Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling 14)

Remi’s eyes remained leopard as he stared at her, but the growl was gone from his voice when he said, “You couldn’t lay a finger on her before you’d be dead.” Absolute conviction. “The fact that you’d warn me about yourself tells me that even if we had trusted you, we’d have been right to do so. Do you kill children, Zaira?”

“No, only adults.” Ming LeBon had twice ordered her to retrieve a child he’d wanted to experiment on. Both times, Zaira had seen to the child’s safety, well aware Ming needed her covert skills too much to punish her for her actions.

Remi’s lips curved, his gaze flicking to Aden. “Is she always this honest?”

“Yes,” Aden said from beside her, his shoulder brushing hers.

“Lying wastes energy.” Zaira ate another bite of toast. “Also, it’s pointless. No one would believe it if I smiled and wore frothy clothes and pretended to be helpless.” She was dead certain the alpha hadn’t fallen for her weak act in the infirmary so there was no point in carrying on the subterfuge.

Remi chuckled, the sound making Jojo laugh, her face smeared with the spread on her toast. The sound was high, soft, and it was a sound Zaira had never heard from an Arrow child. She didn’t know if children with vicious psychic abilities could ever be this carefree, but as she watched Jojo laugh, she began to truly understand Aden’s vision for the squad.

•   •   •

ADEN didn’t monitor Zaira while he conversed with Remi. He knew she wouldn’t harm the child. Because Zaira, as she’d said herself, wasn’t a psychopath. She was simply wired differently. Put her in charge of a group of children and she probably wouldn’t touch them or comfort them without prompting. But she’d make sure they were protected from all harm, even if it meant giving up her own life. Not because they were children, but because they were weaker than her.

Zaira’s weakness was weakness.

If she was sent against a target who was vulnerable to the extent that she considered the person unfair prey, she wouldn’t move. She might assassinate a pedophilic CEO without an eyeblink, but she’d refuse to touch a teacher who had angered someone in power. Then there was the hacker she’d saved even though the younger woman had been attempting to break into Arrow Central Command, and the outwardly respectable doctor she’d executed.

It had turned out the doctor was killing vulnerable patients after getting them to sign over their estates to him. Unlike in that case, Aden didn’t always understand the judgments Zaira made, but he knew that children were simply never on her hit list. Perhaps because she remembered the helpless child she’d once been, the one no one had helped and everyone had hurt.

“How’s the head?” Remi asked in a deceptively laid-back tone.

“Problematic,” Aden said, since it was clear the alpha had an idea something was seriously wrong.

An incisive look. “Yep, that’s the truth.” Seeing the question Aden didn’t ask, he shrugged those big shoulders. “For all I knew, you’d recovered and were staying here for reasons of your own. Spying maybe. What the hell for, I don’t know—we’re a dot in the ocean when it comes to changeling pack hierarchy.”

Aden had a feeling it wouldn’t remain that way. While he’d waited for Zaira to wake yesterday, he’d heard the alpha mention Lucas Hunter to Finn. The DarkRiver alpha was a power and he clearly respected Remi if RainFire had direct contact with him.

“I am spying in a sense,” Aden said, deciding to lay these cards on the table. “This is the first time any active Arrow has been inside a changeling pack.” Judd lived in one, but his loyalty to SnowDancer stopped him from sharing information about the pack with the squad.

“Nothing much to see.” Remi smiled thanks at an older packmate who gave him a mug of coffee on her way across the room. “We’re a big family.”

“A family with rules.”

“Of course.” Putting down the coffee after taking a long swig, he said, “You Psy, you think you’re the only ones with control issues, but we have these.” His claws sliced out to dig into the tabletop as if the hard wood was made of butter.

Jojo clapped. “Meow! Meow!”

Shoulders shaking, Remi shook his head. “We don’t go ‘meow, meow,’ Jojo. We go ‘grr.’”

“Grr.”

Remi retracted his claws to the little girl’s laughter. “Those claws are only the start of it. If two Psy fight, you might go mind to mind, but we go claw to tooth, can rip out each other’s throats if we’re not careful. That’s why we need rules.”

“No biting,” Jojo input into the conversation. “Bad Jojo.” A sad face.

Reaching over, Remi tapped her on the nose. “You took your punishment. You going to bite again?”

The little girl shook her head and lifted her arms.

Remi plucked her from Zaira’s lap and into his own, using a washed-soft white napkin to clean her face before holding her against his body . . . where she turned into sparkles of light. Aden watched, having never seen the transformation close-up. Beside him, he was aware of Zaira sitting stock-still. And then where the child had been was a very small leopard cub trying to climb up Remi’s body.

Laughing, the alpha lifted her up onto his shoulder, where she curled happily, her tail hanging down Remi’s chest. “There goes another set of pajamas,” he said, but his tone made it clear he wasn’t worried about the clothing loss.