Mercy flinched. Home was not a comforting word in her vocabulary. Not since she was three, and her mother explained to her that if they ever went home, Grandmother would kill them. The way she’d killed Mercy’s father. It took every ounce of will she had not to fall back a step. It helped that she had nowhere to run. Her legs shook, reminding her how physically weak she’d become over the course of her captivity. Running right now was not an option, even if she had somewhere to go, even if she was willing to abandon Atrea.

Her gaze went to the stasis field, her friend’s face a pale smear beneath the translucent blue shell. The man with the shaggy hair was standing next to it, and as Mercy watched, Atrea rose into the air beside him, hovering like a load of cargo about to be moved with anti-gravity boosters.

“Her father is waiting to see her.”

The quiet words drew Mercy’s gaze back to Reaper. She stared at him, her brain sluggish to process and respond.

“The old Wolf?” Hope was a fragile thing in her chest. Her fists clenched at her sides. She didn’t want to trust these people, didn’t want to place herself in their hands. At the same time, she ached to trust someone, to believe even for a moment that the nightmare could be over and Atrea might be saved.

“Captain Hades, yes,” said Reaper. He paused. “Further explanations must wait. We are not safe here.”

He gave a nod to the man with Atrea, then turned on his heel and made for the door. Everyone else watched Mercy, waiting. No one made a move toward her, not physically, and not with Talent. In that, at least, they were a step above Willem Frain and his friends. They would have picked her up and forced her to go with them. She let out a breath, realizing that no one needed to resort to that now. If she didn’t go with them, she’d be trapped on this station with no way to leave it. She had no choice. Whether it meant marching home to her Grandmother, taking Atrea back to Wolfgang Hades, or both.

She followed Reaper. The others fell into step behind her. Mercy felt the weight of their stares, and was suddenly self-conscious, too aware of her weakened state, the short bristle of hair she’d begun to grow, and the way her wrinkled synth-cloth clothing hung on her too-thin frame. She had given up feeling awareness of her vulnerability while with Frain, unable to spend energy on something that had become a constant state of being. Now it came rushing back, and she hated it.

She turned her head and glared at the nearest of Reaper’s soldiers. His face was startlingly handsome, with sharp, chiseled features and bronze tinted skin, slightly darker than her own. His eyes were a deeper blue than Reaper’s, and he radiated a similar intensity. Dark, nearly black eyebrows rose in surprise at the fierceness of her look, and he raised a hand as if to placate her.

“None of us here are your enemy,” he said, in a voice meant to be soothing.

“We’ll see,” she said grimly.

They moved quickly through the hallways of the station, a sense of urgency dogging their heels. Mercy knew better than any of them how much Willem Frain wanted her dead. There was, however, the peculiar way he couldn’t seem to follow through and actually kill her. She wondered if that odd reluctance would extend to blowing the station to pieces. It wasn’t something she wanted to find out.

When they finally reached the airlock, Mercy wasn’t surprised to see bodies strewn across the hallway, plasma shields lying spent and inert beside them. Reaper’s group didn’t even pause, stepping quickly over the fallen and into the airlock. Mercy hesitated, then stooped and picked up a disrupter pistol. Just the weight of the weapon in her hand made her feel a little less like a captive. No one stopped her.

It took an extra few minutes to maneuver Atrea through the hatch and docking seal, but Mercy refused to step through until her friend was safely on board. Some part of her feared they would decide to leave Atrea behind.

“Strap in,” Reaper said as she crossed the threshold onto his ship. A quick glance around told her it was a smaller vessel, probably a corvette or a frigate not unlike Captain Hades’ Dauntless. They were already breaking the seal with the station airlock, so she found a seat in the crew compartment and strapped herself in. The man with the shaggy hair was securing Atrea with cargo ties.

She could hear a conversation drifting from the cockpit. Something about another ship getting ready to jump, did they want to try and intercept it?

“No,” said Reaper. “Our priority is the woman.” Not women, but woman, singular. Mercy’s stomach tightened with worry.

With nowhere else to put it on her person, Mercy held her new pistol in her lap. She wasn’t quite willing to let it go by storing it in the webbing beneath her seat. The too-handsome man sat next to her. He tried a smile, but somehow it looked a bit forced, despite the feeling she got that he was really trying to be charming. That intensity she’d sensed before had faded a bit, and he seemed a little more relaxed.

“I’m Zion,” he said. When she said nothing, he continued on, introducing the others. “That’s Mateo, Knox, and Jaxon is over there securing your friend. Up in the cockpit is Titus, and you already know Reaper.” He paused, then continued in a gentle tone. “You don’t need to be afraid. No one here will harm you.”

She ignored him, only looking up when Reaper sat across from her. She watched as he secured his safety harness.

“You said I’ve been missing for twenty-five years,” she said evenly. The ship disengaged from the space station with a sharp dip that jostled them in their seats. Mercy’s hands tightened on her pistol. “Do you work for my grandmother?” She was pleased when her voice didn’t tremble over the words.

