Because as badly as she wanted to reject the idea, Kellan Archer no longer existed.
And the man who stood in his place was not only allied with these rebel bastards, he was leading them.
Chapter Six
WITH LUCAN AND GIDEON SEQUESTERED IN CLOSED-DOOR meetings most of the day, Darion Thorne had spent the past few hours sparring in the training facility of the Order's D.C. headquarters. The rigorous exercise felt good, but it was a temporary distraction. It hadn't quelled the restless energy that lived inside him. It never did.
He was a warrior - he knew that with a certainty in his soul. How could his father not see that he was wasting a valuable asset by keeping Dare tethered to the command center when he belonged in the field? How long could Dare stand to have his hands tied before he threw off those chains and led the charge - with or without his father's approval?
It was that question that dogged him as he sat hunched over a thick volume in the Order's archive library. His hair was still damp from the shower, training garb switched for a dark T-shirt and jeans. His blades and throwing stars now replaced by a pen, which he tapped in idle rhythm on the long wooden table that stretched the center of the expansive, book-lined chamber.>She smelled the faint brine of the ocean in the damp air. Heard the low roar of waves rolling onto the shore from not far off in the distance. Beyond that, only silence.
No, raising her voice in this place would only alert her captors.
Mira shifted on the thin mattress and winced at the dull ache that flared in the side of her neck. She remembered getting punched there with something sharp. Something that took out her legs and sent her mind reeling. Tranqs, it was obvious to her now.
But it didn't take much to recall the sudden, overwhelming sense of floating, falling . . .
Dying, she had thought.
She'd even seen the face of an angel in those final few moments of fading consciousness. Kellan's face, handsome and haunted, his soulful hazel eyes holding her in a gaze that seemed mournful, somehow heartbroken.
God, they must have given her some powerful shit.
It took more than a little effort to shake off the soft pang of longing in her chest that always followed in the wake of Kellan's memory. Instead, Mira rallied herself around her present reality - which, at the moment, wasn't looking too promising.
She tested her shackles again, to no avail. Next, she shifted her head around on the pillow, trying to use friction to slide the blindfold away from her eyes. It moved up only a fraction on the right side, not enough for her to see anything.
And she'd apparently made enough noise already, because now she heard the heavy jangle of a key turning in a lock. From somewhere beyond the foot of the bed, a heavy panel door creaked open.
"You're awake." The woman with the long black hair. Brady, they called her. Mira recognized her voice and the long-legged gait as footsteps approached the bed. "How do you feel?"
"Like I'm going to vomit," Mira replied, her own voice raw from disuse. "But then, being near rebel scum tends to have that effect on me." She cleared her arid throat. "That's what you are, right? Rebels. Lowlife cowards who plot and skulk around in the shadows like a den of rats, making messes for other people to clean up. Taking the lives of people worth any hundred of your kind."
The woman said nothing in response to all that venom. There was a soft rustle of movement beside the bed near Mira's head, then the liquid sound of something being poured into a glass. "Drink this," she told Mira. "It's water. The sedative you were given will have dehydrated you."
Mira turned her head when the cool glass came close to her lips. "I don't want anything you give me. Tell me what you've done to Jeremy Ackmeyer."
A soft sigh. "You don't need to worry about him. He's not your concern."
"I'll decide what's my concern or not." Mira tried to rise, but there was nowhere to go with the restraints digging into her wrists. She dropped back down on a hissed curse. "Where is he? What do you want from him?"
The water glass came up to Mira's mouth again. "We're going to release you tonight, unharmed," the female rebel said, ignoring her questions.
"Release me?" Mira scoffed, refusing the drink a second time now. "And you think I believe that? I've seen all of your faces. I may not know exactly where you brought me, but I know we're not far out of Boston. Somewhere very close to the bay - so close, I can hear the water. I can taste it in the air. Some kind of bunker would be my guess. Something very old. It won't take long to figure out where this hideout is, and then I'll come back for all of you."
"We've considered that." No worry in that calm reply. "Precautions will be taken, of course."
Precautions, Mira pondered silently. Were they taking Ackmeyer to another location? Or did this imply the rebels would be moving their base of operations tonight, scattering somewhere like the vermin they were?
No way they'd ever outrun her, let alone the Order, no matter how far or wide they fled. And if they thought hooding her for the ride back to this base earlier and keeping her blindfolded now would protect their identities or the location of their lair, they would be sorely mistaken. Short of lobotomizing her, which would definitely negate the "unharmed" part of their promise, Mira didn't see how these humans figured they could turn her loose and expect to get away with it.
"You know who I am," Mira said, not a question.
"Yes," the woman replied quietly. "I know who you are."
"Then you have to know that I will find you and the rest of your criminal friends, and I won't be alone when I do." Mira wished she could see the rebel's face and gauge the fear that must surely be there. No one took on the Order without a good deal of trepidation or stupidity, and this woman didn't strike Mira as anything close to an idiot. "You need to tell your pals that if any of you think I'm leaving this place without Ackmeyer, you've got another thing coming."
"It's not up to me to decide," she said. "Now, please. Take some water."