The Black Tide (Outcast 3)

He stopped the cot next to my bed and locked the brakes. Raela giggled and reached one hand toward me. I smiled and caught her little fist, then held out my other hand to Jonas. Without comment, he wrapped his fingers around mine, his palm calloused and skin warm.

“Now what?” he said.

“Connect with my mind.”

It was easier if he did it. I was still very much a novice when it came to that sort of thing, and was only randomly catching his thoughts unless I concentrated extremely hard.

An odd buzzing ran through my mind—a connection that was different and weaker than the one I had with my ghosts, and one that very much spoke of his skepticism.

I closed my eyes and reached with the seeker part of me for Raela. Heard her giggle and then felt the spark of warmth as her fledgling seeker skills merged with mine. I dove deeper into her being, deeper into her thoughts, showing Jonas all that she was, all that she could be. Showed him her knowledge that I would come for her, that I would save her.

And then I quickly retreated, not wanting to tax her strength too much. Her talent might be impressive, but she was still untrained and extremely young.

Jonas released my hand but for several minutes, didn’t say anything. He simply studied the little girl, his expression remote and giving little away.

Then he raised his gaze to mine. And I knew in that instant, he’d been connected to Nuri when I’d shown him Raela’s bright soul.

Anger rose, but just as swiftly died. In truth, I needed Nuri on my side if I was to have any hope of not only keeping Raela safe, but away from the forces that would come after her. In fact, given the shifters’ rescue of the two of us, it was surprising Dream hadn’t already sent her forces against this place.

“That’s because we killed all those who were chasing you,” Jonas said. “And because we know these mountains far better than any she might send here.”

“That doesn’t alter the fact that every moment we’re here, we’re putting your people in danger.”

“Yes, but it’s also a truth that if Dream succeeds in her quest, then my family and everyone else in these mountains will be fighting for survival as never before.” He glanced down at the medicot. Raela immediately gurgled and reached up to him with chubby fingers. A smile twitched the corners of his lips. “There is a belief amongst many shifter clans that in times of need, the souls of our mightiest warriors will be reborn into the young, so that they may lead the way out of great darkness. I see the truth of that in her.”

“And Nuri?” I asked softly. Hopefully.

“Says she is far too young to guide us out of the current situation, and has no desire to see how much worse the future might be if this child is a reborn warrior.”

My heart began to beat a whole lot faster, though I wasn’t entirely sure if it was relief or trepidation. “Does that mean she supports my intention to raise Raela as my own?”

He glanced at me and raised an eyebrow. “Has she really any choice, given the rather deadly army you can raise against her?”

She was talking about the adult déchet soldiers who haunted the lower reaches of my bunker, and who had—rather surprisingly—acquiesced to my request for help when we’d gone into the heart of a vampire den to rescue five of the missing children.

“I hardly think she fears them,” I said, voice dry. “She’s an earth witch of great power, and can very easily force their souls on to whatever hell she desires long before they ever caused her or anyone else any harm.”

Which was something she’d threatened to do on more than one occasion if I didn’t help her quest to find the missing children—and her threat hadn’t just been aimed at the adult déchet.

It was something that had made me extremely wary of her. While I respected Nuri—and even liked her—she very much reminded me of some of the shifter generals I’d been assigned to during the war. They’d often been so single-mindedly focused on one definitive outcome that they were blinded to the true cost of that action or to other, better means of achieving it.

“Even an earth witch of her status has their limits,” Jonas said. “And she wishes you to know that your ghosts are no longer under any threat. Indeed, she says that Central may yet have need of their services.”

I snorted. “Has she forgotten that those déchet were designed to kill shifters rather than protect them?”

“No, but Central is a racially mixed city.” He shrugged. “But that is neither here nor there. Despite her serious reservations, she agrees with your desire to raise her. But for her safety, Raela cannot be taken back to the bunker until all this is over. That place is now too easy a target.”

I frowned. “I don’t like entrusting her safety to others. Not when it will draw evil to the door of this place.”

“I agree.” Jonas reached past Raela’s grasping fingers and lightly tickled her belly. Her happy laughter filled the air and tugged a smile from my lips. “Which is why I’ll make arrangements for Tala to take her to Jarren over in New Port. She can keep an eye on the babe, and he can keep them both safe.”

Jarren was Jonas’s grandson. I’d met him a couple of times now, and he was very much a younger version of Jonas. Not that Jonas looked, in any way, his age. The rift he’d gone through just after the war’s end had frozen the aging process in him, although he was not in any way immortal. He could die, just as I could. It’s just that it was a whole lot tougher to kill either of us.

My frown grew. “Isn’t that simply shifting the danger from one point to another? And why would Tala even agree to something like that, given she’d be leaving her life and her family here for who knows how long?”

“Jarren controls the New Port mercenaries, and believe me when I say that no one will dare cross him.” The smile that twisted his lips was part pride, part amusement. “He is, in every way, a chip off the old block, in a way my sons and daughters never were.”

“But what about Tala? We can’t make any guarantee on how long she might have to be away.”