Closing the Circle (Guardians of the Pattern, Book 6) Read online

  Closing the Circle

  Guardians of the Pattern, Book 6

  by

  Jaye McKenna

  Published by Mythe Weaver Press

  Distributed by Smashwords

  Copyright © 2017 Jaye McKenna

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover Art by Chinchbug

  Copyright © 2017 Chinchbug

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Words of Caution

  This story contains sexually explicit material and describes sexual relations between men. It is intended for adult readers.

  Closing the Circle

  Guardians of the Pattern, Book 6

  by

  Jaye McKenna

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Epilogue

  Also Available

  Coming Soon

  Acknowledgments

  Author Bio

  Contact Info

  Book Description

  Chapter One

  DeMira’s mansion burned.

  From the shelter of the trees on a hilltop overlooking the place he’d worked so hard to return to, Draven watched, a small smile of satisfaction curving his lips.

  The explosions hadn’t been nearly as loud as he’d hoped, but the resulting fire was all the hell he could have wished for. The golden tongues of flame stroking the dark, velvety sky were so beautiful, he almost forgot about the screaming.

  There would be screaming, oh, God, let there be screaming…

  Too bad he was too far away to hear it.

  Didn’t matter. Those whose screams he’d most appreciate were no longer capable of screaming. DeMira wasn’t. Neither was Vorzana. They’d both drunk too deeply of the drugged wine at dinner.

  The flames warped and blurred. Draven blinked as hot tears slipped down his cheeks. The games here hadn’t been all bad. There’d been a few good ones. Only a few, though. Not enough to balance. The pain on this side weighed so much more than the sense of home on the other.

  He wouldn’t name it revenge, because it wasn’t.

  It was balance.

  This single act flattened out all the spiky, jagged pieces that had been irritating him for the past few weeks. Everything was smooth and calm now, no ripples, no waves, no shards of glass floating just below the surface, waiting to slice his flesh if he moved the wrong way or thought the wrong thing.

  He could rest now. Maybe even sleep.

  The song of fear and pain threading through his awareness finally became loud enough to intrude, causing little ripples to shiver across the smooth surface of his mind.

  The smooth surface he’d only recently achieved.

  Annoying. As. Fuck.

  Draven reached into his pocket to pull free a needlepak of riptide. He found the vein and slapped the needle against his arm, closing his eyes. Waiting for the rush, for silence, for peace.

  He should probably be worried that it took twice as many needlepaks a day to quiet the voices as it had when he’d first returned to Alpha.

  He wasn’t.

  Turning his back on the blaze, he walked deeper into the forest until the drug turned his legs to rubber and his mind to liquid. He staggered to a stop and leaned against a tree trunk, helpless to stop himself from sliding to the ground as his legs gave way.

  The last conscious thought he had was a scrap of memory, a voice whispering, Aurora. Institute for Psionic Research. You can find me there if you ever need a safe place to stay. Or hide.

  Cameron’s voice.

  In drug-laced dreams, Draven reached for that voice as if it were a lifeline.

  * * *

  Cameron Asada, director of the Institute for Psionic Research, stared at the screen in front of him and struggled to focus on the endless columns of numbers. The sun had set, and he’d barely registered the lights in his office brightening in response to the darkening sky outside.

  He lifted his mug and took a long swallow of cold coffee as he considered the phrasing of his request for more research funding. The odds were against Federation Security granting the Institute enough money to do anything more than cursory research. Every year since he’d assumed the directorship, he put in the request for a bigger research budget, and every year, the Command Council denied it.

  It was getting to be something of a ritual.

  A knock on the door had him dragging his eyes away from the screen and calling, “Come in.”

  The door opened just wide enough to admit a small man with a long braid of white-blond hair hanging halfway down his back. He barely made a sound as he slipped in and closed and locked the door behind him.

  “What brings you here, Miko?” Cam glanced at the time on the screen. “You should have been finished with work hours ago.”

  Miko approached Cam’s desk, but instead of taking a seat in one of the two chairs facing it, he remained standing, shifting from foot to foot. His brilliant amethyst eyes darted about the room before he lifted his hands and signed, I need your help.

  “With what?”

  I saw… Miko’s hands froze and he caught his lower lip between his teeth, eyes going glassy and distant for a moment before he continued. Draven is in trouble.

  Draven.

  Whose last known whereabouts placed him dead center of a powerful storm that had flattened an abandoned mining base being used for illegal psi research.

  Trust Draven to have escaped certain death.

  “He’s been in contact with you?” A year ago, Cam would have been overjoyed to get a solid hook into Draven, or even a nebulous lead hinting at the assassin’s whereabouts. Now, with Sergei Romani’s research operation destroyed, he had little interest in the man who might once have been a valuable information source.

