Queen of Spades: Darkening: Queen of Spades, #2

By E. J. Dawson

Ayla's dark past as an assassin with an untouchable gift cost her more than she'd ever guess.
And her husband was the one to take the toll.
Ragnar's sudden arrival on her newfound world brings everything crashing down. A bounty is placed on Leith, Kabe, and Casey's life, and Ayla will do anything to free them. Even if it means dying.
But not before she finds Ragnar and makes him suffer for what he's done. Except his methods of leapfrogging through time are a mystery to her, along with whatever he's done to inhibit her ability.
Only one man can help her, but he may offer more truth than she wants to hear. Sylas can unlock the distant parts of her mind but at what cost?
New found friends in Casey, a droid, and the doctor Kabe, mean she'd do anything to protect them. But she'd destroy worlds to keep Leith safe, and it may just come to that…

• Language: English
• Publisher: E. J. Dawson
• Release date: Aug 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9780648222453

Book preview

Prologue

Y ou are so beautiful  . . . Ragnar ran his hand across her back, from shoulder to spine, then down to the curve of her hip to hover teasingly over her ass. Before he drew away to start all over again. As though he couldn’t resist touching her.

You only say that because I let you fuck me. Propped up on her elbows, Ayla lavished under the attention. She grinned at the man she was fast falling in love with.

Why, when she avoided attachment with fervor? Because he would never die.

Everyone else around her had a date, an expiration moment. A time when their essence vanished and nothing she could do would bring it back. She could love him without fear. Fear of him leaving her through death or leaving because he was afraid of her abilities.

His eyes held nothing but love and acceptance. Along with the smoldering embers of desire and hunger.

When Ragnar looked at her like that, she wasn’t a monster. Not to him.

I like your dirty mouth too, he said, leaning forward to kiss her. And she let him. Opened her mouth to accept the deep press of his tongue on hers. Because even with his indifference to her gift she was drawn to him. Handsome as sin and one of the wealthiest men in the world made him irresistible to her. But there was more to it than that.

I have to get back to the garrison. She pulled away, looking for her clothes.

He grabbed her wrist. Why? He asked, sitting up to let the duvet fall to his waist. Her breath caught, then she let it go with a throaty chuckle.

‘Why?’ She shook off his arm. Because my guard shift is up, that’s why.

And if she stayed here any longer, she’d never leave.

Ayla stood, abandoning torn underwear on the floor. She salvaged her bra and found her pants, thinking only of the cool shower she would indulge in back at the barracks.

If she lingered on the man in the white bed, looking so much like a fallen angel among the clouds, she’d fall back into his arms.

How much did he pay you?

She dropped her shirt and turned to Ragnar.

Does it matter if it keeps you safe? she said, returning his serious tone.

He stared down at the bed, plucking a loose thread. She was sure that the cover would be replaced by morning. Everything about the room was picture perfect. The double-glazed windows and balcony doors displayed a vista of the tropical beach, lights glimmering across its swelling surf. The turquoise water of the Maldives was a heavenly scene in broad daylight, but at night it held elements of mystery.

The room itself had polished concrete floors, white walls, and black-lacquered furniture. Everything about the building was sophisticated and elegant right down to the manicured gardens hiding the guard posts and cameras that looked after the obscenely wealthy man who called the island home, and his son.

Listen, Ayla said, sitting down on the bed. I don’t do babysitting gigs. I told Sigurd that. You both know what kind of work I do, but it wasn’t the money. I needed to meet you. When I did, I knew everything would be fine. Nobody’s going to ever hurt you. Do you want to know why?

Why? He mocked her, though his eyes glittered in the low light with curiosity.

Because you’re immortal. His eyes grew wide, and she kissed him, sitting back with a kernel of satisfaction no one could take from her. A warmth grew inside her, sure of one thing, one person, for the first time in her life.

People were trying to kill him, and she’d stop them. No matter what.

His father, Sigurd, paid the bills. Sigurd, whose rivals thought to off the heir of the pharmaceutical giant who was slowly buying every business on the globe. Ragnar had already escaped three assassination attempts. Sigurd wanted Ragnar was safe. He hired the best damn assassin in the world to make sure the other killers didn’t get him.

