Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling 14)

Ivy leaned back to reach up and stroke his hair off his face, her gaze potent with emotion. “He’s your brother.” She swallowed past the thickness in her voice. “And he’s our family.”

She understood; she’d always understood. Never had she begrudged him his friendship with Aden. Never had she failed to include Aden in their new family.

Love isn’t finite, she’d told him, it is infinite and it has infinite facets.

“I love him, too,” she whispered. “Even though he’s a year younger than you, he’s like a big brother.”

“Yes.” Vasic cupped the back of her head. “Aden’s always been older than he should be.” Always carried too much weight on his shoulders.

“And Zaira.” Ivy’s hand fisted against his chest. “She plays with Rabbit, you know.”

“What?” He’d never seen the commander throw so much as a stick for his and Ivy’s pet, had always thought she was too deep in Silence to pay attention to the needs of a small white dog.

Ivy nodded against him, fine strands of her hair catching against his jacket. “I’ve seen her when she thinks no one is watching. She’ll play-fight for his stick with him, and once, I saw her give him a treat she must’ve bought herself.”

Raw hope grew in his heart, dulled only by the dark fact that both Aden and Zaira were missing. “Is she capable of breaking Silence?” He’d never forget the defiant, bruised, and bloodied girl he and Aden had first met, the girl Aden had stayed in touch with even when he and Vasic had been transferred to a training facility on a different continent.

Vasic and Aden had shared so much growing up, but Aden’s relationship with Zaira was and had always been, separate. Vasic had never questioned it, seeing it simply as Aden being Aden and keeping an eye on a member of the squad who needed it. That was before Ivy. Being bonded to an empath had given him new eyes; he’d begun to glimpse odd inconsistencies in Aden’s interactions with Zaira, things that didn’t line up with his behavior when it came to the rest of the squad.

Vasic hadn’t said anything but he hoped that his friend would find with Zaira what Vasic had found with Ivy. He wanted that for Aden, wanted him to know what it was to find home in his lover’s eyes. Even more, he wanted the laughter for Aden, the joy of figuring out how to navigate this new territory of love and affection and tactile contact that wasn’t about pain or training or anything but pleasure. The only problem Vasic had foreseen was Zaira herself—the Venetian commander had never shown any signs of desiring a life beyond Silence.

“Zaira’s shields are so strong I never pick up anything,” Ivy told him, running a hand up and down his back in a petting gesture she didn’t seem to be aware of making but that was deeply familiar to him by now. “I don’t know if she feels or even wants to feel, but anyone with the capacity to be kind to a small animal who can offer her no advantage, has a heart.” Ivy looked up, a sheen of emotion in her eyes that punched him in the heart. “She has this blunt and deeply honest way of looking at the world. No filters.”

“You’re friends,” he said, the realization a surprise.

Ivy wiped at her eyes. “Not yet, but we’re getting there. I really like her even if she keeps telling me I have the survival skills of a newborn puppy,” she added with a wet laugh. “She’s planning to teach me self-defense moves tailored to my size and weight.”

“Did you tell her I’m already giving you lessons?”

A shaky smile. “She said the things you’re teaching me are fine if I plan to grow a foot and put on ninety pounds of muscle. Otherwise, I need to move smarter and be more sneaky.”

He felt his lips curve slightly. “Yes, that sounds like Zaira.” Pressing his forehead to Ivy’s when she drew in trembling breath, Vasic cupped her face in his hand. “You said it—they’re tough. They’ll survive and we’ll find them.”

“I know.” Ivy closed her fingers over his wrist. “I just hope they’re not being hurt.” Anger and worry and frustration. “It’s enough, Vasic. Enough. Why can’t the world just leave the Arrows in peace?”

Vasic had no answer for her, but he knew his next move. “I’m going to head to Venice,” he said, continuing to hold her face in his hand, her skin so soft under his touch and her love so sweetly fierce that he was astonished all over again that he had the right to hold her, to call her his own. “We still aren’t certain where Aden was taken, but Zaira’s team has pinpointed the exact location of her abduction.”

“I’ll come with you.” Ivy pressed her palms to his chest, his empath who was so generous with touch, with affection. “I might be able to help some of Zaira’s people. Especially Alejandro—he’s not functional without her.”

•   •   •

IVY had been right to worry about Alejandro.

The Arrow, who was only in his twenties, had imprinted on Zaira after his brain reset following an overdose of a drug Ming LeBon had used to turn Arrows into mindless weapons. As a result of Zaira’s absence, he was in a violent rage. Corralled in a secure room in the Venetian compound, he was crashing his body repeatedly against the door in an effort to get out.

“Be careful,” Vasic told Ivy, well aware she had a full measure of the empathic tendency to give too much, even at the cost of her own safety. “His brain is compromised. He may not react to empathic help in a predictable way.”