Allegiance of Honor

Chapter 43

BOWEN KNIGHT, SECURITY chief of the Human Alliance, was not having a good week. In the past forty-eight hours, someone in the Alliance had betrayed a possible ally to the Consortium. Yes, there was a minimal chance that the leak had come from BlackSea, but Miane Levèque didn’t think so and Bo agreed with her.

The timing pointed to an Alliance member.

Bo had realized from the first that there were apt to be Consortium stooges among the Alliance network—they had too many members and were too widely spread out for it to be otherwise—but having proof of it was a slap in the face to everything he wanted for his people.

That mess would’ve been bad enough, but almost on the heels of it had come a call from Ashaya Aleine that had dealt a catastrophic blow to the hopes he’d had that the human race could equalize the psychic playing field. “I’ve triple-checked every piece of data,” the scientist had said, the blue-gray of her eyes unusually dark. “There’s no mistake. The Alliance implants are beginning to degrade, with significant and likely fatal brain damage forecast as a secondary effect.”

Those implants were meant to block Psy from rifling through human minds at will and they worked. Since the day the implant went in, Bowen hadn’t had to worry about giving away secrets—private and of the Alliance—without realizing it. He hadn’t had a constant knot in his gut from never knowing when a telepath would reach in and violate his mind, possibly force him to act against his will. For almost a year, he’d been free to be Bowen Knight, security chief of the Human Alliance and a man in charge of his own fucking destiny.

Now, the morning after he’d shared the devastating news with his senior people, all of whom had been implanted around the same time as Bo, he stood in the dawn-gilded splendor of Venice, on one of the sunken city’s iconic bridges, and looked at the canal water below. All the while, he was viscerally aware that inside his brain, things were going catastrophically wrong.

The Alliance’s internal medics and scientists had gone over Ashaya’s work, but even before they came back to Bo with confirmations, he’d known Ashaya wasn’t wrong. Ashaya Aleine wouldn’t have passed on the data unless she—and her equally brilliant twin—were certain beyond any doubt of their conclusions.

He’d been the first implanted but wasn’t yet showing any symptoms. One of the few Psy he trusted had confirmed the implant still functioned as intended, creating an impenetrable shield around his mind. As for the bad news, neither Ashaya nor the internal Alliance implant team knew when or if he—and the others from the first group—would begin to exhibit symptoms, whether it would be progressive or if it would go wrong all at once.

The one good thing was that because Bo and his senior people had been the first implanted and all but two were past the safe removal stage, they could act as the barometers. Everyone else who had the implant would be given the choice to keep it and risk death or brain damage, or have it removed and risk mental violation.

Hell of a choice.

Bo knew which one he would’ve made had he been offered it.

Irrespective of all that, he wasn’t about to give up, wasn’t about to accept that this was how it would end. He’d given Ashaya and the internal team carte blanche to run experiments, find a solution. If not in time for him, then in time for all those humans who’d make the choice to go to their deaths knowing they were safe from psychic rape.

Bo had authorized them to crack his skull and run whatever-the-fuck tests they wanted on his brain, should he die or even if he went into a vegetative state. But he refused to consider that future an inevitability. He had countless more dreams to bring to fruition, the biggest and most important of which was to put the human race back on the political, social, and economic map. For centuries, they’d been thrust aside by the financial might of the Psy and the raw power of the changelings.

The changelings, at least, had never done it consciously. For the most part, they stayed within localized packs—but those packs were generally so cohesive that, despite their comparatively much smaller size and territorial focus, they were able to achieve things that disparate human families and individuals simply couldn’t.

The only groups that bucked the curve were human families who acted as a single unit. The bonds between their generations were tight, elders teaching youths and those in the prime of their life working for the good of the family rather than for individual glory or advancement.

That structure mirrored what Bo knew of changeling packs—and unexpectedly, it also appeared to be how the strongest Psy families held on to their power.

Bo had watched and learned and realized that for the wider human population to compete with the Psy and changelings on any level, he’d have to restructure human society itself, weave a widespread global population into groups of tight-knit “villages.” He also needed to find a way to overcome centuries of distrust and forge alliances with not just changelings, but with Psy, alliances his people would actually accept.

Signing the Trinity Accord had been a huge step on the road to his ultimate goal.

He didn’t want the power for itself.

He wanted it because it would keep his people safe.

One of those people came up to him at that instant, sliding her arm through his as she leaned against his side. “Our Venezia is such a beautiful lady in the morning,” his sister said, the evocative gray of her eyes on the glittering water through which a gondolier was slowly stroking his long, narrow craft.

Lily’s fingers were slender and pale against the brown of his skin; the exact shade had been described as “caramel” by a long-ago lover. If he was caramel, Lily was warm cream mixed with sunshine, her birth parents both of Chinese descent where his had been Brazilian and Scottish. Her hair, too, was unlike his: slick straight and jet-black in contrast to the wave in the softer ebony of his when he let it grow out, and her body, it was so delicate that he had to stop his overprotective big brother response from going active any time he saw her with a man.

Their physical differences mattered nothing. They were blood by choice.

Soaking in her presence, he said, “Venice is Venice.” A waterlogged and elegant matriarch of a city that had hung on despite all predictions to the contrary. “What are you doing here? I thought you had a date.”

“I canceled it.” Her fingers tightened on his biceps.

“Lily.” Easing away his arm, he put it around her shoulders and half turned to tug her against his chest. “I’m not going to disappear overnight, and you know I’ll fight to the bitter end. I’ve also got Ashaya and Amara Aleine onboard.” The two women had minds terrifyingly beautiful in their genius. Bo interacted only with Ashaya, and she seemed grounded, stable, emotionally healthy. However, he’d heard vague rumors that said her twin was anything but—the price of genius?

“Hey, talk to me,” he said to his own sister, the tiny girl his parents had brought home when she was a scared two-year-old orphan. According to his father, Bo had taken one look at her and loudly proclaimed he’d keep her safe. He’d done that, would continue to do it. Even if his implant went nova, what they found in his brain after death might finish what he’d begun. “Lilybit.”

Lily’s hand clutched at the back of his T-shirt at the sound of the childhood nickname. “You should’ve let me have the implant at the same time, too.”

It had been a difficult decision for Bo to ask Lily to wait. He hadn’t wanted his sister vulnerable to unscrupulous Psy, but the risk of the implant had been significant enough to sway him. “You know we had to do it in stages, iron out the bugs.” So if the worst happened, the Alliance wouldn’t lose all of its strongest.

Lily had received her implant eight weeks after his, was still in the safe removal zone should she choose to make that choice. He knew she wouldn’t, but he hoped Ashaya and the others would find an answer before it was too late for her. Not only because Lily was his baby sister, but because while his sister was formed of delicate lines, she had a steely spirit that would carry the Alliance through if he fell. But even steel bent under unbearable pressure, and today his sister crumpled into him, sobs shaking her body.

He just held her, rocked her. “Shh.” Stroking her hair when she finally went quiet, he said, “Tell me about this guy you canceled on. Will he pass the big brother test?”

Lily’s voice was thick with emotion when she spoke. “He has tattoos and piercings and he rides a jetcycle when on the mainland.”

Bo felt his eyebrows rise; steel will notwithstanding, Lily was about as ladylike as they came. She dated teachers and accountants and computronic techs. Men with soft hands and gentle voices. “You’re having a late teenage rebellion phase?”

She elbowed him, and that was good, that was his little sister. “He’s a doctor. A surgeon. He goes all over the world, wherever he’s needed—and he donates his time and skills for free as often as he can. He just likes body art and fast vehicles.”

Intrigued, Bo made a mental note to look up this tattooed doctor who’d put that tone in his sister’s voice. “Why don’t you call him? Reschedule your date?”

“I have a swollen nose and red eyes now.” She blew her nose on a tissue she’d pulled out of the pocket of her capri pants. “And I want to hang out with you.”

Tugging lightly at her hair when she went silent, he said, “You want to go on a gondola?”

“We’re not tourists.” A grumpy response.