It was a lousy job until Ayla finally met her principal.

Her insistence to see Ragnar before accepting the position changed her world.

Ragnar had no Death Day.

Within him she saw the impossible, for the first time hoped maybe there was something other than death out there. When everyone else she’d ever laid eyes on had a Death Day, he was an anomaly, a distraction, a kind of perfection she’d never dreamed of for herself.

She’d spent hours staring at him, trying to figure it out. He’d misinterpreted the curiosity as infatuation.

It had still taken months for her guard to relax enough to let him in, but once it was down, she belonged to him.

Ayla smiled at him, ready to tell him how she felt, but a sound snagged her attention and she twisted to the windows. The faint spatter of gunfire in the distance. She ran out the glass doors to the balcony, gaze straining into the night, catching the flicker of lights, coming closer.

Get to the bunker. It wasn’t a request, and he didn’t need to be told twice. He flung on his clothes as she gathered her own.

She strapped on her gun, shirt forgotten, feeling the chaff of the holster against her bra, it soon wouldn’t matter. She press checked the chamber. One round already in, and she always kept extra magazines on hand. Not that she even needed a gun.

Ayla, they’re in the compound, Ragnar said as he scanned his smartphone’s security alerts.

I know . . .

She stared at the garden where armed men swarmed across the ground like spiders. They would kill her, take Ragnar, and their sheer numbers meant a normal bodyguard wouldn’t stand a chance.

"He’s mine, she whispered to the advancing shadows who couldn’t hear. And you can’t have him."

Chapter 1

His beauty made her heart ache.

Standing on the new Charon docks, Ayla was ready to leave the space station and board the Shroud. She forgot where she was, how far she’d come, overwhelmed with emotion for the stranger, but she had no memories to connect them.

A pain that spoke of longing and familiarity without place.

Golden hair, bronzed skin, eyes the color of the earth sky. She wasn’t worthy of his perfection.

Ayla stood transfixed, blind to everything around her except those eyes drinking her in, the craving within morphing into malice as he strode across the docks towards her ship.

Ragnar.

A name, such a small thing. A drop of oil across the waters of her mind that rippled outwards, growing greater with every passing moment, rippling with reflection. The cargo bay doors slid closed, her vision gone, but his presence remained, whispering.

Ragnar . . . The name echoed in her ears. How do I know you?

A wave swamped her thoughts, a juggernaut of memory she couldn’t stop. Full of glass shards, each sliver sliced her mind, bleeding a ghost of a past that had been locked away. Flashes tied to emotions wreaked havoc on her coherency. Agony threatened to engulf everything she was, but Ayla clutched to the one thing bringing back her mind.

Ragnar. Ayla gritted the name out again.

She fell to her knees, eyes squeezed shut, she panted through the all-consuming fire burning through her brain. But she had to find out who he was, had to fight whatever was happening to her. She would not forget. Not again.

"Ragnar!" She reached for the cargo bay door controls to smash them open, but they wouldn’t respond to her commands. She fell against the wall of the ship, leaning on it for support. Pain lanced through her skull, biting with every thought she tried to hold onto.

Ayla clutched the wall of the Nox Shroud, the vibrations of the engine shuddering through her as they left port. Another blood curdling cry left her lips as the man that had captivated her was stolen from her grasp.

The ship dropped into space, tumbling her to the floor as she clutched her temples. Ayla reached out with her gift, searching for the life she had known before they froze her, seeking any signs of what had happened and who he’d been to her.

Ayla. Leith’s voice carried over the fractured images playing in her mind. A million small memories spilled into one another, but it wasn’t Leith’s voice she heard. It was someone else. Ragnar.

"You never gave me a choice. In the end, I made sure you didn’t have one either."

A kaleidoscope of images spooled together, creating streams of time she’d lost, still fragmented but clearing every time she said his name. Even as it hurt.

Ragnar . . . Ayla uttered the name, her teeth clenched together as she held on to her head and curled into a ball on the floor. Hands grasped her, tried to hold her, but she couldn’t answer them, fighting against passing out.

Ayla, you’ve got to tell me what’s wrong, Leith said.

