Stars of Fortune (The Guardians Trilogy 1)

“Why wouldn’t I? The proof’s all over the table. Can you read minds, and can you control that?”

“I don’t read minds. I read feelings, and they speak just as loud. I can control it, unless the feelings are so intense they push through.”

“What am I feeling? Go ahead.” Riley spread her arms when Sasha hesitated. “I’m an open book, so read it.”

Sasha took a moment, focused in. “You feel some sympathy for and curiosity about me. You’re relaxed, but on guard. You tend to stay on guard. You feel a need for something that’s always been out of your reach. It’s frustrating, especially because you like to win. You feel a little sexually deprived just now because you haven’t taken the time . . . felt you had the time to fill that need. The work fulfills you, the risks, the adventure, the demands of it. You’ve earned your self-reliance, and you’re not afraid of much. If there’s fear, it’s more for the emotional than the physical.

“You have a secret,” Sasha murmured. “Closed up tight.” Sasha jerked back, frowned. “You asked me to look, all but insisted, so don’t get angry when I do.”

“Fair enough. And that’s enough.”

“I believe in privacy.” She’d never read anyone that openly, that purposefully. It left her flushed, and mildly embarrassed. “I don’t dig into people’s secrets.”

“I believe in privacy.” Riley raised her glass again. “But I freaking love to dig.”

“Your work brings you a lot of pride and satisfaction. What is it?”

“That depends. At the base? I’m an archaeologist. I like looking for things no one else can find.”

“And when you find it? What do you do with it?”

“That depends, too.”

“You find things.” Sasha nodded, nearly relaxed. “That must be one of the reasons.”

“For what?”

“For our being here.”

“I’ve got a reason to be here.”

“But at this time, in this place?” Sasha gestured to the sketches again. “I know we need to look, we need to find . . .”

“If you want my attention you have to spit things out.”

Rather than speak, Sasha pulled out another sketch. A beach, a calm sea, a palace on a hill, all under a full white moon.

And curved under the moon shone three stars.

“I don’t know where this is, but I do know these three stars, the ones near the moon, they don’t exist. I’m not an astronomer, but I know they’re not there. I only know they were, somehow they were. And I know they fell. See this one.” She laid out another sketch. “All three falling at the same time, leaving those cometlike trails. We’re supposed to find them.”

Sasha looked up, saw Riley’s eyes stare into hers, feral and cold.

“What do you know about the stars?” Riley demanded.

“I’m telling you what I know.”

In a fast move, Riley reached out, gripped Sasha’s arm at the wrist. “What do you know about the Stars of Fortune? Who the hell are you?”

Though her stomach trembled, Sasha made herself keep her eyes level with the fierce ones, ordered her voice not to shake.

“I’ve told you who I am. I’m telling you what I know. You know more about them. You know what they are. You’re already looking for them—that’s why you’re here. And you’re hurting my arm.”

“If I find out you’re bullshitting me, I’ll hurt more than your arm.” But she let it go.

“Don’t threaten me.” Temper, hot and surprised, leaped up and out. “I’ve had enough. I didn’t ask for this, I don’t want this. All I wanted was to live in peace, to paint, to be left alone to work. Then you and these others are crowding my dreams, you and these damn stars I don’t understand. One of them’s here, I know it, just as I know finding it won’t be peaceful. I don’t know how to fight, and I’ll have to. Blood and battle, dreams full of blood and battle and pain.”

“Now it’s getting interesting.”