Betrayal's Shadow (35 page)

He stroked her hair, and she tried to let go of her fear. It wouldn’t help him to carry her concerns with him, and maybe, just maybe, she would go to bed and wake up and he’d already be back.

“How do I do it?”

“Focus on what you remember of him. Think of his heartbeat. Seek the connection as you would me. Call his name. You’ve touched him and you’ve exchanged blood when the sword cut you both. You have the intimate details to do the call. He will hear you.” He stroked her hair. “And he will come. Because of the Sanctum’s security, you won’t
fold
to him. He’ll have to come to you.”

A call from exchange of blood, it sounded barbaric. Mia rubbed her belly. “You make it sound so simple.”

Turen held her face in his hands and gentled his thumbs across her cheeks. “I know this isn’t simple. There has been nothing simple for you since you first showed up in my prison cell. I wish to God that I could change that. But you’re strong and smart. You can do this. I don’t believe we would be here together if we couldn’t get through the trials thrown at us.”

Courage and right hadn’t helped Xavier and Maitea. Certainly they must have felt destined, too. She withheld that bit of negativity.

As if he heard her thoughts, he said, “We’re special. You and I. We can do this, my beautiful warrior.” He waited and watched her face.

Trying to muster her fortitude, she returned his look. Their son kicked under her palm and prompted her to smile.

“Please. Promise me this.”

“I’ll do it. But only as a last resort.” She forced a frown and crossed her arms over her chest. The façade didn’t hold. She clutched him to her, memorizing the bristle on his jaw against her cheek and the warmth of his body holding hers. “Please come back to me.”

“Always.”

With a final kiss, he
folded
from her arms. She hugged herself, trying to retain the warmth. He hadn’t addressed what to do if Xavier found her. However, there was really no answer for that. She set her teeth and with a deep breath headed into the bedroom and rooted through the top drawer of the dresser. Nestled in with her lace panties was a gun Turen had brought back from his detour in Tucson.

He had tried to familiarize her with the weapon as a backup measure. Her pregnant body didn’t accommodate the sword and knife. She’d been too reluctant to handle the gun.

It hadn’t stopped him from taking her to the garage to review it with her anyway.

“I’ve never shot a gun before.”

“It’s okay. I’ve put on the safety. See here.” He showed her the mechanism on the big silver beast as he wrapped her hands around the grip. “Breathe, love.” He’d pried her fingers loose and repositioned them. “You can wrap both hands around and release the safety, like this.” His fingers pressed hers through the motion.

She wouldn’t be able to hit the broad side of a barn, but he always knew her thoughts.

“If they get into the house, slip off the safety, hold tight, keep your eyes open, and shoot for the center of the body. Shoot to kill. Keep shooting until you run out of bullets.” He’d even risked
folding
her for a few minutes to a remote location so she could practice first loading the bullets and then squeezing off a few shots. The recoil and the roar had unnerved her.

After laying a false trail, he’d taken them home and placed the gun in the drawer with a box of bullets. Heaven only knew where he’d purchased those. The gun had remained in the drawer for the last few months. Turen hadn’t pushed the issue again.

Mia took gun and the box of bullets, trying very hard to still her shaking fingers. Slowly she went through the steps to check the safety and load the weapon. What should have been a quick job took her forty minutes. At the end, she curled up in the middle of their bed, the gun fisted in her hands, and prayed through the tears streaming down her face.

***

The forty-five degree angle of the rock walls and the recessed crystals of light added to the odd symmetry of the cryo lab. Turen turned slowly in the dim light, checking the alcoves beside him and the aisles that fed away from his location.

No movement or disturbance broke the silence. In fact, nothing sounded but the beeps of the monitoring equipment. He glanced toward a panel on the far wall; the sensor alarms that should be resonating throughout the facility from his appearance were lit white, inactive. His good fortune posed a major threat. Sensors deactivated, the sisters in cryo risked attack, the free-access point allowing for intrusion.

Deliberate? No way to tell from the panel, and he didn’t have time for a thorough search, but the unexpected alteration in his plan gnawed at his gut.

He swung around again cautiously and grappled with whether only the situation or another presence had alerted his senses. Uncertain, he moved ahead. There wasn’t time to tackle this problem now. Something this critical required he come back later and rectify it.

Hands free for an altercation, he headed for the far end of the aisle to his right. Briet had been one of the last put into cryo. Her pod was the final one at the end of the section. The walls sloped from the floor in a gradual rise to the ceiling. Long tubular pods attached to the walls sustained life via fibers fed to each unit, with receptive data redistributed back to a centralized screen of intelligent plasma near the entrance to the lab.

Each active pod held a woman, a sister by birth or affection to the warriors of the Sanctum. A sheer crystal observation window covered the face and shoulders of each woman with privacy shields activated.

Salvatore’s opinion, and later dictate, posed that the female segment of their population required more protection.

Turen considered the notion insulting. Many of the sisters possessed as much power and physical strength as their brothers, all possessed as much fortitude. Though one thing each of his brethren agreed on over the long and waning years—a reluctance to witness their sisters suffer for years without their mates, especially with Maitea’s death and the threat of the virus. Until those situations were resolved, the grudging agreement from all was for the women to enter cryo stasis. None were forced to enter cryo, though many had not gone happily.

Turen still held serious misgivings about the decision.

Finding his mate in Mia only reinforced his doubts about Salvatore’s aim and motives related to the cryo resolution. Fresh perspective made him debate what threat the women posed for Salvatore to restrict them in such a convenient method. At least for now they were safe. To tip the scales without answers, support, and a plan would only open them to new risks.

