Shades of Treason (27 page)

Rykus?

She fought the flutter that grew in her chest. The loyalty training was responsible for putting it there. Rykus wasn’t coming to her rescue. He’d condemned her to this fate.

“You ever kill someone before?” she asked, keeping her tone conversational. “You might want to rethink this. Delegate the responsibility to someone else. You know, so you can keep your hands clean.”

She pulled against her restraints, felt one start to give, but Stratham saw the movement.

He spun, locked his hand around her wrist, and snarled, “Stay still.”

“I need some help in—”

Stratham’s other hand grabbed her throat, choking off her call for help.

Ash gagged.

She coughed.

She battled down a surge of panic. Then she funneled all her strength into breaking the straps.

Cursing, Stratham moved behind her. His elbow came under her chin. His arm tightened around her neck.

Bastard.

She arched her back and tried to turn her head to bite Stratham’s arm.

He tightened the hold.

Her left wrist slipped a millimeter in its strap. She pulled hard. Got another millimeter, but black spots punched through her vision.

She would have screamed if she’d had air. Out of frustration, not fear. Death was something she’d accepted a long time ago, but she damn well hadn’t accepted this kind of death. She could not, would not, be killed by this man, this weak coward of a politician. If she was going to die, she wanted to go down fighting. Killing. Beating the ever-living hell out of something.

She tried shoving herself into Stratham’s mind, but nothing worked. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t fight. She…

She was still conscious. The idiot was only cutting off her airway, not the blood flow to her brain. She had some time.

She twisted her left hand, trying to reach the edge of the strap, trying to stay calm and conscious.

Then Stratham adjusted his hold.

Fuck
.

She heard a roar, then her vision went black.

It returned when something thumped to her right.

It thumped again.

It took a ridiculous amount of effort to turn her head, to see Rykus on top of Stratham, slamming his fist into the man’s face again and again and again.

Damn, her fail-safe was strong. Stratham tried to cover his head, but Rykus’s punches broke and bloodied his face. Rykus was using his left arm, the one he’d injured at Gaeles Minor, the one that was mechanically enhanced. A political aide, even a telepathic one, didn’t stand a chance.

“You might not want to kill him, Rip,” she said as nonchalantly as if she were telling him not to order the special from the mess hall. Despite the lack of urgency in her tone, Rykus stopped immediately. His hand clenched into a fist above the unconscious Stratham.

He wanted to obliterate the man. Ash saw that in the way his muscles bulged beneath his dark gray dress-downs. That fact made a fuzzy, warm, and entirely inappropriate heat surge through her. Rykus had saved her life. He wanted to end the man who’d tried to take it. There was something undeniably attractive about that kind of heroism.

Rykus finally looked at her. She had to force herself to meet his gaze. She wanted to look away, to run away, because she felt vulnerable and she wasn’t sure if the feeling in her stomach was lust or loyalty or some combination of the two. It shouldn’t have been either. She should be pissed. She
was
pissed. Rykus had betrayed her.

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

Shutting down her emotions, she smiled at his blood-splattered face. She wouldn’t let him know he’d hurt her. Wouldn’t let him know his actions had fazed her at all.

“I’ll be better when you get this needle out of my arm.”

Rykus stood, wiped his bloodied knuckles on his shirt, then carefully withdrew the IV from her wrist. “What did he put in it?”

“I’m sure something harmless.” Her voice was raspy.

Rykus glanced at her neck, which was undoubtedly bruised and red. That wasn’t the only reason why she was hoarse though. She’d been sedated for too long.

She watched his face as he pulled hard on the self-attaching straps, noting the tension around his mouth, the shadow of the day’s scruff over his jaw. All she could do was lie there as he freed her, wondering what he was thinking and why he’d come.

As soon as her hands were free, she sat up. The room blackened, but her vision cleared quickly. Her body was getting rid of the sedative they’d pumped into her.

She looked at the IV hanging toward the ground, then the bag of fluids in the medical tower beside her.

“You were here before?” she asked. Someone had switched out the bag.

He looked at the tower too. “No.”

“Then who…” She searched her memories and remembered a low voice. A reassuring voice. It was also a familiar voice. It was…

“Oh,” she said out loud.

