The Hunt - Megan Shepherd Page 0,2

Looking into his mind that one time and seeing a flash of almost human-like regret for what he’d done to her hadn’t changed that.

“You,” she said. “All of you.” She jerked her chin at Tessela and Fian. “You think you’ll always be in control, but humans can be as smart as you. The minute I get out of here—and I will—I’m going to show everyone on this station what humans are capable of. Reading minds. Sensing things. They won’t be able to deny it anymore.” She hoped they didn’t detect the tremor in her voice that whispered freak in the back of her head.

Cassian folded his hands calmly. “That would be unwise.” He motioned to Tessela and Fian. “Leave us.”

Fian and Tessela obeyed like clockwork, moving in unison toward the door, which sealed closed behind them. The starry light from the wall seams spilled over Cassian’s skin, softly reflective, almost as if he was the god Nok had talked about from her childhood stories in Thailand.

“Fian’s uniform, in case you did not notice,” Cassian continued, “has the twin-knot design of a delegate on the Intelligence Council, the highest governing party on the station and a collaboration among all the intelligent species. My position as Warden is powerful, but the delegates will always far outrank me. Those of us sympathetic to the human cause have painstakingly toiled, over the course of many rotations, to infiltrate it; you should be thankful Fian is on our side, not theirs. If a true delegate witnessed you saying such things, you would never leave this chamber.”

“You can’t threaten me.”

“I am merely telling you the truth.” His head turned as his gaze skimmed over the room, lingering on her fingerprints on the black panel. “You are not the only one in danger. If they were to learn of my involvement, they would demote me to the lowest position—a star sweeper, sent to clear astral debris in a solitary ship. Ninety-five percent of star sweepers are killed by asteroid collision in their first run.”

Cora balled her fists harder. Like she cared what happened to him. She wanted to hate him. She did hate him. And yet her mind flashed back through moments when hate had been the last thing she’d felt. He had given her stars, when she couldn’t sleep. He’d saved her life, when Fian had nearly strangled her. He had stood in the artificial ocean surf, and uncloaked his stoic emotional walls, and looked at her with real eyes, not black ones, and whispered to her with real emotions, not hidden ones.

And he had kissed her.

She looked away. Nothing here is real, she reminded herself. Love most of all.

He took another step into the room. She couldn’t tell where he was looking with his all-black eyes, but his head tilted toward her clenched left fist, then her right.

“I want to help you.” His voice was softer. “Our goal is, ultimately, the same. If you can read even a small piece of my mind, then you know that is true.”

“If you’re going to apologize again, forget it,” she cut him off. “I’m tired of hearing that you betrayed me for the good of humanity. That you broke my mind so that I’d evolve to the next level.” She paused. “That what you felt for me was real.”

But this time, he did not contradict her. He only removed a long piece of fabric from a deep pocket in his black uniform and held it out.

She took it hesitantly, too curious not to, and let the smooth fabric unroll. Straps. A hem.

An ankle-length dress.

It wasn’t like the formal robes both male and female Kindred of low status wore. Nor the white sundress she had worn in the cage. This was gold and silk, richly made, and it held a faint trace of cigarette smoke and a perfume, but one that was older, not like her mother’s designer scents. It was a real artifact from Earth, unlike all the re-created clothing, which smelled like ozone and didn’t have the right weight.

“What is this?” she asked.

She’d expected to spend the rest of her life in the cell. They wouldn’t kill her—that would go against their unbreakable moral code. But it didn’t mean she wouldn’t be drugged, or worse.

“This is a second chance,” Cassian said evenly. “For both of us.”

2

Cora

CORA LET THE DRESS’S smooth fabric fall through her hands and settle on the floor in a pool of silk. “A second chance?”

She could guess what the 1930s-style dress meant. She knew