Allegiance of Honor

Chapter 49

TEN MINUTES AFTER receiving word that Leila Savea was home safe with her people, Riley walked with Mercy in the woods near their cabin, her arm hooked into his. He refused to let go of her—his tall, lithely muscled mate looked as if she’d topple over.

“Why didn’t you put on weight anywhere else?” he growled at her. “At least you’d be more stable.”

She bared her teeth at him. “Shut up. I can keep myself upright. And for your information, I ate like a bear before hibernation, but our children are voracious hooligans.”

Riley waited when she stopped, caught her breath.

Wait, at no point in her pregnancy had Mercy ever had to catch her breath during a simple walk. “You’re having a contraction,” he accused.

“First one.” A scowl directed at him. “Only tiny anyway. Probably be a few hours yet at least.”

“Of course it will.” Knowing that any children with Mercy’s blood in their veins would be in no way predictable, he pulled out his phone and put in the call to Tamsyn.

“I’ll be there in fifteen,” the healer said, clearly already in the vicinity.

That was likely on purpose, with Mercy overdue. Not just in terms of a multiple changeling pregnancy but generally.

“Oh, crap!” Mercy almost bent over.

Heart thudding, Riley nonetheless kept his cool and began to stroke her back with the firm touch she liked. When she was ready, he helped her back up. They walked some more but stayed near the cabin.

Riley’s instinct was to hustle her into a comfortable bed, but Mercy was a leopard sentinel and she knew her body. At one point, she pressed her hands palms-down against a tree and pushed out while he massaged her back, digging in his thumbs the way she demanded.

Even when she snarled at him, her eyes dark as a result of the increasing pain, he kissed her temple and petted her, and after the contraction passed, his wild, beautiful mate turned into him. “I’m sorry.”

Riley kissed her cheeks, her lips in a caress that was all about comfort. “You can yell at me all you want. It makes me feel like I’m useful for something.” Brushing back her damp hair, he held her as long as she wanted before they began to walk again.

Mercy’s water broke a minute later.

The contractions were coming so close together by the time Tamsyn reached them that the gaps were measured in seconds rather than minutes. They didn’t make it inside. The pupcubs were born in a rush on the soft grass outside the cabin, Mercy’s hand gripping Riley’s and her back braced against his as Tamsyn caught their impatient children.

Who all decided to come out pretty much on top of one another.

Wiping off their faces, the healer placed the children in Mercy’s trembling arms. Riley slid his own under hers to help her hold them safe. “Hello,” Mercy whispered, a softness to her that, until this instant, only Riley had ever seen.

She kissed each squalling face in turn before looking up at him. “You’re a daddy now, wolf.”

His smile felt as if it would crack his face. “Hell, yeah.”

“Come around,” she murmured as the pupcubs quieted under their mother’s touch, at the skin-to-skin contact that was so important to newborn changelings. “They need to feel their daddy’s touch, too.”

Easing away his bracing hold, he came around to the side so he could support Mercy with one leg behind her back and still be able to hold their babies. He undid his shirt almost without thought and then Mercy was putting all three pupcubs in his arms. The “voracious hooligans” were strong and healthy but tiny. He nuzzled each soft face, drew in their scents, felt his heart expand again to make even more room for these three precious souls.

Tamsyn, who’d been taking care of Mercy, finally nudged them up and into the house. Only when all three pupcubs were snuggled up against Riley in the bed, skin-to-skin, did Mercy step into the shower for a minute.

Dressed in one of his T-shirts afterward, panties on underneath, she made a beeline for their babies. “Look at them. They’re so perfect.” She took a tiny foot, kissed each toe. Then did the same for the other two pupcubs as Tamsyn smiled and left them in privacy.

When Mercy took a pupcub and the baby whimpered at the touch of cotton, she tugged off the tee and snuggled their child to her heartbeat. The baby quieted at once. “Riley, we made three gorgeous babies,” she whispered in open awe, her eyes shining.

With her hair cascading in red waves over skin of cream and gold, and her face luminous as she looked first at one babe, then leaned over to kiss the loosely fisted hand of another, the head of the third, Mercy made his heart stop. “We did,” he managed to say, juggling the two pupcubs he held over onto one arm so he could close his free hand over Mercy’s nape. “You’re amazing.”

A sparkling smile. “Never forget it, wolf.” Leaning in, she nipped at his lower lip. “I want to hold them all again.” She situated herself in a slightly leaning position against the headboard, pillows piled up behind her, then Riley placed the other two pupcubs against her.

Their tiny faces seemed to smile, their soft hands spreading on her skin.

Riley watched over them, feeling a joy so deep that neither part of him could articulate it. His mate was safe, as were their pupcubs.