“Oh?” Rykus echoed, watching her.

“Oh, nothing,” she said, casual as could be. She remembered the voice she had heard. It hadn’t been in her head. It had been Kalver. Her brother had saved her ass.

“Ash.”

She stared at the opposite wall, ignoring the tug of the loyalty training.

Rykus sighed. “Kalver. I got him cleared of all charges, but he was pissed when he heard you were being…”

His expression went grim. For the first time, Ash looked around the room. She wasn’t in a cell; she was in a med bay. The air smelled of antiseptic and clean, refiltered oxygen. The equipment wasn’t military grade.

She replayed the words Rykus had cut off. “I’m on a tachyon capsule?”

He drew in a breath, looked away. “You’re being transferred to Caruth.”

A cold, bone-chilling sickness shot down her arms and legs. No. No fucking way was she going back there.

She jumped to her feet, took one wobbly step away from the medical bed.

Rykus steadied her with a hand on her elbow. “I couldn’t let them do that.”

“But you could let your XO stick a needle in my neck.” She jerked her arm free.

“I didn’t let him.”

“You tackled me to the ground.”

“I didn’t know what he’d done.”

“You made me disarm.”

“We didn’t have a choice.”

“You convinced me to give up, to surrender.” She advanced on him. “You made me give Bayis the cipher.”

“I saved your life,” he yelled.

Ash didn’t flinch. She raised her chin and met her fail-safe’s gaze with all the defiance she could muster.

“And I didn’t force you. I
asked
you.” His face softened, and his eyes searched hers. “I couldn’t handle seeing you die.”

She felt unstable again, as if the tachyon capsule had bent reality early, throwing off her sense of time and place. Rykus didn’t want to see her die. A week ago, she’d been convinced he wanted to kill her himself. He was the man who’d thrown pictures of her dead teammates in her face, pursued her on a reckless race into Ephron’s atmosphere, and marched her through a forest with her hands bound behind her back.

But he was also the man who’d pulled her out of a nightmare with a kiss. And after the kiss…

After the kiss, they’d had sex. That was it. It was physical only. Ash wasn’t the type of person to get herself into an emotional tangle. Not with Jevan, and especially not with her fail-safe.

But what if Rykus wasn’t her fail-safe?

That wasn’t a safe question. It led to too many impossibilities, so she closed off those thoughts and the warm, fluttery feeling in her stomach, and she focused on the man lying half-conscious on the floor. Stratham’s head lolled to the left, and his closed eyes strained to open.

Ash knelt beside him, then knocked her hand hard against the side of his swollen face.
Wakey, wakey, asshole.

Stratham grunted. His blood-covered face twitched.

Wake up now,
she singsonged the words into his head. The bastard’s eyes grated open. They widened when he saw her.

You’re going to answer my questions
, she told him.

He looked to the left. She grabbed his face and made him focus on her.
You’re going to tell me how to undo this straitjacket on my mind. You’re going to tell me who you are and why your people murdered my teammates. You’re going to tell me the fucking endgame or I. Will. Hurt. You.

The way he trembled made a dark, overdue satisfaction seep through Ash. She finally had a target for all the rage she’d built up over the weeks, all the days she’d spent cooped up in a cell, all the times she’d blacked out, unable to defend her actions or avenge her teammates’ murders.

She wanted to maim and kill and torture.

“No,” Stratham mumbled, his head moving back and forth in slow, short shakes. “No. I wasn’t there. I didn’t—”

She dug her fingernails into his face.
I don’t give a fuck
.

Stratham tried to slide away. She held him in place, centering her weight on his chest and using her legs to lock his left arm against his body. His right arm, she grabbed and twisted.

Stratham cried out when the pressure built at his shoulder. “It shouldn’t have happened. It was a mistake! A stupid risk.”

Rykus stepped forward. He stood by Stratham’s head, crossed his arms, and loomed like a Caruthian glacier.

Stratham’s gaze darted to him, and sweat mixed with blood as it slid into his hairline. Rykus was big, intimidating, and he’d just beaten the hell out of Stratham. It made sense the bastard was terrified of him, but Ash needed him to be terrified of her.

She twisted the arm further, almost dislocating his shoulder. His face contorted in pain.

