Amy's Advantage (26 page)

Suddenly she looked so lost and vulnerable, it reminded him
of the first time he’d seen her. It had been years before her telepathic talent
had manifested and she’d been just a child, but she’d still had the ability to
drive the males in her life crazy.

That day she’d been constantly on the heels of her older
twin brothers, tagging along, bossing them around and threatening to tattle
whenever they didn’t abide by her whims. They had let her follow them into the
woods and then sneaked away. In their minds, she was barely out of sight of
home and they were sure once they disappeared, she’d give up and just go back
and continue complaining about them to their mother like normal. They never
thought she’d get turned around and keep walking further into the forest.

Hours later, after Wyc had given his brothers a complete
dressing-down in place of their father, who was in the capital, and the search
had commenced, it had been Kayn who had found her, sitting on a large boulder
in the middle of a field a great distance from where her brothers had left her.
Her arms were wrapped around her drawn-up legs with her head down on her knees.
When he called her name, her head popped up and all he saw were eyes. Big,
wide, round blue eyes filled with fear that melted into relief at the sight of
him.

At no time in his life before or since had he ever felt
quite so much the hero as when her one glance bestowed on him that
acknowledgment.

Prepared to gallantly offer her assurance of safety and
assistance in her time of need with the hauteur only a privileged
twelve-year-old boy thinking he was a man could muster, he was knocked down a
peg or two when she pushed off the rock and her worshipful gaze snapped into an
angry glare.

“It is about time you arrived,” she huffed. She walked by
him with an expression on her face that indicated he hadn’t bathed recently. “I
have been waiting
forever.
”

For one moment, he’d seen a vulnerability he had never seen
again until now. That one brief second when she’d raised her head and she’d had
all defenses down, he’d seen her, known she was his. Without a doubt, he knew
that he had found her and she was his. At the time, he was too young to know
what that meant, to grasp the slippery and shrewd hand of Destiny, but even at
twelve, his heart had seized on her.

Looking at the woman before him, he knew now, though he
refused to accept it. Not yet. Not while she held so many secrets from him. Not
while he held so many from her.

But just as when she was seven, the glimpse into Shyrana’s
soul was just that. A glimpse. A glimpse and then gone. Stuffing her gloved
hands into her pockets, she withdrew into herself. “You wouldn’t believe me if
I told you.”

“Try me.”

“Why? Give me one good reason why I should trust you.”

He hardened his glance to match hers and stepped into her
space, close enough to make her tilt her head to look him in the face. “Because
you’ve got to tell someone. Because I know you. Because I’m all you’ve got.” He
paused, quelling the desire to shake her until the truth tumbled out. “Don’t
force my hand against you when I can help you.”

She threw her hands out to her sides. “How? How do you think
you could possibly help me? What exactly are you good for besides fucking my brains
out once in awhile?”

The bite to her words was purposeful and sharp. If he didn’t
know her so well, her response would anger him. Instead, he saw it for what it
was—a last-ditch effort to piss him off and make him go away. “Well, I guess
that works both ways, sweetheart. Tell me.”

Suddenly her eyes went liquid and she averted her face with
a jerk, blinking back unspilled tears. Whatever she was holding onto was
wearing her down. He’d seen the strain working her for weeks, hoping it was
just a simple case of homesickness.

“Cayd and Ciys are alive.”

She could have said anything else and it wouldn’t have
shocked him like those five words. Cayd and Ciys were her twin brothers, and
years ago, his best friends. Their deaths had been a brutal wake-up call for
him.

“No.” His voice was flat and hard.

Shy spun her head back around and slammed her fists into his
chest, pushing him back. “Yes!”

He caught his balance and was braced for her second shove,
catching her shoulders to stop her attack. He held her rigidly at arm’s length.
“No. The Sleht claimed the kills. Almost
seven
years ago.” Her face was
set in the stubbornness of belief and he gave her a little shake. “Shyrana, I
was there. I saw their blood, what was left of their clothes. I saw the
traitor’s dead body.”