Riley Aedan Kincaid could ask for nothing more.

Letters to Nina

From the private diaries of Father Xavier Perez

September 27, 2081

Nina,

Our city has been at peace for months.

The changelings won the battle that shattered that peace earlier this year, but both my friends believe this is only a temporary lull—change is building with ever-increasing momentum in the PsyNet, the network that connects every Psy in the world but for the rare few who have defected.

“An earthquake is coming, Xavier,” one of my friends said to me just hours earlier. “Only the strong will be left standing when it’s over.”

I pray for the souls caught up in the turmoil, Psy, human, and changeling alike. I’m no longer full of hate toward an entire race. They are as good and bad, as perfect and flawed, as any one of us. In understanding that, I’ve found a kind of peace, too.

But my heart, it still hurts in the night from missing you. It’s been so many years now and still I turn and look for your smile, still I reach for your hand. I know I always will.

Your Xavier

Chapter 50

LUCAS AND SASCHA arrived to welcome the pupcubs at the same time as Hawke and Sienna, a bare hour after the birth. Given the fact that Riley’s alpha and his mate should’ve been far distant, Riley knew Hawke had made certain he was nearby this past week, as they waited for Mercy to give birth. Not just so he could greet the babies, but in case an alpha’s strength was needed. Though Lucas was the one who had a direct link to Mercy, Hawke could share his strength through Riley.

Both alphas stopped in the doorway to the bedroom, their shoulders touching. It was an unusual stance for two such dominant predatory changelings—not only were they sharing space, they weren’t pushing forward to assert who was more alpha. It revealed far more about their relationship—and the friendship and trust that tied them together—than either would ever admit.

“So,” Hawke said, “I see nobody won the betting pool.”

Lucas’s smile was very feline. “Don’t the rules say all the money then goes to your pupcubs?”

Beside Riley, his shirt-clad mate smirked. That shirt was his and it was unbuttoned enough that she could maintain skin-to-skin contact with the pupcubs while not showing her breasts—though as she’d pointed out, her breasts were “freaking amazing” right now.

Riley had zero arguments with that declaration.

She was sitting cross-legged under a sheet pulled up to her waist, two of their babies cuddled up against her, while Riley held the third one against his bare chest as he sprawled with his back to the headboard. Tamsyn had draped soft fleece throws over the pupcubs’ backs, to help keep them warm.

Mercy said, “Yes and yes,” in response to Hawke’s and Lucas’s statements.

Then she reached out and bumped Riley’s raised fist with her own. “Here’s to a plan well-executed.”

Riley chuckled when Hawke shook his head and said, “Led astray by a cat.”

“It was my idea.” Riley dropped a kiss on the head of the baby in his arms. He and Mercy had been playing “pass the pupcubs” the entire hour since the birth, ensuring each child received equal time with both parents. Not that the sleepy hooligans seemed to care, curling up happily against either father or mother.

“Lara helped,” he added.

The SnowDancer healer had “accidentally” left up a doctored scan on her view screen for a short period. A packmate had seen the four distinct outlines in the image and rumors being what they were, suddenly all the betting had skewed toward quadruplets.

“Tammy, too.” Mercy nuzzled the pupcubs in her arms, then reached over to touch her fingers to the back of the baby Riley held. “She confirmed the rumor by refusing to confirm it while making it obvious it was true.”

Both alphas grinned, then flowed into the room. Riley didn’t know how they did it, but somehow, they got in at the same time without jostling or pushing. As if they’d coordinated it subconsciously. And yeah, he’d keep that thought to himself—Luc and Hawke might be friends, but they hated it if anyone pointed that out.

Lucas sat on the bed on Mercy’s side, while Hawke stood beside Riley. No words needed to be spoken. He and Mercy handed over their precious burdens to their alphas, to be accepted as pack, to be welcomed. All three babies remained calm and quiescent, as was normal for a young child in the presence of their alpha—the interesting thing was that they stayed calm for both alphas.

Hawke and Lucas didn’t hand back the children until both had handled each child. That was when Sienna and Sascha peeked in and asked if they could cuddle the pupcubs. Both women tumbled onto the end of the bed when Mercy waved them in and there was smiling and cooing and snuggling.

Mercy, meanwhile, just looked smug and happy.

Which made Riley very smug and happy.

Arm around her, he glanced from Hawke to Lucas, then back to his own alpha. “So?” Their babies wouldn’t shift for approximately a year, but the alphas would know which pupcub belonged to which pack. A good alpha—and both these men were extraordinary alphas—knew his pack.

Lucas’s eyes met Hawke’s.

Panther-green and wolf-blue, both sets glinted.

