Aurora Rising: The Complete Collection (144 page)

“Of course….” Miriam’s response faded away, and an uneasy silence descended upon the room.

Caleb worked to keep his bearing neutral as the empathy faltered and an absurd pang of jealousy flared to overpower it. He felt like a complete ass for being jealous of a dead man, but it smarted to realize the loss of Ethan caused her enough emotional pain to rupture the formidable armor she donned for others.

Several seconds passed, and it occurred to him everyone else was fidgeting uncomfortably, doubtless on account of being left behind with him while she fled to mourn another man.
Outstanding.

He smiled in a forced attempt at levity. “If you like, I can go over some of these visuals, though I suspect Alex would rather do it herself.”

Miriam’s shoulders twitched. “We can wait for her to return. I have at least two dozen things I can work on until she does.” With a confirming nod she pivoted to the table and began doing exactly that.

Richard wandered back to stand next to him. His voice was conversational. “You should go after her.”

Caleb exhaled, long and slow. “I’m not sure…I should give her a few minutes.”

“Two.”

“Sir?”

“You should give her two minutes. Then you should go after her.”

“Is that so?”

Richard shrugged. “I’m probably the last person you ought to be taking relationship advice from—I unwittingly married a frigging Senecan spy, for God’s sake—but I say in two minutes you go after her. She’ll want you. And even if she doesn’t want you, she’ll need you.”

He had done what? Caleb tried to recall the few details Alex had told him about Richard’s husband. The man
had
been the one to deliver the Santiagar autopsy report, complete with a type of hidden encryption often used in the intelligence trade.

Opting not to pursue the topic for now, he instead tamped down a dark laugh. “All right. Ninety seconds and counting.”

He roved in a circuitous route along the near side of the room for a full twenty seconds before groaning.
Fuck it.

“I’m going to go check on Alex. I’ll be back…in a bit.” He ignored Delavasi as he passed him on his way out of the room.

Alex had turned left when she exited, but the hallway wound along the perimeter of the house and circled around to the front, so she could be anywhere.

He checked the kitchen, knocked on the door to the nearby bath, then went to the bedroom they had marginally claimed, but there was no trace of her. He went upstairs to the second floor balcony—it was as close as it came to roof access here. Nothing.

But perhaps she had gone outside. She would gravitate toward the combination of openness and solitude.

The warm, dry night air of Pandora greeted him at the doorway. It was a clear night, and the subtle, tasteful lighting used on the grounds meant the stars were allowed to shine clearly.

Yep, she would unquestionably be out here. But where? The estate stretched for hundreds of meters in every direction, and the elaborate landscaping created a series of winding, secluded spaces.

He considered pulsing her, but it seemed…rude somehow. And given advance warning she might tell him to leave her alone.

He set off to the right, through an auburn-tinged garden. A copper water fountain sculpture sat at the end of the garden, and parallel hedges created a defined path leading to it.

As he reached the fountain, the spraying water glinted gold from the ambient lights tucked into the hedges. It sparkled and—

—a blot of artificial darkness stole the reflected light.

Warnings screamed in his mind as nanobots began hyper-charging his muscles and sharpened his senses to full combat alert.

The scene plays out as a series of still frames, racing one to the next in a cascade of jagged, adrenaline-soaked leaps.

A form grasps me from behind. A blade slips along my neck. The attacker is left-handed.

Electricity shoots down my arms as the shield Delavasi provided fights against the energy. There’s a spark as it gives way—it’s an uncommon blade to break through so easily—then the harsh sting of power flaying skin.

I slam my head back into the attacker’s nose. With a sickening crunch bones crack.

The blade at my throat stutters. The grapple loosens.

I yank my own blade out of its sheathe and arc it upward as I spin. It grazes across the attacker’s forearm, but no more. The attacker is quick. Agile.

An uppercut connects beneath my chin with so much strength it feels like my neck snaps.

I’m stumbling, arms and legs in motion. Not paralyzed—my neck hadn’t snapped. Blood gushes from it though, brought on by the violent movement, and begins soaking into my shirt.

My Daemon is off my hip and in my hand as the attacker closes the distance—one shot, point-blank, center mass.

A shimmer ripples over the attacker’s shield. No penetration.

The attacker—a male—careens backward into the fountain from the force of the laser’s impact against his chest. Caramel skin and dark hair slicked back gleam in the suddenly garish light of the fountain. His skull impacts the spiraling center of the fountain, adding crimson to the palette.

I fire again.

The energy sears out of the shield into the water. Fizzing and hissing erupt as the water and the air fill with charged particles.

Again. The sharp odor of ozone is now strong enough to burn my nostrils.

The man uses the base of the fountain as leverage to propel himself forward. I’m hemmed in on both sides by the hedges and don’t dare turn away from him.

Too slow. The stone path meets my back, the attacker’s body my chest.

I block the hand holding the blade with a forearm and press the Daemon in my other hand to the man’s gut.

Fire.

Redirected energy washes over us both. Despite the zero range, there is no penetration. What kind of shield is this?

Another punch comes from the side to land at my ear. My vision swims, then jolts into too-crisp clarity as the ocular implant takes on more visual functions. A river of blood flows down my chest as the gash in my neck widens with the jerk from the blow.