She couldn’t. She didn’t have the answers.

We’ve left New Charon, Casey yelled from the pilot’s seat. What the sweet starfire is going on back there?

Ayla’s having some sort of attack, Leith said.

Ayla, it’s Kabe. She heard his voice but couldn’t focus on it. I’m going to give you a sedative.

No, she whispered, clutching her head, eyes scrunched shut. "I’m so close . . ."

Ayla gathered the images, forced jagged edges together, giving her pictures.

A bedroom overlooking the sea, she wore nothing but a sheet while the blonde Adonis lay naked before her. A body that would have made Renaissance craftsmen weep, it was his arresting face that caught lust first; aquamarine eyes were as tempting as the depths of distant island waters. Lips that curved in a charming smile would have brought Satan to his knees. Strong features, each on its own may have been too much, but the composite position rendered him handsome beyond measure.

To her, his attraction lay not in his beauty, but within the soul inside.

Pure and sinful, his intensity had swallowed Ayla whole.

And she couldn’t help but love him; he had no death day.

Rage burned the waters of memory to ash, rendering the glass of cutting recollections into knives she squeezed inside her mind, choking on the blood.

With a cry she rolled onto her hands and knees, spitting out the foul taste, ignoring the drive from her body to stop using her gift. An unwanted brain barrier inserted to her whilst she was cryogenically frozen kept her ability on a short leash. If she used it too much not even the super nanites in her body could prevent the damage.

She didn’t care.

Ayla reached out with the mysterious power that told her when someone was going to die, that would allow her to kill. Whoever this man was in her past, he was the one who had trapped her in the future.

Ayla, Leith said, tone turning rough when she did not answer. What is going on?

Her jaw wouldn’t unclench. She couldn’t be distracted, and she didn’t answer him.

Do it, Kabe. Leith drew her arm up for the injector gun.

No. Her voice was stopped with the blood hemorrhaging in her mouth, and she spat past it. I’ve almost got it.

Leith . . . Kabe’s voice warned.

Leith grabbed the back of her skull and yanked her neck taut. A sharp pain pierced her throat, and she felt the drugs push into her system. The pain faded quickly, threatening to pull her into oblivion. Her power abated, fading on the invisible winds of space.

The man, Ragnar, was about to escape . . .

She swam past the narcotics, hunting for more images of the stranger, the one who had been haunting her like an unseen ghost. Lying limp in Leith’s arms, breathing in his scent, she could be consumed by him. But she didn’t want to feel the heat from his body while a hard knot deep inside her froze over with what she’d seen.

She had to know who Ragnar was, had to remember.

Her body could fight the effects, she just had to concentrate. The metallic taste of blood filled her. Splashes of crimson flickered through her mind: other times and places flashing too fast but with each one she regained a sliver of herself.

This isn’t going to work, Kabe said. Her nanites are burning through the drugs, she should be out cold.

Get another dose, Leith growled, and she ignored him. She was hanging by a thread onto her past, and she wouldn’t let him break it.

Ayla heard Kabe scramble away, but she focused on the new reels of her past playing before her, memories unlocked despite the agony.

The first time she’d seen Ragnar had been from a distance. He’d been on a balcony, champagne glass in hand, talking to a group of people. The centre of attention, unaware his life was at stake.

"Will you take the job?"

"Yes." Ayla remembered saying it to Ragnar’s father, Sigurd. A contract not to kill but to protect. For as long as it might be. She hadn’t heard Ragnar’s voice, had only seen him from a distance, but knew he had no death day. She had fallen farther into infatuation than she knew on that fact alone. When he’d looked to her, truly saw her, the rest had followed.

Take me back, she said, hissing out the words with laden breaths. I have to get back to the station.

Open your eyes, Leith commanded, and after a moment Ayla obeyed.

Crouched before her, Leith wrapped his strong and amber dark hands around her forearms, holding her close, like the hero in a gore film. Crimson stained his suit, pooled on the floor beneath them, and splattered her torso and legs to spread an ugly smear on the floor.

Look at what it’s doing to you . . . he whispered.

She stared into his eyes, black and fathomless, as though she could fall there forever.

