Allegiance of Honor (44 page)

“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.

BO WAS UNSURPRISED
when he received a visit from Malachai Rhys as the sun was setting over Venice in a splashy display. What he was surprised about was the public nature of it. “I had the feeling you wanted to keep the Alliance-BlackSea relationship on the down low,” he said as he held out his hand.

Malachai shook it after stepping out of the water taxi that had ferried him from the mainland. Then he removed his mirrored sunglasses in what seemed a conscious act. Realizing it was, that to see the eyes was to know the man, Bo removed his own and tucked them into the pocket of the short-sleeved shirt of chocolate brown detailed with bronze studs that he wore over jeans.

“We’ve had a change of heart.” Malachai slid his hands into his pockets on those words, a big man in a flawlessly tailored black suit teamed with a crisp white shirt. “Some people only believe in power they can see.”

Humans knew that better than any other race on the planet. “It certainly does us no harm to be linked to BlackSea.” Bo wasn’t about to turn down a potential ally when the world remained a turbulent place—and when the Consortium had only gone quiet. Everyone who knew of the group also knew the vipers would rise again, that they were probably plotting their next move at this very instant.

Then there were the smaller fanatical groups, and they weren’t all Psy.

“You’ve suffered no blowback as a result of rescuing Leila?” the BlackSea security chief asked as they began to walk along the edge of the canal.

“Isaac can take care of himself.” Though Bo had offered him Alliance assistance should he need it. “Whoever kidnapped your packmate—” He paused. “Is that the right word?”

Malachai gave him a sidelong glance that was at once penetrating and quiet. “We’ve adapted to use the common terms.”

Bo read the subtext: to be too different made it difficult to be part of the world.

“Like I was saying,” he continued, “whoever kidnapped your packmate would do better to just let it go. No point hunting Isaac and his friends and giving us more clues to follow.”

“I agree.” The other man said nothing further until they’d passed a group of tourists taking pictures of a balcony that was a delicacy of froth and curves. “What’s your price for assisting Leila? It was a far bigger favor than the one we did you.”

Bowen had considered leveraging the rescue. Despite the projected degradation of his implant, he’d so far felt no ill effects. His mind was as sharp as ever, and it constantly sought angles to bring more power to the Alliance. Humans had been forgotten and crushed into the earth for far too long. It was Lily who’d talked him out of any mercenary demands.

“Some things we do,” she’d said, “define our very humanity. Lose that and we may as well be Psy under Silence.”

Her words had cut through the increasingly ruthless nature of Bo’s thinking processes. He didn’t want to save his people by turning them into the very race that had for so long been their enemy. Oh, the war had never been obvious, but Psy had raped human minds for centuries, stealing their ideas, stealing their will.

Gritting his jaw against the fury of his emotions, he didn’t speak until he could temper his tone. “We don’t want anything.” An alliance, a true alliance, couldn’t be bought or demanded. “I spoke to Isaac since he’s out of pocket after delaying his delivery to take Leila to the ocean, but he says it was worth it to get her home.”

Malachai paused on the edge of a quiet canal, the two of them
standing side by side. “Somehow I doubt the security chief of the Human Alliance has such a magnanimous heart.”

Bo folded his arms. “He doesn’t, but he also doesn’t do deals using the lives of innocents as collateral.” His hair, which had grown out from the no-fuss-no-muss shave he’d sported for so long, was cool under his fingers as he thrust them through the wavy strands. “If you need to put a name on it, consider it a sign of friendship on our part.”

When Malachai turned to look at Bowen, his brown eyes appeared lighter, closer to a pale gold, as if something else lived beyond. And from the unblinking way Malachai watched him, his expression so indefinably
other
, that something truly did not think like a human in any way, shape, or form.

The hairs rose at his nape.

Bo, like most terrestrial beings, often wondered at the makeup of the water changelings. Dolphins were a known form, sharks were rumored, large water snakes confirmed and whales whispered about, but other than that, no one really knew for certain.

One of Bo’s friends, a lifelong sailor who’d circumnavigated the globe more than once, swore up and down that he’d been rescued by an “honest to God” mermaid after he fell overboard during a massive storm. Get him drunk and he’d tell you that her eyes had been glowing blue, her skin luminous white, and her hair like a million streamers of light. He’d admit he hadn’t seen her legs, but she “swam as if she had a great big tail and I
definitely
saw her gills!”

Bo wasn’t sure he believed the other man, but there was no question that something had saved his life. His crewmates verified he’d fallen overboard and disappeared from view before they could throw out a life preserver. They’d got the shock of their lives when he clambered back onboard—especially since by then, the storm had carried them over fifty nautical miles from where he’d fallen overboard.

Clearly, the ocean kept many secrets.

Malachai . . . No, Bo couldn’t figure him out, but one thing was for certain: he couldn’t be a small creature. Changeling shifting physics might
be weird, with mass never equal from one form to the other—or that was how it appeared to Bo’s eyes—but Malachai had an innate sense of bigness about him.

