Free Beyond the Shadows by Jess Granger Page A

her over to the revolution, and then what? He didn’t want to think about that. He shuddered. She wasn’t supposed to be like this, like a real person. She was supposed to be a brainwashed Elite machine.
    Could he hand her over to the revolution? It would be a death sentence, unless there was some way—damn it. He couldn’t think too far past the start of the war, or he’d get sick. There was no other way. Azra had to change. His people were dying.
    Cyn let the handle fall against the sidewall, needing the loud clang to rattle his thoughts out of his head. Why did the Yar family resemblance have to be so strong? Yara looked like her cousin. Yarlia had lived and died, and Yara didn’t even know her kin had ever existed. That’s how far apart their worlds really were, and he couldn’t forget it. He picked up a piece of scorpion leg and tossed it onto the far pile with another loud clatter.
    He liked her. That was the problem. Yara was interesting and not what he was expecting. His affection for the unexpected was one of his weaknesses, one he had to be aware of, or she could ruin everything. She was Elite. When it came to the war, she would give her life to protect the status quo.
    If only there was another way.
    She watched him from the bulkhead door.
    “Eat the damn soup, Yara.”
    “Who are the weapons for?”
    Shit.
    He was half tempted to tell her. “That’s none of your business.”
    “I can’t believe you’re smuggling projectiles.” She crossed her arms, closing herself off.
    “I can’t believe you’re bringing this up,” he snapped back at her. “What’s your problem?”
    “I want . . .” She nearly shouted the words before she choked on them. When she regained her composure, she leveled him with a hard stare. “I want the people I deal with to be honest.”
    Cyn held back his chuckle of disbelief. That wasn’t what she intended to say, but he’d go with it. “I didn’t lie to you.”
    “Ha,” she huffed. “It doesn’t bother you that innocent people will probably die?” She rubbed the tattoos on her wrist as if the white falcons of the bloodline of Yarini the Just were clawing at her.
    He resisted the urge to rub the snakes that marked him as a son of the Rebel. They were biting at him, too. “Innocent people are dying now. Someone has to stop it.”
    “So you’re fine with stoking a war?”
    “Sometimes it’s needed, Commander .”
    Yara felt the heat of her temper rising in her veins. She just wanted to make it home so she could avoid the bloodshed of a messy transition of power. Why did the lure of the throne mean more to her rival, Palar, than peace? Cyrus wasn’t helping things. Their little argument was an effective reminder of why she should never be attracted to a man.
    She spun around and grabbed the pot of soup out of the galley then settled into the copilot’s seat to eat it.
    She wanted it to taste terrible and bitter. Of course it didn’t. The bastard seemed to be good at everything.
    If she’d tried to make soup, it would have congealed into a sticky gray mass and charred on the bottom.
    The thick cream tasted rich, warm and comforting with just the right amount of exotic spice. It filled her with heat and pleasure.
    “Damn it,” she whispered.
    Bug rose up off the console, inspecting the information on the viewscreen with his single beadlike eye.
    “ Twip, errrrr, werp buzz EEeeeee .” His aura turned bright green and swelled as threads of pink light wove in and out.
    “We’re almost there?” She reached out and switched modes for the viewscreen. In the distance a tiny blue planet glowed in the vastness of space.
    Yara looked at the bot. After spending the endless quiet hours of transwave travel with Bug buzzing around “talking” to Cyrus, it scared her that she was beginning to understand him.
    “Cyrus?” she called.
    He entered the control center and claimed the captain’s seat. With quick efficiency, he pulled the top of his hair back and tied it