Read Online Shades of Dark by Linnea Sinclair - Free Book Online

most of his body, having barely survived Berri Solaria’s attempt to kill him. His expression was grim but other than that he was the usual impeccable Admiral Philip Guthrie, his trademark prematurely silver hair cropped short, the blueness of his eyes only adding that much more interest to an already classically handsome face. He was forty-five, ten years my senior. He’d been my mentor, my commanding officer, my husband, my ex, my friend. I wasn’t sure what role he was playing now.
    “I hope this reaches you in time, Chaz,” Philip said. He was seated behind a desk in his private office on the Loviti . “And Sullivan, if you’re listening to this—and I have to assume you are—yes, I used every security measure and then some to make sure this transmit is not intercepted or decoded.”
    He paused, eyes narrowing slightly. Philip didn’t like Sully any more than Sully liked Philip, and neither took great pains to hide that fact.
    “I’m assuming you know about Thad’s arrest,” he continued. “It’s been on the news feeds. What you need to know is I had no advance notice or I obviously would have taken some kind of action. Jodey actually learned of it before I did. Thad didn’t attempt to contact me. Perhaps things would be different if he had. Perhaps not.”
    The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I didn’t at all like the sound of Philip’s “perhaps not.”
    This was one of the problems with civilian deep-space transmits. No real-time communications. Only Fleet had the technology and permission for that. I wanted to reach through the screen and shake the information out of him. All I could do now was wait as Philip leaned forward and folded his hands.
    “Thad’s turning state’s evidence. Against my advice, your father’s on his way now to make him tell everything he knows about you and Sullivan.”
    My stomach hit the floor, my hands turned to ice, and for a moment, my head spun dizzily. Something grabbed me, centering me, concern and strength flooding my senses.
    Chasidah?
    I slapped the pause icon on the screen. Sully needed to be here and hear this.
    A transmit from Philip just came in, I told him, now sensing a secondary calming presence in my mind. Ren. Wherever Sully was, Ren was with him. Bad news, I continued. Can you—?
    On my way.
    It wasn’t quite fifteen seconds and the cabin door opened, Sully surging in. I’d already restarted the transmit and, at his nod, let him listen from the beginning.
    “Your father’s on his way there now to make him tell everything he knows about you and Sullivan,” Philip’s image said again. “I understand the need for self-preservation, but I never thought…” His mouth thinned and he shook his head. “I’ve known Thad for too many years. He’s an intelligent, capable man. But Lars…Thad won’t cross him. And Lars was adamant in his conversation with me that he wasn’t going to lose both his adult children. He said he wasn’t going to tolerate any further damage to the Bergren name. He still has your half brother, Willym, to worry about.”
    Lars didn’t lose me. He disowned me. Abandoned me. Not that that surprised me. I’d been a traitor from the day I decided I preferred to live with my mother after their divorce. Marrying Philip Guthrie had briefly brought me back into the realm of acceptable. Being court-martialed had taken me clearly out of it again.
    Whatever information my father now knew about Sully and myself only pushed me even farther out, if that was indeed possible.
    And if Thad was in Tage’s camp, then it was very possible Lars knew it all.
    I had seen my father as Thad’s salvation. I never suspected that I’d be sacrificed to the cause.
    A hand gently caressed my shoulder. A warmth spiraled through me. Sully standing next to me, feeling my pain, wanting me to know I was loved. I reached up and threaded my fingers through his.
    “If Tage and Burke didn’t know that Sullivan was a Ragkiril before,” Philip