“Who the hell says only tourists can play in the canals?” Snagging her hand to tug her down the bridge, he found them a gondola painted the standard sleek black and paid the gondolier extra to stay on shore while Bo took over his duties.

“Only for you, Bo,” the man said, tipping his iconic straw boater at them. “I’m going to go have a coffee over there.” He nodded at a nearby café whose owner was just putting out his outdoor tables. “Come grab me when you’re done—and look after my lady. That’s my livelihood you’re borrowing.”

Saluting the other man in a silent promise, Bo pushed off.

Lily finally started to smile again ten minutes later, calling his attention to interesting buildings as they moved through the water. “It looks different from this angle,” she said from her seated position. “I love how quiet it is at this time of day and how you get to catch sight of things like that”—she pointed to a baker setting out wares hot from the oven—“see the city coming awake.”

Bo, upright in the traditional position to pole the oar through the water, was keeping an eye out as he always did—side effect of being security chief. And he saw what Lily missed. “Look to the left. Early morning tourist about to get his pocket picked.”

Putting two fingers to his lips, he whistled sharply. The would-be pickpocket’s head spun around, as did the tourist’s. Ignoring the latter, Bo met the eyes of the other. Shoulders slumping, the teenager glared at him . . . but turned and walked off in the direction he should’ve been heading. Toward school.

Lily chuckled. “Do you know everyone?”

“And their parents,” Bo answered dryly and continued on down the canal.

He was hoping to see a sleek form under the water, as he’d done a couple of times after BlackSea first made contact by doing the Alliance an intel favor, but that water remained empty. Even though Bo should’ve been worrying about his brain, now that the first shock had passed, he was back to being pissed off at the traitor or traitors who might’ve ended the Alliance’s chances of a friendship with the notoriously reclusive changeling group.

His muscles threatened to lock from the intensity of his reaction.

The fucking Consortium might be behind this, but each and every individual who’d signed up to join them bore his or her own responsibility. If Bo ever got his hands on them, they’d pay the price.

Chapter 44

NIKITA READ THROUGH the short and concise report Ivy Jane Zen had sent through to the Ruling Coalition about the serious deficiency in the Net.

Of humans.

No one, Nikita thought, had seen that coming, and not even the power and money at the disposal of the Ruling Council and their associates could fix it. Wanting to confirm that supposition, she contacted Sascha to ask if Psy could psychically coerce humans to bond with them.

The other Es would’ve been horrified and shocked at her question, but Nikita knew that while Sascha would be equally horrified, she wouldn’t be shocked. Her daughter knew how Nikita’s brain worked.

“No,” Sascha responded, her cardinal eyes flecked with sparks of color from whatever she’d been doing prior to Nikita’s call. “No one knows how humans are integrated into the Net without being an active part of it, but we do know coercion doesn’t work.” Her expression turned grim. “Otherwise, there would be other healthy sections.”

Sascha didn’t have to spell it out, not to Nikita: it was willful blindness to imagine that there weren’t at least a few Psy around the world controlling humans through a telepathic link at any given point in time. Personally, Nikita had always preferred to use other methods—not out of any ethical considerations, but because mind control was a waste of time and energy.

After the call to Sascha, she made one to Anthony, using every tool at her disposal to keep the discussion strictly to Coalition business. It was more difficult than it should’ve been. Not only because Anthony had a razor-sharp intellect and a will as strong as her own, but because he’d somehow neutralized her defenses without doing a single aggressive act.

A man that powerful, that icily ruthless when the occasion called for it, who hadn’t eliminated her from the chessboard while she’d been wounded and defenseless? One who’d actually protected her?

It did not fit with Nikita’s worldview.

Neither did her reluctance to see his action as a weakness she could exploit.

Or her choice to call him when she could’ve sent an e-mail instead.

Ending the call before he saw too deep, as he had a habit of doing, she walked away from the wall-mounted comm to her desk and the black leather-synth of her executive chair. Since there was nothing she could do to assist the Es in their search for a solution to the human issue, she wouldn’t waste her time on it. When and if they needed her skills and connections, they would contact her.

As she’d already cleared all Coalition business for the day, she’d spend the second half of the morning going over the financial standing of an airjet company she intended to acquire for—

Pain lanced through her abdomen before she reached her seat.

A knife stabbing into her over and over again.

Gripping the back of her chair, she breathed in and out until it passed. The surgeons and M-Psy had done a stellar job, but she’d suffered a critical injury, and there were some types of healing that simply couldn’t be sped up.

Of course, according to certain parties, she was in this condition because of her impatience to get back to work.

Keeping a white-knuckled grip on the chair, she maneuvered around until she could take a seat. Tremors ran through her, disrupting her attempts to regulate her breathing. Weakness was not something she accepted in herself, but currently, she had no choice in the matter.

A knock on the door interrupted her only seconds later; it was accompanied by a telepathic touch that identified the person on the other side as her senior aide, Sophia Russo. Come in, she telepathed since her breathing was still too irregular for speech.

Sophia was one of the few people Nikita trusted to see her in this condition—the former J-Psy and her ex-cop husband wouldn’t betray Nikita, so long as she didn’t cross the moral lines they’d lain down. Many Psy in her position would see it as a bad bargain on her part, but Nikita valued loyalty—to know she wouldn’t get a knife in the back was a priceless gift worth some readjustment of her methods and tactics.

Entering, Sophia crossed the carpet with a slim organizer in hand, but rather than speaking of work, she took one look at Nikita’s face and shook her head. Her charcoal-black hair was in a soft knot at the back of her head, her skin pure cream in the midmorning sunlight that poured through the new and significantly reinforced glass. “You need to rest.”

Nikita had her breath back. “I need to work.”

Sophia didn’t budge. Her body clad in a neat black skirt and sleeveless blue top, and her hands gloved in thin black material that protected her from accidentally sensing people’s lives, their secret horrors and dreams, the former J was no pushover. “You can send me instructions from your suite.”

Eyes of blue-violet took in the way Nikita’s hand was pressed flat on her desk in an effort to control the trembling. “Collapsing after overextending yourself is why you’re in such bad condition when you should’ve already been well on the way to a full recovery.”

Sometimes Nikita wondered why she kept Sophia in her employ. Of course, it was partly because the other woman told her the truth, no matter what. “There are people watching me. Duncan stocks will start falling again should anyone realize the state of my health.” It was why the medics always came to her, courtesy of a Tk in her employ. All were paid extremely well to keep their mouths shut. She’d also reminded them who she was and what she could do to their brains should they cross her.

Sophia’s eyes went to the glass of the walls behind and to Nikita’s left. “Even if someone is spying on your movements, they can’t know what you’re doing if you step out. I’ll even make a note in your diary that you’re in an internal conference room in the unlikely scenario that someone is able to hack into our systems.”

The other woman placed her organizer on Nikita’s desk, her stance resolute . . . and concern in her gaze. The J had a softer heart than she liked to pretend. Nikita knew; she recognized the signs after raising a daughter with an even softer heart.

“You’ve made enough of an appearance today,” Sophia continued. “You also have a meeting at an external location tomorrow for which you need to be physically fit. I can juggle everything else so no one is the wiser about your health.”

Nikita’s abdomen was throbbing, but she couldn’t risk using the pain-control mechanisms she’d been taught as a child, lest she unknowingly ignore a bleed or a tear because she couldn’t feel it. “All right. I’ll read the airjet data package upstairs.” She’d get into bed first, try to sleep through the worst of the pain. “If the pain gets any worse, we’ll get an M-Psy in to run a scan.”

Sophia nodded. “I’ll send the package to your organizer.” The younger woman walked with Nikita to the door, stayed beside her as she got in the elevator.

Nikita didn’t tell Sophia not to accompany her upstairs. She was weaker than she could remember being for weeks—it was possible she might collapse.

She trusted Sophia to catch her.

It wasn’t until she’d changed into simple pajamas of navy blue and slipped into bed that she realized there was something she didn’t trust Sophia to do: keep her silence about Nikita’s condition when it came to two specific individuals. Sophia, she said telepathically. Don’t contact my daughter or Anthony about the current status of my health.

I already did.

