Shield of Winter Read online

  The reason he and Vasic had become friends as children, the reason the others in the squad looked to him instinctively, was the same reason Vasic had never been meant to be an Arrow. He felt too deeply, was too much the protector. As an angry, scared eight-year-old boy when he and Aden first met, he should've been focused only on himself--yet he'd sensed Aden's continual and crushing fear for his Arrow parents.

  Instead of resenting Aden for having parents who'd cared enough about him to fight to keep him with them through his enrollment in the squad's training program, Vasic had come up with distractions to help Aden cope. Later, Vasic had risked severe punishment to help Aden break into the control room so Aden could read the files on his parents' missions.

  That part of Vasic had been buried beneath the weight of the life he'd been forced to live, but it existed. It had always existed. And it would destroy him if Aden couldn't find a way to redirect his self-hatred and guilt.

  "It appears you've captured Rabbit's interest," Vasic said into the comfortable silence between them, and it was an unexpected comment.

  Aden glanced down at the canine that was still sitting on its rump, eyes locked on him. "Perhaps he's weighing the pros or cons of biting me."

  Vasic didn't answer, his head angled toward one of the cabins to their left.

  Ivy Jane appeared on the porch a second later, a large Arrow jacket engulfing her small body and two steaming mugs in her hands. "Here," she said when she reached Aden and Vasic, the shadows under her eyes smudges of purple. "Hot nutrient drinks."

  Aden recognized the jacket from a small tear on the upper left sleeve. It had happened during a brutal mission in Alaska, Vasic left alone in a ghost town full of corpses. Aden hadn't been able to prevent that, and Vasic had asked him not to try. To have done so would've put their entire plan to oust Ming LeBon in jeopardy. So Vasic had spent hours teleporting out the dead, the inhabitants of the remote science station having fallen victim to the infection in what was the first known outbreak.

  The squad hadn't been aware of that fact at the time, however; Ming LeBon had withheld the information as he'd withheld so much from the men and women who'd trusted him because he'd once been an active member of the squad. It had taken them too long to realize that while the latter might've been true, Ming had never been one of them. He'd always been an "I," his personal political aspirations trumping any other loyalty.

  The Alaska incident, Aden realized, was also the last time he'd seen Vasic wearing that jacket. The other man had used it in the interim, of course, but Aden hadn't been with him during those operations.

  To see it now in such a different context was . . . interesting.

  "Thank you," he said, taking the drink Ivy had prepared. Arrows never ate or drank anything from an unfamiliar source, but taking his cue from Vasic, Aden took a sip of the drink. Why is it hot?

  Ivy doesn't want us to feel the cold.

  From which, Aden deduced that Vasic hadn't told her about the weatherproof properties of the combat uniforms. He immediately understood why. It was strange to be cared for in this fashion, and the strangeness was so unlike everything else in the life of an Arrow that he could find no motivation to clarify the situation for Ivy, either.

  He drank a little more, as the empath, her hair braided but curling tendrils falling around her face, looked pointedly at Vasic.

  An instant later, the other Arrow said, "Ivy, meet Aden."

  "Hi." The empath's smile was open. "It's nice to meet you when I'm not about to fall unconscious. Thank you for saving my life."

  Before Aden could respond, Vasic spoke again. "You should still be asleep."

  Ivy's shoulders rose then fell. "I tried but couldn't. I'll catch a nap later." Bending, she petted the little dog with unhidden affection. "My stubborn Rabbit will need a rest, too. He was wide awake and waiting for me when I got back from our walk last night."

  Our walk.

  Zeroing in on the words, Aden found himself thinking about the possible unintended side effects of being around the empaths for an Arrow. It was something he'd begun to research when Vasic reported Abbot's new stability, but the post-Silence Council had done what appeared to be an immaculate job of scrubbing the Net clean of data about the Es. Even non-Net databases had been cleared, printed books taken off shelves and incinerated. Rare copies were rumored to remain but were proving near impossible to track down. As soon as a merchant got even a whiff of Psy interest in the subject, the listing disappeared.

