by Laney Kaye
A muscle twitched in my jaw at the thought.
Aren would live. I’d see to that.
I sluiced cold water over my face in the bathroom, my shoulders hunched as I avoided my reflection. A quick rap sounded at the external apartment door, and my hand moved instinctively to my knife hilt, the urge to shift rippling through me. Over the years I’d become accustomed to having my fangs and claws on call, and now I felt naked without them.
Maybe not quite naked; as the spines along my neck bristled and threatened to rise, I took a deep breath. When Aren regained consciousness, I’d have to ask her what other surprises this borrowed form held, discover if there was anything that could be of potential use to us. I’d take any help I could get, time was running short. Every moment spent here could mean more Resistance fighters dying from the Regime’s retaliatory attack. Lyrie and Herc had figured, given how long it would take the Aaidarian reinforcements to teledrop a ship into the Aaidarian atmosphere once summoned, ninety hours was the absolute outside edge of the window we had available to acquire the com unit and get it into Leo’s hands, before the Regime launched their full assault.
And that window assumed my Lionkin brother was able to hack into the network with no trouble.
If he couldn’t, we were all screwed.
I padded across the rooms, my footfalls silent on the carpet. The space was only slightly less opulent than Smithton’s own quarters. It must have been hard for Aren to leave such luxury and carve an existence in the desert, with barely enough food to subsist, forced to seek shelter in viper holes.
At least I was confident now that my suspicion, which I’d tried to ignore as it jealously gnawed at the edges of my consciousness, was wrong; Aren had not fled the compound because she’d been in love with Tracin. Instead, she’d cut and run out of pure desperation to escape her father’s evil manipulations. She’d chosen likely death over living with him.
I paused, with my palm pressed against the cool, bright metal of the touch panel that would release the sirdar door. Would Aren be willing to leave Glia and travel the galaxy with me, for love?
There was no way for me to know. In so many ways, Aren was a closed book, and it seemed I needed to fully absorb and understand each page, before the next would be revealed. Yet, though it seemed likely I’d never know all of her hidden mysteries and depths, the challenge excited me.
If she wasn’t willing to come with me, was I prepared to leave my band of brothers, desert the Aaidarian mercenary force, and give up everything familiar, to keep her?
Yes. I didn’t even need to pause for a heartbeat to know the unequivocal—and ironic, given my belief only days ago, that no woman would ever catch me—answer. To hell with caution. Bonded or unbonded, I’d want Aren.
I activated the door and moved slightly aside to allow the medic entry.
Except it was Quelir who stood in the doorway. Alone.
He bobbed his head in a subservient manner, but his ice-blue gaze never left my own. “I enter.”
Again, his words weren’t quite a question, lacking the customary inflection at the end of the sentence. But maybe that was a Dragarian thing. Terra was certainly forthright. I waved a hand. “Come. Where medical staff?”
“No need interference.” Though his head barely moved, Quelir’s eyes darted left and right, assessing the room.
Unease prickled through me. “Yes is. Aren—Ara—still unconscious. Need know what took. Whether valeem affect her.”
“Quelir know.”
“You know what she was drugged with? How?” The realization hit me instantly; there was only one way he could know what poison had been given to Aren. My hand flashed to my knife.
He moved with surprising speed for an old man, extraordinarily strong fingers closing around my wrist. The spines on his neck, below his scaled jaw, rose in a crest, and his pupils narrowed to elongated vertical slits.
“Never draw blade unless draw blood,” he hissed.
“Oh, I intend to draw blood, all right.” Even if I had to rip back into cat form, this man would pay. It was clear Aren had trusted him, yet he betrayed her?
I felt the flare of my own spines, and Quelir’s gaze flickered to them. “You is not Dragarian yet you is.”
Again, a non-question. And, damn, I’d completely forgotten to maintain the Dragarian speech patterns—though something told me that lapse wasn’t the only reason Quelir had seen through my ruse.
His eyes moved to the bedroom, as though he could hear Aren’s regular breathing. “My Ari sleeps. She wake soon.”