Nikita knew she should discipline her subordinate, but she simply didn’t have the energy. We’ll discuss this after I rest.

The voice that came into her mind seconds later was a male one. Sleep. I’ll make sure you’re safe.

I can keep myself safe, Nikita said . . . or tried to say. Except her eyes were heavy from the exhaustion of maintaining her front as a ruthless woman undaunted by what could’ve been a fatal wound, and she’d become used to that male voice.

Anthony Kyriakus hadn’t yet let her down.

Sleep crashed over her in a black wave a heartbeat after that thought passed through her mind.

Letters to Nina

From the private diaries of Father Xavier Perez

August 10, 2079

Nina,

The world is changing in drastic and perilous ways. My two friends are unafraid of meting out death in their quest to erase evil and bring freedom to their people. It disturbs me and I argue often with them, but I can’t sway them from their course—they believe the evil in the Psy race is too deeply rooted, that it must be excised with brutal force.

Only then can compassion have a chance to bud and bloom.

I’ve sat for hours in my church, praying for answers, for a way forward that won’t stain the world in red, but I hear only silence from the heavens. I wish you were here. My friends think me wise, but you were always the one who could see through to the heart of the most complex questions.

I miss you each and every day.

Xavier

Chapter 45

SASCHA HUNG UP the phone and turned to Lucas, worry gnawing her gut. “That was Sophie. Nikita’s still in pain, exhausted.” It didn’t surprise her that she hadn’t picked up Nikita’s exhaustion during their earlier comm call: her mother was a master at showing people only what she wanted them to see.

“Sophie says she barely rested for an hour before getting back to work.” The only concession Nikita had made to her condition was to remain in her suite and in bed, rather than returning to her desk.

Lucas joined her on the aerie balcony, the two of them having decided to work from home today. They’d both spoken to Bastien first thing this morning about the other man’s continued efforts to narrow down the individual who’d hired the captain to spirit away Naya.

“I’m getting close,” Bastien had said, the passion of the hunt in the green of his eyes.

Sascha had spent the rest of the morning in discussions with Ivy and other Es, while Lucas played with and took care of Naya. Then they’d switched off and she’d happily taken cub duty while Lucas had conversation after conversation to do with the “adjunct signee” status he’d suggested. After intense discussion within their own pack, SnowDancer had agreed to back him, so he’d made the call to send the proposal out to a wider—though still limited—number of people.

Despite vociferous disagreement from several parties, he’d held his ground, panther and man both having made the decision that this was the only way Trinity could survive. Sascha had never been more proud of him. Because while her mate could act civilized, he was a dominant predatory changeling; to propose what he had meant fighting his most primal instincts.

Now, sliding an arm around her, he said, “The doctors warned that her recovery would take time, especially after her relapse.” He kept his voice low, his eyes on the little black ball of fur playing on the forest floor below. Sascha, too, was keeping an eye on their baby, though she was doing it mostly through their telepathic link.

“I just . . . I want to be there for her, Lucas.” Sascha leaned on the railing on this part of the balcony. “She shouldn’t be alone.” Taking a shaky breath, she tried to explain. “I’ve only recently realized how alone my mother has been her whole life. From the instant she learned she was carrying an empath—from the instant she decided to protect me, she’s walked alone.”

Sascha had thought her mother cold and heartless for most of her lifetime. As most recently demonstrated by the question Nikita had asked her about coercing humans into the PsyNet, her mother had a fluid concept of conscience at best.

Sascha was under no illusions about the woman who’d given birth to her.

What she hadn’t understood was that everything Nikita had done while Sascha was growing up, everything, had been to protect her daughter. “She built an empire so I’d be shielded by a wall of sheer power, and if she had to murder to get that power, she murdered.”

Sascha found that difficult to say, to admit, but she was fully cognizant of her mother’s dual nature. Nikita had done terrible things, unforgivable things. Yet she’d done them all with the sole aim of protecting her child. “I can’t accept the violence she did for me.” She wet a throat gone bone-dry. “But I think of what I did to those mercenaries who wanted to hurt Naya, and I can see it’s on the same continuum.”

Lucas gripped her jaw, made her face him. “Your mother went far beyond that.” His lips were a flat line. “I can’t judge her for protecting her child, but at some point, it became about power. Don’t take her actions on your shoulders. Got it?”

Sascha wished she could argue, but she couldn’t. Yes, she’d defend Naya to the death, but she wouldn’t massacre innocents in her daughter’s name. “Got it.”

“Good.” Lucas rubbed the pad of his thumb over her chin. “But yes, for all her sins, Nikita did make sure you survived to adulthood.”

“I think she did more,” Sascha said as they both turned to look over the railing again. Naya couldn’t go far, tiny as she was, but parental instinct was parental instinct. “I don’t think it was chance that put you and me together on that project.”

“I’ve had that thought myself.” He growled down to Naya when she growled up in hello.

Sascha sent her a psychic kiss at the same time.

Happy, their baby continued her solitary game, leopard enough to enjoy alone time and changeling enough to not want it always.

Sliding his hand around to cup her nape, Lucas returned to their conversation. “Nikita made sure you had significant and daily contact with me and the pack.”

“Do you think . . .” Sascha frowned. “But how could she know we were mates?”

Lucas shook his head. “I don’t think she did. No way to predict that. My feeling is that your mother was playing the odds.” He ran his thumb over her skin, petting her, loving her. Skin privileges between mates. Sascha slipped her own hand under his black T-shirt so she could touch the skin of his back.

That got her a feline smile and a lazy lick of a kiss that sent her heart thumping.

“She was Council,” Lucas said afterward, “had access to the old records. She must’ve known that changeling packs had a way of pulling people from the PsyNet. Why not put you in connection with changelings in case it was still true?”

“That sounds like my mother.” Sascha twisted her lips. “She did also probably want the deal. Two birds, one stone.”

Lucas kissed her again, tender this time. Old hurts soothed by his love, Sascha glanced down at a bright mental touch. Yes, you’re a brave explorer, she sent to Naya.

Naya growled in pride before continuing her exploring.

“Let’s go see Nikita.” Lucas’s words had her attention snapping back to him. “Like I said, it’s a good time for Naya to meet her—while your mother’s defenses are down.”

Her heart thumped. “I don’t know if Vasic is free to do the teleport. I know he wasn’t at home when Ivy and I spoke.”

Lucas slid out his phone. “Let me give him a call.”

SEATED on her bed with work spread out around her, Nikita wasn’t expecting the telepathic page from Sophia. She began to respond . . . but then there was no need to ask why her aide was getting in touch with her.

It didn’t matter how well Sascha shielded herself; Nikita always knew when her child was close. Before she could do much more than gather and put her work on the bedside table and push off the blanket, Sascha was walking into the room with her own child in her arms.

Nikita saw Sophia pull the door shut behind Sascha and her baby and then, for the first time, the three current generations of Duncans were alone in a room together.

“Don’t get up, Mother.” Not waiting for an invitation, Sascha pulled the blanket back up over Nikita’s legs before taking a seat on the bed.

The girl child in her arms stared wide-eyed at Nikita.

“I told you it wasn’t safe.” Nikita was already calculating how to mitigate the danger.

“No one knows we’re here,” Sascha interrupted. “Vasic teleported us.”

An Arrow. But an Arrow who’d previously worked with Anthony and who was mated to an empath as softhearted as Sascha. Since Nikita kept herself out of Arrow business, and the leader of the Arrows, Aden Kai, didn’t appear to want to grab at power, Vasic had no reason to leak news of Nikita’s physical condition.

Muscles easing, she allowed herself to look at the green-eyed child with a wild tumble of silky black curls who Sascha had just placed on the bed, atop the blanket. Instead of clinging to her mother, the child continued to stare at Nikita.

“Your mate’s genes appear to have held sway.”

“Do you think so?” Sascha ran her hand over her baby’s back.

The child was clothed in a simple white sundress. She had tiny white sandals on her feet, the straps decorated with colorful designs.

“Look at the shape of her eyes.”

Nikita did, saw what she’d missed at first glance. The intense richness of the green might be from Lucas Hunter, but the tilt at the corners, the gentle upward slope, came from Sascha . . . from Nikita.

