Shards of Hope

Book 14: Psy-Changeling Novel, A

by Nalini Singh

Genres: Urban Fantasy; Paranormal Romance; Science Fiction Romance; Romance; Friends to lovers

Synopsis

Awakening wounded in a darkened cell, their psychic abilities blocked, Aden and Zaira know they must escape. But when the lethal soldiers break free from their mysterious prison, they find themselves in a harsh, inhospitable landscape far from civilization. Their only hope for survival is to make it to the hidden home of a predatory changeling pack that doesn't welcome outsiders.

And they must survive. A shadowy enemy has put a target on the back of the Arrow squad, an enemy that cannot be permitted to succeed in its deadly campaign. Aden will cross any line to keep his people safe for this new future, where even an assassin might have hope of a life beyond blood and death and pain. Zaira has no such hope. She knows she's too damaged to return from the abyss. Her driving goal is to protect Aden, protect the only person who has ever come back for her no matter what.

This time, even Aden's passionate determination may not be enough - because the emotionless chill of Silence existed for a reason. For the violent, and the insane, and the irreparably broken . . . like Zaira.

Rich, dark, sumptuous and evocative . . . bestselling author Nalini Singh is back with a stunning, dark and passionate new tale.

Release date: June 2, 2015

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 496

Sample

CAST OF CHARACTERS

In Alphabetical Order by First Name

Key: SD = SnowDancer Wolves DR = DarkRiver Leopards BE = BlackEdge Wolves

Abbot Arrow, teleport-capable telekinetic (Tk)

Aden Kai Arrow, telepath (Tp)

Amara Aleine Psy member of DR, former Council scientist, twin of Ashaya, mentally unstable

Amin Arrow, telepath (Tp)

Andrew “Drew” Kincaid SD Tracker, mated to Indigo, brother of Riley and Brenna

Anthony Kyriakus Psy Councilor, father of Faith

Ashaya Aleine Psy member of DR, former Council scientist, mated to Dorian, twin of Amara

Axl Arrow

Blake Stratton Arrow

Bowen “Bo” Knight Security Chief, Human Alliance

Carolina Arrow child

Council (or Psy Council) Former ruling council of the Psy race; no longer extant

Cristabel “Cris” Rodriguez Arrow, sharpshooter, teacher

DarkMind Neosentient entity and dark twin of the NetMind

Devraj Santos Leader of the Forgotten (Psy who defected from the PsyNet at the dawn of Silence and intermingled with the human and changeling populations), married to Katya Haas

Edward Arrow

Faith NightStar Psy member of DR, gift of foresight (F), mated to Vaughn, daughter of Anthony, cousin to Sahara

Ghost Psy rebel

Gregori BE Lieutenant

Griffin BlackSea Changeling, Lieutenant

Hawke Snow SD Alpha, mated to Sienna

Ida Mill Psy, leader of group that believes the Silence Protocol is the only right path and that the empaths should be removed from the gene pool

Irena Arrow

Ivy Jane Zen President of the Empathic Collective, married to Vasic Zen

Jaya Empath

Jen Liu Psy, matriarch of the Liu Group

Jojo Leopard cub

Judd Lauren Psy member of SD, Lieutenant, former Arrow, mated to Brenna

Kaleb Krychek Leader of the Ruling Coalition, psychically bonded to Sahara Kyriakus

Lara SD Healer, mated to Walker

Lucas Hunter DR Alpha, mated to Sascha, father of Naya

Malachai BlackSea Changeling, Lieutenant

Max Shannon Human, Security Chief for Nikita Duncan, married to Sophia Russo

Mercy DR Sentinel, mated to Riley

Miane Levèque Alpha of the BlackSea Changelings

Mica Arrow, Lieutenant of Zaira Neve, based in Venice

Ming LeBon Former Psy Councilor, military mastermind, cardinal telepath

Nathan Ryder DR Senior Sentinel, mated to Tamsyn, father of Roman and Julian

Naya Hunter DR cub, daughter of Sascha and Lucas

Nerida Arrow, telekinetic (Tk)

NetMind Neosentient psychic entity said to be the guardian and librarian of the PsyNet, twin of the DarkMind