Lucas was the one who spoke. “We figured we’d keep you in suspense like you’ve kept everyone else the entire pregnancy.”

Mercy threw a pillow at her laughing alpha’s head. “I’ll kill you, I swear to God.” A pause before she released her claws and looked consideringly at Hawke. “I’d kill you first though.”

“Never doubted it.” With that, Hawke reached out and plucked the two boys out of Sascha’s arms, while Lucas took their little girl from Sienna.

Sascha’s eyes widened. “Two wolf pups to one leopard cub. I guess this answers the question of which one of you is more dominant.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Riley said. “Isabella was born first, led the charge.” Riley nuzzled a kiss to Mercy’s hair. “I’d say we came out even.”

“Good answer, wolf.” A kiss that held sunshine, his mate’s delight open.

“I thought so,” he murmured. “I bet Isabella runs the boys ragged.”

“I love that name.” Sascha smiled down at the pupcub she’d stolen from Lucas. “Is she named after your grandmother?”

Mercy nodded. “I figure an alpha is a good namesake for our girl. Her middle name is Maeve, after Riley’s mom.” She twined her fingers with Riley’s. “Acton is for Riley’s father and Michael for mine.” Her smile grew deeper. “Belle, Ace, and Micah.”

Grinning, she added, “We decided we’d better come up with nicknames before my brothers did it first. God knows what Shadow, Herb, and Frenchie would’ve chosen.” As everyone laughed, she kissed Ace’s cheek after Hawke returned their youngest son to her arms and Micah to Riley’s.

Riley and Mercy had chosen the family names because they wanted their children to feel firmly rooted despite the fact that all three were unique and would be forging their own path. It was for the same reason that they’d had a long discussion before settling on Smith-Kincaid as the pupcubs’ surname. A bit of a mouthful yes, especially since all three had middle names, but it meant their babies, regardless of their changeling animal, would never wonder if they belonged more to one parent than to the other.

“Michael’s middle name is Hawke,” Riley told his best friend.

Hawke froze, then said, “Hell.” The single word held a storm of emotion, his wolf prowling in his eyes.

“And Acton’s is Lucas,” Mercy told her alpha, to the same intense reaction. “Wolf or leopard, we wanted our babies to know they are cherished by both packs.”

That, Riley thought, was the purest truth.

TEN minutes later, Riley saw Mercy’s eyes follow Hawke as he handed Ace over to Lucas, before taking Belle and Micah from the leopard alpha. He knew why she was so intrigued—both alphas were treating the children as their own. That wasn’t usually a choice. Alphas were as territorial about children in their pack as parents were about their pups or cubs.

Lucas caught their glances. “In terms of pack hierarchy and for any disciplinary needs, Belle is mine, while Micah and Ace are Hawke’s, but they’re all ours.”

It was an extraordinary thing for a predatory changeling alpha to say . . . yet it resonated with Riley. He was Hawke’s, but he’d fight to the death for Lucas, too, because DarkRiver needed Lucas, and Mercy needed DarkRiver. He knew his mate would do the same for Hawke, no matter how often she might threaten to kill him.

Now, she stole back Belle, nuzzled her sweet face. “You hear that, kiddo? You’re going to have to deal with two of them.”

“She can handle it.” Lucas touched Mercy’s cheek with the affection of alpha to packmate. “Belle’s your kid—with a bit of wolf thrown in, but we won’t hold that against her.”

Hawke growled at the other alpha, but it was hard to take his “threat” seriously when he was cradling Ace against his chest, his hands covering the pupcub’s tiny body as he rubbed his jaw gently against Ace’s face. Ace’s hand opened then fisted against Hawke’s chest, though his eyes stayed closed.

At the other end of the bed, Micah was yawning in Sascha’s arms while Sienna gently brushed the dark auburn hair on his head. All the children had that dark shade that would probably become a deep brown with auburn highlights as they grew.

A blend of their parents.

It made Riley smile just as he caught the first hint of animated voices arrowing in their direction.

His and Mercy’s siblings, as well as Mercy’s parents, tumbled inside minutes later, all joy and excitement and love. So much love. Their children would never lack for either playmates or care. And when they came home, they’d do so to parents who adored one another and their babies.

Mercy looked up right then, her eyes shimmering with emotion. “I love you, Riley.”

“Ditto, kitty cat,” he whispered, stealing a kiss while their babies held court, and for the first time in known history, wolf and leopard adults mingled with newborns in their arms, no protective aggression in either party.

Family, Riley thought, SnowDancer and DarkRiver had been becoming family for a long time. Belle, Micah, and Ace had added the final seal on that bond.

