Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling 14)

Vasic’s winter-frost eyes darkened. “I’ll go find him.”

“Wait. Don’t bring Marjorie and Naoshi,” Zaira ordered, knowing Aden wouldn’t want his parents to see him when he wasn’t at full strength.

Walker was different.

Zaira didn’t understand parental or maternal connections, but she’d felt Aden’s emotions for Walker, knew the other man held a deeply trusted place in his life.

“No,” Vasic agreed before leaving.

It took him precisely seven minutes to return with Walker Lauren. Zaira knew because she kept looking at her timepiece and calculating how long Aden had been in surgery. Too long.

Chapter 78

WALKER’S FACE WAS grim, his pale green eyes hard as he processed what Vasic had just told him. And yet, despite his obvious anger and worry, his presence was oddly stabilizing. Just like Aden’s in similar situations. Father and son, Zaira thought.

Genetics didn’t matter here. Walker and Aden had chosen their relationship.

Shoving up the sleeves of his blue shirt, Walker began to walk with Zaira, and when she asked him about Aden’s abilities, he said, “I met him as a boy of six. So calm and strong and determined, and with the beginnings of what we named the mirror.”

“You helped him shield it.”

“At first, I simply grasped the subtlety of his telepathy,” Walker said. “You know what he can do with it?”

“Yes, the Amplification Effect.” Because Aden had two abilities close to the midrange, he could amplify one to a higher Gradient. Not everyone with two midlevel abilities could do it, but in his case, the effect pushed his telepathy into the 8.3 range.

“No one even considered him capable of it because his M abilities register at 3.2. That’s extremely low for amplification.”

Zaira knew all this, but she didn’t care. Having Walker talk about Aden while Vasic listened and she asked further questions made Zaira feel as if they were surrounding Aden in their words, words that would remind him who he was to so many people, words that would hold him here. “He didn’t think he could do it himself, not until you taught him.”

“I recognized him, in a sense.” Walker frowned. “His telepathy is like mine in that it’s . . . quiet. That’s taken as weak by some when the opposite is true—trained correctly, we can work with such stealth that no one notices our intrusion.” He ran a hand through the dark blond strands of his hair, faint glints of silver catching the light.

“But it was the mirror that was the critical thing—I realized that at once as soon as I saw it, though it took me months to win his trust enough that he lowered his shields so we could work on the psychic level.” Walker would never forget the boy Aden had been, so wary and careful. “Then, the mirror was embryonic, hardly visible. It was why he hadn’t already been discovered.”

“He once told me he began to trust you the second week of class,” Vasic said quietly. “A child broke down in tears during a reading session and instead of berating or punishing her, you wiped away her tears and read her part of the text for her.”

Walker didn’t remember that particular incident, but he’d dealt with many like it. “They were all so tired and hurt and tiny.” He shook his head. “Aden was the same age, but he was already looking out for the others.”

“When he wakes,” Zaira said, her voice fierce, “I’ll allow him no arguments. I’m doing the looking after even if I have to tie him up.”

“I’ll help you with the rope,” Vasic said.

Walker looked across to the teleporter. “Aden didn’t know what the mirror was as a child and neither did I.” All he’d known was that it was unique and that it sang of power. Instinct had told him he needed to teach Aden to hide it so the boy wouldn’t be forced to use it for those who had less integrity in their entire adult bodies than Aden had in his littlest finger. “When did he figure it out?”

“We were twelve,” Vasic said. “Aden was in anti-interrogation training.”

Translation: he was being tortured.

Zaira’s teeth ground down, hands fisted. Sensing Walker’s tension, she realized he, too, had understood the truth behind Vasic’s words.

“The trainer made a mistake,” the teleporter continued. “Aden realized the man was about to accidentally snap his neck. He couldn’t stop him telepathically, not with his abilities leashed, so he says he instinctively reached for power.” Vasic’s tone was so even, Zaira knew he had vicious control on himself. “I felt him and didn’t resist the power draw. I knew Aden would never do something like that unless he was in danger.”

And that, Zaira thought, was why she had always trusted Vasic. Even when she’d been jealous of him, she’d known he wouldn’t hesitate to stand with Aden against any threat.

“The trainer didn’t realize Aden had gained strength?”

Vasic shook his head at Walker’s question. “My telekinesis gave him the power to twist out of the trainer’s hold. That sudden strength was attributed to a surge of adrenaline at being in danger.”

Zaira heard Walker and Vasic continue to talk, but her mind, it kept searching for Aden. Her chest got tighter and tighter with every failure to connect. Don’t you leave me alone, she commanded him again. Don’t you go.

A warm weight on her hair, Walker’s hand on the back of her head. “He’s strong,” the older telepath said. “Stubborn, too.”

She didn’t know why, but his calm tone, paired with the open emotion in his voice, smashed through her defenses. Maybe it was because of Aden’s memories of him, but she didn’t resist when he drew her into his arms, standing scared and angry and waiting against the warmth of him.