Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling 14)

“Vasic took him to the valley,” Ivy said with a smile. “He’s great with the children.” Posts finally in position, she asked Zaira to hold up the trellis while she poured in the fast-acting eco-plascrete that would set it in place.

“Tears are a release,” the empath said as she worked. “Think of it as your body flushing emotional toxins.”

“Aden said that, too.”

“How do you feel now, after the tears?” Ivy finished one post, moved to the second.

“As if I’m walking on thin ice and could crash through at any moment, but I can do my job.” She turned her eyes to the orchard, the trees bright with new green leaves. “Aden needs me to be strong, to be sane.”

Rising to her feet, Ivy said, “Aden just needs you.” A soft statement potent with empathic power. “He’s always been so alone, Zaira, deep inside where even Vasic couldn’t reach.”

“It’s the responsibility.” He carried an impossible amount on his shoulders, had done so since he was a child. “Have you ever met his parents?”

“Only once.”

“They’re relentless,” Zaira said. “Nothing matters but the squad. Nothing.” Not even their son. “They taught Aden it was his responsibility to lead the rebellion and then they left him.” Just abandoned him for their cause. “He was a child.” Zaira’s rage burned.

Reaching over, Ivy touched her fingers to Zaira’s cheek. “I can take some of your anger away temporarily, but the truth is that it’s a part of you. You have to learn to manage it.”

“Can it be done?” Zaira looked into Ivy’s coppery eyes, knowing Ivy was too honest to be able to hide her true reaction. “Or am I insane?” All this time, she hadn’t asked the question because she thought she knew the answer, and it wasn’t one she wanted to know. Now she had to fight this enemy and, to do so, she needed to know its face.

“I have to read you,” Ivy said, voice gentle.

Bracing herself, Zaira nodded. There was, however, no feeling of intrusion even as Ivy’s eyes turned obsidian in a display of quiet power, the black streaming with sparks of color Zaira might not have expected if she hadn’t seen the eyes and minds of other empaths. The PsyNet was already “infected.” Rather than being the stark black-and-white landscape it had been for so long, it was now a black sea webbed with fine gold strands, the space in between glittering with stubborn glints of color.

“It’s not working,” Ivy said at last, rubbing her fingers over her temples. “Your shields are significant and, I think, instinctive on such a deep level that asking you to force them down will only hurt you.” Eyes still an obsidian shimmering with color, she held Zaira’s gaze. “What I can tell you is that I get no sense of ‘wrongness’ from you, for lack of a better word. I’ve always sensed that with the mentally ill.”

Zaira wanted to cling to that, but while she might not be insane in the truest sense of the word, her violent, uncontrollable rages were so close as not to matter. Her pathological possessiveness toward Aden was less of a monster now that he’d chosen to be psychically connected to her, but the rage was as powerful as ever. “Can you teach me how to handle my anger?”

Ivy closed her hand over Zaira’s, the empathic warmth of her soaking into Zaira’s cells. “We’ll do it together,” she said, the words a promise. “I have faith that the girl who chose to stop crying at three years of age has the will to conquer this demon.”

Blind faith. And love.

•   •   •

ADEN returned to the valley after spending several hours in New York. Say what you would about Blake, the man was one hell of an Arrow as far as his skills went—he was trapped, but he wasn’t giving up. Frustrated by the lack of success in hauling the murderous bastard in, Aden wanted to find Zaira, talk the entire op over with her, but she’d made it clear she wanted time alone, and she’d be the first to tell him that their needs didn’t trump the needs of Arrow young.

“Cubs need to see their alpha,” Remi had told him. “It’s about family, about feeling safe.”

So though his soul hungered for Zaira, he changed into casual gear and walked through the valley, taking in the completed houses and the ones still going up. The air was cool but not cold, and though the very young were already asleep, older children sat studying by windows and he saw a hesitant game of football in progress in the open green space.

“Sir.” They stopped when he neared.

“Go on,” he said, and when they seemed stiff and unsure, he thought of that phone call with Judd, of cubs and adults and alphas. “Do you have room for a new player?”

Their astonishment was so great it penetrated fairly strong Silence training. “You, sir?” asked the girl who seemed the oldest.

“Yes. What are the rules?”

He played with them for an hour, aware of the gathering crowd of other teens and adult Arrows—including his mother, who’d moved into the valley with his father. But not the one person for whom he watched. His gut was in a knot. He knew there was a chance Zaira might never return to him. When he’d left her to head to New York, she’d been distant, curled into herself, and her mind, it hadn’t connected with his.

Even now, it was empty inside his skull, her fire missing.

“Goal!”

Ruffling the hair of the boy who’d scored, Aden said, “I think you all need to get to bed.”