Sword and Shadow (27 page)

If she expected to find the place more or less deserted, she was surprised by quite the opposite. The halls were full of hybrids rushing www.samhainpublishing.com 249

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this way and that, some carrying bundles of papers, others carting other supplies from one place to another.

She stopped a cat—a lithe, muscular panther—and asked, “What’s going on?”

The feline looked her up and down and bared its teeth in what was obviously meant to be a smile, though the end result of the attempt wasn’t nearly as friendly as it intended. “We’re setting up a war room for Commander Scorpio and his people.”

And who the fuck is Commander Scorpio?
she asked herself, but said nothing. She thanked the cat for his answer and continued on her way, looking for an elevator or staircase leading the basement. Her stomach growled violently and gave a spasm. She needed to eat. Desperately.

And, true to form, she didn’t even make it to the elevator before running into someone else who wanted to have a conversation. “Val!”

She heaved a long-suffering sigh and turned to watch Bryon’s approach.

“You look awful!”

“You vampires are sure tactful,” she groaned irritably. “Does it come with the territory or do you have to take lessons?”

He blinked at her uncomprehendingly and she waved the question away. “Never mind. Do you know how to find the cafeteria?”

“No. But I’ll help you find it,” he replied. He pointed at his nose. “I’m sure this will point us in the right direction. Do you know where to start looking?”

“The basement.”

“Then the basement it is.” He looked from her to the elevator and blinked in obvious distress. “You’re in no shape to take the stairs, are you?”

“What was your first clue?”
Damn, Val, you’re sure being a sarcastic
bitch today. And to Bryon, even, who definitely doesn’t deserve it.
“Sorry.

I’m tired and hungry.”

He shrugged. “It’s okay. I just don’t like these elevator things.”

She stifled a chuckle. It wasn’t funny. Not really. He was a vampire, theoretically immortal and damn hard to hurt, much less kill, and was 250

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afraid of elevators? Talk about ironic. “I can’t take the stairs and you can’t handle the elevators. Maybe escorting me to the cafeteria isn’t your best idea to date.”

He drew himself up and stared at her. “I can handle the elevator.” To prove his point he walked over and stabbed the ‘call’ button. They awaited the car’s arrival in slightly uncomfortable silence. Val felt a little guilty for being so snippy with him—she’d sounded a little too much like Morrigan for her own comfort.

She was angrier than she’d realized. Angry at Raven and herself.

She’d fallen in love with him, abandoned her mission, and gone renegade, and what did she have to show for it? A wasted body and a half-broken heart.

Raven was very good at dodging conversations he didn’t want to have, and, where once she’d taken it as a symptom of the challenges they faced, now she wasn’t so certain. He didn’t seem to want to talk about them, or, if he did, he sure had a funny way of showing it.

Maybe it was true he didn’t have any answers for her, but she’d always thought that’s what relationships were about—discovering the answers together. Then again, what did she know about relationships?

Everything she knew were from old books and views from Earth.

Romance novels and romantic comedies—which nearly always involved one person lying to the other until finally their duplicity was discovered.

Yet, amazingly enough, almost all of them ended happily-ever-after.

The car arrived and they stepped inside, Bryon’s hesitation barely noticeable. She actually admitted to some sympathy for him, after her initial response of disbelief. He was handling the culture shock very well, all things considered.

“He loves you,” Bryon said, out of the blue, as the elevator doors closed and the car began to move downward in response to Val’s pushing the button marked ‘B,’ presumably for ‘basement.’

“What?” Val shot him a shocked look.

“Raven loves you. He just doesn’t know how to express it.”

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“Great. That’s wonderful. He needs to stop living in his own goddam head. It’s not like I can read his mind. Just about anyone else’s mind, in a manner of speaking, but not
his.
”

“He’s afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

Bryon shrugged. “He doesn’t talk about this stuff. I just know things—I can’t even say how. He’s afraid to open up, show his vulnerabilities.”

“Well, that’s just stupid,” she snorted disgustedly. “Do me a favor.

Tell him I want to talk to him—and I’m not about to wait until dawn to do it. Giving himself an easy out like the approach of daylight isn’t going to fly this time.”

“Dawn’s at least five hours away,” Bryon pointed out. Unnecessarily.

