Harlequin Nocturne March 2014 Bundle: Shadowmaster\Running with Wolves (13 page)

“Human?” he said, showing his teeth. She stared at his mouth, at the caps that made his incisors seem flush with his others.

“Yes,” she said. “And the government deported you. For being a dissenter, like your parents.”

He looked away, knowing he could never tell her the full truth. He could take his revenge on John Patterson if he was lucky, but his mission had to come first. During that week of respite from the Enforcers, he would do what he could to take the mayor down. If Patterson gained leadership of the Enclave after the revelation of his past misdeeds, he would inherit only chaos. Eventually, he would pay in full.

Like all the innocents who would suffer before the Enclave rebuilt itself...
if
it did before the Opiri Council came to an agreement and decided to attack.

He could still help some Fringers escape into the dubious
“freedom”
of the southern Zone. But not all would leave, and if the city fell those who remained would face lifelong serfdom.

You can stop,
he told himself.
You can still back out
.

“Tell me something,” Lark said, breaking into his thoughts. “Why do you look like a Daysider, or a normal human? The caps are obvious, but what about the rest of you? Are you some kind of mutation?”

In spite of himself, Drakon stiffened. He had felt a freak so long, from the moment Julius had converted him. But now, having lived among humans again for over a year...

“If I told you,” he said grimly, “I'd have to kill you.”

Chapter 13

It
was a very bad joke. Drakon knew that both he and Lark were considering the likelihood of this situation ending in the death of one or both of them.

But then again, they always had.

“You have a very strange sense of humor,” she said, “considering how many times the subject has come up under equally difficult circumstances.”

Drakon swallowed the apology hovering on his tongue. “Why don't you tell
me
if
your
story of losing your parents was true?”

Her eyes glistened. “It was. But my father wasn't sent on a suicide mission. He was simply a good operative who was killed in the field. And the Agency did raise me.”

“Like an estranged aunt?”

“I was different. But I found my place.”

Drakon wondered if she truly had. “Why were you looking for The Preacher when you came to the Fringe with your story of being hunted?” he asked. “Were you told he had some connection to Opir agents in the city?”

“No,” she said. “Not specifically. But I had to start somewhere, and we knew he was one of the most powerful Bosses in the city.”

“But not that he was also the worst?”

“I knew I could defend myself, and I could escape if I had to.”

He laughed, setting off another wave of pain. “If you were sent to expose Opir spies, why didn't you return to Aegis when you believed I was a Daysider? Did you think you could handle me alone?”

“I knew the odds of that were very much against me,” she said. “But I thought the risk was worth it.”

“You might still be able to get out of here,” he said harshly. “Warn the Enforcers.”

She met his gaze. “And sacrifice Matthew after all?”

“You can expose me to my crew,” he said, attempting to sit up.

“And Matthew would still die, at their hands.”

“So you'll present the bargain?”

“My mission is already compromised beyond recovery.”

“Given what I know of you, Lark, I wouldn't bet on it.” He eased himself back with a grimace. “Is Lark really your name?”

“It's Phoenix,” she said.

“Lark. Phoenix. One common bird, one mythically powerful.”

“I guess I couldn't get away from avians,” she said. “Is your name really Sammael?”

“An Opir can have many names in his lifetime,” he said. “It's as good as any.”

She would know he was evading her question. But he suspected that his true Opir name was already known by Aegis, though only through rumor. Rumor he'd always recognized might extend to suspicion that a killer from Erebus hid within the city.

Was it possible that suspicion had become certainty? Had Lark—Phoenix—been sent to find a very specific Opir agent? A Dragon to her mythical bird?

“You need more water,” she said suddenly, retrieving the glass and kneeling beside him again. “And I know you'll need blood to complete your healing. You'd better tell me where your cache is.”

He shook his head.

“Could it be you regret what you're doing?” she asked, leaning toward him. “Do you want to die?”

He flinched at the sound of her voice expressing the thoughts he still didn't want to face.

“You remember what it's like to be human,” she said. “Did you return as a spy only because you expected you'd get a chance to take revenge on John Patterson?”

Now, Drakon thought, she was trying to trap him. He could see her struggling to make the right decision, wondering what questions she dared ask.

“Come here, Phoenix,” he said.

She stared at him as if he'd gone mad. “So you can strangle me? Break my neck?”

“I believe I once told you that I would never touch you against your will,” he said, meaning it with all his heart. “Are you willing now?”