Nikita Duncan Former Psy Councilor, part of the Ruling Coalition, mother of Sascha

Pax Marshall Head of the Marshall Group, grandson of Marshall Hyde

Pip Arrow child

Riaz Delgado SD Lieutenant, mated to Adria

Riley Kincaid SD Lieutenant, mated to Mercy, brother of Drew and Brenna

Ruling Coalition Formed after the fall of Silence and of the Psy Council; composed of Kaleb Krychek, Nikita Duncan, Anthony Kyriakus, Ivy Jane Zen for the Empathic Collective, and the Arrow Squad

Sahara Kyriakus Psy (uncategorized designation), psychically bonded to Kaleb Krychek, niece of Anthony Kyriakus, cousin to Faith

Samuel Rain Psy, genius, robotics engineer who developed experimental biofusion

Sascha Duncan Psy member of DR, cardinal empath, mated to Lucas, mother of Naya, daughter of Nikita

Selenka Durev BE Alpha

Shoshanna Scott Former Psy Councilor, head of Scott Enterprises

Sienna Lauren Psy member of SD, cardinal X, mated to Hawke, niece of Judd and Walker

Silver Mercant Senior aide of Kaleb Krychek, in charge of worldwide rapid response emergency network that spans all three races

Sophia Russo Former J-Psy, married to Max Shannon, aide to Nikita Duncan

Tamar Civilian member of the Arrow Squad, financial and data analyst

Tamsyn “Tammy” Ryder DR Healer, mated to Nathan, mother of Roman and Julian

Tavish Arrow child

Vasic Zen Arrow, teleporter (Tk-V), married to Ivy Jane Zen

Walker Lauren Psy member of SD, mated to Lara

Yuri Arrow, telepath (Tp)

Zaira Neve Arrow, telepath (combat)

Smoke and Mirrors

SPRING IS IN full flower in the year 2082.

It has been four months since the fall of Silence, the protocol that bound the Psy race to a cold, emotionless existence. Telepaths or telekinetics, strong or weak, the Psy are now free to feel, free to love and hate, free to laugh and cry. Emotion is an intoxication to many, but to others, it is a deadly threat.

For the Silence Protocol was put in place for a reason.

The ten-year debate preceding the implementation of Silence was fractious and raw for a reason.

Millions of Psy decided to condition all emotion out of their young for a reason.

The Psy gave up joy as well as sadness for a reason.

That reason was the violence and madness endemic within their race. To be Psy was to have a far greater chance of criminal insanity, a far greater chance of striking out in a moment of uncontrollable anger and ending the life of a loved one. To be Psy was to be cursed.

In 1979, Silence was a beacon of hope. To a desperate people on the verge of a violence-fueled extinction, it was the only hope. They ignored the smudges on the beacon, the flickers of darkness within, the whispers that perhaps Silence was all smoke and mirrors. Driven by love for the very children they were condemning to a loveless existence, the Psy accepted the harsh tenets of the Protocol, accepted the hope held out by their leaders.

Today, the smoke has dissipated, the mirrors have shattered.

And the darkness at the heart of the Psy race is once more a vicious truth no one can ignore. For what happens to the murderers and the insane in this new world? What happens to the broken?

They still exist.

They still kill.

Chapter 1

ADEN WOKE ON a cold, hard floor, his head throbbing. Another man might have hissed out a breath, might have groaned, but Aden’s training was so ingrained that his sole response was to lift his lashes a bare sliver, only fully opening his eyes once he realized he was surrounded by darkness. He wasn’t, however, alone. He could hear breathing—quiet but jagged. As if the other person was trying to maintain silence, was unable to do so for reasons Aden couldn’t yet identify.

Remaining exactly where he was, he scanned outward with his telepathic senses . . . and had to capture a scream before it traveled to his vocal cords. The pain was blinding, the agony leaving his vision white. Controlling his breathing and his body through sheer strength of will, he fisted his hand, gritted his teeth, and made a second attempt, this time to reach the PsyNet, the sprawling psychic network that connected all Psy in the world but for the renegades. A Net connection would give him a viable way to alert the squad about his capture.

The backlash of pain almost led to a blackout.

