"You died," she finally managed to croak. "I was there. Eight years ago, almost to the day, Kellan. I watched you run into that warehouse. I saw it explode. I still have shrapnel scars from the debris that fell out of the sky that night. I can still taste the smoke and ash from the fire."
He stared at her in a terrible silence.
"There was nothing left of the building," she went on. "Nothing left of you, Kellan. Or so you've let me believe, all this time. I cried for you. I still do."
His eyes remained on Mira, but he spoke no words. No plea for her forgiveness. No insistence that it had all been some unavoidable mistake.
She might have been tempted to believe him. The way her heart was cracking open in her chest, she might have been willing to accept any crumb of explanation he gave her. But he offered her nothing.
His silence was killing her. "Don't you have anything to say to me?"
He swallowed. Glanced down. "I'm sorry, Mira."
When his eyes returned to hers, they were somber. Sincere, for all she knew of him now. But they were unflinchingly remote.
"You're sorry." Her shattered heart turned to cinders under the cool simplicity of his response. "Sorry for what part?"
"All of it," he replied. "And for what I still need to do."
With that, he rose. Moved away from the bed. Away from her.
"Candice," he called toward the open door. She appeared in an instant, waiting for his command. "Make sure Vince gassed up the beast like I told him to." Kellan paused, pivoting a brief, sidelong glance in Mira's direction. "I'll be heading out at nightfall to take care of the complications from his f**k-up today."
So, that's what she was to him now. Nothing.
A complication.
An unpleasant wrinkle in his plans.
And now she thought back to something Candice had said earlier, after Mira had told her they'd be as good as crazy to release her tonight and assume she wouldn't come after them later.
Precautions would be taken.
Mira hadn't imagined then that the rebels had one of the Breed on their side. Now she understood. And while she didn't think Kellan would stoop to killing her, he had other ways of ensuring she never found him again.
The truth of his betrayal sank in with a pain she could scarcely bear. It hardened something inside her, devouring the love she'd carried for him for so long, spitting out the grief.
As she looked at Kellan now, at the man he had become - a man who had just now declared himself her enemy - Mira's anger and hurt turned the ashes of her heart into tiny diamonds of contempt.
Because as badly as she wanted to reject the idea, Kellan Archer no longer existed.
And the man who stood in his place was not only allied with these rebel bastards, he was leading them.
Chapter Six
WITH LUCAN AND GIDEON SEQUESTERED IN CLOSED-DOOR meetings most of the day, Darion Thorne had spent the past few hours sparring in the training facility of the Order's D.C. headquarters. The rigorous exercise felt good, but it was a temporary distraction. It hadn't quelled the restless energy that lived inside him. It never did.
He was a warrior - he knew that with a certainty in his soul. How could his father not see that he was wasting a valuable asset by keeping Dare tethered to the command center when he belonged in the field? How long could Dare stand to have his hands tied before he threw off those chains and led the charge - with or without his father's approval?
It was that question that dogged him as he sat hunched over a thick volume in the Order's archive library. His hair was still damp from the shower, training garb switched for a dark T-shirt and jeans. His blades and throwing stars now replaced by a pen, which he tapped in idle rhythm on the long wooden table that stretched the center of the expansive, book-lined chamber.
Even though his body yearned for action, his mind thirsted for knowledge. And the history contained in this room alone was enough to keep him busy for decades.
Not surprising, since it had taken a full twenty years to collect it. The library represented millennia's worth of information, everything from the otherworldly origins of the Breed and their alien forebears, their language and customs, their lineage here on Earth, to their often-violent past as powerful, savage beings perched at the top of the food chain. The wealth of insight was nothing short of staggering.
And Jenna Tucker-Darrow, the woman responsible for the archive, was adding more volumes all the time.
"If you spend any more hours in here, I may start worrying about my job security."
Dare swung his head up at the sound of Jenna's voice. She was smiling as she entered the room, wearing a little black dress and strappy high heels. Her brown hair was shorn close to her scalp, showing off her lean cheekbones and big hazel eyes. She was dressed for a date, no doubt with her warrior mate, Brock, but she carried what looked to be a newly completed journal in her hand.
"I don't think you ever have to worry about job security," Dare told her. "No one can do what you do."
She winked at him. "I am cyborg, hear me roar."
Strolling over to a bookcase far across the room, she slipped the journal onto one of the shelves, carefully selecting its placement. It was hard not to stare at the female, and not only because she was beautiful and Dare was a man with two eyes in his head. Jenna was stunning for an altogether unique reason as well.
Her simple black dress plunged low in the back, baring her pale, slender neck and spine, both of which were covered in a graceful tangle of dermaglyphs. Unusual, particularly given that Jenna was neither Breed nor Breedmate.
She'd been fully human once, but all of that changed twenty years ago, when the last of the alien fathers of the Breed transplanted a biotech chip from his own body into Jenna's. The Ancient likely had his reasons for leaving behind a piece of himself before he was killed by the Order. For Jenna, that bit of alien DNA and technology had meant numerous astonishing physical and psychic changes, coupled with memories of a long, often-disturbing past that did not belong to her.