Free Betrayal's Shadow by K H Lemoyne Page A

even wanted her to. He needed to hear her logic combined with the conviction in her voice, because fear of losing the sister he’d raised from a little girl ate at his gut with every breath he took.
    When he’d seen Isa’s body, what terrified him beyond words was imagining Briet’s face superimposed over the corpse.
    “Even Leonis wouldn’t support my request to stay out of cryo at this point, would he?”
    “No.” That was a sore point. The man revolved in a constant repetition of “needing proof.” He refused to acknowledge what the rest of them could clearly feel. They weren’t human. Their senses, their intuition, should count for more than paranoia.
    “Hmm, another falling out with him?” She shook his shoulder to get his attention. “I’m careful. I don’t stay with any project for very long. I cover my tracks, but…” She glanced around the kitchen as if it offered her a way to ease his worry. “I’ve learned so much working with the drug trials and hospital studies. This may be of value to us someday. It has definitely been of help to the children cured. This is the value we were intended to provide with our special skills, aside from our children.”
    “Our people should not have to fade out of existence for the sake of value . Our people should not have to suffer the loss of generations of our history, of our future. Our people shouldn’t be on the brink of extinction.” He clasped her shoulders. “You should be able to have a mate, just as they all marry and have children—just as they are all able to breed.”
    She bit her lip. “Don’t hold back.”
    He turned away from the concern in her huge brown eyes.
    She pulled him back to face her. When he refused to turn back, she gave a quick, light jerk to the long braid that ran down his back. “Ansgar, you’re right, but I can’t fix the problems our people face. I can try to move forward and not falter. Securing our women to safeguard them for a mating that may never happen isn’t the answer. It weakens us.”
    “I only agree with you as long as you’re safe, Pip.” He leaned close to rest his forehead against hers. “The problem is, once that is no longer the case, it will be too late to fix. You are not expendable. I can’t be here enough to safeguard you.”
    “I can watch out for myself.” She smiled. “What happened to my carefree, fun-loving brother?”
    “He’s been mired down in death and betrayal.”
    “Betrayal?” A frown pulled between her brows and clouded her expression. “Do you doubt Turen?”
    “Leonis asked me the same thing.” Ansgar shook his head. “I would trust him with my life. I can’t risk you with anyone.” He watched the swirl of gold shift in the brown of his sister’s eyes and knew she couldn’t logic away his concern.
    “And because you trust no one, that gave you pause? Really, Ansgar, surely you recognize the truth. You wouldn’t trust my own mate with me.”
    He raised an eyebrow and rolled his shoulders in an attempt to pass off what she said but cracked a smile. She was right.
    She patted her hands on her knees. “Let’s deal with this after dinner. Are you hungry?”
    He shrugged. “I could eat.”
    “On a scale of one to ten?”
    “Eight.” He glanced toward the pot on the stove and then inhaled the aroma that filled the room. “Okay, nine.”
    She laughed. “Let me put some toast on for the chowder, and we’ll eat. We’ll pretend it’s a normal meal, like the old days.”
    “Briet, we haven’t had a normal anything in two hundred years.”
    “Pretend with me.”
    Her smile warmed the mood. He didn’t have the heart to dash her dreams.

 
    CHAPTER 6
     
    Mia squinted against the sun streaming across her face from the slats in the blinds. She flipped over in bed and cracked open an eye at the clock. Eleven in white digital numbers stood out flat against the black background.
    How did she sleep so late?
    She burrowed under the sheet and rubbed her face in the