I roll into the momentum of the punch and fling the man off me.

I need to be on my feet—now—and succeed in the act an instant before the attacker. A roundhouse kick to the man’s shoulder whirls him around.

Instantly I’m on him. I pin the blade hand against the man’s body and grab for the shield generator inside the waist of his pants.

Nothing. Nothing.

My fingers brush over a hard bulge beneath the skin—the generator is embedded within the small of the man’s back. He’s a professional assassin, and not an ordinary one.

The attacker’s head thrusts toward me, missing my nose but finding my left eye.

I tighten my left-arm grip and draw my right arm back. Convey the power of every muscle of my body into my shoulder and arm.

My fist connects with the shield generator. There is the sensation and muffled sound of hardware cracking beneath skin. The force of the punch ricochets to knock us out of the grapple.

The attacker is stumbling then abruptly hurtling into me. The pinpoint tip of his blade penetrates my shield to slice into my side just under my ribs.

I sense the skin tear open but I don’t feel it. Too much adrenaline, too many natural and artificial chemicals flooding my veins.

No gun—I dropped it for the grapple. I slip away from the blade, ignoring the sickly, wet noise as it leaves my body, and shove my own blade up hard in the space between the man’s torso and arm.

It slides in the pliant skin of the armpit all the way to the hilt. The shield is gone.

I twist it sideways. It scrapes across the bones of his shoulder as blood pours out over my hand. The attacker’s non-dominant arm has been rendered useless.

I pull it out and pull myself away.

The man arcs the other arm wildly upward. He’s losing the precision of control. I lean away, but a hedge at my back prevents further retreat. I bow my chest in as the blade passes a centimeter away.

It catches my chin, sending droplets of vibrant red blood spraying through the air.

I grab the man’s wrist as the motion completes. His other arm hangs limply at his side. He has no way to block an attack. I plunge my blade into his gut—

—the attacker’s knee smashes into my hip, tearing open the stab wound.

In the microsecond before my neural cybernetics shut down the pain signals I reel from the shock. My blood-slicked hand loses its grip on the hilt, leaving it protruding out of the man’s midsection. My vision blurs once more, and the ocular implant stutters, struggling to recover in the face of such damage.

The man staggers into me, his blade swiping erratically at my chest. I catch the wrist before it reaches me, but I strain to hold it at bay as he pushes forward. I’m getting weaker. All the enhancements in the universe won’t be able to keep me standing for much longer.

My other hand finds the hilt of my blade and shoves it deeper into the attacker’s gut. Wrenches it upward.

The man’s eyes meet mine. Black pools of cold intensity flare in defiance. He’s already dead, but he doesn’t care. Blood obscures his features from the broken nose, but behind it he sneers at me. Renewed effort sends the tip of his blade to the cloth of my shirt.

I twist the hilt and watch the flash of agony cross his eyes. His blade slices open my shirt. The tip lurches along my skin, threatening to rip my chest open.

Get ready to duck.

What?              

“Idi na khuy, ti svilochnaya peshka.”

The man jerks around at the new voice and unfamiliar insult. I let go of the hilt and fall back, trying to duck as requested—

Alex pulls the trigger on her Daemon. The man’s head explodes in bone and blood and brain matter.

I blink.

The body collapses to the ground.

I blink again.

She’s at my side. I try to give her a smile because god knows she deserves one but my legs weaken beneath me. “I was going to win….”

“I know you were—woah.” Her arms are around my waist as my full weight sinks against her. My body knows the fight is over and begins to shut down. I can do nothing to prevent it.

She eases me to the ground. The back of my head meets stone, gentler than before.

“You’re hurt.”

Understatement of the century, baby.
“Not…much.”

“Liar. What can I do?”

I shudder as all the pain held at bay during the fight crashes through me.

I blink. Perhaps I lose consciousness for a second.

I force my eyes open and try to get past the pain to catalogue my injuries. She’ll need to know. “I’m bleeding from my neck…a lot, I think. And my right side is torn up…there’ll be internal damage….”

Her face blurs in and out of focus. I feel her hands on my neck, yet she recedes from my vision. “Alex? I can’t….”

Help!

Miriam jumped, startled by the urgency of the pulse. Desperation bled out of the single, stark word.
Alex?

Grab the med kit and come outside—garden beside the house with the fountain—HURRY!

I’m on the way.

She spun to Richard, who sat talking to Director Delavasi at a table in the corner. “Get the med kit from the supply closet and follow me. Something’s happened.”

Richard frowned but stood. “What?”

Already running for the door, she shouted over her shoulder. “I don’t know!”

If Alexis was hurt, when she had only just returned and they had only just begun again…her heart clenched into a leaden fist in her chest, but decades of military discipline prevented her from panicking to the point of distraction.

She heard the pounding of footsteps behind her as Richard and the Director rushed to catch up. The garden was to the right. Down the path, around the curve—not enough light—the hedges opened up and a fountain, jarred crooked and sputtering water messily into the air, came into view.

She processed the scene as it existed between her and the broken fountain. Her brain cataloged the details and assigned them priority: