“You’re the High General of the Legion.”
“And I know the limits of that power,” she shot back with a pointed stare. I recoiled at the rebuke in her words, half-expecting her to dig in again, but she only let out a heavy breath and sank into the chair at my bedside.
“I need you and Elise to give me something to work with, Haldin. Ordo Dillard already explained what you think is happening to the older hybrids, and what it seems to mean for engagements moving forward.”
“If we could get a sample to Therese Brown and her people, maybe—”
She cut me off with a wave. “It’s being handled. I need you to set that aside and focus on what the rest of my people can’t. We’re looking at a complete paradigm shift, here. One we’re completely unequipped to handle.”
“One we wouldn’t have recognized if I hadn’t been out there,” I added quietly.
“And one which you are, by far, our best hope of fixing,” she continued, surprising me with her lack of argument. “We can sit here and bandy words about the fault and the blame and the fairness of it all until we’re both blue in the face, but I’d prefer it if we could move past that and you could simply tell me if your meeting was worthwhile.”
My meeting?
“Did you learn anything that could help during your abduction?” she added at the apparent confusion on my face.
The memories of Hawk Nose and Pasty hit me like an electric jolt. Since waking up in the middle of a hybrid attack, I’d barely had time to think about the mysterious duo, with their rune wands and their dungeon of impossibly old books.
“I’m not sure,” I admitted, trying to remember what little I’d seen in their open tomes. “I think they had answers, but they wouldn’t give them. Not before…” I thought about the rune-powered scanner helmet Pasty had crammed on my unwilling head. “They gave me some kind of test, but I don’t think I passed.”
What the scud had that been about, anyway? And the fear on Pasty’s face when he’d recoiled from me at the end…
Alpha, that had been one bizarre encounter. I couldn’t make sense of any of it. But after glimpsing those tomes, and the rune-powered devices they’d been packing, I was pretty sure of one thing.
“We need to find them again.”
Glenbark nodded. “I have teams looking. I believe Citizen Fields may be conducting his own investigation as well.” She fixed me with a heavy look, almost apologetic. “Even so, I need you and Elise to proceed on the assumption that you won’t be receiving any help from the outside. We’re well past having the luxury to rely on good fortune and happenstance.”
Furious as I wanted to be at Glenbark’s punishment—and much as the thought of facing Elise again made me want to flinch—I couldn’t seem to find anything but cold, dreadful exhaustion in my heart as I stared at her staring off into space.
“I’ll do my best, sir,” I said quietly, too tired to decide whether I resented the words, wanting little more than to close my eyes and leave all this scud behind.
Glenbark hardly seemed to notice I’d spoken, lost in her own thoughts, her brow pinched with more concern than I was used to seeing out of her.
“Sir?”
She straightened, returning from some distant thought with a surprised look in her eyes. She looked almost as tired as I felt.
“How bad is it out there?” I asked. “Really.”
She shook her head at the question, and for a second, I thought she was going to stand and leave without answering. “They’re spreading us too thin,” she finally said. “Chipping down our numbers while they replenish their own.”
The defeated look on her face only deepened the discomfort in my gut. I wanted to say something useful—to point out that maybe this was all part of Alton Parker’s plan to get us to move on Oasis again before we were ready, or that maybe there was some deeper vulnerability they were trying to hide. But what vulnerability?
The hybrids were growing stronger, not weaker. What if the raknoth were simply stepping things up because they were that assured of their own victory? And why wouldn’t they be? As far as I could tell, they might soon have hundreds—if not thousands—of mature hybrids that were nearly as strong and dangerous as true raknoth. What force could possibly hope to stop that?
Maybe this fear and doubt was exactly what Parker had wanted us to feel all along. Or maybe the truth really was that—
“We’re losing, Haldin,” Glenbark said. “Not decisively. Not yet. But losing all the same, piece by piece.”
