Crusader (Battle Born Book 1) (27 page)

He snapped out of his distracted trance with a heavy sigh. “I know your father’s death has always bothered you, that you’re convinced it wasn’t suicide.”

This wasn’t a tangent she’d expected, but she was definitely interested in the subject. “Do you know who killed him?”

“I can’t prove it. However, there are several passages in your father’s notes that reinforce my suspicions. Restoring magic to all of Rodymia was the motivation driving Pern Keire’s actions. He was determined to make Rodytes strong enough that they could retake control of Bilarri.”

“Then my father’s work would have been extremely important to Pern.” Ashley was trying to follow along, but so many of these people were simply names without an in-depth context. It was hard to keep everything straight.

“Correct,” Irron assured her.

“But Pern is dead now and his younger brother has taken his place.” The statement was as much a reminder to herself as a prompt for more information.

“Also correct. And Quinton, the current Crown Stirate, has very different goals.”

“Quinton is more realistic,” Bandar told her. “He’s accepted our limitations. Even if every Rodyte alive today regained the use of magic, we wouldn’t have a hope of conquering Bilarri. There are simply too many of them and they’ve had centuries to increase their power and control.”

Irron nodded, clearly agreeing with Bandar’s position. “There have been skirmishes here and there, but there hasn’t been a full-scale battle since Quinton came to power.”

“Then what does Quinton want and what does it have to do with my father’s death?”

“We’re not sure about his long-term goals,” Bandar explained, “but in the short-term, he wants to control who’s allowed magic and who remains powerless.”

“Even after Pern’s death, your father made it clear that he would make his process available to anyone who wanted to regain their magic.” Irron went on, “It was a position Quinton couldn’t allow.”

“So you think Quinton killed my father?”

“Not directly.” Irron shook his head. “Crown Stirates seldom wield their own weapons. Quinton would have dispatched an assassin, someone like Akim Farmon. But make no mistake, Quinton had the most to lose if your father succeeded, which makes him my number-one suspect.”

“But Dad didn’t succeed. None of his treatments worked. I hit my teens and everything just sort of stopped. I’m not sure my recovery had anything to do with my father.”

“It absolutely had to do with your father and the timing is not unusual,” Irron told her.

“Really?” She hadn’t meant to sound quite so sarcastic, but Irron’s comment made no sense. “Why would my health issues just go away?”

“Because you went through puberty.” He made it sound as if that explained everything, but she was still confused.

“And?”

“With Rodytes puberty is a two-step process. The first round of hormone surges prepares the body for sex and attracts potential mates. Each person must be strong and healthy to attract a potential mate, so the immune system goes into overdrive, killing off anything that might compromise the body’s ability to reproduce. The second step is the bonding transformation. Once the most compatible mate has been located, the second transformation is triggered and each person’s DNA is locked into its permanent pattern.”

“That’s fascinating, but you’re forgetting one important detail.” She paused for affect. “I’m not Rodyte.”

“Neither are you entirely human.” He used the same dramatic pause to accent the import in the simple statement. “The adjustments your father made to your DNA were patterned after a Rodyte female.”

Every muscle in Ashley’s body tightened at the implication. “Do you know which one?” The image had been permanently seared into her brain fifteen years ago. All Ashley had to do was stop fighting against the memory and she could see the scene as clearly as when it happened. Her father’s enraptured face, the woman’s blue-streaked hair and those eyes, always those strange blue-ringed eyes. Was she carrying around segments of that creature’s genetics? The possibility was more upsetting than anything else she’d learned in the past few days.

“There were three females mentioned in Daniel’s notes. The most likely to have participated in the experiments is the one he refers to as Pyre Sterling. That’s not her real name, of course, but that pseudonym has been associated with other events occurring about the same time. There’s a lot of speculation about her real identity, but I have no way of confirming or disproving her involvement.”

“Why is she more likely than the other two my father mentioned?”

Again Irron seemed reluctant to answer. “Pyre had done this sort of thing before. Her murky ethics forced the Integration Guild to banish her and they tolerate anyone with the right skill set.”

She wasn’t sure if he was making her feel better or worse. Would her father really have an affair with someone so morally corrupt? “What does she look like?”

“It’s hard to say. Pyre has been known to change her physical appearance according to the situation and her whim. Is there a reason for the question? Did you see any of the Rodytes with which your father interacted?”

Bandar answered for her. “She saw two, one male and one female, but there was nothing unique about either of their appearances. It’s unlikely the female Ashley saw was Pyre.”

Irron nodded, his gaze drifting back to Ashley. “Pyre is rather flamboyant. If you’d seen her, you’d know it.”

More than ready to move on, Ashley nodded as well. “This still makes me some sort of hybrid?”

Irron looked more uncomfortable with each revelation. “Technically, yes. In fact you possess the same protein marker that we found in the female who survived Sevrin’s protocol.”

“Which makes me an ideal test subject. Is that where this is leading?”

Irron cleared his throat and looked at Bandar rather than Ashley. “I can sense a connection between you two, but I’d rather have you explain its exact nature than intruding into her mind.”

“Good choice.” Bandar’s smile was anything but warm. “I established a comlink so we can exchange thoughts and images. It has been expanded twice. Once to allow memory sharing and again to facilitate emotions. I haven’t triggered a mating bond.”

Irron nodded. “Keep the connection shielded. It’s safer if the others don’t realize it’s not a permanent bond.”

“We’re aware,” Ashley told him. “The misconception is what kept me safe on the
Relentless
.”

“So what does all this mean for Ashley?” Bandar prompted. “She’s obviously healthy now. Is she right? Are you asking her to test the new protocol?”

