Rout of the Dem-Shyr (The Ascendant Series) (33 page)

A loud shout had Ty’s head turning. The sound of raised voices came from somewhere outside of the place he was being held. He was grabbed and shoved to the floor.

“Stay put,” the bald guard hissed in his ear. He used his boot to hold Ty down, digging into his spine.

“Move, ya bloody bitches!” Cerybus demanded. “Unless ya want ta be blown outta the goddamn sky.”

The commander was using an amplification system. He must be addressing someone outside the vessel. But who had stopped them and why?

An amplified female voice replied, “We’re not going anywhere, Marauders. You have something we want. We’ve come to take it.”

“Shit!” The curse came from someone inside the room with Ty. “The Peace Keepers must have learned about the bounty. How the hell did they find us?”

“I have no idea,” another close voice said. “We’re outnumbered. There’s no winning this. What’s Cerybus going to do?”

Ty tensed as he felt the subtlest pressure on his mind. He was instantly transported back to the judgment chamber when Vycor influenced him to kill Kyr. His reaction was instinctive and visceral.

He completely lost it.

The restraints came off first. He had learned five ways to get free of them during his first few months of training. It was child’s play. The black disks on his goggles followed suit.

Next, he grabbed the tall guard’s ankle where it pressed against his back, turning his body so he was no longer facedown. The guard lost his balance, falling hard. Ty brought his leg up and down, slamming his heel into the guard’s solar plexus while getting him in the balls with his calf. Even as the guard wheezed airlessly and bent over to cup himself, Ty grabbed his weapon and skulled him with it.

This all happened so fast that the shorter guard had only started lifting his weapon by the time Ty brought him down with an uppercut to the jaw, followed by a hard left jab, topped off with smashing his head into the closest wall.

The two other guards in the tight space were armed with blades. They looked at Ty, then at the two larger guards he had taken out, then at his weapon. They quickly tossed their blades to the ground.

Ty used the projectile weapon he held to point at the panel on the wall that would open the escape hatch. One of them reached over with a shaking hand and pressed a series of buttons. The side hatch released.

Edging over to it with his weapon trained on the two conscious males, Ty glanced out. He didn’t see anyone on this side of the vessel. In the near distance, he spotted the wreckage of a large building that would offer him a chance to lose anyone who might pursue him. There was a high likelihood he’d get shot or otherwise hurt during the escape attempt, but he was willing to risk it.

He wasn’t going to be yet another person’s victim.

Just as he jumped, the vessel surged forward. Ty rolled as he hit the hard ground, using his momentum to return him to his feet. He took off at a run towards the building, not bothering to look back. Vaguely, he noted that the Marauder vessel was leaving. He heard weapons firing, but none of the projectiles landed near him. He deduced that the Peace Keepers were attempting to stop the Marauder vessel. Hopefully they were so distracted that they didn’t notice him.

“Ty!”

He staggered to a halt less than fifteen feet from the building. Nothing else would have made him stop but that voice.

Her voice.

Kyr’s voice.

Not possible
, he thought.
Run. Get away
.

But he couldn’t move.

“
Ty
. It’s me! Please don’t run!”

He turned. A female had disembarked from one of several vessels he now realized surrounded the area. She was running towards him. All he saw outside of her tinted goggles and black mask was her orange hair.

He lifted his weapon. She stopped running.

“Ty, please,” she said. “I know you don’t understand what’s happening, but it’s me. It’s Kyr. I’m not dead.
Please
.”

Pain ripped at his chest. Anger rose like scorching acid inside him. He wanted to scream his fury.

This was how these Peace Keepers intended to lure him into coming with them so they could collect whatever bounty was on his head? They intended to lie to him? To use his love for Kyr as a weapon against him?

“No!” she cried. She reached up and yanked off her goggles. “Look at me, Ty. Please!”

There were tears running down her cheeks. It wasn’t Kyr’s face, not exactly.

