Jadrian Read online

  Taura nodded. “Yes, much as I love fishing and going on long walks to explore and map the valley, I’m not making much of a contribution. In the past week I’ve seen how hard every one works here, and I can’t free load in good conscience.” She patted Jadrian’s hand next to hers on the table and winked at him. “And having my own personal Badari bodyguard is a luxury. I’m so grateful, but I have to try spreading my wings.”

  “You don’t have your memory back, you slept less than three hours at a time last night in between nightmares,” Jadrian recited a litany of protests.

  She rested her hand on his lips. “I know you want the best for me, and I appreciate it more than I can ever say. But I may not be able to regain my memory, or only have fragments. I may never get to sleep a night through without a terrible dream. I want to stop marking time and instead take small steps toward normalcy here in the human population.” She moved her hand to rest over her heart. “I’m doing what feels right to me. It’s only one work session. How much trouble can I get in?”

  “I’ll stay out of sight but close,” Jadrian said.

  Megan shook her head. “Aydarr wants you to take a patrol outside the valley, along the rim. Your packmates have been pulling extra shifts to cover, or so he said.”

  Jadrian fell silent, a mulish expression on his face.

  “I’m not giving you orders,” Megan said, filling the silence. “Commanding Badari isn’t my job, nor my place, outside the medical environment. I’m telling you what I was told by your Alpha. Of course, you’ll have to talk to him yourself. Maybe you can change his mind.” She pulled a handheld closer to her and keyed a screen while addressing Taura. “Which assignment do you want to try? I think not the kitchen, all things considered.”

  “No.” Taura bit her lip so she wouldn’t laugh at the mere idea of entering Sandara’s domain. Spending any time there would definitely not alleviate her stress and anxiety. “I’d like to be outside.” She glanced at the small office around them. “I get anxious being cooped up in small places.”

  “The vegetable garden always needs weeding or pruning or other tasks.” Megan studied Taura’s face. “I’m not sure you’re physically up to farming. Kelli in Stores offered you a job as her assistant, remember? Digging through the stacks of salvaged goods and trying to make order from the chaos might be fun.”

  “The garden will be too much for you,” Jadrian said.

  Driven by a rebellious impulse, tired of being told what to do, Taura shook her head. “I want to try. I’m craving the freedom of being outdoors. I have no idea what I did to earn a living in the Sectors, so let me start at the most basic job here and work up.”

  “I’ll insist Walt must not be within the valley, if I’m not,” Jadrian said, frowning at Taura. “Your being in the garden would leave too much opportunity for him to approach you in my absence.”

  “I appreciate the thought.”

  “He gave his word not to bother her,” Dr. Garrison said. She raised a hand as Jadrian drew breath to object. “But that’s also an issue to discuss with Aydarr. I’ve given him my opinion Walt needs to leave Taura alone until she asks to talk with him and, even then, the conversation should be under controlled conditions to ease her stress.” She bowed her head slightly to Taura, her expression serious. “The needs of the patient should come first. I’m sorry I agreed to rush you before when it comes to Walt.”

  “I appreciate your advocacy, doctor.” She felt no desire to talk to Walt again, or at least not yet. Wait until she’d been a free woman a bit longer. If she was allowed to set the time and the terms of the encounter, rather than having him surprise her, she might manage to glean useful information without going into a panic state. Clearly she was going to have to hear what Walt had to say at some point.

  “I can’t guarantee the Alpha will agree to the demand but he generally goes along with my recommendations when the topic is human health and there’s no issue of Badari safety.” Dr. Garrison’s reassurance was calming.

  With sweat trickling down her spine, Taura adjusted her unique hat, woven by the Badari cubs from leaves as one of their assigned tasks. She sat on her heels and checked the row of plants behind her. But the sight only depressed her all over again at how little progress she’d made on pulling the weeds. Peters, the agri-tech in charge, had shown her carefully what to pull and what to leave, and checked on her progress twice. He’d even given her tight lipped praise for her thoroughness.

