Shield of Winter

by Nalini Singh

  "Took my seat like the well-behaved child I was, and waited for the trainer to leave the room. I knew, of course, that the evaluation team would be monitoring our interaction via the surveillance equipment, as well as on the PsyNet. Then I watched him watch me."

  Ivy found herself charmed by the thought of two small boys trying to win a battle of wills. "Who blinked?"

  "That's a matter of dispute. I say he did. He says I did."

  Laughing softly, Ivy leaned in a little closer. "And?"

  "When he realized I wasn't going to leave, he went to phase two. Taking the seat across from me, he started lobbing psychic strikes at me in an erratic scattering rather than the mandated training pattern." Aden's profile was clean, no smile, and yet Ivy had the sense the memory was a good one.

  "Apparently, he'd driven off quite a few others with that tactic. At that age, we're taught in rote patterns," he explained. "It's meant to make certain things instinct, and it does, but it also leaves most child Arrows without the capacity to deal with unexpected situations."

  "You handled it," Ivy guessed.

  "I think it's better to say I held my own," he said. "Session completed, I got up and left. We went through pretty much the same routine ten times, never speaking a word. Then late one night I was in my room studying when the ceiling panel slid aside and he looked down and asked me if I wanted to go outside."

  Ivy started to smile. "What did you do?"

  "It was past curfew, with all violations to be strictly punished." A pause. "So I said yes and stood on a chair, and he hauled me up." A glance at her laughing eyes. "I was much shorter then, while Vasic had already started to gain his height. We snuck outside and just walked around."

  It was the freedom, Ivy understood, that had been important, the fact they'd made a choice. "Vasic told me you once painted a training room in zebra stripes."

  "That was later, after we'd been partners for four years. We planned the operation down to the second, were back in our rooms before anyone discovered the incident."

  "I'm glad you had each other," she said, releasing his shoulder to lean forward in an echo of his own position. "Thank you for looking after him."

  Aden's responding look was quiet. "You don't understand, Ivy. I didn't look after Vasic. He looked after me--he understood I was a scared boy whose parents were Arrows who were gone ninety-nine percent of the time on missions that could end their lives, and who knew his place in the squad was shaky at best.

  "Vasic had the handicap of a heart that felt too much, but he was always the more emotionally strong of the two of us . . . until the past two years, when I think the weight of the guilt began to crush him."

  Ivy understood both men would say the same thing with the opposite meaning. To Vasic, Aden had helped him stay sane. To Aden, Vasic had helped him stay upright when he would've fallen. One lost boy helping another.

  Reaching out, she closed her hand over his again, knowing she was breaking boundaries, but these Arrows needed to have certain boundaries broken. Who better to do it than an empath? The squad had become so ferally protective of the Es that an E had more latitude with an Arrow than pretty much anyone else in the Net.

  "It doesn't matter," she said. "There's no ledger. You were there for one another, and because of that, I have a man who lives in my heart and he has a friend he knows he can rely on no matter what."

  Aden's fingers twined with hers. "He also has a woman willing to walk in his darkness and not judge him. You don't know how much that means."

  Soul aching, she leaned her head against his shoulder, and that was how they stayed for a long time. Then he made her eat again, drink again. She didn't argue this time, realizing that Aden was sublimating his own fear by looking after her--if he lost Vasic, he'd lose the one person who was his family. So she did what he told her, even walked up and down the corridor after he said her back would get stiff.

  Fourteen hours after the doors had closed on the surgery, they opened again.

  Chapter 60

  IVY AND ADEN both stood as one, staring at Samuel Rain. His formerly pristine white operating smock was bloody, his eyes drained and tired, but there was a jubilant smile on his face--shaved clean prior to the operation--that gave Ivy her answer even before he walked straight to her and said, "Go. He's put himself under. He asked that you give the signal that he should wake."

  "Thank you." Ivy hugged him so hard she almost knocked him off his feet. "Thank you." Tears poured down her face.

  "Wait," Samuel said when she drew back to run to Vasic. "We had to take his arm." The brilliant man scratched his head, a wary confusion in his eyes. "He told me it was all right before the surgery began. Should I have asked you?"

