Coda sniffs, tugging their own device out of their satchel. “Thumb on the screen.”
I press my thumb to the still-black screen. Nothing happens.
“Now remove your fucking thumb. We’ve done this easily a half-dozen times, Zaya.”
“Watch your fucking tone,” Rought says, a low rumble of essence underlying the command. The burnished gold of his gryphon rings his blue-green eyes. “Zaya isn’t your fixer friend now.”
Coda grimaces. But they take the reprimand.
The phone screen brightens around the edges, presumably scanning my face. Then a lock screen with the time and a photo as its background appears. Normally, Coda uses digital art for my phone, but this is a shot of the two of us, maybe three or four years ago. We’re tucked together on a worn black leather couch, as close as Coda ever sits to anyone. Gigi must have taken the photo.
That particular expedition, as Coda is prone to calling our fixes whenever the tech is required to be on-site, was the first time I met the combat mage in person. The first time all three of us had worked together in person. We had just uncovered an awry trafficking group in Minsk, Belarus. A branch of the insidious Möbius Group. While Gigi snapped this photo, three of the teens we’d rescued were asleep in the adjoining bedroom, waiting to be reunited with their families. But if I was remembering correctly, Coda hadn’t been convinced that those three had safe homes to return to, hence the delay.
Gigi challenged both of us to a game of poker, she and Coda losing hand after hand to me …
I look up at Coda.
“Don’t get mushy about it,” the tech mutters. “I needed a clear shot of your face to feed to my algos. You can change it to whatever.”
“Okay,” I say, tucking the phone away in the pocket of my dress. Energy shifts around me for a moment, but then fades without settling or tugging on me. I glance to my right. Meeting my gaze, the cu-sith rises to his feet, shoulders rolling as he pads off to wait for us at the roadside.
“Fuck me,” Rought says, eyeing the hulking beast apparently primed to escort us. “Broad fucking daylight.”
“Get me out of the fucking sun, AD,” Coda says. “And I’m not cuddling up with you on your bike.”
Rought leans down to press a kiss to my temple, his hand gripping my waist before releasing me reluctantly, fingers trailing across my back as he heads for the parking lot.
“I’ll get Coda set up at the estate,” he says over his shoulder. Then he whispers across my mind: Come home to me, my Marrow. Soon.
I suppress a shiver that fades into a gentle flush of desire. But judging by the widening of his grin, Rought catches it. Or maybe he’s picking up my emotions, as I can occasionally feel his.
Coda brushes a shoulder against mine before following Rought. Guilt instantly quashes the quickening of desire, but I shove it away before it can grab hold of me. Yes, I made a choice to go with Reck, but I’m not otherwise responsible for the Cataclysm managing to kidnap and hold me. Everything making that scenario possible had been set in motion years before I was even conceived.
Thinking about it, if I have the timing somewhat sorted, I was in fact conceived two years or so after my aunt rejected her soul-bound mates. As if the universe had responded to that choice of hers by bringing its next vessel into being even though my aunt was still relatively young. For a Conduit, anyway.
I can’t carry Disa’s actions, her choices. All I can do is try to make my own choices. Choices that bring balance — and, if I’m lucky, that right wrongs.
Watching as Rought and Coda pull out of the parking lot in Reck’s Authority SUV, I climb into the passenger seat of the Benz. I wouldn’t put it past Coda to steal the Authority tech embedded into that vehicle while its regular operator is otherwise occupied.
DeVille shifts the car into gear, making a tight U-turn to get us facing toward the main road.
“Thank you, Zaya,” Presh says, leaning forward over the back seat.
“Don’t thank me yet, Precious,” I say. “We still don’t know the price of freeing Bellamy.”
“No … I know,” the young awry says quietly. “I’m … figuring out how all that works around you. I think. But Bellamy is being held for no reason, so freeing her shouldn’t —”
DeVille snorts, loudly and doubtfully, sliding the Benz to a stop beside the cu-sith. Red eyes meet mine through the window. The young shifter mutters disconcertedly under his breath, “Is it going to stalk us all the way?”
“Don’t call Reck ‘it’,” Presh snaps.
“Reck is not at home right now.” DeVille eyes Presh, still slung over the back of the front seat, through the rearview mirror. “Put your seat belt on, princess.”
“Don’t call me that, Andy.”
“Then don’t call me Andy.”
Presh huffs, then she settles back and clicks her seat belt into place. “Fine.”
