Tracker and the Spy Read online

  She positioned Kyle on one side and Toni on the other, showing them three digits each must alternately tap in for the locking mechanism to lock, then reverse the numbers to release. “It’s simple. The code isn’t mysterious. You just have to type the numbers in one immediately after the other, so it’s impossible for one person to do it unless they have an arm span of ten feet. The easiest way to do it is to call your number out as you punch it in so your partner can immediately press the next number. One-two-three-four, and so on.” She signaled them to each push from their ends, so that the doors closed together with a click. “Let’s give it a try.”

  Kyle and Toni failed the first time because Kyle hesitated once, but Second encouraged them. “That’s good. Now you know how quickly you have to respond.”

  They had a few failures trying to count backward to open the gate, and Kyle was surprised that Second let them dissolve into hysterical laughter at their own bumbling before she quieted them, coached them to take a few deep breaths, and congratulated them for completing the next three attempts successfully.

  She was startled when Second grabbed them both by the shoulders of their shirts and pulled them close. All trace of their easy-going commander disappeared, replaced by a hard edge. Jael seemed to have surfaced in Second’s body. Kyle’s hands heated in a defensive response. “I don’t care what you’re doing. Do not let time slip up on you. Be up here every day before dark.”

  “Sure, Commander,” Toni said. “We won’t forget.”

  ❖

  Toni stood outside the quartermaster building with Second, wondering again why the commander didn’t go with Kyle instead of sending her inside with a list of clothing and other necessities for the sergeant on duty to fill. Second was in charge of the entire quartermaster unit. She could have fifteen people scrambling to stuff two duffels full in under a minute. Instead, Commander Second sat propped against a porch support with her eyes closed and face raised to the morning sun.

  Toni stared down the wide dirt lane that was the main artery of the camp. The line into the dining building was fairly short. She shifted her feet, unsure why she hadn’t been dismissed to go about her day. Stars, she’d been summoned at daybreak, sent to the cold stables to get a horse and haul it up the hillside. She hadn’t had a shower or breakfast, and she would be expected at the clinic in another hour.

  “I want Kyle to bunk with you.”

  Toni jerked in surprise. “With me?”

  “You moved out of the barracks into the Advocate’s cottage, right?”

  “Alyssa, I mean the First Advocate, thought it would be better since my schedule in the clinic is so different from that of the people assigned to the barracks. I stay up really late some nights working on their inventory.” She felt pathetic. They both knew that Alyssa had rescued her from the barracks. But Second only nodded.

  The cottage had three bedrooms. Nicole and Uri lived in the two small bedrooms, and Alyssa had occupied the large one. But when she moved in with Jael, they’d changed the large room to twin beds for visiting Advocates. Of course, they’d never had any, so Alyssa had insisted that Toni bunk there.

  “Kyle won’t be here long. As soon as we get Phyrrhos straightened out, she and Tan will leave on assignment.”

  “She’s a pyro. Wouldn’t she be more comfortable with the warriors?”

  Second sat on the steps of the building, and Toni suddenly felt she was speaking with a friend, eye to eye.

  “She’s a very potent but untrained pyro.” Second lowered her voice. “And she might have a bit of a problem fitting in.”

  Toni stared at the ground. Like she couldn’t seem to fit. But Kyle? She couldn’t see it. “She’s built like a warrior, great looking, and you say she’s a blazer of a torch. Why wouldn’t she fit in?”

  “That’s her story to tell.” Second glanced toward the door Kyle would exit. “I grabbed you both by the collar a while ago for a reason.”

  “I thought she might combust.”

  “Exactly. She needs to learn more control. If I bunk her in the barracks and some smart-ass starts in on her and decides to test her flame, she’ll fry ’em.”

  “She’s that hot?”

  “Yeah. With a little training, she might be as hot as Jael.”

  “Wow.”

  Second grinned. “So don’t make your new roomie mad, okay?”

  “Thanks a lot.” Toni tried to scowl, but she was sure she didn’t quite pull it off. Inside, she swelled with pride that Second had chosen her for this special assignment. “If she wants to leave the light on all night to read, I guess I’ll have to sleep with a pillow on my head.”