The last pod on the right was dim. He narrowed his eyes as he checked the mechanism. The failsafe component attached to each pod should sound an alert of any damage to the unit or the need for replacement parts. In addition to electronic monitors, Tsu performed a routine monitor of this facility.

Turen raised his hand, palm up; the small sphere of flame he formed was enough to illuminate the pod’s interior. He slid back the privacy screen.

With a jerk, he dropped his hand. The flame dispersed, leaving him in darkness.

The alarm system he’d anticipated upon his arrival chose then to activate. Blaring sirens wrenched through the lab’s silence. A low, modulated voice streamed through a centralized speaker system.

“Sensor detection in segment B. Activation lockdown.”

Shit.
The sweep had detected him and he couldn’t afford the questions if caught inside the lab. Not able to
fold
with lockdown in place, he raced down the aisles, arms pumping to squeeze through the portal of the lab doors before they snicked closed and locked.

He spun around in the corridor to check his exit options. His face connected with Ansgar’s fist. The impact launched him several yards down the hallway and landed him with a brutal jarring of bones on the stone floor.

Lifting to his elbows, he shook his head as mechanical whirs and clicks signaled the robot guard’s lock on him. A metal restraint slipped over his neck before he had time to open his mouth.

“I see you’ve decided to return. A little later than we agreed.” Salvatore’s voice rang in the corridor.

Turen took his time standing, taking quick stock of his disaster. Salvatore’s silver eyes remained impassive, but his expression and rigid stance reeked of confidence. Several more warriors stood at his back, weapons clutched. He stared at the face of each man and then pointedly at their weapons. An additional five robots flanked Turen. As if he had an opportunity for a break.

“All this for me? A little over the top, isn’t it, even for you, Salvatore?”

That earned him another fist, from Salvatore this time.

“You are beyond insolent, Turen.”

He moved his jaw, spit out a bit of blood and raised his face again, his wrists now restrained behind his back by the robots.

“What are you doing down here?” Salvatore’s voice returned to cold, calm.

“He was headed for the cryo lab.” The comment came from Ansgar before Turen had a chance to speak.

Salvatore’s eyes narrowed. He glanced from Ansgar to Turen with undisguised suspicion. “What were you planning?”

Ansgar leaned against the wall. “Whatever it was, at least he never made good on it.”

“You can’t be—” Salvatore was cut off by the swoosh of the cryo doors farther down the hall.

Everyone turned as Tsu exited, walked around the guards, and came to stand beside Ansgar. “There was no one else with me in the lab,” said Tsu.

Damn, he should have paid more attention to his instincts. What the hell was going on here?

“Over three months you’ve been gone, Turen. Where is the woman you were charged with capturing?”

“I was charged to find her for questioning.”

“You were charged to bring her here,” Salvatore ground out as he raised his fists.

“We disagree, Salvatore.”

“You do not have the option to disagree. Now where
is
she, and what are you doing here? A sabotage of the cryo labs, perhaps?” A peculiar lilt lent an odd inflection of joy to Salvatore’s voice. Turen frowned at the man.

“I don’t know where the woman is, but I would
never
put my sisters at risk.”

Salvatore gave him a steady look. “Three months,” he repeated. “You can’t possibly hope to say anything to convince us you haven’t betrayed us.”

“Because I don’t agree with your line of thinking, doesn’t make me a traitor to my people.”

“Actually it does.”

His muscles rigid in the hold of the machine guards, he worked to keep the thin, taut line of his mental composure from snapping. He was fucking tired of capture and restraint. His only hope was that some of his comrades had the common sense to see through Salvatore’s denouncement of him.

Ansgar’s bald-faced lie and attack had covered Turen’s exit from the lab—but to what end? Briet wouldn’t be out of the pod without her brother’s knowledge. Evidently keeping Salvatore in the dark was enough incentive to align himself with Turen, but not enough to trust him. His memories of the council meeting connected Ansgar with the confirmation of Isa’s cremation. It had been more than a little horrifying to view Isa’s dead body intact in Briet’s pod.

And Tsu? Not one facet of the cryo lab escaped his meticulous scrutiny. Most of the brethren probably weren’t aware of the vigils Tsu kept over his sister’s pod and those of the others. He’d been the presence Turen detected in cryo. Now he feigned ignorance as well.

What was going on with his team?

Kamau and Grimm were thankfully absent from this scene.

“Silence will buy you nothing. You will rot in a cell until you are ready to give us information. It is what you are accustomed to, after all. If you choose to be stubborn, I will have to resort to an alternative. Trust me, Turen, you won’t relish the alternative.” Salvatore gave no outward sign, but the guards pulled at his arms to move him.

“Dictatorial bastard is not a management style, Salvatore.” Turen spat the words, frustration vying with anger.

The leader raised his fist but seemed to think better of it. The crowd in the corridor had grown. Turen witnessed the startled looks on the faces of several of the warriors. By now, almost every warrior was present. The unease was palpable.

Salvatore glanced around. “I will meet with the rest of you in the council room.”

The guards ushered Turen away unceremoniously and locked him in an internment cell in the lower bowels of the Sanctum’s stone structure. He rolled, stretched his neck, clenched his teeth, and sat up on the stone floor. The retention rooms hadn’t existed until Xavier had gone mad after the death of his wife.

Ironic. The brace on his neck was composed of the same material as the manacles Xavier used to imprison him. Now he was a prisoner for his own people, in the cell used for their fallen leader.

He closed his eyes in frustration, dropped his head back against the wall, and stared into space.

“I could use a little help here.” It was a desperate comment to no one in particular or perhaps to the whole universe.

He had to get back to Mia because Briet was no longer an option, and no matter what, he wasn’t going to let Mia become another victim of his people’s disaster.