Bo simply couldn’t visualize him as a small creature. Like a turtle.

“Are there changeling turtles?” he asked on a whim.

The security chief’s lips curved up at the edges. “Do you know one of the oldest creatures on earth is a tortoise?” he asked, instead of answering Bo’s question. “Two hundred years at last count. If a changeling were that, do you think he or she might live hundreds of years?”

Bo blew out a breath at the idea of it. “To see all those centuries pass, all the upheaval and change . . .”

“An incredible thought, isn’t it? But maybe a being so old wouldn’t care that much about the world, would be happy living on a distant island far from Psy, humans, and changelings alike.”

Hard as he tried to read the other man, Bo couldn’t work out if Malachai was making idle conversation or actually giving him an answer. “I figure someone that old, they wouldn’t be like you or me anymore,” he said at last. “I don’t mean that in a pejorative sense. I guess I’d see such a being as having changed into something other, a new entity with which we’d no longer have much in common.”

Again, Malachai looked at him with those eyes that weren’t quite right, the color having faded even further. “An interesting idea for a security chief. Profoundly philosophical.”

Bo shrugged. “I can even read without moving my lips.”

The BlackSea male’s chuckle was deep. “So can I. Though it’s difficult when the sea is turbulent.” Amusement alive on his face, he said, “How about a drink?”

“I know a place.”

They fell into step again as Bo led Malachai to Bo’s favorite hole-in-the-wall bar. They didn’t speak about politics or alliances or whether Malachai had been messing with his head with that talk of two-hundred-year-old changeling tortoises, but the fact that the BlackSea security chief was having a beer with the Human Alliance security chief was notable in itself.

And it
was
noted by those who knew what and who Malachai was.

Some saw it as a sign of Trinity’s success. Others saw it as a possible problem. Still others saw it and decided that any pact or union between the two groups could
not
be permitted to succeed. Humans and water changelings covered every part of the planet. Should they unite, they could become an unstoppable power.

But no one did anything on that hazy Venetian day as the sun dropped into the ocean and the stars started to glitter.

That day, two dangerous men sat, had a beer, and discussed the latest football scores.

•   •   •

THE
next day on the other side of the world, in a valley drenched in sunshine, the most lethal Psy men and women in the world came together with their young. Aden hadn’t been sure the event would work, that his people would understand what it was to celebrate, but he’d forgotten to factor in a new data point.

Arrow children had been playing and meeting with their changeling and human friends for some time now, had picked up far more than Aden realized. All the adults had to do was mention an upcoming celebration and they’d gone into creative mode, making decorations to hang around the central gathering area and suggesting suitable foods.

A few had shyly asked if they could have colorful new clothes.

The event was undoubtedly far more structured than a comparative gathering of humans or changelings, but . . . “I sense no discomfort,” Aden said to Zaira. “People are glad to be here, to acknowledge those of us who have bonded.”

His commander nodded, her curls blue-black in the sunshine. “To see us gives others hope.” With that, she turned and hauled down his head for a kiss intimate and possessive and as full of wildfire as Zaira.

His head was still spinning when they broke apart, and though he knew others watched, he was interested only in the woman who was his. “An attempt to engender even more hope?”

“Arrows are practical.” She ran possessive hands over his shoulders. “It’s good for them to see what lies ahead if they take a chance and step outside the cold black box of Silence.”

Aden was about to answer when he noticed something. “Look at the picnic table to the left.”

Carolina, long green ribbons in her pale blonde hair, was trying to pick up a cupcake that kept disappearing out from under her fingers, only to reappear on another part of the table. Her cheeks got hot red, her eyes narrowed, her breath puffing out as she tried to beat the switch. Finally, the infuriated six-year-old spun around and, scowling, ran straight to where an innocent-faced Tavish sat on the grass with a friend.

As Aden watched, she snatched the cupcake from his plate and took a big bite.

“Hey!” Tavish cried.

Chewing the bite and swallowing, Carolina said, “I know it was you!” She defiantly stuffed the rest of the cupcake into her mouth, then hands on her hips, glared at him while her cheeks puffed up like a chipmunk’s.

Tavish started to protest his innocence but only lasted half a minute before he collapsed into laughter with his friend. “It was so funny!”

Having swallowed the cupcake by now, Carolina glared at the two boys for another minute before the first giggle escaped her.

Zaira’s lips curved. “Tavish is right, it was funny.” Reaching up to push back a lock of Aden’s hair that had fallen on his forehead, she said, “Psychically gifted children are going to find unique ways of getting into trouble.” In her expression, he read memories of how she’d been beaten and caged, her telepathic strength seen not as a gift but as a tool to be broken to her parents’ use.

Shaking his head against the rise of his own rage, he cupped her cheek. “We’ll never harm them.” It was a reiteration of a promise he’d made the day the squad became his, and he could set the rules. “Each and every Arrow child will grow up in freedom.”

Zaira’s hand closed over his. “Freedom.”

It was all that needed to be said.