  "All I care about is that he's alive," Ivy said, trembling with the force of her relief. "Aden, come with me." She stretched out her hand, took his again, and drew him into the operating room.

  Edgard Bashir dragged himself out as they hit the door, muttering, "He's a genius. He's also mad."

  Ivy thanked him and the exhausted but exhilarated nurses who left in his wake, but her attention was focused on the man who lay on the surgical bed. The screens at the end of the frame showed his vitals, strong and stable and alive. She released Aden's hand, went to the side of the bed.

  Pressing her lips to Vasic's forehead, her shaking fingers on his chest, she kissed him on the psychic plane at the same time. "We're here," she whispered, both with her voice and telepathically. "I love you."

  Thirty seconds later, his lashes fluttered, his lids lifting. Eyes of silver frost, unique and beautiful, met her own. "Don't say no."

  Vasic tried to give Ivy more warning of what was about to happen, but it was too late. His mind smashed into hers like an out of control bullet train. Her hand spasmed on his chest, her eyes sparking with a cascade of color, and then he saw her, all of her. His Ivy. Strong and stubborn and loyal and with flaws that made her unique . . . and her heart, it was his. Always his.

  No one had ever loved him like Ivy did.

  Enough to claim him in this most elemental way. "We're bonded," he said when he could speak, the splinters of their minds falling back into place. But they weren't the same any longer, the black of his mind edged with translucent color, the empathic shade of hers streaked with protective black.

  "I know." Crying and laughing at the same time, she kissed him. "I've been ready for so long." She made a stern face at him. "I knew you didn't want to accept it until you were certain you wouldn't leave me. Idiot man."

  The affection in those words made him smile deep inside, her love his sunlight. Over her head, he saw Aden standing tall and strong. Thank you. For watching over Ivy, for being his friend, for bracing him when he would've stumbled.

  May I see? Aden asked.

  Vasic opened the shields he'd instinctively snapped around himself and Ivy when their minds collided, and Aden slipped in. The bond between Vasic and Ivy was different from that which connected Kaleb Krychek and Sahara Kyriakus. It wasn't a single titanium rope, but countless threads of finest black translucent with color. Each appeared as if it would break at a whisper, but when Aden glanced at Vasic for permission and touched a psychic finger to one, it bent with the pressure, then flowed right back into shape.

  Quickly closing his shields back up as soon as Aden stepped out because he wasn't ready to share this with anyone else, Vasic looked at his friend.

  I think, Aden said, this may be your most challenging assignment yet.

  Vasic wrapped his arm around Ivy when she climbed into bed with him, her hand over his heart and her head on his shoulder. I'll learn. He'd learn anything for her.

  Aden nodded and quietly left the room, saying one last thing as he gave them privacy. I truly understand hope now, Vasic.

  So, Vasic thought, his heartbeat aligned to that of his empath, did he.

  *

  FOUR weeks later and three weeks after he left the hospital, Vasic was told that while medical science had advanced to the point where limb
s could be regrown from the cells of the individual who needed them, so as to negate the risk of rejection, his body had suffered too harsh an insult with the gauntlet. He was otherwise healthy, should have the same life span as any other Psy, but no biological transplant would take.

  "I could try, but it would involve further surgery on my brain," Vasic told Ivy as they sat on the stoop of the cabin he'd started to extend the day Ivy stopped fussing over him if he so much as moved a muscle. He had to admit he'd enjoyed the fussing; he might even have played lame duck for a day or two longer than strictly necessary.

  Ivy's response came out a near growl that made Rabbit prick his ears where he sat just behind them in the cabin. "You try and I'll beat you."

  "You're becoming very violent, Ivy." Vasic rubbed his hand over the roughness of his head. Edgard had had to shave off his hair to get to the tendrils fused to his brain. Those tendrils were still there, would remain till the day he died, but the surgery had rendered them permanently inert.

  Grabbing his hand, Ivy pressed her lips to the back of it. "It's growing back," she said, smile lines bracketing her mouth. "I never knew you were so vain."

  He was used to being teased by his Ivy now. "I think you want to be teleported into the middle of a swamp."

  A heavy-browed scowl. "Try it and see who's sorry."