Made of night sky, dark as his skin, he was everything her past wasn’t, but she couldn’t let go, not when she’d found the key to her memories.

No. Ayla shook her head in denial. I found him. I know who did it now. You can’t take this away from me⸺ Ayla faltered, anguish threatening to roll over her extensive control.

Would you die for him? Leith asked, holding her close, his body so much bigger than hers, ever much the strength she wanted to cling to, but this was her war. Blood trickled out her nose, filled her mouth, her brain aching with the agony of using her gift, and she didn’t care.

I’d die to kill him.

His expression gutted her, but it didn’t change how much she meant it.

We’re heading towards the gate. Casey came in, scanning Ayla head to toe before turning to Leith. Whatever you’re doing needs to be done now. She can’t take much more. Her robotic eyes could see just how much Ayla was hurting herself.

Kabe, do it again. Leith held her in place, and Ayla writhed like a hellcat.

Goddamn you, Leith, Ayla said. "He is mine!"

I can’t get clear access, Kabe was beside her, but Ayla kept thrashing even as Leith tried to pin her down.

Casey, Leith snarled, Get us away from here before Ayla kills herself!

The droid ran to the bridge. "Gate we are queuing up for jump," she called into the comms.

Leith clenched his hands on her arm, but she wriggled free and hobbled to her knees. He grabbed her ankle and pulled her back down to the bloody floor. He flipped Ayla on her back and dropped his full weight onto her. One knee pinned her thigh down, forearms resting on her biceps, his hands enfolded her jaw, forcing her to look up at him.

Breathe, he told her, slow down, do it now or you’ll never make it. You’ll kill yourself. You are using your gift, and if you continue to do it, you’ll fry your own brain before your power can even reach him.

Ayla panted, gasping, unable to breathe past her rage.

Ragnar was to blame for everything. He’d frozen her, though many memories were still missing. He was the one who put in the nanites that gave her immortality and healing, keeping her alive for three millennia.

He’d put a neural inhibitor over her brain so she couldn’t kill, use her power to its full potential.

He’d locked her in a tank as a forgotten science experiment.

He’d stolen her ability to bear children.

And it was because of her gift.

All she needed to do was look into someone’s eyes and she would know when they would die. Not the exact moment, method, or year. Just the month and day. Death day.

The life of an assassin after her military father had thrown her into boot camp had suited her well. She was flawless and unquestionable in her ability to strike down enemies where all others had failed.

No one could hide from her as long as she knew the day they’d die. The closer it was, the louder it thumped in her head, a fading heartbeat desperate for the last dance. But so too could she change it. Like a calendar on a desk, she could flip pages, stealing them away or tearing into it and destroying someone’s calendar.

But then her gift grew, became something more, something terrible.

Ayla could will anyone to die on a whim, and Ragnar had grown fearful, had imprisoned her for it. The truth of her past settled heavily in her chest, a toad skulking under the surface of a pond, wakened by her thrashing determination to know.

Staring up at Leith, lost in the fathomless eyes, she cracked.

He did this to me . . . She whispered the confession, coating her tongue in acid.

Who? Leith asked, his touch gentling to sooth strands of hair away from her face.

Ragnar put the contract, the Seek, on you . . . Ayla said, remembering the bounty on Leith, Kabe and Casey’s head. Why hadn’t it been placed on hers? Ragnar wanted her back. "He was at the docks and got off that Aquacore vessel to come looking for me . . . he’s the one who froze me . . . he did this to me . . ." The last worded ended on a wail she couldn’t stop, and Leith brought her closer to his chest.

The burning bitterness burst from her in a scream of rage and retribution.

Ayla’s back arched in a sudden spasm, her body bowing as she left it behind to search for the man who’d destroyed her life. With a soundless shriek on an invisible wind, she struck back out to the station of New Charon, seeking with her mind’s eye the lifeline belonging to Ragnar, to tear it to shreds even as she died too. She cut through space, time meaningless as she sunk through the folds of night to reach for the spike that was New Charon station.

Where she knew Ragnar waited for her, could feel him out there, darker than space.

Casey, Leith called. Get us out of here!

Kabe knelt beside her, using the pinned leg to shoot her full of drugs.

