Nalini Singh - Shield of Winter

Ivy took a breath of the biting cold air, icicles hanging off the branches in front of her in beautiful, dangerous shards. “Yes,” she whispered. “It’s not fair, when they do so much to keep the Net safe.”

The records she’d downloaded didn’t state that outright, didn’t even refer to the Arrows, but it was impossible to miss the stark difference in certain grim statistics before and after the formation of the squad, the date for which she’d received from Vasic. He hadn’t realized what he was giving her, how it clarified the data she’d begun to piece together.

“No one ever talks about the serial murderers who suddenly stop killing.” Far too many to be explained away by any statistical model, the percentage so much higher than before the squad’s formation that it was obvious they’d dramatically altered the playing field. “Who else but the Arrows would take care of that dirty job year after year, decade after decade?” Because the monsters kept being born, kept creating horror. “Certainly not Enforcement.”

Sascha, her eyes without stars, bent down to pick up a pinecone half-buried in the snow. Dusting off the frosty white, she played her fingertips over the edges as she rose to her full height. “I agree with you. The Arrows act as the only real control on the darkest elements of our race.”

A pause before the cardinal continued. “I think when the squad was first formed, it was about doing whatever was necessary to keep Silence from falling. Even though I might not agree with the actions of those first Arrows, I can understand it came from a desire to protect the Psy race.”

“And now that they know Silence wasn’t the answer,” Ivy said, forgiving those first Arrows for their undoubted part in suffocating and burying the E designation, “the Arrows from this generation are trying to redress the balance. I know Vasic would take a bullet for me without flinching.”

“Yes,” Sascha said at once. “The protective core has always been there, even if turned in the wrong direction . . . and I have a feeling the squad might’ve been manipulated into certain actions by some in power.”

Hugging her arms around herself, Ivy said, “Do you know if they’ve been with Kaleb Krychek for long?” The cardinal Tk was said to be the most ruthless man in the Net, but from what she’d glimpsed during Krychek’s fleeting visits to the compound, Vasic seemed to deal with him as an equal.

Sascha shook her head. “My contacts are light when it comes to information about the squad, but Judd did say Ming LeBon was their acknowledged leader for two decades. As an ex-Arrow himself, I’d say he was deeply trusted.”

Dropping the pinecone, the other empath thrust her hands into the pockets of her winter coat, the color a rich aquamarine. “I don’t have any proof, but given what I know of Ming’s tendencies, paired with the squad switching its allegiance to Kaleb, I think Ming tried to turn them into his personal assassination squad.”

Ivy stopped walking. “They believed in him and he used them.” The betrayal would’ve struck at the heart of the loyalty that bonded Arrow to Arrow—the one thing on which, it was obvious, every single member of the squad relied.

Including Vasic.

He’d been abandoned as a child, tortured, then used. He’d never say any of that to her, but Ivy listened . So she’d made the connection between a child who’d started training at four years of age, and a man who called his parents “the woman who gave birth to me” and “my biological father.”

There are some things that shouldn’t be in your head.

No one became so encased in ice by being treated with kindness. He’d been hurt. Over and over. Then, in what must’ve been a final, staggering blow, he’d learned that the terrible things he’d been asked to do for the good of his race had instead been done so Ming LeBon could bloat himself with power.

Every muscle in her body locked tight. She wanted to destroy the system that had allowed this to happen. “It doesn’t seem fair, Sascha, that he—that any Arrow—should have to walk alone and thankless in the darkness.”

Slipping her arm through Ivy’s, Sascha began to lead her back to the compound. “Do you remember what I told you about Alice Eldridge?”

It took Ivy a second to speak past her fury. “Of course.” Ivy had hurt for the scholar who Sascha told her had been put forcibly into cryonic suspension for over a century.

“Well, in Alice’s book—which she’s given me permission to copy for all of you—she has a bit in the middle that’s full of quotes by the friends and lovers of empaths.” The stars returning to her eyes, Sascha smiled at Ivy, and the expression held a vein of unexpected mischief. “The most common word in that entire section is ‘stubborn.’ Apparently, Es have a problem with giving up on anyone. I’d say your Arrow doesn’t stand a chance.”

Ivy’s responding smile was shaky. “No,” she said, “he doesn’t.”

It wouldn’t be easy, and there was a high chance she’d fail in her quest to shatter her Arrow’s defenses, but Ivy hadn’t survived a brutal reconditioning by being a shrinking violet. If Vasic needed Silence to survive, that was one thing—and agonizing as it would be to recognize that she could never truly know him, she’d accept it, because to do otherwise would hurt him.

But, if her warrior-priest was using the isolation of the conditioning to punish himself for the crimes of another man, one who’d sacrificed the hearts of good men and women on the altar of power, then no, Ivy wasn’t about to let that slide. Not now. Not ever.

VASICchecked the PsyNet late that night to discover the infection, its tendrils a malignant darkness, had well and truly invaded the compound, though it wasn’t yet touching any of the minds inside. It went against his every instinct to leave Ivy and the others in the infection’s path, but to remove them would be to deny their nature.

Dropping out of the psychic network after taking one final look, he scanned the area. It was swathed in the pitch-black of a moonless night, the cabins quiet and the only movement that of the Arrows on sentry duty.

One, however, wasn’t where he was supposed to be. Abbot. Report.

Sir. I’m with Jaya. She experienced a nightmare and requested I stay within her sight.

Does she need medical attention?

No. I believe she is . . . afraid.

Vasic considered whether or not to pull Abbot from the detail. He’d chosen the younger Arrow for his unit not because Abbot’s Silence was flawless, but because it was cracking in an erratic and possibly dangerous fashion—the squad needed to know if their more damaged members could work with empaths going into the future. As a result of Abbot’s mental state, Vasic and another senior member of the unit had kept a close eye on the male throughout.

It had soon become clear that he was stabilizing in an unanticipated way, his presence more ordered and calm than it had been for months, his concentration acute. The problem was that he appeared to have attached himself too deeply to his empath.

Vasic? A light going on in Ivy’s cabin.

He caught the tremor in her voice, turned immediately to head to her. What is it?

I just . . .

He was on the porch pushing open her door before she finished. When she came directly to him, curling up against his chest while Rabbit leaned against her leg, he did what he’d seen humans and changelings do to offer comfort, and closed his arms around her upper body. And he knew Abbot wasn’t the only Arrow who’d attached himself too deeply to his empath.