  Taura took a drink from her canteen, dribbled a few drops of the water on her hand and swiped her face. I’m going swimming after this interminable task is over for the day.

  She had to admit the garden was too much for her in her less than optimal physical state. She’d thought perhaps she could find peace in the mindless nature of the assigned task, except she was too hot in the baking sun, and her muscles were cramped.

  A shadow fell over her, and she scooted backward so fast she toppled over.

  “Didn’t mean to startle you.” Walt Ezden stood there.

  With a sinking feeling, Taura tried to buy time. “You’re supposed to be on patrol, aren’t you?”

  He flashed a grin. “Too good an opportunity to miss, with your self-assigned bodyguard out of the valley for a few hours. I traded with someone. I’ll take the heat when Aydarr finds out. Which he will.” Walt retreated a step as if to give her more breathing room. “We do need to talk, Taura.”

  Although her heart was hammering, she forced herself to nod. Remembering what Jadrian had said after the first encounter in the conference room, about Walt lying, she asked, “We’re not really a couple, are we?”

  Eyes narrowed, he stared at her for a minute as if debating the wisdom of admitting the untruth. Then he shook his head. “No. But I do have information you’ll want.” He extended one hand. “Listen, why don’t we move into the shade over there to have this chat?”

  Taura rose on her own, dusting off the seat of her pants and checking to see if anyone else was in this part of the garden. Peters was at the far end, and he waved as she noticed him. She waved back. Confidence bolstered by the presence of the agri-tech, she looked at Walt and shrugged. “Sure.”

  Moving carefully across the rows of ripening vegetables, they were both silent until reaching the shade. Taura leaned on the tree because her knees were shaky, and her head swam dizzily. She had the feeling she might learn something important about herself from Walt and she wasn’t one hundred percent sure she was ready. Pulling the hat from her head, she fanned herself. “You wanted to talk. Go ahead.”

  “If I say to you again we met on Signum Twelve under the harvest moon, does hearing the words help at all? Stir up any shards of recall?” Walt watched her closely.

  Taura searched her memory and found nothing, although the phrase struck a faint chord. “Afraid not. Listen, are you a cop? Am I a criminal you were chasing?”

  He laughed, a short bark of amusement. “Far from it on both questions. Why do you ask?”

  “I’ve been having fragmented memories from the Sectors appear in my head at random times, and they’re a bit disturbing,” she said. There was a flash of relief, tempered by fear, to be sharing the information, even at this high level without going into details

  Eyebrows raised, Walt was quick to follow up on her admission. “Care to tell me?”

  Taura shook her head. “I don’t trust you that far yet. Who are you really, and why did you lie to me and the others?”

  “Are you sure you’re strong enough for the truth today? You’re quite pale.” He studied her face intently and Taura had to work hard not to lower her eyes or fidget.

  Annoyance at what sounded like faux solicitude made her speak more sharply than she’d intended. “Don’t act like you care. Cut the crap and tell me what you’re hiding about me. I’m so sick of being coddled. I want to know.”

  He leaned on the tree trunk next to her and tapped her shoulder as if they’d been playing the game of tag and she was ‘it’. “I believe you’re Taura Dancer, an undercover intelligence operator for the Sectors. I’m a Special Forces operator sent to find you on a planet I’d rather not name even standing here off the grid entirely.” He grinned without much humor. “Operational security rules die hard.”

  His words hit her like stones and were not at all what she’d expected to hear, not what she’d imagined based on the fragments of recall she’d had so far. I need to know more. He could be lying again. Wishing Jadrian was there to assess the veracity of Walt’s statements, she asked, “Why were you searching for me?”