Quietly lifting his arm when he could function again, white spots burning in his vision, he reached to the back of his head and the center of the starburst of pain. He expected to find blood-matted hair that denoted a cracked skull. What he discovered instead was a raised bump close to the lowest part of his skull, near the area that housed the cerebellum and beyond it, the brain stem. No, it wasn’t a bump but a scar—it shouldn’t have been there and it still felt tender.

That wasn’t the only anomaly. From the dryness in his throat and the stiffness of his limbs, Aden calculated that he must’ve been unconscious for hours. Long enough for the squad to realize he was missing and to locate him. Vasic alone should’ve been able to accomplish that. Except it appeared even the best teleporter in the Net hadn’t been able to lock on to his face, using it as an anchor to get to him.

The only other times Vasic had failed to lock on to people was when those individuals had created complex shields designed specifically to thwart teleporters capable of locking on to people rather than simply places, or if the individual concerned didn’t know his or her own identity—such as those whose minds were broken.

Aden’s mind was whole, but whatever it was that had been done to his brain via the barely healed incision he’d discovered, it had screwed up his psychic wiring. Vasic’s absence told Aden his psychic signature must’ve also been affected on a deep level. He knew of no surgical technique—or technology—that could achieve that aim without a full psychic brainwipe, but he didn’t make the mistake of thinking he knew everything.

He ran a mental checklist of his body and the items on it. All his weapons were gone, as were his belt and his boots. Whoever was behind this had been thorough.

Having maintained an ear on the other person breathing in the room, he crawled silently toward the rasp of sound. His cellmate hadn’t moved the entire time, and there was something in the unsteady rhythm of the breathing that had him certain the individual was hurt. With his eyes having adapted to darkness ameliorated only by a thin edge of light that came in under what must be a door, he could see that his cellmate’s body lay in a corner of the windowless room—as if it had been thrown there. That body was small and with the wrong proportions to be a man. Either a child or a woman.

Close enough now to see the curve of her hip, the fine line of her jaw, he realized it was a woman. A woman who smelled of blood. He moved his hand to her face, brushed away the dark curls that were impossibly soft . . . and found his wrist gripped in a punishing hold. “Move and I’ll rip out your throat.”

“Zaira,” he said in the same low whisper she’d used. “It’s—”

“Aden.” She released his wrist. “I’m injured.”

“How bad?”

“I was shot.” Taking his hand, she placed it on the viscous stickiness above her stomach, her thin but should-have-been-bulletproof top soaked with blood and her lightweight body armor missing. “It passed through the left side of my abdomen.”

Aden might not have any equipment or supplies, but he was still a trained field medic. “Do you have any source of light on you?” It was possible their captors had overlooked something.

“Negative. No tools or weapons. They even took my boots.”

He shifted so close to Zaira that, under any normal circumstances, he would’ve been invading her personal space. When he pushed up the long-sleeved black top that hugged her body, she didn’t protest. Her skin was clammy under his touch, and though he felt the edges of a bandage, it had clearly been an inexpert job—blood had soaked through, was continuing to do so. “I need to touch your skull.”

“No need. I’ve been cut, something done to my brain. I’m psychically blind. Any attempt to use those abilities results in extreme pain.” She took a shallow breath. “Since rescue hasn’t arrived, I’m assuming you’re in the same position.”

“Yes.” He checked her head wound to make certain it wasn’t bleeding, too, discovered a roughly sealed incision identical to his own. Their unknown captors had the technology to do brain surgery advanced enough to block psychic abilities, yet they’d left Zaira badly hurt and in pain? “They want you weak.”

“Yes.” Her next words were so quiet he heard them only because he was close enough to feel the soft warmth of her exhale. “I didn’t know it was you, but now that I do, I think our captors plan to use me to break you. One entered the room earlier, said, ‘He’ll talk or we hurt her,’ to another individual.”

“Arrows aren’t so easy to break.”

“And you aren’t fully Silent, Aden. You never have been.” Another strained breath. “Everyone in the squad knows that—now someone outside the squad has figured it out.”

Aden decided he would correct her about his Silence later. “Conserve your strength. I need to be able to count on you when we escape.” There was no “if.” They would escape.

