Dragon's Honor (The Dragon Corps Series Book 1)

by Michaela Kendrick

  “What’s going on?”

  “I…can’t say.” Samara looked miserable. “Aryn, please promise me. I need to hear the words.”

  “I promise.” When Samara’s face didn’t shift, Aryn sighed. “I promise I won’t use Ellian’s contacts to get you weapons.”

  “Thank you.” There was relief there. “Aryn, be safe. Your position there is too precious to waste for some lost cause.”

  There was a stricken silence, and Samara hastened to correct herself.

  “I didn’t mean that, Aryn. I didn’t.”

  “You did.” Aryn stared at her. “You think you’ll never win. Why are you fighting, if you think it’s a lost cause?”

  “I have to go.” Samara looked away. “Remember, Aryn. You promised. If you love us, if you love your parents and Nura—don’t do this.”

  Aryn nodded. She did not speak as Samara cut the line. As she paced back into the room, hugging the robe around her shoulders, she realized that she knew exactly why Samara was fighting. It was the same reason she had asked Ellian for help: because the right thing to do didn’t always have the best odds of success. That wasn’t why you did it.

  She sat down at the mirror and chewed her lip meditatively. She was breaking her promise to Samara, but she could live with that. Surely someone Ellian knew had to know how to get weapons.

  She just had to make sure she hid it from Cade.

  Chapter 11

  Cade crossed the entry hall quickly, straightening the cuffs of his dress shirt beneath the suit jacket. He liked that the suit afforded him ease of motion; he did not like how vulnerable he felt. A fighter should always wear armor.

  He came up short. He was not a fighter. He had spent the past two and a half years proving that to himself, walking away from confrontations, letting insults slide, and—more than once—letting himself be beaten into a bloody pulp. Through it all, he clung to the one thing that made sense: never harming another human being again. Even when he took this job, he did so because of Talon’s assurance that there was no danger.

  And somewhere along the line, the only principle that mattered to him had disappeared. He was moving with his weight on the balls of his feet, his muscles half-tensed. His eyes were scanning the room. His vow had disappeared.

  The moment he realized that, he realized that he did not even need to ask himself how that had happened, or when. As he sat down on his bed last night, staring blankly at the wall and remembering Aryn’s pleading look at the dinner table, her mechanical smile in her bedroom, he understood that he had failed. Even when he hated her, he took this job to protect her—and last night, he hadn’t. Now that he stopped to think about it, he remembered his promise to himself as he was on the edge of sleep: that he wasn’t going to fail again, no matter who he had to defy to keep his word.

  That didn’t surprise him. Cade wasn’t a man who accepted failure lightly. What terrified him, however, was that it simply didn’t seem to matter to him anymore whether he hurt anyone in the process or not. He would rather not, all things being equal. But as he searched his heart, he no longer felt any revulsion toward the thought of acting in defense. If anyone hurt Aryn…

  “Mr. Williams.”

  Like, for instance, the man who had hired him. Cade turned to look at Ellian, trying to keep his face neutral.

  “Good morning, Mr. Pallas.”

  “Are you inspecting our entryway for danger?” Ellian’s voice suggested that he knew Cade had been lost in thought.

  “Trying to remember if I filed an address change.” Cade tried to turn it into a joke.

  “I see.” Ellian’s smile, as always, came with cold eyes. “Should such distraction result in harm to my wife, however…”

  The urge to lash out was so powerful that Cade saw it unfold in his mind’s eye. He watched his fist hit the side of Ellian’s face and saw the man’s head snap back. How dare this man tell Cade about harming Aryn?

  Thankfully, the part of his brain that controlled motor function seemed to realize none of this was a good idea. Cade nodded his head with what he hoped was a self-deprecating smile.

  “It won’t happen again, Mr. Pallas.”

  “Excellent.” Ellian turned without another word and walked to his study, and Cade knew the man was listening for his footsteps, waiting for him to act on the implied order.

