Chapter 18
Flack
I halted at the edge of the border I’d scouted the day before.
Irena was a gentle weight on my back, one I relished with every breath I drew into my lungs.
Still under the cover of dense shrubbery, my current height gave me an unimpeded view of the complex.
I tilted my head back, lifting my nose into the air, and inhaled deeply.
There were many scents here, and they all told a story.
When it came to the security of this place, what I cared about most were the patrolling guards themselves.
I took a moment, simply standing there, to map out their paths and timing to confirm it was the same as yesterday.
Standing in place was making my mate impatient, however.
She slung her leg over my back and began to slide down my side to get back on the ground.
I did not like that. Her tiny feet were unprotected by shoes, vulnerable to anything sharp lying around.
The strange trees on this planet dropped spindly sort of nuts, and they littered the ground everywhere.
Shifting, I stretched back into my human shape.
I wanted to warn her about the sharp things on the ground, but those words froze in my throat when I completed the change and saw her face.
She was pale, but that was not a surprise; she hadn’t seen sunlight in months.
It was her eyes, big and brown, that warned me something was seriously wrong.
My heart began to pound inside my chest in response, but I knew enough about people to know this was no external threat.
Something was causing her distress, and perhaps it was even something I’d done.
Catching her hand, I found it cold to the touch.
I drew it toward me and tried to warm the small digits between my hands.
She wouldn’t have it, resisting my gentle pull and curling her hand into a fist by her side.
She was definitely mad at me, and I’d never had my Irena upset with me before; not like this.
I lowered myself to my knees at her feet, my gaze fixated on those shocked brown eyes, my voice hoarse as I asked, “Tell me, what did I do wrong? How have I upset you, my beautiful mate?”
She narrowed her eyes at me and shook what appeared to be her shock off with a huff.
“I could have sworn we were in the middle of escaping, not staging a diamond heist…” She flung her hand in the direction of the mansion, and I caught that little fist by reflex.
Drawing her fingers to my chest, I pressed them there, hoping to impress upon her the sincerity of my loyalty.
I could see now where her mind had leaped, and she couldn’t have been more wrong.
“Why not both?” I drawled, a smirk curling my mouth that did not draw an answering smile to her face.
Frowning, I refused to let her free her hand, keeping it pinned to my chest instead.
“We are being tracked. Not very accurately, but a drone is watching the movement of our life signs. There is only one true way to escape,” I said.
I tilted my chin and nodded toward the mansion.
“Remember that tattoo on my leg? It’s a map of that place, and that includes escape tunnels.
To shake Dimon and his crew entirely, we must go through there. ”
“Oh,” she whispered, “that’s… that’s not what I expected.
” She eyed the mansion again, but she stopped pulling on her hand to free it.
I took that as a good sign and shuffled a little closer so I could place my free hand on her hip.
Her scent was beginning to gather around me now that we’d stood in place for a while.
It was no longer getting whipped away by the wind as I ran, and it began to tell me little clues: a taste of betrayal, a hint of fear, and the bitter taste of failure.
She had gotten lost in her head and thought the worst, and that shot pain through my chest. Had I not gained her trust by now?
Did she not believe I would go to the ends of the galaxy for her?
“My sweet, that diamond is not important the way you are,” I assured her.
“I would never endanger you to get it, never. There is no treasure in this galaxy more precious than you. Understand?” I had never said such things and meant them with every fiber of my being before.
I discovered then that there was a curious kind of vulnerability to saying it.
I’d exposed something very important, and in the process given her the power to hurt me; to reject me.
Irena’s trust meant everything to me, and the thought that I did not have it right now was painful.
It was not something I shook off easily, as I had before I believed I’d won her over.
Perhaps she was feeling as vulnerable and exposed as I did right now.
When she shifted on her bare feet, the hand I did not hold lifted to press against her chest, over the rapid beating of her heart.
“I think you truly mean that,” she said at last. “But I also think you can’t resist that diamond, if it’s even there.
Can you?” She was correct. Once we went into that building, passing so close to where the Verana Diamond was sealed in a vault, I would feel powerless to resist attempting to steal it.
It was the one that had gotten away, and it wasn’t as though this particular Asrai noble would miss the money it had cost to buy the thing.
Cocking my head to the side, I listened to the forest, to the distant tread of the guards patrolling.
I listened to the pattern of her heartbeat, calmer now, and the rise and fall of her breathing.
So many clues to filter through. She was calmer, her scent easing into something more resigned but less distrustful.
No fear, information I filed away with relief.
“That is true,” I admitted, and rather than give into the impulse to grin and make light of this, I focused on what it would take to convince her.
“This diamond is one I came close to stealing before; it stings that it slipped through my grasp. Yet even so, I’d give it up, and a million like it, if that meant keeping you safe.
I…” My words dried in my throat, and I fought for the right ones, ones that would convince her.
Words that would describe the massive things I’d felt for her since the moment she’d first visited my cell on the Vidu.
“It’s your white whale, got it,” Irena said, which was probably a human idiom I wasn’t familiar with.
I didn’t question it, but nodded firmly.
“I thought…” She hesitated, but shuffled just a little closer, and I took that to mean I’d convinced her.
