“We were twelve,” Vasic said. “Aden was in anti-interrogation training.”
Translation: he was being tortured.
Zaira’s teeth ground down, hands fisted. Sensing Walker’s tension, she realized he, too, had understood the truth behind Vasic’s words.
“The trainer made a mistake,” the teleporter continued. “Aden realized the man was about to accidentally snap his neck. He couldn’t stop him telepathically, not with his abilities leashed, so he says he instinctively reached for power.” Vasic’s tone was so even, Zaira knew he had vicious control on himself. “I felt him and didn’t resist the power draw. I knew Aden would never do something like that unless he was in danger.”
And that, Zaira thought, was why she had always trusted Vasic. Even when she’d been jealous of him, she’d known he wouldn’t hesitate to stand with Aden against any threat.
“The trainer didn’t realize Aden had gained strength?”
Vasic shook his head at Walker’s question. “My telekinesis gave him the power to twist out of the trainer’s hold. That sudden strength was attributed to a surge of adrenaline at being in danger.”
Zaira heard Walker and Vasic continue to talk, but her mind, it kept searching for Aden. Her chest got tighter and tighter with every failure to connect. Don’t you leave me alone, she commanded him again. Don’t you go.
A warm weight on her hair, Walker’s hand on the back of her head. “He’s strong,” the older telepath said. “Stubborn, too.”
She didn’t know why, but his calm tone, paired with the open emotion in his voice, smashed through her defenses. Maybe it was because of Aden’s memories of him, but she didn’t resist when he drew her into his arms, standing scared and angry and waiting against the warmth of him.
You finally won our argument, she said along the dead psychic pathway. I chose to be better than my past today. Wake up so you can savor your victory.
No response. Nothing but a blankness that made ice form in her blood, and the rage build again. Pulling away from Walker, she began to pace the corridor for what seemed an eternity.
And then she reached out to Aden . . . and his mind caught her own.
Twisting around as her blood thundered, she ran into the operating theater. A drained-appearing Judd was slumped against a wall, the doctor and nurses looking as tired, but Zaira’s focus was on Aden. To her shock, he pulled himself into a seated position as she watched. He was paler than he should’ve been, the skin at his neck appearing delicate and new, but he was conscious and unhurt and she could feel the wonderfulness of him inside her mind.
Opening his arms, he hauled her close. She held on tight, her heart squeezing so hard inside her chest that it hurt, her breath stuck in her lungs. She didn’t care about that, or about the others in the room, leaving that to Aden.
He would watch her back. He always had.
* * *
ARMS steel around her, Aden breathed Zaira in. When he looked up, it was to see Walker and Vasic getting everyone else out of the room. Vasic had his arm around Judd’s waist, the exhausted Tk only minutes away from a total flameout, while the doctor’s face held lines of exhaustion. Her nurses weren’t in any better condition, their feet dragging.
Walker met his gaze, the raw depth of his relief open. Hold on tight to her. She loves you.
I know. Pressing his cheek against Zaira’s temple and sliding one hand in her hair, his other arm still locked around her, he basked in her fire, letting it banish the coldness of near death.
When she pulled away and shoved at his shoulders, he noticed she’d tempered her strength. “You aren’t meant to get hurt.” The words were gritted out. “You aren’t meant to leave me alone.”
Getting to his feet, his strength enough for that thanks to a blood transfusion, he closed the distance she’d created. She stood her ground but she was careful with how she pushed him, his lethal Arrow mate. He’d accepted that the bond might never form, her scars too deep to allow such trust, but she was his mate in every way that she could be; she had given him every trust she could.
Cupping her angry face, he said, “I’m sorry.”
She pressed her fists against his abdomen and shook her head. “I’m never allowing you out alone again.”
He loved her wildness, her spirit. “That’ll make being the leader of the squad difficult.”
“Shut up.” A growl of sound before she hugged him again, a tiny Fury who’d claimed him as her own. “We found Persephone. Alive.”
Hard, almost painful joy in his blood. “How?” He could feel exhaustion starting to drag him down, the work the medics and Judd had done not enough to erase the effects of the catastrophic hit he’d taken.