  Hurrying down the hallways, as much to leave Ellian’s presence as get to Aryn, Cade paused at her door. Now that he was away from the man he suddenly hated, he was very aware that he would need to speak to the woman he had failed the night before. Taking a deep breath, trying to come up with a way to say he was sorry, he rapped on the door with his knuckles and slid into the room.

  “Ms. Beranek?”

  Aryn had been at her computer, fingers sliding over the screen and her brow furrowed as she read. As her eyes flicked up to him, he saw panic flit across her face, and she slammed the screen down onto the desk with a movement that was just slightly too quick. She managed her mechanical smile again.

  “Mr. Williams. Good morning.” She looked around herself as if searching for something to say, and, as her gaze fixed on a tray of food by the window, gestured. “Have you had breakfast?”

  “Yes.” Cade felt instantly adrift in this conversation. “Did you…order this for me?”

  She frowned, still lost in thought.

  “I think Emala brought it for me.” She shook her head, shrugged, gave him a smile. “But you can have it if you want.”

  “You should eat something, too.” He went to the table and picked up the tray, carrying it over to her desk.

  “I suppose I should.” She smiled up at him as he set the tray down. “Thank you.”

  “Of course.” He perched on the back of the couch as she began to eat, and then realized that was far too familiar. Standing, he paced around the back of the room, stealing glances at her. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Yes, thank you.” She spoke around a mouthful of food.

  Something was off. It wasn’t like Aryn to forget to eat, and though she did indeed seem to be in good spirits, there were circles under her eyes. Had she been up late? If so, why? It didn’t seem to have been tears that kept her awake, for she was giving off neither sadness nor the emotional emptiness that came with a storm of crying. And then there had been whatever she was reading, something she didn’t want him to see. A naughty book, perhaps? The corner of his mouth twitched at the idea.

  He sobered suddenly. He would have to break her good mood, even if only for a moment. It did not matter if she was happy now—she must know that he would not leave her again. She must know she could tell him what she was afraid of, and he would do his utmost to keep it from happening.

  “Ms. Beranek.” He kept his voice low, so low that the voice scanners wouldn’t pick it up, and he saw her mark the difference at once. Her head came up slowly, and she frowned, nodding for him to continue. He drifted slightly closer, trying to keep his face neutral for the cameras. “I regret the events of last night.”

  It took her a moment to understand what he was talking about, and that confused him even more. She had been so frightened then—what could possibly have happened between then and now that she would not even remember her fear? He watched her frown, her eyes meeting his almost blankly. Then she remembered. Her face went cold, her gaze wary. Any hint of a smile died from her lips.

  “It’s nothing,” she said simply. “It’s not important.”

  “It is important.” He was shaking with how much he wanted to go by her side and take her hand. He had to stay here, on the other side of the room. Who knew who might be watching? “I failed you.”

  Her lips parted, and for a moment, he thought she might smile. But she looked down at the table instead.

  “Mr. Williams, you did exactly as you should have.” There, at last, was the sadness, and it pulled at his heart.

  “No.” His answer surprised even him. “I was hired to protect you. You, Aryn.”

  The sound
of her name startled them both. It came from his lips unbidden, an echo of the night before, and the world shifted around them. Her head jerked up at the sound of it, her grey-blue eyes shining with tears, and she pressed her lips together as she looked away.

  “Thank you.” Her voice broke on the words. “But I think you know the type of thing you were hired to protect me from. And it isn’t what happened last night.”

  “That doesn’t ma—”

  “It does.” She would not look at him. “Thank you, Mr. Williams. But it does matter.”

  Why do you stay? The words were on his tongue, and then he looked at her, at the rigid lines of her profile, and he knew that he did not want to hear her answer. Clenching his hands so hard they ached, he went to look out at the city. It was a grey day, warm for winter, with clouds hanging low around the skyscrapers and freezing rain thudding against the windows.