Now that she was searching, she found other small pieces of the Duncan line in this child who was both Psy and changeling. The fine facial bones. The skin tone that was a shade or two lighter than Sascha’s dark honey but still had enough brown in it to make it clear that Nadiya Hunter’s heritage was a complex one.

“She’ll be a striking adult.” Nikita could see the promise of an extraordinary beauty that spoke to a wide cross-section of the world. “Teamed with her mixed-race heritage, it’ll give her a useful advantage in business or politics.”

Sascha’s smile was affectionate, the hand she touched to Nadiya’s hair loving. “She’s going to grow up a good person. We’ll make sure of it.”

That, Nikita thought, was the difference between her and her daughter: Sascha thought in terms of goodness, Nikita in terms of advantages.

“Naya,” Sascha said in a gentle tone. “This is your grandmother.”

“Gram?” the child said with impressive enunciation for her age.

“Yes.” Sascha’s smile grew deeper. “Gram. She’s my mother.”

The baby stared at Nikita again for so long that Nikita felt the child was judging her, weighing up whether or not she was worth Nadiya Hunter’s time. Yes, there was definitely some of Nikita Duncan in this Psy-Changeling child. It would stand her in good stead in a harsh world. She’d be far more able to protect herself than her empathic mother . . . though Sascha had acted impressively against the mercenaries who’d attempted to take Nadiya.

Maybe Nikita’s child was finally growing claws of her own, now that she had a fragile new life to protect.

That was when the baby smiled, slapped its palms onto the blanket, and began to crawl up Nikita’s legs. Nikita went still as deep, deep inside her, awakened a memory. “You did this,” she found herself saying to the beautiful woman with cardinal eyes who’d once been her baby. “In the months after the birth, I was still . . . influenced by carrying an empathic child. I allowed you freedoms proscribed under Silence, allowed you to crawl where you wished when we were alone in my room.”

The day the technicians had informed her that the eight-month-old fetus in her womb showed signs of the E gene, she’d felt the stirrings of something even more primal than the maternal protectiveness that had awakened the day she found out she was pregnant. At that time, most mothers carrying empaths were never told the truth, were instead fed lies while the machinery behind the Council ensured those E-designation children were funneled into special early-conditioning classes designed to suffocate the E ability.

Nikita, however, had been the scion of a strong family group and a woman who showed significant promise in her own right. She’d been given the findings—and in the eyes of the technicians who’d informed her, she’d seen death for her child, seen judgment. They’d wanted her to consign Sascha to an institution where she’d be raised as a broken cardinal, no doubt after enough damage was done to her brain to make her pliable, thus ensuring a cardinal E remained in a PsyNet that needed those Es but had abused them for so long.

Her mentor at the time had wanted her to try for a more “perfect” child. A woman of her strength and potential, he’d said, shouldn’t be “saddled with the burden” of an E. Nikita hadn’t been able to do anything but keep Sascha then; she’d done so by flexing what power she had—and by convincing those more powerful than her, including her own mother, that a cardinal child, even one considered flawed, would be a symbol of Nikita’s strength.

She’d told them she would dispose of her child in an “accident” should Sascha prove problematic.

More than two decades on, Sascha lived and those technicians as well as Nikita’s once-mentor were long dead.

Nikita didn’t ever forgive those who threatened her family.

She hadn’t had to kill her mother—Reina Duncan had died a natural death, but even before that, she hadn’t interfered with Nikita’s raising of Sascha. Reina had signed what Nikita asked her to sign, requested regular updates on Sascha’s progress, and been content. Because, by then, everyone in the Duncan line knew it was Nikita who had the killer instinct, Nikita who’d take the family to serious power in the Net.

Nikita respected her mother for having understood that, for not getting in her way.

“I don’t remember,” Sascha whispered.

“Of course not. You were an infant.” Nadiya had crawled up to Nikita’s thighs.

Sascha reached out. “I’ll get her. I know your injuries—”

“It’s fine.” Well able to handle a toddler, even in her weakened state, Nikita sat her grandchild against her, one arm around Nadiya’s waist.

Content because she could see her mother, the child began to “talk.” One out of every seven words was possibly comprehensible. “She has excellent vocal skills for her age.”

“Yes, she’s a chatterbox,” Sascha said with a smile that exposed her heart.

Sascha’s gaze met Nikita’s when Nadiya fell silent, more interested in playing with the organizer Nikita had handed her. The child couldn’t do any damage, and the logic puzzle Nikita had pulled up for her to solve was all bright-colored blocks, a program still in Nikita’s archives from Sascha’s childhood.

“I’d like to remember.” There was a wistfulness to Sascha’s tone that once more betrayed the softness inside her that Nikita had spent a lifetime trying to toughen up. “I’d like to remember a time when you and I . . . were just us. No Silence. No rules.”

“It was never that way,” Nikita said curtly. “I was born in Silence.” And she’d been forged in a bloody battle for her child’s survival.

But her grandchild would grow up in freedom, and her daughter no longer had to worry that someone would try to exterminate her for simply being herself. It was a victory. “Here,” she said, and opened the telepathic channel that existed between mother and child, a channel no one else could access.

It didn’t surprise her in the least that it was wide open on Sascha’s end.

Foolish, emotional child.

Bringing up memories of the times she and Sascha had spent in Nikita’s bedroom when Sascha was still young enough that Nikita could enclose her in her own shields and hide Sascha’s distinctive mental signature, she sent those memories to her daughter.

Sascha gasped, one hand rising to her mouth as tears filled her eyes, the white pinpricks disappearing to leave her eyes pure obsidian . . . but no, there were midnight-blue depths in Sascha’s eyes now, as if the color that lived in an E’s head was changing the very nature of her gaze.

“Mother,” she whispered, the single word holding so much emotion that Nikita wondered how her daughter could bear it.

Then she remembered that Sascha was born to bear emotion.

Distressed by her mother’s emotional state, Nadiya whimpered and, abandoning her game, began to crawl toward Sascha. Nikita released her grandchild’s small, warm weight, watched as Sascha picked her up, nuzzled her, saying, “It’s okay, Naya. Mama’s okay.”

Kisses followed, more touches and soft words, while Nadiya patted her mother’s face as if to ensure there were no further signs of tears.

When Sascha put the child on the bed again, she crawled immediately back to Nikita. “Gram!”

“Yes, I’m your grandmother.” Nikita allowed herself to take one small fist in her own hand, feel the vital life of this child who was of her blood.

“Nadiya will be at risk for years to come,” she told her daughter. “It doesn’t matter how many mixed-race children are born, whether they’re Psy and human or Psy and changeling. She’s the first. A symbol for those who want a new world order—and a target for those who’d rather go back to the old.”

“I know.” The resolute strength in Sascha’s tone reminded Nikita that her softhearted child had annihilated an entire mercenary team. “We’ll make sure she’s protected but we won’t cage her. She has to have the freedom to live her own life.” She lifted her gaze from Nadiya to Nikita. “A parent can only do so much.”

Nikita saw forgiveness in those eyes of midnight, saw understanding, saw an emotion she knew was love. Breaking the connection because she had to stay strong, had to remain the ice-cold bitch no one dared cross, she allowed Nadiya to “bite” at her knuckles. The child wasn’t actually biting down, was more working her milk teeth gently over the bone, as if Nikita were a teething toy.

“I am . . . glad to meet my grandchild.”

It was the closest she could come to betraying the emotions that lived so deep inside her that nothing might ever reach them again. It was the closest she could come to telling her daughter that she would murder and torture and die for her. As she would for the child of her child. The world might think she’d rejected Sascha, but Nikita had always played a chess game a hundred moves ahead.

“I’m happy she got to meet you, too.” Sascha smiled. “We’ll do this again.”

Nikita inclined her head. “I’m surprised your mate let you in here alone.” She knew Lucas Hunter was just outside the door, could feel his wild psychic energy.

“He says you’d liquefy the brains of anyone who threatened either me or Naya.”