She’d already figured that out by looking at the clock in the sleeping quarters in which she’d awakened.

“Yeah, but I know Raven. He’ll manage to stay busy until about half an hour before dawn, then rush over to breeze through a bare facsimile of an in-depth conversation. I’ve had just about enough of his dodging the subject. You pass the word to him—I want to talk to him, and I want it to be for real.”

The elevator dinged and the door slid open. The smell of something tantalizing crept into her awareness and she stepped out, whirling on him as he tried to follow. “Thanks, Bryon, but I can find it on my own from here. Go talk to Raven. Tell him what I said. No more dodging the issue.”

He stood there as the door slid shut once again.

Raven glanced up from the screen as Bryon entered the room, looking somewhat confused and far more hesitant than he’d seen him in quite some time. He straightened. “What’s up?”

Bryon skirted the desk and pulled him away by the sleeve of his shirt. “You need to go talk to Val. She’s very upset.”

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Raven frowned at him. “I’m planning on it. But this stuff is fascinating. Deryk Shea was planning on using these troops and their fighter craft, to not only repel the Cen invasion of your world, but to take it over himself. He planned to install a puppet government and rule both worlds.”

“So there
is
a Cen invasion in the works?”

“Definitely. The valkyrie told me that much. They’re fighting amongst themselves, but the pro-war faction is strong enough to launch an invasion, and that’s exactly what they’re doing. And there’s more. That starship is what they’re
all
after. It’s a jump-ship—capable of leaping between worlds, and armed with an assortment of powerful weapons capable of destroying whole cities at a time—and the Cen want it. So did Shea.”

“Don’t the Cen have anything like that already?”

“They did, but their knowledge of high-tech equipment wasn’t advanced enough for them to keep them intact, or to build new ones.

They cannabilize the technology of the worlds they conquer, and impress local engineers to do their work for them. Eventually it all falls apart and they’re forced to move on. If that ship is still fully functional, which it may well be, it could be used to launch another attack on
my
home.

There’s no telling how successful it would be—our technology has advanced rapidly in the last couple of centuries—but it could be devastating all the same.

“I need to brief Morrigan and Scorpio on this. We need to work out a plan to stop the Cen’s agents from reaching the ship and digging it out.”

“I’ll brief them,” Bryon said, cutting him off. “If you care anything for Val, you’ll go talk to her. This can wait until tomorrow night, if need be.

I’m not sure
she
can.”

“Since when were you the ‘love doctor?’” Raven growled at the younger vampire.

“Since I realized you’re so damn stubborn you can’t be bothered to do what needs to be done. The woman loves you and you’re going to throw that away because you’re afraid of it. It’s stupid, and I won’t be a party to that kind of idiocy.”

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Raven gaped at him, taken completely by surprise by the sudden anger in Bryon’s tone. “Fine. You find Morrigan and Scorpio and bring them up here. Morrigan can read the text as easily as I can. Tell them I’ll be back to discuss it when I’m through with Val.”

Bryon nodded.

Raven spun on a heel and marched toward the door, his step hitching just slightly when he heard Bryon’s whispered “Good luck.”

Why did he have the feeling he’d need it? Hell, he’d probably need more than luck.

Morrigan leaned close to Scorpio and let her gaze linger on his soft brown eyes, far more gentle than she would’ve expected to see on a career mercenary. “So, why’d you become a mercenary, anyway?” She was already in the second stage of her seduction technique, and thought it was going rather well. The attraction was obviously mutual, and Scorpio was enough of a man’s man to appreciate her frankness. Or so she thought.

She jumped a couple of inches when Bryon suddenly materialized by the side of their table. Well, not materialized, literally, but he appeared as if by magic, startling the both of them. “Morrigan! You two need to come with me. We know what Shea was doing.”

Cursing the vampire silently, Morrigan gave Scorpio a smile that promised they’d continue this at a later time, then turned a dark gaze on Bryon. “And this was so important you just had to run down and tell us about it?”

“Yes,” he said, seemingly oblivious to what he’d interrupted. “Raven sent me to get you and brief you on what they discovered.”

“Really?” She drawled the word out, feeling her gaze narrow dangerously. “He did, did he? So where is Raven now?”

Bryon seemed to belatedly catch on to the fact he’d come at a bad time, and stuttered a little before explaining. “W…well, he’s…he’s talking to Val right now.”

