventh warship. Commander Valek requested him. Specifically.”
The commander finally drug his gaze away from the holo-screen and looked from Cassie to Falken and back. Until today, she hadn’t ever seen Brennaugh smile. Tara claimed he did it all the time, which only led Cassie to believe that Brennaugh saved his smiles for his mate alone. It wasn’t much of a smile, and it certainly wasn’t a pleasant one that Brennaugh gave. His scars had little to do with it, it was the wicked light in his shrewd eyes that made the hairs on her nape stand up and shiver.
“I am aware you have been relieved of your primary duties, but I can trust no one else with this task. Take your warriors and retrieve the medic, Falken. Commander Valek, too. I am certain the Asho would like to speak to both of them.”
Falken hesitated briefly, looking to her with a frown pulling between his brows before answering Brennaugh’s command. “I was to return to S7 with Cassie.”
Cassie felt a small burst of happiness that Falken had remembered and wasn’t just immediately running off again. Yeah, she was going to have to wait, but this time she knew Falken wasn’t running off because he’d forgotten about her.
“It’s alright. I have things to do here. Go,” she told him. Falken’s frown deepened. Unconvinced maybe, or perhaps trying to discern whether or not she was sincere. “The books aren’t going anywhere, Falken. Go. We need the answers these people might bring.”
He nodded tightly in agreement and jerked his chin up at Brennaugh. “I will leave a squad here with Cassie.”
She wanted to roll her eyes at him. “Don’t be ridiculous. Tarek has this place so loc
ked down I can’t walk from one corridor to the next without being asked where I’m going. You need that squad more than I do.”
Falken’s jaw clenched for a moment, but after a look to Brennaugh, he conceded. Once the plans and details were made, Brennaugh excused himself to report directly to Tarek. As of now, Clary was confined to quarters with her new babies and the only people allowed in proximity of were Brennaugh, Gwen and Ga’rae.
When the door closed behind Brennaugh, Falken immediately turned to face her. “I do not feel comfortable leaving you unattended.”
It was, unfortunately, second nature to speak before truly thinking about the words that came out of her mouth. “You’ve left me unattended for the past eight months. What makes you uncomfortable about it all of the sudden?”
Cassie realized how harsh her tone had been almost immediately, but Falken didn’t argue or complain. The anger in his expression tightened the generous curve of his mouth and made his nostrils flare. His pupils even gave a jump to split vertical and Cassie braced herself for some kind of hot, furious retort.
“I am uncomfortable, because I am now fully aware of what my inattention these past eight months has caused. I do not wish to leave again and consider for one moment you will doubt my commitment to you.”
Cassie rolled her lips together and glanced down at her toes. Falken was having none of that and set his knuckles under her chin to lift her gaze back up to his.
“I would prefer to take you with me, my one. But I have no way of knowing how cooperative Valek and his medic will be. Or how many of his crew may be compromised.”
“Which is why you need the warriors more than I do. I’ll be fine here.” She was proud of herself for how steady her voice was, when she was feeling so unsteady all of the sudden. Cassie’s imagination allowed for all kinds of scenarios where boarding a warship filled to bursting with fully armored warriors might and could go very wrong.
Would Commander Valek and his medic come back to S1 quietly? Or not?
It was a moment where Cassie had to consider the possibility that she might not see Falken again if Commander Valek chose not to come quietly. Cassie had to decide, in the event of a complete catastrophe, what her last words to this Sarazen who’d stolen her heart would be.
He was going on a mission and she knew he needed absolute focus. Needed to not be worrying about her or have words unsaid between them, distracting him.
“I don’t doubt your commitment to me, Falken.” Especially not after the events of this morning. Cassie curled her fingers to keep them from straying to her belly, where the evidence of some of her most painful memories, no longer existed.
His brow arched up and he stepped closer, close enough for her breasts to brush up against the material of his shirt. “My feelings for you then? My ability to care for you? What is it you doubt, Cassie? Should the worst happen, I will not go on this mission and have words unsaid between us.”
She shouldn’t have been surprised his mind had also jumped to that logical assumption that things could go wrong, yet Cassie was. She took a deep breath, held by the power of his focus and the determination in his expression, and let it go.
“Even after what you just did for me this morning, I worry that I won’t be able to forgive you for what you did to me on S7. Or for putting your duty as a warrior before me. I worry that I’m just too selfish and I won’t be able to accept being second, despite knowing the importance of what you do for your people.”
Falken searched her face as though he was trying to find a visible way to connect to her thoughts. “Is it truly your belief that you are secondary to my duty?”
The note of disbelief in his tone actually irritated Cassie. “As petty and ridiculous as it sounds, when everyone else is sitting down for the evening meal, or turning in for the evening together, I’m alone because you’re working.
“We don’t talk and I can’t read your mind because we can’t do the bonding thing. When I do touch your thoughts or emotions, you’re irritated and angry with me for interrupting and immediately shut me out. What else am I supposed to think?”