The DarkRiver alpha had always been a dangerous opponent. “Perceptive.” She watched Nadiya wander off to the other side of the bed, saw Sascha restrain her instinctive protective urge in order to allow her child freedom to explore.

Then the child was no longer a child but a scatter of light . . . and a small panther cub was jumping off the bed. Nadiya turned to give her mother and grandmother a proudly satisfied look once she was on the floor.

Chapter 46

“CLEVER CHILD.” NIKITA was impressed the toddler had figured out that to get to the ground, she’d be better off in her other form. “I’ve never witnessed a shift at such close proximity.” Never been trusted with it.

“Extraordinary, isn’t it?” Sascha said as Nadiya began to run around the room, curiously exploring everything she could. “Naya, be good.”

A small growl, a mischievous look, but the cub eased up her pace.

“Did you intend for me to fall for Lucas?”

Nikita wasn’t expecting the question. That didn’t matter. Her self-conditioning was too ingrained. Her expression held. “No,” she said, and it was the truth. “I knew your shields against emotion were failing and that you needed a way out. I also knew Psy had left the Net in the past to join changeling packs. It was meant to be a chance for you to find an exit route.” Had Sascha not succeeded, Nikita’s backup plan had involved a large amount of bloodshed.

“I would’ve rather you didn’t mate with Hunter,” she added. “As alpha, he’s too much in the public eye. The idea was for you to disappear into DarkRiver.” Instead, her daughter had become one of the key—and highly visible—members of the pack.

A soft laugh that made Nadiya utter what appeared to be a reciprocal growl. “You can’t control everything, Mother.”

“I learned that lesson when you came along.” Until that moment, Nikita had been a perfect inmate of Silence. Cold and hard and determined to rise to the top with pitiless grace. “Carrying a cardinal empath of your violent strength had an undocumented effect on me.” Which said something very interesting about all the women who’d come before Nikita—and about Nikita herself.

When Sascha opened her mouth as if to ask for details, Nikita shook her head. There were some things she’d never say aloud—never admit—even to her daughter. That was too slippery a slope, because the threat remained. In the world lived those who’d murder Sascha for being an E, for being the defector who’d brought a hidden revolution roaring into the light, and, unbeknownst to her, for being a poster child for happiness beyond Silence.

Not only that, to the fanatics, Sascha had committed a second and third transgression, both of which they deemed unforgivable: first, she had bonded with an “aggressive, unintelligent animal,” and second, she’d given birth to a child with “tainted” blood. Idiocy and prejudice, all of it, but prejudiced idiots could be dangerous.

Especially to a small, vulnerable child.

Nikita looked at the panther cub currently chewing on the edge of the bedspread, out of sight of her mother’s gaze. Nadiya’s eyes caught Nikita’s. She froze . . . then went back to her mischief when Nikita didn’t give her away. It was so easy to win the trust of children, but this child would never be in a position where that trust could get her killed.

Her alpha father and empath mother would never permit it.

Neither would her deadly grandmother.

Attention back on Sascha, she said, “They told me you were flawed.” Broken. Useless. “I told you the same because it was the only way to keep you safe.”

Sascha shook her head and for the first time today, Nikita heard anger color her daughter’s tone. “You could’ve found another way, a way that wasn’t so brutal, that didn’t make me question everything I knew about myself.”

“No.” Nikita would never second-guess the decisions that had kept her child alive. “You were too soft, Sascha. Always have been.” A harsh truth. “I had to get you to protect yourself, make sure you weren’t relying on me.” If that had meant making her empathic child fear and despise her, so be it. “You had to trust only yourself.”

“Is it what you believe? That I’m flawed?”

Nikita went to answer but decades of control kept her silent for long enough that Sascha turned away. She shoved past the control. “No,” she said. “If I had, I would’ve never put you in a position of responsibility.”

Looking back at her, Sascha smiled and it was a faint shadow of the expression. “I should’ve figured that out, shouldn’t I?”

“Yes.” One thing Nikita had always made clear—she didn’t suffer fools.

Laughter from her daughter this time, which made her granddaughter want to know what was going on. Jumping back onto the bed with a helping boost from her mother, Nadiya shifted with the confidence of a changeling at home in either skin and allowed herself to be swept into Sascha’s lap, making happy sounds when Sascha bent down to nuzzle her.

“There go another set of clothes.” Sascha pretended to growl and bite her baby. “I should start dressing you in flour sacks.”

Giggling, Nadiya kissed her mother’s face, unrepentant joy in her expression.

Nikita took a mental snapshot of the moment, to be filed away in her most private memories. She’d never take an actual snapshot, because if it existed, there existed the chance that someone could find it, use it against her by harming Sascha and Nadiya.

The lack of an actual photograph didn’t matter. Nikita’s mental acuity was extremely high. She’d remember, just like she remembered that Sascha had made the same sounds as a child. Sascha had also smelled much the same as Nadiya did when Sascha held her out and Nikita took her into her arms. Perhaps all babies had that innocent scent.

A bright, curious mind glanced across hers. Nikita nudged the child back without causing harm or distress, accompanying the psychic action with a nonvocal suggestion that Nadiya protect her mind. “She needs to stop reaching indiscriminately for others using telepathy,” Nikita told Sascha. “She’s old enough.”

“I haven’t wanted to stifle her,” Sascha replied. “And she’s around friendly minds.”

“She’s Psy, Sascha. A powerful one.” Nikita repeated her nudge when her grandchild reached out again. “No, Nadiya.” A firm command that made the child go still, watchful.

“You must train her,” Nikita told her frowning daughter. “You’ve taught her to shield and you’ve got your own shield over hers, but I can still send telepathic thoughts to her through the link she initiated. I could tell her anything I wanted, send her nightmare images, teach her to fear you, anything.”

Sascha’s face lost color, her eyes stark. There was a knock on the door a second later. Glancing over her shoulder, Sascha didn’t speak, but Lucas Hunter didn’t knock again or seek to enter the room. As Nikita had always suspected, the changeling mate-bond functioned on a psychic level in some fashion.

“You’re right.” Sascha’s voice trembled. “I’ve been so focused on not crushing her or hurting her that I went too far in the opposite direction. It’s like Lucas teaching her not to use her claws in play.” Sascha snuggled her baby when Nadiya made her way back to her. “It’s not hurting her to teach her psychic discipline; it’s giving her the tools she needs to survive and thrive.”

“Exactly.”

There, in that moment, Nikita shared the first moment of pure and absolute understanding with her daughter. Sascha, too, she thought, would do whatever was necessary to protect her child.

ONCE, Lucas had thought he’d never voluntarily permit his mate and child to be alone in a room with Nikita Duncan, but here he was, holding up the wall outside Nikita’s bedroom suite. Even when he’d sensed Sascha’s sudden distress, he hadn’t barged in. They’d been mated long enough that he could distinguish acute distress from a lesser emotional shock, and this had felt more akin to the latter.

Sascha’s silent response through their mate-bond had eased his concern.

Lucas would never change his mind about Nikita Duncan, not after the things the woman had done as a Councilor, but as he’d told his empath, better a child who knew her powerful—and to a cat—intriguing grandmother, than that she be tempted to find out on her own.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t having to fight the urge to break down the door and get his mate and child out of there. A call from Mercy to do with the joint pack event distracted him for a few minutes, but even then, the majority of his attention remained hyperfocused on the door behind which had disappeared two pieces of his heart.

Sascha proved exactly how well she knew him when she exited. Immediately handing him Naya, she slipped her hand into his. His bristling protective instincts settled, his claws no longer in danger of breaking through his skin. They didn’t speak until after Vasic had returned them home.

Lucas thanked the teleporter, who simply nodded.

Even after they were alone as a family, Lucas and Sascha waited until Naya was down for her nap before they opened up this particular box.

Lucas put on some soft music, drew his mate into his arms. As they swayed to the lazy beat, she told him about the meeting with her mother. “She meant it.” Sascha’s voice was raw. “That she never saw me as flawed.”

Lucas knew others would never understand the import of Nikita’s words, of how much they meant to Sascha. The hurt inside her that her mother had inflicted was no longer a scar, but neither could such pain be easily forgotten. “You’ve never been flawed.” It still pissed him off each time she used that word in relation to herself.