Ayla collapsed against the floor, the chance for revenge slipping by her.

They’re denying us access, Casey called. Aquacore are controlling the gate.

"Nox Shroud, a booming voice called over the comm, you are not authorized to jump. Return to New Charon station."

The station has Seekers. They’ll take us, Kabe’s voice shook as he rested a hand on Ayla’s shoulder, the light behind his head turning his blonde hair into a nimbus glow. Ayla stared into eyes like the ocean as he turned her head this way and that, doing his due diligence as a doctor, despite his fear.

I’ll kill him . . . Ayla whispered.

I know. Even if you end up a corpse, Leith growled. I will not let that happen.

His body dwarfed hers, broad shoulders and long limbs, silver tattoos creeping over the dark skin of his arms, writhing along them. He was using his nanites to hold her down. His expression, normally reserved, turned into sharp planes almost cutting with displeasure as he frowned at her.

Will she go under? Leith asked Kabe as they stared at her.

Ayla sensed the nanites chewing through the drugs Kabe had given her. It won’t be long, but it should hold her until we can get out of here.

Leith picked her up, carrying her to the med bay bench, while Kabe called the computer. It scanned her for injuries.

"Hemorrhage and stress tears, internal bleeding caused by unknown biological neural enhancement."

Put there to save brain degradation . . . yeah, right, Kabe criticized.

They all knew the truth: some clever doctor put a filter over her brain to stop the waves she emitted when she used her gift. Ayla now knew who had ordered such a barbaric thing to be done.

Leith, Casey called. I can’t get through gate control. Do you want me to fold away?

Her panicked voice pulled Leith from Ayla’s side as Kabe strapped Ayla to the gurney. She couldn’t lift her arms to fight him, but it was just a matter of time. Her fingers were already twitching in response.

Head for the gate, Casey. Leith took the co-pilot’s chair. Jump through it. It’s the only way we are getting out of here alive. If we stay in this sector, they’ll cut us off and hunt us down.

"You are not authorized to make this jump," the voice repeated over the comm. Ayla craned her neck to see the bridge, caught Casey’s silhouette at the controls.

Too bad, Casey said over the whirling of the Shroud’s engines building in intensity.

She was getting ready to make a gate jump without direction, which would send the ship spinning out into the void.

The gates were huge, as big as moons. A lost technology that allowed humanity to jump through the stars faster than light, more advanced than any science of Ayla’s time allowed. Using magnetic power, entrance gates connected to a host of others to spit ships across vast distances of space with minimal loss of time.

Ships had to be shielded to survive a jump, and the only guidance came from the gate’s supercomputers. The force within the gates protected them but caused any rogue asteroids or radiation to gather at the gates, causing the occasional dump. It flooded a gate momentarily with rock and debris, broken down with pressure to nothing more than a torrent of sand. But it would compress any ship caught in it down to an empty can of beer on July fourth.

Casey’s finger hovered over the button to send them into that void. Do you really want me to do this?

If we stay here, they’ll catch us. Leith’s ominous warning carried throughout the ship.

I’d rather be fried than taken. Casey channeled full power to the engines.

"Shroud, you are still on course for the gate. Veer away!"

Unknown, here we come! Casey punched the throttle, and the ship skyrocketed forward into the inky blackness of the gate, spinning into oblivion.

Ayla tilted her head, staring out of the bridge’s viewing port from the med bay as the ship plunged through space. Lightning flashed about the ship, a whirling mass that rose steam from the hull and whipped over the pilot display. It covered everything in an eerie, dense fog. The sparks cracking across the nose cast ominous shapes in the darkness. Each one could have been a meteorite or another ship.

What’s happening? Ayla yelled from the gurney. The ship was shaking like a children’s plaything clutched in the hand of a toddler.

We’re drifting, Kabe said, shielding her from falling supplies with his body.

Alarms rang across the bridge, screaming warnings of hull breach.

We’re venting air, Casey shouted from the bridge, accompanied by the screech of buckling metal. The ship veered, and Ayla’s could feel its inertia as it started a flat spin.

Fold us out of here now, Leith shouted.

Ayla jerked in her restraints as the