Shield of Winter (Nalini Singh) (53 page)

Breaking their handclasp, he closed his fingers over her nape, his thumb brushing her skin in a quiet caress. “I don’t know how to play games of courtship. I can learn if that’s what you need.”

Rabbit’s leash dropping from her hand, she swiveled to face him. “No, I want you to be you.” An Arrow who said what he meant and who didn’t speak except when he had something to say. “I want you to be you,” she repeated in a whisper, her hands clenched tight in his T-shirt. “I want to make mistakes with you, learn how to be in a relationship with you.”

Vasic stroked his thumb over her skin again, his hair gleaming blue-black in the ray of sunshine that pierced the canopy, his skin golden. “I’m used to working with plans, with blueprints,” he said, “but observation of the other races tells me life doesn’t come with a blueprint.” The Psy had attempted to change that, create rules, but all that had done was buy them a little time before the inevitable crash. “We have to make the plan ourselves.”

Ivy, his empath who’d wrenched him out of the gray numbness in which he’d existed and into a world of vibrant color, reached up to play her fingers through his hair. “Samuel Rain,” she said, determined fury in every word, “is going to come through. I will believe
nothing
else.”

Vasic had never been afraid of death, but now he fought the idea of it with every breath in his body. “I could kidnap him,” he said, his hands on her hips. “Force him to work on the gauntlet under threat of being left in a jungle full of his favorite primates.”

Ivy’s laugh was a little wet. “I don’t think anything could make that man do something he didn’t want to do.” A kiss so tender, it enslaved him.

“But,” she whispered against his lips, “if he doesn’t get back to us soon, I’m going to pay him a visit.” Her eyes glinted in readiness for battle. “Rain is about as brain damaged as I am, and it’s time he stopped playing games.”

“Woof!”

Vasic kissed her the way she’d kissed him, before releasing her from his hold. “I believe the other male in your life wants some attention.”

A smile in the copper eyes that had been raw with pain since his overload—pain she tried to hide from him but couldn’t, her face without shields—she turned to pick up the stick Rabbit had dropped at her feet. Unclipping the leash while she was hunkered down, she wrapped it loosely around her left hand and stood.

“Come on, Rabbit”—she threw the stick—“fetch!”

As Vasic watched her encourage their ecstatic pet, her delight music in the air, he said, “This wasn’t meant to be my future,” to the man who walked up to join him.

Aden had arrived in the city on a high-speed jet-chopper a half hour ago. Now, his partner stood with his gloved hands on either side of the tailored black winter coat he wore open over a suit of the same color, his shirt white. It was camouflage for an urban environment.

“Are you sorry for the change?”

“No.” Not far from them, Ivy lavished Rabbit with affectionate praise when he ran back with the stick. “I’ll never be sorry for Ivy.” He’d fight the world for her, and he’d battle like a gladiator against the results of his formerly self-destructive instincts. “There’s one more option we haven’t explored when it comes to the gauntlet.” It was something he’d realized during the outbreak this morning, when Dev Santos’s team had taken primary responsibility for ensuring calm. “The Forgotten have certain unusual gifts.”

“I already checked it out.” Aden’s eyes followed Ivy’s arm as she took the stick from Rabbit after a play fight and threw it again. “Their medical tech has gone in a different direction. Santos did say he might be able to assist using an ability about which he’d tell me nothing.”

Vasic braced himself for bad news. It could be nothing else if Aden hadn’t already shared it with him.

“He did a field test in the aftermath of the outbreak, while you were both in close proximity.” Aden glanced at him, shook his head. “Whatever his ability, he says it’s too rough yet to work with such complex computronics.”

Having processed the information as Aden gave it to him, Vasic moved on. Time was the one commodity he didn’t have. “Keep the surgeon on standby. I don’t know if the gauntlet is going to last the full eight weeks Bashir initially predicted.”

Aden didn’t argue with his order. “Have you told Ivy the risks?”