But those were her eyes.

“Yes, Ty. I had to hide my identity because everyone at the palace thinks I’m dead. I think maybe I was dead, but I healed. I woke up in a death box and everything. I’ve been trying to find you…trying to get to you. I had to stop Vycor from convincing the Vawn council to name the Guardians as rulers over Alametria, and I had to get some of your abilities back from Shaya, who never gave them all to you in the first place.”

The more she rambled, the more he believed her. He saw the desperation in her. She almost vibrated with it. He moved closer to her, one step at a time. He lowered his weapon, holding her gaze as she talked.

“Of course, Sem had to share some of your abilities because they almost blew my mind up,” she said, her hands flailing wildly to punctuate her manic explanation. “And I saw you in this tunnel and heard these guys threatening you and—”

He reached out and removed her mask. “You didn’t change your lips, either,” he said, his voice barely qualifying as a whisper.

Those lips trembled. “No, I didn’t.”

He pulled off his own mask and yanked her against him, bringing his mouth down on hers. She issued a soft sob of relief as her arms went around him. Her lips parted beneath his so he could taste her.

And he knew.

Now, when she touched his mind, he recognized her essence. He knew it had been Kyr scanning the Marauder vessel in search of him. If he hadn’t been so stressed and exhausted, he probably would have noticed that before.

It took him a moment to notice the flow of his abilities shifting from her to him as they kissed. Gradually, the thoughts of others entered his mind, sounding chaotic and confusing after so many days of silence. Ty welcomed them back, though he would have done without them for the rest of his life just to have this one kiss with Kyr.

I love you so much, Ty
.

Hearing her in his mind again completely undid him.

I love you, Kyr. God, I love you.

Their joint emotion spilled into their kiss, making him ache for her. He felt his abilities cycling through him more strongly the longer they kissed. The power of those abilities was somehow enhanced after flowing through Kyr. She was infusing it with her own abilities.

With her love.

The kiss seemed to go on forever. Only when Ty finally felt steadier did he dare to part from her. He only intended to catch his breath before kissing her again, but the moment they parted, Kyr dropped straight to the ground.

He stared down at her lifeless body. In an instant, he was transported back to that moment in the judgment chamber.

Once again, he had killed her.

Everything inside him, every bit of hope she had just rekindled, died right along with her.

Chapter 41

For the first time in days, Kyr woke up feeling rested. She didn’t immediately know why she wasn’t weighed down with the pressing urgency and fear that had been plaguing her, but she took a moment to appreciate it.

The side of her face felt warm. It was pressed against a firm, fabric-covered surface. Turning slightly, she breathed in a familiar warm, spiced scent.

Ty…

She was almost afraid to open her eyes. What if he wasn’t really there? What if this was all a dream?

I’m here, Kyr
.

Her throat tightened as emotion inundated her. Her eyes opened. Discovering that she was lying in a bed beside Ty, she lifted her head and met his silver gaze.

Thank Yen-Ki
, she thought.

His grip tightened around her shoulders. She smiled up at him, but he didn’t return it. A sense of wariness touched on her thoughts. Her heart began pounding uncomfortably.

She eased herself up into a sitting position and turned so she faced him. His hand slid from her shoulders down to the mattress, so she reached over and picked it up to hold in both of hers. Her gaze moved over his features, really absorbing the fact that he was there.

And he wasn’t the Ty she had once known.

He had showered and was dressed in different clothes than the ones they had found him in. He hadn’t shaved in a while. A short, dark beard covered his jaw, making him look rugged and dangerous. He had lost weight. She saw it in his cheekbones and the line of his jaw. His hair was even shorter than his beard, little more than fuzz.

But the biggest change was in his eyes. They carried apathy and a hardness that they never had before. He looked years older.

She searched his expression for a sign of happiness over their reunion, but found nothing. It was as though he was sitting with her because he felt obligated to. Even the emotion she could pick up from him was tempered, as though he was suppressing it.