She got up and sat on the edge of the bed, careful not to jar him. Heedless of the discomfort, Drakon clamped his arms around her waist, pulled her hard against his chest and kissed her. The pain was nothing to the ecstasy of holding her. She melted against him, speared her fingers in his hair and straddled his hips. She was no more gentle with him than he was with her. His cock swelled to its full size almost instantly.

Phoenix obviously felt the change. She rubbed herself against him, teasing him through the thin barrier of the sheets as he deepened the kiss. He ignored the pain in his arms and shoulders, pulling at her shirt with thick, clumsy fingers, running his palms up the skin of her belly and ribs, finding her breasts bare underneath. She tilted back her head, offering. Offering him everything.

He moaned with lust, for her body and her blood, and suddenly Phoenix stiffened. She wrenched herself free, and he swallowed a grunt of pain.

“God,” she said, panic in her eyes. “I've hurt you!”

Drakon burst into a laugh of frustration and disbelief. “Yes,” he said, catching his breath.

“Don't!” she ordered. “I could have—”

He grabbed for the only part of her he could reach, clamping his fingers around her wrist. “That was nothing,” he said. “And I wasn't groaning in pain.”

She stared at the one part of him that refused to concede defeat. The sheet might as well not have been there at all. She pulled free of his grip.

“I can't believe you were trying to seduce me in
your
condition,” she said, breathless with emotion she was fighting to control.

“Seduce you?” he said, nearly as breathless. “You were the one on top of
me
.”

“I wasn't... I didn't—” Phoenix broke off and clamped her lips together. Those lips Drakon had just kissed, and wanted to keep kissing until...

“I will give you one more chance,” he said quietly. “You can get out of the Hold before anyone in the crew knows what you've done. You might even be able to get Matthew out as well. If you don't, I will do exactly what I vowed to do. I'll make sure the Citadel's mission is carried out.”

And, in that moment, he
wanted
her to stop him. To relieve him of his pain, his rage, his all-consuming guilt. Wanted her to end it, so he wouldn't complete his mission, wouldn't become what he had once hated so much.

He would stop hating. Stop caring. Stop remembering.

“If you don't do it,” he said, “you'll always wonder if you could have stopped the Enclave from crashing down around you.”

* * *

That was the moment Phoenix knew.

“Many names,”
Sammael had said. He wasn't merely a link in a chain, passing on information, protecting his fellow spies. This Opir
knew what Erebus had planned for the mayor.

He knew because he
was
the assassin.

She sat down hard on the chair. “What was your real name?” she asked. “When you were human?”

“Charles. Charles Cruise.”

“And now?”

He smiled, as if he found something secretly amusing in the midst of so much horror. “In ancient Chinese mythology,” he said, “the Phoenix was the feminine symbol used to represent beauty and good luck. She was yin to the yang of the dragon, the symbol of power and good fortune.”

“Good fortune?” she said, gasping out a laugh. “But you're not here to bring good fortune to the Enclave, are you...Drakon?”

“Ironic, isn't it? The two together symbolized a fruitful marriage.”

He wasn't even trying to pretend. He must always have suspected that Aegis knew the name of the potential assassin, though obviously he'd been right in believing they knew little more than that. He also knew that she'd lost control of her very real attraction to him—a
Nightsider,
no matter what his appearance.

And
she
was certain that, deep in his converted heart, he didn't want to go through with his mission.

Maybe it was only wishful thinking of the worst kind. But whatever she might feel for him—or he for her, if any Opir could really feel anything of affection or love—wouldn't matter at all if she lost this chance he'd given her. If she ignored the sacrifice he was willing to make.

“Fruitful?” she said, unable to conceal the agonizing turmoil of her emotions. “There's no hope of that now.” She moved just out of his reach, breathing fast. “I'm sure you've guessed by now that I was sent to track down the assassin we knew was stalking the city.”

“And you, only half-dhampir, were supposed to catch him?”

“No. I was supposed to return once I had a solid idea of how we might find him or her. Once I realized you were Opir, I knew you had to be connected somehow. I chose to remain, hoping to learn more.”

“To prove yourself?” he asked. “To show you're as good as any of the true dhampires?”

He knew her. How well he knew her.

“What about you?” she said. “What are
you,
Drakon? You've never behaved like a Nightsider who only cares about humans as slaves and sources of food. You—”

“I
am
one of them,” he said flatly.