  As a result, Aden still had no frame of reference for an empath's impact on an Arrow, but there was one thing he could judge with accuracy, and that was Vasic's psychological state. Seeing his partner interact with Ivy made Aden realize Vasic was no longer on the lethal edge where Aden needed to keep an eye on him at all times. Such a result had been his best-case scenario when he'd given Vasic the one task to which his partner had always been suited: protection.

  With that best-case scenario already a reality, the future was now an unpredictable road. "We were discussing the impact of last night's events on your fellow Es," he said to Ivy Jane when she rose back to her full height. "Do you think any will ask to leave?"

  Ivy thrust her hands into the pockets of the coat, her forehead furrowed. "We only touched base for a minute last night," she said, "but I had the feeling that while people were scared, they were also . . . invigorated."

  "A surprising response."

  "Not really if you think about it." Skin stretching tight over her jawline, she said, "We've been in a cage all our lives; most of us have been told we're defective. Now, finally, it's clear we're not--there's an enemy out there, and we can not only sense it, we may be able to fight it."

  A purpose, Aden understood, could alter everything.

  Ivy looked down when her pet swiveled its head to bark at the mist. "That's not his alarm bark," she said, glancing around all the same.

  Aden scanned the area telepathically in case the dog had scented something they hadn't sensed, aware of Vasic doing a scan for unknown heat signatures using his gauntlet at the same time, but there were no intruders. When Rabbit took off a second later, Aden heard Vasic say, "I believe Rabbit is after one of his namesakes."

  Ivy's shoulders relaxed. "Oh, that's all right. He never actually goes near them when he's about to catch one." Lowering her voice, she whispered, "We don't speak about it, but I'm pretty sure Rabbit is a little scared of rabbits."

  Aden's eyes were on Ivy, his attention on Vasic. So he saw the way her face glowed when she spoke to Vasic, noted the very slight movement of Vasic's head as the other Arrow bent toward her.

  Never, not once, had he thought his friend might possess the capacity to bond with a woman. Not even when Kaleb Krychek had bonded with Sahara Kyriakus, throwing open the idea that such a connection was possible for members of the squad. Aden had believed Vasic too damaged, had fought only to save the other man's life.

  Now . . .

  He looked again at the two of them silhouetted against the mist and felt a new respect for the empath. She'd somehow hauled Vasic out of the numb nothingness that was his self-imposed purgatory. The question was--was she strong enough to go the distance, to walk in Vasic's darkness?

  If she wasn't, the damage would be permanent.

  Chapter 24

  Vasic, I appreciate you're on an active mission, but according to the data you sent through, I need to calibrate the gauntlet to offset a minor overload. To prepare, I'll also have to run an internal diagnostic while you're connected to our systems. I estimate the entire procedure will take under two hours.

  Message from Dr. Edgard Bashir

  IVY FINISHED THE comm conversation with her parents and went out to wait for Jaya on the porch, Vasic's jacket draped over her thighs and legs. It was a sad substitute for being held in his arms, but it made her feel warm and safe nonetheless.

  Ivy, Aden said you asked after me.

  A crowd of butterflies took flight in her abdomen at the sound of Vasic's telepathic voi
ce, her nipples going painfully tight in a response that left her breathless. Intellectually, she'd known about sexual attraction--but no one had ever told her that all it would take was the sound of a certain male voice to make her lower body clench, her breasts aching and swelling as her pulse rate rocketed.

  She thought of how he'd looked at her the previous night, pure Arrow concentration and ruthless focus, and bit down hard on her lower lip as her mind whispered that she should've pushed the strap down instead of pulling it up. Maybe then, he'd have put those strong fingers on her needy flesh.

  I just missed you, she said through the sensual storm, unable to see him in the compound.

  It was a simple errand, he said after a long pause, and a good time to take care of it with Aden free to cover me. I'm walking in from the sentry line.

  Heart skipping a beat at the fact her Arrow had actually explained himself to her, as if she had the right to question his movements, she flexed and unflexed her fingers atop his jacket . . . and then she did something either very brave or so stupid she'd never live down the humiliation. She sent him the erotic visual her mind had created, of her peeling down both straps of her camisole to reveal her breasts.

  The silence echoed.

  Groaning, she hid her flaming face in her hands. What had possessed her to, to-- "Oh, God."

