Shades of Dark (48 page)

“Chasidah, he’s alive.” Ren gently grabbed my shoulders. “Healing. He’ll make it on his own now.” He tried to pull me to my feet but my legs and back screamed in protest from sitting for a lifetime on the cold, hard floor.

“You’re in no shape to walk,” Ren said, probably reading my painful rainbows. “Put your arms around my neck.” He picked me up as if I weighed nothing, his arms under my knees and back.

“Philip?” I tried peering over his shoulder.

“Captain Bralford’s doctor has him. He’ll be all right. Everything’s going to be all right. I promise.”

Ren didn’t know. Sully was blind. Our
ky’saran
link was severed.

And Prince Regarth Serian Cordell Delkavra walked with Serian kings in the crystalline depths of the Great Sea.
Rash’mh han enqerma.

No, things were not all right. They never would be. But Sully was alive. Philip was alive. And if that was all I ever had, it was more than enough to keep fighting for.

The doctor on the
Nowicki
was honest. Her medical databases held very little on Stolorth
Ragkiril
physiology. She had nothing on human
Kyis
.

“Mr. Sullivan’s body knows far more than I do about healing him,” Dr. Galan admitted. “So we’ve given his body everything it needs to work with. The rest is up to him.”

“Will he regain his sight?”

“I have no way of knowing, since a
Ragkiril’
s optics are augmented beyond a normal human’s. But if he doesn’t, it may be that his body shut down that ability in order to keep him alive. Overall, a small sacrifice.”

But a big part of everything he was and could do as a
Kyi
. I thanked the doctor and headed down sick bay’s long hall for Sully’s room.

He had the thermal sheet pulled up to his chest, med-broches plastered on his arms, shoulders, and no doubt other places I couldn’t see, pumping nutrients and anti-infectives into him. Giving his body something to work with.

I stood by his bedside for several minutes, just watching him sleep, watching the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. That was the only thing that made any sense to me. Everything else that happened on the depot didn’t. At least, not yet.

Some answers would come with the interrogation of Burke and his two ships’ crews. But others, I might never know.

What kind of game would force Del to confront a powerful rogue
Kyi,
only then to give up his own life so that his enemy might live?

“Study the Serians, study the Ayirr Dynasty, and you might understand,” Philip had said from his own sick bay bed, when I’d seen him an hour before, while Sully was still in surgery. “But then again, you might not. My aunt is still puzzling much of it out. Stolorth royalty thrives on flamboyance and conflict. They also have a very deep sense of honor. It makes no sense to us. But it does, very strongly, to them.”

And why,
how
had Sully broken our
ky’saran
link? Is that what pushed him to the brink of death? Or was breaking it what kept him alive because it left him free to concentrate his energies in healing?

And did he even care that he was alive? What had happened with Halemon only augemented his self-hatred, even though I knew now he was as much an unwilling participant as Halemon. Del had used them both. Another game.

But his intentions had never been to hurt Gabriel, his clan brother. Because in his culture, you shared your pleasure with your friends, your family. Del had taken the time to remove that memory from Brigitta Halemon’s mind. She’d never know she’d pushed one man to the brink of suicide. And, because of that, sent another to his death.

Sully’s fingers twitched. I took his left hand, threading my fingers through his long, lean ones. I squeezed. He squeezed back and my heart jumped.

“Sully?”

He blinked, then blinked again, dark lashes shading silver eyes. He frowned. “Chaz?” His voice sounded rusty. His right hand came up and brushed over his face as if to pluck away whatever had cast him into darkness.

It came away empty. The frown deepened.

I squeezed his hand tighter. “You almost died, Sully. You’re still healing.”

He turned his face toward me. His gaze zigzagged slightly. “You’re wearing your worry colors.”

Base
Ragkir
and empathic talents were working. I took that for a good sign. “I’m worried about you. You’re a bit of a mystery to the docs here.”

“Where’s here? Oh.” Another frown. “Bralford’s down the corridor. The
Nowicki
?”

Still base
Ragkir
talents or something more? Two seconds later I heard Jodey’s voice call Philip’s name. “The
Nowicki,
” I confirmed. “The
Karn
’s hitching a ride in one of their shuttle bays. We’re towing both of Burke’s ships.”

Sully closed his eyes and was quiet for so long I thought he’d fallen back asleep. Then: “Hayden’s in the brig.”

“And talking.” He was. Jodey hadn’t even had to push very hard. All he had to do was mention Sully’s name and Hayden told everything he knew. He didn’t know Sully was injured. He thought he’d be facing a fully phased
Kyi
.

“Did he tell you he killed my mother?”