“She’s an anomaly,” Rykus said, his voice low but menacing. “She’s the only woman who’s survived Caruth. She’s survived the hell you put her in, and she’s pissed. I suggest you answer her questions.”

Stratham’s wide eyes stared.
I’m sorry. I… I had nothing to do with what happened to you or your team.

“Answer her questions out loud,” Rykus said.

“I—” He coughed, spraying blood into the air. He tried to rock to the side, but Ash didn’t let him move.

“Let him sit up,” Rykus said.

She kept the pressure on Stratham’s arm. She wanted to break it, to snap his elbow, make him hurt.

He kept coughing, straining to breathe.

Rykus placed his hand on her shoulder. “Let him sit up. He can’t talk if he can’t breathe.”

He could talk to her.

Ash wanted to reject Rykus’s advice and let Stratham choke. Rykus had claimed he hadn’t known about the sedative, but a part of her still felt betrayed. She’d put her faith in him, relied on him, and it had landed her in a tachyon capsule bound for Caruth.

But Ash made decisions based on logic and experience, not on emotion, so she released Stratham and stood.

He rolled to the side, spewing more blood.

Rykus grabbed a fistful of his shirt and yanked him upright. He dragged him to the wall as easily as if Stratham was in a zero-g bubble.

“Start talking,” Rykus said.

“I… I don’t know… where to start.”

“Who do you work for?” Rykus asked.

“Hagan—”

Rykus slammed his fist into Stratham’s stomach.

“You’re a telepath,” Rykus said. “Where are you from? How many of you are there?”

A warning pressed on the back of her neck. It was so sudden and severe she almost stumbled forward. She squeezed her eyes shut and blocked out Stratham’s next words. She wasn’t the one talking about telepaths, but she had to be careful. She drew in a breath, then stared at a black scuff mark on the floor. She didn’t let her expression change. She didn’t let her body move. She didn’t do anything that her mind might construe as being an acknowledgment of Rykus’s accusations.

Stratham shook his head. “Nowhere. Everywhere.”

Rykus shook him, knocking the back of his skull on the wall.

“We don’t have a home planet. We just… we’re elite. Supreme. We… we rule the people.”

“The people?” Rykus asked.

“Yes. The people. All of them.”

“Explain.”

Stratham licked his busted lower lip. “We’re telepaths. We influence the leaders of the people we encounter. We control them.”

“Who do you control?” Rykus asked the same time Ash did, only Ash’s words weren’t spoken out loud.

She gritted her teeth. She and Rykus had the same training, the same thought patterns when it came to conflict situations. It made sense that they would pursue the same line of interrogation, but it pissed her off that Rykus could put a voice behind his question and she still couldn’t. She didn’t want him to be her mouthpiece.

“I was assigned to Hagan.” Stratham strained to breathe. “We have people assigned to other Coalition members.”

“I want names,” Rykus said.

“I don’t know any names. I’m not high level enough.”

“You controlled the Coalition’s war chancellor. You’re high enough.”

“He wasn’t chancellor when I was assigned. I just do what I’m told.”

“Who tells you what to do?”

Stratham’s expression tightened. He let his head thump back against the wall. “I don’t know.”

Ash knew, but suddenly she didn’t want Stratham to say Jevan’s name. She didn’t want Rykus to learn how big a fool she’d been.

“Give me a different answer,” Rykus said.

Stratham flinched. “I don’t know! I get my orders telepathically. The people who talk to me don’t give me their names.”

“Someone gave you an order to kill her.” Fury rolled off Rykus. “Is that person on this ship? How close do you need to be to communicate?”

“Close. Around a hundred meters.”

Around a hundred meters was
not
close.

“You can communicate with anyone?”

Stratham shook his head. “Only other telepaths.” He glanced at Ash. “And individuals who are susceptible to telepathy.”

What does that mean?
Ash demanded.

“You’re special. It takes work, but your mind can be unlocked. That’s why you were targeted. I’m sorry.” Stratham doubled over, coughing and spewing blood again. “This shouldn’t have happened. None of it’s my doing. None of it’s my fault.”

He started to say something else, but the sound of his comm-cuff vibrating made him snap his mouth shut. He stared at the device.