Fated Blades
- Автор: Эндрюс Илона
- Серия: Kinsmen #3
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Montlake
- ISBN: 9781662500435
- Жанр: Любовно-фантастические романы
Электронная книга - «Fated Blades». Краткое содержание книги:
At first glance, the planet Rada seems like a lush paradise. But the ruling families, all boasting genetically enhanced abilities, are in constant competition for power―and none more so than the Adlers and the Baenas. For generations, the powerful families have pushed and pulled each other in a dance for dominance.
Until a catastrophic betrayal from within changes everything.
Now, deadly, disciplined, and solitary leaders Ramona Adler and Matias Baena must put aside their enmity and work together in secret to prevent sinister forces from exploiting universe-altering technology. Expecting to suffer through their uneasy alliance, Ramona and Matias instead discover that they understand each other as no one in their families can―and that their combined skills may eclipse the risks of their forbidden alliance.
As the two warriors risk their lives to save their families, they must decide whether to resist or embrace the passion simmering between them. For now, the dance between their families continues―but just one misstep could spell the end of them both. (less)
Ramona was looking at the screen with an odd expression. Not pain, but rather resignation. “The unbridled joy seems unfair.”
“What is the point of showing me this?”
“That’s the wrong question. The right question is, Who is the man she’s climbing?”
She zoomed the recording with a flick of her fingers, and he saw the man’s face—golden tan, square jaw, glowing with health and that particular polish that came with wealth and too much grooming. Recognition punched him.
“Your wife is having an affair with my husband,” Ramona said.
For a moment they shared a silence as he came to grips with Cassida licking the inside of Gabriel Adler’s mouth.
Ramona spoke first. “That brings me to my second question. Have you experienced any security or data breaches in the last few weeks? Go ahead. Check. I will wait.”
Matias surged off the chair and out the door. In the hallway, the guards saw his face and flattened themselves against the walls.
“She does not leave,” he growled. “Solei, with me.”
Thirty minutes later Matias marched back into the conference room, and this time he didn’t bother to sit down.
Ramona offered him a bitter smile. “She took everything?”
He didn’t answer. The humiliation was too deep, and his rage burned too hot.
For the last two weeks Cassida had used his credentials to log into their files from his home office. He had no idea how she’d obtained his password, but with the proposal deadline approaching, he had worked from home with increasing frequency, logging in after hours. Her activity hadn’t raised any alarms. She’d copied the entirety of their seco research.
“Gabriel has done the same,” Ramona said.
They were sharing a rapidly sinking boat.
Until three years ago the technology of the seco had been lost. The seco weapon was a marvel of bioengineering. In its initial form, it was a hair-thin glowing strand visible only under strong magnification. When examined through nanoscale imaging, the strand turned into an ethereal narrow ribbon knitted from a million nanobots. It floated in the buffer solution, undulating and shifting, waiting for its host. When the time came, it and its twin would be implanted into the forearms of a newborn from a secare bloodline.
If the baby didn’t inherit the secare ability, the ribbon would harmlessly dissolve within a year.
If the baby was born secare, the glittering constellation of nanobots would anchor itself and grow for another twenty-five months, forming a subcutaneous channel along the front of the arm until eventually the skin would split, allowing a microscopically narrow ridge to rise to the surface. It was invisible to the naked eye and too small to be felt by touch, but he knew exactly where it was. If he held his arms straight out, palms down, he could almost see the ridges running from his elbows to his wrists. When he wanted a blade, the seco burst forward over his wrist. When he wanted a shield, it fanned out from the entirety of his forearm, projecting into a shape he required.
The secare started training their children as soon as they could walk. They used the seco, they killed with it, and they replicated it, but nobody fully understood how the strands worked or why some children from secare bloodlines could use them and others couldn’t. The secare were never trusted with that knowledge by their creators.
Then, three years ago, a salvager had stumbled onto a forgotten Sabetera Geniocracy lab in a random asteroid field. He brought the data banks he found there to Rada, sold them to the Baenas, to the Adlers, and to a third kinsmen family, the Davenports, letting everyone think that the sale was exclusive, and got the hell off planet as fast as his ship’s drive would carry him.
The recovered intel opened the door to the creation of seco force fields by industrial means. Oh, it would require significant power and complex machinery to accomplish this, but it would blow conventional shields installed on modern warships out of the proverbial water. Bringing seco generators into mass production promised enormous benefits.
It also required a huge infusion of cash. Between the cost of rare metals, the custom nano cultures, and the cutting-edge tech required to retool the field to work without the biological component, developing the prototype would drain the Baenas’ savings to nearly nothing. They could lose everything they had built over the last seven generations, but if they succeeded, the family would be stabilized and well funded for centuries to come.
The secare were born risk-takers.
Nine months into the project, Matias realized that they were in a three-way race. The space sector offered only one industrial partner capable of mass-producing the seco generators. Whoever successfully pitched their idea first would reap all the spoils. All three families abandoned their other projects and shifted all their resources toward building a successful prototype.
Now Cassida was on the run, and a copy of the Baenas’ entire research was on the run with her. And so was Gabriel Adler with all his family’s work.
Matias unclenched his teeth. “What are you offering?”
Ramona narrowed her eyes. “I know my husband. This wasn’t his idea.”
“He’s off with my wife and your research. Now isn’t the time for sentimentality.”
Ramona shook her head. “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to imply that he is an innocent pawn and your wife led him astray. But Gabriel lacks any sort of ambition. He has very little self-discipline, zero interest in business, and no knowledge of kinsmen politics. As long as he is fed, given an ample allowance, and allowed freedom to indulge himself, he’s perfectly content. He is too lazy to start this adventure on his own. I’m in awe of your wife. She has managed to motivate him in a way I never could, and the universe knows I’ve tried.”
“Cassida is very good at motivating.” She had mounted a relentless assault on his peace of mind since the moment they’d married. He thought they had reached an understanding. Apparently, Cassida simply shifted focus to a more receptive target.
“Time is a factor,” Ramona said.
He understood what was left unsaid. The stolen research would be sold. That sale would bankrupt their families.
“Cassida wouldn’t have left without lining up a buyer,” he said. “She isn’t always prudent, but she is shrewd. She knows that the moment I discovered the theft, I’d go after her with everything I’ve got.”
Ramona nodded. “I thought as much.”
They had to move now. They had to recover the research, and they had to do it quietly. On Rada, a kinsmen family’s standing was vital. It could mean the difference between being targeted in a feud and being invited to a negotiation table. Deals were offered and agreed upon based on the respect afforded to one’s family name.
The secare enjoyed an aura of menace. Both families had been attacked, and both he and Ramona had delivered a gory object lesson that the city wouldn’t soon forget. Most of their rivals considered a direct conflict with them out of the question. If it became known that not only had they suffered a catastrophic data breach, but their spouses had done it and then run away together right under their noses, their reputation would be in tatters. They would be disgraced. Even if they recovered the tech, they could no longer negotiate from a position of strength.
If speed was first, secrecy had to come second. Involving their families would only hinder them. He trusted his relatives with his life but not with his secrets.
“Who else knows?” he asked.
“The chief of cybersecurity and Karion,” she said.
Her older brother. He wouldn’t talk.
“I know my husband, but I don’t know your wife.” Ramona met his gaze.
“An alliance?” He raised his eyebrows, pretending to be surprised.