Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling 14)

Zaira increased the volume levels to maximum and barely caught, “. . . you home. I am here.”

A promise, she surmised.

“Wake.”

This time, it was an order, in the same alpha tone Zaira had heard Remi use in RainFire, the same tone Aden could put in his own voice.

Olivia’s eyes fluttered open. The clarity of the feed allowed Zaira to see that her gaze was dull, but it sharpened quickly. “Miane.” The single word came out a sob.

Stroking back Olivia’s hair, Miane leaned in to kiss her on both cheeks. “Shh, I have you.”

Raising one thin arm, her skin still bearing the yellowish tint of Halcyon, Olivia grabbed at her alpha’s wrist. “Persephone. They have Persephone.”

“Who?” Miane asked, the harsh anger of her echoing the emotions in Zaira’s heart at the thought of a vulnerable child in the hands of the enemy.

Olivia shook her head, her face crumpling. Her eyes phased out at the same time, going dull and staring out into nothing.

“Olivia.” Miane’s voice was alpha again, her packmate’s name imbued with command.

A sucked-in breath as Olivia struggled to focus. She came back enough to say. “E-mail. They sent photos of our baby.” Sobbing took her over. “Killed Cary. They killed him, said they’d kill our baby, too, if I . . .”

This time when she phased out, she didn’t come back, the Halcyon damage yet too deep. Instead of leaving, Miane Levèque kicked off her high-heeled shoes and got into bed with her distressed packmate, holding her close and murmuring things too soft for the microphones to pick up.

It took fifteen minutes for Olivia to fall asleep again.

Leaving her with another kiss, the BlackSea alpha pulled up the blindfold.

•   •   •

ADEN took Zaira’s report telepathically when she returned, glanced at Miane Levèque afterward. “Are you aware of your packmate’s e-mail address?”

“Malachai is just retrieving it.” Miane’s face was all hard angles, her eyes pieces of jet. “Olivia was too affected by the ravages of Halcyon to lie. Someone used her daughter as leverage to get her to commit these acts.”

I agree with her, Zaira said, remembering the anguished pain in Olivia’s voice. Olivia’s medical readings also indicated extreme distress.

“We’ve cooperated with you far beyond what anyone could expect,” Aden said when Malachai spoke quietly into his alpha’s ear. “We’re also willing to assist you in retrieving the child, but for that, we need the data from your packmate’s e-mail.”

“The enemy of my enemy . . . ?” Raising an eyebrow, Miane glanced at the phone Malachai had just handed her.

Rage burned in those black eyes.

Turning the phone toward Aden without a word, she waited as Aden and Zaira scanned the image.

Zaira’s own rage roared to the surface at the photograph of a small, teary-eyed girl clinging desperately to a rag doll with red hair. Her dress was dirty and her surroundings barren, the bed on which she sat nothing but a cot without a mattress. The doll’s hair, of what appeared to be thick red wool, obscured over half of Persephone’s face, but there was no hiding the thinness of that face, or of her body. It was clear she hadn’t been given enough food or any real care.

They’ve put her in a cage. The insane little girl inside Zaira had her lifting her head to meet Miane Levèque’s eyes. “I will find her for you, bring her home.”

The alpha’s dangerous expression didn’t alter as she said, “I’ll accept any help. I know Psy have teleporters who can use people’s faces as anchors. Can you teleport to her?”

“I’m telepathing the image through to a teleporter to verify,” Aden replied.

Vasic? Zaira asked.

Yes. If he can’t get to someone, no one can. Jaw a hard line, he was quiet for a minute before shaking his head. “He can’t get a lock—her face is too obscured and the room too generic. Do you have a better photograph of her?”

“We’ll find one,” Miane said, and after a short conversation with Malachai, showed them four other images on the phone. “Can your teleporter go to any of these people? They’re all missing, too, and it’s possible they’re being held in the same location as Persephone.”

Zaira waited for Vasic’s response once Aden sent through the request, her stomach tense.

“No,” Aden said at last. “Either their features have changed in a substantial way—or they’re dead.”

Miane’s anger was black ice. “Olivia wasn’t scarred when she disappeared,” she said. “Would that kind of a change destabilize a teleport lock?”

Aden nodded. “When it’s that extensive, yes.”

“The depth and degree of Jim Savua’s Halcyon scars would’ve had the same effect,” Zaira said, wondering if Jim’s reaction to the drug had in fact given his and Olivia’s captors the idea of destroying their victims’ faces just in case BlackSea gained access to a teleporter like Vasic. “Persephone was likely left alone only because by the time the people behind this began to scar their prisoners, her face had already changed naturally.”

Anger crackled in the air and it wasn’t all coming from the changeling side.

“It appears your enemy has thought of every angle,” Aden said into the tense quiet. “However, if you have any other missing packmates you want our teleporters to try to find, we’re willing to make the attempt. A single mistake on their end could break things wide open for both the squad and BlackSea.”