  Ivy . . . I may have caught an accidental image from your mind.

  He was giving her an out. Chest heaving as her blood scalded her skin from the inside out, she grabbed some snow and pressed it to her cheeks. It wasn't an accident, she admitted before the knots in her stomach tied her up into an incoherent ball. It was for you.

  *

  VASIC remained on his knees in the snow where he'd fallen when the picture of Ivy had slammed into his mind. It might as well have been a roundhouse punch to the jaw, his head was spinning so hard, his heartbeat erratic and a roar of blood in his ears.

  It was for you.

  No one had ever just given him something he wanted so much. Even though he knew he should erase the image from his mind, that it went against every one of the rules that helped him stay sane, stay stable, he opened it again. This time, the punch hit him directly in the solar plexus.

  She was all shy smile and a peach-colored blush as she tugged down the straps of her top to reveal plump breasts topped with dusky pink nipples. The flesh of her breasts was a creamier shade than the skin of her shoulders, and he knew it'd mark easily. Unable to resist, he ran a mental finger over one of those nipples, felt his rigid penis throb. The line of her neck drew his gaze, the curve of her shoulder, the slenderness of her arms.

  The lush softness of her lips.

  Overwhelmed and incapable of processing the sensory input, he did the only thing he could: He shut it all down with jaw-clenched focus, sense by sense. It took several minutes, but he had both body and mind under control when he rose to his feet--after using a handful of clean snow to wash the sweat off his face and the back of his neck.

  Then, instead of reprimanding Ivy for doing something that had cut his legs out from under him, he said, Thank you. He wasn't going to erase that image. Not now, not ever. It was his.

  No one could take it from him now, steal the piece of herself she'd handed him. He would keep it in his private mental file of all things Ivy Jane, and he'd look at it any time he needed an instant of beauty in the darkness.

  *

  TOES curling inside her boots, Ivy swallowed. Jaya and I are going to explore the infection. The Es had decided as a group that no one should undertake the task alone the first time. The others will be doing the same throughout the day, in pairs. Her own partner--her friend--had arrived half a minute ago, taken one look at Ivy's scarlet face, and demanded an explanation.

  Ivy had stuttered that it was nothing, but Jaya, her elegant features shadowed by the hood she'd pulled over her head, wasn't convinced. The other E might be quiet and composed, but she was also relentless. Now she nudged at Ivy with an elbow. "You had such a guilty expression in your eyes, I know you did something. Even Rabbit knows it--look at his face."

  "Hush," Ivy muttered with her best attempt at a glare. "I'm telling Vasic what we're planning."

  I'll keep an eye on you, Vasic said at that instant, pull you out if I see any signs of distress.

  Wrapping his words around her like a shield, she nodded at Jaya, and the two of them entered the vast psychic sprawl of the PsyNet. Each mind within it was represented by a cold white star, the darkness between streaming with data. It was a creation of painful beauty, and of necessity.

  No Psy could survive without the biofeedback provided by a neural network, but now, the biofeedback itself had turned toxic. Ivy flinched at what she saw directly in front of her--the viscous, fetid blackness that denoted the infection, its tongue licking out at the eighteen minds located within the compound.

  "Hunger . . . such hunger." Chilled horror in Jaya's tone, all traces of teasing wiped away. "It's starving and it wants us all. Every cell, every limb, every breath."

  Ivy rubbed her abdomen in a futile effort to ease the gnawing ache that had eaten up the knots and spilled out scraping pain. Tears dripped down her face, caught in her throat. "It's so lonely. It hurts." As if it was a sentient thing, not a mindless disease.

  "Yes." Jaya's voice held a sob. "It knows it's unwanted."

  They stared at the oil-slick black that wasn't sentient, and yet . . . and yet . . .

  All the air rushed out of Ivy's body. The infection was changing, becoming a woman of absolute, endless darkness. She reached out toward Ivy and Jaya with her hands, a pulsing malevolence to her that made them stumble back. It took but a heartbeat for Ivy and Jaya both to stop and reverse direction, compelled to ease that piercing, haunting loneliness, but they were too late. The woman collapsed out of existence, and the infection was once more a mindless disease without emotion or thought.