“Yes.” Vasic paused. All his life, he’d shared data with Aden almost automatically—his relationship with his empath, however, was new territory.
Ivy,
he said telepathically,
will it break your trust if I talk to Aden about our relationship?

She shot him a look over her shoulder, eyes bright.
No. I plan to complain about you to Jaya.
Laughter in her mental voice as she turned back to watch their courageous little dog race toward her.
Just don’t go into detail about how we make love.
A pause, her body suddenly motionless.
What exactly did you ask Judd Lauren? Only about the control issue or—

He sent me his research file on sex.

Vasic could see her turning red even from this distance. Her mental groan was mortified.
I will never be able to look him in the eye again,
she said, face in her hands.
Fine, talk to Aden about it if he needs the information. I hope he does . . . I hope he finds what we have.

So did Vasic. “Ivy,” he said to the other man, “expects me to talk to her, and so I do. I’m learning not to keep secrets.”

Strands of Aden’s straight black hair slid across his forehead in an undemanding breeze that didn’t dislodge the snow from the branches above. “Is it difficult?”

“Sometimes.” Vasic didn’t always do the right thing, but with Ivy, that never meant rejection. She wanted to make mistakes with him, was forgiving of his own. “Being with her is the most complex, most fascinating operation of my life.”

And it was one he knew would only grow more intricate with time. “Some would say this is the punishment for my crimes,” he said into the quiet broken by Rabbit’s excited bark as he ran for the stick again. “To be given happiness only to have my own choices steal it from me.”

His friend looked at him. “Is that what you believe?”

“No.” Once he might have. No longer. Because to do so would be to believe Ivy was being punished, too—and his Ivy had done nothing to deserve the pain that made her cry in her sleep.

Each tear was a drop of acid directly on his soul.

“The recent media coverage of you,” Aden said into the silence that had fallen between them. “Can you handle it?”

“It doesn’t concern me.” Vasic didn’t need to be underground, not like those of his brethren whose lives would be placed at risk should those men and women be identified as members of the squad.

“No.” Aden reached down to pick up Rabbit’s stick when the dog raced over to drop it at his feet. “Can you handle being the public face of the squad?” Throwing the stick past Ivy, he dusted the snow off his hands.

Vasic stared at his partner, Aden’s words making no sense. “We don’t have a public profile, and if we did, you’re the best one to take that position.”

“The decision is now out of our hands.” Taking a thin datapad from his pocket, he passed it to Vasic just as Ivy returned to them.

She leaned against his side to look at the screen, her cheeks glowing and a panting Rabbit resting at her feet. Every inch of Vasic’s body was sensitized to her presence, her warmth seeping into his cells to ease the ice-cold places inside him, the soft curve of her breast pressed against his upper arm. With any other woman, it would’ve been an intrusion. With Ivy, it felt natural . . . normal.

Shifting his arm, he wrapped it around her shoulders.

“That’s an incredible photo.”

He followed the copper and gold of her gaze to see that the image on the datapad was of him. He had a baby cradled against his chest and a hand shoved out behind him as he held off two of the infected armed with broken glass bottles. Blood dripped from his temple where he’d taken a hit at some point, and his T-shirt was torn, the gauntlet visible because he’d taken off his jacket to wrap the infant in it, having caught her as she was thrown off a third-story balcony in an act of insane violence.

“What do you see when you see that photo?” Aden asked, his question directed at Ivy.

“Vasic being the strong, extraordinary man he is.” She rose on tiptoe, and Vasic angled his head down. Her lips brushed over his jaw.

Aden took in the interaction, wondered if his partner had any comprehension of just how far he’d come. “If you didn’t feel positive emotions toward him already,” he said to the woman who was Vasic’s, “what would you see?”

Ivy focused on the image again, frowned. “I’d see the same. A strong man protecting the vulnerable.”

“That is what the wider population sees as well.” Tapping the datapad, he brought up the hereto hidden headline:
“A Silent Hero.”