BASTIEN bared his teeth at his brother, Sage, when Sage dared try to take Micah from him after Bastien had just claimed his nephew from Drew. Sage pushed in anyway, putting a friendly arm around the waist of Bastien’s mate, Kirby, as he pressed up against her back and peered over her head at the baby in Bastien’s arms.

“Hey, peanut,” he said, touching a finger to the sleeping baby’s nose.

That nose wrinkled up but the baby slept on.

“Bastien, I want to hold him.” Kirby held out her arms on that whisper, and he put Micah into her gentle embrace.

Face lighting up, she cuddled the baby close. “Hey, you.” A gentle kiss to one velvet-soft cheek . . . and the baby made a tiny sound that could’ve been a happy growl.

“Did you hear that?” Bright lynx eyes, Kirby’s cat as curious about this new packmate as the human side of her. “He likes me.”

“Of course he likes you. He knows family.” Bastien’s heart was a huge thing inside his chest. “Look after them both,” he ordered his brother before going to find Mercy.

His sister was still sitting in bed, more because so many people were piled on it, talking and laughing, than because she looked in any way weak. Bulling his way through the crowd, he scooped her up in his arms to her laughing admonitions and smacked a kiss to her cheek. “You did good, Carrot.”

“Grr.” Claws dug into his shoulders but she kissed him back. “It hurt like a bitch.” A thoughtful pause. “I think men should have to give birth, too.”

Bastien winced. “Yeah, no.” Kissing her again, he put her back on the bed before her mate decided he was manhandling her too roughly and came after him—Bastien was confident of his own skills, but he wasn’t about to go up against a new dad who happened to be a SnowDancer lieutenant known as The Wall for his hardheaded stubbornness and refusal to surrender.

He caught Lucas’s eye as he was weaving his way out of the room, shook his head. He hadn’t yet zeroed in on the individual who’d paid the captain of the ship meant to be Naya’s prison. But he was close, so close he could almost smell it, almost reach out and grab that person by the throat, claws extended to do bloody damage.

Lucas nodded, the alpha’s expression stating he had trust in Bastien’s abilities.

Leopard padding inside his skin, Bastien returned to Kirby to find Sage cradling the baby under Kirby’s own hold. It meant his brother was pretty much cuddling Bastien’s very cuddleable mate.

Bastien shook his head. “You can’t steal either one of them, Herb.”

Sage managed to give him the finger while continuing to smile at the baby. Kirby, meanwhile, turned very carefully in Sage’s hold and handed the baby to him. “Support his head,” she instructed, as Bastien’s brother took Micah with utmost care.

“Hey, kid.” Sage’s grin split his face. “I’m your uncle Sage. Your favorite uncle.”

As Sage wandered off to Grey, who’d just claimed Belle from her aunt Brenna, Bastien wrapped his arms around Kirby from behind. “Cute, huh?”

“Gorgeous,” Kirby agreed. “I want one.”

Bastien chuckled. “Let’s get you used to shifting first.” Kirby was still settling into her skin as a lynx; she was also spending time with the family she’d never had a chance to know as a child—and she was becoming an integral part of his. The latter wasn’t much of a choice. The Smiths and DarkRiver had embraced her as one of their own; Kirby fit like a missing piece.

The cubs, especially, loved playing with Kirby. She was an adult, but her lynx form made her smaller than adult leopards, and so to the cubs, she seemed a perfect-sized playmate. The fact that she happened to be a kindergarten teacher and had the patience to both play with and handle spirited cubs made her even more of a favorite.

Now she laughed. “You might possibly be right—plus, I think we’ll be babysitting the pupcubs often.”

“Hopefully after they’re a little bigger. I’m kinda freaked out by their tininess,” he admitted in a subvocal whisper. “So fragile.”

Kirby patted one of his hands. “You’ll be fine. You have the gentlest hands.” Lifting one of those hands, she pressed a row of kisses to his fingertips.

And there went his heart going boom all over again.

Letters to Nina

From the private diaries of Father Xavier Perez

June 23, 2082

Nina,

I am in the mountains near—

XAVIER lifted his hand from the page and stared out over the mountains of his homeland. The sounds of children’s voices rose up from the village below, where the little ones learned under a woven canopy held up by six poles pushed into the earth. The weave was treated to be waterproof, and on the ground was a thick rug on which about half the children sat and recited their mathematical tables.

At the back were the older children. Instead of facing the teacher, they sat in small groups, their heads bent together as they worked on a project. This far into the mountains, there were no separate classrooms. The children all had large-size organizers developed especially for such usage, plus access to a remote teacher for different subjects.