  Second stood and clapped her on the back. “Nah. I’ll requisition you a sleep mask.”

  They both turned at the sound of cursing and jumped onto the porch to help Kyle with the two fully packed duffels she was struggling to drag through the doorway.

  “I’ve got this, Commander,” Toni said, shouldering one of the duffels while Kyle took the other.

  Second smiled. “Then I’ll leave you in good hands, Kyle. Get some rest. Come up to the headquarters building for lunch if you don’t sleep through it. If you do, then dinner is at seventeen hundred. We drill at night, so the warriors sleep most of the day.” A jaunty salute and she was gone.

  “Come on. It’s your lucky day,” Toni said. “You’re assigned to bunk with me.”

  Kyle raised an eyebrow. “You’re not really my type.”

  Toni eyed her. Not flirting, she decided. Just joking. Like a friend. She didn’t have any real friends. Well, Alyssa, Nicole, and Uri. But Alyssa and Nicole were occupied most of the time with Jael and Furcho. And Uri? He kept to himself a lot. “You’re not my type either, but Commander Second says we’re kind of alike.”

  “Yeah? How’s that?”

  “We’re both outsiders.” Toni let that remark sink in, but Kyle’s face was a mask. “She didn’t tell me why you’re an outsider.”

  Kyle sighed and rubbed her face. “Then we’re even. She hasn’t told me anything about you either.”

  They stepped onto the porch of the cottage, and the weariness that shadowed Kyle’s gaunt features now that they were out of the bright sunlight surprised Toni.

  “Are you hungry? The dining hall’s open for breakfast.”

  “I’m past hunger. I’m just so tired I could fall down.”

  Toni led her inside and showed her the bed, already made with clean sheets and a soft blanket. A fan whirled quietly overhead. “I meant that you were lucky to be bunking in my room because the cottage has its own personal facility, right down the hall. You don’t have to walk four buildings down the street to the communal facility.”

  “Sweet. I’m dying for a shower if I can stay awake ten more minutes.”

  “I’ll head out then. If you need anything, the headquarters building is next door on your left, or I’ll be at the clinic. It’s down the lane on the right. There’s a sign.”

  “Thanks.” Kyle fiddled with the closure on her duffel. “We’ll talk later, okay?”

  “Sure. If you want. See you before dark, if not sooner.”

  Kyle, panic flickering in her eyes, scanned the room. “You have an IC to set a wake-up?”

  Toni shook her head. “Forbidden in camp. Don’t worry. I’ll check to make sure you aren’t still sleeping.”

  When Toni started down the lane to the dining building, the sun seemed brighter, the sky a brilliant blue and the surrounding hills still lush despite impending winter. She’d never thought she’d meet someone with more baggage than she carried. But this Kyle, she had real problems. A pyro warrior without training or a dragon horse, she carried a secret that made her an outcast in her own camp. Why was Phyrrhos, a dragon horse bonded to Captain Tan, acting lovesick over Kyle? Could Kyle be tangled up with Tan? Stars. Tan could be prickly, but Toni liked her. Still, if the rumors were true about Tan’s proclivities, she wouldn’t want to be in Kyle’s boots.

  ❖

  A single bead of
sweat dripped from Tan’s chin onto her chest and trickled slowly between her breasts. She could feel everything with acute clarity. The leather biting into her wrists and the painful stretch of her shoulder joints as she hung blindfolded and naked from the sturdy metal rack. The teeth of the clamps biting into her swollen nipples. Every raised, stinging welt striping her back. The throbbing of her clit against the clip holding back the rush of blood that would finally deliver sweet release…and, hopefully, elusive relief.

  “Anya knows your shame, Tanisha.”

  Tan bared her teeth at the low, taunting voice close to her ear, and the excruciating pain of a bamboo cane immediately radiated across her buttocks. She clenched her teeth against the agony but cried out when a second blow followed across her thighs.

  “Only Anya knows the dominatrix really wants to be dominated. Isn’t that true, Tanisha?”

  Tan’s refusal to answer earned several more blows on her upper back, and she yelled through the pain, then panted through the aftershocks.