“If you can get me a weapon,” Zaira said, “I’ll cover you as you go. I’m weak, will slow you down. You’ll do better on your own.” She said that as if it was a simple fact, as if she wasn’t talking about the end of her own life.

Leaning in until their noses almost touched, until she could see his eyes as he could see the jet-black darkness of hers, he said, “I don’t leave my people behind.” He knew what it was to be left behind, and though it had been done for the best of reasons it had marked him on a primal level. “We’ll go together.”

“You’re being irrational.”

It was a complaint he’d heard multiple times from her. And not because her own Silence was flawless.

The truth was that Zaira had never needed Silence. What had been done to her in childhood had caused her to retreat deep into her psyche, shoving her emotions into a dark hole in a bid to survive. In their place had grown an iron will and a harshly practical mind. Silence had only ever been a tool she used to create a civilized shell.

Without it, she was close to feral but no less ruthless, her brain having learned long ago to put survival above all else.

It made her the perfect soldier.

Some would say it also made her a psychopath, but they didn’t understand—unlike a psychopath, Zaira had the capacity to feel the full range of emotions. That capacity was in permanent cold storage, but it gave her a conscience regardless. It also gave her the capacity for unflinching loyalty: because Zaira’s violent survival instincts didn’t always equal her own survival. She’d already walked into the path of a hail of bullets aimed at him during an operation three years before, had barely survived her injuries. He wasn’t about to allow her to sacrifice herself for him again.

“You should’ve toppled me from the leadership years ago,” he said as he moved to lift up the bandage, see what he could make out of the wound. “My irrationality where my people are concerned is apt to continue.”

“I thought about it, but I don’t have the patience for politics.”

He knew that despite her icy words, Zaira would take down anyone who challenged his right to lead the squad. For him to lose her loyalty, he’d have to do something so horrific, he couldn’t even imagine what it might be. “How were you shot?” he asked, wiping away the memories of how close to death she’d come the last time. “How many hits?”

“One,” Zaira replied. “They came for me while I was some distance from the Venice compound. Five men. I blasted a telepathic request for assistance but no one made it to me in time.”

“How many did you kill?”

“Three. Fourth injured. Fifth would be dead, too, if he hadn’t made the shot.”

Five men against a very small woman and she’d nearly defeated them. Deadly and smart, she was one of Aden’s top people for a reason. Now her breathing grew harsher as he checked the edges of her wound by touch. “Must be a new bullet designed to penetrate our armor,” she said through what sounded like gritted teeth.

“Is this top made of the new material developed by Krychek’s company?” The thin and fabriclike innovation was meant to be as effective as much heavier body armor.

“No. I put myself low on the priority list—others on the frontline needed it more.”

Pressing the pads of his fingers on different parts of her abdomen, he asked her to tell him what hurt and what didn’t, and stumbled upon an unbandaged wound on her side. “I’m fairly certain the abdomen wound is the exit site,” he said after investigating it as carefully as he could, “but there are signs the bullet ricocheted inside you before it left your body.” Causing internal damage he couldn’t determine without a scanner. “Are you coughing up blood?”

“No.”

“That’s good.” Her abdomen was also not swollen or tense. “If there is internal bleeding, it’s not severe yet.” Pressing the bandage back into place, he pulled down her top, then shrugged off the leather jacket he was still wearing and got her into it. It was too big on her, and he rolled up the sleeves before she could ask him—Zaira would not want her hands hindered in case of a fight.

That done, he stripped off his T-shirt and, tearing it using brute force, managed to make wadding for the entry wound on her side. If he’d been wearing his uniform top, this would’ve been impossible; that material was designed not to tear. It was as well he’d been in civilian dress except for his combat pants. Knotting together strips of fabric, he got it around her waist and tied the wadding into place. It’d provide some pressure at least, help stem the bleeding. “Too tight?”

A shake of her head.

“I’m going to try to stop the bleeding.” He had minor M abilities that meant he could seal some wounds, though he had no capacity to see inside a body to gauge injury.

“No,” Zaira said when he would’ve touched his hands to her skin. “That sucks energy. Save it. We’ll need it to get out of here.”