  “You’d infiltrated a dangerous group of people with ties to the Mawreg, plotting against the Sectors. I was told in my mission briefing you’d been undercover for two standard years on the job when you stopped filing reports. When you failed to check in on schedule, after a certain amount of time, I was assigned to either extract you or…take other action as needed. The harvest moon phrase was supposed to be an opening signal to let you know you could trust me, but hearing it should have stirred up more of a reaction, should have activated additional psychic triggers in your mind. I said we’d been a couple the other day because for all I knew you were maintaining deep cover still. Your branch of the government is even bigger on operational security than mine, if that’s possible. If so, you could have ‘remembered me’ at the doctor’s office once I gave you the password, and we could have teamed up. No one would have been suspicious. But obviously you didn’t have a clue what I was driving at. And your Badari boyfriend was ready to gut me for upsetting you.” He raised his eyebrows and chuckled. “I think he’s jealous.”

  “Jadrian’s my friend, not my boyfriend.” Taura’s tenuous grip on reality slipped under the assault of details Walt was providing in his flat, clipped voice. A spy? Her? “Maybe I’m not this woman then, despite the name. If you never met me before, how can you be sure?”

  “I’m sure. I was imprinted with your image and DNA patterns.” He shrugged. “For all Command could tell, you’d gone rogue, or turncoat, or been captured. I had a different set of orders for each possibility. I don’t have orders covering this weird setup.” He gestured at the valley around them. “I couldn’t believe my luck when word came you’d been rescued from a Khagrish lab. The last thing I expected was to find you here. Although now I have, the point is probably moot, as far as the Sectors is concerned. Whatever information you possessed is most likely outdated. Obsolete. We don’t even know how long either of us has been here, since we arrived in stasis.”

  Breathing was becoming a struggle, her chest locking up tight under the tension of the conversation. She didn’t want to believe what he was telling her, but some of it made sense with the memory flashes she’d had. “What were your orders?”

  Seeming unconcerned, Walt rattled off the choices his superiors had provided. “Work with you, extract you, kill you, depending on the situation and my evaluation of your behavior.”

  This calm, cold delivery of his options was chilling. She rubbed her arms, trying to imagine herself as a willing player in such a dangerous situation.

  Walt continued his tale. “Obviously, I was traveling under a fake identity. The civilian ship I was on for the last leg of my journey to your assumed location was hit by the Shemdylann pirates, and I woke up here. You don’t remember anything? Not even whether you got the information the Sectors sent you in for? Or how you were captured?”

  Her worst, most dreaded flashback struck like lightning in her brain and she was plunged into the scene where two Chimmer clutched her in their cold, slug-like hands. The aliens dragged her screaming and fighting toward a terrifying fate she fought with all her strength, to no avail.

  Walt kept talking, but his voice became a mere buzzing in her ears, unintelligible as the vision took hold. She had to send the messages, she had to keep the enemy from learning what she knew, and she had to—

  A scream tore from her throat, and she bolted away from the tree, running for the edge of the forest as if her life depended on it. Shouts behind her only spurred her to sprint faster. The Chimmer cannot find out —a rock rolled under her foot and she fell headlong, unable to stop herself. A sharp pain cracked through her left temple and blackness swept in to obliterate the world.

  She came awake with a jerk and a gasp, and sat bolt upright in bed. Jadrian clasped her hand in a strong, warm grip, and he rose, shifting his position as she regained consciousness, bracing her with one arm behind her.

  “Not so fast, you’ve got a mild concussion, or so the doctor says.” Firmly, he prevented her from jumping off the bed in her panic.

  As he lowered her to the pillows, she stared around wildly. “I’m back in the hospital? No! You promised me—”

  “I was out on patrol, remember? When you had your…accident, Peters and Walt called Dr. Garrison.” The disdain in his voice for the human soldier was acidic. “She had no choice but to readmit you, not only for the concussion, but you sprained your ankle pretty badly. I roll in from my assignment and find a message that while you were talking to Walt, you had a severe flashback and were injured. You’d been here for several hours by then, unconscious, but I got here as fast as I could.”

  His talons edged out on his fingers, proof of the strong emotions he was laboring under. She wanted to defuse the tension and said the first extenuating thing that came to mind. “Walt came to see me in the field. I didn’t arrange it.”