Reaper looked up and met her eyes, the impact less shocking this time, but still there, thrumming through her blood like a jolt of adrenaline. She couldn’t figure out if her response to him was a reaction to the power of his Talent, fear, or something else. He was attractive enough beneath all of that cold intensity, but the idea was ludicrous given the situation. She couldn’t fathom that her response was purely physical. There had to be something more to it. Again she felt that sense of familiarity, that brush of memory she couldn’t quite grasp.

“No,” he said. “Your grandmother is dead.”

Shocked, Mercy stared at him mutely. Of all the possibilities, that one had never occurred to her. She remembered Lilith as this towering, powerful figure, dynamic and imposing in both her demeanor and her Talent. In Mercy’s mind, she’d never aged, never weakened. Her memory had dimmed with the passage of time, but she would never forget the sheer presence that had been her grandmother. Lilith had seemed eternal.

“When?”

“Eleven years ago,” said Reaper. “A sickness took her.”

It seemed even more improbable. Lilith succumbing to something so mundane as an illness just didn’t fit the image Mercy had carried for the past twenty-five years. She sat silently for a few moments, processing.

She could feel the ship’s engines spooling up to jump. Wherever they were going, she would find out soon enough what it all meant. For now, exhaustion pulled at her. It was like finding out the news of Lilith’s death had finally drained her of the adrenaline keeping her going, and everything she’d endured and experienced was now a heavy weight bearing down upon her.

Maybe he was lying, but she didn’t think so.

“My grandmother wanted to kill me,” Mercy heard herself say. She forced her eyes up to meet Reaper’s again. “Do you?”

That faint smile tugged at his mouth. She wondered if he ever just smiled, like a normal person. “No,” he said. “If I had, you wouldn’t have left the station.”

No, she supposed that much was true. Her eyelids drooped, and she forced them up again.

“Go to sleep, Mercy.” Reaper leaned forward, and the winter pale of his eyes had somehow warmed to a deeper blue. “You are safe, for now. No one here will hurt you, or your friend. There will be plenty of time for more questions, later.”

“I don’t trust you.”

“I’d be disappointed if you did.” Reaper shrugged. “I could point out that we just saved your life. That we have no reason to wish you harm, after going to such lengths to retrieve you. But I’m sure your instincts are telling you that despite that disrupter you now carry, you are anything but safe. Your instincts are correct. I could kill everyone on this ship, almost before you took another breath. Certainly before you could use that weapon. I have no intention of doing so. Get some sleep.”

Oddly, Mercy found his words comforting. He was right. Her instincts were telling her that he – that all of them – were dangerous. By not trying to downplay that, by being blatantly honest about it, Reaper had somehow diffused the nerves trying to keep her from lowering her guard. She found herself relaxing into her seat, her eyes drifting closed. She felt the odd, endless stretch of time as the ship made its first jump, and the familiarity of that soothed her as well.

Wherever they were going, for the first time since her capture she knew she wouldn’t be dying on that cold, hellhole of a space station. It was the last thought she had before she finally allowed herself to drift into sleep.

* * *

Reaper ignored the astonished look Zion was giving him. The speech he’d just delivered to Mercy was a great deal more discourse than any of them were used to hearing from him, but he’d been unable to stop the words from tumbling out. His desire to reassure her was too strong. The look on his face must have been dark, because Zion suddenly blanched and found something else to occupy his attention.

Whatever else she might be, it was clear that Mercy was a queen. Her ability to influence the minds around her made that apparent. It made him wonder how her captors, Talented who should have felt the effects, had managed to hold her prisoner for so long. An image surfaced in his mind. A child, small and slight, begging him to let her go. He should have turned her in, but he hadn’t. If he’d harbored any doubts Mercy was that child, he didn’t any longer.

Reaper contemplated Mercy as she slept. The stamp of Lilith’s line was unmistakable, even in her exhausted and maltreated condition. The bone structure that was usually so striking, often referred to as arresting in both men and women, stood out starkly in a face grown too thin. Even her bronze tinted skin, which usually glowed with a robust sense of vigor, had a pale, unhealthy pallor. Often, the women of Lilith’s line were shorter, but Mercy must have inherited her height from her long dead father. A stubble of dark hair covered her head, but this did little to soften her features. The brilliant, green-gold eyes were currently closed in sleep, but Reaper remembered their impact well. If he’d had any doubt as to her lineage, that alone would have erased it. In Lilith, those eyes had often held the spark of rage, tinged with a kind of madness. In Mercy, they held a strength of spirit that glowed all the brighter, juxtaposed with her current physical weakness.

Reaper wondered if their impact would increase when she regained her health. It was an uncomfortable thought. So far, she had not displayed any of Lilith’s famous cruelty, but much could change when she realized her power.

“Boss.” Mateo sounded reluctant to speak. “Shouldn’t we send a message, letting them know we’re bringing…” He trailed off, and gestured to Mercy.

Reaper considered this. Returning to the fleet with a queen was going to create a storm of chaos, no matter how it was handled. Not everyone would be supportive. Dead for over a decade, the memory of Lilith was still too strong. Like Reaper, some would question whether a new queen was worth the risk. Others might look at Mercy and see someone ignorant enough to be used.