Cold fear gripped me to hear her say it. She stood, and for a brief moment I wanted to tell her to stay—to please not leave me all alone. It irritated me as soon as the thought landed, the idea of prostrating myself to the woman who’d just placed me on house arrest for trying to save people’s lives. But then she surprised me by reaching down and planting her hand on my chest, over my heart. Her fingers looked more delicate there than I would’ve expected.
“I need you to set this aside,” she said, pressing her hand to my beating heart, her voice intense though it was barely above a whisper. “There are going to be a lot of people calling you demon in the coming days. Some calling you hero, as well. I need you to stay above it. I need you to see that this”—her fingers found the bump of the pendant beneath my gown and gave it a tap—“is the way you get your revenge. The only way you find the justice I know you’re seeking.”
She hesitated, her other hand going to her own chest, where I assumed her pendant was concealed beneath her dress tunic. She held my gaze, and I saw the hard barrier of discipline and professional distance fading from her eyes. Saw the deep sorrow that lay beneath.
“Let this be your redemption, Haldin.”
I can’t adequately explain the way those words made me feel. For one fleeting moment, it was like she truly saw me—saw me in a way that no one else seemed capable of doing anymore. Like she understood the weight on my heart. I searched her face, lips trembling, waiting for more. But she only withdrew her hand and stepped back, leaving me alone with the weight of the darkness, her wall of professional distance once again returning.
She watched me for a moment, just long enough that I thought she might say something more. Then she turned to leave. Again, I had the impulse to ask her to please stay. But that was ridiculous. Freya Glenbark was not my friend. She was the High General of the Legion, and I was nothing to her but a means to an end.
The door whirred open. She paused there, looking back with something in her eyes that made me wonder if I was wrong. “The four you tried to catch at the end,” she said slowly. “One of them will never walk again. I thought you should know.”
Then she left, and I was alone—more alone than I’d been since Carlisle. Since my parents. I couldn’t stand it. I wanted to call for Johnny and Elise, but I couldn’t stand the thought of what Elise might say. Couldn’t stand that maybe this might be the time I would call and they wouldn’t answer.
So I sat quietly alone as the tears came, unable to quantify what it was I was crying for, too exhausted and broken to try. For a long while, I just cried, trying my best to stay in that room, away from the lives we’d lost. The people I’d let down—was still letting down every single day the raknoth went on walking this planet, killing and maiming and taking everything we had to give. More.
I’m not sure how long I’d been crying when the door whirred open—only that I was in no mood to be seen in that state.
“I heard you were awake,” a female voice said. “I have to tell you, as your personal medic, I think you—Oh.”
Melanie drew up short as she stepped in and caught sight of what I could only assume was the red-eyed, tear-streaked face of a crying child. I turned my face away, not bothering to wipe my face, but not wanting to meet her eyes either.
The door closed. I closed my eyes, drawing into myself. I didn’t want to know what she thought about what she’d stumbled into—whether she’d left or stayed. I suppose I felt it anyway.
Footsteps.<
br />
A hand settled over mine. It wasn’t warm or particularly soft. But it was gentle.
“Do you want me to leave?” she asked softly.
I swallowed and opened my wet eyes to look at her. There was concern in the wrinkle of her brow, and caring in the depths of those golden brown eyes. So much caring that I couldn’t understand it.
I tried to answer. Tried to nod. Or maybe to shake my head. I didn’t know. My lips were quivering. And then, before I knew it, I was crying again—not the silent, mournful tears from earlier, but great ugly sobs that wracked through me, sparking fresh waves of pain and pathetic noises from my throat. I was too tired to fight it. I gave in completely. And Melanie held on all the while, saying nothing.
Part of me wanted to be appalled at the display of wretched vulnerability, but something about Melanie’s calm aura gently dispelled any such notions. She didn’t ask questions. There was no stroking of the thumbs. No soft touches on the cheek. She wasn’t even looking straight at me.
She just held my hand tight, simply being there, allowing me to purge my emotions without judgment.
