Born of Fire Read online

  Wanting to distract himself from that, he leaned his head back against the wall. "Why don't you tell me a story to kill time?"

  She scowled. "What?"

  "Caillen said that you used to make up stories to tell to him at bedtime. He said you were best at it."

  Shahara gave a light laugh, remembering how many stories Caillen used to demand from her.

  Please, Shay, make it a funny one!

  She missed those days of her little brother making shadow puppets on the wall to illustrate her tales.

  "It's been a long time since I even thought about any. I don't think I can do it anymore."

  "Why did you stop?"

  She shrugged. "After my father died, there were no more stories to tell. They just seemed too trivial to bother with while I had bigger concerns like feeding three hungry siblings."

  He reached up with one hand. She tensed, half expecting him to touch her. Instead he paused momentarily, then scratched his chin. He returned it to rest on his knee. "I told you I wouldn't hurt you."

  "I know. It's just hard."

  Suddenly, his hand was on her cheek, brushing a stray curl away. "Are you scared of me?"

  "Yes," she answered honestly.

  His blaster appeared in her hands. She grimaced at him. "What's this for?"

  "If I hurt you, you can kill me."

  She scoffed. "This is stupid." She tried to return it to him.

  He pushed it back into her hands. His gaze locked with hers and it held her transfixed. For once there was no mockery in his eyes, nor did they appear quite so glacial. "Fear is never stupid."

  "That's not what you said earlier."

  He laughed and she marveled at the rich sounded echoing around her. "Well I had to goad you in here for your own sake. Besides, it worked."

  Shahara set his blaster by her foot and relaxed, allowing him to continue to brush her hair back from her face. Chills spread over her and she thought about his strength. Since all this began, he'd been unbelievably courageous.

  Just what did it take to scare him? "What are you afraid of?"

  "Nothing."

  "Nothing?"

  She was skeptical over that. "Surely something has to scare you."

  Syn licked his dry lips as his gaze trailed over her breasts and down to the legs she'd crossed in front of her. The way she sat, her thighs were open, inviting his hand to touch the most intimate part of her body.

  He felt himself harden to the point of pain. What he wouldn't give to trail his fingers over her breasts, her tight stomach and plunge them straight into . . .

  Damn it boy, get your head in the game. If he didn't stop this, he'd burst his seams.

  Clearing his throat, he compromised by trailing his fingers over her soft, parted lips. "The only thing left that I haven't faced is death and, after all I've been through, it would probably be a relief. So no, there's honestly nothing left that scares me."

  Shahara thought about that while her body turned liquid in his arms.

  What would it feel like to fear nothing? Her multitudinous fears ate at her constantly.

  "Tell me a story, Syn. Tell me how a ten-year-old child survives alone in a world like ours."

  His body turned rigid and his hand stopped moving. "That's an old story that's best forgotten."

  Suddenly she knew what made him afraid. "You lied to me. You are afraid. You're afraid of letting anyone close to you, aren't you?"

  "That's ridiculous. I have plenty of people who are close to me."

  "Name me one person you confide in. One person who knows all about you."

  Silence answered her.

  "Well?"

  "Nykyrian."

  She shook her head. "No. You just told me something he doesn't know about you. How many other things have you kept from him?"

  Syn dropped his gaze to the ground as he realized the truth. "You're right. As a rule, I don't let people get too close to me."

  "And why is that?"

  "Because when they look at me, they don't see me. They only see my father's son."

  Shahara had to strain to hear those words. Even in the dim light she could see the torment in his eyes. "I don't hold you accountable for your father's crimes. And I want to know you. I want to know why you, who have more reason than anyone I have ever met, have never turned into the animal your father was."

  He offered her a quirky grin. "I could have sworn you accused me of that."

  "Well, I say a lot of things I don't mean and you're trying to change the subject."

  "All right, fine," he said, his eyes turning dull. "You want to hear a story, then a story you shall have."