  “Isn’t that why you follow the First Warrior through lifetime after lifetime, hoping she’ll give you what you seek? Because she’s the only one who can judge and punish you?”

  “No.” They both knew she lied.

  “You are pathetic.” Two more blows.

  “Ye-yes.” A broken whisper was all she could choke out.

  A fingernail raked over the line of agony the cane had cut across her back, then traced over her bottom lip and poked into her mouth. Tan tasted the salt of her sweat and metallic tang of her own blood.

  “Tell Anya what you want.”

  She pulled at her bonds, but she was too tired, too weak, too needy.

  “Tell Anya what you need.”

  Two more blows on her back and buttocks. Still, the pain inside burned greater than what Anya inflicted. She was unable to hold back a weak sob when Anya released the clips and blood rushed into her tortured nipples. “Please.”

  “Tell me.” The whispered demand was gentle this time.

  “Fuck me. I need you to fuck me until I’m raw.” The call to give herself was so incredibly strong, she felt raw inside. But for the first time, it wasn’t Jael who drew her.

  Chapter Five

  “Try again. It’s easy for a pyro with your power to project a hot flame, but you have to learn enough control to also project low flame.” Jael set up another row of square wood targets covered by cloth against the stone fence six meters away. She returned and tapped Kyle’s temple. “Picture only the cloth burning away.”

  Kyle stared at the first target, palmed a fireball, and threw it. The fireball struck with a whoosh and only ashes remained. She grumbled under her breath as she palmed another fireball to fling at the next target. “I don’t know why I have to learn to turn my flame down. Plenty of low-grade pyros are around if you need somebody to cook dinner.”

  Kyle’s frustration had been growing and gnawing at her since she’d awakened refreshed but inexplicably restless the afternoon before. At loose ends until Tan was ready to travel, she had only to guard Phyrrhos’ cavern prison at night. Toni had lingered for several hours after they had locked Phyrrhos in, but she’d worked all day in the clinic and needed to sleep, so Kyle sat the night alone with Phyrrhos’ frequent angry screams. Jael had checked on Kyle once, briefly. But Kyle thought it was more to connect with Specter, who flew constant patrols in the sky above to chase off other studs drawn there by Phyrrhos’ calls.

  Most of the night, Kyle stared at the stars and thought of the others up there training to be dragon-horse warriors, and her anger festered. She would be with them if Cyrus hadn’t kept her prisoner in his ridiculous cult. She would be a dragon-horse warrior. She wanted to scream her frustration like Phyrrhos. She was still edgy when she’d released Phyrrhos after her post-dawn transition to a wingless horse, and maintaining control of any kind felt as difficult as wading through knee-deep mud. She’d intended to take a good long run to work out her tension, but Jael had appeared out of the morning mists and escorted her here for fire training before the rest of the camp was awake and moving about.

  Jael closed her hand over Kyle’s, extinguishing her flame. She grasped Kyle’s shoulders and turned her so that she faced an open field. Then she walked six meters away. “Shoot me your hottest flame,” she said.

  Confused, Kyle glanced to the targets at her left.

  “No. Throw your flame at me. Give me the best you’ve got.”

  She’d already shown Jael she could burn through wood and bone, and melt almost any metal. What more did she want? She palmed a hot fireball and threw it off center. Jael casually flicked a fireball that intercepted and exploded Kyle’s.

  “Come on. You can do better than that,” Jael said.

  Kyle scowled and threw another, this time straight at Jael. Again, Jael deflected it. Kyle threw another, and another in rapid succession, each hotter than the last. Her anger rose with each that Jael nonchalantly intercepted until a red haze filled her mind. She sucked in a deep breath and yelled her frustration, raising her hands over her head and turning them inward. A blue-white column of flame sprouted from each palm and joined into one inferno that shot straight and true. Jael straightened and threw up her hands, palms out. Flame met flame in a broiling firestorm midway between them for a long moment before it moved slowly toward Kyle. Sweat ran down her face as she worked to sustain her flame. Her hands burned. It was too hot, too much.