Falken gave a mirthless huff of a laugh. He braced his feet wider so he could take her cheeks in his hands and get to eye level with her. His voice dropped an octave, softened in a pitch that made her heart stutter and a zing of unavoidable desire race across her skin.
“Had it not occurred to you, the anger and irritation you feel when you touch my thoughts, is not because I am angry or irritated by the so-called intrusion? It is anger and irritation that I am not with you. Anger and irritation that I have not solved this puzzle quickly enough.
“That even with all my information, by not having caught the traitors I am failing to protect my mate. Failing to protect my pride. Failing my commander, my king. If you think it pleases me to not share the evening meals with you, or it pleases me that you go to our bed alone and wake the same way? Respectfully, I think you need another mental evaluation, my one.”
Cassie opened her mouth to rip him a new one for suggesting she was crazy, only to choke a little on the words as he kissed her softly.
“And Cassie.” There he went with that deep sexy voice again. “I do not believe we are incapable of bonding completely.”
“Oh? Then why won’t it work?” she challenged, far too breathlessly for her own peace of mind.
“You do not trust me.” Falken stated simply. Sweeping his thumbs back and forth over her cheeks. She opened her mouth to respond defensively, but he interrupted. “I am not faulting you for this, my one. I admit to you that since the first moment I laid eyes on you, I have not been able to spend the time with you that I wish to. All that I have done, the nights you have spent alone, so have I.
“Every waking moment I have spent apart from you since touching down on this planet, my only focus has been to uncover and destroy all threat to you. I made a grave error in assuming you would not understand, or could not help me. I see now how foolish that was and I regret that we have not been solving this together. As you said, it is probable we could have accomplished our goal ages ago.
“As for my actions on S7, I regret them deeply. We had parted so terribly and my warriors knew it. Their concern for you spurred my panic. The thought that I might lose you to blood-lust…” Falken drew in a hiss of air and shook his head, a grimace twisting his expression before he went on raggedly.
“Cassie, I could not bear it. I would have had no way to connect with you in order to calm and soothe your beast. No other choice but to render you unconscious until I could bring you safely home. I know now how deeply my actions wounded you and I can accept that you might never forgive me. I can live with that. I could not live without you.”
Cassie’s eyes filled with the sincerity she could both see and hear. Scent when she managed to suck in a desperate breath.
“I would not want to.” he went on simply. The communicator ever present on Falken’s wrist gave a beep, interrupting whatever he would have said next. He pressed a kiss to her brow and wrapped his arms around her, palming the back of her head to keep her right where she was. “You are my one, Cassie. My only. Every beat of my heart is yours alone. When I return, we will begin anew.”
Cassie nodded, fisting the material of his shirt in her hands to cling for just a few moments more. “Be careful.”
Nine
It had been a week and, so far, Falken had only sent a transmission to say that he and his warriors had arrived within proximity to the eleventh warship. In an effort to distract herself, Cassie had thrown herself back into work. Using the recorded movements of Commander Valek and his medic Ramaj as a potential start of the time line.
They both would have been young males, boys really, at the time of T’kalis’s push to unite the clans. Boys who had, according to their clan history, suffered massive losses among their pride families.
Both the commander and the medic would have been perfect targets for a keen mind recruiting those wanting to avenge their dead and destroy a
ll T’kalis had built. Cassie had a handful of what she termed ‘employees,’ but the actual head of this rebellious plotting was unknown. With Brennaugh’s permission, Cassie had made all of her background programs tracking the traitors movement through the records, foreground.
Any one of the ‘employees’ looking for more recruits would immediately be flagged, see that they were flagged and report back to whomever they reported back to. A small bit of investigation by that person would reveal every file Cassie had flagged. If they were smart, they would realize their system for choosing more traitors had been discovered.
The genius part to all of it was that Cassie had been continuing to use the access codes assigned to Falken. So the traitors thought it was all his doing and would hopefully do exactly what Falken had done and underestimate her. Or even better, completely write her off.
She had purposefully been making herself available on a fairly random basis. Coming and going with no apparent plan or destination in mind, knowing full well that if Tarek or Brennaugh were aware of what she was doing, she’d have likely been confined to her quarters.
Cassie had asked Ilaria to accompany her at all times during these little excursions and the Matavei had readily agreed to assist Cassie. She discovered that Ilaria was highly sensitive when it came to invading someone’s private thoughts, as it made Ilaria very uncomfortable.
The other female found it both distasteful and morally wrong to be so intrusive without someone’s permission. But Ilaria agreed to skim surface thoughts of anyone who showed interest in Cassie’s movements. If Ilaria felt their behavior to be suspicious enough, Ilaria would press deeper into their thoughts. She was an invaluable asset, one able to move unseen through the entire citadel at Cassie’s side and take note of those individuals without prejudice.
It was six days into Falken’s absence that exactly what Cassie predicted would happen, happened.
Tonight Cassie had chosen to linger on one of the balconies with a little sitting area, looking quietly out onto the city below. Allowing herself to think about her parents. A state of mind almost one hundred percent guaranteed to put off the scent of anger and resentment, wanting someone to take the bait.