I rose slowly, careful not to spook her, and drew her into my arms. She was cold, and I became aware of how thin the dress she wore really was.
Perfect for the muggy heat of the Vidu, but not at all adequate for this forest and the approaching dusk.
“You thought that if I planned to steal the diamond, what other things did I hide from you?” I frowned, furious at myself for not realizing that she needed to hear these things out loud.
What reason had anyone given her to trust them?
None. We had only met days ago, and humans did not mate for life, at least not back on her world.
I could not expect her to simply trust that the bond I said was there was real.
If I were in her shoes, or lack thereof, I wouldn’t believe it so easily either.
In fact, it was a miracle she’d trusted me as much as she had.
She pressed her forehead to my chest and did not answer, but I knew I was right.
That was exactly what she’d been thinking.
For one horrible moment, when I’d halted at the mansion’s border, she’d believed I would betray her or perhaps discard her as a tool—used and no longer required.
It was exactly how I’d felt so many times throughout my life, and I understood exactly where she was coming from.
Dimon, and the fact I’d used my skills as a thief, made him just one in a long line of people who’d done the same.
Starting with my mother, with her choice to “donate” to the Suleantran Order on Sune for the chance to conceive a child with true shifter genes.
Thrown out when I did not possess the gift; discarded for detracting rather than enhancing her status.
I knew exactly how she’d felt, and how could I blame her when I’d demanded she trust me yet offered her no piece of myself in return?
With a hoarse voice, I began speaking into the crown of her head.
Her body tucked close for warmth, and I hoped it was an offer to let her in.
“I shall tell you what I’ve never told anyone before,” I said.
“The story of my birth and past, which I’ve fought to hide since the moment I was old enough to understand what it meant. ”
She lifted her head, and already I could tell she believed in me again.
Her trust restored, and empathy dancing in the soft brown of her eyes.
She did not require me to tell her this story, and that made me more determined to tell it anyway.
It felt good, I discovered, to uncork that bottle and let it out—to share the weight of it with another and know they would not use the knowledge to harm me.
“I am Sune, as I’ve told you, but…” I hesitated as I considered what she knew.
Nothing, I decided. She probably did not judge the bizarre shifting abilities I had because she did not realize just how much of a freak that made me.
“A Sune has three shapes by nature: the four-legged form with which I carried you today; my two-legged form, with which you’re very familiar.
” I waggled my brow at her, and she grinned, warmth rising in her cheeks.
“And a combination of the two I’ve yet to show you.
” She nodded, confirming she understood.
“A normal Sune can take these forms and no others. A true Sune Shifter can take any form their heart desires. They are revered, anointed into the priesthood by the Suleantran Order, and extremely rare.” I paused as the image of my father came to mind, already older at the time of my conception and having lived much of his life as the high priest of the order.
Dyantos was the most well-known true shifter in existence.
“What I do,” I said, finally coming to the point where I had to admit the freakish nature of my ability.
“It isn’t supposed to be possible. I am neither a true shifter nor a true Sune.
” I struggled to actually voice why, as if saying it out loud would finally destroy the image she had of me: the protector, the powerful shifter—not the runt and failure.
Irena was far smarter than the pirates had ever realized, and it was that quick mind I admired.
Now she used it to leap to the obvious conclusion.
“Your ability to become so small or so big? Is that what you mean? What makes you different?” She still held no judgment in her tone.
Part of me believed there never would be, but the little boy I’d been—kicked out by his mother—was braced for the blow.
Stars, why did I start this? It definitely did not feel good now to share, but I was in the middle of it at this point; I might as well soldier on.
“Yes. My mother paid the Suleantran Order for the chance to have a child with Dyantos, the true shifter high priest. He is my father, but I have none of his abilities. In fact, when I first manifested my shifts, I could only manage the small four-legged shape you first saw… My mother, she threw me out when I became such an embarrassment to her. I’ve been on the streets ever since, until I figured out how to adjust my size and use it to my advantage. ”
I fully expected the empathy in her eyes, even pity, and I was relieved when she looked fired-up instead.
An angry frown lowering her dainty brow, her fists balling against my chest, and her mouth curling with adorable fury.
“How dare she do that! You’re a person, not livestock.
It’s not your fault you didn’t inherit the genes she was after.
You’re clearly extremely special, and it’s her loss she didn’t see that!
” Strange, how hearing her say it made it feel like the truth, when years of scrapping and telling myself the exact same thing hadn’t made me believe it.
“I love you,” I said. It slipped out like it was just a comment about the weather, and it shocked me to the core. Once out, it resonated, though, putting a name to the intense things my Irena made me feel. I did not even fear rejection or worry that she couldn’t possibly feel the same.
Her mouth trembled, then tilted into a smile.
“I bet that’s the one thing you’ve never said before.
” When I nodded, her smile turned radiant.
“I’m honored, Flack. You make me feel things I didn’t think I’d find out here.
It feels really terrifying to admit it, because it’s only been a few days.
That’s not how humans normally go about these things, you know?
” Oh, I knew, believe me, I knew. I’d seen crewmember after crewmember fall aboard the Varakartoom, starting with the captain, when he abolished his sacred rule about mates on the ship.
So many of those females that had captured the hearts of my brothers were human.
So I didn’t expect her to say it back; not yet.