“I know.” She ran her hand over his back as she lifted her face to smile up at him. “I wouldn’t dare argue with an alpha cat.”

He nipped at her lower lip. “Smart-ass.”

Eyes dancing, she kissed him all slow and sexy. Only when they were both breathless did she break the kiss to continue speaking. “Mother told me to start teaching Naya mental discipline.”

His hackles rose. “Why do you sound like you’re considering it?”

“Right now,” Sascha said, “Naya is curious about everyone and anything, and I would never attempt to suppress that. But she’s also dangerously open. Not only have I not taught her to be careful who she connects with telepathically or to never connect to strange minds without my permission—”

“As we’ve taught her not to go with strangers.” Lucas’s bunched-up muscles began to relax.

Sascha nodded. “I was so intent on not suffocating her in any way, in giving her the psychic freedom I never had, that I went too far in the other direction.”

“I understand, kitten.” Lucas had to constantly fight his own overprotective urges. “If I could, I’d wrap you both in cotton wool.” As well as every single vulnerable member of his pack. “You help me deal with that. I’ll help you deal with this.”

Lines of strain fading from her expression, Sascha said, “Mother gave me a number of tips about how to teach Naya what she needs, but I thought I’d speak to Shaya as well.” A long pause, Sascha placing her head against his shoulder as they swayed to the music. “Nikita kept me safe, but it hurt. Ashaya is doing the same for Keenan without damaging him. He’s a psychically strong and disciplined child who’s lost none of his personality or joy.”

Lucas dropped a kiss on her hair. “There’s also the fact that she’s guiding and teaching him while he’s living in a changeling pack.” Nikita had never had to deal with a child who was surrounded by primal and unrestrained emotion on a daily basis, rather than by the icy discipline of Psy under Silence.

“Yes, you’re right. Several of Nikita’s techniques would collapse under non-Silent conditions.”

“You should talk to the Laurens, too.” Walker Lauren, in particular, had been dealing with children outside the PsyNet and outside Silence, for longer than anyone else Lucas knew. Judd’s brother had also been a teacher in the PsyNet.

Sascha nodded before leaning back to look at him once more, her arms hooked around his neck and her lips swollen from his kiss. “We have to write a whole new rule book, don’t we?”

Lucas’s panther rumbled awake deep in his chest. “That’s what rebels do.” And Sascha Duncan, cardinal empath, mate to an alpha, and mother to a Psy-Changeling child, was the rebel who’d blown the PsyNet wide open.

Letters to Nina

From the private diaries of Father Xavier Perez

June 1, 2080

Nina,

My first friend, the one I once tried to assassinate. His life changed drastically some time ago. He was ripped out of one world and had to learn to exist in another, and for a while, I feared he wouldn’t adapt. But he did and here’s how. This man I once saw as cold as ice now loves a woman as deeply and as passionately as I love you.

I feel such joy for him, Nina. To see the look in his eyes, that is hope. The same God that took you away from me has given him this chance. He doesn’t agree with me, of course. He isn’t a man of faith. He believes in honor and in fidelity and in standing behind your actions rather than putting faith in some “otherworldly entity.”

The arguments and conversations we have, Nina. You would love it. He accepts me for who I am and I do the same for him and our other friend, and all three of us, we challenge one another. Your beautiful mind is all that’s missing.

Even after so much time has passed, I still hope for you. But then I realize that if you’re alive, you’ve chosen not to come to me and my heart shatters. Say you’re not angry with me, Nina. Please. I could not bear it if you had forsaken me.

Xavier

Chapter 47

TEN IN THE evening in Venice and Bowen Knight was tapping his finger on his desk as he read through the latest report from the implant team when he received a message on his phone. He didn’t immediately recognize the sender—not unusual, since everyone in the Human Alliance had access to his contact details. It sometimes made for a chaotic day, but most folks were good about only contacting him directly if it was a matter that needed to be brought to the attention of the Alliance’s security chief.

The message was simple: We need to talk. Too sensitive to send over unsecured line.—Isaac

He did a quick search on the sender’s number. It returned a listing for Beauclair Trucking based out of Vancouver, Canada. A little digging and he found the name of the owner: Isaac Beauclair.

Beauclair and his company had joined the Alliance a year earlier. According to the records kept by Bo’s administrative staff, no one from the company had ever attended an Alliance meeting, but they paid their dues like clockwork and the owner had made two requests for Alliance assistance.

In both cases it had been a simple application for a business introduction.

Nothing unusual in that. Many Alliance members had joined for the same reason—to expand their network among other human companies. Of course, with the Alliance now part of Trinity, with far more streamlined access to Psy and changeling businesses, that element of their membership base had increased again by a significant percentage.

Bo also had access to certain security databases, and when he ran Isaac’s name through those, he saw no red flags. The owner of the very successful company still drove a long-haul truck on occasion and he had a clean record. No smuggling allegations, nothing but a higher than average number of speeding tickets. The latter was a badge of honor with truckers—they always tried to push their trucks, the temptation of often otherwise empty highways too much.

Beauclair’s company, however, was interesting: It had a reputation for security and reliability and, as a result, often carried high-value goods that couldn’t be transported any other way. Teleporters didn’t usually stoop to such pragmatic work, and even after all the technological advances to date, sometimes the best and most economically efficient way to move certain items from one place to the next was via the road.

Instead of messaging back, Bo called Lily in from where she was catching up on her own work nearby. His sister did a little hacking at his request, found the direct link to the comm system onboard Isaac’s truck, and set up a secure call. According to Beauclair Trucking’s records, Isaac was on the road today.

“Just tap this and you’ll be set,” Lily said, then left him to it.

The call went through without any difficulty, was answered audio-only on the other end.

“Who’s this?” was the brusque question.

“Bowen Knight. You wanted to talk.”

Audio-only turned into visual and audio, and Bowen found himself talking to a broad-shouldered man who looked remarkably like his official ID photo. Isaac Beauclair had white skin touched with enough sun that it was warm rather than cool, sandy red-brown hair cut fairly tidily but not ruthlessly, a neat beard that was more red than red-brown, and dark hazel eyes. From what Bo could see, the other man was wearing what looked like a band T-shirt in black, the print white.

“Didn’t expect such a quick response,” Isaac said. “Give me a second to put the truck on full auto-nav.”

Bo waited while the other man did that, then Isaac came back onscreen. “We have a few minutes before I have to retake manual control. The roads are a little iffy in this section of my route, couple of broken nav beacons that haven’t been fixed.”

“The line is secure,” Bo told him. “I made certain of it.”

“Figure you know your business.” Isaac glanced over his shoulder, seemed to say something that wasn’t picked up by the speakers.

When he turned back, his face held a grim look. “I might’ve done something that could blow back on the Alliance itself.”

“Explain.”

“I pulled into a truck stop couple of hours ago, went in to grab a coffee, use the restroom, usual stuff.” Isaac shrugged. “When I came back out, there was this SUV parked next to my truck. Blacked-out windows, all-terrain tires.”

“Anything unusual about that?”

“Not really. I see those vehicles now and then—mostly it’s big CEOs or celebrities who want to travel incognito. They don’t usually pull in at truck stops, but I figured maybe someone started jonesing for coffee or needed the restroom—but I still took a close look because of that alert about the other SUV that went out earlier.” He paused and Bo had the sense he was ordering his thoughts.

Isaac Beauclair struck him as a very deliberate kind of man.

“So I jump up into the cab of my truck, and as I’m pulling the door shut, I glance down.” His face turned grim. “SUV was all blacked-out, but it had a glass sunroof that wasn’t and I could see right through it. I saw a man in the front passenger seat and a woman in back. She was covered with a blanket, but her face was all scarred-up and bruised and she looked fucking thin.”

Bo could guess where this was going. “You intervened?”

“First I went and grabbed a couple of buddies who’d just brought in their trucks. Was a slight risk the driver of the SUV would return first and take off, but the dude in the car, he gave off a Psy vibe. I knew I needed backup.”