“And this couldn’t wait? Doesn’t sound that way to me.”

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“Well,” he answered back, sounding a bit irritated now, “that was important too. I told him I’d take care of briefing you two if
he
went and talked to Val. She’s pretty upset with him right now and things are going to get bad between them if he doesn’t make the time to deal with it and—

”

“Oh, God. Spare me, Bryon. I don’t want to know the sordid details.”

She sighed and levered herself to her feet. “Just take us to the damn computer. We’ll take it from there.” She’d been wondering when the other shoe would drop. Raven would only be able to dodge Val for so long before she’d figure it out, then all hell would break loose. As much as she’d wanted to mess with them both early on, she’d grown to like and respect them too much to want their nascent relationship to fail. But the vampire’s insistence on keeping his own counsel had done them no favors.

She eyed Bryon curiously, realizing that
he
must’ve pushed Raven into it, and found herself reconsidering her perceptions of him as well.

The provincial youth was growing up into a solid young man, vampire or not. Perhaps he had more potential than she’d realized.

Maybe
he
was a possible future conquest—after she’d hooked Scorpio, that was. At the moment a mercenary commander in hand was worth a lot more than a young vampire with a bright future.

Every conquest had its moment, after all. His would come.

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Chapter Thirty-one

“Are you going to eat that?” Raven asked, grinning down at Val. He’d appeared out of nothingness, as he was prone to do, and yet she hadn’t been in the least bit startled by his abrupt arrival.

“Why? It’s not as though
you
can eat it.” She put the apple slice back down on her tray and peered up at him, curious as to why he was here.

Had Bryon actually developed enough spine to tell his hero he was being a jerk? Hard to believe, but not impossible.

He pulled out a chair opposite her and slid into it, propping his elbows on the table and leaning toward her. “You feeling any better?”

“Some,” she answered, with a surreptitious glance around the room.

It was empty, with only the clatter of dishes from somewhere behind the buffet counter indicating there were other people around at all. “Are you ready to talk yet?”

“I’ve been ready,” he said, and damned if he didn’t sound like he meant it. “There just always seems to be one more thing to take care of before we talk. And, of course, that leads to something else, and so on.”

“Sounds like an excuse.”

Rather than being angered by that, as she half expected, he let out a sharp laugh. “It does, doesn’t it? Hell, Val, I’ve screwed this all up from the beginning. I’ve done everything wrong. I tried to pretend I wasn’t feeling the same thing you were feeling at first, then I tried to push you away, and then I gave in to it just in time for everything else to get in the way again.”

She blinked at him. “If that’s supposed to be some kind of apology, it’s a damn shitty one.”

“How’s ‘I’m sorry,’ sound to you?”

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“Better. Still not perfect, though.”

“Fine. I’m sorry I was a complete asshole, all right?”

“That’s more like it,” she laughed. “I guess I wasn’t direct enough either, was I?”

“What do you mean?”

“Hell, I
let
you dodge the issue rather than making you face it head-on. That probably didn’t help any.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m over two-hundred years old and this is all pretty new to me. The only time I thought I was in love before turned out to be a complete disaster. She wanted me to be something that I wasn’t, and I dragged that baggage right into this thing between us without realizing it was even there. You never really saw anything but me as I really am, did you?”

“What, a maverick agent with a chip on his shoulder the size of a small moon? Oh, I saw you. It wasn’t hero worship that attracted me to you, Raven. At first I thought you were a rude, self-absorbed prick who didn’t understand how what you did affected me. Your water-heater, your pistols, and the derision you poured on everything I’d been taught to believe was like a slap in the face.

“But the weird part is that, in a way, you were absolutely correct.

Rules
don’t
matter as much as doing the right thing. Sometimes rules
do
get in the way. You made me realize that.”

“And I guess I never quite got how much that cost you,” he said. “You turned your back on everything you’d been taught and I left you to drift alone while I tried to sort out my own feelings. I
was
a self-absorbed prick.”

“Well, I guess you and I agree on one thing, at least.”

“So where do we go from here?”

She pushed the tray away from her and reached across the table to take his hand. “Are you going to open up to me finally, Raven? I can’t read your mind, I can’t sense your emotions. The only way for me to know what you’re feeling is for you to tell me. And that’s the one thing you haven’t been willing to do.”