  Not… exactly in contact. I saw it. In the Pattern.

  Cam regarded Miko through narrowed eyes. “I thought you said the Pattern was broken.”

  Miko swallowed. It is. But… I still get flashes. There and gone. Always foggy, never solid. This is different. Stronger. And I keep seeing it. He’s in trouble, and he’s coming here. To you.

  “Here? Why would he—”

  Miko’s hands were moving before Cam could finish the question. Because you made a promise. You told him he could come to you here if he needed a place to stay. Or hide.

  “I remember,” Cam whispered, thoughts going back to that terrifying night when he’d blown the last undercover op of his career during a moment of compassion. Draven had been right there, working for the enemy, Cam had thought. But instead of executing Cam as a traitor, Draven had helped him escape and arranged for him to take Miko with him. “Is he here? On
Aurora?”

  Not yet. But he will be. He’s hurting. His thread feels thin. Frayed. Maybe broken.

  Cam dragged a hand down his face and let out a ragged sigh. “What do you want me to do?”

  Miko’s slender shoulders lifted in a shrug. Help him. Hide him. He’s important. He’s… He dropped his hands and shook his head.

  “Hide him where? I can’t exactly bring him here.” If it was anyone else asking, he wouldn’t even be considering it. But it was Miko. And Miko invoking the Pattern was not something he could ignore, however much he might like to.

  No. You can’t bring him to the campus. He wouldn’t be safe here. Miko frowned, eyes going distant again. One of the cabins?

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Cam said slowly. “Those are all on Institute property, which technically belongs to FedSec. And they’re used for weekend getaways when we’re not using them for training.”

  I could create a fictitious student who’s so sensitive, he needs complete isolation.

  “You could, but… I might have a better idea.” Cam’s foster father had a tiny cabin that had once been a favorite haunt of Cam’s. It stood on a chunk of land a little farther north of the Institute’s property, and was maybe an hour’s flight from the campus. Close enough that he could get out there quickly if he needed to, and far enough away that no one would stumble across Draven by accident.

  If it was still standing, it just might do.

  He’d have to take a trip out there and see what shape the place was in. No one had used it or maintained it in ages; it wouldn’t surprise him to find nothing left but a heap of broken timbers.

  When he glanced at Miko, the young man’s amethyst eyes were fixed on his, the hopeful expression making them appear even larger than usual.

  “All right, Miko. I’ll… I’ll see what I can do.”

  Some of the tension drained out of Miko’s body. His shoulders relaxed, and he gave Cam one of his rare smiles. Thank you.

  “Don’t thank me yet. I’m not even sure if this idea’s going to pan out. If it doesn’t, I’ll have to think again. If your Pattern’s told you anything at all about what to expect, you can get me a list of things I might need.” Cam’s mind was already making a note of the basic necessities: firewood, food, bedding, bottled water…

  I don’t see that clearly, Miko signed. I just know he’s hurting. I don’t know if it’s now or… or when he gets here. Or maybe even after.

  “First-aid supplies, too, then. Pain meds. Maybe bandages…” Cam glanced at the clock. “I’ve probably got enough time to go check things out tonight, if I leave now. Do you have any idea what kind of time frame we’re looking at? Tomorrow? Next week?”

  Soon? Miko signed. I don’t know. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more.

  “If you see anything else…”

  I’ll let you know. Miko turned to go, but he hadn’t even taken two steps before he stopped and faced Cam again. Thank you, Cameron.

  “Don’t thank me until I’ve done something.”

  Miko smiled. You will. He slipped out the door and closed it behind him.

  Cam dropped his head into his hands. How the hell was he going to keep Draven hidden?

  Maybe he wouldn’t have to. Maybe Miko had read the Pattern wrong and Draven wasn’t coming here at all.

  He could always hope.

  But that didn’t mean he shouldn’t prepare.

  Miko wasn’t often wrong, and Cam had made a promise. A promise he’d never expected to be called on to redeem, but it was still a promise, and he did owe Draven his life. And Miko’s.

  * * *

  Clouds scudded across the moon, light and shadow alternately filling the alley like a slow-motion strobe. The constantly shifting light made it difficult to concentrate. Draven’s vision blurred, the dealer’s face swimming in and out of focus.

  The line he was trying to walk was much too fine. Too damn tricky, allowing the riptide to wear off enough that he could use psi, but not so much that the mental noise of the city around him made him crazy with pain. The window of clear thought and functional psi lasted about twenty minutes, and he’d used his last needlepak half an hour ago. He was pushing his luck hard, but if he didn’t score soon, it was over anyway.