However, as well as eating lunch together, they gathered together for an hour at the start of the day and an hour at the end to learn communally and to discuss their learning across age groups. It wasn’t only humans who sat under the canopy—several changeling children attended lessons in this village, since their pack had too few children to justify a separate classroom.

It gave Xavier’s heart solace to see their happy faces, their bright smiles, their innocent friendships.

But his own smile was long lost, for he’d finally reached his destination . . . only to discover that Nina wasn’t here. Judd and Kaleb hadn’t been wrong—a woman who could well be his Nina had been in this village less than a month earlier. She’d been standing in for the village medic who’d gone away for training, had moved on to her next post once the medic returned.

He swallowed, looked down at the letter he was writing, started again.

In my fantasies, I used to imagine that perhaps you’d lost your memories and that was why you hadn’t searched for me, but if this is you, then you remember your training, you remember being a nurse. You’ve chosen to stay here, far from me. You’ve chosen to change your name so I won’t find you.

My heart breaks at the thought of it but I won’t turn back now. I must know if it’s you and if there is any hope of begging your forgiveness. The villagers tell me you don’t have a lover that they know of—they are loyal to you, but an elder here recognized me as the man of God who had helped a friend in another village once. She was willing to trust me.

I must believe her. For the idea that you now belong to another—

Xavier’s hand shook.

Leaning his head back against the tree trunk, he blinked away the heat in his eyes, then put away the notebook and his pen. It took but a moment to pull on his backpack. Seconds later he was heading away from this village and toward where the elder had told him the woman named Ani had gone.

TWO days of trekking through the mountains and Xavier was a bare fifteen minutes from his new destination. Instead of carrying on, he forced himself to stop by a small waterfall. If this was to be his last meeting with Nina, he’d show her his best self. Stripping, he took out the biodegradable soap in his pack—thanks to a small care package that had been gifted to him by Judd’s mate—and washed himself.

Drying off afterward, he pulled on underwear and a pair of khaki-colored cargo pants before using his phone camera as a mirror while he scraped off the ink-black beard that had grown in during his journey.

Nina had always liked him clean-shaven, though she didn’t mind stubble.

Especially when they kissed.

Gripping the memory of her touch, her kiss, in a tight fist, he finished shaving, then splashed on aftershave from the same care pack. His hair, tightly curled as it was, needed no brushing. Reaching to the bottom of his pack, he pulled out a pristine white T-shirt, shrugged into it. The color was stark against the teak shade of his skin, the fabric a little stiff because it was so new. Beneath it lay a necklace he’d worn for years.

Socks and boots on, and he was as ready as he’d ever be.

His pack felt heavier this time, but perhaps that was his heart weighing him down. No matter. He had to go forward, had to know.

Stepping back onto the path, he made his way to the village.

Children saw him first; they always did. Pelting away at light speed on bare feet, they called out to their parents and other elders in a language that wasn’t identical to his native tongue but that was close enough for him to understand.

Making his way to the edge of the village, he waited with screaming patience until an elder, his brown-skinned face gnarled with life, came to him, asked him his business.

“I’ve come to see Ani,” he said.

The elder’s wary welcome turned into a scowl. “Who are you to look for our Ani?”

“I’ve been searching for my Nina for many years,” he said softly. “Since the day the Psy destroyed our village. My friends tell me Ani is Nina.”

A snort. “If she is? She’s changed her name. Seems to me she wants to escape you.”

A dagger to the heart, those words made him stagger within. “Yes,” he accepted even as he bled. “But I need to hear that from her.” He met the elder’s dark eyes. “You have no need to fear me. All I want is a moment with her.”

Then he heard it: Nina’s laughter.

Head jerking up, he dropped his pack and walked past the elder without looking back. He was conscious of further scowls and grumbling around him, conscious of people following, but he didn’t care. He had to see her, had to beg her forgiveness.

Then there she was, dressed in a simple dress of pale yellow that swirled around her calves as she spun and spun with her hands locked to those of a child of about seven or eight. Other children danced around them, laughing and calling out for their turn.

“Ani! Ani! Me! I want to have a go!”

His heart, it was a massive drum whose beat thundered in his ears. He would’ve gone to his knees except that he wanted to see Nina’s eyes . . . and then the spin stopped and she turned laughingly toward him . . . and there was no recognition in her eyes.

She looked straight through him.

Xavier’s breath turned into jagged shards in his lungs before his mind caught up with his heart. Regardless of how angry she was with him, Nina would never be able to coldly ignore him. They’d been too much to each other for such distance.

Yet though her face was turned toward him, she didn’t meet his eyes.

Then he knew.

Walking toward her, he watched her head angle a little to the left, her awareness of his approach clear. “It’s Xavier,” he said when he was only a foot away from her.