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“I know.” He squeezed her hand, gently. “Goban didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“Depends on what you mean by hurt. He didn’t rape me, or allow anyone else to, for that matter. If anything, they ignored me. They threw me in a dark room and pretended I didn’t exist, for the most part.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t come for you—” he began, but she cut him off with a slash of her hand.

“It doesn’t matter, Raven. I know why you didn’t and you were right—

I’d have done the same thing in your position. You delegated the responsibility for my rescue, and stood by the people you’d sworn to protect. I can’t fault you for that.”

He lifted his violet gaze to hers and smiled thinly. “Really?”

“Really. And if they hadn’t shown up when they did, there’s no telling what would’ve happened. I escaped Goban’s manor, but getting from there to the city in the condition I was in…I’m not sure I would’ve made it on my own.” She gave his hand another squeeze. “You did the right thing, and I appreciate it.”

He stood suddenly, releasing her hand. “You done?”

“I couldn’t eat another bite,” she answered. “My stomach is a lot smaller than it used to be.”

“Good. Then come with me.” He did something arcane and suddenly they were standing back in the room in which she’d awoke earlier.

“I’m not sure if I’ll ever get used to that,” she said with a wan smile.

She wanted to climb back in the bed and fall asleep, but this was far more important. It had waited far too long as it was.

Raven led her to the bed and gently forced her to sit before sinking to his knees in front of her. “Can you ever forgive me, Valerie?”

She reached out and stroked his cheek. With its cold hardness, it felt like marble under her fingertips. “You done playing the fool, Raven? Are you actually willing to give us a chance?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“That’s almost a real answer. Care to try again?”

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He made a sound between a sigh and a groan. “I’ve never let myself be tied down to anyone. I guess I’ve never really trusted anyone that far. I don’t know what’s changed, but I love you, Val. And I trust you.”

“What about Morrigan?” she asked with a teasing smile.

He glowered at her. “That’s not funny.”

“I thought it was.”

Then, suddenly, like a ray of light bursting through a storm cloud, he grinned. “I could ask the same thing of you. She’d be just as happy to tumble with you as me.”

That earned him a glare. “Now
that’s
not funny. I’m not wired that way and you know it.”

“That’s what they all say.”

She punched him lightly on the arm. She didn’t have the strength to put anything into it, and, besides, it would be a lot like punching a marble column. “You going to play square with me from now on?”

“I will.”

“Promise?”

He raised his right hand and held up two fingers in a gesture she vaguely recognized. “Scout’s honor.”

She gave him a skeptical look. “Were you ever a boy scout, Raven?”

“For about three months when I was eleven,” he replied. “We cut Christmas trees and went cross-country skiing. I got bored pretty quickly. I’ve never been much of a joiner.”

“Now there’s a surprise,” she replied, the irony rolling off her tongue unbidden. She leaned forward and pressed her lips against his. It was a sweet kiss, with nothing of lust in it at first, but the lingering touch of his mouth to hers ignited a fire in her belly and, after a moment, she had to pull away. “A girl could get lost in that,” she told him.

“Well, maybe now is a good time to get lost,” he said, leaning forward and planting tiny kisses along her jaw. Her spine turned to jelly and she sagged against him, a low moan escaping her lips. Their mouths met once more, and it seemed to her that he’d drag her soul out along with her breath, so passionate was the kiss.

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Again she was forced to break free, gasping for air. “Okay, Raven,”

she said, between pants. “You’re going to have to moderate your enthusiasm on the kissing side of things. I’m only a mere mortal, after all.”

“You’re not a mere anything,” he retorted. He slid his hand up her leg, rounded her hip, and traced lightly up her ribcage.

She caught his wrist just before it closed around her breast. “Not now. It’s not that I don’t want to, God only knows, but we’ve got more important things to think about than sex.”
Plus,
she added silently,
I
don’t want him to look at me naked right now.
Her semi-emaciated state disgusted her, and she didn’t want him to feel obligated to make love to her when she looked like a skeleton clothed in skin just because he started it.

He met her gaze for a long moment and nodded. “You’re right. I need to brief Morrigan and Scorpio.”

“Who the hell is Scorpio?” she asked.

