Free The Ophelia Prophecy by Sharon Lynn Fisher Page A

was no match for Iris, but it would be a fight worth watching— if they didn’t desperately need to vacate the camp.
    “Where did you find that thing?” asked Iris, holding her position as the priest shifted his stance.
    Carrick’s eyes glittered, and Pax got the sense that—holy man or not—he was in his element, squaring off with an enemy.
    “Found it scavenging in the refuse heap. Wounded. Unable to fly. Or so it seemed.”
    Iris raised an eyebrow. “So you decided to make a pet of it?”
    Carrick’s lips twisted up at one corner. “We chained it up and left it to die. Beck had the notion we could make use of its parts. The creature’s body is like armor.”
    The old woman suddenly stepped out from behind the priest and approached Iris, a stream of animated but unintelligible sounds issuing from her papery lips.
    “Keep back, Mother!” called Carrick. The ax lowered a fraction as he flung out his arm to catch her. He muttered more words of command in the same language she’d spoken.
    She stopped with her wide eyes fixed on Iris. Pax caught one word she repeated several times: shee, shee, shee .
    “She’s not a fairy woman,” the priest explained in his low, growling voice. “She’s a mu—” Mutant . But Carrick hesitated, finally finishing with more of what Pax assumed was Gaelic.
    The old woman’s lips parted again, and she regarded Iris with more awe than fear. Noting that her reply to her son continued use of the word “shee”—and that she tugged insistently at his jacket—Pax determined the priest’s explanation had been rejected.
    The biohacker who’d engineered Iris’s mother admittedly had a whimsical flair. While ostensibly working on a U.S. Defense Department contract to incorporate predator insect traits into human physiology, Dr. Gregoire had been more interested in playing god. Using ancient stories—and the more modern illustrations inspired by them—Gregoire had brought mythological races to life.
    In a way the old woman was right; Iris was more fairy woman than any woman ever had been.
    Pax took hold of his sister’s arm. “We have to go. Now .” Glancing at Carrick he said, “Your captive has most likely gone back to her hive, reeking of attack pheromone because you’ve made her angry. It’s only a matter of time before they come down on top of you. On top of us . Unless you want to watch all these people die”—his gaze flitted to the old woman—“you need to take me to Beck.”
    *   *   *
    Asha felt Beck’s eyes on her as she turned over the questions he’d raised in her mind.
    His brow creased as he said, “I don’t mean to trouble you, love. We may be able to get some answers from the two that came with you. The other crew started talking in the end, though what they told us wasn’t of much use.”
    A shudder ran through her. “You tortured them?”
    He watched her a moment before replying. “We’re in agreement that these are our enemies?”
    “Yes. But torture …” Loyalty was one thing; inhumanity was another. Especially when it came to an enemy who was no longer faceless. “Neither of these two is old enough to have had anything to do with the Bio Holocaust,” she reminded him.
    Beck leaned closer, and she saw a glint of something she hadn’t seen before—something that reminded her of Paxton’s warning.
    “If you’d watched those bug ships burn your parents alive,” he said, “you might feel differently.”
    She swallowed. “I might.”
    Releasing her from his gaze, he sank against the back of the pew with a sigh. “Let’s hope we’ll find them more cooperative than the others.”
    She sat processing what he’d said—and contrasting his surface charm with the dark current she’d just felt. She’d just begun to examine her own complicated feelings about the Manti prince and his sister when Beck spoke again.
    “There’s something else I want to say to you.” He angled toward her, and she held her breath. “I think