Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling 14)

Getting to his feet in a smooth motion that betrayed his strength, he unexpectedly didn’t push the point. “Rest,” he said. “We’re both weaker than we should be.”

Zaira knew the discussion wasn’t over, but she could use the respite to regroup. “You need to rest, too.” Aden had a tendency to put the squad first, forgetting about himself in the process. “There’s no need to stand watch—if the changelings meant us harm, they had plenty of time to take action while we were out, and no one from the outside can get in through the storm.”

Aden walked to the right side of the bed as she headed to the left and slipped beneath the fluffy comforter. She’d seen the large T-shirt the changelings had provided as sleep clothing for her, but she preferred to sleep fully dressed while in unfamiliar territory. It would be much easier to defend herself against attack if she wasn’t tangled up in fabric.

Aden, too, didn’t bother to change as he slipped into the bed that was as unlike an Arrow bed as possible. He touched the comforter, lifted it up, put it down.

“I like it,” Zaira said, patting the softness of it.

Aden turned his head toward her. “You would.”

Shifting onto her side, she looked at his face. She liked that, too, always had. He was formed of clean lines and smooth olive-toned skin, his damp hair starting to turn silky as it dried. “I’m going to buy one like this for my bed.” Small things were no threat, wouldn’t make her snap . . . and the insane girl inside her deserved pretty things. It was little enough compensation for the fact that Zaira never let her out in public, never allowed her to taste true freedom.

Aden shifted onto his side, too, their breaths mingling as they spoke, the intimacy a warmth around her that muted the aloneness.

“For the perfect Arrow, you have a rebellious streak.”

“I buy Alejandro ice cream.” She put her hand on the pillow in front of her face. “It makes him happy.” The brain-damaged male was childlike in many ways, could spend hours staring in fascination at the way the sun glittered on the canal water or how the clouds moved in the sky. Ice cream with its colors and flavors engendered the same fascination. “I always ask him what flavor he wants and give him an hour or two to decide because he likes to think about it.”

Zaira hadn’t spent even a second weighing up her decision to indulge Alejandro’s fascination once she became aware of it. His life was destroyed. If ice cream gave him pleasure, then he could have ice cream. “Your father thinks I’m making the situation worse. He says Alejandro should be locked up alone so I don’t have to ‘babysit’ him.”

Aden closed his hand over hers, pushing the aloneness even further away. “Why is my father still alive?”

She shifted her hand so that it lay on top of his, not because she was asserting dominance, but because she wanted to touch Aden, not just be touched by him. “He’s your father; that’s the only reason why.” Zaira didn’t feel any special loyalty toward either Naoshi Ayze or Marjorie Kai. She accepted that they’d sown the seeds of rebellion, and that they’d run countless dangerous missions to protect their brethren, but she also knew that had they been in charge of the squad, she’d either have been executed or turned into a pitiless, unthinking assassin.

Their vision for the Arrows was both great and blinkered.

Aden’s parents had fought to claw back control of the squad from the Council after it became clear the leaders of the Psy had forgotten the mandate of the Arrows. Zaid Adelaja may have formed the squad to support his parents’ vision of Silence, but the squad’s driving force had never been to advance the personal interests of the Councilors; it was to protect the Psy race.

“The Council turned an elite squad into a mockery,” Marjorie had said to Zaira more than once. “They used us as a whip on the backs of those who would oppose their rule, while allowing the true threats to roam free.”

Zaira had no argument with Marjorie’s thoughts on that point. The other Councilors had been bad enough, but Ming was the worst—less a leader than a parasite using up the lives of good men and women in his lust for power. Zaira could also respect Marjorie and Naoshi for laying the foundations of the rebellion, but she would never forget that they had sacrificed their son to their vision. According to Marjorie, Aden’s parents had made the decision to “die” after discovering that Ming intended to get rid of them because they held too much sway over their fellow Arrows.

“For a long time,” Aden’s mother had said, “we believed Ming was one of us, that his political ambition was a weapon he used to protect the squad. Naoshi almost told him of our plans to break away from the Council. A day later, we discovered his intentions for us, learned that he was capable of murdering his fellow Arrows in order to hold on to the leadership. It was the first sign of what he would one day become.”

Zaira couldn’t imagine ever trusting Ming, but she had to remember that to Marjorie and Naoshi, he’d been a compatriot, a fellow Arrow with whom they’d no doubt run missions. “Yet you abandoned Aden to his control,” she’d responded. “Even if Ming didn’t kill him, he could’ve easily ejected him from the squad.”

In one way, Zaira could understand Marjorie’s and Naoshi’s choice to trust their son to be a sleeper agent, to carry on the stealthy battle from within while they acted from the outside. Even as a child, Aden had been too old; he was a worthy keeper of his parents’ dreams. But he’d still only been a boy left to survive under a leader who saw no value in him.