  “You didn’t refuse to talk to him, however, from what Peters said. Do you not want my help any longer? Have I presumed too much?”

  Confused, she tore her attention away from the knifelike talons he was struggling to control. “What? Why do you ask?”

  Eyes narrowed, Jadrian was distant. “We’d agreed you wouldn’t talk to Walt unless I was there. Yet, however it happened today; you did speak with him, at length according to Peters, and suffered a severe episode. I was ready to kill him, but he swears he never touched you. You injured yourself when you fled. What did Walt say to you to provoke such a reaction?”

  She put a hand to her head, touching the spot where it ached gingerly. “I don’t remember. I remember him admitting we weren’t a couple in the Sectors. Just like you’d said, that was a lie.”

  Body language still closed off, as if Jadrian was determined to maintain emotional distance, he asked, “Did he at least explain the lie?”

  Disconcerted by his remoteness, Taura tried hard to remember what exactly Walt had said. “I think so. I vaguely recall him telling me that was in case I wanted to get away from—”

  “From me.” Jadrian rose and paced to the door, standing with his back to her.

  This is bad—he’s taking my talking to Walt without him as a betrayal. Anxious to rebuild the bridge between them, Taura tried to be as truthful and complete as her raggedly memory allowed. “I don’t remember anything else. I—I lost it completely when he kept talking. I had that same vivid flashback to the Chimmer dragging me somewhere and I think in my mental funk I was trying to run away from them. Jadrian, I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you. What did Walt say?”

  The Badari pivoted to study her, his face blank, eyes narrowed. “He’s not talking at all. Aydarr has him under guard, and he refuses to repeat what he might have said to you or explain himself further. To say the Alpha is upset right now is an understatement. You’re going to have to explain to Aydarr, as much as you can.”

  Heart hammering at the idea of facing a justifiably angry Alpha, she stammered, “Now? Tonight?”

  He gave her a look of disdain. “Of course not. Whatever is going on between you and Walt doesn’t affect the safety of the valley or the Badari, as far as we can tell. By all indications, the issue centers on your past, in the Sectors. Nothing to do with us. Aydarr agreed to wait until tomorrow.”

  “Good. Can we go home now then?” She wanted a hot cup of tea, followed by crawling into the comfortable bed and making herself a nest under the blankets, shutting out the world for a while.

  Jadrian raised one eyebrow. “Home?”

  She blushed, realizing the unconscious assumption she’d made about her living in what was after all his cave, meant for the time he’d have a mate. She was a mere guest. “To your quarters, I mean.”

  “Is that what you truly want? Do you wish me to continue trying to help you?”

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” Panic sank its teeth into her, and her pulse rose as waves of pain traveled the length of her gut. She couldn’t lose Jadrian.

  “I think we made a mistake, the other night by the lake.” His voice was flat and uncompromising and like nothing she’d ever heard from him before. What he was saying cut through her like a knife. “Wonderful though it was, neither of us has been successful at keeping the emotions locked away as a one-time indulgence. I can’t anyway.” Eyes glowing, he stared at her from the doorway, as if he needed to maintain the physical distance to be able to control his emotions.

  Frightened, baffled as to what exactly lay at the root of his mood, she fastened onto the most obvious possibility. “You’re jealous of Walt?” How could he think I’d prefer any man over him? Her heart ached.

  There was uneasy silence before Jadrian answered. She was relieved to hear emotion throbbing in his voice. Feelings she could work with—the awful remote, closed off demeanor he’d had before left her bereft and scared. “I want to know you and I are committed to each other and no one else can come between us,” he said. “I hate that he seems to know more of who you are than I do.”

  He gripped the door jamb and his talons sank into the wood.

  Taura wet her lips, her heart hammering. “We can find out what Walt knows, what he told me that I’ve forgotten again.”

  “Will it make a difference for us? Will we be able to move forward, or to stop our attempts to resolve your traumatic stress issues?” Jadrian came to sit on the end of the bed. She raised one hand to touch him but let it drop to the covers. She’d never seen him in this mood before.

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