  Swallowing hard, he turned his gaze up to the ceiling. "There was once a little boy who was born on a cold rainy day to parents who'd learned to hate each other. He was told that his mother had been a good girl who'd fallen in love with a bad boy who ruined her. But the truth was, she was every bit as heartless."

  His deadpan voice tore through her and she noted the way he omitted referring to them as his parents. It was as if he recited a book he'd once read, or talked about a stranger.

  "One day, the mother tried to kill the baby and the father beat her so bad, she took off."

  Shahara froze as she remembered what Digger had said to her. "How do you know that?"

  "My father rammed it down my throat every time he got angry at me. 'You worthless bastard. I should have let your mother drown you, instead of saving you.' "

  His voice was still hollow, but she knew he had to feel the bite of that. "You hate your mother, don't you?"

  He looked down at her and sighed. "I don't know her well enough to hate her. The only memory I have of her is when she threw me out the door and threatened to call the enforcers on me if I ever darkened her threshold again."

  She wanted to weep over his mother's cruelty. "So what happened after your father was executed?"

  He took a deep breath. "You know the answer. I was sent to prison."

  "I still don't see how they could have done that to you. Couldn't they tell that you were different?"

  He shook his head. "The child wasn't all that different from its father in those days. All he knew was violence. How to take pain and how to give it. The boy was angry and bitter, and he lashed out at anyone dumb enough to get in his way. Believe me. That little bastard took down three grown pedophiles without even flinching. He cut their throats and stabbed them until they were dead at his feet. He was so violent and cold in their execution that none of the other prisoners would even look at him after that."

  No easy feat and it said a lot for what he'd done.

  But it didn't change the fact that Syn wasn't cold-blooded or cruel. She knew better.

  As Digger had said, he'd only attacked them after they'd brutalized him.

  "The boy didn't listen to anyone. Not even the guards, and since the beatings didn't curb the boy's mouthy comebacks, they started locking him up in solitary. One day they made the mistake of choosing a cell with an electronic lock. The boy had been trained well and in no time, he had it deactivated and was out of there."

  "It must have been so hard on your own."

  He shrugged. "It could have been worse."

  "Worse?" she asked in disbelief. "You slept under Dumpsters."

  "Digger told you that, eh?"

  She nodded.

  "Well, I could have still been in prison being raped and beaten, so trust me. The Dumpsters weren't so bad."

  How could he be so accepting? How could he not hate his mother for turning him out?

  To this day a part of her despised her father for his neglect and shortsightedness and he'd never put her through anything like Syn had suffered.

  "So how did you end up here?"

  "I stowed aboard the first ship I could find with an open hatch." He gave a bitter laugh. "I guess I should have checked its log first to see where it was headed. Not that it mattered. This is where I'd lived with my father so I wasn't used to anything better."

  Shahara leaned against his knee so that she could better see his face. "When did you meet Mother Anne?"

  "Who's telling this story?"

  "Sorry. You are."

  "All right," he said, leaning his head back against the wall again. "Once the child arrived, he realized that survival wasn't going to be easy on his own. But the boy had enough of his father in him to get what he needed."

  "You stole?"

  "Everything that wasn't welded down. The child didn't care who he stole from so long as he got away. And one day, the boy made the mistake of lifting the wallet of a man who could outrun him."

  "He caught you?"

  "No, just as he was about to seize the boy, the boy dodged into a vacant building, ran through it and came out in the spaceport. The boy dodged around machines and debris until he found a tunnel that led to the entrance of the catacombs."

  "The man didn't find you?"

  "No," he said, switching pronouns. "I wandered around down here for hours until I realized that one, it was a tomb, and two, the man wasn't coming in after me. After sleeping here a few nights, it dawned on me that no one ever came here. It was just me and the dead."

  "So you made this your home?"

  "What can I say?" He flashed his dimple at her. "It was the cleanest, safest home I'd ever had."