I straightened, surprised, and I was sure my worry colors flared. “No. I don’t think Jodey asked him about that.”

“Ask him.” Sully ran his right hand over the bed rail, his fingers finding the bed’s controls. “I only found part of the story,” he said, angling himself into a sitting position. The thermal sheet slid farther down his chest. “He knew she was putting me back in as heir. Not the Sullivan inheritance. Hers. Rossetti. But there was more. I just couldn’t…” His voice trailed off. He closed his eyes again.

“You’re tired,” I said softly, my thumb stroking his fingers. “I’ll come back later.”

“No, Chaz.” He gripped my hand tightly. “I…it’s damnably inconvenient being blind. I can’t pick up on the things I normally do. I can’t read you. I can’t hear you at all in my mind. There are several very large gaps in my head right now.”

“I think you put them there. You severed the
ky’saran
link.”

“I didn’t sever it.” His voice dropped to a deep rumble. “I gave you to Del.”

Confusion flooded me. “You…why?”

“To keep you alive. I thought he was going to kill me. So I transferred your link to him. Not
ky’saran
. A basic life link. That would keep you alive long enough so you could…fry his fucking brains with the
Kyi-
killer.”

Gregor’s research surfaced in my mind again. The only way to break a
ky’saran
bond without killing both parties was to transfer one of those linked to a third
Ragkiril
who was of greater strength than the original bond pair.

Del hadn’t lied when he said Sully had given me to him as a gift.

“I didn’t know what would happen to you if I hit Del with a charge from the gun while you were linked to him,” I admitted. “We had no data on the weapon. Bargaining for your life was the only thing I trusted.”

“My life wasn’t worth bargaining for, Captain Bergren.”

I eased down on the edge of his bed. “I don’t happen to agree with that, Mr. Sullivan.”

Sightless eyes watched me closely. I tried to put all my hopes, my love, my desire into my rainbow colors.

“How can you still love me,” he asked quietly, “knowing what I am?”

“Because all that I am is yours. And all that you are is mine,” I answered, equally as quietly. “The good and the bad. The fears, the hopes, the desires.”

“I have done unforgivable things.”

I shook my head, belatedly realizing he couldn’t see the movement. “Del did them, and tried to force you to accept them as what you are. But you’re not Serian, you’re not Stolorth. You’re a
Kyi,
a human
Kyi,
who loves deeply, is fiercely loyal to his crew and friends, and who has no tolerance for cruelty and injustice.”

He reached up blindly for me. I brought his hand to my face. He traced my jaw, my lips, my cheeks much as Ren had months ago. Seeing me in the only way he could now.

“A
Kyi
who is highly motivated,” he whispered, “by the pleasure of one extraordinary, incredible woman. A woman he loves beyond all measure.”

He lowered his hand, finding my arm, then hesitantly tugged me toward him. I went willingly, covering his mouth with my own, letting lips and fingers say what words often could not. But gently because he was injured, and tenderly because both our hearts were hurting.

It would be a time yet before he would have the strength to be in my body. He might never again be able to be in my mind.

It didn’t matter. All that I was, was his. And all that he was, was mine.

And that was something worth fighting for.

Winner of the prestigious national book award the RITA, science fiction romance author
Linnea Sinclair
has become a name synonymous for high-action, emotionally intense, character-driven novels. Reviewers note that Sinclair’s novels “have the wow factor in spades,” earning her accolades from both the science fiction and the romance communities. A former news reporter and retired private detective, Sinclair resides in Naples, Florida, with her husband, Robert Bernadino, and their two thoroughly spoiled cats. Readers can find her perched on the third barstool from the left in her Intergalactic Bar and Grille at
www.linneasinclair.com
.

If you loved
Shades of Dark,
be sure not to miss RITA Award–winning author
Linnea Sinclair’s
next exciting adventure set in the same riveting universe:

Coming in spring 2009 from Bantam Books

Admiral Philip Guthrie is in an unprecedented position: on the wrong end of the law, leading a ragtag band of rebels against the oppressive Imperial forces. Or will be, if he can reach his command ship—the intriguingly named
Hope’s Folly
—alive. Not much can rattle Philip’s legendary cool—but the woman who helps him foil an assassination attempt on Kirro Station will. She’s the daughter of his best friend and first commander—a man who died while under Philip’s command, and whose death is on Philip’s conscience.

Rya Bennton has been in love with Philip Guthrie since she was a girl. But can her childhood fantasies survive an encounter with the hardened man, and newly minted rebel leader, who it seems has just become her new commanding officer? And will she still be willing to follow him through the jaws of hell once she learns the truth about her father’s death?

Here’s a special preview.