Vycor had done this, she thought. He had taken a part of Ty that they might never get back.

Tears filled her eyes. When she had thought of what Ty had gone through, she hadn’t fully understood. She knew that now.

He was broken. He was scarred.

He was lost to her.

Don’t cry, Kyr
, he thought, pulling his hand from hers so he could reach up and brush away a tear.
Please. I’m so sorry for everything.

Ty, this wasn’t your fault. You know that. Vycor is to blame. Why do you feel you have to apologize?

She inferred his answer as he looked away. He
was
responsible, at least in his mind. He had made the wrong choices that allowed Vycor to defeat him. Because of him, she had died. He would live with that memory forever. And he couldn’t live with the thought of it possibly happening again.

He saw himself as a potential danger to her. They could be used as weapons against each other. Vycor had proven it.

He couldn’t allow himself to love her like that again.

An anguished sound came from her throat as his thoughts struck her. He was rending her heart in two. Despite everything, Vycor really had managed to take everything from them.

“No,” she whispered.

She did
not
have to be okay with this. Vycor was a monster. He was a cruel, vicious man with a deep-seated jealousy over the power that he craved but had never been able to claim.

And she was the Ascendant.

Do you trust me, Ty?

He met her gaze.
Of course
.

She moved closer to him until she straddled his lap. It carved at her heart to feel his reluctance towards having her so close. To feel his fear rather than his love.

Then open your mind to me
, she thought, bringing her hands up and touching the sides of his face, brushing her thumbs over his lips.
Make love to me
.

Kyr, I…

Don’t think. Just do it. Please, Ty. Do this for me.

He didn’t resist as she leaned forward and kissed him. She kept it gentle, allowing him to adjust to the idea of being intimate with her when only moments ago she knew he thought he never would be again.

She also used care in how she touched his mind. His scars had been issued quickly, but they ran deep. Her thoughts were as gentle as her kiss.

I love you.

None of this is our fault.

We’re stronger together.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

He resisted, even at the lowest level of her influence. She wasn’t deflected from her goal, though. No matter what Ty had gone through, she knew him at his core. She just had to reach that core and connect with it again.

Slowly, lovingly, she deepened the kiss. Just a little more pressure. A parting of the lips. A brush of her tongue against his.

She knew the moment he began to respond. His hands came up and cradled her, pressed her closer. He made a yearning sound deep in his throat.

The kiss became more insistent. More drugging. It became
more
.

And as Ty allowed himself to react to her physically, it was easier for her to use her abilities to help him heal.

I’m your balm
, she assured him.
I’m your comfort. I’m your heart.

Their hands started moving, caressing. Feeling. Kyr reached up and ran her hand over his head. She felt the tickle of re-growing hair and relished it. It was part of Ty and it told her that he was there. He was alive.

He was hers.

She moaned against his mouth when he cupped her breasts. Gasped when he reached inside the low neckline and stroked her until she ached for him.

And still, they kissed. Her abilities continued their equally insistent assault on his mind. She would do whatever it took—give him whatever he needed—to heal him mentally, physically, and emotionally.

Eventually, they stopped kissing so she could undress him. She lifted his shirt over his head, then ran her hands over the muscular ridges of his chest and abdomen. Her lips followed her hands, tenderly brushing over his neck, his collarbone, and the defined region between his abs leading to the waistband of his pants. He held his breath as she slowly unfastened his pants and pulled them off along with his boots.

Gathering what he wanted from his thoughts, she once again eased up his body. She paused when she reached the hard length of his arousal. Watching his reaction, she stroked him, gradually applying pressure and adjusting her touch until his eyes rolled back into his head. He moaned when she once again adjusted her hold and used her tongue on him, too.

She allowed his mind to guide her. Through her touch, she reminded him what it was like to relinquish control to someone who loved him. With each caress, she felt him healing, succumbing to everything she offered.