Irron’s smile was obviously meant to minimize the situation, but Ashley didn’t buy his nonchalance. “I don’t yet have a new protocol, but I believe that’s where Daniel’s research was headed. If he’d survived, there is every indication that power transference would have been the final step in Ashley’s transformation.”

“But Dad didn’t survive and I’m not interested in any more transformations.” She looked at Bandar, expecting to find an ally, a champion ready to put the doctor in his place. Instead Bandar’s expression was conflicted and his thoughts carefully guarded. Shocked and hurt, she looked into his eyes. “You want me to be his lab rat?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. It’s written all over your face.” She stood and put her chair between them. The hope in his dark eyes felt like betrayal. “This is your ultimate goal, the reason you came to Earth. Why wouldn’t you want it?”

“I would never allow anything that put you in danger.”

“But.” Despite his sincerity, he was obviously not finished with the statement.

“But Irron is not Sevrin. He would never attempt a clinical trial unless there was little or no risk.”

“There is always risk. Have you forgotten who my father was? I’ve read many of his journals. I know how horribly wrong some of his experiments went.”

“Our simulators make those sorts of trial-and-error experiments unconscionable,” Irron told her. “Live tests are never attempted until the simulations are perfected. Failure rate in test subjects is less than one tenth of one percent.”

“One in ten thousand?” It was better than she’d expected. Still, she shook her head. “I need to think about it.”

“Of course. Take your time. As I said, I’m still weeks away from a viable protocol.”

They left the office through a different door and ended up in a corridor rather than the infirmary. Bandar’s disciplined expressions gave nothing away, but she didn’t like the sudden distance she sensed between them. “I’m not afraid of bonding with you. It’s introducing anything else into that process that I’m leery about.”

“I know and I agree. We won’t even consider it unless he has a profound breakthrough.”

She smiled and moved closer. His arm automatically draped across her shoulders and he pulled her against his side. They really did fit perfectly together. “So what do we do for the next hour or so?” She didn’t dare look at him, knowing his thoughts were likely as indecent as hers.

“Keyran reluctantly gave me permission to show you around the ship, but I can give you another back rub if you’d rather.”

She laughed. “A tour would be wonderful. I’ll take a raincheck on the massage.”

So they meandered through the ship. It was actually smaller than Ashley had pictured, though even more impressive. Smooth blueish gray and faintly iridescent, the corridors were rounded at the top and the floors were lightly textured.

She scuffed her foot against the roughened surface, testing the traction. “Is slipping and sliding a big problem in outer space?”

His smile was patient, his gaze warm. “Gravity generators and a network of stabilizers work well to keep the ride smooth, but unexpected maneuvers and transitioning between trans-warp jumps are always bumpy. It’s just a precaution.”

Each time they came to a crew member, the person backed into the wall and averted their face. After it happened the third time, Ashley had to ask, “Are they avoiding me or you?”

“That’s technically the appropriate stance whenever a superior officer approaches, but Keyran runs a pretty informal ship. In this case, they’re reacting to me because of you.”

“You wouldn’t really start a fight just because someone looked at me, would you?” Political correctness made her ask the question, but the thought of him feeling that strongly about her was perversely appealing.

“It would depend on where they looked and for how long.”

She smiled and they turned toward the left. She’d long since lost track of their path and just let him lead her.

“Any perimeter wall can be transformed into a viewport.” He paused before a seemingly unadorned section of the hallway and issued the Rodyte command for open. The pearlescent pattern within the surface of the wall slowly rotated, stretched, then stabilized, forming a familiar image. He spoke a different command and the scene expanded, spreading from floor to ceiling and the entire length of the corridor.

Paralyzed by wonder, Ashley looked at Earth, a vivid blue sphere with swirling clouds, identifiable land masses and endless stretches of ocean. Beyond the convex surface a bright light glowed, half-hidden by the planet. “Is that the sun?”

“Yes. Sunsets appear a bit different from this perspective.”

With a multi-layer corona and distinct spikes, the sun looked much more like a star than the blinding circle she was used to seeing. Images like this had been featured on TV and the internet for years, but this was more immersive, more breathtaking.

“I’m here.” She shook her head, unable to drag her gaze away from the captivating view. “I’m looking down on the world from a spaceship.” He didn’t rush her, allowed her to soak it all in.

As the awe mellowed to fascination, other thoughts crept into her mind, darker associated images that intruded on the tranquility. She didn’t want to taint the experience, but resentment and anger had a way of oozing through hairline fractures and widening even the slimmest gap.

She wrapped her arms around herself and stared out at the fantastical scene, no longer attune to its beauty. “I remember sitting in a locked ward, alone and shattered, feeling as if the universe had betrayed me. I knew what I’d seen. My father sure as hell knew aliens were real. But no one would listen. No one defended me.”

He moved up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “You’re not alone now and I will lay down my life to defend you.”

She crossed her arms over his, drawing strength from his nearness. “Mom let those monsters lock me up and systematically dismantle my self-confidence. They made me doubt everything I said, everything I knew I’d seen.” She pressed back into his warmth, used his love to push away the darkness. “I began to wonder if they were right. Maybe I had imagined it all. Maybe I was just acting out because I knew my father was leaving.” She took a deep breath and let anger burn away the memories. “But I was right.” She sounded much stronger now. She
was
stronger now. “I was never crazy.”

“You were never crazy,” he stressed then hugged her as he pressed a kiss into her hair.

“Enough of this.” She turned around, twisting out of his arms in the process. “Are there shuttle pods or smaller transports? Is bio-streaming the only way on or off the ship?”