“Your Ari? Seems to me you betrayed her. Do you have no honor, man? Obviously, Ara”—I had to be careful not to give away that she’d changed her name to join the Resistance—“looked up to you, yet you take orders from Smithton?”
“Quelir take no order,” he sneered, flipping a dismissive hand at me as though I was of no more consequence than a teezter fly. “Quelir keep Ari safe. For mother.”
“Keep her safe? What are you talking about? You damn well drugged her, didn’t you?”
“Drug her. Keep safe.” He blew out a short breath, as though my questions exasperated him, and made to take a step toward the bedroom.
I blocked his path. “Hells, no. You have a lot more explaining to do, old man.” Even as I slung the intended slur, I paused; Quelir had drawn himself upright, his stooped frame suddenly eight inches taller, his face hardening and shoulders squaring. And he seemed a decade or more younger than he had only seconds ago.
His face remained impassive. “You be explaining. You be Dragarian but not. How?”
Finally, a question. Not that I had any intention of giving away information. “To protect Ara.”
He nodded, a quick, decisive gesture, as though this was all the assurance he required. Which was damn frustrating, because I had so many questions churning in my brain, I wasn’t sure where to start. “You owe me an answer. How did you drug Ara? That soup? And why?”
“Father kill her. Or worse, once has information. Save Ari by close information.” He pinched his thumb and fingers together alongside his mouth, miming sealing off a leak.
“Fair enough. But how does knocking her out help, long term? She wakes, we’re in the same position. Once Smithton either gets the information, or realizes I don’t have it, he’ll dispose of me and trade Ara to Tennant.” I almost grunted as a surge of anger spewed up my gut at the thought.
This time, when Quelir moved toward the bedroom, I didn’t stop him. Sure as hells shadowed him closely, though.
He bent over the bed, his pale fingers wrapping lightly around Aren’s wrist. He paused a moment, then stroked the back of his other hand down her cheek. “Thought I would not be seeing child again,” he murmured, as though he spoke to himself. “Gods have willed her return. Now I keep safe.” He turned back to me, nodding decisively. “She sleep short time. You tell why here.”
This questioning stuff was remarkably one-sided, and I didn’t for one second miss the fact that Quelir had avoided answering my questions. But with Aren unconscious for gods-knew how long, we were going to run out of time. I needed an ally in this place. Someone who knew their way around, and would have access to wherever the hell Smithton kept the interplanetary com unit.
I gestured toward the living quarters, walking ahead of Quelir when he didn’t move, though I kept my ears trained on him, alert for the rustle of a synthfab uniform that might indicate he was launching into a rear attack.
As I sat on one of the plump chairs, he sat opposite, the lush fabrics not softening his upright posture.
I licked my lips, wondering where to start, but he’d evidently decided it was sharing time.
“I am blood-protector of Ari.”
I frowned. “But she’s blade-bonded to Tracin. To me, I mean.”
He snorted. “You not Elder Tracin.”
Okay, I may as well drop that pretense. “I am as far as Smithton is concerned. He can know no different.”
“Correct.”
“Not matter to you,” Quelir waved aside the question. “Know only I protect her. Now.” He added the last word, a shadow crossing his face, as though an unpleasant memory surfaced.
“Fine. Whatever. If you’re protecting her, are you willing to help us get what she came here for?” No way was I sharing more of our story, without that pledge.
He observed me silently for an uncomfortably long moment. “Then you leave?”
“Then we both leave,” I said firmly. No matter what bond he imagined he had with Aren, our double Dragarian-Felidaekin bond was more important. Even if that timed out, she was coming with me.
He nodded. “Is good. Ari safer not here.” He made a low hiss in the back of his throat, the spines down his neck shifting slightly, then clicking as they settled back into place. “You keep her safe.”
Not a question, in his mind or my own.
His gaze moved to the blade at my side, a perplexed frown creasing his forehead. “You not Dragarian, yet you wear woken blade. How this can be so?”