  Pulling his hand from her grasp, he wrapped his arm around her to tuck her close. "I may have lost an arm," he said, "but it's the stubble on my head that reminds me of how close I came to death. Perhaps because when I feel it or see it, I can't help but imagine Samuel Rain digging around in there with manic glee."

  Ivy snorted with laughter before slapping him on the chest. "He saved your life, you ungrateful wretch!"

  He loved watching Ivy laugh, could do it forever. "Rain will make certain I don't forget his genius." In truth, Vasic would never be able to repay either Rain, Edgard, or the two nurses. Whether the four knew it or not, they now had the support of an entire squad of Arrows. "But even Rain agrees a biological replacement is off the table."

  "Hmm." Ivy tapped her lower lip. "Mechanical?"

  "Problematic. My wiring was rerouted in strange ways." The entire surgical team had been surprised at some of what they'd discovered. "I could get a cosmetic arm, but it wouldn't be functional."

  Hand curving on his thigh, Ivy made a face. "That would just annoy you."

  Yes, he thought, it would. He'd suggested it to make things easier for her . . . but Ivy didn't seem to care that he was missing a part, her only concern how he felt about it. She still touched him, kissed him, loved him just the same. Always would, he understood in wonder, even should he lose every limb he possessed.

  "My telekinesis balances out the loss, so I won't lose any functionality." But he would miss embracing Ivy with both arms, having her sleep on one while he wrapped the other around her.

  Expression pensive, Ivy tilted her head, studied his face. "You're sad."

  He told her what he'd been thinking, saw her eyes grow wet. "You hold me every second of every day." She spread her fingers over her heart. "I should be so mad at you for making us wait that long for our bond."

  Running his hand down her arm, he shifted position to lean his back against the doorjamb, one booted leg on the ground he'd cleared of snow, the other bent at the knee, foot flat on the wood of the cabin floor. "Come here."

  Her eyes narrowed. "I'm trying to have an argument with you."

  "Ivy," he said, dropping his voice in that way he knew made her melt. "Come here."

  Breath catching, she pretended to bite at his jaw before tucking herself against his chest, his legs on either side of her. He wrapped his arm around her again and felt his heart smile because embracing her this way felt just as good. They sat listening to the breeze and to the happy chirping of a cricket who didn't seem to realize this was the tail end of a North Dakota winter.

  It was some time later that Ivy sat up on her knees and with her arms around his neck, leaned into him. Their kisses were slow, deep, playful. Stroking the roughness of his jaw, she said, "Can I shave you?"

  "Is it too rough?" he murmured. "I can--"

  "No, I want to do it."

  Vasic took in the flush on her cheekbones, the sinful anticipation in her eyes. "You've been reading more manuals," he accused.

  "Actually, it was a historical romance novel." Another kiss as she pushed his raised knee down so she could straddle him. "This one scene just . . ." She shivered, her arms compressing her breasts from either side as she hugged herself. "So, can I?"

  Vasic was many things. The one thing he was not was stupid. He said yes and didn't flinch when she produced an old-fashioned shaving kit, complete with a straight razor and a brush to lather up his jaw. Then she unbuttoned her shirt.

  An hour later, Vasic finished shaving the rest of his face himself while a naked Ivy sat on the counter trying to catch her breath. "I need to read these novels," he said, bending down to kiss her thigh once he'd completed the task.

  She pushed at him with her foot, but it held no force. "I'm password protecting them." Breasts rising and falling in a visual that he appreciated, she spread her thighs and drew him back against her. "You don't need any more ideas."

  Vasic hauled her even closer, one arm around her back, the other-- But he only had one arm now. So he adapted and used his Tk. That gave him an idea. Utilizing his ability to affect small, delicate things, he stroked telekinetic fingers through her labia.

  Ivy jerked, her fingernails digging into his shoulders. "Oh my God."

  Taking the moan as encouragement, he did it again, dipping his head to suck on her nipples at the same time. Deciding the other one shouldn't have to wait, he split his attention and used telekinetic fingers to pluck at it. Have I told you how much I like my hobby?

  Ivy's spine arched. "No," she gasped, "romance novels for you."

  "I bet I can change your mind."