  Opening her eyes to the crystal-clear air, Ivy wiped away her tears.

  "What was that?" Jaya whispered wetly.

  "I don't know." That was when Ivy realized the sun was in a different position in the sky from when she and Jaya had begun. Who is she? Ivy asked the gray-eyed Arrow who now stood only three feet away. The dark woman in the Net?

  The DarkMind. According to Kaleb Krychek, she is created of all the emotions our race sought not to feel and attempted to suppress out of existence. He believes the infection was born from the same festering soup.

  Does the DarkMind control the infection?

  No, but it is impervious to it.

  Ivy shivered and shared the information with Jaya, wanting the protective strength of Vasic's arms around her, but he was already turning to walk away, his expression distant. It was as if they'd never had their earlier conversation, never found themselves entangled in her inappropriate fantasy. Her heart ached. Every time she thought she'd made a crack in the ice, she was forced to confront the fact that a lifetime spent in the shadows couldn't be so painlessly navigated.

  "It's hard, isn't it?" Jaya lay her head on Ivy's shoulder. "I'm falling for my Arrow, too."

  "Do you think," Ivy said, "it's just the proximity?" Even as she spoke, she knew it wasn't; she'd felt a dangerous tug toward Vasic the first time they'd met, in the apple orchard as he, a man encased in winter, crouched in front of her.

  "No." Raising her head, Jaya pushed back her hood to reveal a neat braid. "The others get along with their Arrows, but it's not like me with Abbot or you with Vasic." A trembling sigh, her eyes on where Vasic had halted to talk to Abbot. "Maybe the others . . . maybe they're the smart ones."

  Jaya was right. It would, in all probability, be smarter to walk away, to try to build a bond with a different man, a man who hadn't grown up an Arrow, but--"I don't want to live a safe, smart life, Jaya. I want passion and fury and Vasic."

  Jaya's lips curved in a tremulous smile. "Me, too," she whispered, the deep brown of her skin glowing in the sunshine. "Only I don't want your Vasic. No offense, but he has nothing on
my Abbot."

  Ivy looked at the other woman, said, "Come closer," in a solemn tone of voice. "I need to examine your eyes . . . since you're obviously going blind."

  Having fallen for Ivy's first words, Jaya pushed at her shoulders, and then they were laughing, their fingers tightly intertwined.

  *

  VASIC was held motionless by the sound of Ivy's laughter, so rich and warm and vibrant. Tell me why you laugh, he demanded, wanting to understand it, understand her.

  Tilting her head to the side, she shook it. That's between me and Jaya.

  Her words drew his attention to the woman beside her. He became aware at the same instant that Abbot, too, was focused on the porch. Having already made the decision to leave the younger Arrow with his empath, Vasic didn't comment.

  If there was a chance Abbot could forge a better life for himself, then Vasic wouldn't steal that chance from him. Neither would Vasic permit the E to savage Abbot. Your friend, he said to the woman with tousled curls who watched him from the porch, must understand that Abbot may not catch emotional nuances. If she's merely using him to explore her emotions, she needs to stop.

  Ivy hugged Jaya, both women now on their feet. Only when her fellow E had begun to walk toward her cabin did Ivy say, Come over here and talk to me. The demand held more than a hint of challenge, her arms folded defiantly across her chest.

  Glancing at Abbot to see the other male was staring after Jaya, he said, "We'll continue this discussion later."

  Abbot left without further words, his course set to intersect with Jaya's. Striding across to his own E, Vasic stopped a foot from her. "Did my statement about your friend offend you?"

  Arms still folded, Ivy narrowed her eyes. "You ever think about the fact that maybe it's Jaya taking all the risks?" she demanded. "For all she knows, Abbot could turn around and say it's too late for him."

  He heard the echo of his own words, knew it had been deliberate. "Abbot and I," he said, "are not the same."

  "Why? You're both telekinetics, went through the same training--"

  "No." Ivy had to understand that what she sought to see in him was simply not there. It was his fault--he'd been selfish, withheld the truth from her and stolen time, allowing things to go so far that she thought his hands were clean enough to touch her. "Abbot," he said, "wasn't inducted into the training program till he was ten."