  She’d stupidly challenged the First Warrior, the greatest pyro that walked the earth in this lifetime. The commander to whom she’d pledged her life and service. She deserved the penalty for her insubordination. She dropped her hands and hoped Jael’s torch would be quick, but the incinerating heat receded so quickly it merely licked a long painful streak along her cheek. Her face burned with shame more than injury. She couldn’t meet Jael’s eyes as she approached, even when her overly warm hand settled on Kyle’s shoulder.

  “Feel any better now that you got that out of your system?”

  “I’m an ass.”

  “In the military ranks, the customary response is ‘Yes, First Warrior.’”

  Kyle looked up. Jael’s eyes were serious but held no judgment. “Yes, First Warrior.”

  “You’re carrying a lot of anger, Kyle. There’s a fine line between losing your control and using your anger to your advantage.” Jael touched the blister forming on Kyle’s cheek. “If I didn’t have control of my flame, you’d be ashes right now.” She took Kyle’s hand and turned it palm up. “Your flame is as hot as any of The Guard, and we’re all purebloods. None of the new warriors can produce a flame that hot. How can I let you train with them if you can’t temper your heat?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  Jael dropped Kyle’s hand and stepped back. “You’ll come across other situations, unpleasant ones, when you might need to injure but not kill.”

  What? Oh. “Like when I melted the gun in Simon’s hand so he couldn’t fire at the First Advocate again?”

  Jael shrugged. “I wouldn’t have held back in that instance. Firing on the First Advocate of The Collective is punishable by death. But it’s not your burden to judge.”

  Kyle wondered at Jael’s choice of words—burden to judge.

  “While on your mission, you might need to disarm a believer who has helpful information. You wouldn’t want to turn him to ashes before you question him. Ready to try again?”

  “Yes, First Warrior.” Kyle turned to the targets and closed her eyes for a moment. She imagined a knife in the hand of a believer, formed her fireball, opened her eyes, and threw it at the target. The cloth burned away, leaving the wood intact but charred.

  “Better,” Jael said. “Much better. Again.”

  She closed her eyes again. This time, the image of Tan, dangling at the end of a thick rope tied around her hands, which were encased in fire-retardant gloves, popped into her head. Where had that come from? She opened her eyes as Jael’s hand on her shoulder jerked her to the righ
t.

  “There.” Jael pointed.

  Without hesitation, Kyle aimed her index and middle fingers at the sand-filled duffel hanging from a wood frame. A laser-like flame shot from her fingers to burn neatly through the rope where it fastened around the neck of the duffel, and the bag fell.

  Silence stretched between them, and then Jael cleared her throat. “Even better than a fireball.”

  They walked together to the bag and examined it. The rope was burned clear through, but the canvas of the duffel wasn’t even scorched.

  “I think you’ve figured it out.”

  Kyle fingered the canvas and frowned. “I thought I saw—”

  “I put that image in your head. Dragon horses think in pictures. If you bond, you’ll learn to think like that, too. And since I’m a telepath, I can project my thoughts in pictures.”

  She frowned. The reminder of Tan had that jumpy feeling eating at her again. She didn’t want to be touched right now. Having Jael in her head felt like touching.

  “Go to headquarters and tell Second I said to feed you. I want you taking all your meals at headquarters from now on.”

  Kyle gritted her teeth. She just couldn’t stop screwing up. She wasn’t certain what she’d done wrong this time, but it must be something if Jael didn’t even want her around the other new warriors. Still, Toni had told her that soldiers weren’t supposed to question their superiors. “Yes, First Warrior.” She couldn’t keep the edge out of her voice.

  Jael stared across the field long enough that Kyle followed her gaze. People were awake and forming lines for showers and chow. Several had stopped along the lane and were watching them. They were too far away to see insignia, but some wore the black armbands of the dragon-horse warriors.

  “Most of The Guard can’t do what you just did—shoot a straight, narrow flame from just their fingers,” Jael said. “You’ll likely be here only another week before you and Tan go after Cyrus. We’ve already found one spy in camp. I don’t think it’s a good idea to let it leak out that your father’s The Prophet. So, it’s probably best if you don’t mingle a lot and give people a chance to ask questions.”