He frowned. She was going to need to build her power base quickly. He wasn’t used to feeling uneasy. It took him a few moments to identify the feeling that slid through him as he tried to pinpoint who would ally themselves alongside her and who might try to worm their way into her inner circle before she established herself.

A subspace message was too risky.

“No,” he said finally. “I’ll contact Cannon myself as soon as we’re within range.”

Telepathy was by far the safest choice. Reaper was one of the rare Killers with a strong telepathic Talent. His range was greater than most. He was able to reach out to the pirates’ current king the instant they completed the final jump.

Cannon.

There was always a sense of wariness when he spoke with Cannon telepathically. Although the two had grown up together, they’d never exactly been friends. It was difficult to build the kind of trust necessary for friendship when everyone knew your Talent could kill them with a thought.

Reaper, said Cannon, his mental voice deceptively laconic. Cannon liked to make people underestimate him with a charming and lazy demeanor. Reaper never made that mistake. Tell me you have Atrea Hades. Her father is not the easiest guest, and I’m sorry to say that even my patience is wearing thin.

We have her. But her condition is grave. She is currently in stasis.

What the fuck happened?

She was being held by Talented. One of them released a lethal mental poison into her mind.

Reaper waited out the string of profanity from Cannon. Wolfgang Hades was a valuable contact for the pirates. This meant he was privy to more of their secrets than was strictly comfortable, and making an enemy of him could be problematic.

If it becomes an issue, said Reaper evenly, I will remove him.

Don’t you think I’ve already thought of that? I’m not worried about what to do with Wolfgang if his daughter dies. I’m worried about losing one of our primary sources of intel inside of the Commonwealth. One we need now more than ever. Why was his daughter targeted? Does Veritas know of our connection to him?

Cannon was referring to the organization of Talented working from within the Commonwealth of Sovereign Planets. Unlike the pirates, who turned outlaw in order to survive the order prohibiting Talent, Veritas remained within the core, civilized worlds, hiding in plain sight. Although they functioned in secret, they could move throughout the Commonwealth freely. This allowed them privileges unknown to the pirates. They could, for example, hunt and find Talented people trying to live unknown and undiscovered, recruiting them to their organization. They used their gifts to manipulate the nulls around them, up to and including planetary representatives, and rumor had it, even the monarchy itself. They also saw their pirate brethren as a threat and had, over the years, taken increasingly bold steps to remove them.

I don’t think she was the target, Reaper said.

Cannon was silent for a moment. The friend taken with her, you’re referring to her?

Reaper looked across at Mercy. Once he took this step, there could be no going back. No last minute reversal of his decision to let her live. Not without consequences he would be forced to endure. For better or worse, everything was about to change.

Reaper?

I have found Pallas’s daughter, he said at last. Her name is Mercy. She is Atrea Hades’ friend, and she is Talented.

Reaper was no empath, but he didn’t need to feel Cannon’s shock radiating across the link to hear it in the silence that stretched on and on. It was not just a matter of finding one of their own who had been lost for so long. Cannon was also of Lilith’s line, his mother, Nemain, having been a sister to Pallas. Mercy would be his cousin.

You’re certain? There was nothing lazy in Cannon’s voice now.

Very. As you will be, when you see her.

Ah. The genes breed true, as ever. A touch of amusement softened his tone. We are all of us a bit alike, however hard we try to deny it. And she is Talented, you say? Not a surprise, given her parentage. This is good news, indeed. The pirates had grave need of Talented people, particularly women, to bolster their population. How does she strike you? It’s hard to imagine one of us growing up outside of this backbiting and charmingly vicious family.

Reaper thought back to his first meeting with Mercy, the one he’d never spoken of to anyone, the one he kept buried so deep even his brother Treon would have trouble digging it out. A child, terrified and alone, she’d stared at him across that spaceport and asked him to let her go. And he’d done it.

Strong. Her captors subjected her to rigorous testing and experimentation, for weeks. Yet she picked up a disrupter with the intention of shooting us if she felt the need.

Shooting you? Cannon laughed. All of you? Strong, and I would say either brave, or extremely ignorant.

Both.

Well, ignorance we can cure. She’ll be needing that bravery. Where do you see her fitting into the hierarchy?

Lilith had had several children, each with children of their own, and, in addition to strong Talent, nearly all harbored a hunger for power. This led to a sprawling family, constantly battling one another for position and influence. As king, Cannon stood above them all, but he had been forced to kill several of his own cousins over the years. Many waited hungrily for him to make a mistake they could use to topple him. Mercy, Reaper knew, would be the equivalent of a bomb going off in the midst of all that, simply due to her existence. There was no way to soften that for Cannon.

She is a queen. It remains to be seen if she will be another Lilith.

For the second time, Reaper heard the shock in Cannon’s silence. It lasted for so long, he began to question whether the link had severed. In the end, Cannon’s response came so softly, Reaper had to strain to hear it.

Mother help us all.