There was more, the feature article illustrated not only with that first image, but with several others of Vasic taken during the recent outbreaks—as well as a photograph from when he’d rendered assistance after a bomb blast masterminded by Pure Psy in Copenhagen and another from the group’s attack in Geneva.

Vasic was wearing his Arrow uniform in both those photos.

“The media has connected you to the squad,” Aden said, “and by doing that, they’ve given the squad a face, a name.”

“We don’t play for the media, Aden. Even if that’s to change, I’m the last person you should put in that position.”

Ivy spread her hand on Vasic’s chest, her smile rueful. “I adore him,” she said to Aden, “but he’s right. Vasic’s not exactly the chatty media type.” Her eyes danced. “In fact, I’m not sure he knows how to chat at all.”

Vasic squeezed her. “I’m going to find a manual.”

Bursting out in laughter at what seemed a reasonable statement to Aden, Ivy tried to speak, gave up. “Sorry,” she said almost a minute later, her voice still tremulous with laughter and inexplicable tears rolling down her face. “Your partner has a sly sense of humor.”

I didn’t know you had a sense of humor.

I appear to be growing one.
Vasic shifted back to vocal speech after using his thumb to wipe away Ivy’s tears. “The media. Why?”

“We need to adapt,” Aden said in an echo of the promise the entire squad had made when Silence was about to fall.

To adapt. To survive.

“The squad has always been a shadow in the Net,” he continued, “the whip used to terrify the population. Right now, people are in shock, but sooner or later, if we survive this infection, things will come to an equilibrium.” Aden met eyes of copper ringed with gold, then those of cool gray. “When that happens, people will seek someone to blame.” The psychology of it was clear-cut. “We’re a big target.”

“No one can touch us,” Vasic replied.

“No, but they can touch those who are our own.” Aden looked deliberately at Ivy.

Chapter 54

“IF ANYONE IN
the squad intends to have a life beyond Silence, we need to rehabilitate”—Aden paused, conscious of the incongruity of using that word—“the perception seeded into the minds of the population that we’re murderers and assassins. That might be true, but it isn’t going to be useful going forward.”

Ivy’s eyebrows drew together. “Don’t call the squad that,” she said, her voice fierce. “Don’t say it about yourself, either.”

Aden held Ivy’s gaze. “We’re killers, Ivy. That can’t be altered.”

Aden.
Vasic shook his head very slightly.
Don’t remind her of something she appears to have forgotten.

But it was too late, Ivy stepping forward to face Aden. “You were assassins, black ops, whatever you want to call it. You took orders. And yes, you should take responsibility for your actions, but you were also drafted as
children
and programmed
to take those orders, do those acts.” Voice low and intense, she continued before he could interrupt. “That gives you the right to cut yourselves some slack. You’re trying to change things now—you’ve put your lives on the line again and again and again to help the defenseless.”

“At what point,” Aden said, “is that enough to erase the past?”

“Never,” Ivy said softly. “We all have to live with our past, but it doesn’t have to define us.” She shoved a hand through her hair, her loose ponytail unraveling to leave her face haloed in curls. “What you’re doing now that you’ve broken the chains? Those are the real choices, the ones that
will
define you.”

Vasic looked from one to the other. Ivy, who reached parts of him he hadn’t known had survived until her. Aden, who’d refused to consign him to the abyss. They were the two most important parts of his life, and now they stood with him, Ivy’s fierce refusal to let him fall—let any of them fall—coming up against Aden’s iron will.

“Why fight for us?” Aden asked, his tone quiet. “Vasic, I understand. He’s yours. Why do the rest of us matter?”

“Because you’re his family, and because whatever you may have done, you paid the price for it in the kind of pain no child should have to bear, in not being allowed to even
exist
.” She touched her fingers to Aden’s shoulder. “Enough, Aden.” It was a gentle plea. “This isn’t only about rehabilitating the public’s image of the squad, but your own image of yourself and your Arrows.”