“He’s the commander of a troop of mercenaries Deryk Shea planned to use to fight off the Cen invasion back where we started. Everyone’s after that damned starship. That’s the key to all of this. The doppelganger’s notes indicate that the hybrids were to be used as conscription force, and then to guard captured natives while they dug the ship out.

“The still-predatory faction of the Cen don’t care about the world at all. They want to use the ship to get their revenge on Earth Prime for handing them their first real defeat. It’s apparently a jump ship, able to leap between realities, and armed with an assortment of atomic weapons and who knows what else. The Cen want it, and so, apparently, did Shea’s doppelganger. I’m not sure his reasons were any more benevolent than theirs. Dominance and power seems as much a part of who
he
was as it is part of what the Cen are.”

“And the different factions among the Cen?”

“I’m not sure Shea knew what was going on there either. His notes just indicate he knew of their existence. Are you up to participating in the briefing I’m going to give the others?”

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She nodded. She wanted nothing more than to lay down and sleep, but knew this was important and that he could hardly spare the time to brief them all separately. The fact that he’d spent this much time with her in the face of what was coming gave her a warm feeling inside that she had to admit wasn’t entirely warranted. She’d been on the verge of giving up on them, and it had bordered on ‘too little too late.’ But it hadn’t been too little, nor too late. But it had been close. “We’d better get to it then.”

He grabbed her hand as she stood, and transported them to Deryk Shea’s office where the others waited.

“I don’t understand. What do they think they’ll gain by acquiring this ship?” Bryon asked, leaning forward and peering at the image on the computer screen over Morrigan’s shoulder. “It’s buried in ice and rock. It would take years to dig it out.”

“Not necessarily,” murmured Scorpio, from across the room. “My engineers could unbury it in a matter of weeks, and I can only assume that the Cen are capable of doing it, too.” Morrigan favored him with a quick nod and hit a key combination that transferred the image to the large, six by nine foot wall screen.

“Damn, this thing is primitive,” she muttered irritably. “I haven’t had to deal with a computer this slow since the late twentieth century.”

“I might be able to do something about that,” remarked the Ermine, whose name they’d learned was Talia. “I’ve already figured out the operating system and I could put together a virus that can do a pretty good job of faking better hardware.”

“Really?” This caught Scorpio’s attention. He’d been a little shocked at first to find the place overrun with hybrids, but Morrigan had provided enough of a distraction for the surprise to wear off. The mercenary commander turned out to be quite the energetic lover, and damn strong for a mortal human. They’d laid waste to an unused office while waiting for Val and Raven to reappear.

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She took some satisfaction in noting that the two of them didn’t look at all satiated, though she wasn’t sure she could blame them for not wanting to engage in any carnal activities considering how drawn Val was looking. She’d never had sex with a vamp, though her active imagination had supplied her with a great deal of detail on the subject.

Chances were that, in her current condition, Val wouldn’t make it through ten minutes of the vampire’s passionate embrace.

Too bad for them.

She really hoped Scorpio wasn’t the possessive kind. He’d probably take it badly if she
did
manage to coax Bryon into an assignation. In the interests of keeping the peace with these newest allies, maybe she’d best either wait until it was all over, or at least until Scorpio was too busy to notice.

The other option, of course, was to simply inform him how it was, and let the chips fall as they might.

The last option was probably best, she decided. She’d never been the kind to sneak around. She liked to do her catting around right in the open.

And for now he’d found something entirely different to be more captivating than Morrigan, a circumstance she found more amusing than aggravating. In short order, he and Talia were bent over one of the notebook computers, talking in low tones as she laid out her method for tweaking the operating system to over-clock the processor.

Who’d have ever imagined the rough-and-tumble mercenary commander was a closet computer geek?

Raven cleared his throat to attract the attention of those assembled, which included not only Morrigan, Bryon, and Scorpio, but the hybrid leaders, Bridget, Claw, and Tuck as well. A couple of Scorpio’s lieutenants, non-descript, big-necked fellows who looked enough alike to be brothers, sat in, too.

“Here’s what we know now,” the vampire said, pointing at the huge wall monitor. “This is the crashed starship we believe the Cen are after.

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technology of the ship is considerably more advanced, electronically and mechanically, than the Cen are capable of creating on their own. They are not a mechanically gifted race. They usually advance by stealing the technology of others.