  “Twenty ’paks.” His voice sounded rough, but iron control honed by years of training allowed him to keep the note of desperation out of it… he hoped. This guy and those like him could smell desperation; if the dealer had any idea how badly Draven needed what he was selling, the price would triple in the span of a drawn breath.

  “Four hundred.”

  A week ago, he’d have told the guy to fuck off. Now, he simply bit the inside of his cheek. He needed the stuff too badly to alienate the only supplier he’d managed to track down since arriving in the city of Iral.

  “Four hundred,” Draven muttered, and pulled a wad of cash from the front pocket of his pants. It took every shred of will he possessed to hold his hands steady as he peeled off the bills and pressed them into the man’s dirty hand.

  “And the rest,” the dealer said, eyeing the cash.

  “Fuck that—” Draven started, then froze as something hot and sharp pierced his belly and entered his body. He dropped his gaze in time to see the dealer jerk a knife back, the blade slick and dark with blood.

  Adrenaline surged, and in one smooth motion, Draven shifted his weight, dropped low, and kicked the man’s feet out from under him. The dealer went down with a sharp yelp, and Draven sprang forward to land on top of him, knee on his chest. With hands that were suddenly rock steady, he wrenched the man’s head around in a precise, deliberate motion that broke his neck.

  A glance toward the street at the far end of the alley told him he had a few precious moments, and he took them to search the dealer. It was worth the time; he found more cash and several plastic bags full of needlepaks.

  Score.

  He tore open one of the bags and pulled out a needlepak. His hands trembled as he positioned it over the vein in his arm and slapped it home. The rest of the drugs and the cash went into various pockets.

  Draven struggled to his feet. He had to make it back to the hotel, preferably before the rush hit him and left him insensible. The cold clarity that had come with the adrenaline dump was rapidly fading, leaving him weak and shaking. Now the threat was over, the pain he’d momentarily blocked out came roaring back.

  “Shit.”

  His hand went to his belly and came away wet. The blood had already soaked through his shirt and the insulated hoodie he’d picked up at the spaceport after his first glimpse at the piles of snow outside. It had been summer in the city of Paris when he’d left Alpha, and in his scattered, strung-out state, it hadn’t occurred to him that it might be winter where he was headed.

  He limped to the mouth of the alley and pressed himself against the scarred brick wall. When the clouds covered the moon, plunging the street back into shadow, he slipped out.

  A few streets over, neon lights flashed and blurred, the colors blending until he couldn’t read the letters. He wasn’t far from the hotel, but which way was it?

  Cold sweat broke out all over his body. Shock or fear?

  Both maybe. Nothing looked familiar, and he staggered down the sidewalk in blind confusion until he caught sight of a blue and pink sign. He squinted, fighting to bring it into focus.

  The Neon Elephant.

  He’d seen the sign from the window of his hotel room and rolled his eyes at the time, but now that blue elephant in the pink tutu looked like the sweetest thing he’d ever seen.

  Safe. He’d be safe soon.

  Or as safe as he was likely to get.

  Struggling to stay on his feet, Draven made his way to the hotel, breath hitching with every step.

  * * *

  The numbers on the screen in front of him danced and blurred, and Cam rubbed his burning eyes and blinked to clear his vision. His head was pounding, and he was more tired than he remembered being in a long time. P
hysically tired, which was a lot different from the mental exhaustion he was so familiar with.

  He’d gone out to the lodge the same night Miko had come to ask for his help, and found the place in surprisingly good shape for having been abandoned for so long. Every night since, he’d headed back out there and done the work needed to make the place fit to live in. He’d patched a hole in the roof, replaced a cracked window, cleaned the old nests out of the chimney, and scrubbed every surface.

  Once the place was sound, he’d started stocking it with supplies: meal-paks, dry goods, firewood, linens, spare clothing, first-aid supplies… the list seemed endless, and every evening he spent out there, he came up with a dozen more things he needed to remember to bring the next night.

  Spurred on by Miko’s urgency, Cam hadn’t taken a break until he was satisfied that the lodge was fully stocked. Now, he figured Draven could safely hide there for a couple of months before he’d start running low on supplies. And hopefully, by that time, Cam would have helped him to Miko’s satisfaction and sent him on his way.

  Assuming Draven even showed up.

  Cam still wasn’t entirely certain he believed Miko’s interpretation of what he’d glimpsed in the Pattern. He couldn’t think of a single reason why a man like Draven — a professional killer who’d spent his entire career working for the most powerful drug cartel in the Federation — would want to entangle himself with an ex-FedSec agent. If Cam were in Draven’s shoes, this would be the last place he’d show his face.

  If Draven was ready to risk coming here, he had to be in a hell of a lot of trouble. Might even be dragging it along behind him. Cam rubbed his face with his hands and tried to focus on the screen. He didn’t want that kind of trouble. Didn’t need it.