Her lips parted in a whisper. “Xavier . . .” A hand rose, trembling.

He bent so she could touch her fingers to his face, so she could trace the lines of him. His beautiful Nina with her dark, dark eyes that were so much paler now, the hue watery blue. The color of someone undergoing regeneration after catastrophic damage to the eyes.

It took up to a year for the regeneration to work, and if Nina had been hurt during her jump into the water and remained up in the mountains all this time, the delay was understandable—regeneration was highly specialized and came with the attendant cost. Nina would’ve had to qualify for a grant or be given the treatment by a sympathetic clinic. Even then, if an attempt failed, she’d have had to wait the mandatory three years before a second attempt.

Today, those sightless eyes seemed to meet his as she shaped her fingers over his face. A tear rolled down her cheek. “Xavier,” she whispered again. “Xavier.”

He took her into his arms even though he knew he should wait, should be sure she wanted him to do so. But he couldn’t stand by while Nina cried. “Shh,” he whispered, the sound rough because his own throat was thick, his eyes hot. “Hush, my love.” He spoke in their shared dialect, a dialect that had only been spoken in a village long destroyed. “Nina, please don’t cry.”

But she continued to sob and then he realized he was crying, too, and they were holding on bruisingly tight to one another. He was vaguely aware of children being drawn away, of the adults leaving, until he was alone with his Nina and she wasn’t pushing him away but holding him close.

“. . . you were dead,” she said in a shaky voice. “They told me you were dead.” Again and again, she repeated that.

Stroking his hand over her mass of curling black hair, he kissed her temple, her cheek, the taste of hot salt in his mouth. “I searched,” he said. “I searched for so long. Where were you?”

Their words merged together until they weren’t words any longer. They’d been apart too long to do anything but hold on to each other, rocking. The world was quiet around them, the villagers’ voices some distance away, when he and Nina were finally able to breathe enough for more words.

Pressing a kiss to her hair, he reached down for her hand, her bones slender and her skin a lusher brown than his. “Walk with me?”

Her fingers wove into his in a silent answer, and the two of them walked into the verdant greenery around the village, until they were private, alone. Then, his hands cupping her face, Xavier admitted his guilt. “I should’ve never made you jump.”

Her hands found his face again, held him with sweet tenderness. “Then I would be dead.” Her voice was raw from her tears but resolute. “Everyone died. That’s what they said.”

“Who?”

“All the people I asked, and I asked so many.” Jagged rasps of breath. “The water was so fast, so hard. It swept me far from our village and at some point, I hit my head and I can’t remember what happened next—I know I was taken in by other villagers, but they didn’t find me until four days after the attack.”

Her hands kept touching him, as his kept touching her. “My rescuers took me to an off-the-grid local clinic and the doctor there did what he could, but I was in bad shape, barely coherent for over two months.”

“Why didn’t they take you to a bigger hospital?” Even as he asked the question, Xavier knew the answer—the Psy had been doing fatal damage throughout the region at that time, until the people who called these mountains home no longer trusted the cities or the big hospitals staffed by Psy.

Nina said the same, then added, “Even after those two months, I wasn’t quite right. I had broken bones and other injuries that were still healing, but my head was the worst. I couldn’t hold on to thoughts, on to memories.” She trembled. “For a while I thought I’d never find myself, always be lost, but it came back over the next eight months.”

She slid her arms around him once more. Locking his own around her, he said, “You began to ask questions the instant you were yourself again,” he said, knowing his Nina. “And people told you everyone had died.”

A jerky nod. “I didn’t believe them. I went back home but there was no village there, nothing but an empty landscape cleared of all signs of our families, our friends.”

“The Psy did that,” he told her. “The same Psy whose soldiers murdered everyone we knew.” It was important to him to differentiate the one from the group; the years since the attack had taught him that the Psy race wasn’t one big entity but millions of separate individuals.

Just like him. Just like his Nina.

She thumped fisted hands against his chest. “Why didn’t you leave me any signs? Why didn’t you tell people you were alive?”

He wanted to shield her, couldn’t. “I took a telepathic hit,” he said and felt her flinch. “When I came to, everyone was dead and I knew the Psy would be back to clean up.” He swallowed. “I couldn’t bury anyone, or it would’ve alerted them to possible survivors. God forgive me for that choice.”

“You could’ve never buried so many, Xavier,” Nina said softly. “God knows your heart.”

Holding on tight to her words, he said, “I haunted the mountains searching for you and eventually joined up with a small group of rebels who’d made it their life’s work to sabotage or destroy all Psy operations in the area.” Those men and women had been driven by the same need for vengeance that had kept Xavier alive at the start, even through the worst despair.

