Born of Ice

He shook his head. “The League blew it up. I was home sick that day. All my friends were killed.” He broke off into fierce sobs again as he continued to call for his mother at the top of his lungs. Baleful shrieks that were drowned out by the sounds of lasers, blasters and bombs exploding around them.

Devyn had to bite back a curse. He’d joined The League to protect people. To keep predators from doing what their own soldiers had done to these people.

Anger burned through him so raw and fetid that he could taste it.

“Kell? What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

He looked up at his CO as he reached for another bandage. “Trying to save a life.” He had to force himself to finish the sentence. “Sir.” But there was no way to keep the venom and disgust he felt out of his tone.

Quills kicked dirt at them. “He’s nothing to us. We have soldiers bleeding. Get your ass moving and tend to them.”

Devyn glanced at the men who were hurt, but nowhere near as badly as the kid in front of him. If he didn’t stop the bleeding, the kid didn’t stand a chance. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“You will do as you are told, soldier. Now move!”

Devyn refused to budge. “In a minute.”

Then Quills made the worst mistake of his life.

He pointed his blaster at him. “Move or die.”

Devyn scoffed bitterly as he heard his mother’s favorite phrase run through his head. He narrowed his gaze at his CO. “Never give someone a choice that doesn’t leave them with any way out except to hurt you.”

“What?”

“You want me to move?” Devyn shot to his feet and had the blaster out of Quills’s hands faster than he could blink. “How’s this?”

“Arrest him!”

League soldiers came at him from all directions. But Devyn didn’t care. The only thing that mattered to him was the kid at his feet.

Omari.

He hadn’t donned this uniform to slaughter civilians. To cut off town supplies and punish miners who were protesting The League’s cruelty to them. This was wrong, and he refused to be a part of a system this corrupt.

He slammed the butt of the blaster into the first man to reach him. Another shot at him. He dodged the blast that cut down two other men before he took down the man aiming for his head. He pulled out his knives and went for the next one who tried to kill him.

Turning around, he caught another attacker in the chest, and the next in his arm and throat.

One by one, using the skills his parents and uncles had taught him, he brought down every soldier dumb enough to attack him until he stood alone.

His conviction solid steel, he moved back to his commander, who lay sniveling on the ground. “You should have listened to Adron. I am the meanest son of a bitch ever born. And you . . .” He blasted his commander into unconsciousness. “Are a worthless piece of shit.”

And Quills was lucky Devyn had enough of his Aunt Tessa in him to have mercy right now when he really wanted to kill the SOB. Either one of his parents would have cut his throat where he lay. But he wouldn’t be so cold . . .

Tonight.

Devyn paused as he looked over the men he’d wounded. Those who weren’t dead, anyway. They lay holding their wounds, but made no more moves to attack him.

He’d made his point. Just because he was a doctor didn’t mean he was a wimp.

They’d learned a valuable lesson tonight about attacking people they didn’t consider a threat.

But as he stood there, reality hit him. By what he’d done, he’d declared war on The League. There would be no going back. They would hunt him like an animal and come for him, night and day.

So be it.

After all, he was a Wade through and through. And if Wades were anything, they were staunch survivors.

May the gods have mercy on anyone dumb enough to come at him, because he wouldn’t.

Turning around, he picked Omari up from the ground. “Don’t worry, kid. I’ll protect you. No one’s ever going to hurt you again.”

Because he would kill anyone who ever threatened this kid.





CHAPTER 1


Nine years later



Devyn Kell is the devil himself. He will not take mercy on you, and he will kill you if he finds out who you are and why you’re there. Trust me. I’ve buried every agent we’ve sent in after him—male, female and everything in between. Since he can spot an operative three seconds after he meets one, maybe a civ can bust his ass wide open.

Do not fail.

Alix Gerran held those words close to her heart as she entered the hangar bay where Kell’s ship was docked.

I don’t want to do this . . .

But she had no choice. It was either find the evidence to bring Kell to justice or watch her mother and sister die. She had three weeks before the Ritadarion Chief Minister of Justice executed them. And every day that passed, her family sat in a prison cell, rotting.

She was their only hope.

You can do this.

She still didn’t understand why Merjack didn’t just kill the man if he hated him so much. But the CMOD had been adamant that Kell have a public trial and execution. For whatever psycho reason, an assassination contract wasn’t good enough for Kell.