  “In fact…” Her voice was tentative, but it gained in strength as she spoke. “I believe I will stay in today. You can feel free to take the day to yourself, Mr. Williams.”

  “What?” He looked over at her blankly.

  “I will be in my rooms. I will be perfectly safe.” Her chin lifted slightly. “You may go.”

  The words hit him like a slap, but when he looked over, he saw no anger in her face. This was not revenge. Then what was it? He searched for some reason, any reason to stay, and luckily, one came to mind at once.

  “We had more self-defense to practice.”

  On second thought, it was not lucky that he had remembered this. This was bad. This was very bad. He was disappointed not to get to teach her, and he knew why in an instant: he would have her in his arms, be able to touch her hands, watch the way she curled in her bottom lip when she was concentrating on something. Worse, he knew that his tone said all of that and more. As he met her gaze, something flickered there, an answering hint of heat. Then it was gone, and she looked resolute once more.

  “Tomorrow, perhaps.” She was trying for the tones of a society wife, and she achieved her goal admirably. “I have a good deal of reading to do.”

  “Oh? On what?”

  “Nothing.” Her face closed off entirely. She was biting her lip, wavering, but he knew without even trying that he would get nothing more out of her. She opened her mouth to speak, closed it, and after a moment seemed to come to a decision. “I said you may go.”

  He turned on his heel and left without another word.

  Chapter 12

  The door closed harder than it needed to, and Aryn stared after Cade, fighting the urge to go to him. He should know that it wasn’t his fault, that she believed him, truly and without reserve. If things were different, she would go after him, saying his name in the still of the penthouse, and when he looked around she would lay her hand on his arm—

  She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. What was happening to her?

  What was happening, she told herself firmly when she opened her eyes, was that she was being sensible for once. She was acknowledging the facts that Cade’s first loyalty would be to Ellian. So while he might not tell Ellian that Aryn was hiding something, he would certainly be obliged to tell if he knew the truth. She was protecting him. She was protecting everyone from a very unpleasant situation.

  She wondered briefly if she could keep this a secret forever, and decided not to think about that right now. Fact: she could not let her friends die. Therefore, logic said that her friends needed a way to fight back against the Warlord. Satellite-guided missiles would likely be better than guns, but even Aryn knew she couldn’t get missiles without someone asking questions.

  Guns, then. She opened up the computer and frowned at the screen again. She had isolated the specific gun to buy, and the correct ammunition, but that left her wondering just how many rebels there presently were on Ymir. Divided into cells for each others’ protection—the Warlord’s interrogations were mentioned with shudders all over human space—the rebels had very little idea who else might be a rebel, and how many there were in total.

  Aryn chewed her lip, thinking. There were thirty-one main settlements, arranged in concentric circles of five, nine, and seventeen around the central city that held the Warlord’s palace. Each settlement had a mine, and the Warlord was careful to keep the population high enough to run the mines, but low enough that revolt was not a serious threat. There had been at least one cell in Aryn’s district of Io, and she was willing to bet that there had been another. Assuming that each district had between one and three cells of twenty people, that meant she needed well over one thousand weapons.

  Running a war was not cheap. She wondered how the Warlord managed it, and then grimaced. It was easy when even the Alliance gave you its own soldiers to help. Casting a look at the door, Aryn frowned slightly. Cade did not seem like the type of man who would willingly fire on civilians.

  Could she have been wrong about what she saw on Ymir, then?

  No. She knew what she had seen. Everyone had seen it.

  Perhaps that was why he had left the Dragons. She felt herself begin to smile and pressed her lips together to hold it back. She had work to do, and whatever strange madness had taken over her mind, she could not let it distract her now. Twelve hundred and eighty weapons, assuming…what was the rate at which weapons broke? Say, fifteen percent. So fourteen hundred and seventy-two. She would round that up to fifteen hundred.

