He didn’t answer, simply lowered his face to her neck, his arms coming around her. Ivy held him tight, held her Arrow who couldn’t cry, but who mourned all the same.
IT took them almost two days to personally visit those Vasic knew wanted the truth—because he’d kept track of every single one of the affected families. Ivy stood with him as he accepted their recriminations, their rage and sadness, and then she held the people who needed it. Others were too angry, would need time to come to terms with the truth.
That was their right.
As it was Ivy’s to spend these last hours before the operation making sure Vasic’s life was ordinary. A normal day in a normal life . . . or as normal as it could be when the man she loved was an Arrow. He deserved a normal day, one without blood and horror and darkness. He deserved a million such days and she wanted to give them to him.
Sitting on the stoop of the cabin, she hugged her knees to her chest and watched him go through a quiet, dangerous martial arts routine with Aden in a corner of the yard he’d telekinetically cleared of snow. His best friend hadn’t said a word since his arrival, his shields impenetrable and his face expressionless.
Zie Zen would also soon be here, Vasic scheduled to pick him up in another forty-five minutes. They’d have lunch together with her parents, and she’d make sure she laughed because Vasic hated it when she cried. And she’d continue to hope for the comm to chime or her phone to buzz.
So many people were working to the final hour to find another, less dangerous solution. Ashaya and Amara Aleine hadn’t yet been able to unravel the complexities of Samuel Rain’s invention, but continued to try. The original project team had never stopped its attempts at formulating an answer. Even the surgeon was completing simulated operation after simulated operation in an effort to alter the percentages.
Samuel Rain, however, had become a hermit.
“I’m sorry,” Clara had said to Ivy when she’d called the sympathetic woman this morning. “I’ve tried to get in, see him, but he’s intransigent. All I can tell you is that the medical scanners built into the room report he’s healthy. He continues to send out order requests for arcane equipment and supplies, all of which Zie Zen fulfills at once, but we have no idea what he’s doing with it.”
Ivy caught the subtext—Samuel Rain might be trying to do what he’d once done with such ease, and each failure could be driving him further and further into despair. “Has he . . . Is it a total breakdown?” Ivy’s fingers had clenched on the phone.
“He seems rational when he does communicate, but he barely communicates.” Clara’s voice had softened. “I’ll keep trying, Ivy. I know how important this is. But we can’t barge in; that’ll erode any trust he might still have in us.”
“It’s all right, Clara. I never wanted to harm Samuel in any way.” She’d truly believed he was strong and becoming stronger. “I hope he comes through this.”
Now, four hours after that call, she sat watching the man she loved move with a deadly economy of motion beside his best friend. Aden had treated the latest burn an hour ago but hadn’t had the equipment to totally remove the mark, and so it was an ugly redness on Vasic’s arm.
Fingers fisting in Rabbit’s coat, she said, “You know it, too, don’t you?” Rabbit had taken to following Vasic around, leaning up against his leg any time he stopped. Vasic didn’t rebuke their pet, always finding time to stop and touch Rabbit before going about his work again. But Rabbit wouldn’t be soothed, as Ivy couldn’t be soothed.
Her mate was dying and she couldn’t do anything to stop it.
Chapter 59
WHEN A THIRD Arrow walked out of the orchard to join Vasic and Aden, Ivy wasn’t the least surprised. They’d started doing that ever since she and Vasic had settled at the cabin, just turning up. She’d fed more than one at the dinner table—though that was easy enough, since most just wanted nutrition bars. It wasn’t the food they came for, of course.
“Home,” Vasic had told her. “They come because they know they’re welcome in our home. To men and women who have never had a true home, a place of warmth and safety, it is a treasure beyond price.” He’d kissed the top of her head. “And they know you’re my treasure. So they come to check on you when they’re nearby. Do you mind?”
No, Ivy didn’t mind. She wanted to have Arrows dropping by for decades to come, wanted Vasic to build extra rooms onto the cabin so their guests could stay overnight, wanted to tease him into trying real food. “I want him safe, Rabbit,” she said, angry at the entire universe. “I don’t want to be in a world where he doesn’t get to survive. How is that in any way fair?”
Vasic froze right then, and for an instant, she thought he’d heard her and that she’d ruined the day. Then came a deeper, more violent fear.
She stood and ran toward him as, turning, he jogged back to the cabin. Sweat stuck his black T-shirt to his chest, the thin black of his martial arts pants outlining his thighs as the wind pressed the fabric against him. Ivy still had trouble letting him out into the snow dressed like that, even though he assured her that as a Tk, he was never in any danger of freezing.
Today, it wasn’t the cold that was the risk.
“What is it?” Her eyes and her hands went immediately to the gauntlet. “Is it—”
Vasic cupped her face in hands so gentle, she knew he could sense the vicious control she had on her fear and her anger. “Samuel Rain has demanded our presence.”
Her heart kicked. “What are you doing here? Let’s go!”
“Give me two minutes to shower.”
“Vasic—”
“I may need to be clean.” He kissed her hard as the import of that statement punched her in the solar plexus.
Watching him head inside to shower, she turned to Aden, terror knotting her guts. “If I lose him, I’ll break.”
His mind touched hers. You can’t break, Ivy. You’re the only home my Arrows know—no matter what, that home must survive.
She met his eyes, shook her head. But he was adamant. You’re strong. That’s why you’re Vasic’s. You’ll honor him . . . but that is a conversation we may never need to have.
Ivy took a deep breath, straightened. Yes, she said. We won’t. Because he’s going to be all right.
Going to Rabbit, she petted him in gentle reassurance. “Mother and Father are on their way to pick you up,” she said, having just telepathed them. “Be good and stay with Aden until then, okay?”
She rose as Vasic stepped out of the cabin in jeans and a leather-synth jacket paired with a light blue T-shirt she’d talked him into because it made his silver eyes even more striking. Walking over, she slipped her hand into his.
“Rabbit?” he asked, looking to where their pet stood solemnly with Aden and the third Arrow.
Ivy swallowed past the emotions choking her up, told him she’d made arrangements. “He won’t be alone.”
Then they went to talk to Samuel Rain.
Clara met them in the foyer of the sprawling house that was the core of Haven, having requested Vasic not teleport directly to Samuel as the staff remained unsure of his mental state. “This way,” the manager said at once. “He hasn’t permitted anyone inside yet.”
No more words necessary, the three of them headed upstairs to Samuel’s quarters. There was a massive skylight in this section. It drenched the corridor in light, likely the rooms, too. Stopping at one on the farthest end, Clara knocked. “We gave Samuel the corner suite because it gets the most light and he’s always demanded natural light in his workshops.”
“Who is it?” Samuel Rain yelled suspiciously from the other side of the door.
“Ivy and Vasic to see you.”
The door opened to reveal a man with wild, matted, and overgrown hair, his blue checked shirt buttoned crooked, and what looked like over a month’s worth of beard growth on his face. “Come.” Eyes blazing with either intelligence or madness behind his spectacles, he stepped back to give them their first glimpse of what lay beyond.