“Complicated.” There was a lot to be said for the Dragarian custom of keeping conversations abrupt. Particularly if you needed to hide something.
Except, Dragarian custom apparently also involved staring silently at your verbal opponent, waiting for an answer.
I shifted uncomfortably under Quelir’s scrutiny, made more unnerving as I realized the man rarely blinked. “Ara and I are bonded.”
“Cannot be. Not Dragarian.”
“I sort of am.”
He shook his head, clearly not buying it. “Ari has blue blade. Is bonded with true Dragarian. With Elder Tracin, you say.” Chips of ice glinted in his eyes and he leaned forward, his purple-veined hands on his knees. “Where is blade-bond partner?”
Hells. He was totally on to us. That wasn’t a problem in itself as, despite my initial surprise at his unsuspected strength, I knew I could easily take him. But chances were, Aren wouldn’t thank me for disposing of him. And we might be able to use him to find the communicator. “I suggest you wait until Ara recovers from your drugs, and ask her yourself. But if you don’t want me to run the blade through you right now, I need your pledge that you’ll help us.” Not that I was about to give him any opportunity to betray us. Pledge or no pledge, he’d be my prisoner in this room until, my blade against his spine, he guided me to the communicator.
He lifted one shoulder, as though my demand was irrelevant. “Will protect Ari.”
Clearly, the conversation wasn’t going to move far from that point. “Good. Then Ari needs you to help us locate a device.”
He observed me unblinkingly, so I chose to consider that acquiescence. “Smithton has a communicator. A device that allows him to contact the Other Worlds. We—Ari—needs it.”
Another long stare. “Where Elder Tracin?”
Fan-fucking-tastic. How the hells was I going to make any headway with this iceberg?
As I was prepared to kill him and search for the communicator myself, I had nothing to lose by giving him a little more information. “Dead. He was wounded fleeing this compound and died sometime after.”
“No!” Quelir jerked upright, his long, slanted eyes startling wide. He pointed accusingly at my blade. “Cannot be. Blade is bonded.”
“This is my blade. Now.” I curled a hand possessively around the lorgar hilt.
He shook his head, his white hair, worn in the Dragarian fashion, rippling with the movement. “Blade only glow for Dragarian bond. Tracin alive. Must be.” He suddenly sounded desperate.
Trying to get the facts—the few I was willing to share—through his thick skull was harder than drilling ice with a dria feather. “Tracin is dead. A Dragarian witch” —I realized a nano-second too late that he might view that as a slur, but the hells with his sensibilities—“performed some trick so the blade would think I’m Tracin.”
“Tracin dead.” He nodded this time, as though he absorbed the truth, then closed his eyes for a long moment, his faced carved with sorrow. “Ah, Ari, my Ari.” His words were a gust of despair. “This mean Ari’s blade thirsts.”
I raised both shoulders and let my hands fall, palms open. “What are you talking about, man?” I needed to move this conversation along, get the focus back to the communicator, and get my mate out of here. Even though I’d be taking her back into the heat of a battle, it might be safer than here in the compound.
Quelir’s arctic eyes slid to mine, and I could’ve mistaken his expression for pity. “You think are bonded. But Ari must slake blood-blade thirsting. She will—”
“Enough.” Aren’s sharp tone sliced across his words.
Chapter Twelve
Aren
I slumped against the doorframe, my legs trembling, my head pounding. “What did you give me, Quelir?” Whatever it was, it had shut my brain down completely.
“Something from Dragar. I sorry,” he said, bowing his head. “I fear for you.” His gaze darted to Jag, as if including the other man among those who could not be trusted. “Smithton…He not the man you remember.”
“Worse, then?” Impossible to believe he’d become a better person while I’d been away.
“Indeed.”
I’d have to increase my guard, then, because our mission here was vital. We’d already been compromised by Smithton’s camera, which meant we’d need to be extra careful from now on.
Finding the communicator and getting Jag out of here as soon as possible needed to be our number one priority.