“I stayed nearby for three months, but my work with the rebels eventually took me some distance away in the opposite direction to this village.” Unknowingly separating him from his heart. “When I was shot in an operation, they doctored me until I could take care of my own wounds, then left me in a cave with enough supplies to see me through.” Injured as he was, the rebels had considered him dead weight.

“I couldn’t move more than a few meters for over a month.” He’d tried to crawl to his devastated village at one point, wanting to die on home ground, only to be forced to turn back after he came dangerously close to unconsciousness. No one in his condition could survive a night in the cold of the mountains without some kind of shelter.

Even knowing he’d never have made it, Xavier wanted to tell his younger self to keep crawling, to find his way back to the village and to Nina. “By the time I returned, the nearby villages had been long deserted and people farther out knew nothing.”

His shoulder muscles knotted, his fist clenching in her hair. “I asked over and over.” Yet the mountains were big, and back then the people who called it home often moved because of fear or need or environmental factors, a multitude of reasons. It wasn’t improbable that Nina hadn’t spoken to any of those same people when she came to look for him. Especially since she’d returned long after him.

“Why do they call you Ani?” he asked, his heart in a painful vise.

“It’s what my rescuers named me at the time when I wasn’t myself . . . and after . . . when I thought everyone was dead, that you were dead, I didn’t want to be Nina again.”

A heartbreaking answer that betrayed the depth of her pain.

“I searched for you,” he said, needing her to know, to believe. “I’ve been true, loved no other.” Falling to his knees as her tears began to flow again, he dared say the words he’d held inside for so long. “Say you’ll forgive me, Nina.”

“Xavier.” Going to her knees in front of him, she shook her head and his heart sank, his world narrowing to only her face and to this instant that might forever break him.

“There is no need for forgiveness.”

He took a harsh breath, another.

“I know you did what you did out of love.” Her kiss was a benediction. “I love you, Xavier. I’ve listened for your voice even after the world convinced me you were dead.” Her fingers shaped his lips. “I’ve loved no one but you.”

Shaking, he was the one who fell into her embrace this time. She held him with love in every breath. “My Xavier.”

“THE regeneration might not work,” she said to him a long time later, as she sat cradled against his chest while he leaned his back up against a sturdy tree with dark green leaves. “This is the second and final attempt.”

He was happy to hear no worry in her tone that he’d feel differently about her. She knew he loved her, regardless of her physical appearance or health. “You’re revered as a nurse.”

“I have an apprentice who acts as my eyes, and together, we manage.”

She was more than managing, he thought, considering the fidelity she’d engendered in people used to being loyal only to those they’d known all their lives. “I have connections now, Nina. I can get you to better doctors if you want.”

“I’ve learned to live how I am, even thrive, but I could do my work better with both eyes or at least some vision.” Her fingers grazed his jaw. “I’m selfish, too. I want to see you again.”

Joy was a sweet pain through his veins. “Then we’ll find the best specialists.” He knew Judd and Kaleb would both help him without question; family, he’d learned, had many different faces. His now included two Psy with deadly abilities.

“There are others here,” Nina said. “So many people still isolated, disbelieving of the changes within the Psy and unwilling to return to the lives they abandoned in order to survive. Many need proof they won’t be murdered should they return to their lands. Others need medical help, access to wider education—”

“I’m with you.” Xavier had fought beside his friends for years. Now it was his time to walk beside Nina. He’d said good-bye to his parishioners at the outset of this journey, wanting to go into it with his whole heart and soul. But he hadn’t abandoned them. Never would he do that to people who had given him as much succor as he had them.

He’d left them in the gentle, capable hands of a young woman of God who was ready for her own congregation. She had strength enough to offer a shoulder to those in need and heart enough to open it to any soul that walked through the door.

He was at peace with his decision to leave San Francisco, could think of no better life than to live it beside Nina. “I’ll call on every favor I have to help the people who kept you safe until I could find you again.” Until he could hold her close again, his heart beating in time with her own.

“Will you ever ask me?” Nina chided an hour later. “Really, Xavier, you’re taking the concept of becoming your own man first too far.”

His smile was startled joy on his face, memories cascading through him of a young Nina rolling her dark eyes when he proudly told her he’d ask for her hand only when he could build her a home worthy of her spirit. “I think we’ve both waited long enough.”

Reaching for his necklace, he tore it off to drop a ring formed of gold, and set with sapphires and diamonds, onto his palm. He’d bought it years earlier, after he came to San Francisco and found a steady position. Being a Second Reformation priest didn’t pay much, but Xavier hadn’t needed to spend much, either. He’d saved it all for Nina’s ring. The stones were small but the delicate beauty of them perfectly fit her bone structure.

