Born of Fire

There was a strange catch in his voice. “What?”


A tic started again in his jaw as shame darkened his eyes. “He sold the only thing he could.”

She frowned. “His skills?”

“Yeah.”

Gasping, she realized what he meant. Syn hadn’t sold his computer skills . . .

He’d sold himself to get them free. Horror filled her. “Why would he have done that?”

“Hell if I know. It damn near cost him his life to get me out. And to be honest, if it’d been anyone other than him, I’d still be in that prison rather than escape.”

“How do you mean?”

“I’m Trisani. The only thing worse than a warden keeping me drugged and using me against my will is a criminal. I knew Sheridan would keep his word and actually free me once we were loose. True to his word, he set me free and never tried to come back to use me. There’s not much I wouldn’t do for him.”

She felt the same way. “He’s a good man.”

“Yeah, and that’s a rare thing in this world.” Nero indicated the door with a jerk of his chin. “By the way, he’s seriously torn up right now. I don’t know what you are to him, but if you have any feelings where he’s concerned, you might want to check on him.”

“He said he wanted to be alone.”

Nero gave a light, mocking laugh. “A lot of people say that when they don’t mean it. He’s emotionally hurting worse than I’ve ever seen him, and believe me, I’ve seen him hurt. There’s something inside him tearing his guts out and while I can sense it, I can’t pinpoint it.”

Concerned about him, Shahara got up to search for Syn. It took a few minutes to locate him in the crew’s rest area.

She froze as she saw him wearing nothing but a damp towel twisted at his lean waist. His hair was wet as if he’d taken a quick shower. But it was the wound on his shoulder that concerned her most.

“You got shot?”

He didn’t bother looking at her while he tended it. “A couple of burns. I’ll live.”

How could he be so blasè? And how had she missed seeing that he was hurt while they escaped?

Her heart heavy, she closed the distance between them. He started to move away, but she took his arm and kept him by her side.

“What happened at your apartment?”

He gave her a droll stare. “What? You blind? It was torn apart.”

Shahara had to stifle a smart comeback to that. But the one thing she knew about him was that he used sarcasm as a defense and a cover for his real feelings. “No, not that. You were searching for something. What was it?”

Syn was completely unprepared for the wave of emotion that ripped through him over her simple question. It tore a hole straight through his heart and left it ragged and bleeding.

Something he would never share with someone else. “Nothing.” He stepped around her.

But she was relentless in her pursuit. “Don’t lie to me. I know better. They took something extremely valuable to you.” She pulled a small handful of tattered bits from her pocket and handed it to him. “I found this in the debris.”

Grief choked him as he saw Talia’s bruised face staring at him. That one expression took him straight back to his childhood. Back to the horror and pain that had battered him every day of his life.

His hand shook as he reached for this last tie to the sister who had meant the world to him. “I tried to save her, you know.”

Shahara heard the pain in his voice and it cut through her soul. “What happened to her wasn’t your fault.”

Syn didn’t believe that for a second. “If I had gotten home sooner . . . I was supposed to come straight back . . .” He paused as he fought down his tears. “But I didn’t. I stopped in a park and . . . I was so stupid and selfish. I just wanted to have a few minutes where no one was yelling at me or hitting me. A few minutes to sit in the sun and feel like I was normal. Gah, I’m such a fucking idiot. Had I just gone home . . .”

Shahara pulled him into her arms and held him close. How could he call that selfish? A child shouldn’t have to feel so much pain.

And neither should this man. He who gave so much to others. He put the world first. Too bad no one had ever done that for him.

If only she could take away his pain.

Syn let the softness of her skin soothe him even as his bitter memories surged.

“You were just a kid.”

He shook his head in denial as her thumb stroked his cheek, sending waves of pleasure through him in spite of the pain that ravaged him. “I was never a child any more than you were. She was my responsibility and while I sat on a bench, watching a group of kids play ball, she was slicing open her wrists.” He felt his tears well as he remembered that day so clearly.

Why did you leave me, Talia . . .

In a life marked by betrayals, hers stung the deepest.