Quelir stared at me with his body tight and sorrow lining his face, as if he awaited my punishment. Growing up, this part-Dragarian had been closer to me than my own father. I’d never doubted his loyalty. No, his love.
“Could do nothing else to end dinner quickly,” Quelir said softly. “Before secrets shared.”
“Smithton and I may be playing a game with only one of us able to come out the victor, but I’m not stupid.” I’d had to grow up fast to protect myself. Mother had provided a buffer between me and Smithton, but once she was gone… “Maybe you could’ve whispered something like, don’t say anything about the dragonstone, to me, instead?”
Quelir’s eyes welled, and my heart clenched, as if he’d reached in with his fist and squeezed tight. I felt bad for chastising him. If I knew my friend, he’d been devastated to learn I was dead. Why hadn’t I thought of sending word to him through my contacts? He still would’ve worried, but he wouldn’t have mourned my loss.
He stood when I approached, his shoulders slumped, as if guarding himself.
Biting back my sob, I hugged him, and when his arms wrapped around me and faint hints of mira drifted around us, I couldn’t hold back my sob.
I’d missed this man, not just because he was my final connection to my mother, but because he’d always been there for me.
“I know you only meant well,” I said. Pulling back in his embrace, I stared up at him, noticing for the first time how old he appeared. His unusual, once-dark hair had gone completely white, and deep lines encircled his eyes. But his blue gaze, still filled with affection for me, was ageless. “We came here with one, dangerous goal. If I explain, will you help us?”
“Always, child.” He kissed my forehead, but his hands trembled on my back, and I knew he’d step in and protect me again, if he felt my life was in danger.
“Let me…I’ll be right back.” I eased away from Quelir, and while he sat, I returned to the bedroom. Inside, I shut the door and made my way to the bathroom, where I engaged the strip of halolights suspended above the sink and blinked at my pasty reflection in the mirror. While growing up, I’d never cared one way or another about my appearance. But survival in the desert had reinforced the importance of food, water, and safety over pretty clothing and gleaming, well-styled hair. Staring at my reflection, however, even I had to admit I looked worse t
han a swamp slag after an extended radiation binge.
Sighing, I rubbed my face, which helped clear my thoughts. After combing my hair, I entered the bedroom, where I yanked off my dress and tossed it on a chair. I pulled on a set of soft loungewear made from dria feathers woven together with a sturdy, commercial version of synthfab.
I ventured into the living area and slumped on the printed sofa, pulling a knitted throw over my lap to beat back the shivers wracking my frame. Whatever drug Quelir had given me still lingered.
Opposite me, seated in high-backed chairs, Jag and Quelir glared at each other like two pillion males during rutting season. They’d sooner lock horns and stir up the soil than find a way to get along.
“What did Quelir mean about slaking a blood-blade thirsting?” Jag asked, his gaze focusing in on me. “You mentioned that term once, but you didn’t explain.”
With a struggle, I maintained an impassive expression. Our bond—no, our Dragarian and Felidaekin bonds—seemed to have given him the ability to ferret out all my secrets, if I didn’t guard them close. Sadly, if Jag kept anything hidden, the bonds had not bestowed the same favor on me.
“It means nothing,” I said shortly, studying my broken nails. Another thing I’d ignored during the past few years. When I’d lived beneath my father’s roof, whether in the city or at the compound, I’d had regular manicures. Someone to cut and fix my hair. And I’d possessed more clothing than a well-loved doll.
Smithton had been careful to maintain his best asset, but none of those things mattered.
Only people. My friends. Jag. Quelir.
“I’m not buying that,” Jag said. “Tell me.”
“We don’t have time for this,” I said. “All will be revealed soon enough.”
Jag rose from the chair he’d staked out while he fenced with Quelir. He rounded the small low table and joined me on the sofa, his thigh pressing against mine. His arm wrapped protectively around my shoulders, and I wanted to sink into his warmth, the security he offered, and reveal everything. But I couldn’t. There were things about me he couldn’t know.