He didn’t like leaving her hurting and in pain, but she was right: he was a trained field surgeon and medic because his ability was so limited. It was useful when he had healthy backup, but it became a liability in a combat situation. Far better for him to rely on his skills. “Warn me if you’re about to lose consciousness,” he said before he realized a grim truth. “I need to test if my M abilities even work.” No matter if it was about healing the body, not the mind, it still required a psychic energy burn.

Pain was a hot poker down his spine, his vision blurred for over a half minute.

“No?” Zaira said softly.

“No,” he confirmed. All their psychic abilities were out of reach.

Tugging her top back down again over the makeshift bandage he’d created, he put his lips right against her ear, one of her curls brushing his nose. “How long will you last?” He was well aware that though her injury was bad, she wasn’t as frail as she’d made herself appear.

“Seven minutes at full capacity, but that capacity has been halved by the wound and the shock from the blood loss.”

That still made her a hundred times deadlier than most people on the planet. “We wait for a chance. My signal.”

“Agreed,” she said, just as there was a rattling sound.

Leaving Zaira on the floor in her guise of a small, weak, wounded creature, he rose to his feet. The light that poured into the room was dim, but it told him multiple things.

This room had no other exits and was created of hard plascrete.

There was a corridor outside, but no sounds of machinery—even the hum of background technology or traffic—invaded the room.

Either they were far from civilization or the plascrete was well insulated.

The heavily muscled man in the doorway was dressed in camouflage pants, a jacket of the same mottled shade, and black combat boots. He stood like a special ops soldier . . . stood like an Arrow.

Aden ignored the male’s masked face and took in his height, his body weight, his musculature, ran it against his mental database of Arrows. No match. He and Zaira hadn’t been betrayed from the inside, but this man was a high-level soldier. Black ops most likely.

He carried a weapon.

That was his weakness. He thought the weapon made him invulnerable.

Pointing that weapon at Aden, the male said, “Sit.”

Aden had noted the dented metal chair in the center of the cell at the same time that he noted the plascrete; he’d also weighed up its value as a weapon. Still calculating his options, he walked to the chair, took the seat. “If you’re intending to interrogate me,” he said, confirming the presence of another guard outside when that guard’s shadow hit the opposite wall, “you should know Arrows are trained to die rather than break.”

“Oh, you’ll talk. I have plenty of time and everyone has a breaking point.” Cold words. “From what I hear, Arrows are nothing if not loyal. This one—she means something to you.” Having walked into the room, he kicked Zaira’s body.

Chapter 2

SHE MOANED, BUT Aden knew it was for effect. That didn’t mean the kick hadn’t hurt. It only meant that Zaira would never permit anyone to hear her in pain unless it was to her advantage.

Aden memorized the location of the kick, made a mental note to check Zaira for further injuries after they were free and the man who’d kicked her was dead. The latter was a certainty. “All my Arrows mean something to me.”

Their captor continued to stand by Zaira. “But this one you go to see every week.”

Zaira needed the oversight, not because she wasn’t a good Arrow, but because of her psychological makeup. She was independent and strong and she had a conscience, but she was also damaged in a way that might cause her to make certain decisions that could not be unmade. So Aden ensured he was available for her to use as a sounding board.

That was what he told himself, what he’d always told himself.

“Do you intend to torture her to break me?” Aden asked, his eye on the guard outside—who had stepped partially into the doorway now. Well trained, like this one, and careful never to take his attention off Aden. Not well trained enough, then, because Aden wasn’t the only threat in the room.

“Yes,” the guard answered. “Tell me—are Arrows trained not to break under sexual torture?”

Aden felt his muscles lock. Relaxing them with conscious effort of will, he watched the guard by the door while pretending he hadn’t even seen him. “Pain is pain,” he said. “We’ve had more body parts broken, burned, crushed, and otherwise injured during our childhoods than you can imagine. During anti-interrogation training, I once had my fingernails pulled out one at a time before a hot poker took out my eye.”

The medics had fixed the eye, the other injuries, but they’d left him in brutal pain and half-blind for days, the next round of training based on exposing psychological weaknesses. Aden hadn’t splintered. He’d been ten years old at the time.

The guard kicked Zaira again. “You might think it’s all the same, but we’ll see. First I’ll make you watch as she’s sexually tortured by my human compatriots, then I’ll ask them to do the same to you. In the end, you’ll give us everything.”