  She shuddered at the thought. "You still haven't told me how you met Mother Anne."

  He reached out and fingered her cheek, his warm fingers a stark contrast to the icy air. She closed her eyes, savoring his touch, his smell.

  "One day one of the priestesses died and they brought her down here. I stayed hidden until they left and, after I'd fallen asleep, Mother Anne and Mother Omera came back to conduct Final Rites."

  She opened her eyes. "They found you?"

  He nodded. "Their kindness changed my life. They took me into their private chambers and kept me bathed and fed. It was the first time in my life I had somewhere safe to stay, where no one tried to hurt me."

  She winced at the thought.

  He moved his hand over to her neck where he brushed the backs of his fingers against her flesh, doing wicked little things to her body. Again the needful throb started.

  "The Mothers taught me how to pray and how to forgive. They showed me that some people spend their lives trying to help others and that helping people wasn't stupid or weak. That not everyone was a user."

  "That's why you're pious now?"

  "Yeah. It's the least I can do. I owe them everything."

  "So they raised you in their chambers?"

  "Not entirely." He moved his hand down the line of her jaw, sending waves of pleasure through her. His fingers trailed over her lips, her closed eyelids and then down the side of her neck. She drew a ragged sigh of pleasure.

  When Syn continued, his voice was a full octave deeper. "The High Mother found me and had a conniption. Men aren't allowed to take holy vows and she considered my presence a desecration to the temple."

  "What did you do?"

  "I moved back into the catacombs."

  She cringed at that. "No, you didn't."

  "I had no choice. But this time, I at least had blankets and a pillow. The Mothers would bring me a hot meal at night and they helped enroll me in the local school."

  She became distracted by his touch as he trailed his fingertips back across her lips and under her hair. "Did you use your real name?"

  "Hardly. I quit using Wade the day my father was executed."

  She still didn't know where C.I. Syn came from. "Was it the Mothers who named you Syn?"

  He laughed, his lips dangerously close to her own. "No. For an obvious reason, they refused to ever use it."

  "Where did it come from then?"

  "Given my parentage and youthful occupation, it seemed to be the only appropriate name."

  She shook her head at him. "You're worth so much more than that."

  He moved to kiss her.

  As much as she wanted his kiss, she didn't want to distract him. Not while he was actually telling her about his past.

  Pulling back, she asked, "So what does C.I. really stand for?"

  Disappointment flickered in his eyes and he sat back with a sigh. "Certifiably Insane."

  She rolled her eyes at him. "Why won't you tell me?"

  "It's too embarrassing."

  Crossing her arms over her chest, she sat back and looked at him from under her lashes. "It can't be any worse than Gildagard."

  He frowned. "Gildagard? What the hell's that?"

  She snorted at his disdain. "It's my real name, you goob. After my maternal grandmother," she said with a smile. "My father hated the name so much, he started calling me Shahara when I was still a toddler."

  His rich laughter warmed her. "Gildagard Dagan. You have to admit it's pretty gruesome."

  Yes, it was, but she wouldn't admit it to him. "Now that I've confided my greatest embarrassment . . ."

  He shook his head. "I'd sooner turn myself over to the Rits."

  "How bad can it be?"

  "Real bad."

  With that, she knew she'd never get a straight answer out of him. So she changed the subject. "Okay, if the Mothers were taking care of you, then how did you get back into filching?"

  "How many questions are you going to ask?"

  She shrugged. "How many hours did you say we--"

  "Good Lord, woman. Didn't anyone ever tell you that men have a specified word count set aside each day and if I don't stop talking, my tongue will explode?"

  She snorted. "Did you get that from Caillen or he from you?"

  He smiled a smile that sent a rush of excitement through her. "I told you it was universal."

  She gave him the little pout she used on Caillen to swing him around to her way of thinking. "Please finish telling me your story."