“Against your will. Like all the other deportees, you started as a serf in the Citadel—”

“And was Claimed by an Opir who treated his human slaves with decency. Who believed they were more than animals. I wasn't well educated before I went to Erebus. By the time I became his vassal, I knew more about both human and Opir history than most humans learn in their entire lives.”

“But you're not a vassal now,” she said.

“I'm a Freeblood,” he said, “able to make my own choices.”

She was quiet a moment, thinking things through. “I understand your desire to get revenge on Patterson,” she said. “But what about Shepherd? Drakon, I want to understand.”

“What does it matter?”

“It matters to
me
.”

He sighed. “I told you the Bloodlord who Claimed me in Erebus became my mentor,” he said. “But he was more like a father to me. Julius believed, as I did, that there must be a way to communicate with the Enclave—not via diplomats or small acts of aggression, but through the agents who actually patrol the Zone. Agents of Aegis and the Council, meeting in peace.”

“He sounds like a...good man,” Phoenix said softly.

Drakon seemed not to hear her. “Many Opiri in the Citadel had begun to question the Expansionists who wanted a new war, but some of these dissenters recognized the possible benefits of tearing down the old and rebuilding, even if it might lead to a smaller war.”

A smaller war,
Phoenix thought with a shudder. “Political expediency,” she said, “meant to stop something even worse.”

“As in the Enclave.” He clenched his teeth. “My Sire sent me out to warn Enclave agents. But Julius learned that the Expansionists on the Council had acted alone and had sent their own operatives to kill any Opiri in the Zone who were not explicitly authorized to be there. He risked his own life to warn me. But Aegis captured him, tortured him and left him for dead. I found him and held him while he died of his wounds and exposure to the sun. There was hardly anything left of him but charred skin and bone.”

“My God,” Phoenix whispered. “I can't believe that any agent—”

“Can't you?” He sat up, jaw set against the pain. “I was taught, like all humans, that Opiri are unfailingly evil. Even dhampires, who work for the Enclave, aren't completely trusted here because of their Nightsider blood. There are agents who are more than happy to torment an Opir prisoner, even if it isn't officially condoned.”

“I don't believe it,” Phoenix said, turning cold. “I've known a lot of agents. Good agents. Good people. What you're saying—”

“I saw what they did with my own eyes.”

“And my father was killed by one of yours!”

“Did they torture him first?”

Phoenix drew her legs up to her chest and hugged them tightly. “They must have wanted information from Julius, even if...if they—”

“I never found out,” Drakon said coldly. “Julius was unable to speak at the end. But afterward, I tracked the Enclave agents. I learned who was responsible.”

“Aaron Shepherd,” she whispered.

“He was on the committee setting and overseeing Aegis policy at the time. I learned from one of the agents I questioned that he had authorized more stringent methods against enemy operatives in the Zone because of certain intelligence he had received about the Citadel's plans.”

Phoenix was nearly beyond shock. “I can understand...why he might authorize more stringent methods in the Zone, where agents' lives are at stake,” she said, her voice shaking. “But to approve...to approve of torture, and murder—”

She'd still been in love with Aaron when he was on the committee, Phoenix thought, feeling the bile rise in her throat as she remembered how happy she'd been then, thinking—hoping—the two of them might marry one day.

“I didn't know,” she said. “I'm so sorry.”

“For the death of a Bloodlord, one of the detested enemy, who hasn't been human for thousands of years?”

“Yes,” she said. “He was good to you.”

“Better than any human I'd ever known except my real parents and my...my own family.”

“And so Shepherd has to die. And you'll make Patterson suffer. Was that part of your mission?”

“Vengeance is an emotion Opiri share with humans,” he said. “They trusted me all the more because of my personal motives.”

“Is that why they chose you?”

He met her gaze, his own almost blank. “I'm an expert marksman. The best there is.”

“You learned that in Erebus?”

He didn't answer. Phoenix's mind cleared, and her thoughts began to race.

“What if Shepherd could be brought down another way?” she asked.

“Would you let him be brought down, Phoenix?”

No,
she thought.
Not even for you. Not even knowing what he's done.
“I know you plan to try for the mayor during that week I'm supposed to buy from the Enforcers,” she said. “But you're not a killer, Drakon, no matter what I thought at first. You'd never have let me get near enough to touch you if you were. I'd be dead.” She unfolded her body and rose again. “You can still ruin Patterson. And then you can disappear, until the government is convinced the danger is over.”