At some point—I’m not sure how long had passed—the sobs faded, leaving behind only a light shaking and the occasional shudder. I wanted to talk to her, then. To explain something of what I was feeling. To at least thank her, for the love of Alpha. But I couldn’t seem to find the traction to open my mouth and start.
My eyelids hung heavy, half-lidded—my thoughts sluggish and slowing. The soft bed felt suddenly all too welcoming.
Melanie seemed to understand.
“Sleep,” she whispered, moving closer to meet my eyes for the first time with a sad smile. She gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze. “You’re okay, Haldin. Just sleep now.”
I didn’t argue.
20
Shadows
Something was wrong.
That was all I knew as I jolted upright in the dark room. Or tried to.
In the dark dead of night, it took me a moment to remember where I was. Another moment to understand what was happening.
I was fixed to my bed in the medica. Tied down by restraints I could hardly make out in the darkness.
Instinctively, I opened my mouth to cry for help. Something soft and dry jammed its way into my mouth. I recoiled, trying to spit it out. Something smacked an adhesive strip over my mouth before I could. A gag.
Whose?
There was no one. Heart thundering, I reached out with my senses—only to realize I was trapped to the confines of my body, trapped inside a dialed-in cloaking pendant.
That’s when the blind panic took me.
I’m not sure I can explain. There’s the terror of facing down bloodthirsty monsters—of knowing the odds are hopeless, the outcomes bleak. And then there’s that of being totally, utterly helpless. Cut off from all control. Powerless.
It wasn’t hard to decide which I preferred.
I bucked against the restraints like a wild animal.
“Oh shush,” said a soft voice.
I froze.
“It’ll be over soon,” the disembodied voice added from somewhere to the left. Feminine. Sultry. I didn’t like the sound of it one bit. But at least it jarred me back to my senses enough to start using my head.
I might be trapped inside a cloak, but at least part of the bindings were in physical contact. A chill spread through me as I channeled the heat from my body. I couldn’t reach far enough with my senses to sever any of the bindings all the way through, but if I just got them started…
I felt as much as heard the binding tear against my right forearm.
“What was…” my shadowy captor muttered. “Oh really, now,” she sighed with the exasperated tone of a mother who’d just caught her child making a mess of the pantry.
I was halfway through the second binding and yanking the first arm free when something bit into my left side—a sharp clamp of pure, sizzling electricity. It coursed through me, irresistibly convulsing every battered muscle on my left side and half of those on my right until I couldn’t breathe for the pain—couldn’t see, couldn’t think anything at all aside from a hopeless prayer for it to end.
It did, eventually. I couldn’t say how long it was. Couldn’t think or say much of anything, really. A stun rod, my muddled brain finally pieced together. That’s what that had been.
“There,” the voice said, sounding satisfied about something. There was a clunk of something being tossed into the waste receptacle. “That’s better.”
Slender fingers snaked under my chin and pulled my face to the left with wiry strength. And there she was. A lithe silhouette in the dark. One that I was certain hadn’t been there just a moment ago. My attacker.
“The Demon of Divinity,” she said softly, stroking my cheek with a thumb. “My, oh my.”
I tried to say something. Sluggish as my stunned brain was, it took me entirely too long to remember the reason I couldn’t seem to speak was that I was gagged. Just like it took me too long to register the importance of her glib gesture.
She was touching me.
I coiled my mind, preparing to strike at her through the physical connection. But something was wrong. My thoughts. My body. All disjointed. Effects of the stun rod?
Warmth creeping through my limbs.
Why was it getting worse?
I pushed the thought aside and attacked as best I could anyway.
There was resistance. Then she yanked her hand back like she’d been burned, breaking the connection before I could make any real progress. “Hmm,” she said. “You are a wild one, aren’t you?”
I gaped at her, the room beginning to tilt oddly, warm honey flooding my brain. Resistance? That meant something. Meant…
She was a telepath.