  Before she even though about ammunition, it occurred to her that she should figure out how much money she could even get her hands on. She looked around the room, frowning. She had told Samara she would get the money, and she was determined to do so. Ellian had more money than he knew what to do with, certainly. But while he would give Aryn almost anything she asked for, she imagined that the ‘almost’ didn’t cover fifteen hundred unregistered weapons, or even the necessary cash.

  Which meant she had to get the cash some other way. She briefly considered sneaking into the ballroom in the middle of the night and stealing some of the Vorekan sapphires out of the top of the chandelier. Surely no one would notice a few of them missing… But Ellian would also want to know why she wanted a ladder, wouldn’t he? He would.

  She thought, for a single moment, about telling him what she planned to do, and discarded the thought almost immediately. If he were to think she was taking matters into her own hands, not trusting him to follow through on his promise…

  Aryn swallowed hard. Her hands were shaking on the desk. She had managed to forget last night, the way his eyes had gone cold and his voice had gone deadly soft. She had been paralyzed, across the table from him and every sense screaming to run, and knowing she had nowhere to run, nowhere to go but back to the mines, and her parents old enough that they couldn’t work for their keep any longer, and everyone knew what happened to the old citizens—

  She was not going to let them starve, or be sold, or be executed. She made a promise to herself here, now, gripping the edge of the desk until her fingers went white, that she would do whatever it took to see them free of the Warlord by the time they died. And to keep that promise, she needed Ellian. It was as simple as that.

  She would pawn her jewelry. The thought came to her in a flash, and she got up and went into the dressing room, pulling out her necklaces. She needed to rule out any of her favorites, and anything Ellian had given her as a special gift. But that left a good deal of diamonds. Making sure she was hidden from the cameras, Aryn grabbed three necklaces at random and stuffed them into a tiny purse, then went to the comm.

  “Mr. Williams?” Her finger held down the button.

  She could feel him waiting on the other end of the line. He was staring at the comm, she knew it, and she could sense him deciding what to say. She wondered if he could feel her, too…

  No. That was ridiculous. Of course he couldn’t.

  “Yes, Ms. Beranek?” He was trying to keep his voice flat, but curiosity spiked through the line. She could just imagine his eyes narrowed. He was tall enough that he would be leaning
down to speak into the comm, and even hundreds of yards away, she almost felt as if she could feel his breath on her skin. “Ms. Beranek?” he repeated when she said nothing.

  She shook herself out of her daze.

  “Yes. Ah…I believe I will go out after all.”

  “I’ll call the car around and inform Mr. Pallas. Where will you be going, ma’am?” Having taken refuge in politeness, his voice was expressionless.

  “Tell him I’d like to go look at jewelry.” That was unlike her. Ellian would ask questions. She frowned, then hit upon an idea. “Ask him if there’s any gemstone, in particular, that he would like.”

  “Of course, ma’am.”

  The comm link closed and Aryn shrugged a cape on over her gown, making her way to the entry hall just in time to see Cade leave Ellian’s office. His gaze swept over her as if she were a puzzle, and he crossed the hall to the door with no more than a perfunctory nod.

  She bit her lip. It was better this way. It was.

  It was past rush hour, and they had a quick ride to the shopping district, where hovering platforms kept shoppers above the carpet of acid snow and a shimmering barrier above the streets provided both heat and protection from the sleet. It was pleasant to stroll here at any time of year, but Aryn truly did love winter, when the streets were adorned with pine trees strung with lights. Out here, staring up at the sky, she could pretend that New Arizona was everything she had hoped for.

  “Ms. Beranek?” Cade’s voice was soft.

  Traitorously, her mind conjured an image of them standing here together, arm in arm, snow falling gently toward their faces, the sting of the cold against their skin and the warmth of each others’ hands…

  She shoved the image away.

  “Let’s go there.” It was one of the higher end stores, and she knew they did not ask very many questions. She followed him as he pushed a way for her through the crowds of holiday shoppers, and in the shop, she approached the counter with what she hoped was a confident smile.