  *

  EIGHT hours after losing the bet to Vasic in a delicious paroxysm of pleasure, Ivy sat down in a chair beside Zie Zen at his Lake Tahoe home. Her eyes were on Vasic where he stood in conversation with a DarkRiver soldier near the edge of Zie Zen's property line, the lake water beyond a silver mirror under the moonlight. Vasic was dressed in his Arrow uniform, the changeling in jeans and a faded sweatshirt. Their conversation appeared relaxed.

  "He will be all right, Grandfather," she said, able to sense the concern Zie Zen would likely never put in words, having lived in Silence for too long.

  The older man, his hand on the head of his cane, turned to look at her. "I had forgotten what it was to live with an empath."

  "I don't mean to intrude," she said, uncertain about how to be with Zie Zen. He was so remote sometimes, and yet he loved Vasic with a quiet, painful intensity. "I don't seem to be able to filter out a certain level of my ability."

  "And why should you? It would be equivalent to me having one of my eyes permanently shut." His gaze returned to Vasic. "He is meant for great things, my son."

  The words used, she knew, were deliberate, a sign of what Vasic meant to Zie Zen. "He is a great man."

  "Yet he ties himself to an empath, seeking only to make her path easier."

  Ivy's hand tightened on the arm of the chair. "He's earned his peace." She would allow no one to take it from him. "Earned the right to a home and a life undefiled by blood."

  "Some men are not meant for peace, for calm. Some men are built for war." Zie Zen's eyes pierced hers. "He's far stronger than he knows, able to fight with unrelenting fury for that in which he believes."

  "I know." Even when Vasic had thought himself irreparably broken, he'd fought for his squad. "But he's walked that road most of his life. Don't you think he's done enough?" she pleaded, aware just how much Vasic respected his great-grandfather. "Or do you believe he must be stripped down to the bone?"

  Zie Zen leaned back in his chair, hand flexing on the head of the cane. "If I say I believe he needs to fight on? If I ask him to shed mo
re blood, walk once more in the darkness?"

  Ivy's heart thudded, her own blood hot. "I won't allow anyone to hurt him, not even you." Never did she want to take this relationship from Vasic, but neither would she permit Zie Zen to use that relationship to destroy Vasic.

  The elder's eyes met hers again, an odd light in them. "So, he's found a woman who will fight for him. Good." With that, he returned his gaze to the lake and to the two men who stood there. "Do you know what I would like to see before I die, Ivy Jane?"

  Ivy shook her head, still stunned at the realization that it had all been a test. "What, Grandfather?"

  "I would like to see my son laugh."

  Ivy saw Vasic bend down to pet Rabbit when their pet ran over after investigating an interesting rock, and she felt her lips curve. "That," she said, "is a wish that will come true." Perhaps not today, or even tomorrow, but Vasic had joy in his heart now. It would one day color the air, of that she was certain.

  Rising from his chair without warning, Zie Zen walked slowly into the house. Ivy didn't follow; he'd made no invitation, and like Vasic, he wasn't a man with whom you assumed any kind of acceptance. When he didn't return in the next five minutes, she walked down to the edge of the lake as Vasic and the changeling said their farewells.

  *

  I would speak to you, my son.

  Leaving Ivy and Rabbit searching the pebbles on the shoreline for the best one to skim across the water, Vasic headed up to the porch. Zie Zen came out of the house at the same instant, something in his right hand.

  "Grandfather." Vasic fought the urge to subtly stabilize the older man, aware Zie Zen would pick up on the interference and be offended by it. But Vasic couldn't keep silent. "You're leaning more heavily on your cane." And he was walking slower, his ruler-straight back beginning to bend.

  "I am old," was the succinct answer. "And I am almost ready to go." Lowering himself into his chair, he waited for Vasic to take the one beside him. "Before Silence," he said, after he'd caught his breath, "some of us chose to marry. Though we may have been psychically bonded, to see my ring on my wife's finger, it meant something. To wear hers on mine, it meant even more."

  Taking the small velvet box his great-grandfather held out, Vasic opened it to reveal two gold wedding bands, each one beautifully etched with intricate carvings. The hugeness of what he felt was a storm inside him, the words ones he couldn't say.