“It’s a shame, really,” she said, coming closer, planting a hand on my chest.
I tried to use the connection to attack again, but the warm honey was spreading, melting my mind from inside out, covering me like a softsteel blanket weighing me to the bed. She caught my mental attack without discernible effort. Leaned in until her lips tickled my ear.
“The reels just don’t do you justice, Demon,” she whispered.
Then she took my earlobe in her mouth, her tongue hot against my flesh, and gave it a gentle bite. I tensed, barely able to process what was happening, sure this was just the sadistic foreplay to something terrible—another round of the stun rod, or a dagger in the gut. Demons to the wind, I half-expected her to bite my ear off. But then she gave a contented sigh and drew back with a breathy laugh.
“You should see your face right now.”
She straightened and took a few lilting steps toward the door, still facing me.
Who the scud was this woman?
“Sadly, I must be going. I imagine I’ll see you in the nether, Demon.”
My head was humming, sinking—the room spinning around me now, a drunken ocean of undulating shadows. Her silhouette was still there, head cocked, like she’d heard something. My head fell to the pillow like a thousand-pound stone.
There was a mechanical whirring somewhere to the left. A sliver of light split the ceiling, spreading.
The door. Someone was at the—
“Step away from the Raishman, lady.”
Johnny. Thank Alpha.
“I’m serious. Don’t make me—Dammit!”
Gunfire. Multiple shots. Shouting from the hallway.
With effort, I lifted my head. The world lurched around me, the scene coming to me in hazy flashes.
Two legionnaires down in the hallway. Johnny in the doorway, sidearm in hand—raising the weapon, hand shaking, all the way to his own temple. Horror plastered across his face.
I screamed into my gag, adrenaline cutting through the fog. I tore my right hand free from the ripped binding. Reached desperately for the cloaking pendant with numb, clumsy fingers. Too late.
Something plowed Johnny over from behind—a streak of dark hair flying into the room before he’d even hit t
he floor. There was a thud of impact at the foot of my bed, a hissed curse, and I turned my head in time to see a shadowy figure crash into the wall beside the window with a heavy thunk and the sound of cracking plastwall.
My savior stood at the foot of my bed, fury radiating from her silhouette.
“I don’t know you are,” Elise said, “but you picked the wrong gropping day, lady.”
Lise, I tried to say. It came out a mournful gagged groan, and my head thudded back to the pillow, the shadows spinning my world, reaching for me like living things.
“What’d you do to him?” Elise growled.
Darkness folding around me.
“Ah, the Demon’s concubine,” groaned my attacker somewhere far away. She sounded like she was in pain. Probably because Elise had just put her halfway through the wall.
A light buzzing at the edge of my senses suggested she might’ve said something else, but I could hardly be bothered at this point. I was sinking into the bed, spinning. I didn’t need to worry. Elise had it under control. Though, there was something… Something I should tell her? The thought buzzed at the edge of my mind like an irritating insect. The room spinning faster, faster.
Then my world exploded—a concussive boom that ripped through me, shaking my bones. Somewhere in the distance, glass shattered.
I was still alive?
Bright light pierced reddish-orange through my eyelids. Someone had turned the room’s lights on. Voices shouting back and forth. Someone’s hands on my neck, peeling off the cloaking pendant.
“—take this back,” someone was muttering. “Alpha-damned crazy blondes with their thumpers and their—Hey, Lise? He’s not looking so hot!”
My eyelids fluttered open.
Johnny looked down at me with a decidedly unhappy slant to his features. Was it me who had him so upset? Something to do with the way my limbs were floating in a sea of warm honey? But that wasn’t upsetting, was it? It was actually kind of nice. Perfect, even. If I could just breathe a little easier…
“Hang in there, buddy,” he said with a weak smile. He glanced back at the door to yell something about gropping and help before turning back to me and unceremoniously ripping the adhesive strip from my mouth.
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