Aden needed to know the why behind this captivity, but he’d already made the determination that both these men had to die. It was the most efficient way to secure an escape. “Only two guards for two Arrows? A mistake.”

“There’s nowhere for you to go—and we have the guns, while your minds are chained by those implants the docs put in.” A vicious telepathic blow that made Aden’s head ring.

It also gave him an accurate gauge of the male’s psychic ability.

“Low and hard,” he said in Arabic, the language Zaira had spoken with the parents she’d ended up beating to death with a rusty metal pipe. “He isn’t strong enough to kill with his mind.”

Though her breathing had gone shallow, she moved like lightning, her legs scissoring to take out those of the stupid, stupid man who’d stood so close to her. As he slammed to the ground with bone-cracking force, Aden was already moving, picking up the chair and throwing it at the second guard, who’d come in, bullets firing. The chair hit the other man in the chest hard enough to make him stumble back and nearly drop his gun.

“Aden.”

He grabbed the gun Zaira shoved across the floor, having taken it from the guard she was choking to death using her thighs. Lifting and firing it in a single smooth motion, he hit the second guard dead center in the forehead.

“Cris would be proud,” Zaira said, then sucked in a pained breath.

Aden shot the guard on the floor, guessing the male had attacked Zaira on the psychic plane. What he didn’t realize until he hauled Zaira to her feet and felt the wetness on her side, the scent of iron suddenly bright, was that the man had also jabbed his hand into her wound, doing further damage. “I’m fine,” she said, though her shivers indicated otherwise.

Conscious they didn’t have much time, Aden left her for a second—she swayed but stayed upright—and ripped the ski masks off the two men. No one he recognized, but he had faces now.

“He’s human,” Zaira rasped, eyes on the second guard. “Has to be, given the lack of a psychic component to his attack and the other guard’s boast about his human compatriots.”

“Agreed.” Aden stripped the blood-flecked camouflage jacket off the second guard, pulled it on, then took the male’s knives and guns to strap them on himself and Zaira. Their one advantage was that any other guards wouldn’t have heard the altercation—all the weapons were silenced and Aden and Zaira had kept their voices low throughout.

Zaira pushed him away when he went to wrap his arm around her waist to steady her as she walked. “No. We’ll only succeed if you have both arms free. I’ll be behind you.”

He knew that wasn’t what she planned, but he allowed her to believe he did. “Let’s go.” Reaching the door, he scanned for surveillance feeds, found nothing. Low-tech—but low-tech could be a defense against discovery: if nothing was hooked into a network, then no one could hack in.

He didn’t like exiting into the corridor not knowing what awaited around the corner, but there was no other option. He and Zaira were all but silent, each movement careful, but a guard saw him as he looked around the corner. Aden fired to silence the guard’s shout of alarm. The guard fell without making a sound, but he had his hand on the trigger as he died; the gun spit fire, the bullets hitting a small steel grille that covered an air vent.

The hard, pinging noise echoed against the plascrete.

Aden heard a door bang open the next second, more footsteps heading toward them. Checking to make sure Zaira remained with him, he covered the distance to the dead guard and, hauling up the body, used it as a shield against the bullets and laser shots that peppered the area. Ice-cold wind swept down the corridor as more guards came in from what had to be the outside of this building.

The door was slammed shut seconds later.

Zaira didn’t try to come around him; she knew as well as he did that he needed her alive. Not wasting his ammunition, Aden took one shot at a time, eliminating two of the guards before they got smart and started trying to target him in turn—except Zaira was laying down fire that meant the men couldn’t poke their heads out from the side corridor where they’d taken shelter.

The psychic attack that accompanied the weapons fire was haphazard and not as powerful as it should’ve been for the number of men he’d seen. Despite the inexplicability of such an alliance, it again indicated that some of these guards had to be human. “The door,” he said to Zaira, pointing out their escape route.

It lay in almost a straight line from their current position.

Continuing to move toward that door under a covering hail of gunfire, the dead guard’s body absorbing the hits, Aden waited until he was almost at the corridor junction, then shoved the corpse onto the dead man’s former comrades. They weren’t expecting that, had underestimated Aden’s strength, as peo