Bo nodded; humans were very good at identifying Psy. They had to be. It was a survival mechanism. Some family lines had developed an eerily accurate second sense about Psy in the vicinity, though they were all quick to state that it wasn’t itself a psychic skill. Bo had never quite bought the latter. After all, Psy, changeling, and human came from the same original stock. And evolution, it never stopped. “Your buddies all human?”

“No,” the trucker replied. “One of them was changeling—I figured he’d stay standing even if the Psy took me out.” Isaac turned and spoke over his shoulder again, and once more, his voice was too quiet for the microphone to catch.

“I went up to the front passenger-side window, knocked,” he continued after turning back to the comm. “Guy rolled it down, asked if he could help me. I asked what the hell was going on with the woman in back, and he said they were taking her to a hospital after finding her on the side of the road. Sounded plausible but that was when she woke up and said, ‘Help me.’”

Isaac shrugged. “That was enough for us. I smashed in the back window to unlock the door while my changeling friend hauled the Psy half out of the window to hold his attention. Our other friend kept a lookout. I’d just got the woman out when a second Psy came running out, hit me with a telepathic blow.”

The truck driver rubbed his temple. “It was hard as hell but not debilitating. I don’t figure he was that strong, but he was strong enough to weaken us and that gave him a chance to help the other Psy fight off my changeling friend. I think they would’ve come for the woman but I pulled a gun.”

Another shrug. “Got to have protection on these isolated routes, especially when I’m moving expensive high-tech equipment. So they hauled ass instead—one of my buddies got a partial plate. I’ll send it through.”

Bowen nodded. “The woman, you didn’t take her to a hospital?” He’d figured out she had to be behind Isaac, in the cab of the truck.

Shaking his head, Isaac lowered his voice. “She was freaked out, begged for me to get her to the sea.” He blew out a breath. “Her eyes . . . I never saw eyes like that. Like the blackest part of the ocean, no light, no shadow.”

Bo felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. He thought of BlackSea’s request to track another black SUV, considered the plea made by Isaac’s passenger, and he wondered . . . “Can you describe her to me?”

“Five four, black hair, light brown skin, heritage from the Pacific Islands maybe. She won’t give me her name.” He paused. “It looks like someone took a fucking hunting knife to her face.”

Bo’s hand clenched on the phone. “How long before you reach the ocean?” Isaac didn’t seem like the kind of man who’d make the woman wait.

“Six hours,” the trucker replied. “I was pretty inland when I found her.”

That gave Bo plenty of time to get in touch with BlackSea. “I think I know who she belongs to—give me a little time to see if I can confirm.” Hanging up to Isaac’s curt nod, he pulled up the contact information of the man who’d tipped off the Alliance about that little cell of anti-human fanatics.

Malachai Rhys.

Beside the man’s name was a title: BlackSea Security Chief.

Bo didn’t expect his call to be immediately answered—the water changelings had a reputation for preferring their privacy and making it difficult for anyone to get hold of them. And right now, they were understandably pissed off at the Alliance.

However, Malachai picked up within the first two seconds. “Yes?”

“This is Bo Knight.”

“Hold while I confirm.”

Raising an eyebrow, Bowen leaned back in his chair. When Malachai came back on the line, he said, “How exactly do you confirm?”

“We have methods,” the BlackSea male responded. “You didn’t call to chat.”

“No. One of my people has picked up a woman in bad physical shape who wants to go to the sea.”

“Name?”

“She won’t give it, but I have a description.” He repeated it to Malachai. “She sound like one of yours?”

A pause, as if the BlackSea security chief was considering whether to confirm or deny. “Yes,” he said at last. “We can take charge of her if you give us a location.”

“Unless you call in a teleporter, you won’t get her to the sea any faster than she’s already going,” Bo told the other man. “She’s in a long-haul truck, safe and warm. You know how fast those truckers go.” And there was nothing else on the road that could take down a truck that big.

“We need to know where she is, nevertheless,” Malachai said.

It was Bowen’s turn to pause. If he gave them Isaac’s details, then he made the other man vulnerable. On the other hand, BlackSea had extended the hand of friendship, while the Alliance had let them down in return. Maybe it was time to even the scoreboard.

He sent the data. “You should have someone meet her at the beach. From the way she was described to me, I’m not sure she has the strength to take on the ocean.”

“We’ll organize that.” Malachai’s tone shifted slightly. “Pass on a message. Tell her to resist the temptation to shift. In her condition, the water near Canada is too cold for her—say her pack is on the way and promises to get her to warmer waters as fast as possible.”

“Consider it done.” Hanging up, Bowen passed on the message and alerted Isaac that he might end up with some company along the way. “Should be friendly, but if they give you problems, let me know. I’ll call in a few favors, get you help.”

“I’ll make sure she stays safe,” Isaac said before switching off.

Bo got another message an hour later: I’ve got an escort, front and back. Isaac had also sent through the vehicle ID numbers.

When Bowen checked with Malachai, the BlackSea male confirmed they were BlackSea vehicles. “They won’t get in the trucker’s way, but they need to be there for our packmate when she reaches the beach.”

LEILA Savea didn’t know why she trusted the man who’d rescued her—maybe because he’d rescued her or maybe it was because she’d seen the photograph tacked to his dashboard. It was of him laughing with a tall blonde woman who stood in his arms with no hint of fear on her face, though the man who’d introduced himself as Isaac was at least as big and as muscled as Malachai.

Whatever it was, she’d given in to her need to be clean of the ugliness of what had been done to her by showering far too long in the shower inside the living quarters of his cab. She’d probably emptied his water tank, but he hadn’t knocked on the door to tell her to get out. Instead, when she finally came out, it was to see he’d left a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt for her to change into.

His clothes would’ve fallen off her, but these kind of fit after she tucked the T-shirt into the sweatpants in a very unglamorous move and tightened the drawstring, then rolled up the bottoms of the pants.

Clearly, the clothes belonged to a taller, healthier woman. The laughing blonde? The idea made Leila happy, though both Isaac and the woman were strangers to her. And she needed to think thoughts of happiness right now. It was all that was keeping her from shattering, her psyche held together by a single fragile thread.

When she came to peek out at Isaac, he glanced back at her with a cheek-creasing smile. “You know,” he said before turning his attention back to the road, “you’re not the first girl I’ve rescued.”

The part of Leila that had kept her sane in the darkness scowled. “I’m a woman, not a girl.”

“Jessie was mouthy, too.” So much emotion in his voice as he touched his fingers to the photograph. “She drives big rigs now. Drives me crazy, too.”

“I’m a scientist,” Leila found herself telling him, and in so doing, reclaimed a part of her lost self. “I study the creatures that call the ocean home.”

Isaac whistled. “Smart.” His tone changed on the next words, became rough. “Those assholes hurt you pretty bad.” He nodded up ahead. “You need medical help from your people?”

She could see the gleaming white all-terrain vehicle through the windscreen, the landscape beyond painted by cloudy late-afternoon light. “Are you sure those people are mine?”

“Some guy called Malachai confirmed it.”

Her eyes threatened to fill with tears.

Malachai wouldn’t let anyone hurt her. He was Miane’s and Miane protected her people, no matter how distant they were or how small their relative importance to the rest of the world. Each and every member of BlackSea was important to Miane.

Crawling up to sit in the passenger seat, she forced herself to say, “I could ride with them. They’re going really fast.” Only she didn’t know them and Isaac was safe. Isaac had a beard like her father and he loved a woman with blonde hair and freckles scattered over her nose and across the tops of her cheeks.

“I could do with seeing the ocean,” Isaac replied with a grin that reassured her he didn’t mind this detour. “Been a while.”

“My name is Leila.” It seemed right to tell this good man who was taking her home.

“Pretty.” Picking up something from the cup holder, he held it out. “You should eat a little more if you can.”

Taking what proved to be a protein bar, she peeled it open with fingers that were swollen from how the driver of the SUV had wrenched her fingers back when she tried to run at a stop. He’d also punched her in the face.

“You have someone who’ll look after you?” Isaac asked in that rough tone that was oddly comforting, like Malachai when he got gruff. “Once you reach home?”

