Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling 14)

Last but possibly the most dangerous group of suspects on Aden’s mental list were the Mercants. Silver Mercant was Kaleb’s aide, but Mercants looked after Mercants first and the family had long been a shadow power in the Net. This kind of a power play would fit their modus operandi—the Mercants dealt in information and Aden had been kept alive so he could be broken and mined for data. That had Mercant written all over it.

“Any luck?” Finn asked from where he was patching up a young woman’s broken arm using healing abilities that were changeling, not Psy, and yet that indisputably had a psychic component.

Aden had checked to see if they wanted him to leave when the patient came in, but both had motioned him to stay. “Nothing new,” he said in response to Finn’s question.

“Done.” Finn patted the shoulder of his packmate, and she headed out, her embarrassment at having slipped in the rain and fallen off her aerie balcony still evident in the faint red flush of her skin. Apparently, she hadn’t thought to use her claws in time.

Coming over, the healer looked through the microscope. “Yeah, this is way beyond my pay grade.”

Aden took the implant, put it back in its case, and slipped it into his pocket. He had a feeling the answer to his question about its origin wouldn’t be an easy one. He was considering which scientists could be trusted to examine it, should the Aleines not agree to help, when a sharp sound cut through the room.

Finn’s head jerked up, his eyes flashing to brilliant yellow with faint traces of green near the pupils. “That’s the emergency siren.”

Chapter 22

REMI’S VOICE CAME on over the speaker system seconds later. “We have a lost cub. Jasper may have snuck outside and become turned around. All trained personnel head out now.” What followed were numbers and compass points.

Aden realized the alpha was sectioning off people to make sure the entire area around the network of aeries was searched. “I can assist,” he said to Finn when the healer grabbed a coat. “I’m fully trained for search and rescue and so is Zaira.” It was a little-known facet of the Arrow mandate, but they’d quietly assisted in a number of difficult rescues over the years.

“You think you can keep from getting lost out there?”

“Do you have a compass?”

Finn took off his watch and threw it to him. “It’s got one built in. You two should go to the northeast quadrant. It’s the biggest. I have to stay close to the aeries in case they locate him and he needs medical attention.” Then he was gone.

Aden hit the corridor to see Zaira coming down from their aerie. She was already wearing the big outdoor camouflage jacket the changelings had repaired after Finn ripped it getting to her wounds, and she was holding his. “I assumed we would help,” she said, no sign on her face of the woman who’d bitten his lip.

The sense of loss in his gut was raw, but he was used to putting his own needs aside for the good of the squad. Today, he did it for the needs of a scared, lost child. Having already strapped on Finn’s watch, he shrugged into the jacket and told her to stay within visual sight of him. “We don’t have the advantage of following scents and the location is unfamiliar. You may become disoriented without a compass.”

“Understood.”

Hoods up, they headed out into the pounding rain, the area already at near night-darkness because of the heavy cloud cover. Other searchers shouted out the boy’s name multiple times, their eyes flashing night-glow in the darkness every so often when the different groups came close before separating again. Realizing it was possible the child could hear them, given the acute nature of changeling senses, Aden and Zaira also called out at regular intervals.

With every minute that passed, the risk to the child rose exponentially. Aden understood changelings had greater immunity to the cold, but he had a feeling cubs were nowhere near as strong as their parents.

When Zaira held up her hand, head tilted, he stayed silent.

“This way,” she said, running left over ground that had become slippery and muddy, her face dripping water. “It may be nothing, but I thought I heard a faint growling sound.”

Reaching a heavy copse of waterlogged trees that looked like they might be maples, they began to scan the area. Aden saw nothing . . . then his foot slipped out from under him in the mud. He would’ve gone sliding down into a steeply sloped gully if he hadn’t grabbed on to a tree limb. His mind immediately putting the pieces together, he followed the line of sight to where he would’ve fallen if he hadn’t stopped himself, and saw a glint of golden fur through the wind-driven sheets of rain.

“Zaira, I see him!” He slid down the embankment in a controlled descent as Zaira shouted to the other searchers.

Bringing himself to a stop a couple of feet from the tiny leopard cub curled nose to tail on himself, his fur pasted to his body, Aden opened his jacket and lifted the child against him before checking for a pulse. He couldn’t feel a beat and the small body was so cold. Zipping the jacket closed, he ran back to the embankment and began to climb it. He’d taken only a single step when Remi bounded down.

Aden unzipped his jacket to hand over the icy body of the cub. “Get him to Finn.” Remi was faster and more sure-footed in this terrain and the child was critical. “I can’t feel a pulse.”

Racing up the incline using claws that had sliced out of his boots, Remi disappeared back toward the aeries. It took Aden longer to climb up the muddy incline and Angel was there to help haul him over the final edge when he reached it.