“No. It wasn’t like that. Ry wasn’t a traitor.”

Rage lanced through him. “He was,” Kayn hissed through
clenched teeth. “And if he hadn’t died in the attack, I’d have killed him
myself.”

“You don’t know what really happened. It was my fault. Do
you get that?
My fault.
”

He let go of her abruptly and stepped back. “Fuck it all to
hell, Shy. Stop talking. Just shut the hell up. You don’t know what you’re
saying.”

“You said you wanted to know. You said you wanted to help
me. God damn it, you come stomping out here as if you have a right to and then
you won’t even listen to the truth.”

Her hood had fallen back when she shoved him and her long
black hair lifted in the winter wind to whip out behind her. Standing on the
edge of the shore with fury turning her eyes the color of the deep, midnight
blue mountain lake, she appeared as an avenging ancient ice queen come back to
set right an age-old wrong. As the sun started to set behind her, lengthening
the shadows and setting her in stark relief against the snow-tipped evergreens
and ragged mountain range behind her, the passion of her anger sharpened her
beauty and made him want her on a deep, visceral level.

It galled him that the woman could manipulate his desire
even when she was being so unreasonable.

“I know the truth,” he snapped.

“No, you don’t. You don’t know that Wyc wasn’t off chasing
down another lead on Bethany as everyone assumed. You don’t know that the
reason Cayd and Ciys were there by themselves was because of a lie I told Wyc.
It was my fault that he wasn’t there and the twins were.” The angry edge to her
words had fallen off and now they only sounded tired and beaten.

“You’re not making any sense.” He frowned at her as a
thought occurred to him. “Are you feeling ill? Maybe these blackouts are affecting
your memory.” Or worse. He could think of other reasons she’d be confused, but
the possibilities made his gut roil.

Shy rubbed her temple. “Do you want to know what really
happened that day or not? I’m getting cold and I just fainted a minute ago and
should probably go drink some tea or something.”

“I’m listening.” Kayn crossed his arms over his chest and
widened his stance, blatantly standing in the center of the path back toward
the farmhouse. This was the most she had spoken to him in weeks and he’d need
all the information she would give him to get her the help she’d need.

Pulling her hood back up around her head, she tucked herself
into the shadows. “Do you remember what I was like when I was sixteen?” she
asked, her voice sounding small as the wind plucked at her words.

He nodded. She was a pain-in-the-ass child in a woman’s
body.

Her lips rolled inward for a moment. “I was used to getting
my way. And that spring I wanted to go into the valley.”

“The valley was off limits. Had been for at least a year. It
was too dangerous with the Sleht movement at the time.”

“I know. But the fighting had died down and closing the
valley was just a precaution. They’d even lessened the number of patrols on the
pass.”

“How would you know that?”

She rolled her eyes. “I was the only daughter of a doting
father who just happened to rule one of the Five Houses. Plus I’d already
learned how to use my body and voice to my advantage over a man.”

He narrowed his eyes and she rushed on. “I was working one
of the younger guards, but at the last minute he got cold feet and refused to
let me go any further than the opening. When seduction didn’t work, I got angry
and threw an immature fit as I left. I tripped and banged up my knees and
hands. Wyc saw me trying to sneak back into our home, saw my scrapes and cuts
and that I had been crying and I saw a chance to get back at the guard.”

“You told your older brother you’d been attacked?”

“Not in so many words. But that’s definitely what I implied.
And so instead of taking the twins out with him on a perimeter scan as he’d
promised, he was on the other side of the city heading toward the valley. He
told the twins to stay in the city as he left, but they went off on their own
anyway.”

“That doesn’t explain why Ry was there with them.”

“Wyc sent him in his place to do the perimeter scan. I doubt
he even knew the twins would be there.”

He drew in a deep breath, letting the cold air sting his
lungs and clear his head. “That doesn’t mean Ry was innocent. It just means
that he saw an opening and took advantage of it.”