He reached from behind to lift her hand. “Will you marry me, Nina?”

“Today, if you arrange it,” was her answer, her smile as radiant as the moon.

TWO days later, when Xavier called Judd to ask for assistance in getting specialist help for the woman who would soon be his wife, he got far more than he’d bargained for. Judd not only put him directly on the phone with the SnowDancer healer—who was then able to get Nina into treatment at the best facility in the world—the other man spoke to his alpha, and Xavier was suddenly in touch with the AzureSun Leopards.

The leopards’ connection to SnowDancer came through the SnowDancer-DarkRiver pact, with the AzureSun alpha, Isabella, the grandmother of a DarkRiver sentinel. And, he was proudly told by said alpha, the namesake of one of three newborn members of DarkRiver.

“My great-grandchildren,” the alpha had said, while appearing not the least like a great-grandmother.

Isabella Garcia was a powerful alpha who held the loyalty of her people, despite being in her eighth decade. Even Xavier hadn’t realized changelings didn’t always go for physical strength in an alpha. Wisdom was also treasured, with the sentinels acting as the alpha’s physical arm.

While AzureSun’s power base was in another part of South America, they had contacts in Xavier’s region on whom he could call should he have the need. They also gave him permission to access certain resources that would help ease his and Nina’s journey as they fought to undo the damage that had been done to the people of these mountains.

“My granddaughter’s alpha, young cub though he is,” Isabella had said, “has taught me the value of relationships beyond the pack, of treating neighbors like family.”

It had taken Xavier a minute to realize the “young cub” was Lucas Hunter. One of the most visible and powerful men in the world, thanks not only to his pack’s strength, but also because of who and what he represented in the Trinity Accord.

And Xavier was connected into that network.

All because of a friendship formed with a soldier he’d first seen in a nameless bar.

Then Kaleb called him, having been alerted by Judd, and Xavier had access to a teleport anytime he needed one to take Nina to the physicians. That wasn’t the only thing.

“I have wealth no one could spend in a single lifetime or even ten lifetimes,” the cardinal said. “I’ve created a charitable foundation with a significant endowment that you can use at will for your humanitarian work.”

“Thank you, my friend.” Xavier accepted the generosity without argument because he understood how big a step this was for Kaleb—this friend of Xavier’s didn’t trust easily, much less allow people into his life.

For him to offer such a gift was a precious thing. “Is your Sahara well?”

“Yes.” Kaleb’s tone didn’t soften as another man’s might have when he spoke of his lover, but Xavier understood this friend of his, knew Sahara Kyriakus was his heart.

“And your Nina?” Kaleb asked.

Xavier smiled. “Yes.”

LATER, as he walked under a carpet of stars with Nina, their hands linked and her warm, earthy scent so sweetly familiar, he said, “I wrote you letters.”

Soft laughter. “Finally.” Her teasing made him feel young, wild, free. “I’ll read them all once I can see.”

He couldn’t help but clasp her hand tighter. “I’d like to read you some now.” Before they wed, before it was too late for Nina to back away. “I want you to know what I’ve done . . . who I’ve become.”

Gentle reproof in her expression. “My love for you will never fade.”

Xavier had no doubts of the truth of her vow, but he still needed her to understand how much he’d altered from the laughing young man she’d known, didn’t want to steal her with false promises. So he read out the letters that spoke of battle, of violence, of his friendship with Judd and Kaleb.

“I’d like to meet your friends.” Nina’s hand remained firm in his. “We’ve both been marked by life, Xavier, but we haven’t changed where it matters.” She lifted their clasped hands to his heart, then to hers.

Yes.

They continued to walk together, content to simply be with each other. He spoke at times, Nina at others. At one point, he said, “I once told one of my friends that love is the greatest form of loyalty. But I think from loyalty can come love.”

“Of course.” Turning into him, she laid her head against his chest.

Listening to his heartbeat, as he so often found himself simply watching her breathe.

“So many bonds,” he murmured as the two of them stood under a night sky that reminded him of Kaleb’s cardinal eyes. “So many connections. Our world is becoming the interlinked entity it was always meant to be.”

The majority of those connections were fragile, breakable, or barely budded, but a rare few had passed the Rubicon, would endure. Such as the bonds that linked him to Judd and to Kaleb, the bonds that linked Judd to his mate and his pack, the bond that linked Kaleb to Sahara, and through her, to another pack.

Such was the bond that tied Xavier to his Nina, and through her, to all the villagers she knew. In return, he could link her to so many others. Together their family spanned continents . . . and it existed right here in this moment when he held Nina.