The thought of home made her chest ache.

“I swim alone,” she told him after swallowing a bite of the protein bar. “But I’ll go to the city for a while, rest in my family’s arms.”

“You ever get lonely?” He grabbed an unopened water bottle from his side and handed it to her. “Swimming alone I mean? Ocean’s a big place.”

Laughter spilled out of her, unexpected and rusty. “Don’t truckers drive alone for days at times?”

“Point to you.” He chuckled and the sound was a warm blanket wrapping around her. “But I don’t run alone much anymore.” A glance at the photograph that said more than words. “The rare times I do, I still see people—at the truck stops for one. At the sleep stops, if we end up parking side by side to catch some shut-eye. No truck stops in the ocean.”

“I have friends who swim by.” She smiled at the memories of how her best friends would haul themselves up onto her boat and raid her galley shelves for cookies. One time, after the fiends had eaten her out of cookies until not a crumb remained, she’d come up from a swim to discover two large sacks of cookies left on deck, the supplies carried to her in waterproof bags.

“The gaps are longer than in your line of work,” she told Isaac as her mouth watered for a taste of those chocolate-chip-raisin cookies. “Weeks rather than days, but we’re social in our own way.” Her smile faded under a sudden nausea, her skin chilled. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to swim in my waters anymore. The kidnappers might take me again.”

Isaac shot her a dark look that didn’t terrify—she already knew him well enough to understand his anger was directed at the people who’d tortured and imprisoned her. “You could swim with a group for a while,” he suggested. “Fight your need for solitude to stay in your home waters.”

Leila thought of how she’d fought so much already, of how she’d survived unbroken and felt a flicker of pride, an emotion she’d long thought dead inside her. “It might be nice to swim with my friends,” she admitted, knowing those friends would welcome her despite their own normally solitary travels.

Her skin ached, hungry for the cool slide of water. At home, the water was so clear she could see beams of sunlight spearing through to scatter sparkles of light like a silent fireworks display. But right now, so far from home, the memory hurt. So she turned to something that didn’t. “Will you tell me about your Jessie?”

Isaac grinned, and then he told her all about the tough, smart girl he’d picked up on a lonely road late one night, who he’d then chewed out for hitchhiking. That girl had grown up, grown even tougher and smarter, and become one of Isaac’s best drivers. She’d also turned into a “tall gorgeous woman” who seemed to find pleasure in driving Isaac to distraction . . . until one day, she stopped calling, stopped forwarding him funny e-mails, stopped being an integral and daily part of his life.

Leila’s heart squeezed. “No,” she whispered. “I don’t want a sad ending.” Couldn’t deal with it. Not today. Maybe not for many days to come.

Isaac winked at her. “Jessie just got sick and tired of my thick head and decided to say to hell with me.” His expression devolved into a dark scowl. “She started dating that pretty boy trooper Michel Benoit.” Growling words that could’ve come from one of the big bull sea lion changelings. “I mean, really? A trooper?”

Leila’s shoulders shook. “How did you win her back?” She knew he had, had just noticed the golden wedding band on his left ring finger. It was visible in the photograph, too, as was the glint of gold on Jessie’s hand.

Shaking his head, the bearded trucker said, “That is one hell of a tale.” He began to tell it, snarling every time he got to a part that involved his apparent mortal enemy Michel Benoit.

She was so caught up in his story that she didn’t know when she fell asleep, but when she came awake, it was to a moonlit darkness and the salt-laced scent of the ocean. Eyes burning and heart thumping, she began to push at the heavy door. Isaac had already unlocked it, and by the time she pushed it open, he was there to catch her.

“Isaac”—tears rolled hot and wet down her face—“you brought me home.”

He refused to release his grip on her. “I did, sweetheart, but you know what Malachai said. You won’t survive a swim in your current condition.”

Leila barely heard him, the music of the crashing waves a visceral pulse that pounded her name. Then a tall brunette with features that reminded Leila of another marine biologist she knew, a woman who hailed from the Lil’wat Nation, exited one of the escort vehicles and came over. She carried the scent of the ocean, too, deep in her skin.

Pack.

The realization was enough to pull Leila’s attention from the sea, but not to separate her from Isaac. She didn’t know this packmate, had never before seen her. Then the woman made a call, gave her the phone. Her entire body shook, because it was Miane on the other end, telling her she was safe, that this woman and her partner would bring her to her own waters.

“Canadian waters are too cold for you in your current condition,” Miane said with command inherent in her every word. “It’ll stop your heart even if you shift. Stay in human form a little longer.”

Leila’s entire self hurt with need for the sea, but she couldn’t gainsay the first among them. “I won’t shift.” It came out a trembling promise.

“Only a short while longer, little dancer.”

Little dancer.

No one had called her by the childhood nickname for an eon. Of course, Miane would remember—and in so doing, remind Leila of who she was under the scars and the pain. “I’ll hold on,” she promised in a stronger voice. “Until I’m home.”

Taking the phone after Leila handed it back, the brunette pointed out a yacht moored in the distance, its sails glowing white under the silver kiss of the moon, then gestured toward a small jetboat in the shallows. “If you’re ready?”

Leila swallowed, looked up at Isaac. “Thank you. Your Jessie is a lucky woman.”

His smile was sunrise over an ocean. “Send me a postcard with palm trees on it someday. I’ve never made it to the tropics.”

Throwing her arms around his big, sturdy form, she whispered, “Come visit me. Bring Jessie.”

And then she couldn’t fight the pull anymore, was heading down the beach so fast that her knees threatened to crumple out from under her. The brunette woman and a slender black man helped her onto the jetboat. She trailed her hand in the water and tried not to sob with need as they began to pull away.

Home, she was going home.

Letters to Nina

From the private diaries of Father Xavier Perez

July 14, 2081

Nina,

War has broken out. The streets of San Francisco crawl with soldiers. I’m writing this in the cellar of the church, in a stolen moment. Around me are refugees I and other able-bodied people have brought in.

There is no more time to write. I must go, must see if there are others I can help.

Xavier

Chapter 48

MIANE DIDN’T TAKE a real breath until Leila stepped onto Cifica, the city rocking gently under them in a rhythm that was the sea’s pulse. The young woman had been ferried by yacht to the nearest large BlackSea city, then put on a high-speed plane home. That plane had landed two minutes ago on the water beside BlackSea’s main city in the tropics.

“Leila.” She took her packmate into her arms, held her while Leila cried.

“They made me ugly,” Leila whispered against her chest. “I was never pretty but now I’m a monster.”

“Never say that again.” Miane fought her fury, squeezed Leila tight. “You are strong and beautiful and one of mine.”

Leila’s voice was thick when she answered, her fingers rising to her face. “The scars, Miane . . . I want them gone.”

“We have an excellent surgeon.” He was human but an angel with scars. “I’ll get him to come out to the city.” That Leila had spoken first of her scars didn’t surprise Miane. All victims of trauma reacted differently, and she knew from Olivia Coletti that sometimes, a superficial statement or request wasn’t superficial at all.

Each time I look in the mirror, Olivia had whispered to her, I see them. This isn’t my face. It’s what they made me.

“Will it work?” Leila asked shakily.

“Yes.” Olivia’s scars were already so fine that it was difficult to spot them under normal light. “He’s very good.”

A jerky nod. “I’m not vain. It’s just . . .”

“I know.” She kissed the shorter, slighter woman’s temple, kept her warm and safe within her embrace. “We’ve missed you, Leila.”

Sobs broke out of Leila’s body anew, heartrending and painful and raw. But when it was over and Leila lifted tear-drenched eyes to Miane’s, those eyes held a luminous light. “The world doesn’t understand. They think because some of us swim alone and because the ocean is so vast, that we don’t care.”

Miane wiped away Leila’s tears. “We know the truth and that’s what matters.” Miane would turn predator for her people, would fight any enemy to keep them safe. “We are BlackSea.”

“We are one,” Leila whispered, completing the motto that was written nowhere and yet that defined water-based changelings.

No matter how far they traveled or how deep, they were part of a bigger whole. Never forgotten. Never discarded. One.