“God, Kayn! Give it up! Ry wouldn’t even have been close to
the twins at the time if I hadn’t done something so stupid. There were several
attacks that day, including a large one on the pass. The guard was already dead
when Wyc got there.”

“Does Wyc know you lied?”

Shy shook her head. “No one knows. The man was dead and so
were my brothers. Wyc and I have never talked about it again.”

Her explanation didn’t nullify the other evidence that Ry
could have been involved. A trap had definitely been in the making, but the
level of Ry’s complicity in the twins’ death had never fully been worked out.
Regardless, that wasn’t the main point here.

“That still doesn’t explain why you think your brothers
aren’t dead or your blackouts,” he said.

A haunted look filled her eyes, tinged with ghostly strains
of a desperate hope. Her answer was not immediate, as though she were weighing
them or judging just how far to let him in to her secret. “I’ve heard them.
Seen flashes of them.” Her chin lifted on the last word, her eyes held his in a
steady stare that dared him to defy her and her belief in what she said.

The Colorado winter had nothing on the cold fear that snaked
its way through him at her words. Very calmly, deliberately, he reached for her
as one would an injured, wild animal that would only harm itself further by
following its natural instinct to flee.

Reluctantly, she allowed herself to be pulled into his
embrace, though her body yielded against his as much as a block of iron would.
He rubbed a comforting hand over her back, pressing her closer.

“Are these flashes causing your blackouts and headaches?”

She shifted in his arms. “Yes.”

Her hesitation set off warning bells in his brain. “Are you
sure?”

He knew her too well. She wasn’t telling him the entire
story even now. The fear running through him grew tentacles and began wrapping
around his own plans and secrets.

“The flashes are very strong. Overwhelming at times. I see
them being tortured.”

He stepped back and took her chin in his hand, forcing her
to look up at him. “Whose eyes are you looking through in order to see them?”
he asked. As a telepath, she’d be inside their heads and see what they were
seeing, not seeing the twins themselves unless they were looking in a mirror.

Blinking, she broke eye contact and looked away. “Each
other’s,” she said.

Lying. She was lying to him again.

When she looked back at him, she had closed down. Pushing
away his hand, she said, “But I don’t know where they’re being held or any
information that would actually help rescue them.”

“Shy, it’s been seven years and no word or hint that Cayd
and Ciys survived that attack. Maybe what you’re picking up on is some residual
telepathic energy.”

Her shoulders squared. “I told you that you wouldn’t believe
me.”

“Have you told anyone else this?” he asked.

She huffed out an angry laugh. “Why? What would that do
other than get me transferred back home for help with my
delusions
?”

“Perhaps returning to Ilyria would help the strain these
flashes are putting on you. If they’re not real, you could get help working
through whatever memories are causing them. They could be some sort of
trauma-induced waking dream.” He kept his voice low, not wanting to break the
tenuous connection that had just begun to reform, but wanting like hell to
convince her she was wrong.

“No. They’re real. I know it.”

“If they are, then if you return to Ilyria, at least you’d
be closer to the source of these flashes and could maybe see more.”

“No,” she said.

Too quick. Her reaction to his suggestion was too quick and
too harsh.

“No,” she said again, this time with more control. “I need
to finish my mission here.”

He stared at her, wishing portals worked a little
differently so he could push her through one. “Will you at least tell me when
they happen?”

“I shouldn’t have told you about them in the first place.”

“Why did you?”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I don’t know.
You caught me at a bad time and I just wanted…”

“Wanted what, Shy?” he asked when her words faded to silence
and she didn’t say anything more.

“Nothing. It’s nothing.” She advanced on him and the anger
and distrust he’d been watching her build against him for weeks settled back
into her expression. “Do not tell anyone about this conversation. I’ll just
deny it.” She passed him on the path and this time he didn’t stop her. “As I
said, there’s nothing you can do to help. Now you know and you can leave me
alone.”

“And if I don’t? Because I know there’s more you’re not
telling me.”

She stopped and turned to look at him. “We both have secrets,
Kayn.”