  He kissed the tip of her nose, then pulled back to a safe distance. "School was expensive and the Mothers were misappropriating funds on my behalf. I began to fear that they'd get caught and punished. So I decided to use the one gift my father had given me."

  "Filching for major companies?"

  He nodded.

  "Shame on you."

  "I know. But if you knew the High Mother, you'd understand why I started. Had she ever caught them, she'd have tossed them into prison without a second thought. And from personal experience, I can assure you, they wouldn't have survived five minutes."

  "But you did."

  "What can I say? I'm a tough bastard."

  Yes, he was.

  And maybe it was his story or maybe their close proximity, Shahara wasn't sure what had made her suddenly so bold. But before she could stop herself, she reached out and touched the stubble on his cheek that still held a faint discoloration from his beating.

  He nipped playfully at her fingers.

  Embarrassed, she dropped her hand and thought to distract herself. "So how did you meet Nykyrian Quiakides?"

  He picked her hand up and toyed with her fingers. The circular motion of his thumb against her skin sent electrical waves up her arm and straight to the center of her body. "He was wounded from a mission gone awry and I went to pick his pocket. He started to kill me and then when he realized I was just a starving gutter rat, he tossed his wallet at me and told me I looked like I needed it more than he did."

  She scowled at what he described. Nykyrian was a trained League assassin--someone not known for any kind of compassion. All assassins killed without remorse or hesitation. "You're messing with me again, aren't you?"

  "No. I swear. I knew he was dying from his wounds and I started to leave him to it, but I couldn't. Not after he'd been kind to me--the Mothers had taught me not to turn my back on people, especially those who helped me. Before I could think better of it, I helped him back to where I was staying and tended his wounds."

  "An assassin?"

  He nodded. "Because I saved his life, he paid for me to go to school."

  "Out of the goodness of his heart?"

  "Yes and no. I also worked for him."

  "And what did you do?"

  "Helped him gather information on targets. Provided a few toys for him to use while tracking and fighting. All legal." He lifted her hand to his mouth and began to suckle the pad of her forefinger. His tongue slid sinfully over her flesh, doing terrible things to her will. "And he paid a damn good salary."

  "Which kept you off the street."

  He inclined his head.

  "So tell me about Sheridan Belask. How does he fit into all of this?"

  His entire body turned rigid. His eyes returned to their normal frigid state and he pulled her hand away. "What?"

  A wave of embarrassment consumed her. "I saw your surgeon's certificate."

  His breathing intensified with the anger that flickered in his eyes. "Why were you searching my things?" And before she could speak, he answered for her, "That was a stupid question. You were looking for a weapon."

  Shahara nodded. "So how did you become Sheridan Belask?"

  Something strange passed between them then, a shared flickering heat that she couldn't define. Shahara realized then that she was probably the only person he'd ever told about this part of his life.

  It made her feel so . . .

  She didn't know what the word was. All she knew was that in spite of how they'd come together and what might happen in the coming days, she was glad she was here with him at this moment.

  He lifted her hand again and brushed a kiss along her fingers before nipping her fingertips with his teeth. "I was always interested in chemistry and biology, so I started taking courses in that. One day one of my professors suggested I think about a career in medicine."

  "And you became a doctor."

  "Well, it wasn't quite that easy." He took a deep breath and swapped her hand for her braid.

  She watched as he brushed it against the palm of his hand, then twisted his fingers in it. "I knew I didn't want to be a filch the rest of my life. For one thing, my activities had a way of getting back to the Rits and I had to stay on the move. And besides that, filches have very short life expectancies. So after a while I started thinking about what the professor had said."

  He touched her braid to the tip of her nose. "It started looking like a great opportunity. All my life, all I'd ever craved was respectability."

  "And doctors are always respected."

  "Exactly." He raised her hair to his face and ran the tip of her hair across his chin. If she didn't know better, she'd think he was savoring it.

  "How did you get into school? Don't they require birth certificates or records?"

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